The Origin of Novelty

...And some end up way off course... Pacific Golden Plover at Cley, Norfolk

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It's amazing how you get away with this over and over and over. You never have to answer with any substance, just insinuate that your opponent is wrong or call us names. What magic do you possess Dr. A that you get a free pass on this?

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Well perhaps you could offer some substance to reply to, rather than the bald assertion that you are right and everyone who disagrees is wrong, at best.Providing a reasonable alternative explanation for the data would be a start.

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Again, the ToE in actual fact has nothing but similarity, homology, the ability to classify living organisms according to structural similarities, which of course includes fossils, from which you ASSUME genetic relatedness but have never proved it and cannot prove it.

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If genes and structure were related as strongly as you say (and it isn't), the structural similarities would prove genetic similarity. Aside from that an conclusion based on evidence is not an assumption, and genetic classification of living organisms also supports evolution.

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Not at all hard to understand, really, it's just a mental trick that you pull on yourselves as well as the rest of us and everybody has fallen for it.

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If following the evidence is just a "trick", what alternative do you have to offer?

That doesn't answer any of the questions I asked. And no, your fact doesn't refute evolution, as has been shown again and again.And might I point out that if you can't even keep your arguments consistent within a single post the stupidity is unlikely to be on the part of those who disagree with your opinions.

Oh? Lay out your argument and I'll show that it fails. Again.

All right. The argument, then, is that artificially selected breeds are produced by reductions in the gene pool relative to the rest of the species, therefore evolution is false. As written it is a massive non-sequitur with no explanation connecting the premise to the conclusion. Since you claim that you have laid it out sufficiently - which is not possible if you have left out the essential reasoning - there is no more that needs to be said.

If your argument against evolution is that it works exactly as science says, you don't have much of an argument. So, please stop messing around and present your actual argument. At this point I don't even know which variant of your argument you are trying to present.

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Actually Faith is pretty much correct here. The differences between such extreme dog breeds arise through loss or functions or through diseases to development pathways, such as gigantic-ism, or other developmental disease. That is why these extreme dog breeds have such short life spans and are so prone to other illnesses. They are basically sick versions of wolves.

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While that may apply to modern pure-breds to some extent I'd be cautious here. Many breeds originated as working dogs, bred for function. While they may be more specialised, or even less capable of surviving in a wild environment it seems unreasonable to insist that it's all "loss of function".

Don't you think that the lack of a clear boundary in nature - such that you have to come up with your own with no clear rationale - in itself cuts against the whole idea of baramins ?

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I don't see any logic in that line of reasoning. If there was an intelligent designer, and He did create all life-forms 6500 years ago, there is nothing in the observance of phenotypes or genotypes that contradicts this view.

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The reasoning seems clear. If there were indeed numerous separate creations, as you claim, we should expect to see clear boundaries between them. That we do not, at all, is therefore evidence against the idea of numerous separate creations.I also note that you implicitly claim that absolute logical proof is needed to reject your opinions. Can you explain why we should hold your opinions in such high regard ?

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It only makes sense that a baramin and subsequent evolution would show groups of species very closely related genetically (eg dogs/wolves) with minimal mutations separating them. This is generally observed, this points to the baramin concept.

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But that argument only applies WITHIN a baramin. We are looking at the distinctions BETWEEN baramins. By equating the two you are implicitly admitting that the evidence is against the existence of distinct baramins.

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Well its possible that God made two organisms genetically similar. so the requirement that intelligent design requires the same level of diversity between each baramin is as logical as requiring car manufacturers to have an evenly spread diversity between each car

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Thats a bit of a strawman, though. I'm not asking for equal distance, or even a criterion that divides all baramins. I just think that there should be enough clearly distinct baramins to tell that they actually exist.

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The fact that the observance of many modern organisms are grouped into small phylogenetic trees of recent divergence points towards recent baramins. It doesn't prove recent baramins, but it certainly points to it.

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The argument seems to be: "The fact that closely related creatures are closely related points to the absence of more distant relations". That's obviously wrong.

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If anyone wishes to refute anyone's else's view, surely logical proof or some evidence is the criteria?

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So you agree that you are wrong to demand logical disproof - evidence is sufficient.

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I think there should be enough distinctions in the genome to show they are evolving rather than merely slight changes to baramins 6500 years ago. Where's your distinctive evidence that shows this evolving rather than baramins?

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As I keep pointing out, the absence of any clear evidence of any separate baramins is evidence that there aren't any.

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That's my point , that evolution is assumptions based on the observance of slightly evolved baramins, and nothing has been forthcoming to the contrary in this thread. I appreciate you trying to do the same back to me, but we both end up on the same boat. Evolutionists do not seem to realise their empirical status is the same as creationists at the moment, you have nothing except circular reasoning to support your position.

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Of course the fossil record is strong evidence against you, encompassing both the age of life and the numerous transitional fossils.

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i think you misunderstood me. My argument is that the observation that many species recently went through a divergence into sub-species, suddenly and rapidly introducing a wide variety of sub-species never before seen in the fossil record, and showing clear phylogenetic trees of this divergence with minimal mutations, points towards recent baramins.

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I'm not seeing anything different from what I said there. What's the evidence for distinct baramins ? Please be explicit and point to specific examples.

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LOL! If I had that, we wouldn't be having this discussion would we. It would be world news and the creation/evolution debate would be over. The same as with evolutionists, if you had enough evidence to squash the debate, present it and let's get it over with. Circular reasoning is just silly.

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If that's the response you give when asked to explain your argument, then it's pretty obvious that you never had a real argument.

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My point is that evolution currently has no empirical advantage over the concept that we are recently evolved from baramins. Neither Bluejays simplicity argument, Bluegenes novel genes argument, Taq's fossil argument (admittedly we haven't delved into that yet), the current observation of genomes.

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But, as we've seen that isn't true. You can't explain life older than 6500 years, the existence of transitional fossils nor the absence of clear geneitic gaps between baramins with your hypothesis but evolution explains all of them easily.

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There is just no support for the "common ancestor" view over the baramin view. Trying to put the ball into my court merely highlights to any impartial observer the lack of support for your view.

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The fact that you're reduced to denying the very existence of the evidence I've pointed out is pretty clear evidence that you can't answer it.

If, after working for eight or more years, your argument that evolution must reduce genetic diversity still has no more support than "'cause I say so!" then I suggest that it is very likely that you are going down a blind alley.At the least you ought to have some evidence that mutations do not occur sufficiently quickly to make up for lost diversity. But I've never seen any hint of that.

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If mutations occurred the way you think they do, you could not establish a new breed or maintain a breed, and that I HAVE argued at some length. Mutations as a matter of fact INTERFERE with the normal processes of evolution.

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No, that's absolutely false. Indeed it's not even true of selective breeding. If a mutation considered desirable should appear then breeders will incorporate it into their program, as they did with the Scottish Fold cat.In fact mutations are the "fuel" of evolution and absolutely essential to the process.

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But then you would be CHANGING your breed for some other breed.

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So it would be evolution. That's supposed to be a problem ?

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What I'm talking about is maintaining an established breed where you do not want novelty, you want purity.

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That isn't evolution. Selection and gene flow can stabilise a population but there's no objective to keep a "pure" population in evolution.

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You want a PERFECT Tonkinese cat or Friesian horse, you do not want imperfections and most mutations produce imperfections. It's very very rare that you get one that you want to incorporate.

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Evolution isn't about maintaining some artificial idea of "PERFECT" breeds.

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This is only an assumption or an article of faith, and for the most part a matter of definition since what you call a mutation, if it IS desirable, is most likely not a mutation at all but a normally occurring allelic variant.

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No, it's what the theory SAYS happens. So it's what you've got to argue against. Arguing that the way that you think evolution ought to work wouldn't work is a bit pointless.