Message 181 of 184 (818417) 08-28-2017 9:10 AM

Reply to: Message 172 by Porkncheese 08-27-2017 11:59 PM

We don't debate bare links or youtube videos. Make the point you want to make in your own words.

For the record, the ToE is about the origin of species, not the origin of life. No-one yet knows the origin of life, though there are some strong hypothesis.

You're coming across like a routine creationists - all the usual silly argument and misconceptions, have you spent as much time trying to understand the ToE from non-religious sources as you have spent on creationist sites?

Message 182 of 184 (818418) 08-28-2017 10:11 AM

Reply to: Message 160 by Porkncheese 08-27-2017 3:30 PM

No theory is 100% fact. Not. One. What we have are good approximations based on testing theories.

The theory of gravity for instance. Newton's theory

Was a pretty good approximation, and in fact using it lands craft on the moon and mars, but it has been superseded by Einstein's theory of relativity ... because Newton's theory did not explain the orbit of Mercury accurately.

Theories try to approximate fact by explaining known facts, and then they are tested against new facts, or by making predictions that either come true (validating the theory) or are falsified (invalidating the theory).

What you need to do is evaluate how good those assumptions are -- are they are WAGs (wild ass guesses) or are they educated inferences based on what we know about how things work.

As we saw above, with gravity, there is much in physics that is not that cut and dry. There are a lot of assumptions involved, one being that how things behave today is how they behaved in the past.

Math is used to put a framework on those assumptions to make models of reality based on theory. But math does not control the universe, the model is not reality, but an approximation. If it is wrong reality doesn't change, the math is adjusted to fit the new knowledge. Hence Einstein's relativity supersedes Newton's gravity. Different math.

There are a lot of assumptions and estimates in engineering. Engineering is the art of applying scientific knowledge for practical purposes. Building a bridge, the engineer assumes the steel used is of a consistent quality and strength, he doesn't know the actual strength of each steel beam, so he uses an approximation based on testing steel. He knows that quality and consistency varies even in the best steel, he knows the quality and consistency of construction varies, and he knows the loads he is designing for vary from day to day and year to year, so he uses a factor of safety to ensure the bridge design is adequate to the need. The factors of safety are also the result of experience and knowledge of what has worked in similar situations before.

Every bridge is a theoretical design based on assumptions and estimates, but they aren't WAGs, they are well tested educated inferences based on what we know about how things work.

Evolution processes are observable and measurable. Read some peer reviewed articles and see. Population genetics would not be possible without the maths and without observations and measurements.

Curiously biology has nothing to do or say about the age of the earth. (and I see you have been corrected on the actual age). What biology does is accept the age of the earth from the fields of geology and physics as a number we can have high confidence in, even though we don't know the actual age for absolute sure.

Actually my example was a composite skeleton of Australopithicus based on Lucy, the "first family" and "Little foot" among other skeleton bits and pieces of this species recovered from numerous fossils, and observing that it is an ape species is not an earth shaking observation. Even the people making the finds and classifying them would agree it is a species of ape.

Because of course it is an ape, as are humans and chimps. Otherwise it would not be intermediate in form between two ape species.

As noted above with the bridge example, engineering is laced with assumptions and estimates, and factors of safety are used as an extra precaution to make the product functional and safe. But bridges still fail. Every time a bridge fails there is an investigation to see what was the cause - design error,bad construction, bad materials
... or something else - and when necessary the design process is upgraded to ensure the next bridge will not fail.

That's why the Steel Construction Manual is now in it's 15th Edition.

Nope. The fossils are facts, the location and age of the fossil are facts. The name it is given is a fact.

Like the Australopithicus afarensis skeleton {note (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My and (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My in the picture} each fossil is a fact, each age is a fact and each location is a fact. They are embedded in the temporal-spacial matrix, and their relation on to the others is not only in time but in space -- you can't have hereditary lineage that jumps all over the globe, there has to be a path before descent can be inferred from the evidence.

The theory of evolution predicts a lineage of descent, and it provides the best explanation we have for this sequence of fossil skulls. Every fossil found is a test for the theory and it's ability to explain the facts, the objective empirical evidence of the fossils.

Usually on creationist sites. This is known as a PRATT. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

Again, no theory is ever 100% certainty. Not. One. -- see gravity.

Correct. Evolution occurs from generation to generation, and that means it starts when there is a generation to evolve. The theory predicts common ancestry, but that is a prediction of the theory not a foundation for it.

Again, this is a creationist argument. I would challenge you to produce a science textbook teaching it as "unquestionable fact" rather than the best explanation we have.

Except that the fossils do really support evolution, even without artist impressions. Each fossil is a test of the ability of the theory of evolution to explain all the evidence. So far no fossil has invalidated the theory, and I would call that strong support for the theory.

Tiktaalik

Another prediction is the production of nested hierarchies as species diversify and diverge from parent population s into reproductively isolated populations.

With multiple such events, a pattern is formed that looks like a branching bush or tree: the tree of descent from common ancestor populations. Each branching point is a node for a clade of the parent species at the node point and all their descendants, and with multiple speciation events we see a pattern form of clades branching from parent ancestor species and nesting within larger clades branching from older parent ancestor species.

Where A, B, C and G represent speciation events and the common ancestor populations of a clade that includes the common ancestor species and all their descendants: C and below form a clade that is part of the B clade, B and below form a clade that is also part of the A clade; G and below also form a clade that is also part of the A clade, but the G clade is not part of the B clade.

The process of forming a nested hierarchy by descent of new species from common ancestor populations, via the combination of anagenesis and cladogenesis, and resulting in an increase in the diversity of life, is sometimes called macroevolution.

The arrangement based on the fossil evidence is one source of testing of this prediction. Another is the genetic evidence. There is no reason for both to show the same pattern if the process creating them is not evolution.

They both show the same patterns, over and over and over and over. In fact this test by genetics is likely the biggest test for the theory of evolution that has yet occurred.

That is what the evidence appears to show. The first known fossil life from over 3.5 billion years ago is from a blue-green algae making mats called stromatolites.

As noted I said "Australopithicus (lucy composite)" rather than just Lucy, and I have clarified this further above. We have several fossils of Australopithicus afarensis, not just "lucy" ... and those provide most the missing bits (some are mirrored left right).

Show me one.

Who uncovers the fakes and frauds ... scientists or religious people?

Or do you mean the type of hogwash in the Creation "Museum" ...

Curiously, the evidence is in your words, your phrases, the heavy reliance of creationist drivel and PRATTs, rather than science and your poor, undereducated knowledge of evolution. Playing the victim of discrimination is a typical ploy.

Science already does. Explicitly. It also has the best explanation, because that explanation is tested and tested and tested, modified and upgraded whenever possible to improve the approximation to reality that we currently have.

Or we can try to help you.

Enjoy

Edited by RAZD, : .

Message 184 of 184 (818960) 09-04-2017 4:06 PM

Reply to: Message 160 by Porkncheese 08-27-2017 3:30 PM

There is a very simple argument for evolution. It is the obvious fact that every living thing has parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on in an unbroken chain of ancestors extending indefinitely far back in time. Thus, for example, gorillas must have had Miocene, Oligocene and earlier ancestors; tyrannosaurs must have had Jurassic, Triassic and Paleozoic ancestors, etc. Since there are no fossil gorillas from the Oligocene epoch, or fossil tyrannosaurs from Triassic or Paleozoic rocks, these animals must have descended from ancestors that were not gorillas or tyrannosaurs. The same argument goes for human beings; if the australopithecines were not our ancestors, what animals from their time were our ancestors?

I have presented this argument many times, and nobody has ever refuted it, although I admit that nobody has ever admitted the force of the argument. Would you like to try to refute it?

Scientific theories are not regarded as "Gospel"; they are always subject to modification and correction. (So are interpretations of the Gospels, by the way.) However, one doesn't have to be 100% certain that every aspect of a theory is correct in order for the central parts of the theory to be useful and reliable. Although biologists don't know everything about evolution, it remains a fact that living species change over long periods of time and that if we could meet our ancestors of, say, five million years ago we should call them apes. Astronomers don't know everything about planetary dynamics or stellar dynamics, but that doesn't change the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than vice versa, and that we can use the theory of celestial mechanics to make accurate predictions of such phenomena as eclipses and the paths of comets.

Edited by Astrophile, : No reason given.