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Author | Topic: Evolution vs. Creation Interpretations (Jazzns, nemesis_juggernaut) (NOW OPEN TO ALL) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Great debate thread - invitees onlynemesis_juggernaut makes some pretty strong claims in The consequences of "Evolution is false" about how creationists and IDers are simply interpreting the evidence differently from mainstream science. He says:
This implies that the only difference between evolution and creation is a matter of bias. It also implies that no objective truth about the natural world can be established because there will always be other "interpretations" of the evidence. Continuing:
The ignorance of the evidence for PE asside, nj brings up a specific example to illustrate how a creationist "interpretations" are equivalent to mainstream "interpretations". At this point I would like to bring up my main point of contention about this. I find that creationist "interpretations", while they may be an effort to explain the evidence differently, do so in a manner that ignores the BODY of evidence for a particular phenomenon. Creationists explain things in a piecemeal fashion. They have a seperate "interpretation" of the evidence that when taken all together is either contradictory, or simply ignores a rather large subset of the entire body of evidence that would force them to abandon the individual interpretations. This is true for every circumstance of creationists "interpretation" that I have ever seen. NJ then, in order to support his claim, must show how creationism or ID has a workable interpretation that explains ALL the evidence. In the case of the fossil record, he would have to explain how the creationists "interpretation" includes the remaining body of evidence that mainstream geologists use when examining fossils. This includes radiometric dating, fossil sequences, index fossils, ordering, etc. Another example is given by NJ:
To "interpret" that the world was once wholly tropical is to do so in complete IGNORANCE of the evidence that the earth was NEVER wholly tropical. In order for NJ's claim to hold up, there needs to be a creationist interpretation that not only includes the evidence for tropical plants in artic regions but also vast body of evidence for Earth's paleo-climate, plate tectonics, and the sedimentary history of the area. It is a pretty BOLD CLAIM to state that because we find a fossil of a plant in an artic region that the whole rest of the world was once tropical. There is a lot of evidence related to that claim that would impact it and so far that evidence has only been ignored. The main topic of this thread is if this idea that creationists explanations are merely different "interpretations" of the evidence. While we will inevitably need to discuss some examples such as above, the main thrust of this thread should be about NJ's main claim that the explanations only differ in their "interpretation". If NJ would like to participate in this thread. I would also like to suggest that it be a Great Debate topic if he would like to avoid the "pile on" process that seemed to take hold in the other thread. In the mean time, I think the best place for this thread would be 'Is it Science?' since the objective is to support or refute the claim that creationism is a valid science if only a different interpretation. NJ can then post his desires for the nature of the debate, open or GD. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Tweeked existing topic a bit, and added the "(NOW OPEN TO ALL)" part. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
I don't necessarily think this thread needs to be as fast paced as a "normal" thread. I would prefer to take the time to do well thought out and researched posts.
If you would like to include others, now might be a good time to think about it. I may suggest that if you want to make this more than a 1 on 1 that we start with just 1 more on each side. I am fine continuing one on one if you like though. I think you may want to take some time also in response to my OP. Perhaps you would like to pick a different example of a creationist interpretation or expand on one of the ones you were talking about in the other thread. I am primarily going to be arguing from the standpoint that this whole idea of interpretations is bogus. Evidence leads to reasoned conclusions that anyone can come to regardless of religion, bias, etc. That is what the scientific method is all about. Knowledge is verified when replication is performed. If scientific replication does not produce the same results, the original conclusion based on those results needs to be re-evaluated. More to come once I hear back from you about how you want this discussion to proceed. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
I started off in this debate in a position that I best describe as a skeptic rooting for creationism. What I found in my own study of the debate, before I ever penned my first post on EvC, is that the "aberration" you have just described is the norm. This is not in relation to the topic though, I just wanted to give you a basis from where I am coming from just as you did.
Questioning the evidence is different from coming to a different conclusion about the evidence. Both situations arise in the EvC debate. We can talk about challenges that creationists have to the actual evidence but that may be taking this thread and turning it into a Generic EvC great debate. Alternatively, we can discussion what interpretations a creationist might have to the evidence once the issue of its validity has been dealt with. In this way we can include your skepticism about radiometric dating. Creationists have both tried to send the concept of radiometric dating into disrepute AND tried to provide an alternative to the age evidence that comes from it. These two contradictory strategies is a perfect example of what I was talking about regarding selective and isolated interpretations. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
I never could understand why creationists cannot separate the concept of spontaneous generation from that of evolution. I would prefer not to talk about abiogenesis since it is an area for which science does not have any definitive answers in the same way that we have them for biology and geology. For the sake of this discussion, any time we are discussing conclusions about evolution, we can assume that God created the first bacterium. After that, all we have is evolution and none of this discussion of chances that life arose randomly will distract us.
I should note that you seem to be working again from a major misconception. There is no Darwinian influence into geologic dating as can be seen from the history of the science. Many methods used by geologists to determine the age of the earth were in direct opposition to the time hypothesized to be needed by the theory of evolution. In addition, the method that finally broke the disagreement gave an age that was FAR GREATER than what was practically needed for evolution to occur. 4.5 billion years is about 4 times more than is needed for the biological processes that we have evidence for to have occurred. It is also a common complaint from creationists that evolution drove the "dating game" that has never been supported with any evidence. Also, when a creationist makes this kind of claim, they are diverting attention from examining and explaining the evidence to examining and explaining the "motives" of some anthropomorphic concept of science.
You mentioned isochron dating but based on this statement of yours I have to think that you might not know what isochron dating is all about. The isochron method eliminates the "assumptions" from you complaint above. I would recommend reviewing the TalkOrigins description of isochron dating if you wish to remedy your misunderstanding about isochron dating. It presents the method in much simpler terms that what you might get from taking a geology class. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html In an isochron method, the amount of initial daughter material is not assumed but rather it is calculated from the point where the isochron line intersects the Y axis. The isochron method also provides a mechanism for detecting contamination and situations where the isochron represents the last time the material was cogenetic rather than its age.
That this was a Darwinian conjecture is unsupported. Scientists at the time already knew that the earth was billions of years old and therefore surmised that any stellar material left over from the formation of our solar system, unravaged by the tectonic forces of a plant such as Earth, would represent the upper bound of the age of all the components of our solar system and that such an age would certainly be larger than the oldest rock ever dated on Earth. In addition, a premise that the meteorites SHOULD date to be billions of years old does not change the fact that they actually DID date to billions of years old. It is merely a confirmation of the prediction based on the sound reasoning that stellar material has not been tainted by the geodynamic forces of the Earth. Moreover, the complaint is STILL interpreting motives rather than interpreting evidence. If the dating of the meteorites is flawed, then that flaw should be evident in the data or methodology itself regardless of the motives of the experimenters. Overall, we can go round and round about how some particular piece of evidence is not actually valid, but it has been the tendency for creationists lately to abandon this tactic. Some things are just far too solid. Radiometric dating is one of them. The latest efforts of the ICR have been more in line with trying to figure out a way for radioactive decay to have happened quicker in order for the radiometric evidence to jive with a young earth. Mind you, this also is NOT interpreting the evidence differently. The are actually in search of NEW evidence to contradict the last thing that still is an assumption in radiometric dating. That is that the decay rates have been constant. In closing, I'll repeat my initial suggestion that you provide a more complete example of where a creationist is providing an alternative explanation to the same evidence as mainstream science. I would avoid any scenarios such as the above, where we have creationists challenging the actual evidence itself or creationists challenging the motives of the science. Given that such an inquiry is narrow, may I suggest you look into geologic interpretations as the actual evidence there is not often in contention. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Let me see if I can rephrase my criticism. We know the continents move and have moved a considerable distance. This is not interpretation, this IS THE EVIDENCE. Then there is other evidence such as the nature of the fossil of a tropical plant found in what is currently an arctic region. The sediment it is buried in will have some characteristics and perhaps other fossils of fauna or other plants. The fossil will also be buried at a certain depth in relation to the geologic strata that can be correlated with the tectonic events that DID move the plates. All that COMBINED leads to the conclusion that continental drift is the current best explanation of the evidence. Out of all that evidence, the only thing the Canopy theory uses is the fact of the tropical plant itself. In addition, it CONTRADICTS the evidence that shows that the location of the plant was not static. So we have an alternative explanation that both ignores the body of evidence surrounding the geologic history of that fossil AND moreover is contradicted by other pieces of evidence. Why should that interpretation hold any weight? Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
My beliefs are more akin to Jar, Phat, and to some extent riverrat. I consider myself a Christian but far from a literalist.
Lyell IIRC believed in an infinite age but did not come to that conclusion in order to fit evolution. Also IIRC Lyell was no fan of evolution: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lyell:
His principles about uniformitarianism were laid out in Principles #1. He couldn't have endorsed the idea of infinite age in order to fit evolution because he didn't agree with it until Origins was written much later. The first REAL attempts to assign an age to the earth were taken up AFTER Darwin published origins and they came up with dates that were much too small for evolution to have occurred. Kelvin in the 1860s estimated the age on the order of magnitude of 10s of millions of years. Radiometric dating didn't arrive on the scene until the 20th century. Lyell may have influenced Darwin, but it most certainly did not happen the other way around like many creationists contest.
Speciation is an observed phenomenon. www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html I will be unwilling to discuss "kind-evolution" unless you are willing to provide a functional definition of a kind. The VAST majority of what you consider macroevolution has occurred in less than 1 billion years. A closer estimate might be 600-750 million years. That is when geodynamic conditions on earth were capable of supporting multi-cellular life. That means that for the entire time life as been on the planet, ~3.5 billion years, the vast majority of that time has been spent as unicellular life.
There is nothing at stake for evolution because evolution isn't a dogma. If it were proven tomorrow that the earth was much younger then that would NOT make the evidence derived from cladistics and nested hierarchies go away. Would the ToE have to drastically change? Yes, but the earth being young does not invalidate the multitudes of other evidence for evolution that is not derived from the age of the earth. That is what I mean by having an interpretation that conforms to the entire BODY of evidence. Evolution as we know it today would not stand if the earth was shown to be only a few million years old. But it does not make the other evidence go away so whatever explanation arose from the ashes of the "old" ToE would STILL have to explain that evidence. Moreover, creationists would not have one more ounce of evidence for special creation since it is unobservable by definition.
I can only conclude that you either did not read the article or did not understand it in order for you to continue to claim that the isochron method relies upon the assumption of the initial concentration of daughter isotopes. This is a non-debatable point. It simply does not have the same assumptions as direct radiometric dating. The reason for taking multiple samples and the reason you draw an isochron is specifically so you DO NOT have to know the initial concentrations. From the isochron you can CALCULATE the estimated initial concentration. That piece of information is an afterthought, not an assumption.
There is no evidence that decay rates have changed in the past and plenty of evidence that they specifically HAVE NOT changed. There are many threads dedicated to that topic so I will refrain from going down another rabbit hole of specific evidence in a thread that is more about meta issues. The on topic thing to note about this is that any "alternative explanation" that creationists come up with in order to explain radiometric dating MUST ALSO take into account the evidence that shows that decay rates have not changed. The mere existence of that evidence in enough to push any explanation involving accelerated decay to the point of failure if it is ignored. This is another great example of the isolated interpretations I was talking about. The RATE group will play around with zircons all day trying to prove that decay rates were accelerated but they NEVER take into account the body of accumulated evidence regarding the consistence of radioactive decay rates. They also ignore the consequences of their hypothesis, in particular, regarding the heat that would be generated. Again it is both IGNORING evidence and not addressing evidence that is in CONTRADICTION to their explanation.
In reality the situation is much more complicated than that and often a creation scientists will use that complication to obfuscate the situation. When you use a radioisotope method you are not really determining the age of the rock. You are determining the time since that isotopic system was closed. Sometimes this is the same as the date of the formation of the rock. A real geologist knows how to tell the difference. In the case of K/Ar, if you heat the rock a little bit it will loose some argon. The date you get then is still useful, it is the date of the last heating event of that rock which can tell you a lot about the geologic history of the area. Creationists have looked at these scenarios though to try to bring disrepute to the method by claiming that method produced an incorrect age for the rock. Once again this is ignoring the evidence about closed systems and how they operate in the presence of geothermal activity.
Being that Lyell lived before the advent of radiometric dating I don't know how your followup to my comment applies. Lyell never did any dating of meteorites. Like previously mentioned Lyell believed the Earth was eternal. Also, as I showed above, the earliest actually attempts to calculate the age of the earth produced ages that were not compatible with evolution. My response was an attempt to show you that the ASSUMPTION that a stellar body such as a meteorite should be billions of years old is a valid assumption given the conditions. You also ignored my point that even if scientists thought that the meteorites SHOULD be billions of years old that would not affect the tests that showed that they ARE billions of years old. There are no secrets going on here. Anyone can examine the methods used to come up with those dates and even repeat the dating exercise themselves. If there is an error it will be apparent in the METHOD, not the prediction.
I am more knowledgeable about geology then I am about biology but I think you should pick a sub-discipline that interests you and go look for something. If you don't care so much about the age of the earth then maybe you care more about the idea of a global flood? Maybe you can go find some good flood explanations for geologic structures that are "different interpretations" of the same evidence as mainstream geology. If you like you may also attempt to defend against my criticism of creationist’s interpretations that I have already showed as both ignoring the evidence and being contradicted by the evidence. Remember, YOU brought up this idea that creationists offer interpretations that explain the same evidence as mainstream science. I can think of plenty of examples of attempts in that regard that have failed miserably but that is not what you are claiming. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
There is a lot to go over here and only some of it relates to the topic. I'll try to organize this the best that I can.
This is a diversion but I will respond. I don't denounce all of the Bible, just most of it; in particular, the parts that I know are wrong. I am perfectly fine with traditional Christians labeling me a picker and chooser. I don't know why you say I never refer to Christ. I just don't bring it up in every conversation here at EvC.
The earth is not dated by how long evolution takes. As I have said before, evolution from unicellular life to today took less than a billion years. Lyell may have empowered Darwin to concieve of long ages but that only provided the ability to form a valid hypothesis about how evolution unfolded. The blanks were not filled in about how evolution actually occurred until after Darwin. As far as he was concerned, evolution may have needed 100 billion years in an eternal Lyellian world. It just so turns out that it needs under 1 billion and that was discovered later.
We need to be careful here. I am going to respond to this but if you want to bring it up further then I would suggest that you reply to this by framing your response in a manner of how creationists interpret fossils and how that interpretation is just as valid as mainstream paleontology. First of all, that the fossil record is incomplete as a record of evolution is a misnomer. The fossil record is quite complete for marine invertebrates. The fossil record is more than complete enough for vertebrates to support evolution. Many creationists start with the false idea that evolution is BASED on the fossil record. It simply is not. The fossil record is one piece of evidence for evolution and even if we had no fossils at all the ToE would still be standing. Evolution does not require that we find every single species along a chain of evolutionary history to show that evolution has occurred. This is compounded by the fact that fossilization is a rare process especially for land dwelling vertebrates.
We do. I provided a link in my last post. If you want to see something on the order of a Lucy to Human transition then I am sorry but we SHOULD NOT see unambiguous evidence of that taking place right before us. Those kinds of things take millions of years. If we could see it happening before our eyes that that would be evidence that would CONTRADICT evolution and support special creation.
How can you tell by looking at a fossil that it is well-formed in its niche? What if it was half-ass formed in its niche just enough to get along? For vertebrates we have plenty of transitions at the level of genus or higher. For invertebrates we have plenty of transitions between species. It very much seems like you are not getting your information from a reliable source.
That is assuming that everything that dies will fossilize. In fact, the vast majority of things that die do not fossilize. I'll repeat my statement that evolution does not stand or fall on the real or perceived scarcity of the fossil record.
Being that is it obvious that you do not have a good picture of what the evidence actually is, it is difficult to accept your claims of broad generalizations not supported by the evidence. Your information about the Coelacanth is also very much in error. Modern Coelacanth are quite different from their fossil counterparts. This has been discussed. For a good treatment of the issue see this message (Message 82). Certain species of coelacanth have evolved quite a bit. Think about your objection for a minute. We find fossils of other fish all the time that have living relatives. Just because one kind of Coelacanth stayed a fish does not mean anything. This type of objection is exactly the same as the very juvenile, "If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys around?" The most important thing that such a statement shows is that the person making it has a VAST ignorance of how evolution actually works. That is why when you say that evolution does not have any evidence, I cannot take you seriously because you go on to say very ignorant things that demonstrate that you do not understand what the evidence is. Some Coelacanth evolved into the kinds of coelacanth we see today, some evolved into other things, some didn't evolve at all and instead went extinct. One does not exclude the other.
This is getting vastly off topic but the important thing to note is that creationists have a problem with naturalism in science because they have a problem understanding how science differs from religion. Science is not interested in The Truth (tm). Science is interested in the most effective and useful explanation for a phenomenon. If that explanation happens to be contrary to someone religions myths, then that is the problem of the myth not the science. Science cannot include that which is not natural because such things are essentially useless in practical reality. They may be useful for other reasons, but not practical ones.
That is one of the most ignorant statements I have seen you ever make nj. I don't mean to offend you. I can assure you that cladograms are most certainly not based solely on morphology. They can be made from genetic markers, biogeography, fossil age, and potentially many other things that I may not be thinking of. Your description of cladistics is in contradiction to the definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladogram
Especially with regard to cladistics as it relates to genetic relationships, perception has nothing to do with it. The interesting thing to note is that one major piece of evidence for evolution is that no matter what you make your cladogram out of, morphology, genetics, shared retroviral insertions, etc. They all match.
I understood your objection just fine. It is simply that your objection is very obviously based on a misunderstanding of the method.
While that is true for direct dating, that is mostly certainly NOT true for the isochron method. That is what you are systematically failing to understand. I can tell this by what you say below.
Please read carefully. This is TRUE for direct dating such as K/Ar. This is FALSE for the isochron method. The website I linked for you says the following about what it calls "generic dating". In other words, the NON isochron methods:
In particular, take note of the bolded section. Then farther down:
The isochron itself is DIAGNOSTIC of a problem with the sample. And again below that under the topic "Avoidance of generic dating's problems":
Again this is false. In certain conditions you CAN know that the frequency of the daughter element is 0 through basic chemistry.
1. As I mentioned before, there is DIRECT EVIDENCE that decay rates are constant and NO EVIDENCE that they have not been. It is not just that we have been measuing them and not noticed them changing. There is evidence from supernova spectrometry as well as natural nuclear reactors that confirm that decay rates have not changed. 2. Nuclear testing, pollution, etc only affects carbon dating. Moreover, pollution and such DOES NOT CHANGE THE DECAY RATE of carbon!!! The reason those things throw off carbon dating is because it changes the initial concentration of C14. Dating ethods used on rocks are unaffected by environmental factors. There is DIRECT EVIDENCE that decay rates do not change under a variety of environmental stresses and NO EVIDENCE that they do. These two issues are discussed in length in the Dating forum.
There are conditions that arise that prevent a rock from being accurately dated. When you see dates all over the map the first thing to look for is if one of those conditions is true. In a rock that has been heated for example, using different methods will give you the various results because some isotopic systems become closed at different temperatures. So sometimes you just can't get the age. There is such a thing as a sample being unsuitable for dating. It happens all the time.
I never mentioned Darwin and nucleofission in the same sentence. YOU brought up the notion of Darwinian bias in dating meteorites. Remember? Look back at your first post in this thread. You started this conversation about dating stellar objects. In fact, here is the quote:
You have to get over this idea that there is anything "Darwinian" involved in dating. As I have said before, dating methods started off in CONTRADICTION to the time required for evolution. Geology did not bend to evolution, in fact it was the other way around. Evolution becomes plausible because of the finding in geology. That is the history. You can either deny it or show me how I am wrong. I'll look into your link when I get home. Hopefully we can start the discussion about interpretations instead of this piecemeal discussion about the validity of the evidence. Remember NJ, a lot of the stuff you are trying to discount as evidence has already been accepted by prominent creation scientists. The evidence is the evidence and you are going to be hard pressed to put much it into disrepute especially here. Creationists are moving away from whining about the validity of using radioisotope methods and instead are trying to figure out why they don't show the ages that they "should". They stopped trying to hack branches off of cladiograms and started looking into ways that diversity can evolve quickly from the exodus from the ark forward. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Nemesis, I don't know what more to say about your link other than it is really very funny that you chose THAT topic. Let me try to explain.
The link is talking about the Black Sea Flooding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory It is hypothesized that the catastrophic LOCAL flooding of the Black Sea is the source of all the various flood myths from around the region. This is in direct opposition to the literalist and creationist concept of a global flood. If you are trying to give an alternative explanation to mainstream geology, something that supports the creationist flood, then not only did you fail but you actually provided one of the pieces of evidence to the contrary. The last thing to note about this example that you brought up is that it does not have anything to do with alternative interpretations of the evidence. I can only surmise that you were trying to present some new evidence for the flood. Ignoring the fact that this was actually not evidence for a global flood, it had nothing to do with any attempt to explain any of the mainstream geologic evidence in the light of some kind of flood hypothesis. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
At some point, would you like to discuss your assertion that there are valid creationist interpretations of the evidence? I am afraid we are going to go round and round with this stuff so I am going to try to be as brief as possible with each point.
Re: Fossil transitions I cannot make you go look at the fossils nj. All I can do is tell you that you are operating from a vast ignorance of the state of the fossil record. You are repeating things that have been told to you by creationist sites and have not bothered to investigate the issue in depth for yourself. I have. I know that the fossil record for marine invertebrates IS complete and it shows a great history of evolution. Where you only see archeopteryx I have seen many other dinosaur fossils displaying morphology more and more similar to birds the closer you get to modern times. There is the proto-mammal jaw to ear sequence which so far I have never heard a reasonable explanation from creationists other than incredulity. Re: Coelacanth - I'll talk about this specifically because I believe there are numerous fallacies and distortions here.
Of course there was change, did you even look at the post I linked?
You are missing the changes!!! It is a different animal! Remember 'Coelacanth' is an ORDER of animal not a species. Are you as equally surprised that evolution claims that we came from fish yet there is still fish? Are you as equally surprised that evolution claims we came from apes and there are still apes?
It did evolve! For that particular species of Coelacanth it just didn't evolve enough to impress your preconcieved notion of whatever dramatic changes should have occurred. You also seem to have trouble grasping that there are many and have been many different kinds of Coelacanth.
Well that just makes you ignorant. I don't intend to be mean by saying that. I am ignorant of a lot of things like how to fix my car when it breaks. That you do not understand evolution yet still feel qualified to claim it is nonsense is by definition ignorant.
If we came from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys? Can YOU actually answer that question NJ? Do you actually think that this is a valid criticism of evolution?
This is crazy! This is doubletalk! How can you make the second to last and the last comments at the same time?
In the pictures that I showed you! In the transition to less deep dwelling and more shallow dwelling fish just like the ones that have been in the news recently. It is not the same fish! It has evolved! You just seem to be equivocating because either you didn't look at the pictures or you did and didn't see a change that was drastic enough for you to be impressed. Well I am sorry but that is not the way it works. 300 million years ago there was fish that look a lot like the fish we have today, just because they didn't evolve 18 eyes, 4 pairs of fins, and the ability to shoot torpedoes does not mean they have not evolved since then. Just because YOU CAN'T TELL how they have evolved does not mean that anyone who has studied the subject automatically has your same shaded glasses. Personally, it is unfathomable to me how someone could take a look at the pictures of ancient Coelacanth, compare them to modern Coelacanth, and say that they are no different. It is pure and astounding incredulity.
Do you think that there is ANY CHANCE that you might simply not have the correct or complete information about this? Can you even fathom the concept of Coelacanth being more than just 1 kind of creature? Ponder this question, if amphibians came from Coelacanth then why are there Coelacanth still around? If you think that that is a valid question to ask, then you also have to ask yourself if you REALLY DO understand evolution. Re: Evolution as Speculation/Religion/Etc
In the future, upon encounter statements like this, I am just going to note them and ignore it. There is no reason to take this discussion into the motives for evolution. In some of my very first posts I tried very hard to set the groundwork for discussing the difference between criticizing evidence, criticizing motive, and actually providing the alternative explanations that you claimed exist. So far we have a whole ton of criticisms of evidence which I have been willing to discuss since they may lead to talk about interpretations. I am completely unwilling to talk about criticism of motives because nothing is ever going to change your mind about this. You are dead convinced that the purpose of evolution is to refute the supernatural and there is nothing I am going to say to change your mind about that. SO lets just leave it on the table then please. Lets talk about the evidence and the interpretations. Remember, you are the one who claimed the existence of these alternative interpretations. We have yet to see ONE of these. Re: Nested Hierarchies and Cladograms
I wasn't talking about the genesis of cladograms. I was talking about cladograms that we use today. NOW (read TODAY) it is not just based on morphological similarities. There are new cladograms based on psudogenes, genetic similarity, retroviral insertions, etc. You claimed that morphology was the only way to make a cladogram. That is fundamentally wrong. The fact that you didn't know about other kinds of cladograms and how they relate means you are completely ignorant of one of the MAIN EVIDENCES for evolution. Science has moved on since the 19th century.
That is pure sophomoric trash. There is no reason to suspect that a cladogram based on retroviral insertions would even make any sense at all! There is even less reason to suspect that if you did make one that it would in any way match the cladogram you get from morphology or genetic similarity!
Actually when I think about it I don't see how this is a valid criticism at all. Cladograms are not birth certificates. No matter what you make your cladogram out of, no matter how much things have changed, you are still going to have more similarities with things that are related than not. At some point snakes lost their legs, they did not move 1 spot closer to worms in a cladogram because of it.
Looking forward to it. Good luck! Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Now that the Haggard thread is closed. I thought you might want to get back around to clearing up your claim of alternative intepretations.
Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
I'll tell you what, I am willing to discuss any one of these subtopics in depth as long as we can agree on the topic.
Do you, or do you not still hold that creationists have valid interpretations of the same evidence as mainstream science? If so, are you will to provide some examples that are more convincing than a CNN article that doesn't even talk about a global flood? In that same vein, do you understand my misgivings about the difference between what we have been doing so far, criticizing and defending the evidence versus discussing intepretations? If you want to abandon your previous position about alternative interpretaions and talk about evidence instead then I am perfectly willing, we just need to change the title of this thread to something like 'What is and what is not evidence for X. I'll bring up a few things from your last post that I feel need to be responded to:
I understand the objection just fine. I just know that the objection is based on a vast misunderstanding of evolution. The ancestor species is not required to die out for evolution to occur. In fact, if this was true then evolution would be proven false right now. When species diverge, they do so not only genetically but more often than not geographically as well. It takes a different environment to apply different pressures to cause evolution to happen. This can happen either because the environment changes where the species lives or the species moves into a different environment. Do you consider it so improbable that some Coelecanth migrated into shallower waters while some remained in deep waters? Do you consider it so improbable that some species of apes stayed in or near a forrest while others delved deeper and deeper into the savannah? The ancestor species is not necessarily threatened by the "improvements" of the evolved species because the ancestor species is better adapted to the environment in which it STAYED. A mudskipper is not a threat to a coelacanth because they will never meet in the same environment to compete. A bipedal savannah ape is not necessarily a threat to a chimp because they primarily live in different environments. If austrolopithicus tried to recompete with its tree dwelling ancestors then it would loose becuase it was better adapted to a hybrid environment. IN the same way, its ancestor would loose in the same environment as the austrolopithicus because it would not be as suited to hybrid environment. With regards to cladistics, all I can say is that if you want to talk about it further we are going to have to focus on that. You have a vast misundertanding of how clasdistics works. NO one is suggesting that dinosaurs fit into a cladogram build on genetic characteristics. For those, you can only build a cladogram with existing species or ones from the recent past who have been so kind as to leave us their dna such as the wooly mammoth. You also failed to comprehend the implication of a cladogram based on an unassuming characteristic such as retroviral insertions. This singularly refutes your claim of 'preconcieved notions' because no notion can possibly be linked to these characteristics. If you are having a hard time understaning what I mean by this then perhaps you should ask rather than arrogantly assuming that I don't know anything about cladistics. This would be a good time for you to demonstrate your alternative explations of the evidence. The cladograms ARE THE EVIDENCE. What we have is that the different viruses a set of species had in its past IS CORRELATED to their differences in genetics is CORRELATED to their differences in morphology. There are more but let just look at those three for simplicity. Mainstream science looks at that and comes to the conclusion that those species are related by the degree of their correlation. There is no other reason why the data would be correlated AT ALL unless the relationship was characterized by ancestry! What then is the creationist interpretation that EXPLAINS this evidence? Just to note, the whole common designer thing will not work unless the designer also decided to infect the various species with the exact same viruses that had the exact same lasting effect on non-functional dna. Oh yea, and these infections would have to occur in a pattern of heirarchal order that somehow exactly matches morphology and genetic similarity. Then you have to establish something to convince your audience why this interpretation is BETTER than the current one. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
It is not pointless if the flood provides an alternative explanation of the evidence from geology. The claim is that this explanation is just as valid as the one from mainstream science. I'll admit that this is a more difficult task for you to take on as the evidence in geology is not as obfuscated to the layman as it is for evolution. IMO of course.
I tried very hard to outline what I thought the differences are. Allow me to try again. In some cases creationists deny that the evidence is actually evidence. This is different from explaining the evidence in an alternative framework. In one case they are denying that radiometric dating is a valid method. In the other they are trying to explain why radiometric dating gives the consistent results that it does. Talking about radiometric assumptions, talking about the Coelecanth, etc is not providing alternative explanations. What we have been doing so far is going over specific evidences and discussing their validity. Saying that the living Coelecanth invalidates the ToE is not providing an alternative explanation to the fossil record. It is an attempt to dismiss the fossil record as valid evidence. Even if your points about the Coelecanth were informed and correct, that does not mean that some alternate hypothesis is given more weight. If anything it would be a minor failing of the theory requiring more study or search for more evidence. Remember your original claim?
What is the alternative explanation for which the Coelecanth fossils are supporting? Poof godditit?
Because they occupy different ecological niches and in many cases, are required for the continuance of their "more evolved" counterparts. In the most extreme example of your scenario we have the question of , "If we all came from bacteria then why is there still bacteria?" Quite simply, we don't compete with bacteria. In fact, we are food and environment FOR bacteria. This last statement of yours also ignores the fact that in MOST cases the ancestry species IS out competed to extinction. Most of the species we know that have existed are dead.
A change in the environment prompted the selection to dominance of existing and newly mutated traits. If a tree dwelling ape can exploit a new resource that exists out in the savanna then it is more advantageous to be skilled at bipedalism and the ones that are will be more successful at exploiting that niche. This does not change the niche that their neighbors who are not next to a savanna exploit which is food sources in the trees.
That is demonstrably false by the instances of observed speciation that I referenced before.
Once again you are putting forth the unreasonable expectation that we should see evolution, (this time on the scale of taxa!!!) happen before our eyes.
150 is to evolution what 1 second is to your lifetime. We are not required to witness the evolution of a new taxa to show that it has happened in the past in the same way we are not required to shoot somebody to prove that they are mortal.
You are changing the topic. You were claiming the existence of the modern Coelecanth was proof that somehow an ancient Coelecanth didn't evolve. We already know that you don't believe that small changes can add up to macroevolution. That wasn't the point that we were discussion though. My point is a refutation of your criticism involving the modern coelecanth. This reply of yours is meaningless in response except to state a position that we already knew that you hold.
Once again, the response was not an answer to the questions asked. No one is asking if you believe in human evolution from apes. I was asking if you find it so improbably that populations split and migrate into different ecological niches. Given that this has actually been observed and that you seem to be a pretty reasonable creationist, I didn't quite expect to get such an obvious dodge. Remember the point was that you didn't see how the "more evolved" wouldn't eliminate the ancestor species. The short answer is that they often do! The alternative is that the simply no longer compete. You simply saying the equivalent of, "well that doesn't mean they macroevolved", does not address my refutation at all. Can we just both agree that the question, "If we all came from monkeys then why are their still monkeys?" is a stupid and invalid question to ask?
Yes actually I can know this. The evidence can tell us that the environments that an evolved and ancestor species occupied was different or not. For living organism we can visually inspect when they diverge that the environments are different. We can also examine that a particular species does or does not have traits that are advantageous in the environment. Why you think we cannot know these things is beyond incredulous.
What you say is true of all evidence. When looking at granite rock we infer that it formed in the middle of the earth by a cooling magma body. We have never seen this and we never will. When we look at bones we infer that they had similar function to ones we can compare them to today. Based on that we can provide the best explanation for their purpose and the capabilities of the creature they belonged to.
Why would that be a problem. In previous threads talking about this I have heard numbers ranging from 100 to 5000 mutations that YOU have different from you parents.
How could you pidgeon hole a sequence of viral insertion into some biased preconceived hierarchy? You might be able to say that a cladogram based on morphology is 'preconceived' because someone is not looking at the right morphological traits. But for genetics and viral insertions there is no ambiguity. The DNA either matches or it does not. NO preconceived notion will change the relationships derived from that data.
This is a surprising concession. Kudos. In particular, for the case of retro vial insertions, your assumption of genes unlikely to originate independently is met. This is especially true in situations where the insertion exists in nonfunctional sequences of dna.
If you could show a case of an identical insertion shared between two species that did not exist in ANY of their closer related species then that MIGHT be a problem. What would be damning would be a pattern of this since it always possible for the evidence of the single insertion to be destroyed over time. The weight that the evidence of the insertions hold FOR evolution is that there is a PATTERN of many insertions that MATCHES genetic similarity and morphology. That pattern would not be destroyed by 1 rogue insertion. It would be weird and unlikely, but alone would not be enough.
So then what more does it take to convince you? Does the fact that an offshoot of an ancient fish survived weigh more in your mind than a clear example of something that can only be done by heredity? Does some creationist web site that falsely claims that palentologists discovered Lucy's knee a mile away given more weight in your system of evaluating truths than the evidence that is available right at your fingertips. I notice that you have participated in other threads about nested hierarchies. You even started one. Was this evidence not presented? ( thumbing through them quickly now ) Maybe you would like to review some of these older threads. Smoking-Gun Evidence of Man-Monkey Kindred: Episode I - endogenous retrovirus Edited by Jazzns, : typos Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
I think it is important to come to some agreement about this. It is the interpretation part of this discussion that I was most interested in getting involved with. I am not talking about right and wrong. In my opinion they are wrong on both accounts. What matters is what the argument is. Let me try to illustrate with an example. The ICR Grand Canyon project was an attempt by them to show that the radiometric dating method is invalid. They failed miserably to do this but even if they had succeeded they did not put forth any positive evidence for their pet hypothesis that the earth is young. The whole point of their effort was to try to eliminate evidence for an old earth. That is what I mean when I talk about criticizing the evidence. Many creationist arguments focus on trying show how evidence for evolution or an old earth are somehow not valid. This is in contrast to OTHER efforts which try to explain the evidence, that we all accept, in a different way. There are some creationist ideas about how the Coconino Sandstone in the Grand Canyon might have formed under flood conditions. This different tactic often appears because the existence of the Coconino Sandstone cannot be invalidated. The evidence itself is so strong that it cannot be questioned and therefore it must be explained in a different framework. My MAIN argument in the OP is that when this situation happens, the creationists always invent an explanation that ignores the rest of the evidence. In the case of the Coconino Sandstone, they completely ignore the other formations and how the conditions they posit would have to be in place to form the Coconino Sandstone would be not be able to form the other formations or would destroy them. They focus only what it would take for the flood to make the the dune shaped sand formations because their hypothesis of a global flood cannot survive the idea of a vast desert existing right in the middle of when the earth is supposed to be completely covered in water. IN doing so, they completely ignore the ramifications of what that would to do to everything else in area INCLUDING the particular evidence from the Coconino Sandstone itself which refutes a water transport mechanism. Overall this is a pattern among creationists when they take on the yoke of trying to explain evidence that cannot be made suspect by calling foul upon the evidence itself. In doing so, in every circumstance I have seen, creationists ignore the entire body of evidence that often shows their explanations to be in dire error.
You didn't address anything I said previously about the isochron method and how it is different from direct or 'generic' dating methods. The method itself is NOT in error and that can be empirically shown for anyone who chooses to learn the methods before feeling that they can criticize them.
Knowing which dates are true or not only seems to be a problem for people who don't understand how the method works and what the ratios mean. Mainstream geology has no problem adequately identifying the conditions that either make the use of the method invalid, or when the method shows something else other than age. The biggest hangup I think that people have about radiometric dating is simply realizing that the dates calculated by the ratios don't always mean the date the rock was formed. For direct methods, the date given corresponds to the last time the system was closed. This provides a MINIMUM AGE of the rock and SOMETIMES, with other correlating evidence, that minimum age can be determined to be the ACTUAL age.
You say this but many of the arguments you have brought forth speak otherwise. Most prominent IDers do not question the age of the earth, evolution, or common decent. What they are critical of is a notion of "pure unguided naturalistic processes". I also take offense to the claim that evolutionists have an "objective". As I asked before, I would prefer you leave criticisms of motive out of this discussion. The last thing I want to drag this discussion into is the whole evolution is/not a dogma. I am not interested in that type of discussion because I do not believe it is fruitful.
But it is not an example of anything other than a fish that we used to think was extinct. Down below you agreed that the question, "If we all came from monkeys then why is there still monkeys?" is a stupid question. Similarly then the question, "If Coelecanth all turned into amphibians then why is there still Coelecanths?" is equally stupid. It is based on a false understanding of evolution as a linear rather than hierarchal process.
But you are contradicting the reason that creationists bring up the Coelecanth to begin with! The standard argument is that the existence of the modern Coelecanth somehow means it never evolved into an amphibian. That says NOTHING about the process being guided or not! They are trying to say that there is no process at all! The entire reason for the juvenile and ignorant argument that creationists use involving the Coelecanth is to attempt to show that there is no process of evolution and that special creation wins. They are NOT trying to show that there was an intelligent designer who guided "the process".
They survive because there is enough to go around. I would rather use a better example since cows are domesticated. Zebras and antelope for example. They DO compete but because there is enough environment for them all to share, they are not forced to OUT compete each other. There is no law saying that only species can occupy one niche at any given time. There just has to be enough "room" in a particular niche for a new species to move into.
Wow! What a list! Lets talk about these for a second. 1. What selective pressures cause these changes? This question demonstrates a vast misunderstanding of how evolution works. Selective pressures do not CAUSE changes. The changes happen and the selective pressures "select" the ones that are more useful for reproduction. 2. A proto-avian sprouting stump-like appendages that would form a proto-wing?!?!?!? All I can say is WoW! You do notice that birds don't have arms like other bipedal animals right? The bird wing did not evolve from some bump on their back that eventually turned into a wing. Something like that WOULD be evidence for ID. Wings came from arms based on a number of evidences. First of all, the bone structure of a wing has morphologically similarities to a therapod dinosaur arm. We have fossils of proto-birds such as archy that shows that they have feathered arms. IIRC some birds are still born with claws at the end of their wing bones. Also IIRC there is evidence from embryology that shows baby birds still have claws on their wings that get reabsorbed before hatching. What I wonder is what understanding you gained by your investigation of this issue would cause you to think that birds "sprouted stump-like appendages". You do reject evolution on a basis of understanding rather than ignorance of it don't you? One can only assume that before you claim that an idea is invalid that you would be bothered to completely understand what that idea is. Without that, what reason could there be to reject an idea that you don't understand. If you think that evolution means that wings "sprout" then let me be the first to say I don't believe in evolution either. I also do not believe in fairy godmothers turning pumpkins into stagecoaches. 3. Forming proto-feathers long in advance of conceivable relevance to its survival? Feathers perform a NUMBER of functions for modern birds. In addition to flying, feathers provide a mechanism of thermal control. They also play a role in sexual selection and response to predation. Hence you have a situation where most male birds are more intricately colored to both attract a mate and to attract predators away from their offspring. That is why only the male cardinal is red for instance. The evidence shows that feathers existed long before flight. Dinosaurs had feathers before there were ever birds on the scene. Wikipedia has a nice short treatment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs Because we know what feathers can do for birds today, we can assume that they also provided thermal control for dinosaurs and that they probably were also used in sexual selection. Flight came gradually once arboreal dinosaurs figured out that feathers can help you catch air. 4. What exactly prompted the changes? Different selection pressures cause different traits to either be maintained, degrade, or become advantageous. For a ground dwelling feathered dinosaur, an asymmetric feather has no use. Therefore if a baby dino is born with slightly asymmetric feathers there is no survival benefit and therefore no reason for natural selection to change the feathers of the population over time. This is not true for tree dwelling feathered dinosaurs who have learned to co-opt their feathers for gliding. A slightly asymmetric feather will make you a better glider and that is an advantage that will help you find food, escape predators, and because of that have a better chance of producing more offspring.
Why would it 'awkwardly' change? This view is the hopeful monster straw man of evolution. We already know that they took to the trees. In an arboreal existence, gliding is a potential advantage especially if you already have structures that you can co-opt to help you glide better.
Yet somehow this is only apparent to people who believe that dinosaurs popped wings out of their back. When you invent insane sounding misconceptions about evolution of course it sounds ridiculous.
Once again, yes we can know that by looking at the bones. You said nothing to refute me other than to simply assert that it is impossible. Your ignorance of how this is possible is demonstrated in your next comment.
Not only is it currently grassy but we can tell if it was grassy back when those apes lived. Science is not limited but what YOU cannot concieve it being capable of. We can also reconstruct the kinds of behaviors that would be allowed by their morphology by examining their remains. Or are you saying that if we find a fossil of something with fins that we cannot assume that it lived in water? What if I find some fish bones in a depositional environment that indicates a coastal formation? Then is my conclusion that it lived in shallow as opposed to deep water some fanciful scenario that will invade the textbooks and warp some impressionable minds?
This is more distortions and ignorance. If a creature was not well-formed then it would not survive. All creatures that survive with enough frequency to be fossilized are well-form and so it is false to assume that transitionals should NOT be well-formed. The definition of a transitional is not that it should be some kind of freak chimera. It is a creature that shares traits among distinctly different creatures. This is why archy is a transitional. It it a dinosaur with a whole bunch of bird features thrown in. That is why these are transitionals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik because they are fish with amphibian like features. In all cases they are not some freak retarded mess like you claim should exist. Once again it is obvious that you are thinking about evolution in the 'hopeful monster' sense rather than what the theory actually says. If you want a creature that is halfway between two major groups then here they are and as a bonus they are all FULLY FORMED! The other major distortion in your quote is that punctuated equilibrium came about because of the fossil record. In no way is this true! PE was introduced to explain how evolution is possible amidst the stabilizing pressure of gene flow. When a population is well adapted to an environment then as long as that environment is stable there is no reason to evolve. Moreover, even if some new trait was to emerge, it would be very difficult for it to fix in a population due the current population's success. That is why it is hypothesized that in order for major changes in evolution to occur, the have to happen in smaller sub-populations that are isolated from the stabilizing force of the parent population. This is something that is suppored by observation of existing species and the instances of speciation that we HAVE observed. How this relates to the fossil record is simply that a sub-population is less likely to leave around a sequence of its gradual change. This is a CONSEQUENCE of PE not the reason it was conceived. If you want to claim otherwise, I would have to ask that you provide evidence since you brought it up.
The 150 years was brought up against your claim that we should have some observable examples of macroevolution at the level of taxa! Remember your comment:
In 150 years we DO have enough evidence to fully support evolution and an old earth for those who are not so blinded by their prejudices that they cannot be bothered to actually understand what those evidences actually are. We just don't have an observable instance of macroevolutionary change on the order of taxa. In other words, you shifted the goalpost pretty clearly.
Remember, you agreed that it was stupid to ask, "If X evolved into Y then why is there still X around?" We would expect that whatever fin-like structure eventually used to support some weight on land near shallow waters would ALSO still be very good for acting like a fin. Since of course we are not talking about the 'hopeful monster' right? These that I linked to before and I will do again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik are lobed finned fish that have leg-like fins. Notice how they are still pretty good for swimming while still becoming very much like a leg. Just because SOME lobed finned fish kept their fins for ONLY swimming does not mean that OTHER lobed finned fish did the same. Remember now, "If lobed finned fish like the Coelecanth turned into amphibians then why is there still lobed finned fish like the Coelecanth?" IS a stupid question.
Yes sure, these changes might be unimpressive for THAT branch of Coelacanth. Just because some Coelacanth are on the branch that ended up on land does not mean that ALL coelacanth are. You are SYSTEMATICALLY FAILING to understand this point and it only reinforces the fact that you do not yet understand evolution. Also, there is no such thing as "progress" in evolution. The modern coelacanth is not less "progressed" than a frog. It is perfectly adapted for the current environment for which it lives. A frog is not objectively "better" than a coelecanth any more than a Hummer is objectively "better" than an Indy car. The Hummer is "better" than the Indy car over terrain and in fact the Indy car probably wouldn't survive some terrain that the Hummer can. But the Indy car is going to smoke the Hummer on the track where it is obviously "better".
My follow up would then be, based on how badly you botched the implications of this in your previous comments, do you understand WHY it is a stupid question? Please explain because it seems very contradictory that you would say 'yes' here yet repeatedly fail to USE that principle in you other communication.
Right there! You are shifting the goalposts! I was refuting your claim that we somehow cannot know what environment a creature was better adapted for by its fossil. Please NJ don't do this!
Yes! I am talking about germ line mutations! You are different from your parents by a number of genes on a factor of 100s or 1000s. These can only come from germ line mutations. You were claiming that this might be rare. My response it to show you that your assertion is false! Even within humans, enough mutation happens at each reproductive event to introduce new genetic material.
Maybe but it is my understanding that the various Cytochrome C sequences are functional. There may be reasons that a functional sequence might be reused by a 'designer' or other mechanism but there is NO reason that a non-functional sequence would be reused unless it is attained via ancestry.
Do you have anything to suggest that this is common and if so would result in a pattern that directly mimics what we would expect from ancestry?
How do you know this? I would not necessarily expect this. Do you have anything to back this statement up?
The more convergence you find the less and less likely it will be possible for it to happen by coincidence. The less and less likely it is a coincidence, the more strength is given to the theory that ancestry accounts for the situation better than accident or "stupid" design. It becomes a problem of compounded probabilities such as the ones that IDers like to use but in this case it uses numbers based on REAL evidence rather than ones in some invented hypothetically impossible model of evolution.
Given that most real scientists who do ID believe in common ancestry, I don't know how the comment really fits in. Behe and others are not trying to refute the common ancestry of humans and chimps.
The first thing I would do if I were you would be to recognize the fact that you are operating from a position of attacking an idea that you don't yet fully understand. If that is not obvious to you based on what I have been saying so far then might I suggest that you look inside yourself and ask yourself how confident you actually feel making some of the assertions that you do. The same thing happened to me recently with my son. Before he was born I was told all kinds of things about immunizations and how they were bad. I was all set to be one of those crazy people who don't immunize their children until we had our preliminary visit with our pediatrician. She made me realize that I had only ever exposed myself to information from people who had a dogmatic agenda against immunizations and suggested that I look at medical sources for both the real effects of choosing to immunize and not immunize. She also suggest I look at the history of WHY these people believe that immunizations are bad. I went back home, further educated myself, and realized the horror of the ignorance I was previously in. What was worse was that the position I took in ignorance could have impacted by beloved son in highly negative ways. My experience investigating this topic goes back 6 years now and includes a vigorous personal hobby of study along with some collegiate work in geology for majors. Like I said before, I was someone who was skeptical but very much rooting for the cause of creationism because I used to be a Pentecostal. I knew that this was important though so I knew I wanted to fully understand both sides. I read everything I could get my hands on about creationism. I have probably almost read every article on AiG and ICR. I have read a number of the standard creationist books. I took part in a christian bible study about the issue. The difference I think is that I ALSO studied deeply about evolution and mainstream geology. I bothered to read pretty much all of the TalkOrigins site which I think most dogmatic creationists and IDers that come here scoff at without ever giving it a chance. Even though I knew I didn't 'like' what I was reading I decided to stick it out because I wanted to KNOW what these people thought about evolution and why they thought it was so solid a theory. Can you say the same about your experiences reading information about evolution? I of course then had my classes in geology. This is where I believe most creationist operate from the most extreme cases of ignorance. I only made it up through sophomore geology and that was enough to figure out where, at least young earth creationist were fatally wrong. I think it was there that I started to notice the lying and the mental contortions that YECs go through in order to try to make their beliefs fit the evidence. There are many such as Snelling over at ICR that are flat out liars and conmen. I KNOW that because I have informed myself with enough basic knowledge to see how they craft things in such detail as to fool the uneducated. The omissions performed in the name of simplification are damning to their cause. The devil IS in the details and that is when I began to seriously suspect that the rest of their cause was similarly tainted. Lastly, regarding your comment about IC. IC systems have been shown to develop using genetic algorithms and even the founder of the principle of IC himself admits that non-direct evolutionary paths can lead to IC systems even if he personally finds it unlikely. What we are talking about with regard to nested and matching heirarchies is solid evidence. The inability of evolution to create IC systems has been refuted or at least stands on the very weak ground of a few isolated bricks of personal incredulity. The comparison you made is therefore not very apt at all. Regards and sorry for the length, Edited by AdminNWR, : fix formatting (bold not properly closed) Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
By all means take your time. I would rather this thread move slowly with good posts unlike some threads that work more like a chatroom.
Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
If you can find an instance of them NOT being wrong I would like to see it. The grand canyon dating project is a demonstrable fraud. Snelling KNEW that the dates from the basalts he tested would give him the age of the source and not the rock because he spoke about it ~5 years prior. Their writeups about the Coconino Sandstone ignore fundamental evidence like I described. Beyond that they have nothing.
Well, apparrently you do need a PhD or at least some basic schooling in geology because 1-4 are all totally wrong on a number of fundamental levels. 1. Fresh seashells should be found near a sea. Fossiliferous limestone containing seashells can be found in a number of places. The existence of seashells only indicates that the area was once underwater. Beyond that you are only projecting your own ignorant and hopeful assertion that a flood had anything to do with it. 2. The evidence indicates that where you currently live was not always 7000 ft. In fact, the evidence indicates that the area where you live has transitioned from land to ocean a number of times in the past. So if you want to claim that seashells being at 7000 feet is evidence for anything, you must realize that you are also IGNORING evidence that would lead you to a different conclusion that WOULD explain all the evidence. This is a perfect example of what I have been talking about. 3. There is NO evidence to suggest that certain natural artifacts MUST be destroyed and there is PLENTY of evidence that shows how geologic processes can and DO preserve these things. In fact, even in the most 'violent' of tectonic forces, fossils are often preserved to the point that they deform with the rock they are buried in. Guess what that means. That means the rock and the fossil contained within had to be solid or else there would be no physical reason for a fossil to "bend" with the rock. Fossils survive in some amazing circumstances and the geologic processes leave their marks to show us exactly how a particular fossil came to be in the position that it is. Do a search on this site for 'fossil strain' for some previous discussion about it. In short, #3 is TOTALLY based on your personal incredulity and COMPLETELY ignores the evidence to the contrary. 4. I don't even know what you are using to support this. It makes no sense at all. We know that seashells get buried by natural processes and we can watch this happening today. In fact, because of where they live, marine fossils are MORE likely to get buried by natural processes than exposed at the surface. This statement of yours is not only contrary to the evidence, it is contrary to common sense. 5. You didn't have a number 5 but I do. =) If you got these on top of the rim of the grand canyon then they must be on top of the Coconino Sandstone. This formation is unambiguously a land formation. Not only is there NO evidence that it was created underwater, there IS evidence that it is a desert formation. If you want to know why we can go into the details but suffice it to say that the shells you are looking at were put there after whatever process decided to dry out a vast ocean, bring in an unfathomable amount of sand using only wind, have animals walk around making burrows and leaving tracks, then bring the ocean back at some point to drop your shells. If you think this all happened by or during a global flood, then you need to figure out how and if you do then you will be the first one and I would be glad to see you in Stockholm to pick up your shiny medal.
Actually I am familiar with this argument and more familiar with why this argument is totally bogus. First of all, we know that rock deforms plastically (i.e. doesn't fracture) under heat and pressure. We can test this in the lab. Second, my previous comments about fossil strain (see #3 above) totally refute the 'soft sediment' hypothesis. Where the rocks are bent, the fossil and microstructures of the rock are also bent. This simply would not happen if the rock was 'squishy' when it was bent. If you disagree, the go ahead and try this experiment, get a bucket of mud, drop in some chicken bones, now bend and stretch the chicken bones, without breaking them, by only manipulating the mud. You will also need to stretch each individual partical of dirt and sand in the mud in the same direction that the bones go. Good luck.
This is a false statement by omission. Some rocks form in a matter of minutes, some undeniably take thousands if not millions of year. There is NO valid creationist explanation for why limestone, evaporites, granite, metamorphic rocks, or any well ordered fine sediment rock would not take the vastly long periods of time that they obviously should without fundamentally altering the physics AND chemestry of the universe. How you are supposed to get meters upon meters of gypsum, salt, etc during the middle of a raging world flood is beyond me and so far has been beyond creationists. There is something fundamental about a rock that requires constant cycles of drying to form that tends to invalidate the world being covered in water. This is especially true for these kinds of deposits that have MORE "flood" deposits on top of them.
THis is a favorite hat trick of creationists and AGAIN it is relies upon IGNORING the evidence. Under certain conditions and given a different chemistry, lime/calcium will percipitate out of water faster and create stalagtites and stalagmites in a matter of weeks/months/years. But this does not meant that these are the conditions that exist in the areas where REAL geologists who DO examine the conditions claim that certain formations take a lot longer. The same problem exists for fossilization. Yes you can create and find situations where things become well preserved quickly. But if you are going to claim that this is how it ALWAYS happens you have to do so in IGNORANCE of the other evidence that shows that it can and does often take a long time.
This is pure and aggregious equivocation! Dating fossils and dating rocks is a very different kind of activity! First and foremost, you DON'T radioactive date fossils!
Let me ask you this NJ, did you even read the article I linked about the isochron method? Please answer that first. Second, if you are going to claim that scientists throw out data to fit some preconception then I think I am going to have to question how you know this. All you are doing his is putting out an assertion with no way for your audience to examine its voracity. Even if there was some dates that were disregarded, how are we supposed to know if there was not a very good reason to do so. Remember NJ, these types of scientific endevors are forensic by nature. There are often cases that arise that mean certain things cannot be dated or information is later obtained that shows that certain dates are either invalid or point to a different thing. I'll point to my previous example of how sometimes when radiometric dating a rock, it gives you the last time the rock underwent a heating event. The evidence for this may not be discovered until after the rock has been dated so for a short time their may be some mystery as to why a particular rock dates younger in comparison to its neighbors. The only people who worry about these mysteries are people trying to discredit the science. They often do so by omitting the relevant evidence that the professionals ARE aware of in their investigation. SO you go onto some creationist website and read about such and such date being wrong while in reality the situation is far more complicated. There IS a reason why the people who investigate these things dedicate their lives to their study. Proper investigation into these things OFTEN requires more expertise than some asshat on the internet. The devil is in the details and so far you have no details.
Because often there is more to be known about WHY the dates are weird than just to pidgeon hole things. There are no scientists who get accolades for figuring out, "yep things are just like we knew them to be!" Your charges of what essentially amounts to FRAUD are both aggregious and evidenceless.
You have seen the shells yourself but have you also seen the layers that are beneath them? Have you understood the implications of all the evidence combined? Do you even know what all the evidence is? Are you just ignoring all that evidence because you are so convinced by some "damn shells" that you don't think you need to both questioning that you might be wrong or that you might be ill informed?
So your response it so list a handful of folks who happen to incorporate evolution into their theology? You think this is somehow convincing? By the way, you mentioned Miller. This wouldn't be the famous Miller who is the author of biology textbooks? The same Miller who is a professed CHRISTIAN!? If it is the same Miller, what is his agenda? If it is the same Miller then aren't you embarassed to comment about people and things for which you haven't bothered to check out? How frightening a prospect is it going to be for him if evolution is wrong? Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 2695 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
There is no rush and no time tables on replies. I just didn't want you to forget about this thread unless you want to let it go. If so, just let me know.
In the mean time here are a few pictures of fossil and rock strain. I used to have some better pictures but I can't seem to find them anymore. I'll look harder later. http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/geolsci/dlr/106s_03/4day/d0501.jpg {ABE: Edited by Jazzns, : Added symmetry comment and wikipedia link. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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