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12 Nov 14
Lesson 1: Thread 161600
Lesson 2: Evolution is a gradual process.
It's not: monkey -> monkey -> monkey -> human. The progeny is always the same species as the progenitor(s). Dawkins gave an excellent analogy using age. It's not that you go to bed in the evening and in the morning you're old. It's a smooth, hardly noticable process of change from hour to hour, and then years later you realise you're in a very different body from how it used to be; you're old. Speciation is also a smooth, hardly noticable process on the surface, and then one day the difference between the original population and the latest is so big, that you in fact have a new species.
Now, you might argue that if it's so slow and gradual, how can we know it's really happening, and what a good question that is too.
Just as age is eventually evident, so is speciation evident after the fact. If we leave the fossil record, homology, vestigial organs and the like aside, perhaps the best evidence is the genome. If you take your children's DNA and compare them, you will find ever so slight changes in them, yet it will be obvious they are not one and the same, and they share parents. You can do this to figure out that a bunch of cousins have the same grandad, and that a bunch of people have a common ancestor from europe, or africa.
Now, when we look at different species and the exact same kind of evidence points to the exact same conclusion, logic dictates that we must follow this evidence where it leads: to accept common descent for all living things.
As we learned in lesson 1, this claim is falsifiable. Find a species whose DNA doesn't appear to fit the hierarchial nature of things, and evolution is a bust.
13 Nov 14
Originally posted by C HessThis is ridiculous. Humans may change some, but they always remain humans until they die. The same goes for monkeys, horses, bears, birds, and any other kind of animal. Slight changes is not evolution, numbnuts.
Lesson 1: Thread 161600
Lesson 2: Evolution is a gradual process.
It's not: monkey -> monkey -> monkey -> human. The progeny is always the same species as the progenitor(s). Dawkins gave an excellent analogy using age. It's not that you go to bed in the evening and in the morning you're old. It's a smooth, hardly noticable process of chan ...[text shortened]... ecies whose DNA doesn't appear to fit the hierarchial nature of things, and evolution is a bust.
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by C HessThere is a version of evolutionary theory called "punctuated equilibrium", due to Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, where species are stable over long periods of time and then undergo rapid evolution. Although even in that theory I think that the changes happen over tens of thousands of years rather than a week, as the fundamentalists like to describe it.
Lesson 1: Thread 161600
Lesson 2: Evolution is a gradual process.
It's not: monkey -> monkey -> monkey -> human. The progeny is always the same species as the progenitor(s). Dawkins gave an excellent analogy using age. It's not that you go to bed in the evening and in the morning you're old. It's a smooth, hardly noticable process of chan ...[text shortened]... ecies whose DNA doesn't appear to fit the hierarchial nature of things, and evolution is a bust.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtThere is creation by God in six days. There has been changes to living things by adaptation in the last 6,000 years, but not by evolution, which is nothing but a magic word used to create an imaginary illusion. Darwinian evolution is so GRADUAL that it has not yet happened nor will it ever happen. 😏
There is a version of evolutionary theory called "punctuated equilibrium", due to Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, where species are stable over long periods of time and then undergo rapid evolution. Although even in that theory I think that the changes happen over tens of thousands of years rather than a week, as the fundamentalists like to describe it.
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14 Nov 14
1 edit
Originally posted by RJHindsHere's what I want you to do, this will be your assignment for the week. I remember we did this back in kindergarten. It's quite fun.
This is ridiculous. Humans may change some, but they always remain humans until they die. The same goes for monkeys, horses, bears, birds, and any other kind of animal. Slight changes is not evolution, numbnuts.
1. Draw a shape on a piece of paper, and then hand it over to a friend.
2. Now, your friend draws that shape on a new piece of paper (but there must be one tiny change in it), and hands it over to another friend. Your drawing is handed over to the kindergarten lady.
3. The next friend draws a copy of the previous friend's shape (with one tiny change in it), and hands it over to the next friend. The drawing from the previous friend is handed over to the kindergarten lady.
Keep doing step 3 until all the kids have drawn the shape, and then put the results up on a wall. If you're many kids doing this, the end result will look quite different from the original.
Have fun.
Oh, and whomever's currently drawing must only know about the previous drawing. This is important.
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by RJHindsThe evolution of some wolves into the hundreds of breeds of dogs is hardly a "slight change". Their DNA has changed. While in elementary school I did a science project on the evolution of the horse and learned that 10 million years ago horses were approx. the size of a house cat. Fossil evidence was quite easy to find (even in the 60's). 😛😛😛
This is ridiculous. Humans may change some, but they always remain humans until they die. The same goes for monkeys, horses, bears, birds, and any other kind of animal. Slight changes is not evolution, numbnuts.
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14 Nov 14
Originally posted by DeepThoughtWhatever evolutionary mechanism is proposed, it's gradual: the progeny must always be the same species as the progenitor (cladogenesis is no different). Creationists love to bring up the cambrian explosion, same as Gould, but that "explosion" took millions of years, so it was most certainly gradual (if something of a leap on the overall evolutionary timescale).
There is a version of evolutionary theory called "punctuated equilibrium", due to Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, where species are stable over long periods of time and then undergo rapid evolution. Although even in that theory I think that the changes happen over tens of thousands of years rather than a week, as the fundamentalists like to describe it.
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14 Nov 14
Originally posted by RJHindsThe irony being that any sane evolutionary biologist would be embarrassed to promote the kind of pushed on steroids level evolution that creationists propose took place "within kinds" in the last four thousand years alone. That's microevolution taken to the extreme and far, far beyond. It's actually quite hilarious.
There is creation by God in six days. There has been changes to living things by adaptation in the last 6,000 years...
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by caissad4You learned wrong. There were no horses 10 million years ago. 😏
The evolution of some wolves into the hundreds of breeds of dogs is hardly a "slight change". Their DNA has changed. While in elementary school I did a science project on the evolution of the horse and learned that 10 million years ago horses were approx. the size of a house cat. Fossil evidence was quite easy to find (even in the 60's). 😛😛😛
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by C HessIt is just imagined that it took a long time. But event the evolutionary scientist say it was sudden on their time scale with no transitional fossils in sight. 😏
Whatever evolutionary mechanism is proposed, it's gradual: the progeny must always be the same species as the progenitor (cladogenesis is no different). Creationists love to bring up the cambrian explosion, same as Gould, but that "explosion" took millions of years, so it was most certainly gradual (if something of a leap on the overall evolutionary timescale).
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by C HessI have long outgrown your kindergarten fun. Here is a lesson you need to teach you what is Intelligent design.
Here's what I want you to do, this will be your assignment for the week. I remember we did this back in kindergarten. It's quite fun.
1. Draw a shape on a piece of paper, and then hand it over to a friend.
2. Now, your friend draws that shape on a new piece of paper (but there must be one tiny change in it), and hands it over to another friend. Your drawi ...[text shortened]... , and whomever's currently drawing must only know about the previous drawing. This is important.
What is Intelligent Design?
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14 Nov 14
Originally posted by RJHindsI try my best to enlighten you to a very simple concept that you seem unaware of, and you respond with "philosophical" ID-propaganda? That's just rude, man. That's just rude.
I have long outgrown your kindergarten fun. Here is a lesson you need to teach you what is Intelligent design.
What is Intelligent Design?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJIbcE0kOAs
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14 Nov 14
Originally posted by RJHindsWell, I took the time looking through the video, hoping it might be interesting, and parts of it was. He says that ID doesn't refute evolution in so far as adapation or common descent goes (which I found remarkable - since most ID-proponents I've heard denies even the possibility of common descent - though I think I know why he's doing this, as I'll get back to). He says he's sceptical about common descent (which is fine - scepticism is good), but that he doesn't see it as the big problem. He then says that his whole argument is that if it appears designed it probably is designed. He is of course wrong about that, and so the rest of the talk builds on that wrong assumption, but I can live with that. I guess this is how most religious scientists view things. We can't easily explain complexity so therefore god exists.
I have long outgrown your kindergarten fun. Here is a lesson you need to teach you what is Intelligent design.
What is Intelligent Design?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJIbcE0kOAs
That's fine, on a religious level. But it is essentially the argument from ignorance, and so he fails to convince that what he's doing is scientific. He's decided beforehand that only intelligence can produce new information. He's wrong.
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v14/n9/box/nrg3521_BX1.html
But even if I couldn't give examples (and I could give quite a few), where new information is formed without intelligence producing it, he can't just decide that information requires a designer, because there's no way we can confirm it. How would we confirm that this is so? First we have to agree what kind of information we're talking about. Yes, information like the complete works of shakespeare is unlikely to form through natural processes alone. But is DNA like that? No, absolutely not. It's more like simple machine language instructions for how a cell can chain together amino acids into different proteins (and some RNA). Well, that sounds complicated enough, but is it really? No, it's not. You need only play around with the DNA a little and notice that it's very hard to break the machinery as it were, with the wrong instructions (this is the reason why we can take genes from one organism and insert into another and get working results). Proteins will form almost no matter what instructions you give. Thus, many random combinations (within protein-coding genes) will produce some kind of protein, and it's all just a matter of cells forming proteins that happens to be useful to their own survival for life to evolve. Those that do, survive, and their "version" of the "program" survives with them, giving the foundation for further working changes down the road. We have the ability to test this directly now, which I suspect is the reason why Meyer now backs off from the common ID-position a little bit and instead of flat-out rejecting the idea of common descent, merely points out that he's sceptical. But that would also mean that he's aware that DNA guides the cell to produce some kind of protein almost no matter what, which in turns means that a blind natural selection process can produce working complexity, which means he's incredibly dishonest when he claims that only intelligent agents produce the kind of information you find in DNA. That is demonstrably false, and why ID-proponents like Meyer should be continuously shunned by the scientific community at large.
Unless, of course, they produce a working scientific theory, which is unlikely, because at the very end he argues that the scientific method should be altered to allow supernatural explanations, and again he's so wrong. Next thing you know astrology, homeopathy and alchemy are all considered scientifically valid, and science will collapse into some form of nothingness; be useless for practical purposes.
14 Nov 14
Originally posted by C HessIt is not an argument from ignorance, but an argument from what we know about how the world works. Complex programming to perform useful functions always requires an intelligent programmer to do the programming in the real world that we know. That may not be so in your imaginary and magic world of evolution, but I live in the real world and think logically and reasonably about these things. 😏
Well, I took the time looking through the video, hoping it might be interesting, and parts of it was. He says that ID doesn't refute evolution in so far as adapation or common descent goes (which I found remarkable - since most ID-proponents I've heard denies even the possibility of common descent - though I think I know why he's doing this, as I'll get back ...[text shortened]... lid, and science will collapse into some form of nothingness; be useless for practical purposes.
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14 Nov 14
Originally posted by RJHindsIn light of what you just wrote, explain these observations:
It is not an argument from ignorance, but an argument from what we know about how the world works. Complex programming to perform useful functions always requires an intelligent programmer to do the programming in the real world that we know. That may not be so in your imaginary and magic world of evolution, but I live in the real world and think logically and reasonably about these things. 😏
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v14/n9/box/nrg3521_BX1.html