The Theory of Evolution - perfect?

[PauloL]

The only creationist theory I've read to these days is Michael Behe's irreducible complexity, because that looks enough scientific at least.

My opinion about irreducible complexity: complete nonsense. Just like Evolutionism.

I asked questions here, and await answers, if there are any.

The only proof cloned Evolutionauts found was whales (!). But that evidence is quite weak, as I demonstrated.

[Harbal]

My opinion about irreducible complexity: complete nonsense. Just like Evolutionism.

So enlighten us with the truth.

[PauloL]

I am not against evolution.

All DNA molecules in all known life forms have configuration of a right-handed helix.

There's no fundamental reason it couldn't be left-handed, and there would be both configurations on Earth if that occurred by hazard.

So all must have started with a single living ancestor. This is irrefutable evidence. And this is falsifiable.

But there's no evidence for natural selection, unless that's supernatural selection.

Of course cockroaches were selected. But there was no evolution (and Nobel Prize Morgan agrees with me).

[Harbal]

But there was no evolution

But you won't tell us what the alternative is, what are you afraid of?

[Conde Lucanor]

Then of course you're free not to discuss it.

The real point the author (a professor emeritus of philosophy at Simon Fraser University) is making is that it is a mistake to think in terms of "laws" that "govern" the universe. That is why the very word "law" is suspect because it implies that physical laws have some kind of "force" over nature. Rather, what we call "laws" are actually descriptions of physical regularities.

Regardless of his intentions, whatever the point he's trying to make, professor emeritus is not making it.

[davidm]

I’m not going to be reading or responding to PauLol’s posts any longer, because it’s simply stupid to debate creationists. When he writes that he “doesn’t see the evidence,” he really means, “I won’t see the evidence.” But creationists still like to debate, because they hope to sow doubts in the minds of people who don’t know that much about evolution and aren’t really in a position to assess competing claims. To sow these doubts, creationists deploy an arsenal of dishonest debating tactics: Erecting and attacking strawmen, moving the goalposts, changing the subject, demanding evidence and when given the evidence demanding yet more, and so on. A perfect example of how creationists behave is found in the first paragraph of the whale evolution essay at Talk Origins, here

Still, for any interested, I thought it’d be worth focusing a bit more on some of things PauLol has said and claimed in this thread. I wanted to focus on this particular inanity:

Rapid evolution is exciting. I checked this one.

Well, the poison selected out cockroaches that tasted glucose sweet and selected in those that tasted glucose bitter (so good for their teeth, too). Great, David. You deserve some pats on the back (just kidding). Like Morgan said, evolution means producing new things, not more of what exists.

In addition to the manifest dishonesty of this post, note the smug condescension, the cloying little “gotcha” attitude, the unwarranted high self-regard — and, most important, that his claim is utterly wrong.

The cockroach glucose-aversion behavior is a spendid example of evolution in action — indeed, it’s a textbook example of evolution, along with my earlier example of the nylon-eating bacteria.

Notice again two things he wrote: “Rapid evolution is exciting.”

Full stop. How does he define “rapid” in the context of evolutionary change? No definition is given.

Then he finishes up, after deploying his smarmy condescension, with what he fantasizes to be his killer rhetorical garroting: “Like Morgan said, evolution means producing new things, not more of what exists.”

What does he mean by new things? He gives no answer. This is called moving the goalposts. I give him a textbook example of evolution in action, and the goalposts are moved — now he demands that evolution produce this mysterious, ill-defined “new thing.”

New — how? Something completely different from, and unrelated to, all that came before? Or — maybe a dog giving birth to a cat?

If either of the above were to be observed happening in nature, the theory of evolution would be falsified, not confirmed! The cockroach example, however, is exactly what the theory predicts.

Here is a good working definition of evolution: Incremental change in gene frequencies over time, primarily because of natural selection and genetic drift. Here, under the correct definition of evolution, the only thing new from generation to generation is a changing gene pool. That’s it! And that’s exactly what happened with the roaches, via random mutation and natural selection. Textbook evolution!

If by “new” he means “big changes in a very short time,” THAT kind of “rapid evolution” simply does not happen — in fact, again, if that did happen, the theory of evolution would be falsified. Big changes take a long time, by human standards, to happen in evolution. The land mammal to whale evolution took about 15 million years — far outside the human time frame, but a mere drop in the bucket in the much more extensive geologic time, the arena of “deep time.”

[davidm]

Bear in mind that PauLol stated that cockroaches have not evolved in hundreds of millions of years. The example I gave shows they are evolving even as we speak. Speciation events among roaches, or distinctive changes in phenotypes, will be expected to take much longer. The cockroach example fits to a T how evolution actually works, as opposed to PauLol's strawman caricature of it.

[PauloL]

I’m not going to be reading or responding to PauLol’s posts any longer, because it’s simply stupid to debate creationists.

Who do you think you are to judge me? I haven't so far presented but objective and purely scientific evidence. Can you demonstrate otherwise?

Still, for any interested, I thought it’d be worth focusing a bit more on some of things PauLol has said and claimed in this thread. I wanted to focus on this particular inanity:

Rapid evolution is exciting. I checked this one.

Well, the poison selected out cockroaches that tasted glucose sweet and selected in those that tasted glucose bitter (so good for their teeth, too). Great, David. You deserve some pats on the back (just kidding). Like Morgan said, evolution means producing new things, not more of what exists.

In addition to the manifest dishonesty of this post, note the smug condescension, the cloying little “gotcha” attitude, the unwarranted high self-regard — and, most important, that his claim is utterly wrong.

Can you show me and the other members bothering to read you where's my dishonesty? Further, my claimed is based solely on the article presented by you.

The cockroach glucose-aversion behavior is a spendid example of evolution in action — indeed, it’s a textbook example of evolution, along with my earlier example of the nylon-eating bacteria.

Notice again two things he wrote: “Rapid evolution is exciting.”

Full stop. How does he define “rapid” in the context of evolutionary change? No definition is given.

You offered an example of rapid evolution as the link itself reads. Now you attack me for not defining it?

Refresh you memory:

How pesticides pushed cockroaches into rapid evolution.

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Then he finishes up, after deploying his smarmy condescension, with what he fantasizes to be his killer rhetorical garroting: “Like Morgan said, evolution means producing new things, not more of what exists.”

Is that incorrect? So how do you defend your "smarmy condescension" and "killer rhetorical garroting"?

What does he mean by new things? He gives no answer.

Perhaps you should ask Morgan.

New — how? Something completely different from, and unrelated to, all that came before? Or — maybe a dog giving birth to a cat?

Perhaps you should ask Morgan.

If either of the above were to be observed happening in nature, the theory of evolution would be falsified, not confirmed! The cockroach example, however, is exactly what the theory predicts.

Here is a good working definition of evolution: Incremental change in gene frequencies over time, primarily because of natural selection and genetic drift.

Here, under the correct definition of evolution, the only thing new from generation to generation is a changing gene pool. That’s it! And that’s exactly what happened with the roaches, via random mutation and natural selection. Textbook evolution!

That's your personal definition of evolution for the sake of counter-argumenting. Poor argumentation indeed. I said before that not one single cockroach showed up. Only frequencies changed. Again, that doesn't refute that cockroaches didn't evolve for over 200 million years.

If by “new” he means “big changes in a very short time,” THAT kind of “rapid evolution” simply does not happen — in fact, again, if that did happen, the theory of evolution would be falsified. Big changes take a long time, by human standards, to happen in evolution. The land mammal to whale evolution took about 15 million years — far outside the human time frame, but a mere drop in the bucket in the much more extensive geologic time, the arena of “deep time.”

I told you that Rodhocetus was a hoax created by Gingerich, who later admitted that and I quoted his very words. At the time he only had part of the skull of a Rodhocetus. Remnants later found didn't corroborate his "visions" and he conceded that. They keep using his "visions" as evidence, quite unscientifically, that' s a fact well known to Evolutionauts.

[Greta]

Evolution is simply real, along with creativity, disease, individuality, imagination, maturity, development and so on. It is what reality does. There can be no logical dispute, only quibbles about relatively minor details.

Evolution is just what growth and development looks like from inside viewpoint. People tend to be confused by the time scales, as though reality began with the advent of humans, and thinking in those small time scales. We blithely toss of terms like "million" or "billion" in an abstract way that does no justice to the terms. A million year is beyond the human capacity to comprehend, and a billion years is so far beyond a million that our little brains have no hope.

So when we find fossils that are billions of years old, no matter how bizarre and unlikely they may seem, we have to accept them because deep time is as far beyond human comprehension as deep space. By the same token we must accept the bizarre findings in space. We can't go imposing artificial creationist ideas on to fossil evidence that clearly shows the gradations of species over time.

Logically, of course nature will gradually evolve with occasional emergent jumps. As a beginner musician I was lucky enough to have a world renowned musician give me a little advice - that learning is a plateau-by-plateau process. I have since found that dynamic generally describes developmental processes such as learning, creating, building trust, and even our lives themselves tend towards slow change marked by major events.

Darwin was right. The question is only in the detail.

[PauloL]

Nice thoughts. Just a remark, if you don't mind me asking: can you name a few fossils billions of years old? (unless you use billion as 2 million, in that case discard). You're a musician. Really cool. I'd like to be one, too. That permeates the way you write, it's natural, but it's not that bad from a scientific point of view. I like particularly "Darwin was right. The question is only in the detail." It's stylish indeed. Its chromatic harmony makes me recall Mozart and all. Much better than Hamlet's "to be or not to be, that is the question". I hope you won't lose stamina and keep contributing and improving.

[davidm]

Evolution is simply real, along with creativity, disease, individuality, imagination, maturity, development and so on. It is what reality does. There can be no logical dispute, only quibbles about relatively minor details.

Evolution is just what growth and development looks like from inside viewpoint. People tend to be confused by the time scales, as though reality began with the advent of humans, and thinking in those small time scales. We blithely toss of terms like "million" or "billion" in an abstract way that does no justice to the terms. A million year is beyond the human capacity to comprehend, and a billion years is so far beyond a million that our little brains have no hope.

So when we find fossils that are billions of years old, no matter how bizarre and unlikely they may seem, we have to accept them because deep time is as far beyond human comprehension as deep space. By the same token we must accept the bizarre findings in space. We can't go imposing artificial creationist ideas on to fossil evidence that clearly shows the gradations of species over time.

Logically, of course nature will gradually evolve with occasional emergent jumps. As a beginner musician I was lucky enough to have a world renowned musician give me a little advice - that learning is a plateau-by-plateau process. I have since found that dynamic generally describes developmental processes such as learning, creating, building trust, and even our lives themselves tend towards slow change marked by major events.

Darwin was right. The question is only in the detail.

Exactly right. I couldn’t have said it better. Thank you.

Earlier I posted a short video of whale evolution. What I’m posting below is a different video of whale evolution that is some ten minutes long. The evolution is so slow, so incremental, that you may get bored watching it. But keep this in mind: This ten-minute video is compressing some 15 million years of evolution into ten minutes.

Just imagine how bored you’d be watching a video 15 million years long!

Whalevolution

Also note that, contrary to PauLol’s scientific illiteracy, evolution is not crafting something new here — if by “new” we mean something “totally novel.” It is, in a stepwise incremental fashion, modifying pre-existent forms. And in point of fact, the final product, after 15 million years (10 minutes on the vid) is really not that much different from the original. This is why evolution is also called “descent with modification.”

As Darwin noted, there is grandeur in a mindless process rolling out such wonderful forms. No silly God needed.

[Greta]

Cheers David, and thanks for seemingly loving nature and evolution as much as I do. I would have liked to have said it better - too many typos and missing words, corrected below. Had my mother been alive she would have had my guts for garters lol

Sans typos:

Evolution is simply real, along with creativity, disease, individuality, imagination, maturity, development and so on. It is what reality does. There can be no logical dispute, only quibbles about relatively minor details.

Evolution is just what growth and development looks like from an inside viewpoint. People tend to be confused by the time scales, as though reality began with the advent of humans, and think in those small time scales. We blithely toss off terms like "millions" or "billions" in an abstract way that does no justice to the scale of the terms. A million years is beyond the human capacity to comprehend, and a billion years is so far beyond a million that our little brains have no hope.

So when we find fossils that are billions of years old, no matter how bizarre and unlikely they may seem, we have to accept them because deep time is as far beyond human comprehension as is deep space. By the same token we must accept the bizarre findings in space. We can't go imposing artificial creationist ideas on to fossil evidence that clearly shows the gradations of species over time.

Logically, of course nature will gradually evolve with occasional emergent jumps. As a beginner musician I was lucky enough to have a world-renowned musician give me a little advice - that learning is a plateau-by-plateau process. I have since found that dynamic generally describes developmental processes such as learning, creating, building trust, and even our lives themselves tend towards slow change marked by major events.

Darwin was right. The question is only in the detail.

PauLoL, hopefully the slightly tweaked musicality of the above meets with your approval :). I won't provide fossils billions of years old for you because the contract security officers of the natural history museum in which I worked in the prior millennium would not appreciate having a former staff member jemmying her way into the palaeontology collection to find some pieces of stromatolites just to prove a point on a forum.

[PauloL]

First, in the sake of justice, Greta is right on billion-year-old fossils. No need to steal one from museum.

Well, apart from that detail, the show must go on:

Thewissen agrees that the hippo hypothesis holds much more appeal than it once did. But he cautions that the morphological data do not yet point to a particular artiodactyl, such as the hippo, being the whale’s closest relative, or sister group. “We don’t have the resolution yet to get them there,” he remarks, “but I think that will come.”

Investigators agree that figuring out the exact relationship between whales and artiodactyls will most likely require finding additional fossils—particularly those that can illuminate the beginnings of artiodactyls in general and hippos in particular.

In: Scientific American May 2002.

I think Scientific American is neither a creationist, Mormon, theist nor whatever but it's your choice to decide.

Again and again, Evolutionauts evidence is supported by imperfection of geological data. But they think it will come. Popper forgot to contemplate this kind of scientific evidence (thinking it will come).

Evolutionauts imagine fossils never seen to complete their thoughts. They think it will come and I hope so.

If you look at the chart on whales evolution, there are 8 common ancestors for which not even a fossil tooth has ever been seen. Apart from that, let's think a little: it's awesome that each never-seen ancestor always extinguished after (and never before) they gave rise to the next ancestor until whales showed up. Greatest dumb luck of all.

Until evidence comes, Evolutionauts are best supported by cockroaches with rapid evolution, that is creating more of what exits instead of creating something new. You can call it a change in genetic pool, it looks much more evolutionish.

In Thomas Morgan words, a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, who I think was neither a creationist, Mormon, theist nor whatever but it's your choice to decide:

"Selection, then, has not produced anything new, but only more of certain kinds of individuals. Evolution, however, means producing new things, not more of what exists."

An imaginary argument between Evolutionauts:

- Well, we miss a lot of things indeed, but I think it will come.
- You're wrong this time, I don't think it will come.
- Look at this evidence, it proves I think it will come.
- Rights, that's irrefutable. It's proven, now I think you think it will come.

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Evolutionism, like Physicalism, is supported by strong beliefs, not empirical evidence. I can't think otherwise as I analyze either deeper and deeper. Evolutionauts don't help, as we see.

[Greta]

Evolutionauts? Do you call people "snowflakes" too?

[uwot]

Evolutionism, like Physicalism, is supported by strong beliefs, not empirical evidence. I can't think otherwise as I analyze either deeper and deeper. Evolutionauts don't help, as we see.

Well, as you analyse deeper and deeper, you might consider how to account for the fossil evidence. Given that an estimated 99% of species that have ever lived, are now extinct, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction ) if those creatures didn't evolve into others, every single one presumably spontaneously appeared with no ancestors. While biologists regularly find new species of creepy crawly in areas that are sparsely researched, there is no record of any vertebrate suddenly appearing out of nowhere. If evolution is not a fact, there should be.