Challenging Evolution

razzelflabben · #**1031** 18th August 2004, 11:15 PM

[quote=gluadys]Do you mean "not answered"? What questions were not answered?

Or do you really mean "not asked"? Do you have more questions you haven't asked yet?I am staying up to try to catch up, but I feel like I am missing a lot by doing so. I'll give it a shot. Some of my questions have gone unanswered, but most have been answered. I accept the answers but do not accept that it provides overwhelming evidence to support the TOE. To many questions still exist for us to know with certainty what is and is not when we are talking about the origins of the world. Why is this so hard to understand? I understand at least most of what you are saying as to the evidence to support the theory, but simply find to many questions and possibilities to call the evidence conclusive or overwhelming. So if that makes me stupid, then I wear the title proudly. It that makes me uninformed, than again, I wear the name proudly. I would rather assume to not know truth and continue in the quest than to assume what is not there an cease looking.

I am using the definition you gave as a working definition of TOC. That does not mean I accept the theory.

That is up to you.

Come on. No one is saying you are dense to say what cannot reproduce must become extinct. That is something we all agree is self-evident. All we are showing you is that it is not a problem for evolution because there are still plenty of species reproducing and evolving.

Actually, there have been many posts showing me that population a and b produce c and c cannot reproduce with a or b but can with c, which is totally not what I was saying and a concept I got many moons ago. I am not ignorant, but I do seek to know truth, not just assume to know it.

You did not understand that species usually begin as populations not pairs of one male-one female. So you saw what seemed to be a real problem. But now, you see, I hope, that it is not a problem, because there are lots of organisms in the new species, so reproduction continues easily.

I understand your position better, but I still see a real problem, because the single cell populations would at some point have to produce compatable organisms in male and female genders.

We just didn't understand why you were seeing a problem none of us could see.

I don't know, maybe it is the glass is half full, the glass is half empty thing.

Yes, as I said, the definition of kinds as populations that "reproduce after themselves" is identical to the scientific definition of species. So this says "kinds" = "species".

The problem comes with the next part: "life was created after its kind". You see we know from observation that some species (=kinds) were not directly created. We know from observation that they have evolved from other species (=kinds).

but the quote says, life was created after its kind. Life being different from reproducing. Reproducing is part of the equation, but not all of it.

So if "kinds" = "species" then the TOC has been falsified because we know of existing "kinds" which were not directly created. We know they evolved from other "kinds".

That is the equivalent of saying that we know that evolution does not exist because there was no living cell to start the whole process. Even the TOC allows for the process of life. We have a beginning and a process, to deny the TOC the process is simply not fair rules.

Well, this is related to my issue with you. You claim that evolution is not a fact.

Speciation is a fact, evolution is a theory.

But it is. You have claimed that someone who says evolution is a fact does not understand the TOE. But most people who say evolution is a fact understand the TOE very well. I am not trying to show you evolution is possible. You already know that. I am trying to show you that evolution has happened and is happening and will probably continue to happen as long as there is life on earth.

Actually, I am too tired to know what I said, but what I mean is that people who claim the TOE fail to understand what theory is. Theory cannot be fact. It is the nature of theory. To claim it as fact, is to ignore what a theory is.

That is not going off topic.

Actually, the main topic has become whether or not there is overwhelming evidence for the TOE, not what the evidence is or suggests. If we make assumptions, guesses, predictions, we still lack overwhelming evidence.

This only means we have talked too much about one evidence for evolution and not enough about other evidences. I am glad to see you acknowledge that the fossil record does overwhelmingly support TOE. We can move on to other evidences, and you will find this is true of all of them.

I think I said I would not argue with that, not that I agreed with the statement. I think a better statement would be that the TOE overwhelmingly supports the fossil record. But oh well.

You said that when the TOC says creatures reproduce after their kind, it did not mean an exact "cookie cutter" copy, but only similarity.

Delt with,

But as far as I can see, TOC only says "reproduce after their kind"? So where does TOC predict that "after their kind" does not mean "exact copy"? Why couldn't it be an exact copy?

It does not specify one or the other, but allows room for the prediction in that if a creature was to reproduce after it's kind, then in the case of male and female, the offspring would not be identical.

No, you are making this up as you go along. How does "reproduce after their kind" become a prediction of "some by cloning and some by sexual reproduction"? The biblical definition says nothing at all about how creatures will reproduce after their kind. You are adding that in. But you can't add it in to a theory until you show how the theory predicts that.

Okay, look at it this way. I tell you that I am going to make cookies the same way my mother made them. Does that mean that I am going to clone her every move, or that I am going to make then using the same process that she did? The logical answer would be same process. If I am reproducing after my kind, that would mean, that same process of reproduction that my kind uses. If that is asexual, then I would reproduce asexually. If that was male and female, then that is how I would reproduce.

more serious objection to TOC is that even if we accept that there are two modes of reproduction (asexual, sexual), TOC still does not tell us how these methods of reproduction assure that offspring will be the same kind as the parent. How can we be sure that a fig tree will produce figs and not thistles? How does the TOC explain the mechanism that makes sure that reproduction will be "after their kind"?

How many observations have been made that show that when a dog has pups, they are pups and not some other creature? But, I forgot, the TOC cannot be observed through scientific methods. I alway forget that one.

, as shown above, the predictions are bogus. You just threw them in. You did not derive them from the theory.

Yeah sure, if you say so, so many people on this thread seem to know what I believe and say before I ever get a chance to say what I think and believe. You really taught me a lesson about what I believe and how that belief stacks up to the scientific evidence. Thanks, I don't think I could have gotten through life without that lesson in reality.

s perfectly ok for TOC to change to fit the evidence. All good theories do this. What is remarkable is that the evidence has always led the TOC to mimic TOE, never the reverse.

I have heard this many times here as well and find it totally amazing that this claim is made when the TOC clearly predates the TOE.

1.yes
2. This is not a legitimate part of the theory since it is not derived from the proposition that living things reproduce "after their kind."
3. If "kind"="species", this has been falsified for we know of species which evolved from other kinds instead of being directly created.
4. You want to bet? There is a group (fruitcakes to be sure) which claim they have already cloned a human. They have not produced evidence, so I don't believe they have. But theoretically, it is perfectly possible to clone humans. We have cloned sheep and cats and other animals, so it is likely that unless there is universal agreement not to try, someone will clone a human before the next century is out.
5. The evidence says humans evolved from an earlier species. Humans are not a directly created kind. They are male and female because they evolved from a sexually reproducing species.

Which brings up my alien/cloneing theory which no one is brave enough to comment on.

Is that enough to clarify the matter?
You mean unique to TOE don't you? All 29 are unique to TOE. Every single one is a falsification of TOC. As for those which do not depend on the fossil record, I counted 22 of the 29 which are not related to the fossil record.

He doesn't use a straightforward numbering system of 1-29, but divides the material into 5 parts, so that each piece of evidence has a number such as 2.3 or 5.1. Judging only from the titles, the sections I found that seem to fit your criteria are: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.5, all of parts 3 & 4 and all of part 5 except 5.4.

Yep, again, we can disreguard the scientist that write the papers claims that it is not proof, because clearly the E here know more than the scientist that are writing the papers.

razzelflabben · #**1032** 18th August 2004, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by gluadys

Oh, you are going to have to explain this one to me.

You have stated:

Now when a speciation event occurs, part of the kind will no longer reproduce with another part of the kind. (Each part can keep reproducing with its own section of the kind, so there is no problem with reproduction.)

So what is a group that is no longer able to reproduce with another part of the created kind? Is it a new kind? But it was not specially created---and that is another part of the definition of kind. So, how can it be a kind?

And where does the "original theory" of TOC say that speciation is acceptable?

I was really hoping to catch up tonight, but it just isn't happening. Speciation can occur on a small level within the framework of the TOC. It is not predicted as such, but room is alowed for it to occur.

razzelflabben · #**1033** 18th August 2004, 11:25 PM

Originally Posted by USincognito

To put a little different spin on the dinosaur/human issue, the core problem with your argument razzel, is that it's not the location of the remains, it's the dating of the remains. The only way you could make the point that we might have reason to find humans and dinosaurs in the same geological time period is to argue against dating techniques.

And I want to apologize for being a tad harsh with you when we discussed this last week. I should have focused more on your conclusion and assertion (which are faulty) than your logic (which was correct). I shouldn't have tied them together the way I did.

Thank you I think. So now we come back to discussing the fossil evidence. I have stated why I find the evidence not conclusive and I am so tired I can barely see the words I'm typing, can we please move on. If you want to see it my way fine, if you don't, fine, just understand that we cannot find truth if we assume to already know truth. And that folks is the bottom line of my arguement.

lucaspa · #**1034** 18th August 2004, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by mrversatile48

I'll let open minded readers examine the earlier posts here that were presenting a long series of skulls as proof of progress onwards & upwards

The skulls don't represent proof of progress onwards and upwards. They represent connecting intermediates between ape-like ancestors and modern humans. To get "onward and upwards" you have to specific a direction that is "up". Evolution can't do that. Are you more "onward and upward" than your grandfather? Or are you just connected via the intermediate of your father?

The evolutionary ladder/chain is surely universally known as a "how-to-go-from amoeba to modern man",

That's not a ladder, it's a branching bush. And it doesn't start with amoebas. Both amoebas and humans are cousins, each at the tip of a branch of the bush.

& many such presentations are interpreted by Afro-Caribbeans & Asians, quite understandably, as racist insults

since these groups are also "modern man", why would they interpret even your misrepresentation that way? Because you tell them to?

I left school in '66, but I've never forgotten feeling insulted, on behalf of African friends, by such white supremacist complete claptrap

Most white supremecist claptrap is based on creationism. Supposedly the non-white races are "separate creations". Want to see the literature?

lucaspa · #**1035** 18th August 2004, 11:33 PM

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

Speciation can occur on a small level within the framework of the TOC. It is not predicted as such, but room is alowed for it to occur.

Please explain to us specifically how it can occur.

Also, if speciation is not predicted, then it is not allowed. To be allowed means that it is a consequence (prediction) of the theory. You have just said speciation is not such a consequence. Therefore, it isn't allowed.

lucaspa · #**1036** 18th August 2004, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

I have examined and addressed all that were presented and found all wanting as overwhelming evidence.

I beg to differ. You haven't really addressed any of them. You have tried to twist them into something they are not and asserted. Assserting is not addressing.

Now, I have no doubt you found them wanting. That says nothing about their validity. It's a comment on your willingness to pursue truth. Pursueing truth requires that you change your views in the face of evidence. But you don't really do this. You will accept evidence for speciation in that you will assert, without explaining how, that speciation is allowed in TOC. But you will not, under any circumstances, reject TOC or accept evolution.

That is not consistent with a "passion for truth". It is consistent with Berry's essay that you view evolution as a threat to your belief in God.

lucaspa · #**1037** 18th August 2004, 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by Jet Black

I take your shells and raise you permission to clone stem cells

Don't want ES cells. Adult stem cells work better.

lucaspa · #**1038** 19th August 2004, 12:04 AM

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

Opps a living single celled organism. Yep, that is what we were taught.

Right. The common ancestor was a single-celled organism. But not that there was only one such organism!

We have overwhelming evidence for
1. Common ancestry.
Where?

You've been shown it. Phylogenetic analysis, for one. Remember? Comparative morphology and physiology for another.
Razzel, this isn't honest discussion. To have the evidence shown, not answer it, and then try to claim that the evidence doesn't exist.

2. The common ancestor was a one-celled organism.Where? I see a lot of speculation for both, but no inscription for either.

Genetic analysis. As we look at the phylogenetic trees constructed from the DNA of living organisms, the sequences unambiguously points to a single-celled organism. Plus, as we go to the earliest fossils, they are all single celled with no multicelled around.

The reason you don't see "inscription" is because you won't go look at the original data. There's only space here to give you summaries. The overwhelming data is in the articles we are referencing for you.

What I believe about the theory and what I have been taught about the theory are not necessarily the same thing.

Then please stop making them the same thing. If you disagree with what you were taught about evolution, then say so. But what you are doing is presenting what you were taught as evidence that evolution is that.

So now we are asked to believe that reproductive ability has nothing to do with evolution?

LOL! You asked for a list of predictions made by evolution that have been found so you could see "conclusive" evidence for evolution. I provide an extensive list and what do you do? You change the subject! LOL! Sorry, Razzel, but that impassioned post of yours about being "passionate to learn the truth" is being held up to ridicule -- by you. What you are doing now is using every debating trick in the book to avoid acknowledging truth.

I'm sorry, but you need to live up to the ideals you say you have. If you don't, the tragedy is not that we lose respect for you as an individual, but that you cause ridicule to Christianity. Please stop and think about what you are doing. Think of the consequences to the faith you also say you profess. If the faith is held as loosely as the ideals ... PLEASE, stop the tricks and face the truth.

but come on, how does any of this show overwhelming evidence that something we cannot test is true?

LOL! every prediction I listed either can be tested or has been tested and found! How can something that is constantly tested be impossible to test? Debating tricks bring no glory to God. Running from the truth is not what God wants you to do. God has nothing to fear from evolution. Neither do you. Evolution is how God created.

gluadys · #**1039** 19th August 2004, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

Actually, there have been many posts showing me that population a and b produce c and c cannot reproduce with a or b but can with c, which is totally not what I was saying and a concept I got many moons ago. I am not ignorant, but I do seek to know truth, not just assume to know it.

OK, just one more thing on this topic.

One thing we were all trying to show you with this is how evolution really happens. The horse and donkey making a mule is not evolution. Population A splitting up and the different parts changing into population B and C---that is evolution.

What we are saying is that the horse is population B and the donkey is population C and if you trace them back you will find a population A (now extinct) which was their common ancestor. Clear?

I understand your position better, but I still see a real problem, because the single cell populations would at some point have to produce compatable organisms in male and female genders.

Ask again after you have read the post about hermaphrodite animals.

but the quote says, life was created after its kind. Life being different from reproducing. Reproducing is part of the equation, but not all of it.

Yes, life is different from reproducing, but they are connected by the way you have defined "kind". You are saying 1) that life was created after its kind, and 2 that kind=a population that reproduces after itself. So that is the same as saying "life was created in population groups that reproduce after themselves." And those groups are what, in science we call species.

So that gets us to "Life was created in the form of species (=groups that reproduce after themselves=kinds)".

Now, if that is how life was created---how do we explain species that came from other species as we have observed?

So if "kinds" = "species" then the TOC has been falsified because we know of existing "kinds" which were not directly created. We know they evolved from other "kinds".

That is the equivalent of saying that we know that evolution does not exist because there was no living cell to start the whole process. Even the TOC allows for the process of life. We have a beginning and a process, to deny the TOC the process is simply not fair rules.

No, it is not equivalent at all. Stop playing verbal shell games. The original common ancestor is not what we are speaking about here. We are speaking about species which we know from observation have their origin in a different species: the salmon lucaspa spoke of, the Drosophila, the salamanders, etc. We know these new species were not created by divine fiat. They evolved from other species.

How can TOC allow for that and also assert that species (=kinds) were created separately?

Speciation is a fact, evolution is a theory.

Since speciation is the end-product of evolution, the fact of speciation makes evolution a fact as well.

There is also a theory of evolution which explains the process of evolution. Since the various processes have all been tested and verified, that theory can also be considered "fact" for working purposes.

what I mean is that people who claim the TOE fail to understand what theory is. Theory cannot be fact. It is the nature of theory. To claim it as fact, is to ignore what a theory is.

Not at all. We have all said many times that evolution is both fact and theory.

Evolution happens. We have observed that. That makes evolution a fact.

We have theories about how evolution happens. That is the theory part.
We have verified most of the theories about how evolution happens, and we now understand very well how evolution happens in general. Research is continuing on specific lineages and specific questions, such as the origin of the cell nucleus.

The difference between theory and fact is well understood by those who support TOE. And that is why we understand that evolution can be properly described as both a fact and a theory.

I think I said I would not argue with that, not that I agreed with the statement. I think a better statement would be that the TOE overwhelmingly supports the fossil record. But oh well.

No, that is backwards about. Theories don't support evidence. They predict or explain evidence. But evidence does support theory by conforming with the predictions of the theory.

But as far as I can see, TOC only says "reproduce after their kind"? So where does TOC predict that "after their kind" does not mean "exact copy"? Why couldn't it be an exact copy?

It does not specify one or the other, but allows room for the prediction in that if a creature was to reproduce after it's kind, then in the case of male and female, the offspring would not be identical.

If TOC is only "allowing room" for observations instead of predicting or explaining them, then creationism is not a theory in the first place.

No, you are making this up as you go along. How does "reproduce after their kind" become a prediction of "some by cloning and some by sexual reproduction"? The biblical definition says nothing at all about how creatures will reproduce after their kind. You are adding that in. But you can't add it in to a theory until you show how the theory predicts that.

Okay, look at it this way. I tell you that I am going to make cookies the same way my mother made them. Does that mean that I am going to clone her every move,

It could mean that. I remember a story about a woman who always cut a piece from the end of a roast before she put it in the oven. When her husband asked her why, she said that was what her mother did. So he had her ask her mother why. Mother's answer was that her roasting pan was very small and she had to cut a piece from the end of the roast to make it fit. But her daughter had cloned her mother's actions.

or that I am going to make then using the same process that she did?

Yes it could be that too.

The logical answer would be same process.

Why is this the logical answer and not the other?

If I am reproducing after my kind, that would mean, that same process of reproduction that my kind uses. If that is asexual, then I would reproduce asexually. If that was male and female, then that is how I would reproduce.

ok. But then how do you get variation when the reproduction is asexual? And how do you make sure you get similarity when the reproduction is sexual?

more serious objection to TOC is that even if we accept that there are two modes of reproduction (asexual, sexual), TOC still does not tell us how these methods of reproduction assure that offspring will be the same kind as the parent. How can we be sure that a fig tree will produce figs and not thistles? How does the TOC explain the mechanism that makes sure that reproduction will be "after their kind"?

How many observations have been made that show that when a dog has pups, they are pups and not some other creature?

I am not denying the observations. What I am trying to find out is how TOC predicts and explains the observation.

Where does TOC predict that dogs will always have pups and not kittens? How does it explain the observation that dogs always have pups and never kittens?

Thanks, I don't think I could have gotten through life without that lesson in reality.

You're quite welcome.

I have heard this many times here as well and find it totally amazing that this claim is made when the TOC clearly predates the TOE.

It is not a matter of which came first. It is a matter of which one is changing and in which direction. TOC is changing and always in the direction of adding in more of TOE. Maybe, eventually, it will morph completely into TOE and we can end these discussions.

Of course, we have to get around the problem of Cs who insist that evolution is not evolution.

Which brings up my alien/cloneing theory which no one is brave enough to comment on.

Well, it gets hung up to dry pretty quickly on that "no evidence" problem. Seen any aliens lately?

You mean unique to TOE don't you? All 29 are unique to TOE. Every single one is a falsification of TOC. As for those which do not depend on the fossil record, I counted 22 of the 29 which are not related to the fossil record.

He doesn't use a straightforward numbering system of 1-29, but divides the material into 5 parts, so that each piece of evidence has a number such as 2.3 or 5.1. Judging only from the titles, the sections I found that seem to fit your criteria are: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.5, all of parts 3 & 4 and all of part 5 except 5.4.

Yep, again, we can disreguard the scientist that write the papers claims that it is not proof, because clearly the E here know more than the scientist that are writing the papers.

So you are not really interested in looking at the sort of evidence you asked for after all. Nor in learning what the author really said.

gluadys · #**1040** 19th August 2004, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

I was really hoping to catch up tonight, but it just isn't happening. Speciation can occur on a small level within the framework of the TOC. It is not predicted as such, but room is alowed for it to occur.

ok. When you come back, look at this section in particular.

Originally Posted by gluadys

So what is a group that is no longer able to reproduce with another part of the created kind? Is it a new kind? But it was not specially created---and that is another part of the definition of kind. So, how can it be a kind?

My question in short is this: is the new species, the one that evolved from the original kind, a new kind or still the same kind as its parent species? Please explain your answer.