One less reason to despise evolution

[Mallon]

Apparently, some scientists think it's deterministic:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/nyu-eid111907.php

So you don't have to appeal to your emotions anymore by framing evolution as a random, godless process!

 

[shernren]

That's, um, really random. XD

 

[juvenissun]

Apparently, some scientists think it's deterministic:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/nyu-eid111907.php

So you don't have to appeal to your emotions anymore by framing evolution as a random, godless process!

This is another good example to show that the idea evolution is nothing but a method of classification. It predicts NOTHING.

If we examine the change of earth's magnetic force in the past 1000+ years, we would also conclude that the change is deterministic.

 

[Mallon]

This is another good example to show that the idea evolution is nothing but a method of classification. It predicts NOTHING.

That's not true:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/an-evolution-pr.html

 

[juvenissun]

That's not true:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/an-evolution-pr.html

The main logic behind their effort seems to be simple.

If so, why don't we see a whole lot more examples like that? In fact, if that were true, then the whole debate of evolution should already be ended long time ago.

 

[Mallon]

The main logic behind their effort seems to be simple.

If so, why don't we see a whole lot more examples like that? In fact, if that were true, then the whole debate of evolution should already be ended long time ago.

We do see more examples of it. Heck, the new species of mosasaur species I published on this summer possessed the same intermediate morphology we predicted, and it was found in the same rocks we predicted, too.
I would suggest that perhaps, in your efforts to overthrow evolutionary theory, you spend too much time reading popular YEC articles, and not enough time reading the science literature, which is where discoveries like this are announced on a regular basis. Just because you don't go looking for these sorts of things doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[juvenissun]

We do see more examples of it. Heck, the new species of mosasaur species I published on this summer possessed the same intermediate morphology we predicted, and it was found in the same rocks we predicted, too.
I would suggest that perhaps, in your efforts to overthrow evolutionary theory, you spend too much time reading popular YEC articles, and not enough time reading the science literature, which is where discoveries like this are announced on a regular basis. Just because you don't go looking for these sorts of things doesn't mean they don't exist.

That is one of the reason I am hanging around here. I do not read paleontological publications.

OK, let me make it more clear (to myself): If we found a in A and c in C, then we will try to find b in B. I do not think this is a strict sense of prediction. This is interpolation. Paleontological study do not have any real power of predicting any future development.

 

[Mallon]

OK, let me make it more clear (to myself): If we found a in A and c in C, then we will try to find b in B. I do not think this is a strict sense of prediction. This is interpolation. Paleontological study do not have any real power of predicting any future development.

Your above analogy is so vague, I'm not even sure what you mean by it.
Evolution can and does make predictions, and I'll show you one example how.
Below is a phylogenetic tree. It depicts branching events of various vertebrate groups from their common ancestors, with time plotted on the Y-axis, so you can see when the groups are supposed to have diverged.

The tree itself is an hypothesis, based on a comparison of morphology/genetics. It predicts that certain groups diverged from a common ancestor at a particular time. In the above example, the tree predicts that mammals diverged from the reptile stock sometime during the Permian. And regardless of how you might feel about it, juvenissun, this is a prediction -- and a testable one at that. All we have to do is go out into the field in search of mammal-like reptiles from rocks of Permian age and see if our prediction holds up (and lo and behold, it does).

The same is the case of Tiktaalik, as explained in the link I gave you above.

 

[juvenissun]

Your above analogy is so vague, I'm not even sure what you mean by it.
Evolution can and does make predictions, and I'll show you one example how.
Below is a phylogenetic tree. It depicts branching events of various vertebrate groups from their common ancestors, with time plotted on the Y-axis, so you can see when the groups are supposed to have diverged.

The tree itself is an hypothesis, based on a comparison of morphology/genetics. It predicts that certain groups diverged from a common ancestor at a particular time. In the above example, the tree predicts that mammals diverged from the reptile stock sometime during the Permian. And regardless of how you might feel about it, juvenissun, this is a prediction -- and a testable one at that. All we have to do is go out into the field in search of mammal-like reptiles from rocks of Permian age and see if our prediction holds up (and lo and behold, it does).

The same is the case of Tiktaalik, as explained in the link I gave you above.

Argument of the same nature. It is a interpolation, not a prediction.

You know what was before and what is now, and try to find what is likely to be in the middle. That is not prediction, even you are predicting. Just like a straight line, you know two points on it and add one more point in between. That is not prediction.

And further more, you are "predicting" thing that have happened in the past. Is that funny?

 

[gluadys]

Argument of the same nature. It is a interpolation, not a prediction.

You know what was before and what is now, and try to find what is likely to be in the middle. That is not prediction, even you are predicting. Just like a straight line, you know two points on it and add one more point in between. That is not prediction.

And further more, you are "predicting" thing that have happened in the past. Is that funny?

Typical creationist tactic. When shown what you asked for, move the goal posts and change the definition.

This is prediction. The prediction that certain evidence would be discovered was made before the evidence was discovered.

Sure, the evidence was produced in the past, but you don't know it is there until it is found.

So when you predict what will be found, that is a prediction.

And when it is found, it shows the prediction was correct. Presumably, this also adds validity to the theory on which the prediction was based.

Changing the name to "interpolation" does change the fact that it is a prediction. Just as changing the name of a conclusion to "assumption" doesn't change the fact that it is a conclusion. Nor does changing the vocabulary to "adaptation" "variation" or "natural selection" change the fact that one is talking about evolution.

Playing change the label doesn't change what is. That is just obfuscation by semantics.

 

[random_guy]

Okay, how's this for prediction:

To create a strain that produced artemisinic acid from amorphadiene,
we isolated genes encoding enzymes responsible for oxidizing
amorphadiene to artemisinic acid in A. annua. Artemisinin is a
sesquiterpene lactone derivative, which is the most widespread and
characteristic class of secondary metabolites found in Asteraceae
(also known as Compositae)16.We hypothesized that plants belonging
to the Asteraceae family would share common ancestor enzymes for
the early steps in the biosynthesis of sesquiterpene lactones, and
therefore undertook a comparative genomic analysis of plants in the
Asteraceae family.

Well, the results of their hypothesis was correct, based on the classification system developed from evolution's common descent model. The scientists were able to find the correct enzyme and now working on using the yeast to produce anti-malaria drugs. Let's see Creationism result in science that good.

 

[Smidlee]

That's not true:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/an-evolution-pr.html

Yeah,right. When evolutionist predict something they will sure they have something to fit their story. Here someone made a prediction (December 05) a few month before Tiktaalik was reported :

It was just last December when scientists were telling us that Acanthostega was the missing link between fish and tetrapods. At that time we said, "A few years from now, evolutionists will no doubt replace this fairytale with a new one."

We admit it. We were wrong. It was just four months, not a few years.

www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v10i8n.htm

If the best transitional form evolutionists can come up with is Tiktaalik, then the weakness of their claim is better evidence against evolution than for it.

I agree

 

[Jase]

The main logic behind their effort seems to be simple.

If so, why don't we see a whole lot more examples like that? In fact, if that were true, then the whole debate of evolution should already be ended long time ago.

The whole debate on evolution did end a long time ago. Creationists are just a little behind on the times.

 

[Mallon]

Argument of the same nature. It is a interpolation, not a prediction.

You know what was before and what is now, and try to find what is likely to be in the middle. That is not prediction, even you are predicting. Just like a straight line, you know two points on it and add one more point in between. That is not prediction.

Ooohh, this is a weighty admission, and I'm not even sure you know why.
I'll explain.
In your straight line analogy, you're arguing that a line running between points A and C should include point B. That is, you interpolate that if the line is straight, point B must fall somewhere on the line, because if it doesn't, then the line isn't straight and your straight-line framework must be discarded. Essentially, finding point B between points A and C provides a test for your hypothesis that the line is straight.
Testing evolutionary scenarios works in a similar way. If we have fish appearing in the early Devonian and amphibians appearing in the Carboniferous, it would make sense from an evolutionary perspective to predict that we would find fish-like amphibians in rocks between those two times. Call it an interpolation, if you will (as gluadys said, it's semantics). The point remains that we can test our evolutionary scenario if we can find fish-like amphibians where we expect to (much like finding point B between points A and C). If we were to find fish-like amphibians occuring before fish appear in the fossil record, our prediction would be falsified and we could not longer infer a relationship between fish and amphibians (i.e., throw out the framework). To date, this has not happened. The theory of evolution passes tests like this all the time. In fact, I know of several more transitional fossils in the pipelines right now. I hope they don't do too much damage to your faith.

And further more, you are "predicting" thing that have happened in the past. Is that funny?

As I said, a creature like Tiktaalik was predicted to have existed even before it was found. The fact that these things lived in the past is irrelevant. Evolutionary theory describes where we came from, not simply where we're going.

 

[juvenissun]

Ooohh, this is a weighty admission, and I'm not even sure you know why.
I'll explain.
In your straight line analogy, you're arguing that a line running between points A and C should include point B. That is, you interpolate that if the line is straight, point B must fall somewhere on the line, because if it doesn't, then the line isn't straight and your straight-line framework must be discarded. Essentially, finding point B between points A and C provides a test for your hypothesis that the line is straight.
Testing evolutionary scenarios works in a similar way. If we have fish appearing in the early Devonian and amphibians appearing in the Carboniferous, it would make sense from an evolutionary perspective to predict that we would find fish-like amphibians in rocks between those two times. Call it an interpolation, if you will (as gluadys said, it's semantics). The point remains that we can test our evolutionary scenario if we can find fish-like amphibians where we expect to (much like finding point B between points A and C). If we were to find fish-like amphibians occuring before fish appear in the fossil record, our prediction would be falsified and we could not longer infer a relationship between fish and amphibians (i.e., throw out the framework). To date, this has not happened. The theory of evolution passes tests like this all the time. In fact, I know of several more transitional fossils in the pipelines right now. I hope they don't do too much damage to your faith.


As I said, a creature like Tiktaalik was predicted to have existed even before it was found. The fact that these things lived in the past is irrelevant. Evolutionary theory describes where we came from, not simply where we're going.

No matter how many points paleontology could interpolate, they always look like a bunch of scattered dots with bad overall correlation. You could never make a continuous line out of the data.

 

[Mallon]

No matter how many points paleontology could interpolate, they always look like a bunch of scattered dots with bad overall correlation. You could never make a continuous line out of the data.

We can and have:

Human evolution:

Diatom evolution:

Horse evolution:

I don't suspect this will mean much to you, though, given that you just admitted in another thread that your aversion to evolution is emotional, rather than scientific.

 

[juvenissun]

We can and have:

Human evolution:

It is useless in trying to frighten me with these charts. I have seen too many of them.

If the fact were really shown by this impressive chart, then why did recent discoveries in east Africa raise so many debates? Do you understand what are the objections? I think the objections are given by some paleontologist/anthropologist, but not by creationist.

 

[Mallon]

If the fact were really shown by this impressive chart, then why did recent discoveries in east Africa raise so many debates?

That humans evolved from African apes is not debated.
How they evolved is.

The fact that some subject is hotly debated doesn't make it false or ill-supported. Many Protestant faiths disagree over the details of baptism, but that doesn't make baptism inherently wrong or flawed, does it?
As a self-proclaimed geologist, you should know that debates happen in the field all the time. Just because some geologists disagree over the processes associated with volatile release from downward-moving continental plates, doesn't mean plate tectonism is a sham. You, of all people, should know that.

 

[juvenissun]

That humans evolved from African apes is not debated.
How they evolved is.

It may not be true. People do not question the formal because they "believe" or "assume" that is true. Some people who disagreed on the process of evolution simply do not have the guts to question the principle of evolution. They will lose their job if they do. To me, that is another evil side of evolution.

Just because some geologists disagree over the processes associated with volatile release from downward-moving continental plates, doesn't mean plate tectonism is a sham.

If one feature could not be explained by a theory, it is not impossible that the whole theory is wrong, even it could explain 99 other features. When confirmed, it is called a revolutionary change. The theory of continental drift is a good example.

 

[Mallon]

It may not be true. People do not question the formal because they "believe" or "assume" that is true.

You need to realize the practical situation. Not many people understand the "real" meaning of evolution you and Glaudys referred to, may be it also include me in this category.

Given that you've already admitted to not knowing how evolution works, I hardly think you are in a position to imply that trained scientists accept evolution on faith alone.
In fact, the opposite is true. Since you admit your lack of understanding when it comes to evolution, you take it on faith that it doesn't happen. So please don't insult the intelligence of those of us who have put in the time, effort, and money to learn about evolutionary theory by insinuating that we haven't done our homework and hide, instead, behind a fear of losing our jobs.