proving evolution as just a "theory"

[USincognito]

Oh yes it is. That's precisely how evolution from a common ancestor works. Evolutionists always run from this. If all living things came from a common ancestor then all living things changed from something into something else. If birds, monkeys, spiders, worms all came from one thing that one thing was not any if those things in the beginning.

RJS, the problem is you're taking a variation on Platonic Forms view of life. To you a bird is one thing and only one thing. It can't possibly be a theropod dinosaur, an archosaur or an amniote, etc. etc. The same goes with monkeys, spiders, worms, mushrooms and apple trees (why don't fungi and plants get any love?). Let me try using the < symbol to explain.
monkeys < primates < mammals < animals
spiders < arachnids < arthropods < animals
(earth)worms < oligochaetes < annelids < animals
And adding in mushrooms:
mushroom < fungi + animals < ophistokonts
And including plants
plants + ophistokonts < living things

No evolution is false because birds have always produced birds. They have never produced something that wasn't a bird.

No, just no. If a bird ever hatches something that isn't a bird, THEN evolution is falsified.

 

[USincognito]

It seems you struggle with the idea of common ancestor.

You might want keep such ironic observations to yourself.

Science may relegate humans chimps etc into a nice package, but that does not mean they came from a common ancestor.

Correct. The massive amount of evidence means we came from a common ancestor.

That common ancestor of yours evolved into spiders, worms, birds, ant and humans. Somehow it did eventually turn into stuff it wasn't to begin with.

Again, you still don't comprehend common ancestry. Descendant populations never stop being what their ancestors were. A bird never stops being a theropod, an archosaur, an amniote, etc. Let me give you little list here:
--------------------------
Shiitake mushroom.
White truffle.
Bakers yeast.
All of these are fungi. Fungi and animals share common ancestry as Ophistokonts.
Opisthokont - Wikipedia

Lilac.
Apple tree.
Saguaro cactus.
All of these are plants. Plants and Ophistokonts are Eukaryotes who, along with Archaea and Bacteria, share common ancestry as Living Things.

Scarab beetle.
Tarantula.
Blue crab.
The beetle is an insect, the tarantula is an arachnid and the crab is a decopod, but all three of them share an arthropod common ancestor.

Scallop.
Humbolt squid.
Banana slug.
The same goes with these mollusks. While they are all very different, they all share a basal mollusk common ancestor.

I hope this has made common ancestry a bit more clear for you.

 

[PsychoSarah]

What's your experiment?

I'll link it here, since I describe the basic premise in the first post Evolution Experiment: Creationists, Choose their Fate!
Basically put, people select 2 out of 6 possible traits they want to see an experimental population of a small crustacean species (one that matures and breeds very quickly), and once the time for the experiment to start looms, I tally the votes and make the 2 traits that get the most votes favorable to the reproduction of these creatures. Not only that, but I describe the experiment in great detail, and do it on a low enough budget that anyone that wants to do the experiment along with me can do so and see for themselves that I am not misrepresenting the results.

Although I am doing this for 10 years, they breed fast enough that the experimental and control populations could be noticeably distinct within just 2 years... based on the predictions of the theory of evolution.

Sadly, even though I made this experiment just for the benefit and participation of creationists, I actually had to open it to evolution supporters to because not a single creationist would participate.

 

[joshua 1 9]

I asked specific examples. How could you specifically threaten someone in the past, that you cant today.

I was clearly talking about the laws governing threats that were passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Not only on a federal level with the creation of Homeland Security, there were also a lot of state laws legislated to deal with terrorism and terrorist threats.

Threatening terrorism against the United States is a class C felony punishable by 10 years imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(c)(1)(g). The elements of the offense are that someone willfully threatens to commit a crime that will result in death or great bodily harm; the threat is made with the specific intent that it be taken as a threat; the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, and specific as to convey a gravity of purpose and immediate prospect of execution; the threat actually causes fear in the victim; and the fear is reasonable.[1] (wiki)

Laws governing such threats were passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The law was amended by the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007.[2][3] False information and hoaxes pertaining to attacks on U.S. officials, government buildings, airplanes, etc. are also punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 1038 as a class D felony, which is punishable by 5 years imprisonment. (wiki)

 

[pitabread]

Because this materials are present. This tells us the creator used those materials in order for all life to exist, continue, adapt and grow in the environment. He created. If he chose to create life to exist in a Mars type of environment then no doubt other materials would be used in order for life to exist, continue, adapt and grow in that environment.

Your argument appears to be entirely circular (begging the question, as it were).

1) Similarities or common materials point to common design.
2) It is evidence of common design because common materials exist.

You're just assuming that which you are trying to demonstrate. And you've still failed to explain why a creator would be limited by said materials.

Conversely, if we look at something like evolution whereby we can reconstruct independent phylogenetic trees based on different data-sets (fossils, morphology, DNA sequences), we can get independent phylogenies that point to nested relationships of common ancestry. Now you're just going to counter that a creator just made things that way, but you still haven't explained why a creator would be constrained in making lifeforms that happen to have the appearance of evolution and shared ancestral relationships.

 

[pitabread]

But that's just it. You say you are based in reality, but you are not. Evolution from a common ancestor I'd not reality. Just cause you think it is doesn't make it so. Reality in science had to be observed, tested and reproduced in order for it to be so. Evolution from a common ancestor cannot and has never been tested, observed and reproduced. Therefore it is an assumption, a belief system since there is no way to show it's reality.

And here it is, the cycle of denialism.

I've already pointed you to resources to help you understand how scientific hypotheses and theories are formulated, and how they are tested. Others have already pointed you to evidence of how common ancestry is tested and evidenced. And I've further pointed you to examples of how common ancestry is actually an applied science, being used in the real world today on various avenues of scientific inquiry and problem solving.

But you just hand-wave it all away and go back to chanting the same mantra over and over.

You're stuck in a denial loop. And I suppose as a creationist, that's all you really have.

 

[bhsmte]

I was clearly talking about the laws governing threats that were passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Not only on a federal level with the creation of Homeland Security, there were also a lot of state laws legislated to deal with terrorism and terrorist threats.

Threatening terrorism against the United States is a class C felony punishable by 10 years imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(c)(1)(g). The elements of the offense are that someone willfully threatens to commit a crime that will result in death or great bodily harm; the threat is made with the specific intent that it be taken as a threat; the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, and specific as to convey a gravity of purpose and immediate prospect of execution; the threat actually causes fear in the victim; and the fear is reasonable.[1] (wiki)

Laws governing such threats were passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The law was amended by the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007.[2][3] False information and hoaxes pertaining to attacks on U.S. officials, government buildings, airplanes, etc. are also punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 1038 as a class D felony, which is punishable by 5 years imprisonment. (wiki)

Terrorist related threats then. Your original statement just said; "threaten" and did not state anything about terrorism.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Terrorist related threats then. Your original statement just said; "threaten" and did not state anything about terrorism.

I clearly said after 911. 911 was a terrorist attack on America. After 911 they changed the laws so that making a threat was illegal. Before 911 it was only illegal if you made a threat against the president of the united states. How times have changed. Now there is no respect for the president and he is under attack with fake news all the time. We did not use to have fake news. Now a days people delight themselves in spreading false information. So not only is science under attack with fake science, journalism is also under attack with fake news because people no longer care to verify the truth. There is far to much obstruction that would not have been allowed in the past.

 

[AV1611VET]

We did not use to have fake news.

Then what was Y2K?

 

[Kenny'sID]

I clearly said after 911. 911 was a terrorist attack on America. After 911 they changed the laws so that making a threat was illegal. Before 911 it was only illegal if you made a threat against the president of the united states. How times have changed. Now there is no respect for the president and he is under attack with fake news all the time. We did not use to have fake news. Now a days people delight themselves in spreading false information. So not only is science under attack with fake science, journalism is also under attack with fake news because people no longer care to verify the truth. There is far to much obstruction that would not have been allowed in the past.

Sounds like the Master of Confusion is very much in control....for now.

Anyway, just stopped by to see if anyone had proven evolution a fact yet...

 

[AV1611VET]

Anyway, just stopped by to see if anyone had proven evolution a fact yet...

Not yet.

That's the Antichrist's job.

Revelation 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

 

[Speedwell]

Sounds like the Master of Confusion is very much in control....for now.

Anyway, just stopped by to see if anyone had proven evolution a fact yet...

You're wasting your time. Scientifc theories are not facts and are never "proven." Scientific theories explain facts and are confirmed, not proven, by empirical evidence.

 

[expos4ever]

Reality in science had to be observed, tested and reproduced in order for it to be so. Evolution from a common ancestor cannot and has never been tested, observed and reproduced. Therefore it is an assumption, a belief system since there is no way to show it's reality

No. From Scientific American:

Creationist Claim: Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.

Answer: This blanket dismissal of evolution ignores important distinctions that divide the field into at least two broad areas: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution looks at changes within species over time--changes that may be preludes to speciation, the origin of new species. Macroevolution studies how taxonomic groups above the level of species change. Its evidence draws frequently from the fossil record and DNA comparisons to reconstruct how various organisms may be related.

These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant's studies of evolving beak shapes among Galpagos finches). Natural selection and other mechanisms--such as chromosomal changes, symbiosis and hybridization--can drive profound changes in populations over time.

The historical nature of macroevolutionary study involves inference from fossils and DNA rather than direct observation. Yet in the historical sciences (which include astronomy, geology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary biology), hypotheses can still be tested by checking whether they accord with physical evidence and whether they lead to verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For instance, evolution implies that between the earliest-known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not--and does not--find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (144 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly.

Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way. If superintelligent aliens appeared and claimed credit for creating life on earth (or even particular species), the purely evolutionary explanation would be cast in doubt. But no one has yet produced such evidence.

It should be noted that the idea of falsifiability as the defining characteristic of science originated with philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s. More recent elaborations on his thinking have expanded the narrowest interpretation of his principle precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor.

 

[dmmesdale]

You might want keep such ironic observations to yourself.



Correct. The massive amount of evidence means we came from a common ancestor.



Again, you still don't comprehend common ancestry. Descendant populations never stop being what their ancestors were. A bird never stops being a theropod, an archosaur, an amniote, etc. Let me give you little list here:
--------------------------
Shiitake mushroom.
White truffle.
Bakers yeast.
All of these are fungi. Fungi and animals share common ancestry as Ophistokonts.
Opisthokont - Wikipedia

Lilac.
Apple tree.
Saguaro cactus.
All of these are plants. Plants and Ophistokonts are Eukaryotes who, along with Archaea and Bacteria, share common ancestry as Living Things.

Scarab beetle.
Tarantula.
Blue crab.
The beetle is an insect, the tarantula is an arachnid and the crab is a decopod, but all three of them share an arthropod common ancestor.

Scallop.
Humbolt squid.
Banana slug.
The same goes with these mollusks. While they are all very different, they all share a basal mollusk common ancestor.

I hope this has made common ancestry a bit more clear for you.

You are overstating since there is no conclusive evidence for common descent. It is all theoretical, not conclusive. Esp since you don't know what the imaginary creature was in the first place. You are making historical truth claims, based on unobserved wishful thinking, not science, that cannot be backed up and falls apart under scrutiny. What is observed is a variation within a means. Dogs remain dogs and cats remain cats. It is limited change, not unlimited. A one way direction never to return is myth.

 

[xianghua]

You're not a watch, no creature is a watch or a car or a GPS or any actual machine. That's the point. If you can point out a specific oragnism, organ, organelle, or any biological matter that's irreducibly complex and can't have arisen organically then you can prove intelligent design. You can't just keep naming machines and saying they're irreducibly complex therefore so is life. That's nonsense.

ok. take the snap trap of some carnivorous plants. this mechanism make the leaf moving. so you will need at least several parts to ferform such function.

 

[xianghua]

No, I'm saying that an object which is organic is, by definition, not a robot. The process of how it was created is irrelevant.

so this object isnt a watch if it's made from wood? (organic components):

(image from Wood watch | Etsy)

No duh. Nobody is making the argument that compasses evolved into watches.
This is not a good analogy, because they are neither related nor have a possible method of natural evolution from one to the other.

it doesnt matter since i only need to show you why there isnt small steps from one system to another.

All you're really saying is that they don't, you haven't proved it's impossible. However, in evolution such changes are necessary, and when you take a look at the relevant genes and the structures they produce, and the genes and structures of related species, we always find evidence that supports the idea that they were indeed produced through a stepwise evolution.

so prove it. do you have good evidence for that claim or it is just a belief?

Finally, how did you conclude that it's impossible for one type of T3SS to evolve into another type of T3SS via small steps? Is it purely through inappropriate analogy?

who is talking about moving from one kind of ttss to another ttss? we are talking about evolution of two different systems and not just 2 similar once with similar basic function. maybe its possible to go from one kind of ttss to another and maybe not. we now talking about 2 different systems.

but the other details were still right. Blind spots exist because of the layout of the retina. This fact will never turn out to be untrue, nor can having gaps in your vision be an advantage.

since there is a mechanism that make this blind spot imperceptible (so most (if not all of them) peoples dont even see this blind spot- then it's not actually a flaw.

By that argument, if I've shown that sometimes you make bad arguments, I should therefore conclude that you can never make good arguments? Because that's basically the same "logic" you're arguing here.

it's true that some exmaples can be indeed the result of bad design. but you cant prove that they are. so any claim of "bad design" is a bad claim.

 

[Speedwell]

ok. take the snap trap of some carnivorous plants. this mechanism make the leaf moving. so you will need at least several parts to ferform such function.

Before you start off on another of your whimsical excursions, you might want to find out how a fly-trap actually works.

How Does a Venus Flytrap Work? » Scienceline

Just a thought.

 

[xianghua]

Your examples aren't such exception.
I was talking about "exceptions" in the sense of data that doesn't fit the model.
New data which alters the timeline a bit, is normal as we progress towards a more accurate picture while new data comes in.

This is not the same as finding primates next to trilobites.

so if we can push back the orgin of some creatures by about 20 my, where is the limit? by pushing back 30my? 50my?

 

[xianghua]

No, they didn't find "exceptions" to the logical progression of the fossil record, all they found is evidence that changes the time table a little bit.

20 my isnt "little bit". by this logic we can push back humans to dinos age (if we can push back by 20my then why not by 70my?).

 

[xianghua]

Before you start off on another of your whimsical excursions, you might want to find out how a fly-trap actually works.

How Does a Venus Flytrap Work? » Scienceline

Just a thought.

actually your link only provide more evidence for design. from your link:

The Design of the Traps


When a trap shuts, the long spiky hairs on the rims of the lobes interlock, but leave enough room for tiny insects to get out, so the Venus flytrap does not waste energy digesting an insignificant meal. The traps will open sooner if an insect manages to flee, but will close more tightly if the victim struggles.

Interestingly, rain rarely triggers the traps because the likelihood of a raindrop falling in exactly the same place twice in under 30 seconds is negligible — a good thing for the Venus flytrap, who would otherwise starve every time it rained.

insect crawls into trap; insect triggers sensitive hairs; Venus flytrap sends an electrical signal to the center of its trap; the trap snaps shut faster than you can blink your eye.