Asking for interpretations of this cladogram

[Speedwell]

Notice that none of the resident atheists had anything substantive to contribute to the Clade discussion? I gave them so much from scientists to work with (confirmations of all I said) but they have no response other than deflection and insults (no surprise really).

Don't they know that the latest Gallup poll showed 8 out of 10 random people across the US (different ages, gender, ethnicities, and educational levels) believe in some sense of God? 1 of 10 are honest agnostics, and only 1 in 10 are atheist. What a sad minority they are.

Don't fall for their default to make this about God JTS (we are in good company) ...they have to avoid the facts and opinions presented (just like they did in the other thread where you brought up so many undeniable issues and sound questions)....ignore this default tactic, and make them be accountable (insist they answer) they just want to put you on the defensive because they cannot deny the truth within and it makes them angry.

You're dead wrong there. Trying to make this into a cosmic struggle between theism and atheism is purely a creationist strategy.

 

[pshun2404]

You're dead wrong there. Trying to make this into a cosmic struggle between theism and atheism is purely a creationist strategy.

Speed I am doing no such thing!?! I have repeatedly tried to disengage from such pishtosh and encourage a return to the OP. It is the Atheist crowd that continually tries to make discussions on these scientific issues about God.

 

[Speedwell]

Speed I am doing no such thing!?! I have repeatedly tried to disengage from such pishtosh and encourage a return to the OP. It is the Atheist crowd that continually tries to make discussions on these scientific issues about God.

No, it's not about God, it's about "The God of the Bible" if you take my meaning. That is why you have been getting pushback from theists and atheists alike. It happens to everyone who takes the "God or evolution" position. It's not about God, it's about the "or."

 

[tas8831]

On my way out, but skimming this gibberish, one thing caught my eye...

“The five methods used to reconstruct branching pattern all predicted the correct topology but varied in their predictions of branch lengths;”

So none of the maps could go beyond the living lineages....

LOLLLOLOLOLL!!!!

Oh man, you people are incredible...


You conflate branch lengths with 'living lineages' (I guess - hard to parse that 5th grade-level gibberish)... refer to a phylogenetic tree as a "map"....

And yet AGAIN you are totally incapable of simply admitting that you do not understand any of this stuff.

It is amazing how much the Dunning-Kruger effect manifests in creationists.

 

[tas8831]

Yes! Cladograms often disagree with one another though the basic pre-supposition remains the same (the CA assumption). Nut other issues have been noted by other scientists...see Problems with the use of cladistic analysis in palaeoanthropology - ScienceDirect

I will only acknowledge the extent to which you ignored most of the post that document the many and substantive shortcomings, errors, and inconsistencies in the creationist's post.

Tell me - how many keyword searches did you have to perform to find that 2003 essay on morphology-based cladistic analysis of Homo when I was specifically writing about molecular analyses?

You didn't read past the title, did you?


"The evolutionary trend of human encephalisation, apparently isometric with body size, and concurrent reduction in the gut and masticatory apparatus, suggests continuous cladistic characters are biased by problems of body size.

The method suffers a logical weakness, or circularity, leading to bias when characters with multiple states are used. Coding of such characters can only be done using prior criteria, and this is usually done using an existing phylogenetic scheme. Another problem with coding character states is the handling of variation within species. While this form of variation is usually ignored by palaeoanthropologists, when characters are recognised as varying, their treatment as a separate state adds considerable error to cladograms."

next sentence:

"The genetic proximity of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas has important implications for cladistic analyses. It is argued that chimpanzees and gorillas should be treated as ingroup taxa and an alternative outgroup such as orangutans should be used, or an (hypothetical) ancestral body plan developed. Making chimpanzees and gorillas ingroup taxa would considerably enhance the biological utility of anthropological cladograms."



You are amazingly transparent and shallow.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Notice that none of the resident atheists had anything substantive to contribute to the Clade discussion? I gave them so much from scientists to work with (confirmations of all I said) but they have no response other than deflection and insults (no surprise really).

Don't they know that the latest Gallup poll showed 8 out of 10 random people across the US (different ages, gender, ethnicities, and educational levels) believe in some sense of God? 1 of 10 are honest agnostics, and only 1 in 10 are atheist. What a sad minority they are.

Don't fall for their default to make this about God JTS (we are in good company) ...they have to avoid the facts and opinions presented (just like they did in the other thread where you brought up so many undeniable issues and sound questions)....ignore this default tactic, and make them be accountable (insist they answer) they just want to put you on the defensive because they cannot deny the truth within and it makes them angry.

Oh they can’t put me on the defensive no matter what subject they care to attempt to distract with. I’ll gladly play their game which will in the end simply show their distraction to be in error too.

Notice how they tried to misquote you already, as if there was division in what we said.

No, I don’t mind their sad attempts at distraction, because in the end it will all lead right back to those questions they were unable to answer and your excellent post on their own in depth look at their own cladograms.

It always comes full circle, right back to where the debate started and they try the same tactics of distraction, not realizing it only leads right back to what they are trying to avoid in the first place.

Their own paper told them the results were only obtained when weighted bias was statistically added. In layman interpretation that means “we didn’t get the answer we wanted, so we fudged the numbers with statistical manipulation, weighting and biasing the results until we finally got the answer we sought to begin with.”

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I will only acknowledge the extent to which you ignored most of the post that document the many and substantive shortcomings, errors, and inconsistencies in the creationist's post.

Tell me - how many keyword searches did you have to perform to find that 2003 essay on morphology-based cladistic analysis of Homo when I was specifically writing about molecular analyses?

You didn't read past the title, did you?


"The evolutionary trend of human encephalisation, apparently isometric with body size, and concurrent reduction in the gut and masticatory apparatus, suggests continuous cladistic characters are biased by problems of body size.

The method suffers a logical weakness, or circularity, leading to bias when characters with multiple states are used. Coding of such characters can only be done using prior criteria, and this is usually done using an existing phylogenetic scheme. Another problem with coding character states is the handling of variation within species. While this form of variation is usually ignored by palaeoanthropologists, when characters are recognised as varying, their treatment as a separate state adds considerable error to cladograms."

next sentence:

"The genetic proximity of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas has important implications for cladistic analyses. It is argued that chimpanzees and gorillas should be treated as ingroup taxa and an alternative outgroup such as orangutans should be used, or an (hypothetical) ancestral body plan developed. Making chimpanzees and gorillas ingroup taxa would considerably enhance the biological utility of anthropological cladograms."



You are amazingly transparent and shallow.

But orangutans aren’t an outside group, if you add chimps and apes inside.

National Geographic News and Latest Stories

“The authors base their conclusion on a close physical resemblance between orangutans and humans, which they say has been overshadowed by genetic evidence linking us to chimps.

What's more, the study authors argue, the genetic evidence itself is flawed. (Get a genetics overview.)

John Grehan, of the Buffalo Museum of Science in New York State, and Jeffrey Schwartz, of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, say that the DNA evidence cited by many scientists only looks at a small percentage of the human and chimp genomes.

What's more, the genetic similarities likely include many ancient DNA traits that are shared across a much broader group of animals.

By contrast, humans share at least 28 unique physical characteristics with orangutans but only 2 with chimps and 7 with gorillas, the authors say.”

But then why don’t we just go ahead and use that “hypothetical” body plan, you all ate quite adept at using non-existent things already in your imaginary relationships.

But that orangutans DNA isn’t what you thought it was.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/01/orangutan-genome-full-surprises

Full of surprises indeed, surprises that just might make all your claims and cladograms worth less than the paper they are printed on.

Why just look at your outside species. Perhaps we ought to put chimps on the outside instead?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618084304.htm

Hmm, maybe your claims of chimps might not be as sure as you think, you think? And if that entire sequence relationship versus fragments with chimps, why there goes your entire cladograms you rely on, just poof.....

 

[pitabread]

Notice that none of the resident atheists had anything substantive to contribute to the Clade discussion?

What's to discuss? Other than that you seem a bit obsessed with imperfections of cladistics which is kind of a given for any sort of statistical reconstruction; there are always going to be limits of precision.

So what else is there?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

You're dead wrong there. Trying to make this into a cosmic struggle between theism and atheism is purely a creationist strategy.

And yet it was the athiest’s which brought up the subject of theism, doing the very thing you claim the creationists do. Imagine that.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

What's to discuss? Other than that you seem a bit obsessed with imperfections of cladistics which is kind of a given for any sort of statistical reconstruction; there are always going to be limits of precision.

So what else is there?

Hmm, and yet you argue every time someone points out those limits of precision and keep stating them as if they were fact, not the pure assumption that they are.

 

[Speedwell]

And yet it was the athiest’s which brought up the subject of theism, doing the very thing you claim the creationists do. Imagine that.

No, it's the subject of making theism a falsifiable proposition evidenced by the Bible. If it was theism, all the theists would be on your side, and we're not.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

No, it's the subject of making theism a falsifiable proposition evidenced by the Bible. If it was theism, all the theists would be on your side, and we're not.

Im forbidden by the rules to say what some theists that claim to be theists really are.

The popes claimed to be Christian yet started two wars of extermination. One of them against their fellow theists.

As warned, beware of wolves in sheeps clothing....

God is proven by the things made. I realize lots of Christians even though claiming they believe God penned the Bible and the universe, don’t trust Romans 1:20

It is about creation or evolution. If you don’t accept Kind after Kind, you might as well throw your Bible in the trash and become an athiest. Not saying you have to subscribe to religions interpretations of the Bible, but you either accept it or don’t.

And there is not one speck of evidence that suggests anything other than a Kind after Kind. Humans stay humans until we get to a mythical non-existent common ancestor. Every fossil found for every single type of creature always remains the same. One never evolves into another. Two mate and produce another of the same Kind.

Asian mates with African and produces an Afro-Asian. The offspring never becomes a separate species from its parents. Never...... neither of the parents evolve into their offspring.

In each and every case of claimed speciation it will rely on either ignoring their own definitions, or putting faith in non-existent common ancestors to bridge the gap between two Kinds.

If you think this isn’t a battle between the spirits of light and darkness, between creation and evolution, between God or no God, you are sadly mistaken.

 

[Speedwell]

Im forbidden by the rules to say what some theists that claim to be theists really are.

The popes claimed to be Christian yet started two wars of extermination. One of them against their fellow theists.

As warned, beware of wolves in sheeps clothing....

God is proven by the things made. I realize lots of Christians even though claiming they believe God penned the Bible and the universe, don’t trust Romans 1:20

It is about creation or evolution. If you don’t accept Kind after Kind, you might as well throw your Bible in the trash and become an athiest. Not saying you have to subscribe to religions interpretations of the Bible, but you either accept it or don’t.

And there is not one speck of evidence that suggests anything other than a Kind after Kind. Humans stay humans until we get to a mythical non-existent common ancestor. Every fossil found for every single type of creature always remains the same. One never evolves into another. Two mate and produce another of the same Kind.

Asian mates with African and produces an Afro-Asian. The offspring never becomes a separate species from its parents. Never...... neither of the parents evolve into their offspring.

In each and every case of claimed speciation it will rely on either ignoring their own definitions, or putting faith in non-existent common ancestors to bridge the gap between two Kinds.

If you think this isn’t a battle between the spirits of light and darkness, between creation and evolution, between God or no God, you are sadly mistaken.

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it--but you can't expect it to cut any ice with the rest of us.

 

[pshun2404]

No, it's not about God, it's about "The God of the Bible" if you take my meaning. That is why you have been getting pushback from theists and atheists alike. It happens to everyone who takes the "God or evolution" position. It's not about God, it's about the "or."

and i do and

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Its only you that considers a genome with more function as magical. Tas has the same problem with math. If the genome is now, let’s use 80% non-functional due to mutational errors, then it was once 80% more functional. Simple math. You can not get less unless you start with more.

This is a stunning misunderstanding. Having looked around here, I've been disappointed with the weak arguments from Creationists, but this one takes the biscuit.

@Justatruthseeker - Yes, some parts of the genome are non-functional due to mutations and the gene not being preserved. E.g. humans (and other apes) that cannot synthesise vitamin C. However, your depiction of what happens to genes would only be true if NO new genetic material had been added since life started.

And, it has.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Pity you refuse the answer.

It shows no relationship at all until we get to that point where you draw imaginary lines to imaginary common ancestors. Without those imaginary lines to those imaginary common ancestors that are missing for each and every connecting point, you have nothing showing any relationship.

I know this, you know this, everybody knows this. Yet you continually keep avoiding what you know and refuse to accept the truth.

That “variation within species...While this form of variation is usually ignored by palaeoanthropologists, when characters are recognized as varying, their treatment as a separate state adds considerable error to cladograms.”

And also not only that, but even worse, adding states that do not even exist and connecting those non-existing states with lines that shouldn’t even exist.

The bolded bit is only true when we have species where the variation in species is considerable compared to the difference between species. E.g. it is difficult to build a cladogram for the cichlid fish species of Lake Victoria. However, if we build a cladogram for species with more inter-species difference, then the variation within species is tiny in comparison and not a significant cause of error in the cladogram.

@Justatruthseeker - do you believe that the variation within species such as humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans etc. is small? E.g. do you believe that there is no clear distinction between humans and chimps?

 

[pshun2404]

I will only acknowledge the extent to which you ignored most of the post that document the many and substantive shortcomings, errors, and inconsistencies in the creationist's post.

Tell me - how many keyword searches did you have to perform to find that 2003 essay on morphology-based cladistic analysis of Homo when I was specifically writing about molecular analyses?

You didn't read past the title, did you?


"The evolutionary trend of human encephalisation, apparently isometric with body size, and concurrent reduction in the gut and masticatory apparatus, suggests continuous cladistic characters are biased by problems of body size.

The method suffers a logical weakness, or circularity, leading to bias when characters with multiple states are used. Coding of such characters can only be done using prior criteria, and this is usually done using an existing phylogenetic scheme. Another problem with coding character states is the handling of variation within species. While this form of variation is usually ignored by palaeoanthropologists, when characters are recognised as varying, their treatment as a separate state adds considerable error to cladograms."

next sentence:

"The genetic proximity of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas has important implications for cladistic analyses. It is argued that chimpanzees and gorillas should be treated as ingroup taxa and an alternative outgroup such as orangutans should be used, or an (hypothetical) ancestral body plan developed. Making chimpanzees and gorillas ingroup taxa would considerably enhance the biological utility of anthropological cladograms."

You are amazingly transparent and shallow.

First off you were not specifically speaking about only molecular analyses (which we discussed elsewhere) and second your inclusion of the other paragraphs here only shows more definitively that pre-held belief, choice, selection, interpretation, and yes even some bias are all included. The only difference is, though they believe the indication of the results (because it fits the model they were taught) they have no problem speaking about such things as they possibly are.

I write this just so you will not accuse me of not responding later and thanks for the insult at the close....

 

[Justatruthseeker]

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it--but you can't expect it to cut any ice with the rest of us.

Why would I expect that? Evolutionists can’t even follow their own scientific definitions. Christians can’t even follow their own Bible. This is a battle between creation or evolution. The or is apt, there is no and. Those who accept the and have lost their faith and have been swayed by the world into believing the lie. Hoping to be accepted by the world, and are in reality choosing their side in the battle to come.....

 

[Justatruthseeker]

First off you were not specifically speaking about only molecular analyses (which we discussed elsewhere) and second your inclusion of the other paragraphs here only shows more definitively that pre-held belief, choice, selection, interpretation, and yes even some bias are all included. The only difference is, though they believe the indication of the results (because it fits the model they were taught) they have no problem speaking about such things as they possibly are.

I write this just so you will not accuse me of not responding later and thanks for the insult at the close....

It wouldn’t matter if he was speaking about molecular analysis only, because that isn’t how cladograms are produced. He is fooling himself if he thinks otherwise.

From my earlier post.

“...but that those molecular comparisons are often flawed: There is no theory holding that molecular similarity necessarily implies an evolutionary relationship;...”

“Palaeoanthropology is based solely on morphology, and there is no scientific justification to favor DNA over morphological data. Yet the human-chimp relationship, generated by molecular data, has been accepted without any scrutiny.”

And then when you scrutinize it, call it into question using their own words, it’s suddenly you that doesn’t understand..... and then the insults begin because in the end, insults and straw men are all they are left with...

 

[Bungle_Bear]

insults and straw men are all they are left with...

It's very slim pickings after the creationists have had a go