Evolution happens

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

If there's one thing evolutionary scientists are "good" at, it's dreaming up theories. Evolutionary theories are a dime a dozen, and a great deal of them can't be tested, which means they don't even qualify as science. Theories that can't be tested are just worthless stories, which suits evolutionary science just fine, because it's a bs-artist's paradise.

Take Stephen Jay Gould, for example: His books were lapped up by the evo-masses, but his ideas didn't advance science one bit. His famous theory - Punctuated Equilbrium - surprise, surprise - can't be tested. Gould was your typical evolutionary "scientist" ... a purveyor of worthless pseudo-scientific stories.

A theory involving long-term evolution often can't be tested directly, but they can be tested indirectly, by checking their predictions, i.e. if the theory is correct, we'd expect to find X, Y, & Z in the world. Punctuated equilibrium has been tested this way both in the fossil record and in living animals, and its predictions hold good. It's not the only form of evolution, but it there is plenty of evidence to support it as one form of evolution.

Evolutionary science is the most overrated, useless branch of science in history ... but that doesn't matter, because it's raison d'être is not to advance science, but to advance atheism.

Not really. Understanding evolution has enabled many advances, particularly in medicine, agriculture, and technology, including new antibiotics and vaccines, cancer treatments, crop breeding, pest & disease resistance and control, and computational design using evolutionary algorithms.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why?

Why not?

Again: Are you expecting God to have created every kind on earth with DNA structures so vastly different from each other that they can't be linked?

We aren't some animal's "cousin" by marriage.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Isn't that a circular argument?

Let's back up to the Creation Week.

Every genus (okay, I'll use technobabble) ... every genus appears on the earth within a three-day period.

Some of these genera have DNA that are closer to others than others have.

Like ape DNA and human DNA.

And because of these similarities, evolutionists dispute "instant creation"?

No; for example, they all use the same bases in their DNA/RNA backbones; it could have been different - we have made creatures with different bases in their DNA and they live and reproduce just fine. There are other indications - the sections of DNA that deal with essential features, like energy production, are called 'highly conserved' because they are almost identical in all living things - but there are other ways they could have been arranged, and so on. IOW, all the evidence points to a common ancestor.

If you want to believe in theistic creation of some sort, you can make it compatible with any evidence, which is partly why it's not considered to be a useful explanation.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Why not?

Again: Are you expecting God to have created every kind on earth with DNA structures so vastly different from each other that they can't be linked?

We aren't some animal's "cousin" by marriage.

I also asked: "What purpose does it serve?"

What purpose does it serve for life to look related?

 

[AV1611VET]

What purpose does it serve for life to look related?

If every genus was more different from each other than a snowflake, the earth would make Star Trek look like Little House on the Prairie.

 

[Hans Blaster]

If every genus was more different from each other than a snowflake, the earth would make Star Trek look like Little House on the Prairie.

So what. What is the purpose in the similarity?

 

[AV1611VET]

So what. What is the purpose in the similarity?

I don't know.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

You didn't answer my question, so how much biology do you actually understand?

I did answer your question. I said: Because that's how biology works. An animal cannot change the Family it is in. A cat cannot become a dog. It can become dog-like, but it will never be a true dog because it cannot change from Felindae to Canidae. Biology does not work like that.

 

[Aussie Pete]

No; the only things possible in theory are things compatible with the theory. Changing your ancestors isn't possible.

Nothing is compatible with evolution. Adaptation, yes. Evolution, no. And they are not the same thing.

 

[Gene2memE]

Nothing is compatible with evolution. Adaptation, yes. Evolution, no. And they are not the same thing.

You might want to inform Darwin, Wallace and every evolutionary biologist since them that adaptation has nothing to do with evolution:

On the Origin of Species, Darwin, Sixth Edition (1872), p 156

"We should also bear in mind that every highly developed organism has passed through many changes; and that each modified structure tends to be inherited, so that each modification will not readily be quite lost, but may be again and again further altered. Hence, the structure of each part of each species, for whatever purpose it may serve, is the sum of many inherited changes, through which the species has passed during its successive adaptations to changed habits and conditions of life."
​

On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, Wallace (1858) p 50

Besides this natural means of selection, by which those individuals are preserved, whether in their egg, or larval, or mature state, which are best adapted to the place they fill in nature, there is a second agency at work in most unisexual animals, tending to produce the same effect, namely, the struggle of the males for the females. These struggles are generally decided by the law of battle, but in the case of birds, apparently, by the charms of their song, by their beauty or their power of courtship, as in the dancing rock-thrush of Guiana. The most vigorous and healthy males, implying perfect adaptation, must generally gain the victory in their contests.

...

p 52
The variety thus formed will either coexist with, or, more commonly, will exterminate its parent form. An organic being, like the woodpecker or misseltoe, may thus come to be adapted to a score of contingences—natural selection accumulating those slight variations in all parts of its structure, which are in any way useful to it during any part of its life.
​

 

[Aussie Pete]

Isn't that a circular argument?

Let's back up to the Creation Week.

Every genus (okay, I'll use technobabble) ... every genus appears on the earth within a three-day period.

Some of these genera have DNA that are closer to others than others have.

Like ape DNA and human DNA.

And because of these similarities, evolutionists dispute "instant creation"?

When you examine DNA similarities, surprising results have been found. There is very little difference in DNA

You might want to inform Darwin, Wallace and every evolutionary biologist since them that adaptation has nothing to do with evolution:

On the Origin of Species, Darwin, Sixth Edition (1872), p 156

"We should also bear in mind that every highly developed organism has passed through many changes; and that each modified structure tends to be inherited, so that each modification will not readily be quite lost, but may be again and again further altered. Hence, the structure of each part of each species, for whatever purpose it may serve, is the sum of many inherited changes, through which the species has passed during its successive adaptations to changed habits and conditions of life."
​

On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, Wallace (1858) p 50

Besides this natural means of selection, by which those individuals are preserved, whether in their egg, or larval, or mature state, which are best adapted to the place they fill in nature, there is a second agency at work in most unisexual animals, tending to produce the same effect, namely, the struggle of the males for the females. These struggles are generally decided by the law of battle, but in the case of birds, apparently, by the charms of their song, by their beauty or their power of courtship, as in the dancing rock-thrush of Guiana. The most vigorous and healthy males, implying perfect adaptation, must generally gain the victory in their contests.

...

p 52
The variety thus formed will either coexist with, or, more commonly, will exterminate its parent form. An organic being, like the woodpecker or misseltoe, may thus come to be adapted to a score of contingences—natural selection accumulating those slight variations in all parts of its structure, which are in any way useful to it during any part of its life.
​

I'll tell the universe if necessary. Because it is true. Evolutionary theory is like a sieve, full of holes and unable to hold water. Yes, an assertion and I won't try to justify it. Evolutionists cling to their faulty and unproveable assertions no matter what anyone says.

 

[Tanj]

I'll tell the universe if necessary. Because it is true.

No it isn't.

Evolutionary theory is like a sieve, full of holes and unable to hold water. Yes, an assertion and I won't try to justify it. Evolutionists cling to their faulty and unproveable assertions no matter what anyone says.

You wont justify the unjustifiable? Crafty. I remain befuzzled by the sheer hubris required by people with no training, education or understanding of even the most basic aspects of biology making declarative statements in this space, as though their ignorance is equal to other people's knowledge.

Can anyone imagine the short uproar (before I got banned) that would occur if I wandered in to tell Christians what Christianity is or is not, what salvation actually means, or anything similar?

 

[Gene2memE]

I'll tell the universe if necessary. Because it is true. Evolutionary theory is like a sieve, full of holes and unable to hold water. Yes, an assertion and I won't try to justify it. Evolutionists cling to their faulty and unproveable assertions no matter what anyone says.

When presented with sourced rebuttal, your strategy is to simply repeat your previous assertion, acknowledge it is unjustifiable, and double down?

Bold strategy there Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for you.

 

[AV1611VET]

When you examine DNA similarities, surprising results have been found. There is very little difference in DNA

Thus my point.

The periodic table only has so many elements ("rudiments," as Paul calls them), and thus they look like one can successfully play connet-the-dots with them.

Using some 10 or so of the 92 naturally-occurring elements to make 175,363 genera could result in people coming to the wrong conclusion.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

The periodic table only has so many elements ("rudiments," as Paul calls them), and thus they look like one can successfully play connet-the-dots with them.

Except that Paul isn't referring to the elements of the Periodic Table when he talks about rudiments. That's you saying he is.

 

[AV1611VET]

Except that Paul isn't referring to the elements of the Periodic Table when he talks about rudiments. That's you saying he is.

We've been over this before, haven't we?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

We've been over this before, haven't we?

I know. Just bears repeating. You repeat all you things ad nauseum, us other people might as well do the same.

 

[AV1611VET]

I know. Just bears repeating. You repeat all you things ad nauseum, us other people might as well do the same.

QV please: Post 177

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

QV please: Post 177

And elements didn't always mean things like the elements of the Periodic Table.

Though you claim so many extra-Biblical things, like Noah speaking Jacobean English and living in New Jersey, so what does it matter?

 

[Tanj]

Thus my point.

The periodic table only has so many elements ("rudiments," as Paul calls them), and thus they look like one can successfully play connet-the-dots with them.

Using some 10 or so of the 92 naturally-occurring elements to make 175,363 genera could result in people coming to the wrong conclusion.

The correct extension of your analogy would be for you to complain about 92 elements making 175000 molecules, because if you are going to choose to be completely ignorant of biology, you might as well throw all of chemistry into the sludge as well.