Why Have Birds Never Gotten as Big as T. Rex?

[lifepsyop]

Not really. There are a few times and places where transitions are sudden. And some people tend to only think about them because they are rather spectacular to study. Most of the ages and sub divisions are based on less spectacular transitions like the species of ammonite.

I think the mere fact we have such easily discernable layers and transitions is remarkable.

Rock layers in the macro actually appear very similar to what happens in real time to rapidly deposited sediment layers in the micro, which I also find remarkable.

If you ever get the chance, check out the experiments in stratification by Guy Berthault.

And within the layers we have volcanic sites that produce gem quality minerals that function as precise timers with increments of 10k years. There's a lot of volcanism in 3 million years so we get a number of samples these days. A good example of this is the cretaceous-paleogene extinction event. There's a million years of volcanism going on in that time period. The "sudden" nature of it is distinctly america because we got hit so there's a huge deposit of late cretaceous creatures that all died the same time in a tsunami of mud. Other parts of the world, especially china have evidence of a slower Maastrichtian Age and Danian Age.

The main issue with this is we have absolute dating. We know if things have been 1000s of years or millions-billions.

There's not much point in me responding to something you claim is already known 'absolutely'.

There is a long history of scientists claiming to have strong data-driven evidence of long ages, such as the age of the earth itself, a date which has deviated by billions of years. I'm sure you believe that it's all figured out now, I just don't share that belief.

Early scientists having debates is not surprising.

I wouldn't say it's surprising.

My takeaway from the Missoula controversy is that consensus science can get really attached to a certain idea ("uniformitarianism" in this case) and as a result become blinded from seeing evidence that they're wrong, which is what happened.

The more wrong the consensus could potentially be, the more such an interpretation of the data will be resisted. And likewise, an interpretation that supports the consensus belief will always be leaned towards, like a ratchet effect.

Scientists, and institutions of any kind for that matter, are not dispassionate data-crunchers. They are wholly invested in particular worldviews, and deeply susceptible to groupthink and confirmation bias. Contrary to popular belief, a "peer-review" system can often exacerbate this issue.

Besides newer evidence supports up to 40 flooding events in that area over a much longer time. Which is more evidence of the original objection. 2500 years of floods every 50 years is rapid but it's still gradualism.

It is ultimately something that could be accommodated into a general evolutionary deep-time narrative, which is why the evidence could finally be accepted after decades of resistance.

In the big picture, Missoula was not even that much a controversy, since the grand evolutionary narrative was not ever under threat, and yet we still see there was such an emotional reaction to having the consensus view of geologic history challenged.

If there was evidence that the evolutionary narrative was completely wrong, would "Science" be able to see it at all? I very much doubt it...

It would take such a massive revolution in the minds of men to be able to entertain the possibility of being so wrong about something, much less dispassionately examine evidence for it.

I have some debatable topics in my own book series on natural history. There's even a chapter on holocene flooding.

sounds interesting!

 

[River Jordan]

Scientists, and institutions of any kind for that matter, are not dispassionate data-crunchers. They are wholly invested in particular worldviews

No we're not. In my place of work we have scientists from a host of different faith and philosophical backgrounds and the only times they ever come up are in casual personal (non-work) conversations. I guess I have to ask, what "particular worldview" do you think I share with my co-workers?

Contrary to popular belief, a "peer-review" system can often exacerbate this issue.

Not that I've seen. How much direct experience do you have with the peer review process?

 

[lifepsyop]

No we're not. In my place of work we have scientists from a host of different faith and philosophical backgrounds and the only times they ever come up are in casual personal (non-work) conversations. I guess I have to ask, what "particular worldview" do you think I share with my co-workers?

you share an evolutionary worldview

it's like the diversity of beliefs in 21st century America. You have atheist, buddhist, and Christian, etc. but they are all strong believers in Democracy. All kinds of different players with different beliefs, but Democracy is essentially the 'field' that they play on.

So it is with Evolution. It's just "the way the world is", and to think in non-evolutionary terms would be like Americans deciding democracy doesn't work and to return to Monarchy. Just not gonna happen, save a massive revolutionary event or social upheaval.

Not that I've seen. How much direct experience do you have with the peer review process?

I've read studies that critically examine the process:



Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals​

Richard Smith

"But does peer review `work' at all? A systematic review of all the available evidence on peer review concluded that `the practice of peer review is based on faith in its effects, rather than on facts'.
....
So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.
...
People have a great many fantasies about peer review, and one of the most powerful is that it is a highly objective, reliable, and consistent process.
...
The editorial peer review process has been strongly biased against `negative studies', i.e. studies that find an intervention does not work.
...
Conclusions:
So peer review is a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless, it is likely to remain central to science and journals because there is no obvious alternative, and scientists and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief."

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

on the other hand, as far as I can tell, the belief in peer-review to find truth is almost entirely a faith practice

 

[AaronClaricus]

There's not much point in me responding to something you claim is already known 'absolutely'.

There is a long history of scientists claiming to have strong data-driven evidence of long ages, such as the age of the earth itself, a date which has deviated by billions of years. I'm sure you believe that it's all figured out now, I just don't share that belief.

There's absolute dating and relative dating. Absolute dating is based on physics. Radioactive elements decay. In the case of volcanics, it's usually uranium 235 and 233 into specific isotopes of lead. They decay at different rates providing two calculations which serve as physical/natural clocks.

The old issues with the age of the earth are long over. And they knew of the weaknesses when they published. Back then the sample size was quite large, much larger than a single zircon. And zircons have a property that allows them to grow extra layers. These day sample size is a single zircon and they only select high quality samples so the age is know to within 10,000 years. The age of the earth has hardly changed in 75 years, and within the estimated range of the first high quality experiments using meteorites. Which were all formed in a 3 million year long period at the very beginning of the solar system. Less the materials that were ejected from planets during collisions. These days we have earth rocks that are almost that old. With more discoveries likely in the future.

 

[lifepsyop]

There's absolute dating and relative dating. Absolute dating is based on physics.

Okay, so you believe that with this methodology you are gaining absolute knowledge about the age of the Earth. Good for you!

 

[Job 33:6]

you share an evolutionary worldview

it's like the diversity of beliefs in 21st century America. You have atheist, buddhist, and Christian, etc. but they are all strong believers in Democracy. All kinds of different players with different beliefs, but Democracy is essentially the 'field' that they play on.

So it is with Evolution. It's just "the way the world is", and to think in non-evolutionary terms would be like Americans deciding democracy doesn't work and to return to Monarchy. Just not gonna happen, save a massive revolutionary event or social upheaval.




I've read studies that critically examine the process:



Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals​

Richard Smith

"But does peer review `work' at all? A systematic review of all the available evidence on peer review concluded that `the practice of peer review is based on faith in its effects, rather than on facts'.
....
So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.
...
People have a great many fantasies about peer review, and one of the most powerful is that it is a highly objective, reliable, and consistent process.
...
The editorial peer review process has been strongly biased against `negative studies', i.e. studies that find an intervention does not work.
...
Conclusions:
So peer review is a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless, it is likely to remain central to science and journals because there is no obvious alternative, and scientists and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief."

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

on the other hand, as far as I can tell, the belief in peer-review to find truth is almost entirely a faith practice

I think that part of the issue with the anti-evolution proposition, is that no one has offered a better alternative. The fossil record makes sense in light of evolution. And it doesn't make sense in light of a global flood. So what is our third option?

 

[lifepsyop]

I think that part of the issue with the anti-evolution proposition, is that no one has offered a better alternative.

well I guess one would have to be open to an alternative that cannot be reduced to natural processes, i.e. miraculous creation.

but that really isn't allowed in modern institutions. even when things seem like there really is no natural explanation (such as abiogenesis) the answer is always "nature did it, we're just still figuring out how"

The fossil record makes sense in light of evolution.

that's not really that impressive though. evolution basically says that whatever fossils are found is when that creature evolved.

as a simple example, just imagine an alternate universe where the earth's fossil record had shown mammal fossils appearing in layers below dinosaurs,

the evolutionary story would just have been that mammals evolved before dinosaurs.

evolution is a story that can conform to a countless number of contrasting sets of data.

And it doesn't make sense in light of a global flood.

i've always found it strange when evolutionists say this, when the most defining feature of the fossil record is that of catastrophic burial.

So what is our third option?

God did it... miracles... special creation... you know, crazy anti-science stuff.

 

[River Jordan]

you share an evolutionary worldview

That's like saying chemists share an atomic worldview, cartographers share a spherical earth worldview, geologists share a tectonics worldview, or cosmologists share a heliocentric worldview. It doesn't make sense.

it's like the diversity of beliefs in 21st century America. You have atheist, buddhist, and Christian, etc. but they are all strong believers in Democracy. All kinds of different players with different beliefs, but Democracy is essentially the 'field' that they play on.

So it is with Evolution. It's just "the way the world is", and to think in non-evolutionary terms would be like Americans deciding democracy doesn't work and to return to Monarchy. Just not gonna happen, save a massive revolutionary event or social upheaval.

We're not "believers in evolution" any more than cosmologists are "believers in heliocentrism". Both with evolution and heliocentrism, those are just the conclusions scientists have reached through their work.

I've read studies that critically examine the process:



Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals​

Richard Smith

"But does peer review `work' at all? A systematic review of all the available evidence on peer review concluded that `the practice of peer review is based on faith in its effects, rather than on facts'.
....
So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.
...
People have a great many fantasies about peer review, and one of the most powerful is that it is a highly objective, reliable, and consistent process.
...
The editorial peer review process has been strongly biased against `negative studies', i.e. studies that find an intervention does not work.
...
Conclusions:
So peer review is a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless, it is likely to remain central to science and journals because there is no obvious alternative, and scientists and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief."

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

on the other hand, as far as I can tell, the belief in peer-review to find truth is almost entirely a faith practice

If you read that closely you noticed that it's specifically about reproducability in medical research. It really has nothing much to do with my field of work.

 

[lifepsyop]

That's like saying chemists share an atomic worldview, cartographers share a spherical earth worldview, geologists share a tectonics worldview, or cosmologists share a heliocentric worldview. It doesn't make sense.

it makes sense - you share a worldview that renders the history of the universe into natural processes. do you not?

We're not "believers in evolution" any more than cosmologists are "believers in heliocentrism". Both with evolution and heliocentrism, those are just the conclusions scientists have reached through their work.

if that makes you feel better, okay, you're "concluders" of evolution.

If you read that closely you noticed that it's specifically about reproducability in medical research. It really has nothing much to do with my field of work.

so your conclusion is that medical peer-review is completely flawed, but peer-review somehow works great in non medical fields? seems like a stretch.
to be honest i sense a lot of faith/belief behind how you regard these matters

 

[River Jordan]

it makes sense - you share a worldview that renders the history of the universe into natural processes. do you not?

No! That's the framework we do our work under, but none of us are obligated to apply it outside of work. It should be obvious that my Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other theist co-workers don't view the entire history of everything that's ever happened as a natural process.

if that makes you feel better, okay, you're "concluders" of evolution.

In the same way cosmologists are "concluders of heliocentrism".

so your conclusion is that medical peer-review is completely flawed

No, I didn't say that. I pointed out how the paper you linked to was specifically about issues with reproducability in medical research.

but peer-review somehow works great in non medical fields? seems like a stretch.

I have a fair bit of experience with the peer review process in biology, as a reviewer and an author and I've not seen any fundamental issues with it. It's not perfect of course, but nothing is.

to be honest i sense a lot of faith/belief behind how you regard these matters

It would be "faith/belief" if I had no direct experience with the process and instead just blindly trusted it, but since I have direct experience with it it's anything but "faith/belief".

I sense from you that your aim here is to cast doubt on peer review because it's been producing results that you don't like or agree with.

 

[The Barbarian]

But is is true that humans evolved from other primates.

You're just repeating the same thing without examining it. You're not even making an argument.

I showed you a great deal of evidence. You've forgotten it all? Let's recap:
1. fossil record, that even honest YECs admit is "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."
2. Genetics, showing that Humans are most closely related to other apes. And we can test his on organisms of known descent.
3. Anatomy, showing that all apes form a single evolutionary group.
I'll show you the details if you need reminding. And there's more if you'd like to see more.

"primates" is just another system category, like mammals, or vertebrates. It's not an actual biological/ontological entity that exists in creation.

I know you have assumed so. But as even honest YECs admit, the evidence says otherwise.

And of course, earlier species of humans made marks on stones and cave walls to convey stories.

yes, actual humans did that.

But not our species. Anatomically modern humans evolved from one group of them, which others went extinct. The creationist idea of writing suddenly popping into human behavior is a YEC superstition. In fact, writing evolved over time. Would you like to learn the evidence for that?

Your problem is that you take these invented categories and insert them as actual ancestral nodes in a tree of life, as if they were real things that living species sprouted out of.

In fact, that phylogeny was first discovered by a man who had no idea of evolution. He couldn't explain why it looked like a tree, but once Darwin realized how it worked, the puzzle was solved. You got the story exactly backwards. The tree and nodes were discovered prior to evolution.

Universal common ancestry is basically evidenced by fossil record, genetics, anatomy and a host of other sources.

just the mantra of modern natural philosophy

Your mantra fails in the face of evidence I showed you. Anything you want to see again?

the same blanket assertion is made about the entirety of the physical universe, with just as much false confidence - that humans, whales, trees, oceans, planets, can all be confidently traced back to the star stuff exploding out of the big-bang. "all the evidence supports it" - yawn...

For example, we know how all the elements heavier than hydrogen, helium and lithium are made. They come from exploding supernovae. In stars like our sun, fusion can only build elements up to carbon. But much larger stars can burn all the elements.

NASA Astrobiology

astrobiology.nasa.gov

Let me know if you want me to show you again the details on the evidence for human evolution.

 

[The Barbarian]

There is a long history of scientists claiming to have strong data-driven evidence of long ages, such as the age of the earth itself, a date which has deviated by billions of years.

Hmm... the first scientific evidence for the age of the Earth was by Kelvin, who used the heat flux from the Sun to conclude that if it was a cooling sphere, it could be perhaps tens of millions of years old. Then Rutherford showed that the heat came from radioactive heating, which showed billions of years of age for the Earth.

Rutherford, BTW, was as right about the Earth, but wrong about the sun; it does not get it's heat from nuclear fission, but from nuclear fusion.

But since the 1800s, the calculated age has varied only as we found older and older rocks.

 

[The Barbarian]

I sense from you that your aim here is to cast doubt on peer review because it's been producing results that you don't like or agree with.

Today's winner.

 

[lifepsyop]

No! That's the framework we do our work under, but none of us are obligated to apply it outside of work.

that's true. you are certainly obligated to work under that framework at work, but not outside of it.

It should be obvious that my Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other theist co-workers don't view the entire history of everything that's ever happened as a natural process.

Okay, how many objects in nature do you believe were specially created and not the result of gradual natural processes? the stars? the earth? the oceans? life itself? humans? just curious

In the same way cosmologists are "concluders of heliocentrism".

yes, you believe evolutionary history is undeniable truth, i get that.

No, I didn't say that. I pointed out how the paper you linked to was specifically about issues with reproducability in medical research.

because the study was conducted by someone who works with medical journals.

the entire study described the scientific peer-review process generally. there was nothing that suggested those are only problems limited to medicine. such a suggestion doesn't even make sense. why would peer-review *only* be flawed in one single field of science?

I have a fair bit of experience with the peer review process in biology, as a reviewer and an author and I've not seen any fundamental issues with it. It's not perfect of course, but nothing is.

have you conducted an actual critical study of the peer-review process?

It would be "faith/belief" if I had no direct experience with the process and instead just blindly trusted it, but since I have direct experience with it it's anything but "faith/belief".

i don't understand your position. i linked you to a study (from a prestigious journal) that meticulously describes how peer-review is a deeply flawed process with no evidence that it actually works.

your response is "that only happens in medicine" with no argument?

I sense from you that your aim here is to cast doubt on peer review because it's been producing results that you don't like or agree with.

you're probably right about that

but it doesn't change the fact that the evidence shows peer-review doesn't work at all.

 

[Job 33:6]

God did it... miracles... special creation... you know, crazy anti-science stuff.

Well that's exactly it isn't it?

If you don't actually have a clear mechanism in mind, how do you know that special creation doesn't include evolution?

Saying "God did it" of course isn't a more credible mechanism. It's merely a theological claim. And without a more plausible mechanism than evolution, who's to say that God didn't use evolution himself?

 

[lifepsyop]

In fact, that phylogeny was first discovered by a man who had no idea of evolution. He couldn't explain why it looked like a tree, but once Darwin realized how it worked, the puzzle was solved.

Charles Darwin had no idea of evolution?

How much do you know about his grandfather, Erasmus?

 

[The Barbarian]

i don't know, to me this is just a testament to how malleable the story of evolution is. When I was younger I remember hearing how strong evolution theory is because fossils are always found in a particular order

Well, let's look at that...

Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory.
YEC Dr. Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms

The usual object from YECs is "well, if mammals evolved from reptiles, why do we find reptile fossils after mammal fossils?"

I have no idea why they can't figure that out.

I do like pointing people to something called the "Missoula Floods" controversy. It's an interesting case from the mid 20th century when geologists were convinced that all the evidence in the rocks pointed to a history of very long, slow, gradual "uniformitarian" change.

You've been misled about that. Uniformitarianism says that the same physical laws we see happening now, have always been the same. It does not rule out catastrophic change. The huge regional eruptions that caused the Deccan traps, for example, were understood in the 1800s as discontinuous change.

 

[Job 33:6]

that's not really that impressive though. evolution basically says that whatever fossils are found is when that creature evolved.

Phylogenetics is obviously more technical than this. No sincere person would word it this way. We never find a rabbit in the Cambrian. Such a discovery would disprove evolution. Yet no such discovery that defies cladistics and phylogenetics, exists.

 

[The Barbarian]

i don't understand your position. i linked you to a study (from a prestigious journal) that meticulously describes how peer-review is a deeply flawed process with no evidence that it actually works.

Consider results. Bottom line, nothing else we do works better for discovering how the physical universe works.

 

[The Barbarian]

In fact, that phylogeny was first discovered by a man who had no idea of evolution. He couldn't explain why it looked like a tree, but once Darwin realized how it worked, the puzzle was solved.

Charles Darwin had no idea of evolution?

Linnaeus. About a hundred years before Darwin. He first noted that living things fit nicely into a bush-shaped diagram. He just couldn't figure out why. Remember when I suggested that not knowing about a subject was a major impediment to understanding it? Here's another example. Darwin didn't discover the "tree of life" or even evolution. He merely showed why it happens.