Apes and humans have different designs

[Loudmouth]

Someone close to me is a CSI and deals with evidence. Evolutionary scientists speculate on the basis of dead remains, where the evidence trail has gone cold and build elaborate theories based on patterns that they observe now.

How did you determine that the trail has gone cold?

What you call a nested hierarchy is just a pattern of similarity that you have made sense of with a theory. The theory fits but there is more likely a better one you haven't grasped yet as is often the case with scientific models. Its not about the facts here it is about the theory laden interpretative filters and concepts that you use to explain them and organise them.

The entire purpose of theories is to make sense of the facts. Now you are criticizing scientists for doing what scientists are supposed to do?

If evolution is true then we should see a nested hieararchy. We see a nested hierarchy. How is this not evidence for evolution? How does creationism explain a nested hierarchy?

 

[mindlight]

In other words, there is no model, there are no predictions and there are no observations that could ever confirm or falsify your idea of a creating God. Whatever you call it, that's not science.

There are no observations that could confirm or falsify evolutionary theory either we are well past the time and to assume that what we see today will tell us the story is the mother of all unproven assumptions.

Science is what a CSI or a man in a lab does. Evolutionary theory is philosophers mouthing off opinions from their arm chairs

 

[FrenchyBearpaw]

There are no observations that could confirm or falsify evolutionary theory either we are well past the time and to assume that what we see today will tell us the story is the mother of all unproven assumptions.

Science is what a CSI or a man in a lab does. Evolutionary theory is philosophers mouthing off opinions from their arm chairs

As for falsification, a bunny in the Precambrian would do.

I don't know what to say at this point.

All of biology is predicated on ToE. It is one of the most robust scientific theories with Mt. Everest sized evidence to support it. I can only assume you're trolling at this point. I see no value in discussing this further with you.

 

[Tomk80]

There are no observations that could confirm or falsify evolutionary theory either we are well past the time and to assume that what we see today will tell us the story is the mother of all unproven assumptions.

Science is what a CSI or a man in a lab does. Evolutionary theory is philosophers mouthing off opinions from their arm chairs

Yes there are. Strong violations of the nested hierarchy would do the trick. Fossils of mammals or birds in cambrian layers would do as well. Falsification of mutations or natural selection would also work. The list of potential falsifications go on and on.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I have discussed the authority of scripture most of my life with atheists like yourself to PhD level and beyond and the bible has won through that. The historical criticism movement of the nineteenth century was a severe test and accompanied with the claims made about evolution gave a lot of Christian pause for thought. But the bible survived that test intact and there are more Christians than ever today despite more being martyred for its truthes in the last 100 years than in the 1900 before that.

We live in a world where the high priests of knowledge cannot prove the claims that they make so aggressively about our origins and yet continue to receive billions in funding for their socalled theories. Wishful thinking is indeed a feature of the modern world

Yes, all this fanciful talk from armchairs in ivory towers! All they go on about are these magical computational machines that allow near-instant communication across the planet. Sheer poppycock, right?

 

[Loudmouth]

There are no observations that could confirm or falsify evolutionary theory either . . .

Yes, there are. We have been talking about them this entire thread. Observations of a nested hierarchy confirms the theory of evolution while numerous and gross violations of the nested hierarchy would falsify it.

we are well past the time and to assume that what we see today will tell us the story is the mother of all unproven assumptions.

Why can't we use evidence in the presence to test hypotheses of what happened in the past?

Science is what a CSI or a man in a lab does.

And just like a crime scene investigator, we use evidence in the present to reconstruct what happened in the past. We even use DNA fingerprinting to determine common ancestry just like a forensic scientist does. Science is exactly what we are doing.

Evolutionary theory is philosophers mouthing off opinions from their arm chairs

Not even. It is scientists doing real science.

 

[Loudmouth]

From evolutionary perspective I guess you are looking at functionality being the primary issue but from a design perspective this may be a matter of ascetics rather than functionality and also of character which would be much harder to quantify and predict within the scientific paradigm.

So the creator just made it look like animals evolved just because he liked the way it looked? Your posts are getting very preposterous.

Even more, vestigial organs fall into a nested hierarchy. We never see fish with vestigial hair, birds with vestigial teats, or mammals with vestigial feathers. Why is that?

 

[FrenchyBearpaw]

What a truly extraordinary thread this is!

It began, effectively, with this challenge from 'ThouShaltNotPoe':

"If you have a cogent argument, why won't any of you evolution-deniers address nested hierarchies in the ape and human genomes? Tell us how COMMON DESIGN can explain nested hierarchies".

After 15 pages, no-one on the evolutionist side of the argument has proved that such a thing as a 'nested hierarchy' actually exists in the created world (or world of nature to speak more neutrally).

I think what 'ThouShaltNotPoe' and 'Loudmouth' are trying to say is that something like this is a nested hierarchy:

Common ancestor of apes & man > australopitchecines > ape-men > homo erectus > homo habilis > home neanderthalensis > homo sapiens.

Or something like that (these cladograms change from time to time anyway).

The theory that this, or something like it, is a 'nested hierarchy', assumes that the allegedly gradual transition from a common ancestor of apes and man to today's homo sapiens has actually happened. That simply cannot be demonstrated.

Indeed, all the evidence goes the other way.

The total absence of genuine 'missing links' is powerful evidence against evolution.

The facts of biology are also against the theory of evolution; no new DNA information can be transmitted to the next generation, except for mutations, which, as must be admitted by the evolutionists here, are corrupted data and not a mechanism for improvement.

The argument of 'ThouShaltNotPoe' and 'Loudmouth' boils down to:

"LOOK! Here is a nested hierarchy. Evolution explains it; creationism doesn't".

There is a simple problem with this argument.

There is no actual evidence of a nested hierarchy. It is merely a hypothesis, and one that should be rejected because the evidence doesn't support it.

One fascinating thing about this thread is that no actual examples of a 'nested hierarchy' have been given, except the very vague 'apes to humans'.

And yet, if evolution were true, EVERY SINGLE animal, plant, bird, insect, mammal, reptile, amphibian, fish or other creature would - axiomatically - be part of a nested hierarchy.

So where are all these 'nested hierarchies'?

Let's look to give just one example at the caterpillar > butterfly > caterpillar miracle.

What so-called 'nested hierarchy' does this magnificent creature fall into?

It doesn't, of course. It is gloriously unique, and with the most wonderful design features, if only your blindness didn't prevent you seeing this wonder of design.

It is so sad to see these attempts to back up a theory - evolution - with all the facts stacked against it.

It is because of sin.

Some of us have had the great good fortune to have been allowed to understand the truth about our existence, namely that the world and the universe and everything in it was created by God - a world in which, however, we have brought death and ruin by our rebellion against Him.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, died and rose again to bring forgiveness of sins.

So long as we reject Him, we will keep clinging on to desperate theories like evolution as a rationalisation for avoiding Him.

Aaaaaahhhhhh..... run away, run away. There's no missing links.

 

[Tomk80]

What a truly extraordinary thread this is!

It began, effectively, with this challenge from 'ThouShaltNotPoe':

"If you have a cogent argument, why won't any of you evolution-deniers address nested hierarchies in the ape and human genomes? Tell us how COMMON DESIGN can explain nested hierarchies".

After 15 pages, no-one on the evolutionist side of the argument has proved that such a thing as a 'nested hierarchy' actually exists in the created world (or world of nature to speak more neutrally).

I think what 'ThouShaltNotPoe' and 'Loudmouth' are trying to say is that something like this is a nested hierarchy:

Common ancestor of apes & man > australopitchecines > ape-men > homo erectus > homo habilis > home neanderthalensis > homo sapiens.

Or something like that (these cladograms change from time to time anyway).

The theory that this, or something like it, is a 'nested hierarchy', assumes that the allegedly gradual transition from a common ancestor of apes and man to today's homo sapiens has actually happened. That simply cannot be demonstrated.

We can stop here. Can you figure out your own misunderstanding here, or do you need help.

To give you a hint, nested hierarchies do not assume a gradual transition from a common ancestor.

 

[sfs]

Science is what a CSI or a man in a lab does. Evolutionary theory is philosophers mouthing off opinions from their arm chairs

Simply astonishing. Have you ever stepped foot in a biology lab? Are you really unaware that biologists all over use evolution in their studies, and that they also spend an awful lot of time in the lab? Have you ever even read a scientific paper?

 

[mindlight]

In other words, there is no model, there are no predictions and there are no observations that could ever confirm or falsify your idea of a creating God. Whatever you call it, that's not science.

Nothing could falsify the existence of God- TRUE. But the real question is whether or not my assumptions work better or not in explaining the evidence. Even atheistic thinkers like Thomas Nagel think a purely materialistic approach is inadequate in explaining the formation of consciousness etc. I know that there is more to our existence than just the material by which you try and label our existence as do the vast majority of the worlds population regardless of religious position, including many scientists. These non material realities have a bearing on such issues as the formation of life and it is dishonest and in the end bad science to exclude them by definition.

 

[mindlight]

That's fine. But, you are talking to scientists who do science and science doesn't work that way. In other words, they can't resort to the supernatural in order to explain the observations. By its very definition, the supernatural is outside the bounds of science. They only have the physical and natural laws to work with.

Its my perspective that scientists are doing a great deal more than just observing evidence. They are also collating it and then interpreting it. It is these value laden theories which are debatable not the evidence itself. It may appear consistent to explain things merely in terms of materialistic evidences and still be disastrously wrong. Any good court room lawyer can take the same forensic evidence and come up with a totally different account of a crime scene and indeed motivations. In the end the jury makes a plausibility assessment based not only on the evidence but on how credible the story is that is used to explain the evidence.

 

[Tomk80]

Nothing could falsify the existence of God- TRUE. But the real question is whether or not my assumptions work better or not in explaining the evidence. Even atheistic thinkers like Thomas Nagel think a purely materialistic approach is inadequate in explaining the formation of consciousness etc. I know that there is more to our existence than just the material by which you try and label our existence as do the vast majority of the worlds population regardless of religious position, including many scientists. These non material realities have a bearing on such issues as the formation of life and it is dishonest and in the end bad science to exclude them by definition.

Sure, there is more to life than just materially living our lives. This does not mean that we cannot explain life as arising through purely material means. At best, we don't know whether this is the case or not. So far, all attempts to point to the thing that sets (conscious) life apart from all other things in the universe have failed.

When you say that science is excluding these by definition, it only shows that you have no clue about science. Science does not exclude them. But for something to be scientific, it has to be testable through observation. We must be able to make observations verifying or falsifying the model (not one of these, but both). In other words, you must come up with means to discern your model from other models.

This is where your proposals so far fail, utterly and miserably. While the theory of evolution can be falsified and verified (as I demonstrated in my previous post) and thus can be discerned from other models, what you have proposed cannot in any way be verified or falsified. Which means it is not scientific. It fails as a model testable through observation. And since it fails, we have no way of verifying whether it is true or not. And since we cannot verify whether it is true or not, there is no reason for us to accept it.

 

[mindlight]

As for falsification, a bunny in the Precambrian would do.

Umm J.B.S. Haldane....

I don't know what to say at this point.

All of biology is predicated on ToE. It is one of the most robust scientific theories with Mt. Everest sized evidence to support it. I can only assume you're trolling at this point. I see no value in discussing this further with you.

Another one bites the dust.

No I am not trolling but the Mount Everest sized pile of evidence you cite is mainly explicable in other terms e.g. a global flood etc. There is little to no DNA evidence at all from these ancient times as it degrades rapidly and we are talking thousands of years. So to speculate on common ancestory based on comparisons of the genomes of todays creatures is purely speculative. There are no missing links just big gaps which we are supposed to understand as sudden leaps.

 

[mindlight]

Yes there are. Strong violations of the nested hierarchy would do the trick. Fossils of mammals or birds in cambrian layers would do as well. Falsification of mutations or natural selection would also work. The list of potential falsifications go on and on.

How about a complete lack of credible evidence showing the chain of events from A to B. We have chimps and we have humans and we have various other creatures that look very much like both but we have no chain of evidence that would hold up in a court of law, we could not duplicate the process by a guided approach of DNA replication with carefully chosen mutations. Evolutionary theory is just a speculation based on an hypothesis at the end the day that explains little and very badly.

 

[mindlight]

Yes, all this fanciful talk from armchairs in ivory towers! All they go on about are these magical computational machines that allow near-instant communication across the planet. Sheer poppycock, right?

No the existence of computers, modern telecommunications and the internet is empirically verifiable while the theory of evolution is not.

 

[SLP]

Including the reality of a God who is able to raise the dead, create out of nothing and in human form walk on water and encourage others to do so also.

That this is a reality is, in fact, a presupposition.

There is no objective evidence for any of these things.

 

[mindlight]

Yes, there are. We have been talking about them this entire thread. Observations of a nested hierarchy confirms the theory of evolution while numerous and gross violations of the nested hierarchy would falsify it.

I realise this is an article of religious faith with you and so I must tread respectfully at this point. But as said many times before in this OP (and I know you think I cannot understand or have not been listening cause I have not arrived at your viewpoint yet ) all you have are patterns that look similar and a theory that explains them in terms of common descent. A common designer would be just as adequate an explanation of these similarities and apparent continuities between groups of creatures which he has created with these design similarities. Also the creation of these creatures could occur by the same processes of DNA replication and mutation that are suggested for evolution but in a vastly accelerated and guided way in the case of an intelligent designer hypothesis for the same evidence. So the same evidence could be used by a creationist or a theistic evolutionist and still be accepted as factual.

Why can't we use evidence in the presence to test hypotheses of what happened in the past?

I did not say we could not. BUt we have to accept that at distance the credibility of our analyses starts to degrade. Shakespeares portrayal of Richard III is a good case study. People had thought that Shakespeare did not like him and was exaggerating to score favour with the monarch of the time. Well it transpires that his physical description may well have been quite accurate as we now have the skeleton of Richard III dug up in a car park recently. That is evidence that confirms eyewitness accounts and might have a degree of credibility to it but about events from hundreds of years ago.

Now I look at a rock wall and see loads of different kinds of layers of rock and different kinds of fossils in each layer. One idea is that this formed gradually over billions of years and another that it happened pretty rapidly in a grand catastrophe. Regardless of which position I take the evidence is the same. Some of the creatures in that rock wall , even low down, look remarkably similar to creatures I see today - others may include fish giving birth or in the act of swallowing other fish and do not look like they formed in a matter of millions of years.

And just like a crime scene investigator, we use evidence in the present to reconstruct what happened in the past. We even use DNA fingerprinting to determine common ancestry just like a forensic scientist does. Science is exactly what we are doing.

Not even. It is scientists doing real science.

DNA degrades quite rapidly. the stuff you have dug up that was preserved in amonia or what not does not provide any shocks for the view that it was all pretty much created as it is now and aside from minor adjustments to environmental changes has stayed true to type.

 

[mindlight]

So the creator just made it look like animals evolved just because he liked the way it looked? Your posts are getting very preposterous.

Even more, vestigial organs fall into a nested hierarchy. We never see fish with vestigial hair, birds with vestigial teats, or mammals with vestigial feathers. Why is that?

Common designer theory makes better sense of many of these features than a view of evolution based on natural selection and survival of the fittest. Yes it might just be an ascetic choice. Indeed the survival of these oddities in a whole variety of creatures points to a younger rather than older earth as according to the principles of evolution they are mistakes that would impede the capacity to survive rather than thrive.

 

[mindlight]

What a truly extraordinary thread this is!

It began, effectively, with this challenge from 'ThouShaltNotPoe':

"If you have a cogent argument, why won't any of you evolution-deniers address nested hierarchies in the ape and human genomes? Tell us how COMMON DESIGN can explain nested hierarchies".

After 15 pages, no-one on the evolutionist side of the argument has proved that such a thing as a 'nested hierarchy' actually exists in the created world (or world of nature to speak more neutrally).

I think what 'ThouShaltNotPoe' and 'Loudmouth' are trying to say is that something like this is a nested hierarchy:

Common ancestor of apes & man > australopitchecines > ape-men > homo erectus > homo habilis > home neanderthalensis > homo sapiens.

Or something like that (these cladograms change from time to time anyway).

The theory that this, or something like it, is a 'nested hierarchy', assumes that the allegedly gradual transition from a common ancestor of apes and man to today's homo sapiens has actually happened. That simply cannot be demonstrated.

Indeed, all the evidence goes the other way.

The total absence of genuine 'missing links' is powerful evidence against evolution.

The facts of biology are also against the theory of evolution; no new DNA information can be transmitted to the next generation, except for mutations, which, as must be admitted by the evolutionists here, are corrupted data and not a mechanism for improvement.

The argument of 'ThouShaltNotPoe' and 'Loudmouth' boils down to:

"LOOK! Here is a nested hierarchy. Evolution explains it; creationism doesn't".

There is a simple problem with this argument.

There is no actual evidence of a nested hierarchy. It is merely a hypothesis, and one that should be rejected because the evidence doesn't support it.

One fascinating thing about this thread is that no actual examples of a 'nested hierarchy' have been given, except the very vague 'apes to humans'.

And yet, if evolution were true, EVERY SINGLE animal, plant, bird, insect, mammal, reptile, amphibian, fish or other creature would - axiomatically - be part of a nested hierarchy.

So where are all these 'nested hierarchies'?

Let's look to give just one example at the caterpillar > butterfly > caterpillar miracle.

What so-called 'nested hierarchy' does this magnificent creature fall into?

It doesn't, of course. It is gloriously unique, and with the most wonderful design features, if only your blindness didn't prevent you seeing this wonder of design.

It is so sad to see these attempts to back up a theory - evolution - with all the facts stacked against it.

It is because of sin.

Some of us have had the great good fortune to have been allowed to understand the truth about our existence, namely that the world and the universe and everything in it was created by God - a world in which, however, we have brought death and ruin by our rebellion against Him.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, died and rose again to bring forgiveness of sins.

So long as we reject Him, we will keep clinging on to desperate theories like evolution as a rationalisation for avoiding Him.

Neat summary- reps!