Darwins Doubt - Cambrian Explosion

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

mindlight said:
Meyers reply to Matzkes review of the book says it all:

"It hardly solves the problem of missing fossil ancestors of Cambrian animals to use cladistics to posit a phylogenetic hypothesis that requires as a condition of its plausibility, the postulation of ghost lineages representing still more missing fossils"

That talks about actual evolutionary history in terms of identifying extinct ancestors.
It does not address phylogenetics in terms of DNA analysis of extant creatures.

In short: it means that, based on the DNA, we can say that species A and B have common ancestory and that we cannot identify that ancestor due to missing fossils. There are no guarantees of finding fossils. In fact, most species that ever walked the earth didn't leave any fossils behind at all.
We can conclude that safely on the basis of fossilization being a very rare process.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
You say this, but you can not justify it.
In fact, you're most likely just repeating what cdesign proponentsists have told you.

ps: they lied.

I can "make a case" for how apples falling down proves "intelligent falling" and posit fairies that regulate it.

And that is also "technically possible".
"technically possible" is not the measure by which ideas are evaluated.

The fact of the matter is that DNA demonstrates common ancestry. It really is that simple.

When a paternity test demonstrates that you are the biological father of child X, you can scream all you want about "opinions" and how it is "technically possible" that someone else is the father still... No court will care though.

Bottom line, science has its place. Courts have their case.

I used to use this analogy 40 years ago
Thousands of years from now, archaeologists dig up the remains of a lost civilization in the Seattle area. They find my home, the Seattle bus schedule, and my employment records. They discover that I went to work every day at a certain time and came home at a certain time.

After putting the pieces together, they are very excited to proclaim that I was a COBOL porgrammer in Seattle and took the bus every day from my home in Newcastle.

Except I drove. And if they had continued digging and discovering information, they would have figured that out. And they would have found out that I owned a Subaru DL and would have said, We were wrong. He didn't take the bus. He drove a Subaru DL.

Except I drove an Opel GT. And it's possible that if they kept digging they would have found out that information too.

That's the point here. Are we at the "he took the bus" phase, or the Subaru phase, or the Opel GT phase? Or something else entirely.

This is a very simple scenario. Much simpler than even the simplest single cell life form, and it is possible to make all sorts of hypotheses that make sense and have "evidence" to prove that they are possible. But the only way to know you are correct is to hop into your DeLorean and see for yourself.

This gets to the core of my issues with "science" regarding the Evolution stuff. It's fine to say, 'we believe he may have taken the bus and evidence shows that is possible. It is stupid to say, "our extensive experimentation on all information we have from that time prove he took the bus.

They're trying to find themselves an audience. Their deductions need applause. - Peter Gabriel from the album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
ID/creation, explains nothing. It merely asserts, based on a 2500 year old religious story.

Evolution theory actually explains. Based on evidence. And testable predictions.

Again, creation explains nothing.
Creation merely asserts. And it does so based on a 2500 year old religious text.

I just realized where we have a disconnect. Your comments above are all correct, from a certain point of view.

Science is an attempt to explain "how". Religion is an attempt to explain "why". Science, regarding life as it currently exists, works hard to explain how it got here. Religion is focused on why we exist in the first place. So those that come from an ID perspective, look at it from an "obviously it was designed" perspective, and the complexity is enough proof for us, because it is not really about science to us. Science is just a word for something people do.

Meanwhile, scientists (even religious ones) are not focusing on "why". They are strictly about "how". So, ID believers do not necessarily get into "how" in the same way evolution as primary mover believers get into the "how" part. But I will throw this out: If you believe someone designed a thing, you can learn a lot about them by asking "why". e.g. "why does this bowling ball have ten holes? Maybe someone designed it for a race of beings that use ten or more fingers. Or maybe they use a tool with ten apendiges.

So, Science teaches you about creation. Religion teaches you about the creator. And any scientist that simply refuses to even entertain the idea that it could have been created is being rather narrow minded and dogmatic. And, of course, many scientists DO entertain such a possibility. Domatism is poison to any search for truth.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
Or, let there be deadly radiation

Yep!

This is why creation of life forms came after.

PsychoSarah · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
Yep!

This is why creation of life forms came after.

Uh, the radiation never stopped. A protective ozone layer formed quite a bit after life did form in the oceans, where water protected that life from radiation. Some of those organisms began to produce oxygen as a byproduct, setting off one of if not the largest mass extinction of life on this planet. Yet, the first form of biological pollution was oxygen.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
It's a natural consequence of the designer model.
In a design-hypothesis, there is exactly ZERO reason to expect nested hierarchies. There is NO reason why only vertebrates would have a blind spot, why only birds would have feathers, why only mammals would have hair, why all primates would have the exact same broken gene broken in the exact same way, why ERV's would be shared, why the pattern of distribution of ERV's would match just about every pattern of other shared traits etc etc etc

Designed product lines don't look like trees in their shared traits.

If done on purpose, it's incredibly wasteful and ineficient.

Off course... considering ID is the equivalen of magic...with magic, nothing is impossible.
In fact, the opposite. Magic is exactly that: making the impossible happen anyway.

You don't have an explanation. You have a religious assertions that doesn't correspond with reality.

Nested hierarchy's are simply a human construct trying to explain what we see. There are other constructs that are used as well. I deal with them all the time in IT.

But here's the rub: there are many ways to look at data, and that is what we are talking about here. And depending on how you logically structure the data, you can actually change the way you see that data. Sometimes you can group things one way (chimps and humans from the same "parent") to come up with one impression, and then group them a different way (octopus and humans - skin more similar) to come up with a completely different branch.

Another way to think of this is to consider, "do you want all mustangs that are blue, or do you want all blue cars that are mustangs?"

And you can even throw out the hierarchy concept and go with the relational concept. So, no longer do you have the "human next to chimp" or "Human next to octopus". Rather, within a living organism "database" you have "skin" table, eye table, skeleton table, etc.

Suddenly you don't see evolution. You see creation. But I'm offering only two examples and at a very high level. But the key takeaway is that how you see the data can be determined by how you structure it. This is something I learned with great real world success from the results in data mining. And that is, in a very real way, the kind of thought process that goes on in evolution science.

Looking at the data in a completely new way can sometimes reveal patterns never before explored or noticed.

Just for an intelectual exercise, it can be worth it to throw out the nested hierarchy, look at it as "relational" and see what happens. Both are only human created concepts and neither should be adhered to "religiously."

tas8831 · Nov 3, 2017

mindlight said:
I thought you bought the book. The second edition epilogue at the back. Matzkes arguments was basically based on cladistic character trait comparison but lacking fossil evidence to support basically involved the postulation of ghost lineages in the fossil record.

Nice paraphrase.

What are "ghost lineages"?

And this "cladistic character trait comparison" - is that how Meyer described phylogenetics?

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
Bottom line, science has its place. Courts have their case.

Courts wouldn't care about your objections not because of "court rules" but because of the impeccable scientific models backing those test results.

I used to use this analogy 40 years ago
Thousands of years from now, archaeologists dig up the remains of a lost civilization in the Seattle area. They find my home, the Seattle bus schedule, and my employment records. They discover that I went to work every day at a certain time and came home at a certain time.

After putting the pieces together, they are very excited to proclaim that I was a COBOL porgrammer in Seattle and took the bus every day from my home in Newcastle.

Had to pause here for a second, just to say as a software engineer myself: "wow, a COBOL programmer!"

Except I drove. And if they had continued digging and discovering information, they would have figured that out. And they would have found out that I owned a Subaru DL and would have said, We were wrong. He didn't take the bus. He drove a Subaru DL.

Except I drove an Opel GT. And it's possible that if they kept digging they would have found out that information too.

That's the point here. Are we at the "he took the bus" phase, or the Subaru phase, or the Opel GT phase? Or something else entirely.

We are at the phase where the available evidence all converges on a single answer.
And in science, being an intellectually honest enterprise, we realise that evidence we might discover tomorrow (and thus isn't available today) might force us to rethink our models, or that future data might confirm what we currently think.

This is why the highest "title" an idea in science can get is the status of "theory". A theory is a body of knowledge that has been tried and tested and confirmed by the available data and provides the best explanation available at this time.

All the while literally keep the door open for future evidence to demand refining the model or even completely discarding it for a newer, better and more accurate, model.

What else do you propose we do?
We can't exactly keep into account data that we not yet have or which might not even exist..........................

Contrasting that with evolution.... Just about every new discovery, every new experiment, every test has only further confirmed that species share common ancestors.

In more then 2 centuries of study, not a single piece of data has been encountered which suggests otherwise.

This is a very simple scenario. Much simpler than even the simplest single cell life form, and it is possible to make all sorts of hypotheses that make sense and have "evidence" to prove that they are possible. But the only way to know you are correct is to hop into your DeLorean and see for yourself.

But we don't have a DeLorean, so we are stuck in the present and will have to figure it out with the evidence at our disposal, as always.

This gets to the core of my issues with "science" regarding the Evolution stuff.

Come on man, just be honest.... the only time you have "issues" with science, is when it (seems to) contradict that which you believe religiously.

It's fine to say, 'we believe he may have taken the bus and evidence shows that is possible. It is stupid to say, "our extensive experimentation on all information we have from that time prove he took the bus.

Have you ever read a science paper? Have you ever counted the amount of times they use words like "maybe" and "seems to" and "pausible" and "suggests" etc?

Science doesn't deal in "proofs" or "absolutes" or "certainties", by the way.

Seems like you are arguing a strawman again.

Jimmy D · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
But here's the rub: there are many ways to look at data, and that is what we are talking about here. And depending on how you logically structure the data, you can actually change the way you see that data. Sometimes you can group things one way (chimps and humans from the same "parent") to come up with one impression, and then group them a different way (octopus and humans - skin more similar) to come up with a completely different branch.

There are different ways of looking at the data, in the case of YECs it involves closing their eyes and waving their hands about.

Of course, you can prove me wrong and show me how creationists "logically structure" this data.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

PsychoSarah said:
Uh, the radiation never stopped.

Of course it didn't. But we fortunately have a dearth of gamma radiation where we currently live.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
Courts wouldn't care about your objections not because of "court rules" but because of the impeccable scientific models backing those test results.

Had to pause here for a second, just to say as a software engineer myself: "wow, a COBOL programmer!"

We are at the phase where the available evidence all converges on a single answer.
And in science, being an intellectually honest enterprise, we realise that evidence we might discover tomorrow (and thus isn't available today) might force us to rethink our models, or that future data might confirm what we currently think.

This is why the highest "title" an idea in science can get is the status of "theory". A theory is a body of knowledge that has been tried and tested and confirmed by the available data and provides the best explanation available at this time.

All the while literally keep the door open for future evidence to demand refining the model or even completely discarding it for a newer, better and more accurate, model.

What else do you propose we do?
We can't exactly keep into account data that we not yet have or which might not even exist..........................

Contrasting that with evolution.... Just about every new discovery, every new experiment, every test has only further confirmed that species share common ancestors.

In more then 2 centuries of study, not a single piece of data has been encountered which suggests otherwise.

But we don't have a DeLorean, so we are stuck in the present and will have to figure it out with the evidence at our disposal, as always.

Come on man, just be honest.... the only time you have "issues" with science, is when it (seems to) contradict that which you believe religiously.

Have you ever read a science paper? Have you ever counted the amount of times they use words like "maybe" and "seems to" and "pausible" and "suggests" etc?

Science doesn't deal in "proofs" or "absolutes" or "certainties", by the way.

Seems like you are arguing a strawman again.

We really are not in disagreement as much as some might seem. My ONLY complaint with the "evolution" side of the aisle is that when producing information for the general public, they DON'T us words like "maybe" and "seems to" and "pausible" and "suggests" etc?

Other than that, I hope those studying the origin of species and how organic life works discover all sorts of fixes for disease, as well as bring all the other benefits understanding how creation works can benefit our lives, insanely brief though they are.

And though I don't do it any more, I loved COBOL.

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
I just realized where we have a disconnect. Your comments above are all correct, from a certain point of view.

I disagree it is from a "certain point of view".
My comments are factually correct. Creationism doesn't explain anything. It just asserts.

Science explains. Religion asserts.
It's just how it is.

Science is an attempt to explain "how". Religion is an attempt to explain "why".

And creationism attempts to assert a "how" in the process.
And once more, religion doesn't "explain" anything - not a how, not a why, not an anything.

Religion just asserts.

Science, regarding life as it currently exists, works hard to explain how it got here. Religion is focused on why we exist in the first place. So those that come from an ID perspective, look at it from an "obviously it was designed" perspective

Exactly. The cdesign proponentsists didn't CONCLUDE design. They ALREADY BELIEVE design. In other words: they assert the answers before asking the questions.

Science actually asks the question and then gets to work to try and answer the question with data and evidence. Lacking data and evidence, science will simply call it "unknown".

Religion doesn't ask the question first. Religion doesn't gather data and evidence to form conclusions. Religion doesn't form conclusions, full stop.

Religions just assert answers (to questions they didn't even bother asking properly in the first place).

[qutoe]
, and the complexity is enough proof for us[/quote]

Complexity is first of all, a subjective thing in the eye of the beholder. There is no objective unit or measurement that can tell you how "complex" something is.

Secondly, complexity is not an indicator of design at all.
I can show you very simple designed things (like a hammer, which is just a stick with a stone attached) and I can show you very complex not designed things (like a tornado).

, because it is not really about science to us

That most certainly is correct. Clearly it's not about science to you.

Science is just a word for something people do.

Sure. And that thing that these people "do", is investigate reality and come up with testable answers to questions. Scientists ask questions about reality and they seek the answers by guaging reality. Religions just assert answers based, ultimately, on "dreams" and "visions" and "revelations".

I'll take testable evidence of "dreams" and "visions" every day of the week.

Meanwhile, scientists (even religious ones) are not focusing on "why".

Why would they? "why" is a loaded question.
It might not be a valid question to ask. Also, a lot of times, when people speak of "why", they really mean "how".

[qutoe]So, ID believers do not necessarily get into "how"[/quote]

That is NOT AT ALL what they themselves claim. ID'ers even go out of their way to claim that the "D" is NOT GOD (necessarily). They make a very big deal about ID being supposedly a "scientific model". They themselves explicitly say they are answering a "how" question.

Off course they are lying, as court cases like Dover have exposed, but still. It is what they claim.

But I will throw this out: If you believe someone designed a thing, you can learn a lot about them by asking "why". e.g. "why does this bowling ball have ten holes? Maybe someone designed it for a race of beings that use ten or more fingers. Or maybe they use a tool with ten apendiges.

That would entail first establishing design and secondly identifying the designer so that you can actually ask them that question.

Neither can be done in terms of biology.

So, Science teaches you about creation

It teaches you about reality.

Religion teaches you about the creator

In the sense that it makes a bunch of unsupported claims, which is not what I would call "teaching" in terms of comprehending and learning about actual reality.

And any scientist that simply refuses to even entertain the idea that it could have been created is being rather narrow minded and dogmatic

Why would any scientist entertain ideas for which there isn't one iota of testable evidence?

And, of course, many scientists DO entertain such a possibility

In the sense that they have beliefs. They are human, after all.

Dogmatism is poison to any search for truth.

Says the guy who can't accept evolution theory because of a priori dogmatic religious beliefs............

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

Jimmy D said:
There are different ways of looking at the data, in the case of YECs it involves closing their eyes and waving their hands about.

Of course, you can prove me wrong and show me how creationists "logically structure" this data.

No, I'm not really one of teh YEC's. I'm a Christian and a creationist, but because I see the book of Genesis more for why it was written - explaining who and why regarding creation - rather than an explanation of how anything came about, I see YEC as a possibility only in the sense that if you saw Adam five minutes after God created him, would you guess that he is 5 minutes old, or 25 years old?

On that issue, we are ALL speculating, and I don't really like to waste time on questions that have no answer and even their discussion brings no enlightenment, other than as entertainment value (which is why I enter these threads from time to time).

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
Nested hierarchy's are simply a human construct trying to explain what we see.

They are not. They are a factual pattern found in the genetic make up of organisms.
A pattern, that is predicted by evolution. It's what inheritance of traits inevitably leads to.

There are other constructs that are used as well. I deal with them all the time in IT.

As an IT guy, you should understand like no other how nested hierarchies are NOT how we design things.

If you build a program you might use some frameworks. But you will only use those frameworks and modules that you actually need. You will not drag with you gigabytes of code that just sits there.

And if you make a second version / new iteration of your product and you identify code smells or duplicate functionality or whatever, you don't leave them there.... instead, you break down the code and rebuild it (you refactor it). You create abstraction layers, remove duplicate code, fix the code smells.

You would not create the equivalent of a chicken with inactive/broken DNA to build teeth.

But here's the rub: there are many ways to look at data, and that is what we are talking about here

Not in the case of nested hierarchies. Again, it's factually there.
We share most ERV's with chimps. A little less with gorilla's. Even less with oerang oetangs. Less still with lions. Still less with crockodiles.

All exactly like evolution would predict. All in accordance with the overall nested hierarchy of the phylogenetic tree.

You don't find birds with hair.
You don't find mammals with feathers.
You don't find reptiles with the same inner ear bones as mammals.

It's a hierarchical tree. Exactly as we would expect in an evolutionary context where traits are past on with modification to off spring. It couldn't result in any other pattern then this one.

At the same time, it is the very last pattern we would expect if species were created seperatly without an evolutionary background of common ancestry.

And depending on how you logically structure the data, you can actually change the way you see that data. Sometimes you can group things one way (chimps and humans from the same "parent") to come up with one impression, and then group them a different way (octopus and humans - skin more similar) to come up with a completely different branch.

Are you actually being serious with that octopus comment?
It's hard to take you seriously when you say such things.

And you can even throw out the hierarchy concept and go with the relational concept. So, no longer do you have the "human next to chimp" or "Human next to octopus". Rather, within a living organism "database" you have "skin" table, eye table, skeleton table, etc.

You seem to be forgetting the part where the pattern you come up with actually has to reflect the data of reality.

The nested hierarchy is not something that was decided in advance and then imposed on the data. It is rather a pattern that emerged from the data.

This is again the issue of the tendency of religion to assert the answers before even asking the questions. In science, it's the other way round. Nested hierarchies were concluded from the data, not the other way round.

Suddenly you don't see evolution. You see creation. But I'm offering only two examples and at a very high level.

Sorry to say and not to be rude, but both your "examples" were completely nonsensical and imaginary.

But the key takeaway is that how you see the data can be determined by how you structure it.

Again, scientists didn't "structure" the data. The data IS the structure. DNA IS the structure. The structure of nested hierarchies emerged from the data, not the other way round.

This is something I learned with great real world success from the results in data mining. And that is, in a very real way, the kind of thought process that goes on in evolution science.

It is not. The phylogenetic tree, is what you end up with when you compare genomes and brainlessly count matches and map them out on a graph. This mapping didn't have to produce a nested hierarchy. It just did. It simply happens to be how DNA is structure. It didn't have to be that way. But it is.

You can either accept that, or stick your head in the sand.

Looking at the data in a completely new way can sometimes reveal patterns never before explored or noticed.

Perhaps you should write a revolutionary paper in which you detail how the millions of scientists around the world have apparantly been reading this data "incorrectly".

Fame, glory, grants and nobel prizes will be coming your way, I'm sure.

Just for an intelectual exercise, it can be worth it to throw out the nested hierarchy, look at it as "relational" and see what happens. Both are only human created concepts and neither should be adhered to "religiously."

I don't adhere to science "religiously". I adhere to it rationally.

And I don't see the point of throwing out facts.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
They are not. They are a factual pattern found in the genetic make up of organisms.
A pattern, that is predicted by evolution. It's what inheritance of traits inevitably leads to.

As an IT guy, you should understand like no other how nested hierarchies are NOT how we design things.

If you build a program you might use some frameworks. But you will only use those frameworks and modules that you actually need. You will not drag with you gigabytes of code that just sits there.

And if you make a second version / new iteration of your product and you identify code smells or duplicate functionality or whatever, you don't leave them there.... instead, you break down the code and rebuild it (you refactor it). You create abstraction layers, remove duplicate code, fix the code smells.

You would not create the equivalent of a chicken with inactive/broken DNA to build teeth.

Not in the case of nested hierarchies. Again, it's factually there.
We share most ERV's with chimps. A little less with gorilla's. Even less with oerang oetangs. Less still with lions. Still less with crockodiles.

All exactly like evolution would predict. All in accordance with the overall nested hierarchy of the phylogenetic tree.

You don't find birds with hair.
You don't find mammals with feathers.
You don't find reptiles with the same inner ear bones as mammals.

It's a hierarchical tree. Exactly as we would expect in an evolutionary context where traits are past on with modification to off spring. It couldn't result in any other pattern then this one.

At the same time, it is the very last pattern we would expect if species were created seperatly without an evolutionary background of common ancestry.

Are you actually being serious with that octopus comment?
It's hard to take you seriously when you say such things.

You seem to be forgetting the part where the pattern you come up with actually has to reflect the data of reality.

The nested hierarchy is not something that was decided in advance and then imposed on the data. It is rather a pattern that emerged from the data.

This is again the issue of the tendency of religion to assert the answers before even asking the questions. In science, it's the other way round. Nested hierarchies were concluded from the data, not the other way round.

Sorry to say and not to be rude, but both your "examples" were completely nonsensical and imaginary.

Again, scientists didn't "structure" the data. The data IS the structure. DNA IS the structure. The structure of nested hierarchies emerged from the data, not the other way round.

It is not. The phylogenetic tree, is what you end up with when you compare genomes and brainlessly count matches and map them out on a graph. This mapping didn't have to produce a nested hierarchy. It just did. It simply happens to be how DNA is structure. It didn't have to be that way. But it is.

You can either accept that, or stick your head in the sand.

Perhaps you should write a revolutionary paper in which you detail how the millions of scientists around the world have apparantly been reading this data "incorrectly".

Fame, glory, grants and nobel prizes will be coming your way, I'm sure.

I don't adhere to science "religiously". I adhere to it rationally.

And I don't see the point of throwing out facts.

I used to work with IMS databases. Hierarchical. It's how we designed them. Worked great. Relational is more flexible and expandable, but for most of our purposes, ALCM parts, banking, health insurance, it worked great.

"Nested Hierarchies" is a fine way to orgainize biological data. But if you want to attack the issue from different angles, it is productive to organize the data differently and see what you come up with.

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
We really are not in disagreement as much as some might seem. My ONLY complaint with the "evolution" side of the aisle is that when producing information for the general public, they DON'T us words like "maybe" and "seems to" and "pausible" and "suggests" etc?

Just like they don't do when producing information about atomic theory, germ theory, plate tectonics, theory of relativity, etc....

Because so many aspects of it have been so thorougly tried and tested, then qualifying them with such words would almost be perverse.

But bear in mind that in the general public sphere, we are talking about generalities, about the big picture. Not about the details and fine points.

Atoms and germs are still theoretical models and they will remain such.
But at the same time, I'm sure you'll agree that even suggesting that atoms actuall don't exist and that germs might not be a cause of deases after all... would be pretty insane at this point, right? .....right?

Other than that, I hope those studying the origin of species and how organic life works discover all sorts of fixes for disease, as well as bring all the other benefits understanding how creation works can benefit our lives, insanely brief though they are.

They already do.

Almost there · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
Just like they don't do when producing information about atomic theory, germ theory, plate tectonics, theory of relativity, etc....

Because so many aspects of it have been so thorougly tried and tested, then qualifying them with such words would almost be perverse.

But bear in mind that in the general public sphere, we are talking about generalities, about the big picture. Not about the details and fine points.

Atoms and germs are still theoretical models and they will remain such.
But at the same time, I'm sure you'll agree that even suggesting that atoms actuall don't exist and that germs might not be a cause of deases after all... would be pretty insane at this point, right? .....right?

They already do.

I think gravity probably pushes, rather than pulls. But it is always presented as a foregone conclusion that it pulls. Meh...

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
I used to work with IMS databases. Hierarchical. It's how we designed them. Worked great. Relational is more flexible and expandable, but for most of our purposes, ALCM parts, banking, health insurance, it worked great.

"Nested Hierarchies" is a fine way to orgainize biological data. But if you want to attack the issue from different angles, it is productive to organize the data differently and see what you come up with.

I'm not talking about designing a database.

I'm talking about the very structure of DNA and how it couldn't be anything but hierarchical if it was shaped over eons by evolutionary processes and passing on of traits, potentially with modification.

We carry in us the genes that evolved over some 4 billion years.
Our collective DNA provides a wealth of information concerning our ancestry and it can be, and is, cross referenced with other species.

You can map out a phylogenetic tree from a great variety of independent lines of evidence and when put upon one another, it's always the same tree that comes out.

It fits. From any and all angles.

This is not super imposed. This is not subjective. This is not an opinion. This is not "just one way to look at the data".

The pattern is factually, demonstrably, objectively present in our collective genomes and general anatomy.

For crying out loud, if we also include geological history in the mix, these ancestral relationships even perfectly match the geographic distribution of species.

It explains and accounts for, for example, why we only find kangaroo's in australia and not in the america's.

It seems to me that the biggest problem here, is that you don't seem to be aware of how big a reach evolution theory has in its explanatory power. It's quite mindblowing, not to say overwhelming.

DogmaHunter · Nov 3, 2017

Almost there said:
I think gravity probably pushes, rather than pulls. But it is always presented as a foregone conclusion that it pulls. Meh...

Errr.... okay.

tas8831 · Nov 3, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
They are not. They are a factual pattern found in the genetic make up of organisms.
A pattern, that is predicted by evolution. It's what inheritance of traits inevitably leads to.

As an IT guy, you should understand like no other how nested hierarchies are NOT how we design things.

If you build a program you might use some frameworks. But you will only use those frameworks and modules that you actually need. You will not drag with you gigabytes of code that just sits there.

And if you make a second version / new iteration of your product and you identify code smells or duplicate functionality or whatever, you don't leave them there.... instead, you break down the code and rebuild it (you refactor it). You create abstraction layers, remove duplicate code, fix the code smells.

You would not create the equivalent of a chicken with inactive/broken DNA to build teeth.

Not in the case of nested hierarchies. Again, it's factually there.
We share most ERV's with chimps. A little less with gorilla's. Even less with oerang oetangs. Less still with lions. Still less with crockodiles.

All exactly like evolution would predict. All in accordance with the overall nested hierarchy of the phylogenetic tree.

You don't find birds with hair.
You don't find mammals with feathers.
You don't find reptiles with the same inner ear bones as mammals.

It's a hierarchical tree. Exactly as we would expect in an evolutionary context where traits are past on with modification to off spring. It couldn't result in any other pattern then this one.

At the same time, it is the very last pattern we would expect if species were created seperatly without an evolutionary background of common ancestry.

Are you actually being serious with that octopus comment?
It's hard to take you seriously when you say such things.

You seem to be forgetting the part where the pattern you come up with actually has to reflect the data of reality.

The nested hierarchy is not something that was decided in advance and then imposed on the data. It is rather a pattern that emerged from the data.

This is again the issue of the tendency of religion to assert the answers before even asking the questions. In science, it's the other way round. Nested hierarchies were concluded from the data, not the other way round.

Sorry to say and not to be rude, but both your "examples" were completely nonsensical and imaginary.

Again, scientists didn't "structure" the data. The data IS the structure. DNA IS the structure. The structure of nested hierarchies emerged from the data, not the other way round.

It is not. The phylogenetic tree, is what you end up with when you compare genomes and brainlessly count matches and map them out on a graph. This mapping didn't have to produce a nested hierarchy. It just did. It simply happens to be how DNA is structure. It didn't have to be that way. But it is.

You can either accept that, or stick your head in the sand.

Perhaps you should write a revolutionary paper in which you detail how the millions of scientists around the world have apparantly been reading this data "incorrectly".

Fame, glory, grants and nobel prizes will be coming your way, I'm sure.

I don't adhere to science "religiously". I adhere to it rationally.

And I don't see the point of throwing out facts.

Nice post.

Am I the only that finds it odd that so many creationists present themselves as having some sort of special insight into biology despite knowing next to nothing about it? IT guys, engineers, and computer science types are the worst.

Darwins Doubt - Cambrian Explosion

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