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Originally posted by Rize
Creationists don't dispute speciation.
I almost typed evolution.. that would have been interesting
Originally posted by lucaspa
Well, if creationists don't dispute speciation and they don't dispute natural selection, then what are they disputing?
I think you will find that creationists do dispute both. Otherwise we wouldn't keep having "examples" of features that natural selection can't account for.
Originally posted by lucaspa
Originally posted by Rize The observed mechanism exists, the question is whether it is responsible for large scale evolution
Since the mechanism of natural selection gives you new species, then it is responsible for nearly all of evolution. Rize, the only biological reality is species. All the "higher" taxa are simply groups of species. Once you get a new species then you are done. Large scale evolution is simply multiple speciation spread through time.
Now, one partial exception to natural selection may be symbiosis and the incorporation of whole organisms, such as bacteria that became mitochondria. Yet even here, natural selection decides whether the individual with the endosymbiont is advantageous and monitors changes in the endosymbiont.
Relativity is empirically verified and may be physically useful. Large scale evolution is not empirically verified and is not physically useful.
Macro evolution is empirically verified by several means:
1. Fossil sequences of transitional individuals going across "higher" taxa boundaries. Lots of those.
2. Phylogenetic studies showing that genes are not independent units, which they would be if large scale evolution were wrong.
3. Biogeography
4. Embryology.
As to being useful, all those new advances in medicine in the past 50 years depend upon evolution being true.
Yet they learn it as a child and then it changes dramatically over the course of their lives.
What exactly "changes dramatically"? Not the idea of descent with modificatio. Not natural selection. Those are the two main ideas of evolution. Individual lineages might change, but that's not a big deal.
How many times do I have to tell you that I don't dispute speciation? This is why I gave up the other argument. Speciation is used in argument for evolution, but (as it's defined) it is an independant and verifiable observation.
Then you are an evolutionist and let's pack this in and go out for a friendly beer. Since that is all there is in nature, once you have speciation then it's over. Descent with modification.
Originally posted by lucaspa
Rize, how do we know that the animal will "best represent humans"? We know because evolution is true, so we use mammals -- rats -- instead of frogs because mammals are more closely related to us by evolution than frogs are.
BUT, IF special creation were true, we couldn't do this. A Creator has no motive or reason to make rats more similar to humans in say, wound healing, than rats. We might be more similar to frogs or fish. Even if we were more similar to rats in wound healing, that doesn't mean the enzymes that metabolize toxins in our livers were similar. Here again, the Creator could have decided to make our liver enzymes more similar to crayfish.
So, if special creation were true, myself and all my colleagues would have spent all our research time looking for which "kind" is most similar to humans for each area of human physiology we wanted to study. There are a lot of species/kinds out there and we would still be looking.
So all the medical advances in the past 60 years would be impossible if evolution were not true. Because evolution is true, the advances were made.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Relativity has, indeed, survived the scrutiny of experiment and passed with flying colors. It is difficult to quantify "how well" a theory has been verified, but it is difficult to make a case that relativity has an advantage over evolution in this area. Certainly there has been much more published research in evolution (because the subject of evolution is a much more complex one than the subject of relativity). How often has evolution survived a falsification test - research that could have, in principle, falsified the notion of evolution? Certainly, with the discovery of DNA it could have been found that organisms thought to be related shared little or no hereditary material. Every time a new fossil is lifted from the ground, evolution stands to be falsified... what if a new mammal fossil appears in the fossil record older than the oldest amphibians, the order from which mammals derive? Once might be a mistake in dating, but enough fossils are discovered each year that a pattern of such might be established if evolution were not true. But the fact is that of the thousands of fossils that paleontologists dig up each year, and over the past 150 years, there hasn't been a single unambiguous case of a fossil organism predating the oldest of its ancestors. To avoid making the post too long, I will stop without listing any of the many, many individual results from the lab and field that independently confirm the theory in part or in whole. I am touching on some of those in the other thread...
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
There is a difference between historical science and non-historical science. Both are empirical (that is not the difference). The difference lies is what kind of evidence and what kind of testing is available to each. The nature of the evidence for historical events sometimes makes it too difficult to identify enough evidence to put together strong tests of a theory. Such is not the case for evolution, though.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
I think Rufus addressed this point well. Natural selection, changing environments, and speciation do guarantee large scale changes over large periods of time. You cannot split a collection of similar objects into groups, make different changes to each group, split the sub-groups, repeat again, and continue doing this for very long before the individual groups have ceased to bear the slightest resemblance to one another. That is large scale evolution. It does not necessarily guarantee the evolution of novelty, though. What does guarantee the evolution of novelty (complex adaptations like eyes and wings), is variability with a feedback mechanism. To see this illustrated, play one of those games of cellular automata. Genetic algorithms have been used to allow computers to program themselves by sucha feedback loop. They have "evolved" very novel systems (ones that engineers are challenged to even understand the workings of) that do remarkable complex tasks. For instance, a computer coupled to a box of components and re-wirable circuitry programmed itself to be a radio using genetic algorithms (a computer simulation of variation plus natural selection). A computer programmed itself to improvise jazz solos using the same methods. Both in very short periods of time, thanks to a strong selective pressure.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
The one pictured in the x-ray only had 3 "tail" vertebrae, and they were homologous to the three small "fused" vertebrae in the coccyx. The vertebrae labeled S1-S5 are the sacral (meaning spinal) vertebrae.
We are working from the same material here, so I cannot elaborate much more than the author without going to the library. He does cite his references well for those of us who require a more in depth examination. The most important part, to me, is that the true human tail is not merely a deformity, as witnessed by:
"The true human tail is characterized by a complex arrangement of adipose and connective tissue, central bundles of longitudinally arranged striated muscle in the core, blood vessels, nerve fibres, nerve ganglion cells, and specialized pressure sensing nerve organs (Vater-Pacini corpuscles). It is covered by normal skin, replete with hair follicles, sweat glands, and sebaceous glands (Dao and Netsky 1984; Dubrow et al. 1988; Spiegelmann et al. 1985). True human tails range in length from about one inch to over 5 inches long (on a newborn baby), and they can move and contract (Baruchin et al. 1983; Dao and Netsky 1984; Lundberg et al. 1962). "
(from the same page.) The references are cited, and where possible links are given in the footnotes to the abstract on PubMed.
Originally posted by Rize
And how do you know that rats are more similar to humans than frogs? Because they're both "mammals"! And they have backbones! (They're chordates). What I'm saying is that the evolutionary descent charts are based on physiological and genetic information. So when you use "evolutionary" path ways to determine what animals you want to use, you may simply be comparing genetic and physiological similarity.
Originally posted by lucaspa
But those similarities -- spinal cord and warm-blood -- don't guarantee similarity in wound healing, immune systems, liver enzymes, etc. under creationism, do they? Under evolution, what we haven't investigated must be similar because of heredity and the similarity enforced by common ancestry.
But under creationism, the Creator is not obligated to make wound healing in rats similar to that in humans. He could make the wound healing in frogs similar to humans.
So, when I want to test a growth factor for its enhancement on wound healing, what animal do I use? By evolution, I can safely use rats because of the close evolutionary relationship. I don't test frogs, or fish, or ants. But under creationism, I have no way to know which animal has wound healing like humans. So before I can even test the growth factor, I have to study wound healing in all the species. That takes years and decades.
Instead, because evolution is true, I get to skip all that and use rats.
Originally posted by Rize
How much has evolution survived falsification? I don't know. Which evolution are you talking about? Evolution conforms to the evidence (naturally), but that does not mean that it is true. It merely means that it is not yet falsified. It's difficult to falsify such a large scale theory with so much wiggle room. Why don't you present a list of ways that evolution could be falsified completely so that it wouldn't simply "morph" into another form? I see you've presented one yourself:
"what if a new mammal fossil appears in the fossil record older than the oldest amphibians"
This would not falsify evolution, it would merely rewrite the evolutionary tree. Maybe it should, but do you really think that with all of the other evidence supporting evolution that this would falsify it completely? It would merely change a facet of it, or make it a mystery until the next in-vogue sub theory pops up. Another possibility, as you said, is a mistake in dating. They could assume a dating mistake (since fossils are found in undatable sedimentary rocks) and shuffle the dates around a bit to fix things.
This is a statement of dogma. You cannot know that this is the case without verifying it by witness which is impossible given the time scale. De-evolution might be possible, but that is not what is supposedly contained in the fossil record.
As for those programs, discussing them is meaningless to me because I don't know much about them. They could be completely rigged, or slightly rigged very easily. And there's also other questions such as how much "time" the computer had to "evolve".
That's not unexpected. If the spinal cord truly extended, the genetic switches that caused it would have to extend muscle, skin, fat, blood vessels as well.
It couldn't be more than a few "switches", because anything more would far to complex. The question is, does the presence of this potential demonstrate common descent by natural selection? It certainly doesn't argue against it, and it even suggests it. But it is not proof.
Spinal cord growth could be controlled by a sort of recursive growth algorithm with a base case that activates at the coccyx. If this didn't activate, the final vertebrae may continue to grow in much the same way as the previous ones. Since they protrude from the body, the skin simply grows around it. The inherent musculature gives it the ability to move. Ouila. Instant "tail".
As I said, the tail certainly doesn't hurt the case for evolution, but if you think hard enough, you can always find another explanation for everything. Now, how long do you think it will take them to learn how the human genome controls spinal cord growth?
And if you didn't understand what I meant by recursion, please ask me to clarify.
[edit]
Actually, by observing fetal growth, a scientist could observe how the spinal cord grows. Does it all appear at once, or does it start popping up one vertebrae at a time?
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Actually, I mentioned two. The first one I mentioned was an even stronger falsification test. Until Watson and Crick discovered DNA, there was no way to know how various genomes compared. It could just as easily have been the case (were evolution not true) that the genetic material of different "kinds" of organisms bore no resemblance to one another. Had this been found, common descent would have been out the window.
Likewise, if it was shown that mammals preceded amphibians on the planet, evolution would be out the window. It would be as though mammals crawled out of the sea, complete with lungs (and no other methods for taking in oxygen), hair, breasts, placentae, everything, then "devolved" into amphibians, gradually picking up the structures they would have needed to survive as an intermediate between themselves and the fish that would have been their only conceivable ancestor. Phylogenetic studies showing mammals more closely related to reptiles than fish would no longer make sense. The consistent lines of evidence would be thrown into disarray, and the only reasonable conclusion would have been that mammals were specially created. Evolution is falsified on that level, then all the seeming evidence in support of it in other areas is "out the window".
What if humans preceded the primates? Or what if they preceded any other mammal? No one could claim, with a strait face, that humans evolved from lizards, Brontontosaurus, or salamanders. Natural selection requires gradual steps. A new theory would have to be created to account for the evolution of humans, and human descent would have to be thrown out.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
It is not dogma, but common sense. You cannot make different changes to different groups of similar items continually over time without ending up with very different items when you are finished.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Ok, but the radio was selected for function as an oscillator, it just happened that becoming a radio receiver was the method selection came up with for genereating oscillation. No one was planning on making a radio, so they couldn't very well have rigged it to produce a radio receiver.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Why? Blood vessels and muscles are part of a different systems and organs than the spine. Their development is controlled by different genes. I wouldn't expect the extension of the spine or spinal cord to entail addition of other tissue as well.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Good thinking. Of course the simplest explanation is that we retain the genes for growing a tail from our primate ancestry, and a "switch" that had been turned off in the past was turned back on. I don't know enough about spinal development to tell you whether your alternative hypothesis would also account for the tail formation. I kind of don't think it would, because of questions of how spinal development would terminate at the bottom if the termination algorithm were switched off. It would seem without the regulatory gene that stops vertebrate development and fuses the coccyx, the "tail" would continue to grow until it became quite a hindrance, and possibly a real problem in terms of circulation. In addition, the various vertebrae all have different, and fairly complex arrangements of connective tissue, etc. If there were separate genes for tail development (likely analogous to the ones for spinal column development), then they would have their own "off switch" at the end. But those genes would have to have come from somewhere.
This still tells me nothing. I'm a computer scientist, I want to see the code. Or at least a comprehensive report on the program.
Define "very different". That's where the dogma will come in.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Having little in common. As with dogs and salamanders. As with fish and snails.
Now, I tried to briefly explain why a mammal older than the oldest amphibian would falsify evolution. I mentioned that dating errors could account for one or two, but not for a pattern of them. You say that common descent by evolution would not be falsified. I say again that it would. There would be no salvaging it, as mammals are simply too different from anything else that existed before synapsid reptiles to have conceivably evolved from them. It would also run exactly counter to the genetic and morphological evidence, and give us a case where the genetic phylogeny, and the phylogeny from comparative anatomy run exactly counter to any possible geochronological phylogeny: in effect invalidating the genetic and morphological evidence that is necessary to evolution.
Again, DNA dissimilarity would be compatible with creationism, just as DNA similarity would be, and just as the absense of DNA altogether would be. But similarity in the genetic material is required by common descent. Genes are passed down by ancestry, and the only way the genes are not similar in two organisms is if they are unrelated or only very distantly related. According to the fossil record and all other lines of data, many species are closely related, and therefore must have similar genes. Those similarities must apply to the non-coding DNA as well as to the coding DNA.
Now it is possible for God to specially design similar organisms with similar genes, but it would be no problem for creationism if similar organisms even had entirely different types of hereditary material.
We will most likely discuss the creationist alternative explanations for genetic homology in the other thread, so I will stop short on that subject now. Suffice it to say that common descent is very much falsifiable.
Fossils that don't fall in line can cause changes in the descent trees and/or the way geology is interpretted.
Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Fossils that don't fall in line can cause changes in the phylogenetic trees, but not the way geological dating is done. At most, it can cause one to double check that the geological dating was done correctly according to the methods it is already using.
Both of these are done sometimes. That's one reason I chose mammals before amphibians - to create a situation that is absolutely incompatible with any possible phylogenetic tree. That's why I specified a pattern of them, instead of a single isolated find of dubious provenance - to obviate the possibility of a single incorrect date.
If evolution was false, there is no reason to expect never to find a case like this one. Humans before any other primate would be another. Fish in the Precambrian. Birds before reptiles.
The inconsistency of DNA homology would also falsify evolution. If Human DNA looked more like mouse DNA than it does lemur DNA (and it easily could, especially considering non-coding DNA) then evolution would be falsified.
The reason it is hard to falsify evolution, is that there exists no falsifying evidence - not that evolution would not admit of it.
Originally posted by Rize
Confidence in the opinions of people whose confidence is in unproven assumptions.
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