Evolution and the myth of "scientific consensus"

[lifepsyop]

So are chimps, gorilla's and bonobo's. There's a reason why we share that nested classification. And the reason is not arbitrary.

Of course. It is based on shared characteristics. Your problem is that you hallucinate shared characteristics as automatic evidence of relation. And you can't understand why everyone else doesn't see what you see.

The exact same method that is used to demonstrate common ancestry between 2 humans, is used to demonstrate common ancestry between a human and a chimp.

You cannot argue against the latter without arguing against the first.

I already provided a very fundamental reason why the two are different. You're just ignoring it.

You should go the extra mile in your analysis and not stop at your a priori beliefs.

"go the extra mile" = "share in my assumptions of how evolution created new types of animals over millions of years"

The exact same data that confirms that humans share ancestors, also confirms that humans and chimps share ancestors.

I keep telling you that we already knew that humans descend from humans. We did not need DNA to tell us that. You don't want to accept this very simple and common sense distinction. You keep having to avoid it.

DNA is a very real molecule, I can assure you that it's not a hallucination.

DNA is real. The way you try and use DNA as a crystal ball showing mystical past transformations is certainly not real.

Please explain how nested hierarchies are not evidence of biological evolution.

I answer assertions with assertions. If you want a counter-argument you're going to have to actually produce an argument in the first place.

No, that's a logical outcome of "mutate, survive, reproduce, repeat" in combination with the laws of large numbers.

No, the logical outcome is cyclical change, degradation, and/or eventual extinction. We have never observed anything in nature that tells us that adding millions of years to these processes will lead to the arrival of new body-plans and anatomical systems. That is Darwinian mysticism.

Right, you prefer to believe in bronze-age faith-based myths. That's not being gullible at all.... :-/

I can admit my faith while you have to pretend you don't have any. Pointing your faith out is like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[The Cadet]

DNA is real. The way you try and use DNA as a crystal ball showing mystical past transformations is certainly not real.

Can you use DNA to plot relation? That is, could a scientist, given genetic samples from a group of 100 humans, including 10 of your closest relatives, you, and 89 complete strangers of varying haplogroup significance, find out which of those were the closest in relation to you?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Of course. It is based on shared characteristics.

It is based on nested characteristics.
Both in anatomy and in the DNA. And with a geographic distribution of this nested pattern that makes perfect sense in light of what we know about geology.

Your problem is that you hallucinate shared characteristics as automatic evidence of relation.

No, the actual problem is that you don't understand the difference between "shared" and "nested".

Nore do you understand the importance of converging lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction.

If evolution didn't happen, there would be absolutely no reason for life to fall into a pattern that a process like evolution would inevitably lead to.

And you can't understand why everyone else doesn't see what you see.

"everyone else", for all practical purposes, does see what I see. Creationists are a minority, especially among those who actually studied the science.

I already provided a very fundamental reason why the two are different. You're just ignoring it.

Where?

I keep telling you that we already knew that humans descend from humans. We did not need DNA to tell us that. You don't want to accept this very simple and common sense distinction. You keep having to avoid it.

Do you agree that we can use DNA to measure kinship among humans?
For example, if we take 10 random people and 1 of them is your biological sister, do you think we could use DNA testing to find out who she is?

Do you think we can take 2 humans and figure out where his ancestors came from? How close or how far one is related to the other?

If you do, then you accept that we can use DNA to see if 2 dna strings share ancestry.

Which would mean that, if evolution is correct, we should be able to do it cross species. And if we do that with plenty of random organisms/animals/plants and map the results, it should make sense in light of a "family tree", correct?

DNA is real. The way you try and use DNA as a crystal ball showing mystical past transformations is certainly not real.

Again, do you accept that DNA can be used to see if your dad is your real dad?

If you do, then you agree that DNA allows us to look at our ancestry. Which is from the past and it is not "mystical".

I answer assertions with assertions. If you want a counter-argument you're going to have to actually produce an argument in the first place.

A process like evolution will produce a tree like pattern in the populations that "evolve". That's not an assertion. That's just what the process does.

You know what a family tree is, right?
Your family tree is a nested hierarchy.

If evolution is correct, all life is a gigantic family tree.
A nested hierarchy.

When I said that nested hierarchies are evidence of evolution, you said "not at all".
Please explain.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Forgive me, but sometimes it can be very difficult to see things through the eyes of an evolutionist. You apparently hold the understanding that a bald assertion is the same thing as undeniable evidence. I just don't know how to respond to that.

The above denial of reasons for accepting evolution was written by a human with the nerve for his larynx that goes from brain down to heart and back up to his larynx . . . . just like the corresponding nerve for every tetrapod since our original fishy ancestors left the sea. It doesn't make much difference to us humans . . . but it is very weird to see the same thing happen in the giraffe. In the embryonic stage, you see, it goes under a loop of a major blood vessel of the heart, and evolution has never found a mutation to get it gradually out of that route.

Its easy to see evolution as the reason for this situation. Hard to see this as the work of an intelligent designer.

Reality brings evidence to us for evolution.

Your words against evolution are like the one who disputes the skills of the tracker, because he cannot see the traces of game the tracker can see. The tracker proves him wrong by bringing home the game.

Evolutionists bring home the game.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Its easy to see evolution as the reason for this situation. Hard to see this as the work of an intelligent designer.

How do you reconcile your belief of God and then claim that He didn't create the life on earth?

 

[Loudmouth]

How do you reconcile your belief of God and then claim that He didn't create the life on earth?

If you believe in God, do you have to disbelieve in gravity as a natural process that moves planets about stars?

"It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."--Charles Darwin, "The Origin of Species"

 

[lifepsyop]

The above denial of reasons for accepting evolution was written by a human with the nerve for his larynx that goes from brain down to heart and back up to his larynx . . . . just like the corresponding nerve for every tetrapod since our original fishy ancestors left the sea. It doesn't make much difference to us humans . . . but it is very weird to see the same thing happen in the giraffe.

"it is very weird" Stunning argument you have there. And this is what you consider knock-down proof for Evolution.

In the embryonic stage, you see, it goes under a loop of a major blood vessel of the heart, and evolution has never found a mutation to get it gradually out of that route.

In other words, if giraffes lacked the specific laryngeal nerve route, you would assume evolution did it. Yet because giraffes possess that laryngeal nerve route, you assume evolution did it.

Evolution is a creation religion. You just don't realize it yet because you've been told for so long that it is based on pure science.

 

[Loudmouth]

"it is very weird" Stunning argument you have there. And this is what you consider knock-down proof for Evolution.

Is this what you consider a reply to evidence that people present?

In other words, if giraffes lacked the specific laryngeal nerve route, you would assume evolution did it. Yet because giraffes possess that laryngeal nerve route, you assume evolution did it.

We have an evolutionary explanation for the RLN. What explanation do you have?

Evolution is a creation religion.

When all else fails, you use your own religious beliefs as terms of derision. Do you understand how this makes you look?

 

[Oncedeceived]

If you believe in God, do you have to disbelieve in gravity as a natural process that moves planets about stars?

"It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."--Charles Darwin, "The Origin of Species"

It is one thing to accept evolution as a process that allows life forms to adapt and change but to claim as a believer that God had nothing whatsoever to do with it all is the position I was asking the poster to explain.

 

[Loudmouth]

It is one thing to accept evolution as a process that allows life forms to adapt and change but to claim as a believer that God had nothing whatsoever to do with it all is the position I was asking the poster to explain.

What do you mean by "had nothing whatsoever to do with it"? Does God have to violate natural laws in order to be involved?

 

[Oncedeceived]

What do you mean by "had nothing whatsoever to do with it"? Does God have to violate natural laws in order to be involved?

I believe that God created them. So no. I will be interested in what Paul has to say about his position.

 

[Loudmouth]

I believe that God created them. So no.

Then why do you have a problem with humans evolving from an ancestor shared with many other species?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Then why do you have a problem with humans evolving from an ancestor shared with many other species?

I don't think I have a "problem" with humans evolving from an ancestor shared with many other species. If God decided to create in that way I would have no problem with that, I just am not as certain as I once was that that is how He did it.

 

[Loudmouth]

I don't think I have a "problem" with humans evolving from an ancestor shared with many other species. If God decided to create in that way I would have no problem with that, I just am not as certain as I once was that that is how He did it.

Why aren't you certain?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I think you'll find that I never argued that vestigial structures lacked function.

Besides the point. Flippers evolved first, so even under evolutionary theory there is no reason to assume that the flipper is a vestigial of the leg.

 

[Loudmouth]

Besides the point. Flippers evolved first, so even under evolutionary theory there is no reason to assume that the flipper is a vestigial of the leg.

Huh?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Then why do you have a problem with humans evolving from an ancestor shared with many other species?

I don't have a problem with modern humans being a different breed of the human Kind than was originally created. The problem is not that they are a different breed, but that they never "evolved" from anything. Two breeds mated and produced a new breed, just like in the real world. Once again - if a Chinese person mates with a African person - an Afro-Asian race is created. Neither one of the parents "evolved" into the new race. But since we are animals according to evolution - breed should fit us fine too should it not?

We have already seen from Galapagos Finches and cats, that they can not even get correct two interbreeding breeds of the same species. Instead they merely jumped to conclusions before all the data was in, and it was found they were all capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. So although they should be correcting their mistakes, instead they pretend all is well in wonderland and do nothing at all.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Why aren't you certain?

I don't think the evidence is conclusive. I have lived without questioning the philosophy of evolution that I need to determine what is actual evidence and what is assertion.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Huh?

Don't huh me. You know exactly what was asked. According to your own evolutionary theory flippers evolved long before legs did. So why even under an evolutionary viewpoint, should I incorrectly assume flippers are now vestigial to those legs that developed afterwards? It's not my fault they incorrectly classified a completely new species as an intermediary to a whale, and a land species at that.

 

[Loudmouth]

Don't huh me. You know exactly what was asked. According to your own evolutionary theory flippers evolved long before legs did. So why even under an evolutionary viewpoint, should I incorrectly assume flippers are now vestigial to those legs that developed afterwards?

Keeping the function seen in the ancestral group and other evolutionary branches is not vestigial.

Evolving new function is not an example of a vestigial structure.

It's not my fault they incorrectly classified a completely new species as an intermediary to a whale, and a land species at that.

You haven't shown that those species are misclassified.