Evolution is a Lie

[Split Rock]

In any case, Darkeonz, I have now spent six posts in justifying my SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE custom user title -- even amid ridicule.

If you don't understand yet that I don't mean all of science -- like you thought it meant -- I don't know what else to say.

Considering the fact that your tagline gets misunderstood so often, have you considered changing it?

 

[Nathan Poe]

Considering the fact that your tagline gets misunderstood so often, have you considered changing it?

Don't ask him questions. He's already gone away -- do you want to give him an excuse to come back?

 

[Split Rock]

I do understand it. You believe in science up till the point it conflicts with your religion. When it reaches that point, you'll deny it till the end of days

I disagree -- you didn't say one word about 'science'.

All you did was ridicule my faith in the Scriptures.

Actually, AVET, he did mention "science." You just clipped that part of his post out (see complete post above). I think he nailed your position right on the head (and I've read many more of your posts than he has). I am confused about one point you made. At what point did he ridicule your faith?

 

[Split Rock]

Don't ask him questions. He's already gone away -- do you want to give him an excuse to come back?

I suspect that he won't change it for one of two reasons:

1. AVET loves snappy little one liners. The shorter the better.
2. It helps to support his contention that he is "misunderstood" here.

 

[Split Rock]

I guess I failed it then Ha :-D

Actually, no, you did quite well. An indication of the fact that you figured him out pretty quick, is the fact that he got upset and left. AVET likes to think that he is too deep for newbies to figure out quickly.

 

[Hespera]

I guess I failed it then Ha :-D

nah, i dont think a person can actually fail an intelligence test, as such.

Like, you cant really fail the GRE tho when I dreamed I got a score of 27, I felt so devastated, and a total failure!

And you could make a case for it with people who like a moth that keeps getting burned on a candle, just keep on keeping on long long after it should be evident that its not gonna get them anywhere.

 

[Naraoia]

-- Huh?

In any event, what falsifies the theory of evolution?

The correct phrasing of this question is "what would falsify the ToE?". The way you worded it assumes that such a fact exists. So far, it doesn't.

Regarding the corrected question, observations that could have falsified the ToE include the following (AFAIK, at least the first three of these questions were still open 150 years ago):

- selection does not result in stable, heritable changes in a natural population
- some traits exist solely for the benefit of other organisms (this one is straight from Darwin)*
- organisms do not fall into one (or a few) objective nested hierarchy - note that this is further tested every time new organisms (and/or new genes) are included in phylogenetic analysis.
- perhaps life does form such a hierarchy, but the fossil record grossly disagrees with it (the most extreme example being no pattern at all in the fossil record)

*This is actually not a falsification of evolution per se, but of unguided evolution. But since the ToE explains the diversity of life without invoking intelligent guidance, I thought it'd fit here.

To be honest, I think both evolution the process and (universal or at least very deep) common descent are established solidly enough that there's a very small chance of outright falsification. Modifications and extensions I fully expect - just as Einstein's theory extended and refined Newton's -, but I would be very surprised if our fundamental understanding of life turned out to be wrong.

 

[dad]

Pluto orbits the sun about every 250 years. We have known about Pluto for about 80 years, yet we can predict that it will. It has not been observed.

Right, and if we wind up an alarm clock, we can predict when it will run out and stop...so?

The issue is not 14 hours or 250 years nor within the scope and range of man's power to observe.

You want the entire timeline of evolution on earth to be observed, or the evidence is invalid to you. But that's not how it works. It would obviously be impossible due to the 2 billion years you'd have to observe, and the fact that you're not able to travel back in time .

The 2 billion years is strictly non existent, imaginary time, based on same state extrapolations. Truly meaningless.

But we can determine that evolution has, and is, happening

Specifically how is it happening as you predict??

How would it be any different if it was a created trait, and started from created creatures mere thousands of years ago??

Your idea of god creating Adam and Eve has not been observed, tested, demonstrated or predicted.

Says you, because you wave away the God that observed it. One would not expect creation to be 'predicted' since that was the beginning of our universe!

 

[Darkeonz]

Right, and if we wind up an alarm clock, we can predict when it will run out and stop...so?

The issue is not 14 hours or 250 years nor within the scope and range of man's power to observe.

An alarm clock was made by us. Pluto isn't, and we can still predict it. My point was simply that we don't have to observe all 2 billion years of life on earth to determine evolution is real.

The 2 billion years is strictly non existent, imaginary time, based on same state extrapolations. Truly meaningless.

Imaginary time you say? What do you base that on? It's pretty common knowledge that the earth is 4.6 billions years old. So what is it that makes you reject the 2 billion years?

Specifically how is it happening as you predict??

Because we have actually observed how it has happened. The evidence is overwhelming. One example is these lizards who showed rapid progress in evolution when moved to a new home.

Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home

How would it be any different if it was a created trait, and started from created creatures mere thousands of years ago??

We know that's not the case as we've found fossils that are houndred of millions years old, so your question is irrelevant

Says you, because you wave away the God that observed it. One would not expect creation to be 'predicted' since that was the beginning of our universe!

So it can't be predicted, it can't be demonstrated, observed or proven. So why are you making the assertion that there is a God of the bible?

 

[Greg1234]

Because we have actually observed how it has happened. The evidence is overwhelming. One example is these lizards who showed rapid progress in evolution when moved to a new home.

Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home

This isn't evidence for Darwinism.
News to Note, June 6, 2009 - Answers in Genesis
And where is the molecular data? What we do observe happening is adaptation with limits (in some cases, quite severe constraints).

 

[MoonLancer]

This isn't evidence for Darwinism.
News to Note, June 6, 2009 - Answers in Genesis
And where is the molecular data? What we do observe happening is adaptation with limits (in some cases, quite severe constraints).

where is the evidence for these limits?

 

[AirPo]

Imaginary time you say? What do you base that on?

His hyper imagination, or as I like to call it, The HI Theory I've come up with a few laws too.

1. It's easy to make things up.
2. Never underestimate the power of the
3. Refutation is futile.
4. Reality, by defination, is consistant with any and all postulations of the HI Theory.

 

[Darkeonz]

This isn't evidence for Darwinism.
News to Note, June 6, 2009 - Answers in Genesis
And where is the molecular data? What we do observe happening is adaptation with limits (in some cases, quite severe constraints).

"Answer in Genesis
believing it, defending it, proclaiming it. "

What a great place to get an objective opinion about the topic


Anyways... Adaptation with limits?? Elaborate please

 

[Hespera]

"Answer in Genesis
believing it, defending it, proclaiming it. "

What a great place to get an objective opinion about the topic


Anyways... Adaptation with limits?? Elaborate please

psst...! Intelligence test ahead!

 

[Greg1234]

"Answer in Genesis
believing it, defending it, proclaiming it. "

What a great place to get an objective opinion about the topic

Debasement came to naught. The data stands.

Anyways... Adaptation with limits?? Elaborate please

http://www.christianforums.com/t7541198-16/#post56978429

 

[Darkeonz]

Debasement came to naught. The data stands.

It really doesn't

http://www.christianforums.com/t7541198-16/#post56978429

Yeah i'm not gonna go through that entire thread. I haven't been a part of it and it would take me forever.

The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim, and Evolution has delivered overwhelming amounts of evidence

 

[sandwiches]

I walk by faith, not by sight.

Weird. Didn't you have to read or have the Bible read to you first to believe it?

 

[MoonLancer]

Weird. Didn't you have to read or have the Bible read to you first to believe it?

Yeah its pretty funny.

The bible is a physical object, that must be interpreted and comprehended through the mind,

yet creationists claim they only need faith and love in god to understand him.

Take away the bible before they knew about him and see what love and faith does...

 

[Naraoia]

Imaginary time you say? What do you base that on? It's pretty common knowledge that the earth is 4.6 billions years old. So what is it that makes you reject the 2 billion years?

I find it incredibly funny that he'd mention "imaginary time", seeing as it's one of the few concepts even more outlandish than dad-cosmology. Nope, those several billion years are definitely not imaginary time

This isn't evidence for Darwinism.

If you didn't have a long history of demonstrating zero understanding of that term, you might have a point...

News to Note, June 6, 2009 - Answers in Genesis

Just a few picks:

Apparently the researchers aren’t even sure about the genetic basis for the change, another suggestion that the “evolution” did not involve any new genetic information in the lizards.

Or it might suggest that they hadn't managed to investigate the genetics in sufficient depth yet. AiG seems unaware that scientific research takes time, expertise and resources.

McGill University biologist Andrew Hendry noted, “All of this might be evolution. The logical next step would be to confirm the genetic basis for these changes” (emphasis added). Hendry wonders, as Menton suggests, if the change was simply the lizards’ “plastic response to the environment.”

Hendry is completely justified in his caution. In fact, evidence since came to light that the changes in gut morphology are at least partially plastic. In this study, the researchers compared wild-caught "herbivorous" (H) lizards to "herbivorous" lizards that were fed arthropod diets for months (HA), and HA lizards to wild-caught members of the insectivorous (I) parent population. The results?

• the prevalence of caecal valves is much higher in H than in HA (12/16 vs 0/20)
• gut proportions are different between H and HA - but also between HA and I

That is, lizards from the "herbivorous" population do lose some of their herbivorous features if they eat only arthropods for a while, but don't completely regress to the ancestral condition. Precisely how much of that is genetic is still up in the air, as far as I can tell. Also, note what the study did NOT investigate. They didn't take any lizards from the original population and try to feed them a vegetarian diet. So while the herbivorous "adaptations" undoubtedly have a lot to do with phenotypic plasticity, we don't really know if the plastic response itself has undergone a genetic change.

Another thing they didn't do is take lizard eggs from each population, and raise the hatchlings on different diets. If the population differences are wholly epigenetic, then the gut morphology of these lizards would depend only on their diet, not their island of origin.

Thus, once again, this so-called “evolution” is possibly just natural selection acting on pre-existing genetic information, helping a population adapt to its surroundings. However, without knowing the exact genetic or epigenetic mechanism(s) underlying the change, we can’t determine exactly what is going on, biologically speaking.

AiG writer demonstrating her non-understanding of evolution? Natural selection can't act on non-existing genetic information, can it? Also, phenotypic plasticity is not adaptation. And natural selection acts on genetic variation. Of course, an individual can have a higher reproductive success for non-genetic reasons, but unless the trait causing the difference in reproductive success is genetic, selecting it ain't gonna cause much adaptation.

Oh well. Considering that science news articles outside creationist sources often garble basic stuff, I guess this isn't that bad...

More important (as Irschick said) is the speed of the changes, which reminds us of how quickly the original created kinds could have varied into the biodiversity we see today (interrupted by the Noachian Flood event).

Um, no, no, no. You've just argued that the whole lizard incident is phenotypic plasticity. You can't have it both ways. If adaptation (which involves genetic changes) is limited, then mere phenotypic plasticity (which has to rely on the same old) is going to be even more limited. It can lead to very rapid change (phenotypic plasticity, after all, can play out within an individual's lifetime), but no organism has reaction norms broad enough to include the phenotypes of distant relatives (what environmental conditions make a house cat grow lion-sized?). More importantly, such plasticity does not accumulate much over the generations. So, barring genetic changes, what you get in a single or a few generations is pretty much what you're stuck with for eternity.

Not to mention that if you think rapid "adaptation" (whatever you mean by that) can account for the current diversity of life from a small number of "kinds" (whatever you mean by that) in a few thousand years, you really have no grounds for arguing that evolution can't produce the same diversity in billions of years...

And where is the molecular data?

You know what? Go and collect it. Get a grant, get a lab, do some mapping, sequencing, functional genetics, or whatever you're interested in.

 

[Split Rock]

You know what? Go and collect it. Get a grant, get a lab, do some mapping, sequencing, functional genetics, or whatever you're interested in.

Creation and I.D. "Researchers" rarely do their own research. They just critique what others do, then complain that research that would falsify evolution (or "Darwinism") never gets done. Behe is a good example of this, despite the fact that the Discovery Institute, which he is a shining star of, collects millions of dollars every year.