Evolution - the illusion of a scientific theory

[bhsmte]

That's pretty funny considering you've had the opportunity but have refused to provide details of this "prediction" after pages of only vaguely alluding to its existence. And you accuse me of being obtuse. Spit it out already.



Similar to what? You haven't even described your "prediction". And trying to shift the focus to creationists is just an attempt to distract from focusing on the issue of ToE's scientific merits. (or lack thereof)



It's fairly irrelevant to my thesis here, so it's not a huge priority of mine, but seeing as how you won't address any of my main arguments, feel free to present your case on the Kondrashov material. I would be most interested in any literature that openly acknowledges the problem and claims to solve it without dodging the issue by presupposing populations have existed for millions of years like Loudmouth's reference did.

Evasion at it's best.

 

[USincognito]

What evidence? 50+ years of mutation experiments started by evolutionists which evolutionists then ignore because it failed to produce anything new or support their theory in the slightest?

Jats, can you give me a sincere, cogent answer. I have shown you repeatedly that the link you keep spamming is not about natural mutations (the random mutations that drive evolution), but exposing plants primarily to mutagens like chemicals and radiation in order to try and create mutations of characteristics desirable for breeders.

Here's the Wikipedia link I provided to you just the other day.
Mutation breeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And if you look in the section "mutagenic varietals" you see that experiments have been quite successful in creating new characteristics.
Mutation breeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, here's my serious question to which I request a sincere, cogent answer. Why do you continually ignore that information and instead continue to spam the same link over and over and over? Are you unable to understand the difference between natural mutations and mutation breeding? Are you unable to address the content of even the Wikipedia page? Are you under the impression that continuing to spam the same link over and over will change the fact that you misunderstand the content and it doesn't help your case after all?

Sometimes I wonder about the Creationists around here and I'd like to know what makes them tick when they do stuff like this.

eta - Wow. It's worse than I thought. My response was just two days ago in this very thread and Jats responded to my post, but didn't even address what I'd posted about the mutation breeding

Please stop spamming that paper. It doesn't cover what you think it covers nor arrives at the conclusions you think it does. That paper deals with "mutation breeding", where plants are exposed to mutation causing agents in order to try and stimulate mutations of new characteristics that breeders would find desirable.
Mutation breeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[lasthero]

"For Agassiz, the coelacanth fossil record pointed to “a correspondence between the succession of Fishes [evolution of fishes] in geological times”. Reflecting on Agassiz findings, Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “this doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural selection.”

At the time, the coelacanth was thought to be a species bridging the transition of life from water to land. This conclusion was primarily based on the limb-like structure of the fins; a structure on the way up from a fin for swimming and a foot for walking. The coelacanth was touted as fossil record “missing link” evidence for evolution.

Let's see here.

This is Darwin's full quote on the subject.

Agassiz insists that ancient animals resemble to a certain extent the embryos of recent animals of the same classes; or that the geological succession of extinct forms is in some degree parallel to the embryological development of recent forms. ↑ I must follow Pictet and Huxley in thinking that the truth of this doctrine is very far from proved. Yet I fully expect to see it hereafter confirmed, at least in regard to subordinate groups, which have branched off from each other within comparatively recent times. For this doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural selection. In a future chapter I shall attempt to show that the adult differs from its embryo, owing to variations supervening at a not early age, and being inherited at a corresponding age. This process, whilst it leaves the embryo almost unaltered, continually adds, in the course of successive generations, more and more difference to the adult.

He doesn't mention anything about coelacanths. In fact, he mentions nothing about them in the entire book, and you can read here, if you don't believe me.

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F373&viewtype=text

We were talking about the Coelacanth being mistakenly portrayed in science books about being a transitional species, ("Just, can you provide any documentation showing anyone ever thought the coelacanth was a transition between fish and amphibians? Anything at all?")

In what science book was it ever portrayed as a transitional fossil, Just? Can you name one? I know you can't. I would also like to point out that you provided no documentation of anyone saying coelacanths were a transition between fish and amphibians - you provided a link that said such documentation existed, but didn't source it. And by the way, when I looked up that Aggasiz quote, this was what I found.

Absorbed in the special investigation, I paid no heed to the edifice which was meanwhile unconsciously building itself up. Having however completed the comparison of the fossil species in Paris, I wanted, for the sake of an easy revision of the same, to make a list according to their succession in geological formations, with a view of determining the characteristics more exactly and bringing them by their enumeration into bolder relief. What was my joy and surprise to find that the simplest enumeration of the fossil fishes according to their geological succession was also a complete statement of the natural relations of the families among themselves; that one might therefore read the genetic development of the whole class in the history of creation, the representation of the genera and species in the several families being therein determined; in one word, that the genetic succession of the fishes corresponds perfectly with their zoological classification, and with just that classification proposed by me.

The webpage you linked didn't bother to source this - I wonder why - so I had to look it up, myself. It's from the Methodist Review, you can look it up easily enough and read it yourself. I found no mention of Agassiz saying that he thought coelacanths were a transitional species between fish and amphibians. None. Maybe you'll have better luck.

 

[Vergil10]

I notice you didn't want to attempt to attack Origin of Species where Darwin agreed, or Webster Dictionary or the Quarterly Review of Biology. We were talking about the Coelacanth being mistakenly portrayed in science books about being a transitional species, ("Just, can you provide any documentation showing anyone ever thought the coelacanth was a transition between fish and amphibians? Anything at all?") not any theory of violation of thermodynamics. What would that have to do with it, since clearly you require that energetic lightning to have started it all, to which I agree????

That energetic activity that holds the very atom and genetic code together? So why would I, just because another does, dismiss that as a requirement? He's no more right about why you mistakenly had it as a false transitory species than you are it was never considered such.

I told you, I protest Fairie Dust in all forms, but why did someone feel so compelled to argue a point if you never once taught it and thought it? You were asking for proof it was once believed and taught, not that I agree with their story of Fairie Dust any more than I do with yours.

Make up your mind what you are asking for. I for one know NOTHING is an isolated system. Even galaxies are connected together by filamentary plasma and electric currents in it. By magical Dark Matter in your theory that is electrically neutral, but now is blamed for UV emissions. So why would "I" think that anything is isolated?

Don't try to switch the subject. You asked for papers showing it was once taught that it was a transitional link. So if you have been wrong with about every one of them you claim were, what makes you think they have anything else right????

Mainstream's entire tree is beginning to come crashing down around them. They are like a drowning man gasping for his last breath. Making claims that as technology advances shatters every claim, one by one.

yeah i didnt bring them up because your other sources said nothing about it being a transition between fish and amphibians.

 

[Split Rock]

What evidence? Calling two Felidae that can mate and produce fertile offspring separate species on a whim, simply to reinforce your religious beliefs about evolution????

One more time since you continue to ignore the question I asked:
Do you agree that lions and tigers evolved from a common ancestor?
Yes or no, please. It isn't a hard question.

I think you are afraid to admit to what is obvious, even to you.

 

[Split Rock]

What evidence? You mean every single fossil of any animal that is always the same from the very first one found until the very last one found? And then imagination takes over and you tell us how they evolve but you just can't find the intermediate links?

What does this statement even mean?
How about horses? They clearly evolved over time.
Horse Evolution Over 55 Million Years
Horse Evolution

Over 200,000,000 fossils and conveniently only the transitory species are missing?

Mammals-like reptiles:
Evolution: From Reptiles to Mammals
Palaeos Vertebrates: Therapsida Overview

Fishapods:
Devonian Times - Recent Findings

 

[Split Rock]

Sure, found it as easily as you could have, had you bothered to do your claimed research before opening your mouth.

Evolution of the Coelacanth Saga


"For Agassiz, the coelacanth fossil record pointed to “a correspondence between the succession of Fishes [evolution of fishes] in geological times”. Reflecting on Agassiz findings, Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “this doctrine of Agassiz accords well with the theory of natural selection.”

At the time, the coelacanth was thought to be a species bridging the transition of life from water to land. This conclusion was primarily based on the limb-like structure of the fins; a structure on the way up from a fin for swimming and a foot for walking. The coelacanth was touted as fossil record “missing link” evidence for evolution.


The coelacanth was embedded into biology text books as the “missing link” evidence for evolution."

That source of yours which you found so convincing (because it agreed with your religious dogma) offered no references for the quotes that it mined. None.

The coelacanth is a descendent of a group which featured transitional species (the lobe-finned fish), but which is a pretty wide ranging group.

 

[PsychoSarah]

That source of yours which you found so convincing (because it agreed with your religious dogma) offered no refernces for the quotes that it mined. None.

The coelacanth is a descendent of a group which featured transitional species (the lobe-finned fish), but which is a pretty wide ranging group.

The coelacanth itself not being considered a transitional

 

[Split Rock]

Evolution of the Coelacanth Saga

This is from your much-vaunted link:

Robert L. Carroll, paleontologist of McGill University, concluded “We have no intermediate fossils between Rhipidistian fish [coelacanth] and early amphibians.” “Unfortunately”, Carroll further explained, “not a single specimen of an appropriate reptilian ancestor is known prior to the appearance of true reptiles. The absence of such ancestral forms leaves many problems of the amphibian—reptile transition unanswered.”
​

It had no reference for the quote. I had some trouble finding it, but I did find it here with a reference: The Modern Creation Trilogy: Scripture and Creation, Science and Creation ... - Henry M. Morris, John David Morris - Google Books

This is from The Modern Creation Trilogy: Scripture and Creation, Science and Creation ...
By Henry M. Morris, John David Morris. last printing 2004.

Page 64, Footnote #34 Lewis R. Carroll. Biol Rev Cambridge Phil Soc, vol 44 pp 393. This is the real kicker... do you know what the year is? 1969. That's right... 1969. How is that for dishonesty? Quoting from a 1969 paper and then implying that there are still no known transitionals, more than 30 years later. Sad.

Shall I go find some more for you, or are you done ignoring reality yet?

See above. Are you done citing dishonest websites?

 

[Split Rock]

eta - Wow. It's worse than I thought. My response was just two days ago in this very thread and Jats responded to my post, but didn't even address what I'd posted about the mutation breeding

Yeah, I'm still waiting for him to admit that lions and tigers evolved from a common ancestor. He knows it and even implied it, but just can't bring himself to admit it.

 

[USincognito]

Yeah, I'm still waiting for him to admit that lions and tigers evovled from a common ancestor. He knows it and even implied it, but just can't bring himself to admit it.

I'm becoming ever more fascinated by the psychology that allows one to see something so plainly contradictory to what one is claiming and continue to claim it.

(We could throw his coelacanth claims in there as well. They were debunked weeks if not months ago.)

 

[Split Rock]

I'm becoming ever more fascinated by the psychology that allows one to see something so plainly contradictory to what one is claiming and continue to claim it.

(We could throw his coelacanth claims in there as well. They were debunked weeks if not months ago.)

That quote from a 1969 paper is classic creation science "scholarship."

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Jats, can you give me a sincere, cogent answer. I have shown you repeatedly that the link you keep spamming is not about natural mutations (the random mutations that drive evolution), but exposing plants primarily to mutagens like chemicals and radiation in order to try and create mutations of characteristics desirable for breeders.

Here's the Wikipedia link I provided to you just the other day.
Mutation breeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And if you look in the section "mutagenic varietals" you see that experiments have been quite successful in creating new characteristics.
Mutation breeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, here's my serious question to which I request a sincere, cogent answer. Why do you continually ignore that information and instead continue to spam the same link over and over and over? Are you unable to understand the difference between natural mutations and mutation breeding? Are you unable to address the content of even the Wikipedia page? Are you under the impression that continuing to spam the same link over and over will change the fact that you misunderstand the content and it doesn't help your case after all?

Sometimes I wonder about the Creationists around here and I'd like to know what makes them tick when they do stuff like this.

eta - Wow. It's worse than I thought. My response was just two days ago in this very thread and Jats responded to my post, but didn't even address what I'd posted about the mutation breeding

And then ignore what mutation really is:

Mutation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Mutations result from unrepaired damage to DNA or to RNA genomes (typically caused by radiation or chemical mutagens), errors in the process of replication, or from the insertion or deletion of segments of DNA by mobile genetic elements...

...Mutation can result in several different types of change in sequences. Mutations in genes can either have no effect, alter the product of a gene, or prevent the gene from functioning properly or completely...

...One study on genetic variations between different species of Drosophila suggests that, if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated 70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms that have damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial."

Altering the product of a gene is just what I told you, turning off or on a gene already there.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_product
"A gene product is the biochemical material, either RNA or protein, resulting from expression of a gene. A measurement of the amount of gene product is sometimes used to infer how active a gene is. Abnormal amounts of gene product can be correlated with disease-causing alleles, such as the overactivity of oncogenes which can cause cancer."

So it can occurr from switching on or off genes.

"Mutations can involve the duplication of large sections of DNA, usually through genetic recombination."

Or by recombination of what already existed:

"Genetic recombination is the process by which two DNA molecules exchange genetic information, resulting in the production of a new combination of alleles."

An no matter what step you choose to use, you are simply turning on or off or recombining what already existed. You are NOT creating anything new. no matter how many times you choose to say it to misdirect people into believing that.

If I have blocks A, B, C and D, no matter how many times I arrange them, I never get block G. New genes have NEVER been created, just turned off or on or rearranged.

That is variation, not evolution. You can never get anything other than what already existed in the genetic code. When are you going to quit denying the truth????

We agree mutation happens, of that I have never argued against. It is the results from those mutations we are debating, since they can NEVER produce a new species, being merely already existing genes from that species. You may get a new "breed" of dog or cat or bacteria, but you have NEVER gotten a new species.

Except of course when you incorrectly label them as such due to your species problem and your need for them to be so for no other reason than you want it to be so.

The problem is we understand less than 1% of the genome, with 95% of it still unexplored and not understood at all.

So why in your discussions do you always ignore what mutation is and what process it takes? Why do you tell people it creates new species when it is simply using what already existed in that same species before???????

It's not a new species, it is a new "breed" within that same species. Merely variation of what already existed. A fact you can not escape, no matter how many misdirections you attempt to get people to belief in Fairie Dust.


But go ahead, show me the creation of block G, where it never existed before if you think you can. I expect I'll be waiting for eternity. Until then you will wave hands and make claims you can't support.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

And before you go claiming you have created new alleles, let's put that to rest.

Allele - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"An allele (UK /ˈæliːl/ or US /əˈliːl/), or allel, is one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene or same genetic locus."


Can we say variation of what already existed? Can we say different effects within the same species resulting in different "breeds"???? Can we say what the data says, instead of making things up on the spot?????

Can you argue the science without making personal attacks? Or is it just you have no real science to debate with, which leaves you with nothing but personal attacks?

 

[Mr Strawberry]

I'm becoming ever more fascinated by the psychology that allows one to see something so plainly contradictory to what one is claiming and continue to claim it.

(We could throw his coelacanth claims in there as well. They were debunked weeks if not months ago.)

My personal opinion is that the behaviour works in a similar way to denial in alcoholics who haven't admitted to themselves that they are alcoholics. The evidence is all undeniably there in front of them but somehow they can't allow themselves to see it. The reason they won't allow themselves to see it is fear, in my uninformed opinion. Fear of the consequences of allowing the truth to hit them square between the eyeballs. Their whole world as they know it will fall apart if they admit the truth, they know this on a subconscious level, so they pretend to themselves that it's not so. The results are exactly what we see on this forum. When the creationist is caught out in his/her denial we tend to see tantrums, and people who imagine themselves to be sweet, benevolent christian souls suddenly find themselves being defensive, vicious and accusatory. It's the same thing as cornering a problem drinker and telling him he is an alcoholic and needs to get help. He isn't going to be thrilled about it.

 

[lifepsyop]

What it comes down to is that evolutionists hold the pseudo-scientific faith that culled mutations will translate into mystical anatomy/bodyplan creating forces over millions of years and they can't be convinced otherwise. It's their creation story and they're sticking to it.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

What it comes down to is that evolutionists hold the pseudo-scientific faith that culled mutations will translate into mystical anatomy/bodyplan creating forces over millions of years and they can't be convinced otherwise. It's their creation story and they're sticking to it.

Yes, they always like to make claims that new genes were created in the past, when mutation has NEVER created a new gene EVER. It is simply turning off or on what already existed, or recombining what already existed.

You are correct, it is their creation mythology and their religion. Except the science does not agree with them as to how it occurred, since mutation can never create something new, only rearrange what already existed, or turn it on or off.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

My personal opinion is that the behaviour works in a similar way to denial in alcoholics who haven't admitted to themselves that they are alcoholics. The evidence is all undeniably there in front of them but somehow they can't allow themselves to see it. The reason they won't allow themselves to see it is fear, in my uninformed opinion. Fear of the consequences of allowing the truth to hit them square between the eyeballs. Their whole world as they know it will fall apart if they admit the truth, they know this on a subconscious level, so they pretend to themselves that it's not so. The results are exactly what we see on this forum.

The evidence is there, so why do evolutionists deny it? Mutation has never created anything new, simply turned off or on what already existed, or rearranged what already existed. Your own science tells you this when you don't ignore it. Sure, you can rearrange the code and get a new "breed" within that same species, but you can never get something that did not already exist within the genetic code to begin with.

When the creationist is caught out in his/her denial we tend to see tantrums, and people who imagine themselves to be sweet, benevolent christian souls suddenly find themselves being defensive, vicious and accusatory. It's the same thing as cornering a problem drinker and telling him he is an alcoholic and needs to get help. He isn't going to be thrilled about it.

And yet it is the evolutionists that continually revert to personal attacks, which you claim the creationists are doing. Shall we go back and look at all the posts and count the number of personal attacks made by evolutionists versus others? Dare to back that claim up????

 

[Mr Strawberry]

The evidence is there, so why do evolutionists deny it? Mutation has never created anything new, simply turned off or on what already existed, or rearranged what already existed. Your own science tells you this when you don't ignore it. Sure, you can rearrange the code and get a new "breed" within that same species, but you can never get something that did not already exist within the genetic code to begin with.

Yeah, this is like the alcoholic hiding all the empty bottles under his bed and saying he's not touched a drop for days.

We know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Yeah, this is like the alcoholic hiding all the empty bottles under his bed and saying he's not touched a drop for days.

We know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Someone has to present the actual facts, we sure can't rely on those claimed scientists to do so, since by their very own science they are simply turning on or off what already existed or rearranging what already existed.

So unless they are declaring that all genetic code once existed in the first life that came about (a perfect life-form), they have nothing but imagination and faith that it ever occurred, since it has never once been observed.