Neo-Darwinian evolution is in trouble INSIDE the scientific community

[klutedavid]

Hello Obliquinaut.

You stated the following.

This sounds like you are making a mendacious claim. I do not wish to suggest you are actually lying, but what you have done here is conflate the difference between science's inability to "prove" anything and your claim that evolution is not valid. The two are NOT RELATED.

The whole of the scientific methodology is based on observational criteria.

Fossils are observable evidence in science, but the link between species is not as vivid as one would wish in the record. As I said before, species suddenly appear in the fossil record, which is the result of the intermittent nature of fossil deposition.

For example, if you claim a whale resulted from a species X, based on a very stretched physiology, I would simply reject that as mere speculation. If species X had four legs and inhabited a swamp, I would not see any association. You might accept that association but for me, anathema.

YOU made the claim evolution is not valid. The fact that science never endeavors to "prove" anything is completely unrelated.

I will say it again, the evolution of any single species can not be demonstrated by science. There are always vast absences in the evolutionary series of any one species.
If you can show me the transitional species from just one species, from the first life form to the present species. I will be a convert.

Science has found so much evidence for evolution that it is likely true, in the same sense that we have lots of evidence for how gravity works to the point that we likely understand a great deal of it.

Science has made associations between fossils to support a theory that seems feasible.
It will seem to be a likely truth in it's description, until conflicting evidence arises.
Scientific truth can be rejected at any stage, Pluto was once a planet but not any more.

Where do you guys get this stuff? You guys act like there some big rule book for science you are working off of and it really sounds like you are simply misinterpretting how science is actually done.

Real science is observational science, testable in repeatable experiments, can also be measured. Anything that science studies beyond this definition, becomes highly theoretical, this line is often crossed in science.

Science needs to be able to make predictions based on evidence and hypotheses. Indeed evolution HAS been investigated from this point of view. As has been shown many times now

Of course predictions seem convincing but a prediction of a species existing in a given location. Then the predicted species being discovered, is not actually strong evidence for the evolution of species. Speciation is the platform that evolutionary theory stands upon.
I need the hard evidence.

This doesn't mean we need to propose that a bird will evolve into a dragon in 3 million years and sit there and watch it. That isn't how this works.

Actually that is exactly what evolutionary theory proposes, mutation of a species from one species to another. Lizards have dragon species, birds are reptiles, hence, a bird can become a dragon lizard.

It is possible to propose phylogenies based on our knowledge of evolution and then test that assumption by comparing it to actual phylogenies.

This is where the mistakes occur.

there is really almost nothing you can "know" with perfect knowledge. If science is hampered by this, then there is no valid reason to assume that one can hypothesize "God" in place of an explanation.

There is a difference, hypothesis and revelation are different creatures.

Science at least has the humility to admit its limitations. I have almost never seen a religious claim followed by "...but I could be wrong."

Yes science is limited I agree.

I am not claiming God exists, God did that Himself.

There is the real difference.

 

[klutedavid]

Here is another scenario: two people stab someone to death, then both claim they saw someone else do it.

Do you think the prosecution should rely on their testimony?

Hello pitabread.

That is one of the reasons that court cases can take so much time to deliver a verdict.
Verbal testimonies are invaluable, especially when there are many witnesses. If you commit an offense make sure no one saw you commit the offense.

 

[pitabread]

Verbal testimonies are invaluable, especially when there are many witnesses. If you commit an offense make sure no one saw you commit the offense.

...

I think you missed the point.

 

[klutedavid]

...

I think you missed the point.

Hello pitabread.

Obviously personal observations are weaker evidence, that is the point.

 

[Gene2memE]

Hello SZ.

Only hard bodied species are observed in the fossil record, soft bodied species do not leave fossil evidence.

You might want to double check that assertion:
Oldest Soft-Bodied Marine Fossils Discovered

Rare, yes. Non-existent, no.

The fossil record records the sudden appearance of a variety of species, you need a magic wand to see an evolution of any species.

Punctuated equilibria, anyone?

Meanwhile, there are thousands of fossil lineages that show incremental change.

For example, the dragon fly suddenly appears in the fossil record, no evidence of any earlier dragon fly prototype.

Oh hey, there are gaps in the fossil record. Why is this surprising, or evidence of anything bar the rarity of fossilisation?

 

[Obliquinaut]

For example, if you claim a whale resulted from a species X, based on a very stretched physiology, I would simply reject that as mere speculation. If species X had four legs and inhabited a swamp, I would not see any association.

I wish you guys would actually click on the links and look at the details. It isn't done like that. Just because it had four legs and lived in a swamp doesn't mean it's a whale ancestor. They look at the arrangement of bones and biological structures.

And this is to completely ignore all the GENETIC and CHEMICAL data supporting evolution.

You might accept that association but for me, anathema.

If I did biology and paleontology as badly as you just described I too we be anathematized. Please, give credit to these scientists that they actually DO THINGS YOU MAY NOT REALLY UNDERSTAND. Your oversimplified guess at what a real paleontologist does is NOT the same as what a real paleontologist does.

If you can show me the transitional species from just one species, from the first life form to the present species. I will be a convert.

What do you mean by that? From just one species starting at the first life form? You've been shown transitional fossils in this thread now. But now you are putting some weird caveat that I don't even begin to understand.

Real science is observational science, testable in repeatable experiments, can also be measured. Anything that science studies beyond this definition, becomes highly theoretical, this line is often crossed in science.

Tell me what science you do. I would love to know because you spend so much time telling us what science is or isn't.

You guys always CRITIQUE science but it always seems that you treat science like it was something you learned in junior high and don't actually have to apply it in any real sense.

Don't get me wrong: science does rely on observation and repeatable experimentation but I sense you have so little understanding of the science related to evolution that you are just waving away legitimate science because you don't understand this.

Yes science is limited I agree.

Do you also agree that religion is limited?

There is the real difference.

Yes there is. You claim God exists and you DEMAND EVERYONE ELSE PROVE SCIENTIFIC facts. It's always easy to be the one who demands without having to act according to the same demands.

 

[Astrophile]

Like so many before you - you are trying to interpret why there are fossils within the sedimentary layers of the Earth.

And over time all you have been able to acquire is interpretations of men?

No, some of the books and articles I've read have been by women. There is no reason to think that your understanding of fossils is based on anything other than human interpretations, and, in any case, there is better agreement among geologists about fossils than there is between churchmen about theology.

By Design the reason may be beyond natural man, and belief become the bases rather than naturalistic (nature-based) knowledge.

Maybe, maybe. But since there are rational naturalistic explanations of fossils, why should I believe in supernatural causes? You seem to be on the verge of rejecting science and human reason altogether in favour of untestable 'revelations'.

Did Jesus while on Earth approach peoples belief system rather than intellect? Did He try to open up and mature peoples faith in knowing God?

A life beyond the natural we all possess?

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Could or has there been people who have turned their inner ear away from Him, and only walk naturalistic in what they know and do?

By Design God did not setup things where natural man can be the source of truth and the one we can or should listen to and follow.

By His Intelligence and within His Design there is a day when each of us are to awake unto Him. And the Rivers of Living Waters be a reality, a matter beyond the naturally acquired.

This is irrelevant to the question of fossils, and it represents an abandonment of reason in favour of 'revelation'. I have not believed in any sort of god for the last 35 years, so why should I take the words of Jesus seriously? Also, Christians, and theists generally, have held wildly different opinions about their God and the scriptures, so it seems likely that their different theologies are, in your words, merely interpretations of men (and women) rather than revelations from a supreme and unchanging deity.

By the way, you haven't answered my question about the 4000' thick formation of cross-bedded sandstone (post 336).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Hello SZ.

Interesting conversation.

I thought circumstantial evidence would be the weakest.

It depends. A fingerprint at the scene of the crime indicates that the suspect was at the locale in question sometime. It puts a burden of proof on the defendant.

Speculation, the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. Perhaps your problem is with the phrase 'firm evidence'.

And since much of what we are discussing is covered by firm evidence you are using the phrase incorrectly quite often.

Not always correct but never wrong.

What is that supposed to mean?

Agreed.

These early accounts have a legal layer from an authorship, probably dated after the Exodus account. Noah for example mentions clean and unclean animals, that is impossible according to the text. There are obviously real accounts hidden beyond what the text is describing, but the authentic narration is too difficult to extract. I just do not accept the early Genesis accounts.

I reject a young earth chronology, I also reject an ancient earth chronology for that matter. Two extreme views that are impossible to reconcile without a battery of assumptions.

Genesis is more accurately a description of the history of the nation of Israel, I think that is why it was written.

Sorry, but the Exodus was probably fictional too.

We do know how old the Earth is. There is practically no question about that either.

Perhaps you should study some more of the science that you disagree with.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hello TM.

You asked, how can the universe be the evidence for God's existence.

God must be the first cause for the existence of the universe.

Why?

Otherwise we have a mathematical contradiction, an initial state before the universe with no energy, to a universe with a near infinite amount of energy.

Why would that be the only possible alternative to an unsupported, undemonstrable, unfalsifiable supernatural entity?

That is impossible, no wonder science makes no claim about anything before the Big Bang.

The reason is, because science prefers not to make arguments from ignorance, like you are doing.

When it is unknown, science just calls it unknown and goes to work to make it known.
Instead of just pretending to know.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hello SZ.

You said that, we do not know the first cause?

So why would you assume in the first instance a natural causation?

The only person in this conversation who's making assumptions about the "first cause", is you.

It's not even clear to me that we require a "first cause", nore is it even a given that talking about a "cause" in context of a realm where no temporal conditions exists (which are an inherent part of the universe), even makes sense at all.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hello SZ.

There does not exist a refutation of God, He is the principal cause.

He asked you what type of evidence would disprove this god. He's not asking you to actually provide such evidence, but to describe it.

If you can't tell us, then your god is an unfalsifiable concept which by definition is just being asserted into existance.

The amount of such claims that you could make is only limited by your own imagination.
Unfalsifiable claims are potentially infinite in number and completely meaningless and useless.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

In the case of a murder, eyewitnesses accounts will definitely hang the offender.

And we know from experience that eyewitness accounts are among the lowest forms of evidence.

500 "eyewitnesses" can point at the same person in accusation of murder.
But a single DNA sample proving otherwise will win the argument.

Google the innocense project. It's a collection of court cases of plenty of people who've been set free after years in prison thanks to new DNA evidence. As good as ALL of them were initially convicted based on testimony.

In 2nd grade, you play the telephone game. You tell a story to a person. That person tells the next person, etc. By the time you get to person 10, the whole story changed.

Direct observations of the events are required to approach any proof.

That is simply completely and utterly false.
I'll prove it.

Someone walked here:

There was a fire here:

Events of the past, leave evidence that can be observed in the present.

Only true, if one is conditioned or educated within the evolutionary framework. If the evolution of a species is a fact, then I will demand the evolutionary history of that species from inception to the present.

Which is an unreasonable request.
Kind of like me asking you to show me a photo of your face of EVERY SECOND of your life, in order to prove to me that you are in fact aging.

It's ridiculously unreasonable. And unecessary. All you require to demonstrate common ancestry, is extant DNA samples.

You can remove every fossil from the face of the earth and completely whipe earth's history and evolution theory would be as solid as ever based on the genetic evidence alone.

Just one example of one species, showing the array of different transitional species in the series, thanks.

This, by itself, shows how ignorant you are on the subject. Our classification of organisms is actually just a snapshot of the current "state" of life, which is in constant transition generation after generation.

If you would line up all your forefathers in a long line and work your way back 1 generation at the time, at no point would you be able to draw a line between 2 individuals where one is of species Y and the other of species X.

Every newborn that ever existed was of the same species as its direct parents. Evolution is a gradual process.

I reject Genesis chapters one and two, as authentic scripture.

Why?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hello pitabread.

That is one of the reasons that court cases can take so much time to deliver a verdict.
Verbal testimonies are invaluable, especially when there are many witnesses. If you commit an offense make sure no one saw you commit the offense.

Please review some of the cases on this website:

The Cases & Exoneree Profiles - Innocence Project

The vast majority was (wrongly) convicted based on "testimony".
Actual evidence then set them free.

 

[sfs]

I will say it again, the evolution of any single species can not be demonstrated by science. There are always vast absences in the evolutionary series of any one species.

Here is the fossil record for several species; the numbers next to the data points represent the number of fossils in each sample. Where exactly do you see a vast absence between the Pelycodus species?

ETA: Huh. Linking to an image doesn't seem to work anymore. The plot is here.

 

[majj27]

Why would that be the only possible alternative to an unsupported, undemonstrable, unfalsifiable supernatural entity?.

Not to mention that even if a god was assumed to be the cause of the universe, now we get into a REAL fight over which god did it. I mean, there's around 33 Vedic gods, and supposed 10 million unknown ones for each known one, so now we've got a pool of 330,000,000 possibilities to go from. And that's just from one single religion.

And then the arguments start over whether Odin could kick Shiva's hiney or if Manabozho could totally take Enki in a fair fight. Good times, man. Good times.

 

[Tanj]

And we know from experience that eyewitness accounts are among the lowest forms of evidence.Someone walked here:

And if you don't believe that, try a few of these:

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us

 

[xianghua]

So you understand your error. Oh wait, you don't.

They were not talking about the "same gene" in that article.

this gene code for the syncityn protein. so its basically the same gene and have the same function in the placenta formation. so yes, you are wrong. according to this logic we cant consider the hemoglobin in both human and mouse as the same protein because they have a different sequence. or you just refer to the convenrgent trait?

again: the ignorance is all from your side so far.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

And if you don't believe that, try a few of these:

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us

I quite like the Colour-Changing Card Trick:

and Whodunnit:

But it's not just perception that's misleading and/or unreliable - memory is too:

List of Memory Biases
How Much of Your Memory is True?
Memory Distortion & Invention
False Autobiographical Memories
Seven Sins of Memory
The Memory Doctor
How accurate are Memories of 9/11?

In combination, perception and memory unreliability can make eye-witnesses very unreliable indeed - particularly when lack of awareness of this possibility leads to overconfidence.

 

[xianghua]

I would naturally consider it an animal

so if you will find this watch:

a wood watch‏ - חיפוש ב-Google:

just that it have a self replicating system and made from organic components like a wood. you cant call it a watch?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

so if you will find this watch:

a wood watch‏ - חיפוש ב-Google:

just that it have a self replicating system and made from organic components like a wood. you cant call it a watch?

Just let it go - semantic legdermain has no ontological influence.