proving evolution as just a "theory"

[pitabread]

Agreed, individual genotypes making up particular gene pools, or Kinds.

"Kinds" is not a defined term relevant to biology. Consequently I don't recognize it as relevant for classification of individual gene pools.

Why do you need a citation?

You claimed that "Because the genome once had all racial characteristics within, and through selective breeding our genetic variability has been reduced."

Do you have support from any genetic studies that the genome "once had all racial characteristics within". Because I can tell you right now that based on my prior readings of genetics literature with respect to human genes, the distribution of 'racial characteristics' is a result of various alleles as a result of mutations throughout the human genome. Or to put it another way, you can't cram all the variability associated with every phenotype into a single genome.

But if you believe otherwise, then by all means provide a citation to back this up.

You just admitted you agreed that selective breeding reduced the genetic variation.

I was speaking with respect to selective breeding of dogs, not people. In the case of humans, populations have been increasing substantially and gene flow is abundant. You won't find many cases these days of genetic isolation in human populations.

I don’t know about you, but I can easily discern the difference between Asian and African, and the overlap between the two Afro-Asian.

Sure, it's easy to line up a couple distinct human phenotypes and play a game of "spot the difference". But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about drawing a hard line in the sand with respect to different populations. If you try to do so, you're going to quickly find there is too much overlap both with respect to physical traits and underlying genetics to truly divide populations into distinct categories.

No it’s not and never has been observed. Oh, you mean by those labels you admit are arbitrary and want to give up until those arbitrary labels arbitrarily support your arbitrary claims?

I think you are misconstruing what I mean by labels being arbitrary. What I mean by that is that they are in effect artificial classifications used to make identification of particular biological groups of organisms easier. But the classifications themselves have no true biological reality. A zebrafish doesn't come with Danio rerio stamped on its underbelly. This is simply a species classification we have assigned to this particular type of fish.

At any rate, per the biological species concept (i.e. the formation of distinct breeding populations via allopatric or sympatric speciation), speciation has been observed. There is no denying that as it's been directly observed.

This from the man that argued a change in phenotype meant nothing?

When have I ever suggested that a change in phenotype meant "nothing"?

Mastiff have black and brown hair too. No one argues a mutation might change hair color, length of nose (or beak or snout) but that is quite different than changing some missing common ancestor into an ape and a human?

Is it really though? I mean, you fully accept that mutations can change physical traits, so it such a stretch to accept that an accumulation of changes to physical traits would result in something that you ultimately classify differently?

Or is this a case of not being able to view evolution as a recursive process which builds on what comes before it?

I have never disagreed. I simply contend you have no basis to claim mutations can bring about a new species, when it can’t even change a Husky into anything else.

But again, with something like Huskies you're dealing with a situation whereby artificial selective pressures are being used to shape a particular breed to produce that particular breed.

That said there is absolutely no reason a person could not continually breed Huskies selecting for different traits until the resultant offspring were physically distinct from traditional Huskies. This is after all what dog breeders did with early domesticated dogs in the first place.

Can you give an example where this has not happened?

Where reducing a population size didn't reduce genetic variability? I'm not sure why you asking that question. If you want examples of increasing genetic variability, then increasing population size is the way to go, not reducing it.

But doesn’t that require that allele to start from just two, and on just to their descendants? So to be fixed in the population, it would have to come from say, an original pair?

A novel allele needs to only come from a single individual. If that individual mates with other organisms and produces resultant offspring with that allele, then that allele can spread through the population via continued reproduction.

Or are you suggesting if I randomly acquire a mutation, entire populations will then randomly acquire the same random mutation? Sorry, those odds are illogical.

No, mutations spread through a population as it is passed to offspring via reproduction.

Agreed, which must occur in at least one of a pair and to its descendants. To be fixed in the population, the population must come from that original pair.

Again, it only needs to occur in a singular organism and be successfully passed down via reproduction. An organism can have multiple sexual partners. A male with a particular mutation could impregnate multiple females or vise-versa a female with a mutation could have offspring by way of more than one male.

Agree and disagree. I agree Husky mating with Mastiff produce the Chinook. I’ve yet to observe a mutation change the Husky, Mastiff or Chinook into another breed. Yes, I know you believe it can, but isn’t it belief or faith you have a problem with?

You accept that wolves were domesticated and evolved into individual dog breeds. Breeding a population of Huskies into something sufficiently physically distinct would be the exact same process.

You appear to be simultaneously accepting and rejecting evolution. It's odd.

 

[rjs330]

Well, you can't accuse me of that, since I already believe in God. I reject ID because it is bad science, not because it "leads into the realm of a designer." And since atheists appear to reject ID for the same reasons I do, it is hard for me to believe that they are only rejecting it because they are afraid it might be true.

Well all you have to do is look at the posts about magical unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster to know how they feel about ID. No they don't think of it the same way you do. You believe in God they don't.

ID is not bad science. It's not accepted. There is a difference. How many scientists are there out there that are really working on intelligent design. What happens to the ones that are? They are always utterly dismissed as non science. So all we are left with is evolution or nothing. Because only evolution is accepted as science and everything isn't. Kind if makes it difficult to put forth another theory when the ultimate object of the theory is a designer. And as we all have been told over again a designer cannot be falsified so there fore it is not science. Yet God told us how he did it. But because it can't be science we can't accept that. Why? Because we men get to decide what science is.

 

[rjs330]

False. Not because of "where it leads". Rather, because there is nothing to look at.
You might as well posit extra-dimensional undetectable unicorns. There is nothing there to look at... just baseless assertions.

If want science to look at your idea, you're going to have to provide it with something that is actually testable...




Yep. Unfalsifiable ideas do not deserve any airtime. Because there is nothing there to study, test, verify, ...

Unfalsifiable ideas are potentially infinite in number and only limited by your very own imagination.

To put it simplisticly: the undetectable and the non-existant, look very much alike...

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[rjs330]

-_- I'm not a supporter of UCA, so no comment here. The experiment isn't designed to test that.


-_- not in my lifetime would they change that much.

Well then you and I really have no argument. My big problem is evolution from a common ancestor. I have no problem with some things evolving into a subspecies of the same species. Like those finches who's wings change to make flying easier across the sea.

 

[pitabread]

ID is not bad science.

Oh, it most certainly is. I've combed a fair bit of ID literature including a number of the papers that the Discovery Institute promotes as "supporting" ID. And they are bad. Downright terrible in some cases.

Most of what ID rests on currently can be boiled down to a giant argument from incredulity. Essentially they argue against evolution then proclaim ID by default. But it doesn't work that way. Intelligent Design is not a default null hypothesis.

If ID supporters want to be taken seriously, they have a long way to go in producing a scientifically viable case. They need to build a positive case for their beliefs and to do so means doing a lot more than simply attacking evolution.

 

[rjs330]

I seek to better understand your position and how you arrived at it. To do so I would be grateful if you were to answer the following questions. (Please feel free to ask me any comparable questions, if you wish.)

• What is the extent of your high school exposure to the concepts of evolution in either geology or biology classes?
• Did you complete any undergraduate level biology or geology classes?
• How many collections of fossil groups have you studied and in what detail? (Looking at such groups while wandering in museums does not count.)
• How many fossils have you collected in the field?
• Which standard textbooks on palaeontolgy have you read?
• Approximately how many research papers on palaeontology, published in peer reviewed science journals have you read?
• Specifically how many research papers on the Cambrian explosion, published in peer reviewed science journals have you read?

I'm not trying to trap you here, but if - as I suspect -your answer to most of these is little or none, then I do wonder what makes you feel qualified to express an opinion. In those circumstances it would seem you are merely parroting what you have read with no real understanding of what you are claiming and why those claims are false.

Of course, if your answers indicate a serious knowledge of the field then we can have a serious discussion devoid of trite unsubstantiated assertions.

Do you believe in evolution from a common ancestor?

I was taught evolution in school from 7th grade on. I had to take biology courses in college. I have always been fascinated with dinosaurs and have read write a few books regarding fossils and early life on this planet.
I've never written any scientific papers and I am not a scientist. I have read many of the papers and articles evolutionists have sent me or linked to. I am a thinker. And everything I have seen and read leads me to see evolution from a common ancestor as a false science based upon assumption. I can apply the same principles used in evolution from a common ancestor and say it is evidence of common design.

 

[Speedwell]

Well all you have to do is look at the posts about magical unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster to know how they feel about ID. No they don't think of it the same way you do. You believe in God they don't.

. They're right. There is no more scientific evidence for the God we both believe in than there is for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

ID is not bad science. It's not accepted. There is a difference. How many scientists are there out there that are really working on intelligent design. What happens to the ones that are? They are always utterly dismissed as non science. So all we are left with is evolution or nothing. Because only evolution is accepted as science and everything isn't. Kind if makes it difficult to put forth another theory when the ultimate object of the theory is a designer.

It's bad science. There is no cogent definition of design, no test for its presence in an object and no proposed process for how design gets into the designed object in the first place. I won't argue biology with you--don't know that much about it. My background is in math and engineering and I know enough about it to recognize Dembski's math for the snake oil it is. It's bad theology, too, if you think on it. It's one thing to believe in a God who intervenes in history with miraculous events at critical times. It's quite another to believe in a God who must tinker periodically with mundane biological systems because the process He created to produce them is not quite up to the job.

And as we all have been told over again a designer cannot be falsified so there fore it is not science. Yet God told us how he did it. But because it can't be science we can't accept that. Why? Because we men get to decide what science is.

You can accept whatever you like, believe whatever you like, but if you want to call it science you have to play by the epistemological rules that science plays with. The existence of God is an unfalsifiable proposition, knowable only by faith and inaccessible to science. Likewise your belief that "God told us how He did it."

So why do you care that those proposition are not falsifiable scientific propositions? Does it make it harder for you to believe them?

 

[pitabread]

I can apply the same principles used in evolution from a common ancestor and say it is evidence of common design.

Then why don't you do so? For example, you have repeatedly claimed that phylogenetic reconstruction is evidence for common design. So why not take a phylogenetic reconstruction and actually demonstrate that it supports your common design assertion*?

*(Admittedly this is a trick question, since I already know for a fact that phylogenetic reconstructions don't support a 'common design' paradigm. But if you believe otherwise, I'll be happy to be proven wrong.)

I was taught evolution in school from 7th grade on. I had to take biology courses in college.

Assuming this is true, then I don't understand why you're having such difficulty understanding how scientific hypotheses and theories (including biological evolution) are tested.

 

[rjs330]

So what other than the scientific method do you have in mind?

It's not the

So what other than the scientific method do you have in mind?

The problem is with a closed method of science. If we say only this method is the definition of science we rule out other options or possibilities. It's like I said. If you absolutely rule out a designer, which evolution does (just read all the times they say it), it leaves you with evolution or nothing. The problem is science does not explain everything. Even evolution from a common ancestor does not meet the definition of science yet it is proclaimed as such. It is falsified already because no one has seen or tested or reproduced that. In fact we can't even observe it taking place today. Scientists are not even looking at life as a design. They only look at it from the lense of evolution.

 

[rjs330]

Then why don't you do so? For example, you have repeatedly claimed that phylogenetic reconstruction is evidence for common design. So why not take a phylogenetic reconstruction and actually demonstrate that it supports your common design assertion*?

*(Admittedly this is a trick question, since I already know for a fact that phylogenetic reconstructions don't support a 'common design' paradigm. But if you believe otherwise, I'll be happy to be proven wrong.)

Don't we use the genetic make up of all things to determine the tree? What is common in this genetic make up? What do we find in all living things? What is the make up of cells? Don't we all have them? It's common design! Once again evolutionists look at the commonality of all things and say "look a phylogentic tree!" Creationists look at the same things and say God used the same materials to create all life. He arranged those materials in certain patterns that made each creature unique from the others. But it's still the same materials.

 

[Speedwell]

It's not the


The problem is with a closed method of science. If we say only this method is the definition of science we rule out other options or possibilities.

Only as science. Do you really think that only science can contribute to human knowledge???

It's like I said. If you absolutely rule out a designer...

As a falsifiable proposition.

...which evolution does (just read all the times they say it), it leaves you with evolution or nothing.

Nothing? Do you no longer believe in the supernatural?

The problem is science does not explain everything.

Not exactly late-breaking news. Where have you been?

Even evolution from a common ancestor does not meet the definition of science yet it is proclaimed as such. It is falsified already because no one has seen or tested or reproduced that. In fact we can't even observe it taking place today. Scientists are not even looking at life as a design. They only look at it from the lense of evolution.

No comment.

 

[pitabread]

Creationists look at the same things and say God used the same materials to create all life. He arranged those materials in certain patterns that made each creature unique from the others.

Except that those same patterns are exactly how phylogenetic trees are derived as a demonstration of common ancestry. So we're right back to the same claim: that life was designed, yet somehow has the appearance of evolution.

If you want to argue to the contrary, you can't keep claiming that the evidence for evolution is somehow evidence for common design. You have to break that pattern and demonstrate patterns that only could be explained by independent design and not evolution.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It's not that there is nothing there to look at. Rather, it is that Science is the wrong tool to use to look at it.

Disagree completely. ID is a collection of claims concerning observable physical reality. That is definatly the domain of science.

And not only that, cdesign proponentsists THEMSELVES keep saying it is a scientific idea.

Science is fun, cool and rewarding (I like my computer, which would not be possible without scientific discovery), but it is an AM radio trying to pick up the FM radio of ID. It's the wrong tool.

There is no other proper tool to examine physical reality.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Not random at all, merely pointed out that even tho you refuse to accept dogs on the basis of artificial selection, you have no problem with laboratory designed peas, laboratory altered fruit flies, etc.

That's not what I said at all.
I have no problem "accepting dogs" lol.

Why not, you seem to shrug your shoulders over most of the empirical observational evidence.

You mean like, the empirical observations of speciation in the wild as well as the lab?
Oeps, no... that's what you are ignoring.

 

[DogmaHunter]

where it said the opposite?

The papers don't consider that data as evidence against evolution. Which is the opposite of considering it evidence against evolution. Violation of nested hierarchies, would be evidence against evolution.

In other words, you are trying to make a point by linking to papers that don't agree with your point AT ALL.

 

[DogmaHunter]

The theories keep changing to match the results in scientific tests and discovery.

Would you rather prefer that they ignored the results of scientific tests and discovery?

It's called making progress and it is the strength of science.
It's why it actually works.........

i.e. test results bit them

No. Test results rather, gave them the means to make progress and learn more.

, so they changed their theory on what kind of stick it is.

"changed their theory" = "made it more accurate".

It's a good thing.

 

[DogmaHunter]

So how do you know that evolution from a common ancestor is true if you can't observe it?

The same way we can tell a meteorite hit the earth a long, long time ago while only having this data at our disposal:

By examining the evidence in the present, which teaches us about events of the past.
This is also how murders are solved.

And off course, there's also that tiny detail that we can actually observer every single aspect of the evolutionary process in real time.

It's so nice to have a theory that says "we can't actually observe this, but we believe it any way.". Which is not actually science. Since science must be testable and observable.

Evolution is both testable and observable.
Not a single aspect of the process is not observable. Mutation, variation, passing on of traits to off spring, natural selection, speciation... all easily observable.

The large scale evolution of common ancestry spanning millions of years, is also easily testable since that idea makes a HUGE amount of predictions - all of which are testable.

It makes predictions about where we sould find what kind of organisms, how genes/genetic markers are distributed among species, etc.

It's actually not that different from testing if you and your sibling are really biological siblings (and one of you is thus not adopted) - without having any access to your parents.
It can easily be done. In fact, DNA testing to establish blood ties is done ALL THE TIME.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Will they eventually turn into something besides crustaceans?

Not if evolution theory is actually accurate....

 

[DogmaHunter]

again: if you think the analogy is wrong then you should explain why its wrong.

Plenty of people have done that countless times the past months.
Yet here you are, repeating the same nonsense.

Why should people waste any more of their precious time to explain it for the upteenth time?

Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results"

the fact that a car cant reproduce doesnt has any connection to the fact that both are ic.

Except that it does.

 

[DogmaHunter]

That is such nonsense and proves my point. If all you have is one method then you are bound to that method and blind to any other alternatives. To limit the possibilities is to limit you mind and real discovery.

If you know of another method then the scientific one, to find out how reality works...

By all means, share.