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proving evolution as just a "theory"

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xianghua

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can you show me your calculation? also: who talked about modern species?


Metamorphosis is not evolution dude, it's caterpillar puberty. Did you really not know that, or are you messing with me?

i never said it is. i said that its very similar to something that can be suggested in the case of a cat evolving into dog example.
 
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PsychoSarah

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can you show me your calculation? also: who talked about modern species?
You said cats and dogs, the latter of which is definitively a modern species, and you'd just be trying to utilize your own vague post to say that the cats you were talking about weren't modern ones, seeing as you said "if we saw cats evolving into dogs". I can't see something that happens in the past directly, now can I?

As for calculation, you yourself have sort of done it for me in other threads. That is, you say that the chance of a given mutation occurring is something like 1/10^30. So, which argument do you want to abandon, buddy, because you can't have both since they conflict with each other. That is, you can't think the chances of specific mutations occurring are low and think that it is reasonable



i never said it is. i said that its very similar to something that can be suggested in the case of a cat evolving into dog example.

Word for word quote from you: "very similar to a caterpillar evolving into a butterfly."

Metamorphosis and evolution are entirely different processes that work via different principles. If I was literally watching a cat form a cocoon and come out as a dog,
1. I'd take myself to the hospital, because someone must of slipped me one hell of a drug.
2. That'd be an example of metamorphosis... which is hypothetical and irrelevant to actual metamorphosis or evolution.
 
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pitabread

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So let’s say animal 1 has genetic strain A and B and animal 2 has C and D. Now it’s offspring can have A, B, C or D or a combination of A/B, A/C, A/D, B/A etc, etc.

For a diploid organism, we would have a maximum of 2 alleles at a given locus in their genome. Meaning, if we started with only 2 organisms, that's a maximum of 4 possible alleles for a given gene.

Meanwhile, there are genes for which we have identified vastly more than 4 alleles. For example, the HLA gene family has thousands of identified alleles (and that's just identified alleles; there could be far more than that).

So where did all these other alleles come from?
 
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Justatruthseeker

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Lol

For someone who gets so upset about terminology and definitions you’re playing fast and loose with the term ‘inbreeding’!

Not at all, shall we go look that definition up too so you can then ignore that as well?

inbreeding | genetics

“inbreeding, the mating of individuals or organisms that are closely related through common ancestry, as opposed to outbreeding, which is the mating of unrelated organisms. ”

Hmmm, seems you do indeed have problems with accepting scientific definitions. Or are you claiming black bears aren’t every one closely related through common ancestry?
 
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Ophiolite

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Define closely.
 
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Justatruthseeker

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For a diploid organism, we would have a maximum of 2 alleles at a given locus in their genome. Meaning, if we started with only 2 organisms, that's a maximum of 4 possible alleles for a given gene.
No, two alleles for every possible phonetic trait. Mother carries two, daddy carries two.

Meanwhile, there are genes for which we have identified vastly more than 4 alleles. For example, the HLA gene family has thousands of identified alleles (and that's just identified alleles; there could be far more than that).
So meanwhile I can disregard your claim of only two as not holding true then.

So where did all these other alleles come from?
Wrong question. The question you should ask is what happened to all the others? Can we say loss of variability through inbreeding?

Let’s be honest. You observe mostly two, but recognize some have been found to have more. Since you know inbreeding is happening which reduces genetic variability, the logical deduction is not where the extra came from, but that most were lost from that inbreeding and reduction in genetic variability.

Your flawed starting point closes your mind to the true event of reduction in variability, even if inbreeding is all you observe.
 
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Justatruthseeker

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Define closely.
Why, you’ll just ignore that too.

Biology A group of closely related organisms that are very similar to each other and are usually capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.“
 
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Ophiolite

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Why, you’ll just ignore that too.
What did I previously ignore? If I have done so, it was an oversight. Please refer me to the relevant post and I'll address that before dealing with the matter of inbreeding and close relationships.(Though I would have thought it was obvious that inbreeding is about very close relationships. The sort, for example, that in humans are called incestuous. "Close" is a qualitative term and the context of its usage is critical to understanding its meaning.)
 
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Justatruthseeker

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Great! You know that we don’t need to rely on these vague generalities now that we can examine DNA in such great detail. Maybe you can test your hypothesis with some real world data?

How about small dogs? You like dogs right?
Sure let’s discuss small dogs which are descended from the middle eastern wolf and not the grey wolf as are larger dogs.

The grey wolf simply lost traits still found in the middle eastern wolf. But there’s that loss of genetic variability from inbreeding in the grey wolf.
 
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Justatruthseeker

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Are you claiming all black bears are not closely related?
 
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Ophiolite

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Are you claiming all black bears are not closely related?
Not to the extent that a mating pair are necessarily inbreeding. The genetic diversity is great enough for that not to be an automatic consequence of a successful mating.

I noticed you ignored my request to tell me what I had ignored. Would you rectify that now please?
 
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pitabread

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So meanwhile I can disregard your claim of only two as not holding true then.

Two per individual. When I say they are thousands of identified alleles for particular genes, I'm talking about within the broader human population.

So again where did they all come from?
 
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rjs330

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But you don't trust God's own words. The ones he spoke in Exodus.
 
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Justatruthseeker

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Not to the extent that a mating pair are necessarily inbreeding. The genetic diversity is great enough for that not to be an automatic consequence of a successful mating.
And yet black bears remain black bears. Their genetic diversity never increases until they mate with another subspecies in their species. Such as polar bears. Or are you going to ignore the definition of subspecies because someone long ago thought they couldn’t interbreed and so incorrectly called them separate species?

Just as the Afro-Asian is more genetically diverse than both the Asian and the African. Because both the Asian and African are products of inbreeding which led to their specific traits. Just as black bears are products of inbreeding which led to their specific traits.

I noticed you ignored my request to tell me what I had ignored. Would you rectify that now please?
Depends, do you agree that interbreeding animals are the same species?

I listed several pages ago every scientific definition of species. Are you agreeing with the scientific definition or ignoring it?

I mean you have already tried to double-talk your way around black bears being closely related.
 
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Ophiolite

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I shall respond tomorrow. It is well past midnight. I trust you will be more courteous in future exchanges.
 
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Bugeyedcreepy

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I have about as much trust in the Theory of Evolution as a rational person could be - 99% maybe? I can't say I doubt Evolution, there's just too much in the way of evidence in support of it. The fact that the model is also used every day by people of all walks of life to produce real world benefits and outcomes is simply too hard to ignore.

What I can do though - if I did doubt any findings of Evolution, I can pick up most peer reviewed research papers and examine the data and findings myself. I can often rerun the experiment if I was really in doubt, and worst case scenario, I can recreate the dataset by replicating the experiment procedure and controls from scratch. Even if I have to borrow a lab and labtime to do it, it can indeed be done.

This is how peer review is done and how fake science is found out and discarded.
This seems to be a little unusual, not sure why you want to add unnecessary layers of separation but we build models of reality by which we use to navigate our way through it. I can trust a model of the universe that continues to produce reliable results, a process by which I can confirm with my own senses and degrees of rationality coupled with logic. I should be able to reproduce and verify these results in a consistent fashion, the more I can do this, the more trust I apportion to it. There is no such thing as 100% trust. By the same token though, I have to highlight that 99% trust is not equivalent to 0%. Regarding atheism and evolution, these things obviously require different levels of trust. Atheism (i.e. absence of a belief in a deity/ies) is the default position. This is evidenced by the many religions practiced all over the world where the adherents are either indoctrinated into a particular religion endemic to their particular culture (like USA, India and Turkey), or they have low to no religious inclination at all (such as Japan, Norway and Australia).

I hope you don't think I have 0% trust in my model of reality? Why would you think that?
All miracles are at the very least, debatable. Do you know how many miracles of any faith have ever been confirmed? Remember, the Hindu religion and its saints have claims every bit as comparable as Judaism, Christianity and Islam and it predates all of them.

If you really want to do it properly, the records of miracles claimed by the Egyptian religions predates all religions alive today. See: Ancient Egypt - Light Of The World, Volume 2 for some great examples... they too include pretty much all the miracles claimed by both the old and new testaments. There's no way that even Judaism can claim to be original in this respect, let alone Christianity.
It has a better outlook than the bible does on matters of humanity for one, they don't subscribe to plagues as a divine punishment for example. They predate all the Judeo-Christian religions by hundreds if not thousands of years and has been in existence continuously since then too, there's another reason - this isn't the point though. If you read the Qur'An, you'll find passages there that will tell you exactly the same thing about following other Gods besides Allah. Likewise, you'll easily find Muslims that are equally 100% convinced Allah is the one true God and Mohammed his final messenger because of direct divine interaction with Allah. Same with Hindus, Janists, Bah'ai, Bhuddists in relation to their God(s) or lack thereof.

Your view about your religion is no different to theirs, this is what I see.
All religions are the same. This isn't a presumption though, this is my observation. I'm thinking of becoming a Hindu as much as I'm considering becoming a Christian. What would put me over the edge for either religion (well, any religion really) is evidence. Knowing what I know about the fallibility of our senses and our predisposition to confirmation bias, I simply can't believe something first, then go looking for evidence for it, this would be dishonest and I'd be doing myself a disservice by doing that.
My dear The early and first christian church was made up of Jews!!
The 12 disciples, the 120, the 5000 and so on.

Messianic Jews accept Jesus and keep the Law. There are Jews who accept christ my dear.
Right, of course. Messianic Jews are really Christians who maintain their Jewish cultural heritage and customs. Judaism as a religion though, doesn't accept Jesus to be Emmanuel. They are indeed still waiting for their Saviour. To me, the Jews would be the experts on Jewish holy scripture, not Christians.

My friend you are jumping the gun here. You must wait till we are down with the first section.

Unless you feel we are done? (I do not)
Not at all, I'm in no rush and I'd much prefer to explore all of these points thoroughly before moving on to the next.
I would challenge you on being 100% certain of the Christian God - are you saying for example that Satan wouldn't be capable of fooling you into not following Allah, the one true God and his final Messenger, Mohammed? How can you tell that it was your Christian God that could be the only cause for your confirmation and not some other trickster God, or Satan of some other God wanting to hide the identity of the actual God he doesn't want you to know exists? (and no, I don't believe in any of these to be true)
Now, what makes your religion different to them? Have you ever sat down and talked to the passionate adherents of any of these faiths and asked them why they believe their religion and not yours? because I have.
I have to say my belief system revolves around the understanding that reality is testable and provides reliable and repeatable information about itself. To that end, All God claims (Christianity or otherwise) are on equal standing and are therefore subject to the same tests that anything else might be tested. Being that Gods are an extraordinary claim, the evidence in support of it also ought to be extraordinary.

To the extent that my "belief system revolves around a disbelief in the Christian God", it's because of the negative effect these believers have on their particular communities.

I "discuss the non existence of a God who does not exist" with its believers because I'm concerned that these people get into positions of influence, or even power, and then make decisions that affect the people around them. The same presupposition in their religions and lack of critical thinking has led to a number of demonstrably false and dangerous actions on behalf of believers. the same lack of critical thinking in their religion causes hardship and even death when it's applied to matters of science over the science itself. Anti-vaxxers for example. Faith healing is another one, Homeopathy, legislating against certain forms of scientific research, such as stem cell research and minority groups being legally discriminated against because of sexual orientation or belief in other gods/no gods, etc. This is a long an detailed list too big for this forum, but it has been noted on many occasions by many people.

Lastly, to quote bible verses at me is even less effective as quoting famous movie quotes. Why should I accept anything from the bible as meaning something? Remember, I still don't have any reason to accept any of it as true yet.
I do. My being here on this forum just seems significant to you because you have a limited view of my online life and the only thing you see is my interactions here on this forum. It's the same with people of faith seeing the world go about them in the context of their faith. This is why it's possible for you to be 100% certain in Your God, while a Hindu is 100% certain in their God, while a muslim is 100% certain in their God, so on. You all see the world in light of your own religious view and as such, you all see it supporting your respective views in contempt of all other views.
If i got the evidence from one religion, why do i need to seek it from another religion?
Because your views are very likely supported by a predisposition to your religion and confirmation bias, just like every one else of other religions.
I think you're mistaken, I meant no malice whatsoever. I was making the claim that you are so predisposed to your religion that it would be next to impossible to subject your faith to the "outsider test" of religions. That's to say, be able to scrutinise your own belief as if you were a non-believer or believer of another religion examining these beliefs for the first time.

For example, take this quote from the Qur'An:
O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for your allies: they are but allies of one another and whoever of you allies himself with them becomes, verily, one of them; behold, God does not guide people who are unjust. (Quran 5:51)

Give your commentary on this, perhaps let me know how you feel about this as an outsider to Islam. Now the explanation for this "confrontational" verse is explained by and islamic apologist at Can Muslims be friends with Jews and Christians? - IslamiCity , see for yourself the reasons why this isn't confrontational, and in fact is honourable towards Christians and Jews.

Then take this verse from the Bible for comparison:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)​

Can you do the outsider test on this verse and come to a similar finding to the one from the Qur'An above? As an outsider, I see them as comparable. My question for you, do you find them to be comparable as I do? If so, why aren't you a Muslim? If not, how are they different? There's a swathe of spin-off questions too that I could ask, namely one might be; do you hate your family and yourself too?
 
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BradB

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iam trying to prove to a friend that the christian way is the true way but he tells me to give an explanation of evolution and dinosaurs.

any things i could say to prove him wrong?

love
camila smith <3

All you need do is point out that all all evolution has to support it are arguments based in similarities between the different forms. But this can just as easily be explained by having a common creator as it can a common ancestor. As for dinosaurs, they are found in scripture as creatures God also created so there's nothing to explain. They are extinct as is 95% of all life that once lived on earth.
 
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PsychoSarah

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But you don't trust God's own words. The ones he spoke in Exodus.
Wrong, atheists don't think that the bible contains any divine words. Not trusting the words of a deity, and not trusting words other people have attributed to a deity are not the same thing. You wouldn't view any statements made by, say, Vishnu in the Hindu Vedas as the literal words of that god, right? So it would be inaccurate to say "you don't trust the word of Vishnu".
 
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