Responding to Justa's Comments On Evolution

[whois]

Evolution requires life to exist.
Evolution only takes place once things that can evolve exists (in this case, life).

How can the mechanisms of evolution apply to things that don't exist?

You're not making a lot of sense.

that wasn't the question.
the question was how are the processes that lead to life different than the processes that lead to evolution.
they both require the acquisition of nucleotides.
they both must follow the laws of biochemistry.
they both are subjected to environmental constraints.

Why this obsession with this guy? You cite him as if every word the man ever said is truth and nothing but truth.

probably because he has more knowledge on this subject than all the posters on this forum put together.
there are also a large number of scientists that agrees with what he says.

I don't really care what the dude's personal opinions are, you know.

that seems to be your primary problem dogmahunter, you just can't grasp the idea that darwinism is dead.
things in evolution just do not happen the way you think they do.

 

[DogmaHunter]

that wasn't the question.

Yes, it was.

You asked about how the mechanism of evolution, a process that applies to existing life, applies to the origins of life.

The answer is that evolution applies to existing life.
Scope. It matters.

Furhermore, the origins of life are unkown. There some good ideas, but nothing conclusive.

So - ignoring for a second that evolution doesn't address origins - the best one can say is "we don't know".

the question was how are the processes that lead to life different than the processes that lead to evolution.

For starters, life needs to already exist for evolution to start.
Evolution requires reproduction with modification. You can't reproduce what doesn't exist yet........

they both require the acquisition of nucleotides.
they both must follow the laws of biochemistry.
they both are subjected to environmental constraints.

Yes, both are subject to the laws of nature.
Are you having a state-the-obvious contest?

You could just as well say then that the "processes of plate tectonics" apply to "black holes", because "both are subject to physics".

It's not exactly incorrect to state that, but.... yeah...

probably because he has more knowledge on this subject than all the posters on this forum put together.

And Professor Dawkins doesn't?

Could it be that you prefer the personal opinions of Koonin because you feel like you can reconcile his opinions better with what you want to believe, rather then with the opinions of Dawkins?

there are also a large number of scientists that agrees with what he says.

And their personal opinions are irrelevant as well.

that seems to be your primary problem dogmahunter, you just can't grasp the idea that darwinism is dead.

If you say so.
It's just a word though. The theory of evolution remains intact.
The core of it remains intact.
Natural selection is just as valid today as it was 200 years ago.
And here you go again, btw, mixing up origins of life with origins of diversity.

things in evolution just do not happen the way you think they do.

Really?
Descent with modification doesn't happen?
Natural selection doesn't happen?
Fitter individuals don't have advantages over less fit individuals?

You can believe that if you want, but you'll just miss the fact that you're wrong.

 

[whois]

dogmahunter,
i don't wish to carry on this discussion with you, simply because you refuse to honestly look at the evidence.
the MA experiment i presented for example.
your absolute refusal to believe scientists such as koonin, noble, ross, oakely, ayala, eldredge and a host of others.

 

[DogmaHunter]

dogmahunter,
i don't wish to carry on this discussion with you, simply because you refuse to honestly look at the evidence.

Personal opinions are not evidence.

the MA experiment i presented for example.

Don't really know what you are talking about here.
I don't think you presented this to me.

your absolute refusal to believe scientists such as koonin, noble, ross, oakely, ayala, eldredge and a host of others.

That's right, it don't "just believe" anyone.
I don't care for their personal opinions.

What about your absolute refusal to believe respected scientists like Dawkins and Miller?
See?

That's how that works.

You need to learn to make a distinction between personal opinions and actual scientific inquiry.

Not everything that comes out of a scientist's mouth is "science" that needs to be blindly accepted.

I don't care for personal opinions and I care even less for arguments from authority.

So... goodbye and take care.

 

[DogmaHunter]

dogmahunter,
i don't wish to carry on this discussion with you, simply because you refuse to honestly look at the evidence.
the MA experiment i presented for example.
your absolute refusal to believe scientists such as koonin, noble, ross, oakely, ayala, eldredge and a host of others.

Ow, and furthermore (how in the world did I miss that one....) ...

Claiming things are "unfathomable" or "impossible" is not evidence either. What those are, are rather arguments from ignorance, considering the things that are branded as "impossible" here are unkown.

 

[Loudmouth]

Not any more than cats and dogs are the same species.

How can you make that claim when they get 98% of species wrong, according to you? This means that giraffes and humans could be the same species, right?

Do you think birds that interbreed and produce fertile offspring are the same species or separate species?

Depends. If it only happens in captivity and doesn't impact the wild populations, then they are still separate species. If it occurs in the wild to the point that there is a constant gene flow, then they have ceased to be separate species.

 

[justlookinla]

There's only one meaning of "evolution" when talking about the scientific theory.

There's not one meaning of evolution when talking about evolution. There are Darwinist evolutionists, with all it's worldview implications, on this forum and then there are those on the forum who embrace evolution, but not Darwinist evolution.

Sometimes one needs to make a distinction between the two.

 

[justlookinla]

Evolution doesn't address the origins of life.

You might want to read up on some basics.

Darwinist evolution addresses the creation of the various life forms we see today with the claim that only naturalistic mechanisms created them.

 

[justlookinla]

So we agree that evolution is as defined: Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations.

You ever get an answer to this?

 

[DogmaHunter]

There's not one meaning of evolution when talking about evolution.

Maybe not for you.
But your strawmanning opinions are quite irrelevant.

There are Darwinist evolutionists, with all it's worldview implications

Biology is not a "worldview".

, on this forum and then there are those on the forum who embrace evolution, but not Darwinist evolution.

Random people on the internet aren't relevant to what the science actually really says.

Sometimes one needs to make a distinction between the two.

One only needs to make a distinction between the actual science of biology and the irrelevant opinions thereof.

Darwinist evolution addresses the creation of the various life forms we see today with the claim that only naturalistic mechanisms created them.

No. It addresses the development of them. Evolution of existing life. Speciation.

It does not address the origins of life.

See? That's what I was talking about previously.
You should read up on some of the basics, because clearly you don't have a clue. You have been reading from a few very bad sources. It's disinformation all the way down.

Try reading some actual science books instead of religious shenannigans.

 

[whois]

There are Darwinist evolutionists, with all it's worldview implications, on this forum and then there are those on the forum who embrace evolution, but not Darwinist evolution.

the ONLY reason i "embrace" evolution is because it's the only thing that makes any sense.
it certainly isn't because we have all this hard evidence that proves it.
for example:
However, some of the assumptions at the foundation of The Modern Synthesis started to crumble in the 1970s with the discovery of super-abundant genetic variation that arguably often didn't evolve under the strict aegis of natural selection. Then cells were found to incorporate genes, mobile genetic elements, and organelles of diverse historical origins. Furthermore, it became apparent in the last decades of the 20th Century that DNA sequences often evolved in ways that reduced the fitness of the organisms that bore them. It is now abundantly clear that living things often attain a degree of genomic complexity far beyond simple models like the "gene library" genome of the Modern Synthesis.

the MA experiment i presented says this decrease in fitness appeared not in 5 or 6, or most, but in ALL lines tested.

the piece goes on to say:
Even systematics has had to abandon many strictures that were part of the Modern Synthesis. If species are the durable unit of biology, and if natural selection quickly molds genes to current utility, then most genes should diverge at the time of speciation events, given views like Mayr's. Here again, analyses of newly abundant sequence data in the late 20th Century showed that rather than a highly congruent coalescence of genes at the times of speciation events, the coalescence times of alleles among species are highly variable. As such, species trees and gene trees often cannot be equated.
-The new biology beyond the Modern Synthesis.htm

 

[DogmaHunter]

the ONLY reason i "embrace" evolution is because it's the only thing that makes any sense.
it certainly isn't because we have all this hard evidence that proves it.
for example:
However, some of the assumptions at the foundation of The Modern Synthesis started to crumble in the 1970s with the discovery of super-abundant genetic variation that arguably often didn't evolve under the strict aegis of natural selection. Then cells were found to incorporate genes, mobile genetic elements, and organelles of diverse historical origins. Furthermore, it became apparent in the last decades of the 20th Century that DNA sequences often evolved in ways that reduced the fitness of the organisms that bore them. It is now abundantly clear that living things often attain a degree of genomic complexity far beyond simple models like the "gene library" genome of the Modern Synthesis.

the MA experiment i presented says this decrease in fitness appeared not in 5 or 6, or most, but in ALL lines tested.

the piece goes on to say:
Even systematics has had to abandon many strictures that were part of the Modern Synthesis. If species are the durable unit of biology, and if natural selection quickly molds genes to current utility, then most genes should diverge at the time of speciation events, given views like Mayr's. Here again, analyses of newly abundant sequence data in the late 20th Century showed that rather than a highly congruent coalescence of genes at the times of speciation events, the coalescence times of alleles among species are highly variable. As such, species trees and gene trees often cannot be equated.
-The new biology beyond the Modern Synthesis.htm

It seems to me that the "objection" you are raising here is simply the fact that we don't know and understand everything yet.

I, for one, fully expect that new research exposes new details, additional mechanisms and might correct previously held views on how exactly life developed / evolved over time. Don't you?

You, apparantly, see this as a problem.

I merely see it as progress.

None of this is any problem for the fact of evolution, however.
Obviously, there is more to learn. Why else would we still train biologists.......

 

[Oncedeceived]

You ever get an answer to this?

No. In fact, I didn't get an answer to that. I didn't get any evidence presented from Dawkins book for evidence other than for the stories about how the eye evolved. I said we could come back and discuss it later; as I wanted more evidence for his assertions from his book and Dogma decided that since he couldn't provide it he would just say that I didn't really want it. Imagine that?

 

[whois]

I merely see it as progress.

you apparently wasn't even aware of it until i posted it.
because if you were, you would NEVER have presented boxcar2d as some kind of evolutionary model, because it isn't.

 

[Loudmouth]

we have already determined boxcar2d does not simulate the accumulation of genes, transposons, hgt, nor epigenetics.

It does. The accumulation of genes, transposons, HGT, and epigenetics would produce changes in phenotype that are random with respect to fitness and filtered through selection. That is exactly what happens in boxcar2d.

 

[Loudmouth]

you apparently wasn't even aware of it until i posted it.
because if you were, you would NEVER have presented boxcar2d as some kind of evolutionary model, because it isn't.

The mechanisms of mutation (including transposons), HGT, and epigenetics produce changes in phenotype that are random with respect to fitness, and are filtered through selection. That is exactly what happens in boxcar2d.

 

[Loudmouth]

this, coming from the poster that said a bird is a dinosaur.

If we are going to be true cladists, theropod would be the better term. Dinosaur is a paraphyletic term.

http://tolweb.org/Theropoda/15726

you can try to dissociate evolution from biochemistry all you want, but it will never fly.
when you do such a thing, all you are doing is proving what your idea of evolution is, not the actual reality of the situation.
i have no idea why you are failing to see that.

Do we have to prove abiogenesis if we accept the germ theory of disease? If not, why not?

 

[whois]

i guess some people either, don't know how to read, ignore what they read, refuses to believe what they read, or doesn't understand what they read.

 

[Loudmouth]

careful, a computer can indeed simulate truly random events.
they can do this by employing a "white noise" random number generator.

DNA mutations are not random with respect to position and time. There are bases that are more likely to mutate than others, and environmental conditions that can increase or decrease the rate of mutation and genomic change. However, they are random with respect to fitness. All boxcar2d has to do in order to simulate evolution is to make the process of mutagenesis independent from the needs of the organism.

 

[Loudmouth]

i guess some people either, don't know how to read, ignore what they read, refuses to believe what they read, or doesn't understand what they read.

Did you know that we were able to measure mutations in organisms before we even knew how DNA works?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC169282/

http://www.genetics.org/content/28/6/491.full.pdf