The origin of life and evolution

[pat34lee]

If it were impossible, or very problematic, to place species in an objective nested classification scheme (as it is for the car, chair, book, atomic element, and elementary particle examples mentioned above), macroevolution would be effectively disproven. More precisely, if the phylogenetic tree of all life gave statistically significant low values of phylogenetic signal (hierarchical structure), common descent would be resolutely falsified.[/indent]

Ok. Start with the family trees of bats, platypus, and narwhales.
Every transitional form to the last major kind.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...e_Study_Using_Temporary_Pond_Microcrustaceans

How good are sciencists? Not very, it seems.
"By some estimates, at least 51%—and as much as 89%—of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced."
http://qz.com/638059/many-scientific-truths-are-in-fact-false/

 

[Kenny'sID]

Yes, gibberish.

as long as those keep you calm, I'll let you have em'

I mentioned this previously, I've been here 13 years. You have been here for 6 months. The evidence supporting evolution has been presented here in thread after thread after thread. I myself have presented hundreds of posts with evidence for evolution. If you would like to discuss evolution and the evidence for it, we can do so in a new thread.

Of course you don't seem to interested in actually discussing the evidence. I mean I posted some evidence for whale evolution and you tried to hand wave it away rather than actually address it. Your shtick is not new and not something we haven't seen from Creationists a hundred times here.

Why do you keep going on about it not being new, who claimed it wan't? Why is that even relevant or the least bit important? Do you want to set up guidelines on what I can and cannot say next? Or is all that just useful in pulling attention away from the fact you didn't answer the question?

Your fantasies are quite amusing, but not reflective of reality. I've forgotten more about the Creationism and evolution debate this month than you've learned your entire life.

Not sure what to make about your bragging comments about being here for 13yrs...what you just said there and the like. Are you trying to tell me because you say you are so knowledgeable I should just take your word for things? How dare I disagree with you? What exactly is your point with that stuff?

Off topic. If you would like to start a thread about the evidence for evolution, feel free to do so.

Off topic never stops you from saying what you want but when you don't want to answer a question, it's OK for the double standard to kick in? Clearly just more excuses...why so contrary?

He's using the colloquial, courtroom sense. I don't.

Finally, a simple answer to one of my simple questions.

Sorry, but your shtick is old and tired. If you'd like to discuss the evidence for evolution, we can do so in an different thread.

My shtick is old and tired so you don't want to answer my question...is that what you're saying? I see. You do know these aren't good excuses at all...right?

In fact I'll start a thread and we'll see if you're sincere in actually wanting to discuss the evidence.

We've already done that, and the dude went a little wonky when his evidence wasn't accepted. As uptight as you already are, are you sure you could handle that possible outcome?

 

[USincognito]

4th on this list is a known fake.

Bahahahah!

And none are transitional. All are fully formed.

1. How would you know?
2. You were expecting 1/2 animals? No wonder you don't accept evolution. You don't understand it.

Flying reptiles are no more birds than are bats.

Ironically you got this part right. Flying reptiles aren't birds nor bats. They're also not dinosaurs. Do you even know what a dinosaur is and is not?

 

[USincognito]

Ok. Start with the family trees of bats, platypus, and narwhales.
Every transitional form to the last major kind.

Oh spare me. I know what would happen. You hand wave away what you couldn't address. You'd demand evidence that would actually falsify evolution. You'd shift the goal posts and invoke Zeno's paradox.

The evolution of bats is best understood through genetics because their bones are very fragile and jungle environments are not conducive to fossilization.
http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/22/2/121.full
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/17/6581.full

The platypus is a one species of monotreme. We have five species of Echidna that are also monotremes. Monotremes are fantastic living examples of the synapsid to eutherian transition because they possess both mammalian features - hair and milk production, and reptilian features - cloaca's and egg laying.

Not sure why you picked the narwhal, they're basically beluga whales with a single giant canine.
Narwhal and Beluga - family Monodontidae
Monodontidae and dolphins and porpoises - superfamily Delphinoidea
All toothed whales - parvorder Odontoceti

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

Ever heard of biology, heredity and common design?

Evolution is the foundation of biology. Common design is nonsense that doesn't appear in peer reviewed research papers. You can pretend it has any validity at all, you'll still be wrong.

Evolution has done nothing but set science back 50 years looking for vestigial
organs and junk DNA.

You should walk into a biomedical lab and make these claims. You'll be laughed out of the building.

Why are you not supposed to take antibiotics for viral infections?
Why are there always new flu vaccinations every year?
Why are some people resistant to HIV?

You believe that your great-great x10000 grandfather
was a slug and his was an amoeba. After that, any
fairy tale should be considered science.

You're gonna have to go a lot further than 10,000 generations.

 

[USincognito]

as long as those keep you calm,

As uptight as you already are, are you sure you could handle that possible outcome?

Your ability as a psychologist is as impressive as your ability as a biologist.

See you in the evidence thread.

 

[pat34lee]

I knew before I even clicked on the link that the fourth on the list would be Archaeopteryx. A known fake? Really? All ELEVEN specimens?

If one or two were faked, why not eleven? Not saying they were though.
Anyhow, true birds were around by 130 million years ago. Too old for the
archaeopteryx to be their ancestor. At best, a toothed bird or feathered
dinosaur, no proven relation to anything else.

"Archaeornithura meemannae is at least 130 million years old and was found
with its feathers preserved, allowing comparison with modern-day birds"
https://www.theguardian.com/science...-relative-of-modern-birds-discovered-in-china

 

[46AND2]

If one or two were faked, why not eleven? Not saying they were though.
Anyhow, true birds were around by 130 million years ago. Too old for the
archaeopteryx to be their ancestor. At best, a toothed bird or feathered
dinosaur, no proven relation to anything else.

"Archaeornithura meemannae is at least 130 million years old and was found
with its feathers preserved, allowing comparison with modern-day birds"
https://www.theguardian.com/science...-relative-of-modern-birds-discovered-in-china

None were faked. Eleven is preposterous.

Transitional is not the same thing as ancestral.

 

[pat34lee]

Why are you not supposed to take antibiotics for viral infections?
Why are there always new flu vaccinations every year?
Why are some people resistant to HIV?

You're gonna have to go a lot further than 10,000 generations.

1. they won't work. taking antibiotics for bacterial infections
may not either now, thanks to overuse by those who should
have known better.
2. adaptation, the same thing that makes superbugs. It isn't
proof of evolution.
3. Good genes. Also, could be better immune system due to
diet (having enough of certain vitamins and minerals, particularly
trace minerals of which most of us are deficient).

10k or 10m makes no difference. just more years where genetic
mutations should have killed off everything.

 

[pat34lee]

None were faked. Eleven is preposterous.

Transitional is not the same thing as ancestral.

If not ancestral, how can transitional be related? If they aren't
related, then they just look similar and they prove nothing.

 

[pat34lee]

1. How would you know?
2. You were expecting 1/2 animals? No wonder you don't accept evolution. You don't understand it.

Where are the proto-wings, all 100 steps or more?
Proto legs, hands, feet, knees, every change that it
took to go from one kind to another. There are none.
We have insects going back to the first know, all just
like today, none of them 'primitive', whatever that means
evolutionarily.

Ironically you got this part right. Flying reptiles aren't birds nor bats. They're also not dinosaurs. Do you even know what a dinosaur is and is not?

I doubt all scientists would agree on what makes a dinosaur.
Some think turkeys are dinosaurs.

 

[46AND2]

If not ancestral, how can transitional be related? If they aren't
related, then they just look similar and they prove nothing.

Are your cousins ancestral to you?

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

1. they won't work. taking antibiotics for bacterial infections
may not either now, thanks to overuse by those who should
have known better.

Yep. The reason for this is that it introduces a selective pressure on the bacteria, leading to populations of bacteria resistant to the antibiotics. Exactly what evolution predicts.

2. adaptation, the same thing that makes superbugs. It isn't
proof of evolution.

It's exactly what we'd expect if evolution were true. What kind of mental gymnastics did you do to get around that fact? I don't think you understand evolution.

3. Good genes. Also, could be better immune system due to
diet (having enough of certain vitamins and minerals, particularly
trace minerals of which most of us are deficient).

It's a mutation on the CCR5 protein. Get two copies of this mutation and you're essentially immune. Evolution right in front of your eyes

10k or 10m makes no difference. just more years where genetic
mutations should have killed off everything.

*Sigh* You clearly don't understand what genetic mutations are and how they apply to evolution.
Please open a biology textbook.

 

[Ophiolite]

I doubt all scientists would agree on what makes a dinosaur.
Some think turkeys are dinosaurs.

Then you will have no problem of citing papers by scientists who disagree in a substantive way as to what makes a dinosaur.

There may be a residual group of scientists who dispute that birds are dinosaurs. (There are a residual group of geologists who doubt plate tectonics.) However, no significant group of scientists dispute the notion that birds - all birds, including turkeys - are dinosaurs. Please feel free to put me in my place by demonstrating these assertions are false. (That will require evidence, not mere statements of opinion.)

 

[Picky Picky]

That there was an origin of life on earth is not in question. The question is does the form that origin of life on earth took change or effect evolution in any way?

This argument about the relevance of the origins of life regularly infects threads like this.

A literalist creationist sees the ToE as an attempt to falsify the creation myths in Genesis 1 and 2 — that may well be his/her sole reason for any vague interest in biology. He/she sees that ToE does not deny the essence of the Genesis accounts: the origin of life in six days of creative action by God. That, he/she sees, is a key weakness of the attack by ToE on a "literal" interpretation of Genesis, so he/she deploys this point repetitively.

The biologist, qua biologist, of course is not interested in falsifying Genesis. She/he sees the ToE as an explanation of the change of life forms over the millennia: an explanation as rock solid as any in science. She/he is intrigued to know how life originated, of course, but sees that as a separate, though related, topic. Thus she/he is frustrated by the literalist creationist's tedious repetition of the (to her/him) irrelevant pursuit of argument about origins.

Some non-Christians and non-literalist Christians, however, do
deploy the ToE as an argument falsifying the Genesis myth. That complicates matters, because in those circumstances it is difficult to see why it is inappropriate for the literalist creationist to deploy his/her "origins" riposte. It is made more complicated still because the biologist-qua-biologist and the non-Christian/non-literalist-Christian may be present in the same thread, or indeed in the same person.

We may just have to put up with the annoying origins, origins, origins mumbling from the literalist corner. Meanwhile can we retain some slight hope that the teaching of biology may one day end this whole fruitless argument?

 

[Kenny'sID]

Your ability as a psychologist is as impressive as your ability as a biologist.

Hope that helps as well, letting off a little steam may help ease frustration due to inability to answer those touchy questions...

See you in the evidence thread.

Oh, goody, more "evidence"...can't wait.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It is hardly trivial. Evolution didn't evolve. Life could not evolve without life.

Right. Which is exactly the reason why the origins of life are a different and seperate topic.

Evolution starts with life existing. No matter how it originated.

Evolution does not explain how life evolves until life is present to evolve.

Evolution doesn't care. Evolution just needs to explain what processes life goes through when it already exists, no matter how it originates.

When one wishes to claim that evolution explains life on earth, as so many naturalists claim, they need to explain how evolution could occur if there were no life to evolve

That's completely absurd.

"water is wet"
"yeah, okay, try explaining how water can be wet when water doesn't even exist! HA! CHECKMATE!"

and how the order in which evolution requires happens and exists at all.

What are you talking about here?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Oh, so fine tuning needs to know such things as can the fundamental constants be different, are there other universes and so forth but evolution of course doesn't need to concern itself with how life originated...double standard perhaps?

That's because in your god-argument of fine tuning, you are actually making claims that are directly related to the origination of universes.

Evolution makes no such claims about the origins of life.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I look at it this way. I realize that abiogenesis is not strictly related to evolution from the scientific standpoint and the definition of the terms. However, I think of evolution as a series of falling dominoes. Domino "A" fell on "B" fell on "C" etc. (over millions of years, of course). But where did "A" come from, and what caused it to fall? It seems to make sense to me that these questions belong in the same bucket as evolution since without "A" falling there would be no evolution.

False.

A did fall. (= life exists).

And because it did fall, B, C, etc also fell and we can study that chain. Because it demonstrably exists.

It doesn't matter HOW A fell, in context of studying that chain.

Off course "how did A fall?" is a question that must be asked and answered, but the answer to that question would change nothing at all about what happened next.

Because the study of the chain (evolution) only requires that A fell. Which it did.
Wheter it fell because of X or Y is irrelevant. The outcome is the same.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Because when you put God in the picture, unless you are thinking otherwise, I think the God of the Bible, the God that had the wherewithal to tell us how he did what he did, so he did tell us and that's not the way it went.

So if you put the God into the picture, I don't see why you would have issue with it going just as he said it did.

You would see those issues, if you would actually put more importance on actual evidence instead of bronze age mythology.

On the other hand, if you want to come up with a different God, that's something you can play around with if you like but I wouldn't even venture to guess what a fictitious God might do.

There's no reason to pull gods into it, when you actually care about evidence, because no data suggests that any god had anything to do with it. Or that any god even exists in the first place, for that matter.