World Population

[RC Tent]

First, many scientists still indicate Tiktaalik was a lobe-finned fish.

Link to where something says that please? Do we know how many scientists have concluded this?

 

[Job 33:6]

The issue was not "How many people are on the earth?". That question can be answered regardless of religious belief, yes, but it is not the issue in the OP of this thread.

The question was "How many people should be on the earth if evolution were true?" I would say the current human population is irrelevant to the issue, but it is not a simple matter of facts and observation at all...it is a matter of applicability to the age of the earth, the origin of life, and evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life. So, apart from the actual numbers of people alive now, which was not in question, where do you think "facts and observation" come into it?

Nowhere in your response here, do you mention that peoples faith or religion comes into play when answering the question. But I would say that this is precisely what is going on. One thing that could weight into the population of mankind, is mass extinctions and how they have impacted the planet.

 

[Job 33:6]

Link to where something says that please? Do we know how many scientists have concluded this?

I will agree that tiktaalik is a lobe finned fish. But this doesn't mean that transitional qualities of tiktaalik, do not exist.

These are the statements that i have been saying are deceptive. Because, you would think that by the way it was worded, that it actually means something. Every transitional fossil is still classified as a species of animal. But there are some lobe finned fish that are more fish like, and some that are more tetrapod like, until you get to a point where you have tetrapods with fish traits. Species grade into one another.

Which is why it is important to understand where they exist in the fossil succession.

 

[Job 33:6]

The discoverers of tiktaalik have classified it as a lobe finned fish as well.

A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan
"The discovery of a new elpistostegalian sarcopterygian from the Fram Formation in Nunavut Territory, Canada (Fig. 1) significantly enhances our knowledge of the fish–tetrapod transition. Many articulated specimens from a single site are used to describe a taxon that is a remarkable intermediate between Panderichthys and early tetrapods. The material provides opportunities to assess the morphological and functional changes associated with the origin of tetrapods."

Sarcopterygii - Wikipedia
"Elpistostegalia - Wikipedia"
"Elpistostegalia or Panderichthyida is an order of prehistoric lobe-finned fishes which lived during the Late Devonian period (about 385 to 374 million years ago).[2]They represent the advanced tetrapodomorph stock, the fishes more closely related to tetrapods than the osteolepiform fishes. The earliest elpistostegalians, combining fishlike and tetrapod-like characters, are sometimes called fishapods, a phrase coined for the advanced elpistostegalian Tiktaalik."

 

[Job 33:6]

I am not saying that anyone's religious beliefs can make anything true, but then again, science does not wield the power to make anything true either.

I am talking about people having the freedom of thought to form their own ideas about what is true on whatever they see as the best basis. I agree that can lead to people being harmed. The problem is, failing to question what is deemed to be true, can also cause harm, whether the basis is scientific, religious or something else.

I am fine with this. I agree that questioning authority is a fantastic idea.

But i think that, a lot of what we are seeing here, isnt just questioning of authority, its denial of the evidence that has generated the authority.

Nobody knows how to critically attack other scientists, than we, ourselves. And we do it all the time, all the time. We get paid to tear each other down, and we get paid when we break ground with new discoveries. And a lot of us test hypotheses and theories just for fun. It is this tearing down of ideas that has allowed us to actually construct the fossil succession as well. These topics that have constructed the fossil record, are debated all the time. If you would like examples, let me know and I can grab a few through google. But understand that when the evidence demonstrates that one scientist or teams ideas have failed, they respect the evidence and the community moves forward with understanding, collectively.

But what we are seeing here with young earthers, isnt just mere questioning. It is denial and its chock full of intellectual dishonesty. And science is almost avoided or blatently ignored in discussion (in a technical sense), either because young earthers arent familiar with science, or they simply do not want to meet the logical conclusions that it derives.

This is why you dont ever see (or at least rarely see) young earthers actually making technical arguments or acknowledging the technical arguments of others. Noble fish will not acknowledge that tiktaalik has tetrapod like features, or that its location was predicted. But what he will do, is act like the fossil succession doesnt exist and that tiktaalik is just an everyday fish like any other fish found in any other generic or non special place in the rock record.

And so it goes.

 

[Job 33:6]

Noble Mouse in the past has even gone to the extent of denying that a geologic succession exists. Which, i dont think any geologist that ive ever met or known, would ever come to the same conclusion. Because it is something so blatantly real to anyone who looks at geologic maps.

Anyone with eyes can see that there are layers of rock in the earth, superpositionally independent of one another (oldest on the bottom). And while it is true that in many places, these rocks have been eroded away, you can just follow them around the planet. But a lot of young earthers deny something so simple.

And in doing so, they attempt to deny the existence of the fossil succession. Cant have a fossil succession if you dont first have a rock succession.

And they will deny the most fundamentally simple and understood concepts, to meet their interests, no matter how absurd it sounds.

 

[Job 33:6]

"I did not see any reference to genetics at all, but it was stated scientists found the fossil on the basis of how old they thought the fossil would be. " ~ Noble Mouse

Thats correct, and how hold they thought the fossil would be, is based on the theory of evolution. The founder of tiktaalik is an anatomist. His books talks about genetic and morphological links to tiktaalik.

If you knew about the people who found these fossils, and listened to their talks and read their books or even talked to them, you would know that their discovery of tiktaalik was grounded in a body of knowledge understood through the theory of evolution, that included genetic relatedness.

They didnt just wake up in the morning, see that there were some fish fossils in some random rocks in canada, then decide to get on a helicopter to go digging so that they could get lucky. It was a calculated prediction based on things like genetics, comparative anatomy, morphology and of course geology.

 

[RC Tent]

Nowhere in your response here, do you mention that peoples faith or religion comes into play when answering the question. But I would say that this is precisely what is going on.

People's faith is not to my knowledge impacting on the matter of how many people are alive right now. (It might be, just saying I have never heard of it).

Obviously faith in direct creation is relevant to someone who is trying to use the current world population figure as a basis for arguing that the number proves evolution to be untrue, because it is likely to be why they are trying to argue that mass scale evolution is not the truth.

Why would I need to say this?

 

[Job 33:6]

People's faith is not to my knowledge impacting on the matter of how many people are alive right now. (It might be, just saying I have never heard of it).

Obviously faith in direct creation is relevant to someone who is trying to use the current world population figure as a basis for arguing that the number proves evolution to be untrue, because it is likely to be why they are trying to argue that mass scale evolution is not the truth.

Why would I need to say this?

Yeah sure. So now we acknowledge that we ought to defer to concepts based in evidence, something that exists beyond our independent faith based ideas, we can approach an understanding of what is factual and what is not.

I mentioned something earlier that I thought was interesting. I mentioned mass extinctions.

The original posts basically says something along the lines of, if evolution were true, there should be a lot more people because we have been evolving for billions of years. Or something like that, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the impression that I am getting from the discussion.

But if we ask the question of what the population should be, based on the idea that we have been alive for billions of years, then for starters, we should also incorporate mass extinctions, for which there were several since paleozoic times, in which 90+ percent of life was destroyed. Such as the popular one of the dinosaurs being hit by an asteroid.

If we judge the population under the pretext of science, this should at least be recorgnized up front, as well as the geologic and fossil successions that depict these events.

Now I'll go read the OP to jog my memory.

 

[The Barbarian]

I am not saying that anyone's religious beliefs can make anything true, but then again, science does not wield the power to make anything true either.

It merely gives us the means to learn what is true about this world.

I am talking about people having the freedom of thought to form their own ideas about what is true on whatever they see as the best basis.

The right to believe what one will, is important. But science is about what actually is. Like all things men do, it's imperfect, but so far, nothing else works as well.

I agree that can lead to people being harmed. The problem is, failing to question what is deemed to be true, can also cause harm, whether the basis is scientific, religious or something else.

Which is the great advantage of science over dogma. We can be wrong about either or both. But science does tend to correct errors.

When I was in college, geologists scoffed at Wegener's claims of continental drift. Then they found the mechanism that made it happen. In a few years, they all converted and plate tectonics was founded. I have a book on geology from that time, just after the change. Interesting reading.

 

[RC Tent]

But i think that, a lot of what we are seeing here, isnt just questioning of authority, its denial of the evidence that has generated the authority.

People get to choose their authority. They can believe in an authority that stands above science, and scientific evidence, and scientific consensus. They don't get to be brilliant scientists by doing that at work in mainstream science, but if that is not what they are doing, they don't have to abide by it's standards.

Nobody knows how to critically attack other scientists, than we, ourselves.

And here I was thinking that when a scientist proves another wrong, that is a good thing for all science, not an attack on anyone in any way.

Incidentally, I believe God does know how to critically approach scientists, you are not your own ultimate authority in my world view. However, if God wants to correct science, I would agree that He does need to either use more and better science to do it, unless He fancies inspiring some change in scientific method instead - in which case it would require the agreement of the scientific authorities to get it.

And we do it all the time, all the time. We get paid to tear each other down, and we get paid when we break ground with new discoveries. And a lot of us test hypotheses and theories just for fun.

Yet when people choose to seek an authority that is more stable than science, such as God or the Bible, you ridicule them as if science must never be questioned. You demand that they produce science to prove you wrong, even though you know that they are not scientists, and all they are doing is expressing faith motivated doubts about the current science, supported by qualified scientists who choose to allow their own faith to inspire their work?.

But what we are seeing here with young earthers, isnt just mere questioning. It is denial and its chock full of intellectual dishonesty. And science is almost avoided or blatently ignored in discussion (in a technical sense),

This is a wrong accusation.

You seem to be convinced that if anyone mentions anything to do with science, they must regard mainstream science or the evidence as mainstream science interprets it, as the ultimate authority, otherwise you say they are being intellectually dishonest. If a person comments on science, that does not mean they are trying to practice science, or that they are claiming to be a scientist. Even if they are a qualified scientist, if they openly admit to rejecting science as the ultimate authority, they still are not being dishonest.

There is no lying in it - unless they fake qualifications, or deny the Bible influences their thinking, I mean I am sure a creationist can lie, but simply being one and talking about science is not lying.

 

[Job 33:6]

"You seem to be convinced that if anyone mentions anything to do with science, they must regard mainstream science or the evidence as mainstream science interprets it, as the ultimate authority, otherwise you say they are being intellectually dishonest. "

Ok, so let's examine this. Tiktaalik has an unfused skull. This is something that, terrestrial animals have (I can turn my neck) but 99% of fish, do not.

So we call it a feature more common to land based animals like tetrapods.

There isn't anything to misinterpret here, it just is what it is.

So anyone who denies that tiktaalik has features that are common in terrestrial organisms, is being intellectually dishonest.

Do you disagree?

 

[The Barbarian]

There is no lying in it - unless they fake qualifications, or deny the Bible influences their thinking, I mean I am sure a creationist can lie, but simply being one and talking about science is not lying.

This is a good point. YE creationists are most often good and decent people, many of them committed Christians. My experience is the creationists who are making money on it, are the most common liars.

 

[RC Tent]

But science is about what actually is.

The issue of what is real and what is true is a philosophical point, not a scientific one. Science does not qualify to identify "reality" - it researches the physical, not the real.

Which is the great advantage of science over dogma. We can be wrong about either or both. But science does tend to correct errors.

This is a false dichotomy, the options are not "science" or "dogma", faith is not necessarily dogma, or hard to change, and science can also be used in attempts to justify dogmatism.

 

[The Barbarian]

The issue of what is real and what is true is a philosophical point, not a scientific one. Science does not qualify to identify "reality" - it researches the physical, not the real.

I reject the postmodern notion that reality is what we make of it. There is an objective reality, and evidence and reason can tell us about it.

This is a false dichotomy, the options are not "science" or "dogma"

For this world, reason and evidence are the only things that work reliably.

faith is not necessarily dogma, or hard to change

Dogma can be opposed to faith, in fact. But to understand the natural world you need neither of those.

 

[RC Tent]

Yeah sure. So now we acknowledge that we ought to defer to concepts based in evidence, something that exists beyond our independent faith based ideas, we can approach an understanding of what is factual and what is not.

Faith is the act of trusting God, it is not essentially doing that without evidence, people can get evidence that God is trustworthy and then trust Him. It will not be scientific evidence, but scientific is not the only kind of evidence.

The same goes for differentiating what is factual, that is not what science is for - it is for finding facts about the physical world, and based on physical terms.

The question "Is there a God?" - that is a matter of fact. Whatever the answer to the question is, there is either a God or there is not. There isn't a God for some people, but not others. He is real, or He is not real. The answer cannot be established by scientific methods, but it is still a question that actually seeks to establish reality - not fantasy.

If we judge the population under the pretext of science, this should at least be recorgnized up front, as well as the geologic and fossil successions that depict these events.

The question is "Can one test the viability of evolution based on current world population?" The answer is no, evolution does not necessitate a particular global population right now to be true. No other evidence is needed, no fossil or geological evidence is relevant to the point, which was purely about world population as evidence, nothing else.

 

[RC Tent]

Sorry, double post.

 

[NobleMouse]

You did not write that at all, The Barbarian said it in post 107.

I have no idea why my reply has ended up saying you said it. Sorry, maybe I pressed the wrong buttons making my reply.

No prob

 

[RC Tent]

I reject the postmodern notion that reality is what we make of it.

So do I.

Philosophy is not post-modern (at least not most of it).

There is an objective reality, and evidence and reason can tell us about it. For this world, reason and evidence are the only things that work reliably.

Yes, reason and evidence good in religion, also good in science.

Evidence not required for philosophy, but reasoning certainly is essential.

 

[Job 33:6]

The question is "Can one test the viability of evolution based on current world population?" The answer is no, evolution does not necessitate a particular global population right now to be true. No other evidence is needed, no fossil or geological evidence is relevant to the point, which was purely about world population as evidence, nothing else.

I think this statement would be better directed at the OP, I generally agree. If it were the case that the world population were say, half of what it is now, such a thing would not necessarily preclude evolution.