Posted on 10/05/2012 12:48:49 PM PDT by Sopater
I posted a SCIENCE article on the rate of Human Mutation that shows the rate is one Letter of DNA every Billion years. This gives you a major math problem, let alone a logic problem. You never countered that. Further it is another logical fallacy as well as dishonest to attack me when you could not rebut my science and logic points.
Nonetheless, the big lie which is being promulgated by evolutionists is that there is some sort of a dialectic between evolution and religion. There isn’t. In order to have a meaningful dialectic between evolution and religion, you would need a religion which operated on an intellectual level similar to that of evolution, and the only two possible candidates would be voodoo and Rastifari.
The dialectic is between evolution and mathematics. Professing belief in evolution at this juncture amounts to the same thing as claiming not to believe in modern mathematics, probability theory, and logic. It’s basically ignorant.
Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the prospects of having to defend or explain some expect of their lifestyles to God, St. Peter, or some other member of that crowd.
To these people I say, you’ve still got a problem. The problem is that evolution, as a doctrine, is so overwhelmingly STUPID that, faced with a choice of wearing a sweatshirt with a scarlet letter A for Adulteror, F for Fornicator or some such traditional design, or or a big scarlet letter I for IDIOT, you’d actually be better off sticking with one of the traditional choices because, as Clint Eastwood noted in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between both old and new organs.
Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren’t one, and you want to become one. You’ll need a baker’s dozen highly specialized systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs, specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.
For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until the day on which the whole thing came together, so that the chances of evolving any of these things by any process resembling evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.
In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe isn’t long enough for that to happen once.
All of that was the best case. In real life, it’s even worse than that. In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori. In real life, all you’d ever get would some sort of a random walk around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march towards a future requirement which evolution requires.
And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you’d need to become a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first, having been disfunctional/antifunctional all the while, would have DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.
Now, it would be miraculous if, given all the above, some new kind of complex creature with new organs and a new basic plan for life had ever evolved ONCE.
Evolutionism, however (the Theory of Evolution) requires that this has happened countless billions of times, i.e. an essentially infinite number of absolutely zero probability events.
And, if you were starting to think that nothing could possibly be any stupider than believing in evolution despite all of the above (i.e. that the basic stupidity of evolutionism starting from 1980 or thereabouts could not possibly be improved upon), think again. Because there is zero evidence in the fossil record (despite the BS claims of talk.origins “crew” and others of their ilk) to support any sort of a theory involving macroevolution, and because the original conceptions of evolution are flatly refuted by developments in population genetics since the 1950’s, the latest incarnation of this theory, Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge’s “Punctuated Equilibrium or punc-eek” attempts to claim that these wholesale violations of probabilistic laws all occurred so suddenly as to never leave evidence in the fossil record, and that they all occurred amongst tiny groups of animals living in “peripheral” areas. That says that some velocirapter who wanted to be a bird got together with fifty of his friends and said:
“Guys, we need flight feathers, and wings, and specialized bones, hearts, lungs, and tails, and we need em NOW; not two years from now. Everybody ready, all together now: ‘OOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....’”
You could devise a new religion by taking the single stupidest doctrine from each of the existing religions, and it would not be as stupid as THAT.
But it gets even stupider.
Again, the original Darwinian vision of gradualistic evolution is flatly refuted by the fossil record (Darwinian evolution demanded that the vast bulk of ALL fossils be intermediates) and by the findings of population genetics, particularly the Haldane dilemma and the impossible time requirements for spreading genetic changes through any sizeable herd of animals.
Consider what Gould and other punk-eekers are saying. Punc-eek amounts to a claim that all meaningful evolutionary change takes place in peripheral areas, amongst tiny groups of animals which develop some genetic advantage, and then move out and overwhelm, outcompete, and replace the larger herds. They are claiming that this eliminates the need to spread genetic change through any sizeable herd of animals and, at the same time, is why we never find intermediate fossils (since there are never enough of these CHANGELINGS to leave fossil evidence).
Obvious problems with punctuated equilibria include, minimally:
It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be proved by a lack of evidence rather than by evidence (all the missing intermediate fossils). In other words, the clowns promoting this BS are claiming that the very lack of intermediate fossils supports the theory. Similarly, Cotton Mather claimed that the fact that nobody had ever seen or heard a witch was proof they were there (if you could SEE them, they wouldn’t BE witches...) This kind of logic is less inhibiting than the logic they used to teach in American schools. For instance, I could as easily claim that the fact that I’d never been seen with Tina Turner was all the proof anybody should need that I was sleeping with her. In other words, it might not work terribly well for science, but it’s great for fantasies...
PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding is the most major source of genetic advancement in the world. Apparently Steve Gould never saw Deliverance...
PE requires these tiny peripheral groups to conquer vastly larger groups of animals millions if not billions of times, which is like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for millions of years.
PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically adapted to localized and parochial conditions over animals which are globally adapted, which never happens in real life.
For any number of reasons, you need a minimal population of any animal to be viable. This is before the tiny group even gets started in overwhelming the vast herds. A number of American species such as the heath hen became non-viable when their numbers were reduced to a few thousand; at that point, any stroke of bad luck at all, a hard winter, a skewed sex ratio in one generation, a disease of some sort, and it’s all over. The heath hen was fine as long as it was spread out over the East coast of the U.S. The point at which it got penned into one of these “peripheral” areas which Gould and Eldredge see as the salvation for evolutionism, it was all over.
The sort of things noted in items 3 and 5 are generally referred to as the “gambler’s problem”, in this case, the problem facing the tiny group of “peripheral” animals being similar to that facing a gambler trying to beat the house in blackjack or roulette; the house could lose many hands of cards or rolls of the dice without flinching, and the globally-adapted species spread out over a continent could withstand just about anything short of a continental-scale catastrophe without going extinct, while two or three bad rolls of the dice will bankrupt the gambler, and any combination of two or three strokes of bad luck will wipe out the “peripheral” species. Gould’s basic method of handling this problem is to ignore it.
And there’s one other thing which should be obvious to anybody attempting to read through Gould and Eldridge’s BS: They don’t even bother to try to provide a mechanism or technical explaination of any sort for this “punk-eek”
They are claiming that at certain times, amongst tiny groups of animals living in peripheral areas, a “speciation event(TM)” happens, and THEN the rest of it takes place. In other words, they are saying:
“ASSUMING that Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happens, then the rest of the business proceeds as we have described in our scholarly discourse above!”
Again, Gould and Eldridge require that the Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happen not just once, but countless billions of times, i.e. at least once for every kind of complex creature which has ever walked the Earth. They do not specify whether this amounts to the same Abracadabra-Shazaam each time, or a different kind of Abracadabra-Shazaam for each creature.
I ask you: How could anything be stupider or worse than that? What could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a thing?
(Above excellent summation borrowed from Redroller)
In fact I responded precisely and in detail to your rate-of-mutation post, but since you didn't like the answer you now pretend I didn't make one.
So how honest is that "logical fallacy"?
Mechanicos: "It’s basically ignorant."
Mechanicos: "Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited..."
Mechanicos: "evolution, as a doctrine, is so overwhelmingly STUPID that..."
Mechanicos: "faced with a choice of wearing a sweatshirt with a scarlet letter A for Adulteror, F for Fornicator..."
Mechanicos: "a big scarlet letter I for IDIOT"
Mechanicos: "best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is..."
Mechanicos: "nothing could possibly be any stupider than believing in evolution..."
Mechanicos: "the basic stupidity of evolutionism starting from 1980..."
Mechanicos: "some velocirapter who wanted to be a bird got together with fifty of his friends and said..."
Mechanicos: "...taking the single stupidest doctrine from each of the existing religions, and it would not be as stupid as THAT"
Mechanicos: "But it gets even stupider."
Mechanicos: "Consider what Gould and other punk-eekers are saying..."
Mechanicos: "It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be proved by a lack of evidence..."
Mechanicos: "clowns promoting this BS are claiming that the very lack of intermediate fossils supports the theory"
Mechanicos: "Apparently Steve Gould never saw Deliverance"
Mechanicos: "if you could SEE them, they wouldn’t BE witches"
Mechanicos: "like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for millions of years."
Mechanicos: "should be obvious to anybody attempting to read through Gould and Eldridge’s BS"
Mechanicos: "How could anything be stupider or worse than that?"
Mechanicos: "What could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a thing?"
My response begins with the following questions:
First, why is the probability 100% that posters who announce themselves with gaudy discussions of "logical fallacies" invariably end by blasting away with such a load of garbage-talk?
Second, why is it that if I simply delete all that garbage-talk, there are no serious arguments to be found in your post?
You obviously know nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- about science in general and evolution in particular, except some wierd notions you picked up God-knows-where, notions which have no more relation to reality than, oh, say, Mother Goose fairy tails to actual history.
Basic evolution procedes one mutation at a time, as sorted out by natural selection -- and those are confirmed observations.
So if you claim that it's "impossible" to "get here from there", then it is you not evolution theory who is making the "argument from ignorance".
In essence you are saying: "just because I can't figure it out, therefore it can't happen".
But in reality, the world is full of "intermediate forms", both living and fosilized, separating different breeds, sub-species, species, genera, families, orders, classes, etc.
And degrees of similarity or separation -- previously guessed at -- can now be determined through DNA analysis.
Every year new fossil discoveries are made and new "intermediate forms" found -- your example of bird evolution being a prime subject.
The discoveries show that birds did not evolve all at once, but over many millions of years, each new advance improving the creatures' abilities to move faster and higher.
Next, your critique of Stephen Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" idea is way off the mark, in both mischaracterizing Gould and purporting to refute him.
In fact, the basic idea of "punctuated equalibrium" makes perfect sence (no "logical fallacies") once you understand that creatures perfectly adapted to their environments do not change so long as the environment doesn't change.
But once their environment does change -- which can happen slowly over long periods, or sometimes nearly instantaneously -- then creatures must either change or die.
And if some creatures change too slowly then they can be replaced by others quicker, smarter, better adapted to new conditions.
That's "punctuated equilibrium".
Somewhere I read the fossil record shows most distinct species only last a million years or so before being replaced by others, perhaps closely related, but obviously distinct.
That's "punctuated equilibrium".
BroJoeK Said,
“In fact I responded precisely and in detail to your rate-of-mutation post, but since you didn’t like the answer you now pretend I didn’t make one.So how honest is that “logical fallacy”?”
No, you did not refute the science and findings of the slowed mutation rate for human DNA in the science article I posted.
You also said,
“First, why is the probability 100% that posters who announce themselves with gaudy discussions of “logical fallacies” invariably end by blasting away with such a load of garbage-talk?”
First that was a copy from Redroller in response to your attack on my intelligence and your tactic of dumping text to make up for the lack of substance in your response.
You also said,
“Second, why is it that if I simply delete all that garbage-talk, there are no serious arguments to be found in your post?”
There are logical arguments in that response augmented by the General Theory proponents common method of ridicule. You tried to use ridicule and derision on me - turn about is fair play. Further, presuming a low education level of a poster online is never a good idea...
“Basic evolution procedes one mutation at a time, as sorted out by natural selection — and those are confirmed observations. So if you claim that it’s “impossible” to “get here from there”, then it is you not evolution theory who is making the “argument from ignorance”. In essence you are saying: “just because I can’t figure it out, therefore it can’t happen”.”
No I am saying I can figure out you are using the logical fallacy of begging the question as well as the burden of proof fallacy for failing to provide actual data from scientists living in this world today with knowledge and testable, observable, repeatable data showing that evolution is true that does not engage in logical fallacy.
You also said,
“But in reality, the world is full of “intermediate forms”, both living and fosilized, separating different breeds, sub-species, species, genera, families, orders, classes, etc. And degrees of similarity or separation — previously guessed at — can now be determined through DNA analysis.”
Not true, again nothing more then logical fallacies intermixed with conjuncture, assumptions and unsupported theories presented as fact. And no, there have been no valid “intermediate forms” found.
You also said,
“Every year new fossil discoveries are made and new “intermediate forms” found — your example of bird evolution being a prime subject. The discoveries show that birds did not evolve all at once, but over many millions of years, each new advance improving the creatures’ abilities to move faster and higher.”
Again Logical fallacy, a bird is still a bird is still a bird. The fact is adaption has been shown to be primarily a result of existing coding within the DNA. Further like the Finch Beaks, City Dweller Nose hair density, etc the “mutation” reverts when the environmental stimulus is removed.
An example is antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the current capstone of the General Theory proponents. The argument is this is proof of evolution because the bacteria has “evolved” to resist modern antibiotics. The problem is modern science does not support this argument. The logical fallacy involved collapsed when it was discovered drug resistant bacteria is natural and has existed long before the drugs that bacteria are “evolving” to resist existed.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034953
“The implications of this study are significant to our understanding of the prevalence of resistance, even in microbiomes isolated from human use of antibiotics. This supports a growing understanding that antibiotic resistance is natural, ancient, and hard wired in the microbial pangenome.”
You also said,
“ Next, your critique of Stephen Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” idea is way off the mark, in both mischaracterizing Gould and purporting to refute him.
In fact, the basic idea of “punctuated equalibrium” makes perfect sence (no “logical fallacies”) once you understand that creatures perfectly adapted to their environments do not change so long as the environment doesn’t change.
But once their environment does change — which can happen slowly over long periods, or sometimes nearly instantaneously — then creatures must either change or die.
And if some creatures change too slowly then they can be replaced by others quicker, smarter, better adapted to new conditions. That’s “punctuated equilibrium”.”
So where are the new species? The fossil record shows they all appeared fully formed. That does not help your argument. The rest of your argument was mantra not science.There is no evidence such occurred that does not use logical fallacy.
You also said,
“Somewhere I read the fossil record shows most distinct species only last a million years or so before being replaced by others, perhaps closely related, but obviously distinct. That’s “punctuated equilibrium”.”
Except for the fact the fossil record shows only fully formed species.
I’ll leave you with what your fellow evolutionists say about the subject.
“Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” (Darwin 1995, 60).” Darwin, Charles R. 1995. Quoted in The Life of Charles Darwin, [1st Edition - 1902], Francis Darwin – author. London: Senate, 1995, reprint.
“[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature.”—*L. Harrison Matthews, “Introduction to Origin of Species,” p. xxii (1977 edition).
“A Belief in Evolution is a basic doctrine in the Rationalists’ Liturgy.”—*Sir Arthur Keith, Darwinism and Its Critics (1935), p. 53.
“The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith.”—*J.W.N. Sullivan, Limitations of Science (1933), p. 95.
“With the failure of these many efforts, science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the inevitable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not prove to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past.”—*Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey (1957), p. 199.
A penguin is not an ostrich is not a parrot is not an eagle.
In the bird class, you have a wide variation in ability to fly, and other characteristics. In the fossil record, you have a number of intermediate (extinct) forms, such as Archaeornithes and Enantiornithes.
The earliest birds had claws on their wings, which would allow them to climb trees. Once in the trees, an ability to glide from branch to branch (like modern flying squirrels) would have given an evolutionary advantage.
From gliding branch-to-branch to flying short distances tree-to-tree would give another advantage, as would the ability to dive on prey from the tree branch and fly back to the branch.
They are still birds. None are a new species. Just because there are different breeds within a species is not proof of evolution. A horse can mate with a donkey, their offspring is sterile, A lion can mate with a tiger, their offspring is sterile. The actual mutations we see now cause birth defects, cancer, sterility, etc.
Both your examples are nothing more then a logical fallacy of arguing to a definition and circular reasoning. A duck Billed Platypus has electrical sensors in its beak. A Peacock has a feathered hat. When they breed they breed the same. Just because something existed fully formed in the fossil record that had a biological phenomena different from what we see today does not equate to its a transition species nor does it prove evolution. It only proves another life form appeared fully formed in earth's history with NO transition species surrounding its existence found in the physical world.
I have more but just a couple more problems for the General Theory.
As I posted before, the rate of mutation of Human DNA is now understood to be very slow - one letter of DNA in a billion years.
"Geneticists have previously estimated mutation rates by comparing the human genome with the sequences of other primates. On the basis of species-divergence dates gleaned — ironically — from fossil evidence, they concluded that in human DNA, each letter mutates once every billion years. “It’s a suspiciously round number,” says Linda Vigilant, a molecular anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The suspicion turned out to be justified. ... Nature 489, 343–344 (20 September 2012) doi:10.1038/489343a
http://www.nature.com/news/studies-slow-the-human-dna-clock-1.11431
Life on earth is estimated to have begun only about 2 billion years ago.... so add the 3 carry the 2 and.... OOPS!
2nd, DNA is self correcting - it has a "checksum" that fixes changed DNA
"In the 1940′s, the eminent scientist Barbara McClintock damaged parts of the DNA in corn maize. To her amazement, the plants could reconstruct the damaged section. They did so by copying other parts of the DNA strand, then pasting them into the damaged area. This discovery was so radical at the time, hardly anyone believed her reports. (40 years later she won the Nobel Prize for this work.) And we still wonder: How does a tiny cell possibly know how to do…. that??? A French HIV researcher and computer scientist has now found part of the answer. Hint: The instructions in DNA are not only linguistic, they’re beautifully mathematical. There is an Evolutionary Matrix that governs the structure of DNA. In English, the letter E appears 12.7% of the time. The letter Z appears 0.7% of the time. The other letters fall somewhere in between. So it’s possible to detect data errors in English just by counting letters. In DNA, some letters also appear a lot more often (like E in English) and some much less often. But… unlike English, how often each letters appears in DNA is controlled by an exact mathematical formula that is hidden within the genetic code table. When cells replicate, they count the total number of letters in the DNA strand of the daughter cell. If the letter counts don’t match certain exact ratios, the cell knows that an error has been made. So it abandons the operation and kills the new cell. Failure of this checksum mechanism causes birth defects and cancer." http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/mathematics-of-dna/
And what do we see happens with real mutations today? Sterility, cancer, birth defects, etc.
If looked at it without the filter of General Theory the data points to the fact that not only has there not been enough time for the general theory to have caused the complexity we see see now, but that the method presumed for change is not only self-correcting for the most part but when it does not self-correct we end up with sterility, cancer, birth defects, etc.
Since you do not know the difference between a species and a breed, there is no point discussing this further with you.
A clue: penguins and ostriches are different species. They are not different breeds. The various breeds of dog are breeds, in that they can mate with each other and produce fertile offspring. Lions and tigers can mate and produce ligers, which are often fertile, so although technically different species, are close enough to blur the distinction between breed and species. Horses and donkeys are farther apart, and the hybrid mules produced by their mating is usually sterile (although very occasionally producing offspring).
I went and looked at the Nature article you cited. This is what they said:
Geneticists have previously estimated mutation rates by comparing the human genome with the sequences of other primates. On the basis of species-divergence dates gleaned — ironically — from fossil evidence, they concluded that in human DNA, each letter mutates once every billion years. “It’s a suspiciously round number,” says Linda Vigilant, a molecular anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The suspicion turned out to be justified.What they are saying is that the probability of a PARTICULAR letter mutating in a particular year is one in one billion. What you don't take into account is that the human genome contains more than 3.4 billion base pairs (letters). A one in one billion chance of mutation per letter TIMES 3.4 billion letters means that there are a significant number of mutations per year.In the past few years, geneticists have been able to watch the molecular clock in action, by sequencing whole genomes from dozens of families5 and comparing mutations in parents and children. These studies show that the clock ticks at perhaps half the rate of previous estimates, says Scally.
Why don’t you take into consideration the number of presumed changes that had to occur from inert materials to your present physical self? Even with the most biased-in-your-favor assumption of the amount of DNA changed there has not been enough time from estimated origins of life on this planet to create you.
Further the self-correcting DNA control matrix effectively prevents large scale DNA changes. Taking your implied argument to its logical conclusion we should be seeing significantly changing DNA today all around us. instead, where we see the fastest adapting rate is in single celled organisms like bacteria. And there we see the adaption is using per-existing instructions already written in its DNA activated by the environment of the organism.
Math is why the General Theory has quietly dropped its primordial-ooze-origins-of-life argument argument and now argues life came from space - with no evidence. Darwin’s tree has been cut down - The fossil record does not support the theory. And no way mathematically can the human genome of “3.4 billion base pairs” mutate a sufficient number of times to make “you” at a rate of a billion years per letter when there are only 2 billion years to start with.
In fact, I gave you a lesson in applied scientific theory, which you ignored because it doesn't fit your anti-science agenda.
The latest estimates of average mutation rates are somewhat slower that previous calculations.
That has been found to solve some mysteries, while raising new ones.
Therefore, I'm certain they will not be the last words on this subject.
Mechanicos: "in response to your attack on my intelligence and your tactic of dumping text to make up for the lack of substance in your response."
In fact, I have not attacked your IQ, since I'm certain it is quite high.
But I'm equally certain, based on your several lengthy posts here that you understand nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- about science, scientific theory and terminology.
And the reason is as clear as day: it's because you despise real science, scientists and scientific ideas.
Therefore your goal, your purpose, your very reason for being here is neither to discuss nor debate scientific ideas, but simply to mock, scorn, ridicule, insult and disparage them with all your soul and all your might.
So I have not insulted you, but simply pointed out the truth.
Mechanicos: "You tried to use ridicule and derision on me - turn about is fair play.
Further, presuming a low education level of a poster online is never a good idea..."
I neither "ridiculed" nor "derided" you except to point out the truth, which is that you hate science.
Mechanicos: "No I am saying I can figure out you are using the logical fallacy of begging the question as well as the burden of proof fallacy for failing to provide actual data from scientists living in this world today with knowledge and testable, observable, repeatable data showing that evolution is true that does not engage in logical fallacy."
Such a long sentence to say so little!
First, your whole argument here is a "logical fallacy" from beginning to end, since it understands nothing of actual Evolution Theory.
Second, a listing of facts confirming Evolution Theory is available in any book on the subject in any library or book store.
So if you cared in the least about science itself, you'd make some effort to learn the facts and correct terminology.
Mechanicos: "And no, there have been no valid “intermediate forms” found."
In reality, every individual is an "intermediate form" between its ancestors and descendants.
And since we've established that there is a normal rate of DNA mutation -- be it one per billion base-pairs per year, or something else -- we know that every generation accumulates minor changes from those before.
We also know -- by confirmed observations -- that if some of these mutations improve survivability, natural selection will pass them on to future generations.
And that's evolution, in a nut-shell, pure and simple.
Mechanicos: "Again Logical fallacy, a bird is still a bird is still a bird."
Here is where your alleged high IQ and advanced education become seriously in question.
In fact, the word "bird" is just that, a word, which scientists by common agreement apply to certain animals and not others.
By biological classifications, birds are not a breed, nor sub-species, species, genus, family or order.
Instead, they are a class of animals, whose earliest predecessors are found in fossils dated over 150 million years old.
So the huge variety of "birds" we see today -- from sparrows, ducks and hawks to penguins and emus -- has taken 150 million years of evolution to produce, at the rate of "x number" of average mutations per billion base-pairs per year.
Mechanicos: "An example is antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the current capstone of the General Theory proponents."
Because you hate Evolution so much, you refuse to understand even its most basic ideas: descent with modifications and natural selection.
Disease resistant bacteria are obvious cases of natural selection.
How much actual genetic modification has occurred in existing strains is a matter for scientific inquiry, but the basic idea of evolution is supported either way.
Mechanicos: "So where are the new species?
The fossil record shows they all appeared fully formed.
That does not help your argument. "
In fact, Planet Earth is chock full of "new species", since the average species life before going extinct is five to ten million years (yes I looked it up, here).
This means that around 10% of all species are less than one million years old -- so they are "new species".
The age of "new species" can be estimated by comparing its fossils and DNA to those of it closest relatives.
Mechanicos: "The fossil record shows they all appeared fully formed."
Of course they are "fully formed", whatever that means.
They are also all "intermediate forms" between what went before and what came after.
The scientific question is, how closely related is each species to its ancestors and to similar species.
That can be determined through DNA analysis and physical comparisons.
Mechanicos: "I’ll leave you with what your fellow evolutionists say about the subject."
This "discussion" concerns the scientific theory of evolution, not the existence of God or veracity of the Bible.
On the latter subjects, I accept the teachings of most Christian Churches, including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and "mainline" Protestants, namely: that Evolution is a scientific theory which can help explain how God created the Universe and life on Earth.
Evolution theory neither contradicts nor denies basic biblical ideas expressed in Genesis and elsewhere.
So a difference between "theistic evolutionism" and atheistic evolutionism is simply the theistic view that we are God's intent and purpose, His reason for Creation, while atheists can never find a reason, purpose or intent in creation.
wikipedia is hardly a second hand source.
Is that what you meant to say?
Given you link, perhaps you meant "only a second hand source", or "just a second hand source" or "barely a second hand source"?
Please don't forget your comment in post #38:
To which I responded by posting links which clearly do show just what the "scientific consensus" is today.
Now you reply with a link showing that "scientific fraud" has grown from one one-thousandths of one percent in the 1970s to one one-hundredths of one percent today.
And this is out of many millions of scientific papers published each year.
I'd say, that's a cause to rejoice (!) since it implies that somebody is actually reading and checking up on all those many millions of scientific papers -- and finding mistakes, whatever the cause.
I'd say, in no possible way is human nature, given our fallen and sinful state, ever accurate to within one one-hundredths of one percent.
So the fact that only one scientific report out of every 10,000 contains errors significant enough to force withdrawal tells us either that A) scientists as a group are amazingly self-disciplined, or B) they really aren't yet being checked carefully enough.
Naturally, I suspect the latter, but am very glad to see the ten-times increase in the scrutiny these guys & gals are getting today.
I thought it was because mom caught them in the basement.
A primary source is an original study with data and methods of scientific research. There are a set of rules for the scientific method which are not always fallowed. A secondary source is a what someone else writes about the primary source. Scientific consensus is where most scientists agree on a theory and most of the data. Scientific theories are seldom proved as the last rule of the scientific method is to redo the whole process. Wikipedia is a place where people post stuff and others others can take it down. A real scientist will write up his stuff in a scientific Journal which will still be a secondary source. Global warming is a good study of scientific fraud.
One significant problem, and dead give-away, for our anti-science posters is that they loathe real science so much that they absolutely refuse to learn its key ideas and terms.
So they simply can't post accurately about what real science is and does.
One example is your statement here: in actual scientific terms, no non-mathematical theory is ever proved.
The classes of scientific knowledge begin with "confirmed observations" also known as "facts" -- for example: earth's rotation is approx. 24 hours.
This observation has been confirmed so often it is not considered debatable, at least in the Universe as we know it.
So it's a fact.
Explanations of why events happen begin as hypotheses -- for example: a year is 12 months because that's how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
This idea was originally quite controversial, and for many years was called a scientific "hypothesis".
When a hypothesis is confirmed (not "proved") it gets promoted to the status of "theory".
In the example of Earth's revolution around the Sun, this theory has now been confirmed so many different ways it is almost considered a "confirmed observation", which would make it also a "fact".
Indeed, it's impossible for me to even imagine a test which might conceivably falsify the heliocentric theory.
So "scientific consensus" is all about which hypotheses are or are-not strongly enough confirmed to be considered theories.
Further, which theories are so frequently confirmed by observations as to be considered, in effect, facts?
In the case of Evolution Theory, there are many confirmed observations aka facts, including ancient fossils found in geological strata, comparative anatomy of fossils & modern creatures, radiometric dating, DNA analysis, plus supporting data from many other scientific fields such as astronomy, physics, geology, biology, etc.
And the scientific explanation -- hypothesis -- that these can be understood by the combination of A) descent with modifications and B) natural selection has also been confirmed frequently enough to label theory.
Indeed, some claim that Evolution Theory has been confirmed so many different ways that it is as much fact as theory.
I'd say that's a matter of definitions, but at least a case can be made for it.
mountainlion: "Wikipedia is a place where people post stuff and others others can take it down."
Please don't forget, the issue you raised in post #38 had to do with "scientific consensus".
Precisely because Wikipedia can be accessed & corrected by anyone, it is an excellent source for determining exactly what is "consensus" on any particular subject.
In other words, you might well dispute Wikipedia's conclusions -- in which case you can post a more authoritative source -- but when the question is "consensus", Wikipedia is as good a place to look as any.
The news media is a prime source of misuse of science. I believe in multi source information and as close to the primary source as I can understand.
You yourself posted the link which shows that the rate of scientific misrepresentations is circa one in 10,000 published papers, out of millions every year.
And from this you deduce that all of science is "sloppy" or "false"?
I'd call that a stretch.
mountainlion: "Global warming is an example of science abused."
Abused by leftist politics and politicians offering "free" grant money for politically correct research.
By contrast, Evolution Theory was first formed long before anyone even dreamed to applying for government grants.
Yes, in the past 150 years, Evolution was abused by groups such as National Socialists, but is not today the source of some United Nations global power-grab.
mountainlion: "There is much fraud in evolution so I do not take the first presentation as fact.
Nebraska man is a good example.
Some say that any two legged primate is “human” I feel that is a misrepresentation. "
I suspect you are confusing real science with every huckster who comes along.
In the case of "Nebraska man", the error appears to have been honestly made in 1922, the error discovered in 1925 and officially corrected in 1927.
So what is the big deal?
That's precisely how science is supposed to work -- self correcting.
As for some other primates being "human" -- that is simply not so.
Yes, there is a debate over Neanderthals -- were they actually human or pre-human?
Arguments can be made either way, along with those for Denisovans and Flores "hobbit" men.
But there has never been a scientific suggestion that other pre-human or primate species are somehow "human".
mountainlion: "The meaning of words change in diverse groups and time as you dislike of my use of proved."
Science is nothing if it's not precise in its definitions and use of scientific terms.
People like yourself, who hate real science, are forever claiming that "xyz hasn't been proved", just as if that word "proved" meant something.
It doesn't, because nothing outside mathematics can be "proved".
But every theory, in order to become a theory, has to be confirmed.
Of course, any confirmed theory might yet, someday, be falsified and thus disproved.
That's why a theory is always called confirmed and never finally proved.
I think we can agree that we disagree. You read too much into my comments.
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