Posted on 10/28/2009 7:34:50 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Ira thinks in circles and uses fallacy to justify his beliefs.
In this case, he applies the fallacy of argument from ignorance for his assertions (where you must prove him wrong) and applies the burden of proof fallacy to your assertions (where the standard for acceptance is impossibly high).
"Does anyone else see a problem with this?"
Just keep pointing it out whenever he gives you the chance.
Not everyone takes biology
People are still very ignorant concerning things outside their tiny little lives....ignorant enough to be a useless cohort for a poll on “evolution” or even “science”
SOMEhow, my public school did and still does a good job at educating kids.....yet some kids are still stupid/ignorant.
Yes, please keep going and read the link I posted to you earlier. Please provide some empirical scientific evidence that refutes anything Dr. Walt Brown said in part I of his online book.
I think that is a personal attack on creationists. I provided you with two link to published scientific studies done by EVOLUTIONISTS that supported my assertions. You however said they were opinion. LOL!
News flash: People with an education past the 4th grade have stronger opinions of educational policy. Film at 11.
Liberals on Free Republic are always in lockstep with, or making excuses for the liberals who run the Big Government Public School system of indoctrination.
Only the willfully ignorant would fail to see the destruction intentionally inflicted on America by the education monopoly of the left wing Big Government Public Schools who indoctrinate other people's children away from any connection to American cultural, legal and moral history.
The Big Government Public School System is the biggest of the radical's tools of left wing indoctrination and it is still applauded by the closet-liberals on Free Republic.
What they need to prove evolution is something like “genusiation” (made up term). IOW, they need an example of an animal jumping it’s genus not it’s species. In fact they claim that animals have even jumped their class.
Two things: evolution does not claim that animals "jump" their genera or classes. No single animal went from being a lizard to a dog. More to the point (because I don't think you really believe single animals made a jump like that), there was no dog to jump to until there were dogs. I know that sounds circular, but that simple idea is a stumbling block for a lot of anti-evolutionists. They seem to think that there was this "dog" slot out there waiting to be filled when the lizards got around to it. It's like expecting a leaf on one branch of a tree to jump to a new twig. Nothing has to "jump" for a new twig to grow new leaves.
Also, you say species is just a man-made category, but then you start talking about "kinds" of animals. This again seems to me a failure of imagination on the part of anti-evolutionists--I'm not sure someone who didn't grow up "knowing" that chihuahuas, mastiffs, and tanukis were all dogs would immediately realize they were the same kind of animal. Are sharks and carp the same kind of animal? Are ostriches and hummingbirds the same kind? How do you decide?
And what I've asked often, and never gotten an answer to: how much would an existing kind of animal have to change before you acknowledged it was a new kind? (Bearing in mind that it's not going to turn into something that already exists, as I said before.) How much would a zebra have to change before you said it wasn't a zebra, or even a horse, any more?
Darth Vader: The Emperor is not pleased with your apparent lack of progress.
Scared poopless underling: We shall double our efforts.
As predicted, Ira responds with more fallacious assertion.
This time, the bare assertion fallacy.
In every high school I know of it's required. Where are there schools where it's not?
SOMEhow, my public school did and still does a good job at educating kids.....yet some kids are still stupid/ignorant.
Yeah. Everybody's school is an exception.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd be rich.
And evos wonder why they are labeled liberal.
How totally clueless they are.
You missed the point entirely. The point was that speciation doesn’t prove evolution. Evolution claims that a reptile eventually changed into a mammal. That is a change(in case the word jump is bothering you) from it’s Taxonomy class.
When you see a zebra that has changed indistinguishably from horse kind you let me know. Science isn’t about what ifs.
That's because that's the only way that anyone can justify the ToE.
They seem to think that there was this "dog" slot out there waiting to be filled when the lizards got around to it.
You need to take that up with your cohort in arms. AMD said that very thing. So which is it? Niche or not?
You know, you evos might get on a little further if you'd get your story straight.
AMD: Monkeys fill an ecological niche, where there is a “demand” for monkeys, nature has provided a “supply”. The “demand” for monkeys up in the trees did not go away just because some monkeys came down from the trees and started living on the ground.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2371980/posts?page=49#49
“Are ostriches and hummingbirds the same kind?”
Aves (birds) are an Order. Ostriches and hummingbirds are from the same order, they aren’t from the same genus. IMO, a kind would be somewhere around the classification of genus. Mammals are an Order as well but you aren’t comparing a bear to a cow.
“I’m not sure someone who didn’t grow up “knowing” that chihuahuas, mastiffs, and tanukis were all dogs would immediately realize they were the same kind of animal.”
I think they would, if not immediately, they would on more careful observation (not scientific) be able to tell that.
This was in answer to the asinine Creationist question, repeatedly asked by the ignorant not in actual search of an answer.. “If humans descended from monkeys why are there still monkeys.”
Why wouldn't there be?
No, I didn't miss the point. I know the existence of different species does not, by itself, "prove" evolution. It's the phenomenon that the theory is trying to explain. "Speciation," or the formation of new species--which we have seen, like it or not--is evidence supporting evolution, but it isn't proof either.
On the other hand, you did entirely miss my point. "A" reptile did not change into "a" mammal. (Maybe you do think evolution proceeds by single-animal jumps like that after all--maybe I gave you too much credit.) My point is that new twigs kept sprouting from the reptile branch, and eventually one of them was robust and different enough to deserve its own name. But nothing "changed" or "jumped" from one branch to another--nothing left the old branch and moved to the new.
When you see a zebra that has changed indistinguishably from horse kind you let me know. Science isn’t about what ifs.
And I expect that when I do, you'll just say "it's still a zebra." That's why I'm asking you how much it would have to change to not be the horse kind any more. "Kind" strikes me as a pretty useless term for scientific analysis if you can't define it in the abstract.
I'm not surprised you're not getting the idea here. The fact that there's an ecological niche for tree-dwelling mammals, which monkeys fill quite nicely, doesn't mean it had to be monkeys that filled it. For example, raccoons are not native to Japan, but they do have a tree-climbing dog that is active at night (the tanuki I mentioned above). Or think about your job: you're filling it, so they're not looking to hire someone new, and there's no reason you should lose it. But it didn't have to be you they hired in the first place.
This exemplifies my point. You can't say what a "kind" is except by classifying a bunch of existing animals together (exactly what you were complaining about with "species," seems to me). You already know dogs go together, so you're happy to say they're the same kind. But that's useless as a tool for analysis.
I also think it's kind of funny that you're objecting to scientists' use of the concept of species but then answer my question with reference to orders and genera. Your idea of "kind" seems to be "I'll know it when I see it."
Sorry I should have just answered you point for point.
You said “Also, you say species is just a man-made category, but then you start talking about “kinds” of animals.”
Taxonomy is a useful tool. I never meant that it was JUST man made. When we hear the word species, we think of a TOTALLY different animal. However that is not true. Species is just another type of the same animal. Take the taxonomy of a dog/wolf. You don’t get down to a different name until you reach species. Take a Bear/Dog you don’t get to a different name until you reach family. So I would consider “kinds” somewhere around the family/genus area. IOW, species is a sub category of the animal canidae. It is not an altogether different animal. To get a different animal you have to travel BACK up the Taxonomy chart not down.
Classification Chart for example:
Animal Bear House Cat Dog Wolf
Kingdom Animalia Animalia Animalia Animalia
Phylum Chordata Chordata Chordata Chordata
Class Mammalia Mammalia Mammalia Mammalia
Order Carnivora Carnivora Carnivora Carnivora
Family Ursidae Felidae Canidae Canidae
Genus Ursus Felis Canis Canis
Species-Ursusarctos Feliscatus Canisfamiliaris Canislupus
Kingdom- Animalia - all animals includes human (wrongly IMO)
Phylum- Chordata - vertebrates (for simplicity)
Class- Mammalia - all vertebrates that have live birth/nurse
Order- Carnivora- all mammals that eat meat
Family-Canidae- wolf/dog/fox like mammals
Genus- Canis- wolf/dog like mammals (this is where foxes seperates)
Species- Canis familiaris- dogs
“This again seems to me a failure of imagination on the part of anti-evolutionists—I’m not sure someone who didn’t grow up “knowing” that chihuahuas, mastiffs, and tanukis were all dogs would immediately realize they were the same kind of animal.”
My children were introduced to a dog when they were babies usually my in laws dog first (large). After that, every dog they saw was doggie or puppy. I didn’t have to tell them that they were all dogs. They knew they fit in the same category. Just like they learned blue and then they could tell me that sky blue and baby blue and indigo were all blue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.