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Darwin's Illusion

We Never Know

No Slack
If you want, you may call it “origin of life” but you cannot call it "transitional species”.

Transitional species has to be an intermediate along the evolutionary line of development from a common ancestor to present species.

You may think its a satisfactory explanation to claim that all live emerged from the first single celled organism. Darwin thought the same but he didn’t have any knowledge of how complex a single cell is. We know now (an object of unparalleled complexity). The explanation is not satisfactory at all. If a single cell is not explained no multicellular organism is explained.

You consider it as a reality, I consider it as unproven hypothesis and it will continue to be till it gets proven (not hypothesized) that a single living cell can be created from non-living chemical system.

Under prebiotic conditions, there is no process to create the required biomolecules let alone assembling it. If some molecules somehow emerged through an unknown process, it will not wait millions of years to get the other essential molecules. It will simply decompose.

Most every, probably all species have been a transitional species. However some stay about the same for several millions of years(the horseshoe crab for example)
We humans are said to be a transitional species. Maybe, maybe not.
We breed like rabbits and with billions of us I don't know if we will evolve into another species before we destroy ourselves.
Only time well tell.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Most every, probably all species have been a transitional species. However some stay about the same for several millions of years(the horseshoe crab for example)
We humans are said to be a transitional species. Maybe, maybe not.
We breed like rabbits and with billions of us I don't know if we will evolve into another species before we destroy ourselves.
Only time well tell.
If we go extinct then we would be a terminal species, not a transitional one. And I hope that is not the case. One thing, given enough time there may be still only one species of man alive, but in 200,000 years it will be dubious if it could mate with a Homo sapiens from 200,000 years ago. Species cannot be nice neat idea due to the fact of evolution.
 
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We Never Know

No Slack
If we go extinct then we would be a terminal species, not a transitional one. And I hope that is not the case. One thing, given enough time there may be only one species of man alive, but in 200,000 years it will be dubious if it could mate with a Homo sapiens from 200,000 years ago. Species cannot be nice neat idea due to the fact of evolution.

"One thing, given enough time there may be only one species of man alive"

Is there more than one species of man alive now?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
"One thing, given enough time there may be only one species of man alive"

Is there more than one species of man alive now?

Sorry about that. I meant to say that the may be still only one species of man alive.

Many people think that a single species continually living is always the same species. I will fix that.

And thank you.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
And no, smooth transitions have been observed repeatedly.

And if one single time one single person would show such evidence then Evolution would be obviously the best model for understanding how species change.

You are simply averring minor changes accumulate in species over many years caused by survival of the fittest and this must be true because it is state of the art in biology. You read it is a book so it is true.
 

Dan From Smithville

The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter
Staff member
Premium Member
Except that survival of the fittest is not the cause of evolution, is not claimed or recognized by science or in the theory as the cause of evolution and thus cannot be considered part of the state of any art.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
Darwin's Illusion

Darwin believed that life can be explained by natural selection based on his expectation that organic life was exceedingly simple.
He lived in a time when people believed a brood of mice could suddenly appear in a basket of dirty clothes. In other words Darwin was under the illusion that life could appear spontaneously under the right conditions.
Based on this ignorance, he crafted an explanation for variation within a species, and formulated a theory explaining the process whereby life could arise from nonliving matter and mutate to the variety of living entities we see today.

It is postulated that this narrative has been overwhelmingly accepted in educated circles for more than a century even though the basic mechanisms of organic life remained a mystery until several decades ago- as a convenient alternative to belief in a creator.

After 1950 biochemistry has come to understand that living matters is more complex than Darwin could ever have dreamed of.

So, in view of this, what happened to Darwin allegedly elegant and simple idea ?
Although not a single sector of Darwinic evolution can offer uncontested proof that it is nothing more than a imaginative theory it is acclaimed by mainstream scientists as a science.

Lynn Margulis a distinguished University Professor of Biology puts it this way:
"History will ultimately judge neo-Darwinism as a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology"
She asks any molecular biologists to name a single, unambiguous example of the formation of a new species by the accumulation of mutations. Her challenge to date is still unmet.
She says " proponents of the standard theory [of evolution] wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation of Darwin..."

The idea of natural selection was not exactly new at the time of Darwin. It indirectly came from the well known practice of manmade selection. Since the beginning of civilization, humans had been raising plants and animals for food. They understood how animal and plant sex worked in terms of making offspring, and how offspring would be similar to the parents. This led to humans using selective breeding to make livestock and plants better suited to their needs. This was human selection.

Human selection did not contradict the Bible or Genesis, but rather it was what human did with the critters, already here, after civilization started, left for the humans to tend to. The mechanism of selection was known but was practiced in a way, stating with stock animals, that did not contradict the Bible. Selection was not new but was considered a valid part of human will and choice.

Humans would also set up royal blood lines, with bloodline similar to an older version of genetic theory. The blood was thought to reflect a long line of breeding stock, that may be traced to the Kings of old. Even the essence of genetic theory is not new, but was done in a way that went along with the Bible. One can plot blood lines on genetic plots to get the same graphs.

Darwin lived in 19th century England, which was so developed, over thousands of years of human inhabitation, that very little was original natural and not impacted by human choices. The British Empire of his day also existed all over the earth, with plant and animal specimens from far away places brought to England to be naturalized in gardens. This was a place of human selection and not natural selection.

Darwin needed to find a remote place, untouched by human selection, to see if a similar process was done by nature. The Galapagos Islands were that place. What he noticed was that change was slow compared to sprawling London, its city parks and its royal hunting lands.

Natural selection was similar to the well know process of human selection, but the time scale appeared to be slower for nature. This difference in time scale sort of led to what appeared to be a time differences between Creation and human selection, and Evolution and natural selection. This created a political division. But it did not really create any science division, between human and natural selection, since biology and the science of breeding was/is used both by farmers and botanists.

If you look at human selection, nearly all known dog breeds came from wolves. These were nearly all from human selection. Even the Chihuahua came from wolves, with the difference between the two dogs so extreme, it looks like a new species. It appeared in the mid 19th century but its believed to stem from a small mute breed from the 9th century in Mexico. But with nature and natural selection assumed much slower, since nature is not about fads and money making, drastic changes in appearance are less obvious. Both human selection and natural selection, use the same basic biological mechanisms.

Darwin used the science of the day to explain the details, but so did the farmers seeking a winning race horse. Human selection was connected to will and choice, with science knowledge making that choice both easier and better. The real debate is about time scale, not from the parallel biological processes.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
I'm suggesting that Gould is the ONLY biologist who was almost right about change in species. But he was still wrong that species arose in a short time because they arise in an even shorter time. The cause of change in species is different as well and does not involve "natural selection". This is in the minds of observers and caused by circular reasoning.
The only circular reasoning I'm seeing is coming from you.

You still haven't presented evidence that ALL LIFE evolve instantaneously.

You have also haven’t presented evidence that ALL LIFE are conscious.

Or that consciousness being the driving force for evolution, or for ALL LIFE evolving.

You keep making up claims without the evidence to back up these claims.

You believe it so, so it is true...is nothing more than confirmation bias and circular reasoning.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
And if one single time one single person would show such evidence then Evolution would be obviously the best model for understanding how species change.

You are simply averring minor changes accumulate in species over many years caused by survival of the fittest and this must be true because it is state of the art in biology. You read it is a book so it is true.
It has been shown. Multiple times. They have even been shown to you. All that you had was denial as a response.


More semantics. Color me surprised.



Don't blame others when you get the argument wrong.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Easy-Cream-of-Asaragus-Soup.jpg

Bacons go with everything! :tongueout:

...well, I’d suppose Jews and Muslims would disagree. :(
 

gnostic

The Lost One
If you look at human selection, nearly all known dog breeds came from wolves. These were nearly all from human selection.
This is called “Selective Breeding” or “Artificial Selection”, not “human selection”.

It happened because of the domestication of animals or domestication of plants.

In the case of animal, humans choose which animals to breed with, to produce offspring for either consumption, or to do certain works, or that appeal to them as pets.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
No, you posted too much lunacy to deal with it all.

Do you want to go by Gish Gallop rules where refuting one refutes them all?

Ridiculous Nonsense, you’re responding to #410. It’s a very short post with the simple point of refuting your claims that my referenced articles are 40 years out of date. I explained the reasons why your claim is an indication of either incompetence or dishonesty. Can you deal with a single point? It doesn’t get any easier than that, does it? If you can’t, then stop your nonsense.

Yes you had two more recent articles but they did not help you either. You simply misunderstood them. The last one especially since all that was about was trying to include the recent discovery of the effects of epigenetics and the like. It was not a refutation at all.

As usual you escape by ignoring the point of the post (as explained above), moving the goalposts by referring to another post (#424) then do nothing but claiming that you magically refuted all points in the other post without any reasoning other than some meaningless denial.

I did discuss epigenetics before in earlier posts such as # 55 & #145 but you neither read nor understand. (use Ctrl+F if the post is long for you to read).

In #424, the point was not about the specifics of the gene expression process but rather how it unfolds, the end product of the process and its significance as a manifestation of an “intelligently guided process”. In that sense, it’s not directly a refutation but rather evidence for ID.

You don’t even have any clue what an argument is about or the specific points on the table for discussion. You typically rely on meaningless denial as your reasoning for refutation. It’s nonsense.

sorry but unless you read, understand, get to the specifics of an argument and respond in a logical manner, I’ll not be able to take you seriously.

When you get something that wrong and do not realize it it tells everyone that you have no clue at all.

Pick any single point of your preference and state your reasons for disagreement. If you can’t think of any logical reasons, it’s better for you to stay quite.

One at a time or I refute the whole lot by just refuting the last, which was just a misinterpretation on your part.

Your choice.

Fine with me, you’re responding here to #410. Refute the single point of #410 as explained above. Can you? Just try, you may surprise yourself if you try. Otherwise, stop your foolish nonsense.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
How quickly you forget. You are the one without a clue here. You are not a reference nor are your posts. Austraopithecus is still a family of transitional apes. You never refuted that. Do you want to discuss that? Pick one topic, you are all over the place.

Try to read, I referenced #327 not to use my own argument as a reference (like what you do all the time) but rather because my post includes citation for
Britanica, PNAS and ScienceAdvances. Stop blaming me for your inability to read.

Can you discuss this properly? No excessive rudeness

Here is some advice, you can take it or leave it, it’s not my intent to be rude to anyone. I don’t consider a person with a different view as an opponent, not at all, you’re entitled to your own view but if you choose rudeness then don’t blame me for responding.

Claims need to be supported by reliable sources. For example, if a source requires their workers not to follow the scientific method that cannot be used in a scientific debate. It would be crazy to use such a source.

You can do it.

My sources are typically mainstream Journals of science or established evolutionist scientists. You know what is really delusional? Is when you blame people for things that you’re imagining?

Read and see for yourself, then come back and identify which one of my repeatedly used sources that you don’t agree with, if you don’t, then please stop the nonsense. Can you?
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Such a long list of tripe. Dishonestly edited videos are not evidence.

You need the original article.That video was less than a minute long. Why? Because it can be used to confuse the ignorant. Your alarm bells should have gone off. Why such a short clip of a long talk?

Seriously! I’ve never seen such a ridiculous argument. I already gave you the original article before in #349 and asked you multiple times (in #394 & #402) to go back to it and refute it point by point if you want to logically prove me wrong but you refused and said no need in #402. NOW YOU’RE ASKING FOR THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE?

I also gave you multiple other links for videos & articles about the NON-RANDOM MUTATION in #349 and you called it gish gallop, then I gave you a single concise video in #424 but you don’t like the short clip either!!

You commented on a single point at the very end of #424, which implies that you agree with all points of #424 with the exception of this point about non-random mutation. Is that correct? If not clarify which item you don’t agree with and state your reasons.

Denis Noble said the same about non-random mutation twice in 2012 Suzhou, China and 2013 Birmingham, UK. Below is the same info copied from #349 once again (including the entire lecture/article) in addition I’ll attach a PDF of the article, just don’t complain about gish gallop again. It would be really pathetic.

“2012 Suzhou, China, In the international conference of physiological sciences, Denis Noble said “It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works. All careful studies of mutagenesis find statistically significant non-random patterns of change”
Non-Random Directed Mutations Confirmed. - YouTube

2013 Birmingham, UK, as the President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS), Denis Noble confirmed the same in his lecture which was published in the journal Experimental Physiology, see the links below

Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology - Noble - 2013 - Experimental Physiology - Wiley Online Library

Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology (wiley.com)

Physiology moves back onto centre stage: a new synthesis with evolutionary biology - YouTube
 

Attachments

  • Noble - Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology.pdf
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LIIA

Well-Known Member
You sound like a rational honest person. I appreciate that.

'Stephen Jay Gould is best known for the theory of punctuated equilibrium which proposes that evolution of species is not a slow, gradual process of change, but in fact consists of long periods of stability broken by shorter periods of rapid change.'
Source: Stephen Jay Gould - Biography, Facts and Pictures

If you look at the unbolded part of the quote you provided, "transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt" you can see Gould's acknowledgement that transitions exist.

'Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin[7] is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.'

Source: Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia.

In other words presumably Darwin was wrong about evolution being a steady gradual process, instead the process of change is relatively rapid in relatively short periods followed by longer periods of no or little change. But it is still evolution, and since Darwin is not some sort of infallible Prophet, disproving the minor details of his ideas does not disprove evolution in it's entirety, it simply means that our ideas about how evolution occurs had to be modified.

As a Paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould knew beyond any doubt the fact that “a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed” but as an evolutionist, he held the (false) prior that there is only one single unfalsifiable hypothesis on the table (gradual evolutionary transition). That is why he used the word transition to describe the observed abrupt characteristics in major groups because of that prior. Regardless, he knew that real world observations contradict that hypothesis, that’s why he dismissed the hypothesis of “slow and steady transformation” and proposed, “punctuated equilibrium”.

The problem is that “slow and steady transformation” is a fundamental principal of the ToE, that’s why critics referred to his theory of punctuated equilibrium as "evolution by jerks" and his supporters responded by referring to phyletic gradualism as “evolution by creeps”. There was never an agreement and after Gould’s passing, "slow and steady gradual transformation" returned to be the ruling dogma. Richard Dawkins didn’t agree with punctuated equilibrium and described it as a theory that was oversold by some journalists. See # 160

Regardless of real world observation in the fossil record that clearly disproves “slow and steady” but the ToE was back to square one after Gould’s passing. Gould summed it up when he honestly said, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

We discussed the same in earlier posts. Please see #145.

If those footprints are of the first four legged creature (your nature article notes that, "The find is not supported by fossil bones at the site, and palaeontologists familiar with the discovery say they have reservations about the tracks, because they may have been made by some natural process")

NewSientist wrote, ”Evidence that four-legged vertebrates walked on Earth some 10 million years earlier than previously believed could force a radical rethink of where they evolved, as well as when.”

“Our discovery suggests that the current scientific consensus is mistaken not only about when the first tetrapods evolved, but also about where they evolved,” says Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki

then no one (that I know of) is saying that Tiktaalik was a transtion between fish and the first four legged creature mentioned in your nature article.

Professor Neil Shubin found Tiktaalik fossil in 2004 and consider it as the very first fish ventured out onto land or first vertebrates animal on land.The discovery was published in the April 6, 2006, issue of Nature.

Nature wrote, “Here we report the discovery of a well-preserved species of fossil sarcopterygian fish from the Late Devonian of Arctic Canada that represents an intermediate between fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs, and provides unique insights into how and in what order important tetrapod characters arose.”

A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan | Nature

But is there any reason that Tiktaalik couldn't be representative of the transtition between between non-tetrapod vertebrates (fish) such as Panderichthys, known from fossils 380 million years old, and early tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, known from fossils about 365 million years old?

As I said in #422, a mix of characteristics between fish and tetrapods, is not necessarily conclusive evidence of a transitional form. Amphibians/semiaquatic animals that exist today typically have a mix of characteristics between fish and tetrapods, and go through metamorphosis as they transition from one stage to another of its life cycle. Tiktaalik can possibly be an extinct amphibian that died at a specific stage of its life cycle. Many explanations are possible, especially that Tiktaalik’s hind fin bone was never found. You may hypothesize as you wish but its only theories with no conclusive evidence. Again, evidence suggest that four-legged vertebrates existed 18 million years before Tiktaalik.

The 375 mya Tiktaalik with a mix of characteristics can be an extinct amphibian/semiaquatic animal and to a great extent similar to China giant salamander which is an amphibian that exist today.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
What you said is that there are no transitional forms between modern humans and an unspecified species. That is like saying that there is no road from your city to some other unspecified city. You literally have no way to determine that.

We already have a links to non human apes.

You may hypothesize as you wish that all chimps, bonobos, gorillas, all apes and all of its fossils are transitional forms leading to H. sapiens but this is not how it works.

A species considered as a relative (some unidentified relationship) is not the same as an intermediate. Transitional species has to show an intermediate state between an ancestral trait and that of its later descendants. There is no evidence to establish how the alleged hominid fossils are related to each other (to fit any possible evolutionary development progression) and which, if any of them, are human forebears.

None of the alleged hominid fossils can be established as a transitional form / ancestor leading to Homo sapiens. That’s why the word “ancestor” is avoided and replaced with “relative” to imply some sort of unknown relationship.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Your efforts are clear. I agree with that.

We should argue about claims that do not match the facts. Yours do not.

Can you guys try to be more specific? Which part you agree with and which part you don’t?

Your entire argument is a gap argument. We don't have all the fossils that exist, therefore the theory is falsified. There are gaps in the record, therefore the theory fails. That is nonsense.

The fossil record does support the predictions of the theory of evolution. Just because fossilization is a random, rare process and finding those fossils that do exist is difficult is not evidence of a failed theory of evolution based on a lack of fossils. This is such a superficial denial with a long history of abuse and, equally, repudiation.

False, it would be a gap argument if gap is the exception. This is absolutely not the case; gap is the rule, not the exception. “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology” See #352

Second, my argument is not only about the fossil record, I explained multiple times that the fundamental principles of the ToE in terms of random mutation and natural selection leading to speciation are false. Which necessarily means that the theory is false.

Your argument is nothing but baseless denial. I’m not the one who is calling for EES because of the failure of current theory to address the latest scientific finds, the top scientists are. See #160
 
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