Darwin's Illusion

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm in general agreement.

However I believe the current theory still needs a lot of tweaking and cause/ nature of the mechanism of change is seen from a very poor perspective.

I'll leave that to the actual qualified and working professionals.

You are just an anonymous internet user claiming to know better (obviously motivated by religious reasons, of all things).
So I really don't care what you think the theory "still needs".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

They still remained fish, didn't they?

Ow look......... @YoursTrue is repeating the same already corrected error for the bazillionth time.

What a surprise.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Apparently there's only 1 species of fish but many different species of mammal (if I'm following the logic).

There's a logic?

According to unsubstantiated claims, we are all individuals (who knew that was unknown)--perhaps we are multiple individuals since some of us are made of more than one cell. As individuals we are all different species. We are all equally fit. All reproduce instantly. We don't have names. We somehow reproduce through mating with other species even if some individuals are asexual or male which probably, maybe, could be there are no sexes??? In any event, everything is sudden. You come into existence suddenly. Your life passes suddenly. Then your dead suddenly. Everything is sudden. Last secondism. My condolences on your sudden loss. We were all taken so suddenly. You don't have to sweat the tests because learning is sudden. Then there is Barbara Eden who is proof that women and gay men cannot invent things. But if they did it would be sudden. I blame them for making us get out of caves suddenly. You have to blame someone. Suddenly, they came to mind.

I'm just sad that I suddenly found this out and didn't suddenly exist at a different sudden time for a different sudden period of time.

Suddenly, nothing matters. Even sudden doesn't matter. I'm trying to find another member of my species to suddenly reproduce with and having no luck at all suddenly since I'm an individual of my own species and I have no name. I suddenly have my eyes on what used to be a species of bacteria, but I think it just wants to be friends suddenly. But since, words have no meaning either and we can all use different definitions suddenly, I don't guess anyone can read this and suddenly know what I mean. Suddenly, I don't understand myself.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'll leave that to the actual qualified and working professionals.

You are just an anonymous internet user claiming to know better (obviously motivated by religious reasons, of all things).
So I really don't care what you think the theory "still needs".

Winner Frube!

 

[Dan From Smithville]

FR

I parsed this to mean what I wanted it to mean, but I'm not going to tell you that meaning. Why bother trying to get you to understand just support my theory with any response. Sorry it was so sudden. That can't be helped.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

But do you find value there anyway? I do. I've mentioned this idea of a cognitive equivalent to empathy, where one is trying to think another's thoughts with him rather than try to feel his feelings with him and try to imagine what must be the case in that head for those words to make sense. It becomes increasingly difficult the more different a person's thinking is.

You might have noticed that I refer to rebuttal, debate, and dialectic a lot, which is relatively recent insight that comes from recognizing at last only attempts at falsifying arguments advance understanding, and that all other forms of dissent are impotent. That idea, which was probably already latent knowledge, is now understood explicitly, which matters regarding future thought and which ideas come to mind.

Also, I believe that I've acquired some insights on Dunning-Kruger syndrome. We see living examples of it here, and what I've discovered is not that its victims think that there is a higher level of thinking that they've also achieved, which is what saying that they have a false sense of their own ability seems to imply, but rather, that they are unaware that there is a higher level of thinking, and that all beliefs are guesses like their own, since, lacking the ability to generate sound conclusions from evidence intellectually, all beliefs are guesses. I say intellectually to distinguish these conclusions from those arrived at using passive induction - the kind of things we all learn through experience rather than contemplation. They do that fine, which is why they can learn to drive a car or build a house, but not to recognize or make a sound argument explicitly.

Anyway, I guess that I never get tired of these discussions for those kinds of reasons.

In keeping with what I just wrote above, I've decided that by change, you must mean instantaneous change, or the smallest change perceptible. You don't recognize the accumulation of these changes over longer durations as changes, but as many sudden changes. That's an idiosyncratic understanding of what the word means, but if it's YOUR understanding, what you say now makes sense. I can now say that if I held that same belief, I might make the same comments about all change being sudden.

But if I did, I would also know that that was not what others meant when they referred to change, and explain that - I don't consider the evolution of man from his last common ancestor with the chimps a change, but a series of nearly instantaneous changes, and there would not be days of confusion from people trying to make sense of your words.

Does that resonate with you at all?

Yes, so you've said, but not why you think that.

If you don't mind my discussing you like an object of study, I ask myself why he keeps making these kinds of statements even after being told that they are ineffective and what would be effective instead - the identification of specific problem that support that conclusion, and an explanation of why you see them as problems and how your revision might remedy them. So why do you keep doing this? What must be true to you but not me that keeps you on that path? Well, if I didn't care if I convinced others but just wanted to post anyway, I guess I might do that, but I don't get that form you. You seem to want others to see what you see. Could it be that you don't understand what is being asked of you? Maybe, but you ought to have a sense that you're not meeting those requirements and explain why you think you needn't, but you don't acknowledge this gap in your writing.

Anyway, I have no answer here. I don't see why you persist like this or how it serves you. Here's another insight this activity has given me: I probably never will. I would need you to explain your thinking and your thoughts on why you choose this path, and in my experience, that doesn't happen. Maybe you and I can change that this time. I'd need you to be on board, to understand what I'm asking, and help me understand your choices.

I find knowledge of the behaviors interesting, but I don't know if it has value, since all I learn will be ignored by those that think they have reached the pinnacle of knowledge and can fill the gaps with anything they imagine regardless of whether it makes sense or has any evidence to support it.

Knowing why a person thinks like they do is useful and I'm enjoying your posts, even learning from them. But I'm not sure on applications that would help others see that their conclusions are largely belief-based and not fact-based. But I'm going to continue following. Reading them seems therapeutic in more ways than one.

 

[Audie]

I parsed this to mean what I wanted it to mean, but I'm not going to tell you that meaning. Why bother trying to get you to understand just support my theory with any response. Sorry it was so sudden. That can't be helped.

Huh? That were a funny frubal ff

 

[cladking]

I'll leave that to the actual qualified and working professionals.

If you don't think you're qualified to consider, rewrite, or invent metaphysics then you're probably correct and probably won't be invited to sit on a committee. All metaphysics now just like all science is individual so contemplating such things is like counting belly button lint or how many angels can get wedged on the head of a pin.

It's just "philosophy" which is barely better than religion or science fiction, right?

You are just an anonymous internet user claiming to know better (obviously motivated by religious reasons, of all things).
So I really don't care what you think the theory "still needs".

If you don't care if the current theory still stands or not then why are you arguing it at all? If "Darwin's Truth" can stand on its own without your help or mine why are you even posting? If it's so factual that there is no God and no basis for religion then you don't even need to scoff at those poor deluded souls who think the Bible approaches reality more closely than Darwin.


I suppose I should just turn this over to some Professor Emeritus of Metaphysics at Harvard and let him worry about it, eh? Or I could call the Department of Epistemology and let them slug it out. I have so many choices and so many mystics to contact. I'd start very small and call an Egyptologist but experience tells me they don't want to discuss anything at all and just want your awe.

 

[gnostic]

If you don't think you're qualified to consider, rewrite, or invent metaphysics then you're probably correct and probably won't be invited to sit on a committee. All metaphysics now just like all science is individual so contemplating such things is like counting belly button lint or how many angels can get wedged on the head of a pin.

It's just "philosophy" which is barely better than religion or science fiction, right?

Sorry, but metaphysics is a philosophy, not science.

And you are being a hypocrite, since you believe yourself to be a “nexialist”.

Nexialist and nexialism were invented words by science fiction author, A E Voget. It is a philosophy that doesn’t even exist, and yet you label yourself as one.

And you’re one to talk about religion. Especially when talk of mythological Tower of Babel and Nephilim as if they were real, but neither of them exist, except in religious fictions. Hence, more hypocrisy.

Your whole belief in 40,000 years old science and language that don’t exist, except in you, in your deluded fantasy...and that’s worse than religions and worse than science fiction, because you think and believe that your fantasies are real.

 

[cladking]

And you are being a hypocrite, since you believe yourself to be a “nexialist”.

Sigh.

Your post is just more semantics. Even if the basis of science really were philosophy it is just semantics to suggest that philosophy isn't science.

I suppose you also believe operating signs and logic aren't the basis of mathematics.

I didn't say I am a nexialist. I said I consider myself a generalist and others have said that my definition of "generalist" is akin to Van Voig's definition of "nexialist". However, while there are certainly parallels "nexialists" were defined to have significant expertise in various scientific subjects. I lack any such expertise but consider all human knowledge rather than merely physics and chemistry.

I am not a "nexialist" but like the fictional "nexialist" I can apply all my knowledge very broadly. I doubt there is now or ever will be a "nexialist" per se. This is because there is too much knowledge for an individual to acquire all of it. This same thing happened 4000 years ago and caused the collapse of the tower of babel leaving only pidgin language speakers and Nephilim.

Why do you never address the point of a sentence or thought? Why do you just pick words with which to quibble? Who died and left you the sole arbiter of the English languages.

Maybe if you actually addressed anything in this post we could straighten it out in your mind so we don't have to keep going over the same ground. Unfortunately this is off topic here so if you do want to address anything then please try to confine it to "Evolution" and Darwin because I will not respond otherwise.

As a generalist (nexialist?) it appears Darwin was wrong about everything from stable populations to gradual change in species.

 

[gnostic]

I didn't say I am a nexialist. I said I consider myself a generalist and others have said that my definition of "generalist" is akin to Van Voig's definition of "nexialist". However, while there are certainly parallels "nexialists" were defined to have significant expertise in various scientific subjects. I lack any such expertise but consider all human knowledge rather than merely physics and chemistry.

Your made up Ancient Science & Ancient Language that would include nonexistent Homo Omniscienesis, and the religious but equally nonexistent Tower of Babel and Nephilim, don’t have “knowledge” but another religious myth that only you would follow.

When you mixed religious myths & religious symbols with your personal philosophy, you don’t have “knowledge”, you have a fiction of your own making.

And btw, cladking. Have you ever really shared your religious philosophy with some real metaphysicians?

Because I don’t think any of them would you down your rabbit hole, because I don’t think they would accept your version of “metaphysics” as any members of RF have.

You cannot simply brand your fantasy as “knowledge” or “metaphysics”.

So can you think of any actual metaphysician that accepted your so-called knowledge?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

But do you find value there anyway? I do. I've mentioned this idea of a cognitive equivalent to empathy, where one is trying to think another's thoughts with him rather than try to feel his feelings with him and try to imagine what must be the case in that head for those words to make sense. It becomes increasingly difficult the more different a person's thinking is.

You might have noticed that I refer to rebuttal, debate, and dialectic a lot, which is relatively recent insight that comes from recognizing at last only attempts at falsifying arguments advance understanding, and that all other forms of dissent are impotent. That idea, which was probably already latent knowledge, is now understood explicitly, which matters regarding future thought and which ideas come to mind.

Also, I believe that I've acquired some insights on Dunning-Kruger syndrome. We see living examples of it here, and what I've discovered is not that its victims think that there is a higher level of thinking that they've also achieved, which is what saying that they have a false sense of their own ability seems to imply, but rather, that they are unaware that there is a higher level of thinking, and that all beliefs are guesses like their own, since, lacking the ability to generate sound conclusions from evidence intellectually, all beliefs are guesses. I say intellectually to distinguish these conclusions from those arrived at using passive induction - the kind of things we all learn through experience rather than contemplation. They do that fine, which is why they can learn to drive a car or build a house, but not to recognize or make a sound argument explicitly.

Anyway, I guess that I never get tired of these discussions for those kinds of reasons.

In keeping with what I just wrote above, I've decided that by change, you must mean instantaneous change, or the smallest change perceptible. You don't recognize the accumulation of these changes over longer durations as changes, but as many sudden changes. That's an idiosyncratic understanding of what the word means, but if it's YOUR understanding, what you say now makes sense. I can now say that if I held that same belief, I might make the same comments about all change being sudden.

But if I did, I would also know that that was not what others meant when they referred to change, and explain that - I don't consider the evolution of man from his last common ancestor with the chimps a change, but a series of nearly instantaneous changes, and there would not be days of confusion from people trying to make sense of your words.

Does that resonate with you at all?

Yes, so you've said, but not why you think that.

If you don't mind my discussing you like an object of study, I ask myself why he keeps making these kinds of statements even after being told that they are ineffective and what would be effective instead - the identification of specific problem that support that conclusion, and an explanation of why you see them as problems and how your revision might remedy them. So why do you keep doing this? What must be true to you but not me that keeps you on that path? Well, if I didn't care if I convinced others but just wanted to post anyway, I guess I might do that, but I don't get that form you. You seem to want others to see what you see. Could it be that you don't understand what is being asked of you? Maybe, but you ought to have a sense that you're not meeting those requirements and explain why you think you needn't, but you don't acknowledge this gap in your writing.

Anyway, I have no answer here. I don't see why you persist like this or how it serves you. Here's another insight this activity has given me: I probably never will. I would need you to explain your thinking and your thoughts on why you choose this path, and in my experience, that doesn't happen. Maybe you and I can change that this time. I'd need you to be on board, to understand what I'm asking, and help me understand your choices.

Perhaps there are some issues with perspective or difference in thinking, but I still have issues with those making claims that are clearly wrong and refusing to acknowledge anyone posting the correct information and then simply repeating the incorrect information as if it is gospel fact.

For instance, the claim that Darwin was wrong, because he had the wrong assumptions including an assumption that populations were stable. That is completely wrong. In formulating the theory of evolution, Darwin recognized that populations aren't stable. Yet, I keep reading the same claim over and over on here.

I'm not sure what sort of information I can gather about the thinking of a person that does that except that they don't really know much about the science they are inserting their claims into. I suppose that has value, but not enough to influence an incorrect thinker into correcting their thinking. And that is merely one example. The insistence about bottlenecks that isn't based on any evidence that is offered or that anyone has every heard of is another. I could go on. I find it difficult to see that as merely a difference in thinking when they are examples of being willfully wrong as I see it.

As I said, I find the your posts to be a trove a treasures on the subject despite my reticence and am enjoying how you present them as well as what you say.

 

[cladking]

For instance, the claim that Darwin was wrong, because he had the wrong assumptions including an assumption that populations were stable. That is completely wrong. In formulating the theory of evolution, Darwin recognized that populations aren't stable. Yet, I keep reading the same claim over and over on here.

This is what Darwin actually said and I've linked it before. Just like his statement that "survival of the fittest" is the most apt term for the mechanism of "Evolution" this appears in a later edition.

He most assuredly did not believe in population bottlenecks.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'll leave that to the actual qualified and working professionals.

You are just an anonymous internet user claiming to know better (obviously motivated by religious reasons, of all things).
So I really don't care what you think the theory "still needs".

I have issues with anyone that tries to exert an image of credibility in their claims while making so many mistakes about the subject under discussion, ignoring corrections and repeating the mistakes. I'm not taking advice from anyone that comes out of no where with a claim that Darwin didn't believe in population bottlenecks in answer to the fact that Darwin did not assume population stability as has been repeatedly and erroneously claimed.

Darwin didn't know about genetics, so it isn't rational to think he would know about population bottlenecks. And they certainly are not speciation events or portending speciation.

For those just reading through, a population bottleneck, also known as a genetic bottleneck, is an event that drastically reduces numbers of a population along with the genetic variation of the population. These can be detected and tested. They reduce variation.

Anyone insisting on being wrong and not understanding why their posts aren't seen as credible is not really worth talking to in my opinion. Making wild claims about what Darwin knew of a subject that hadn't yet been discovered during his lifetime as a means to address the fact that they are absolutely wrong that Darwin assumed stable populations and can't admit it shouldn't expect people to see their claims as credible.

None of that demonstrates qualification to determine anything about the theory of evolution.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

If the human population were reduced down to 10,000 in number, the genetic variation of that population would be greatly reduced and less than the variation of the current world population of 8 billion. They would still be the same species and not suddenly a different species. If they were human before the reduction event, they would be human after it too. How anyone could think that they would retain all the genetic variation of humanity in a population that is 0.000125% the size of the current world population boggles the mind.

This is not a difficult concept to understand and is supported by evidence from actual populations of organisms. Evidence exists for historical population bottlenecks in Homo sapiens (humans). We were Homo sapiens going into this bottleneck and all the evidence demonstrates we were Homo sapiens coming out of it too. Not a new species and not an expectation arising from reduced genetic variation. You could establish limitations in genetic variation by demarcating any random group of 10,000 people today and comparing it to the remainder of humanity without having to eliminate anyone.

 

[John53]

Perhaps there are some issues with perspective or difference in thinking, but I still have issues with those making claims that are clearly wrong and refusing to acknowledge anyone posting the correct information and then simply repeating the incorrect information as if it is gospel fact.

For instance, the claim that Darwin was wrong, because he had the wrong assumptions including an assumption that populations were stable. That is completely wrong. In formulating the theory of evolution, Darwin recognized that populations aren't stable. Yet, I keep reading the same claim over and over on here.

I'm not sure what sort of information I can gather about the thinking of a person that does that except that they don't really know much about the science they are inserting their claims into. I suppose that has value, but not enough to influence an incorrect thinker into correcting their thinking. And that is merely one example. The insistence about bottlenecks that isn't based on any evidence that is offered or that anyone has every heard of is another. I could go on. I find it difficult to see that as merely a difference in thinking when they are examples of being willfully wrong as I see it.

As I said, I find the your posts to be a trove a treasures on the subject despite my reticence and am enjoying how you present them as well as what you say.

I'm not sure of the point of it is even if it were true. It's like saying we can't have flat screen TV's because John Logie Baird didn't invent one. He built the first TV so surely the idea hasn't been expanded on by other people.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm not sure of the point of it is even if it were true. It's like saying we can't have flat screen TV's because John Logie Baird didn't invent one. He built the first TV so surely the idea hasn't been expanded on by other people.

I think the only valid point is that the claim that Darwin formulated his theory of natural selection based on the assumption that populations were stable is simply wrong. He recognized that populations were not stable.

I'm not sure the point of repeating erroneous information as if it is a fact when it isn't.

I had to look up Baird. As an American, I just assumed TV was invented by an American. You know, the problem of using bad information in drawing a conclusion.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If you don't think you're qualified to consider, rewrite, or invent metaphysics then you're probably correct

This is about biology. Not "metaphysics"

If you don't care if the current theory still stands or not then why are you arguing it at all?

Where did I say that I don't care?

If "Darwin's Truth" can stand on its own without your help or mine why are you even posting?

This is a discussion and debate forum.

If it's so factual that there is no God

We're talking about biology. Stop arguing strawmen.

I suppose I should just turn this over to some Professor Emeritus of Metaphysics at Harvard and let him worry about it, eh?

No. Try the community of working scientists in the appropriate fields.

Or I could call the Department of Epistemology and let them slug it out.

Nope, that won't do either.

I have so many choices and so many mystics to contact

Yes, it's really bizar how you're willing to ask / listen to / believe anyone except biologists when it comes to topic of biology.

I'd start very small and call an Egyptologist but experience tells me they don't want to discuss anything at all and just want your awe.

Or... they don't like wasting time with willfully ignorant zealots?

 

[metis]

If the human population were reduced down to 10,000 in number, the genetic variation of that population would be greatly reduced and less than the variation of the current world population of 8 billion.

It reduces the size of the gene pool; thus, recessive genes have a greater chance of becoming phenotypes. This has the effect of speeding up the evolutionary process. At least this is what we were taught way back when, so I hope I'm correct on this.

 

[gnostic]

I'm not aware of that quote and will not be hunting it down in a 240+ page thread.
What I read about it is that Darwin considered it a proper way of expressing natural selection, while also warning it could be misinterpreted by laypeople who would understand "fit" to mean "stronger, faster, more robust, etc". While "fit" in this context merely meant "better adapted to the immediate habitat", in all its aspects.


Anyhow, not that it matters much though, what Darwin did or didn't say about it.
Darwin is not some infallible person who's words are "holy" or what-not.
Darwin was wrong about a great many things (and spot on correct about many others, including the crux of it all: adaption followed by selection) and his original ideas are terribly outdated.

So if we are going to discuss evolution theory, Darwin's name should barely come up except maybe as a footnote.
The 200-year old version of the theory matters little to that conversation. What matters is the current incarnation, which is the original expanded with all the knowledge that's been uncovered the past 2 centuries.

I'm in general agreement.

However I believe the current theory still needs a lot of tweaking and cause/ nature of the mechanism of change is seen from a very poor perspective.

Except, the problem in this thread, is that you are focusing on what being taught in biology, today, the current model of the Natural Selection.

Instead, you are so focused on the original model of the 19th century.

Sure there are faults with some of Darwin’s original concepts, but the current (modern) model have gone beyond Darwin’s model.

His basic framework is still good, but there have been over 160 years of corrections/updates and improvements since the publication of the original edition of On Origin Of Species (1859).

No today’s students are required to read any of Darwin’s original works; all they need to focused on the current model, which would include the latest techniques, the latest explanations/knowledge and the latest discoveries.

It would be foolish for any universities to teach the original 19th century model, when the latest model are so much superior, because it include modern knowledge in all sphere of biology, such as the latest knowledge in anatomy & physiology, in genetics & DNA testing, in biochemistry & molecular biology, in modern taxonomic system (eg taxa are named and grouped in system of clades, where the taxa are monophyletic), etc.

No one is denying the limitations of Darwin’s original model, cladking. What you should be focusing on, is the latest model, and not dwelled on the past.

Natural Selection is still a very valid working mechanism in evolutionary biology, but only if you are focusing on modern mechanism & model.

Beside that. No one is going to accept your flawed and faulty concept of biology. Your version of Evolution is unrealistic...it isn’t evolution. Evolution don’t deal with individuals...evolution, particularly speciation, worked on population level. Time and time again, other members have corrected your mistakes, but you arrogantly dismiss them, so you never from any of your mistakes.