Darwin's Illusion

[Dan From Smithville]

Yeah, but even one is a mental construct. Stop doing that and stop using language and thought at all. That is your error!

The answer you got was still one plus one equals two. Just twisted in what appears to be an attempt to avoid the fact.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

So you believe that Genetic Drift don’t work? Or that Mutations don’t happen?

What are genes and DNA? Do you ignore the evidence of these?

Where and when are you living in? In the mid-14th century? Or in the Dark Ages, perhaps?

Btw, Mutations, Genetic Drift & Natural Selection, are each verifiable mechanisms, not axioms as you are falsely claiming.

The relatedness of the living and extant species of humans and chimpanzees, the DNA are much closer than those DNA of other species of apes.

But such DNA doesn’t say that humans evolved from chimpanzees, or chimpanzees evolved from humans; no what the genome tests reveal both have evolved from common but some extinct species some 6 million years ago. One of those extinct species is the Sahelanthropus tchadensis, dated to 7 million years ago, the possible divergence. They still needs more fossil evidence, before they can verify & conclude this is the species in which the modern humans & modern chimpanzees came from.

Beside you ignoring the evidence that supporting evolutionary biology, do you have any better alternative hypothesis to diversity of life, other than your personal opinions against evolution?

This notion that science is a tapestry of axioms doesn't escape so easily when those making the claim are using controversy and arguments in science that demonstrate it is clearly not axiom to support the claim of axiom.

It's amusing isn't it.

 

[cladking]

Yeah, but even one is a mental construct. Stop doing that and stop using language and thought at all. That is your error!

Exactly!

Actually reality itself is binary so "one" and "zero" are as real as a heart attack and as palpable as all things.

Our models, beliefs and minds are constructs and the basis of thinking but consciousness and thinking are not at all the same. Consciousness requires no constructs.

 

[cladking]

If we are all equally fit, then a family of four from Iowa should be able to live successfully and survive as easily as tuna 200 km out to sea and 200 meters down.

That is the sort of sense one is dealing with when confronting claims of equality of fitness.

Tuna don't live in Iowa and Iowans don't live under the sea.

 

[gnostic]

Considering that the evidence indicates that 99.9% of all living things that have ever lived on this planet are now extinct, dead and gone, nature doesn't seem too concerned about who or what lives, just so long as something does. And even if living things are wiped out, nature can start from fresh with the right conditions.

Our survival and success are not guaranteed or equal for all. Even if you make it onto this world, there is a constant struggle for resources and the successful use of them.

I find it odd to see claims of equality of spirit equated to biological success as if it were a fact when the reality is far more obtuse and even harsh. The successful leader that embodies all the qualities of fitness that some erroneously impute to biological fitness may have far less reproductive fitness than a janitor with 10 and barely enough money to scrape by.

The problems with some people, mainly those who don’t even understand basic biology, is that they don’t really understand what “fitness” in relation to biology.

They have the tendencies to confuse “fittest” with being the “strongest” or the “largest” or the “fastest” or the “smartest” or something else.

Many of the largest dinosaurs and the most powerful predators died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, with only the smaller avian dinosaurs surviving as ancestors of the birds. Pterosaurs, larger mammals and large marine animals have also became extinct.

Survival means the abilities to adapt or change, and being able to reproduce during the changed conditions. Great size and great strength certainly didn’t matter.

 

[cladking]

Survival means the abilities to adapt or change, and being able to reproduce during the changed conditions. Great size and great strength certainly didn’t matter.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Survival is normally dependent on millions of factors, "random" events, and luck. Anything can help chances of survival and anything can hurt. But change in species results from behavior/ consciousness at bottlenecks.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Tuna don't live in Iowa and Iowans don't live under the sea.

I'm not engaging with you, since you have given me no reason to. The fact that you respond with a twisting of words speaks for itself as reason enough.

Good day!

 

[cladking]

Survival is normally dependent on millions of factors,...

And they are each too complex for Darwin to understand.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The problems with some people, mainly those who don’t even understand basic biology, is that they don’t really understand what “fitness” in relation to biology.

They have the tendencies to confuse “fittest” with being the “strongest” or the “largest” or the “fastest” or the “smartest” or something else.

Many of the largest dinosaurs and the most powerful predators died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, with only the smaller avian dinosaurs surviving as ancestors of the birds. Pterosaurs, larger mammals and large marine animals have also became extinct.

Survival means the abilities to adapt or change, and being able to reproduce during the changed conditions. Great size and great strength certainly didn’t matter.

I agree. The definition of fitness that I see bandied about by application equates it with some utopian, idealistic superman sort of fitness that is in no way reflective of the meaning of biological fitness. Stronger, handsomer, smarter, richer, etc. as opposed to poor, weak, socially marginalized, etc.

The fact that often those that are smarter, or wealthier, or more educated often breed less seems to belie the moralistic position that is applied to fitness.

Ideas are not equally fit. Some are just empty claims with no evidence ever offered to support them or a cherry-picked deluge of metaphor so obvious in the absences of anything that refutes it or where anything offered to refute it is ignored.

The default answer to controversy in science is not that science falls and any personal belief, whether an existing one or one a fantasy in the making, becomes the paradigm.

There is a point where variation and fitness cannot meet selection. We call that extinction. As you note with the example of the dinosaurs and the extinction level environmental event they were confronted with. All their great size and strength did not make them as fit as the smaller, weaker species that did survive.

You nailed it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I can't imagine a dead man understanding anything for us to see in the living world. Those are the sort of claims that have no meaning and too often the kind that pop up here.

I could imagine that Darwin would recognize factors that impact fitness and drive change in populations, since those are the factors being addressed in these discussions.

Darwin didn't make claims that accidents of chance didn't have an impact, but those were seen to result in the addition or elimination of variation on which selection could act and he did recognize and seek to understand.

Claiming that Darwin couldn't know anything, because he couldn't have predicted the occurrence of a chance landslide eliminating a population of the biggest, strongest predators in a territory is a poor effort to twist and malign what he did help us to understand.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I wonder why tuna don't live in Iowa and Iowans don't live under the sea?

Hmmmmm?

Oh, it's so simple. They are not equally fit for those differing environments.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The problems with some people, mainly those who don’t even understand basic biology, is that they don’t really understand what “fitness” in relation to biology.

They have the tendencies to confuse “fittest” with being the “strongest” or the “largest” or the “fastest” or the “smartest” or something else.

Many of the largest dinosaurs and the most powerful predators died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, with only the smaller avian dinosaurs surviving as ancestors of the birds. Pterosaurs, larger mammals and large marine animals have also became extinct.

Survival means the abilities to adapt or change, and being able to reproduce during the changed conditions. Great size and great strength certainly didn’t matter.

Survival is certainly dependent on many factors. I don't know how many. No one does. No attempt has been made to estimate them.

But, the factors that impact organisms in their environments and the asymmetrical success of the members of a population and between populations has been studied. Information on those things is available and has been made available here.

It was just bad luck for the dinosaurs that an asteroid impacted the Earth 65 million years ago. But that and other random events didn't make it impossible for Darwin and others to see the patterns that demonstrate common ancestry and change in species gradually over time.

I think you are right, but I wouldn't limit the ignorance of those that deny science just on a failure at basic understanding of biology. The reliance on ignorance of a broader base, especially at the willful level and filling gaps with imaginative speculation is a serious factor inhibiting cognitive progress for those reliant on such factors for sole support of what they claim.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I think back to why I ever decided to become involved in debates and discussions like this. Part of it is just my nature I suppose, but part of it is to learn. I don't know everything. But I do know some things. And I would like to expand that little bit that I do know. I suppose it was naive to think that would be the interest of others too.

I recently was involved in a brief discussion of the meaning of allegory and the application of it. A subject that I am still reviewing to determine my own understanding and the strength of my position. Even if I ultimately come to an argument that concludes my use of allegory was within reasonable bounds of definition and application or if I find I agree with the other argument, I will have learned and changed.

But clearly, throughout my activity in discussions like this for close to 30 years now, there are those that come across as knowing everything to the point they can dismiss accepted knowledge on a whim, by fiat or without any logical or evidentiary support. In that 30 years, I have learned much about logical fallacies and flawed arguments and how often those that know everything use these same failures from the past or variations of those to argue in the present.

I always find it an unusual contradiction that those that know everything are those that are most contorted, active and agitated. Something more akin to anger is expressed and I find that most perplexing. I would think knowing everything would set you on a more knowledgeable, resolute and relaxed course. I would think that they would be comfortable in their omniscience knowing that there were no more questions for them to ask and nothing more to learn. I seems to me that at the very least, those omniscient souls would see these threads as a pedagogical opportunity to guide, teach and give full explanation of and with their knowledge. That doesn't seem to fit what I see. They seem to be more interested in preaching a belief than in educating others.

I have seen examples of that embrace of teaching opportunity. Though not from the omniscient, but from those that also claim not to know everything, but clearly wishing to learn more. That argument I have right now over the application and definition of allegory is with one those people. However, it works out, I think we will both learn something.

Not to say that I don't learn from the declared omniscient, it just isn't learning what they declare I should know.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I did many times. It’s not even an argument. I stated facts and provided the resources. That’s it. You’re in a state of denial that blocks your ability to understand it. And again, genetic variations as in the so-called “microevolution” do not give rise to the alleged “macroevolution” over generations.

Further illusions: On key evolutionary mechanisms that could never fit with Modern Synthesis - ScienceDirect

This was in response to, "If you were correct, you could verify it here. You could show your sound, evidenced argument that shows that natural selection applied to genetic variation in populations over generations did not produce the tree of life. But you can't, because the theory is correct, and correct ideas cannot be falsified." I don't see that sound, evidenced rebuttal, just a sentence with some words outlined in orange and an expression of skepticism without counterargument.

The examples of irreducible complexity are endless and impossible to be debunked unless you provide a satisfactory explanation for each case.

There are no examples of irreducible complexity, just the claims. I think the scientific community is done doing that. I know of several biological systems offered by cdesign-proponentists as irreducibly complex that were debunked - eye, flagellum, clotting cascade, and immune system - but I imagine that the scientists are just disregarding these claims now. Bare claims don't need debunking.

If you ignore everything I said and just provide a satisfactory explanation for how the “Epiglottis” allegedly evolved or how can a mammal survive a single day without it, then I’ll accept that irreducible complexity is debunked.

No you won't. Nor need I or the scientific community delineate any pathway that evolved. We get this with the creationism apologists arguing that if we can't identify the last common man-chimp ancestor and identify all of man's ancestral forms connecting it to him that there is a flaw in the theory.

Take only one of the interdependent functions out and the entire system becomes nonfunctional, a nonfunctional system will neither survive to leave offspring nor get naturally selected.

Fallacious argument. You're imagining a creature that never existed, one with all the other systems except perhaps a circulatory system.

The absolute truth is independent of our relative needs.

I don't need absolute truth, nor is it available to conscious agents, if by absolute you mean reality unmodified by the human nervous system.

Every hypothesis is an assumption. abiogenesis is an assumption that was elevated to an axiomatic status.

OK. I wrote, "Science assumes nothing." That was lazy on my part. Science assume that nothing is true until it is demonstrated to be true.

False. See the article below if you want to know.

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis | Chemical Reviews (acs.org)

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis (acs.org)

That was a reply to, "We *have* a growing body of evidence in support of naturalistic abiogenesis, but not enough yet, and none for creationism."

I don't see a rebuttal in your comment. How do you think that that contradicts the claim that there is a body of evidence as described? If you have a counterargument, please make the gist of it yourself in a few sentences.

the main point is specifically that self-replication doesn’t exist in "nature" outside the living cell.

Yes, I know, but I don't know why you wanted to make that point.

Accumulation of changes (variants) never causes a new family to emerge.

Nothing short of an extinction event can stop it.

Neither adaptation nor Artificial selection gives rise to new family.

Biological evolution has many times.

How do you know that? What is your reference? You’re making an assumption based on nothing but your own limitations but why would that be a factor at all?

How do I know that, "No god can be the conscious creator of consciousness"? How do you NOT know it? I'll let you think about it for a while.

Ring species variants are technically the same species. The variants are not different species, they are “subspecies”.

No, they are not. The ends of the ring are different species once they can no longer produce fertile offspring together.

The inability of interbreeding is not enough delineation of species.

Yes, it is.

We discussed that many times. Why can’t you get it?

Your "discussion" isn't convincing.

The absolute is not subject to the laws that control the contingent. Do you understand?

You need to cease in your condescension. Please make your statements without it. You're taking liberties you haven't earned or been granted. If you write anything I don't understand, it will be because you were vague. If I reject a claim out of hand, it will be because it was insufficiently supported. If I rebut you and you cannot successfully counter-rebut, it will be because you have made a mistake. If you ever see a comment from me like yours asking how a conscious agent couldn't be the inventor of consciousness, please call 911.

Its an irony that you see intelligence in these pathetic watermarks and don’t see it in something like the human genome.

The watermarks are qualitatively different from the other nucleotide sequences. Only one - the one written in a conventional, symbolic language that must be learned to be understood - reflects intelligence.

The process performed by the cell machinery (the hardware) to translate the coded info (the software) into proteins is nothing but intelligence at an unimaginable magnitude beyond any intelligent process achieved by man

There is no apparent intelligence there. The machinery is unconscious, not intelligent, and needs no intelligent oversight to generate new life from nonliving ingredients.

 

[cladking]

There is no apparent intelligence there. The machinery is unconscious, not intelligent, and needs no intelligent oversight to generate new life from nonliving ingredients.

One of few times I disagree with LIAA. In point of fact man has never achieved an "intelligent" system and no intelligence is needed to do anything man has done because every single thing is merely tiny incremental improvement on what has come before. But life is infinitely complex. Perhaps billions of years of evolution could account for this and perhaps not. We can't even understand consciousness and you seem to want to write off the coding for it as some sort of parlor trick.

 

[cladking]

And everyone takes the impossible complexity of reality itself as being humdrum and is mostly invisible to believers in science.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

This was in response to, "If you were correct, you could verify it here. You could show your sound, evidenced argument that shows that natural selection applied to genetic variation in populations over generations did not produce the tree of life. But you can't, because the theory is correct, and correct ideas cannot be falsified." I don't see that sound, evidenced rebuttal, just a sentence with some words outlined in orange and an expression of skepticism without counterargument.

There are no examples of irreducible complexity, just the claims. I think the scientific community is done doing that. I know of several biological systems offered by cdesign-proponentists as irreducibly complex that were debunked - eye, flagellum, clotting cascade, and immune system - but I imagine that the scientists are just disregarding these claims now. Bare claims don't need debunking.

No you won't. Nor need I or the scientific community delineate any pathway that evolved. We get this with the creationism apologists arguing that if we can't identify the last common man-chimp ancestor and identify all of man's ancestral forms connecting it to him that there is a flaw in the theory.

Fallacious argument. You're imagining a creature that never existed, one with all the other systems except perhaps a circulatory system.

I don't need absolute truth, nor is it available to conscious agents, if by absolute you mean reality unmodified by the human nervous system.

OK. I wrote, "Science assumes nothing." That was lazy on my part. Science assume that nothing is true until it is demonstrated to be true.

That was a reply to, "We *have* a growing body of evidence in support of naturalistic abiogenesis, but not enough yet, and none for creationism."

I don't see a rebuttal in your comment. How do you think that that contradicts the claim that there is a body of evidence as described? If you have a counterargument, please make the gist of it yourself in a few sentences.

Yes, I know, but I don't know why you wanted to make that point.

Nothing short of an extinction event can stop it.

Biological evolution has many times.

How do I know that, "No god can be the conscious creator of consciousness"? How do you NOT know it? I'll let you think about it for a while.

No, they are not. The ends of the ring are different species once they can no longer produce fertile offspring together.

Yes, it is.

Your "discussion" isn't convincing.

You need to cease in your condescension. Please make your statements without it. You're taking liberties you haven't earned or been granted. If you write anything I don't understand, it will be because you were vague. If I reject a claim out of hand, it will be because it was insufficiently supported. If I rebut you and you cannot successfully counter-rebut, it will be because you have made a mistake. If you ever see a comment from me like yours asking how a conscious agent couldn't be the inventor of consciousness, please call 911.

The watermarks are qualitatively different from the other nucleotide sequences. Only one - the one written in a conventional, symbolic language that must be learned to be understood - reflects intelligence.

There is no apparent intelligence there. The machinery is unconscious, not intelligent, and needs no intelligent oversight to generate new life from nonliving ingredients.

I always find the argument that artificial selection selection hasn't resulted in a new taxonomic family to rather laughable.

There is no intent in artificial selection to achieve family level phylogenesis. So not seeing it would be the expectation.

Chicken breeders, corn breeders, cotton breeders and those breeding any plant or animal are not breeding them to create some new family of organisms. More advanced techniques of biotechnology involving genetic engineering or molecular breeding aren't carried out to create new families of organisms.

Those breeders are looking for agronomically important traits that result in new varieties of existing species to be useful to people.

I once had an argument with a person that claimed we have never created a new species of bacteria in all the time we have been using and culturing bacteria. Given our current level of understanding of speciation in bacteria, that argument is flawed on the face of it, but given that no one ever bothered to look, we don't even know if we might have or not. The closest I have seen is the Lenski experiment and he was not trying to make new species, but to observe evolution in real time. That he may have succeeded at creating a new species is open to developing knowledge of bacterial speciation, but wasn't the point of the experiment anymore than the culturing of bacteria is. He was, however, demonstrably successful at what he did set out to do.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The answer you got was still one plus one equals two. Just twisted in what appears to be an attempt to avoid the fact.

Yes, now that I reread it. I.e. the second one!!!

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And some people think they know everything about all of existence by imagining they do and dismiss knowledge gained through the scientific method as that achieved by some stinky-footed bumpkins out of belief.

We achieve knowledge amid the speculation and ranting of the omniscient ignorant one funeral at a time.

 

[exchemist]

I did many times. It’s not even an argument. I stated facts and provided the resources. That’s it. You’re in a state of denial that blocks your ability to understand it. And again, genetic variations as in the so-called “microevolution” do not give rise to the alleged “macroevolution” over generations.

View attachment 76745

Further illusions: On key evolutionary mechanisms that could never fit with Modern Synthesis - ScienceDirect



This is an illusion. The examples of irreducible complexity are endless and impossible to be debunked unless you provide a satisfactory explanation for each case. Here is an example for the interdependency of biological systems that cannot function if a single component is removed.

Can the muscles function without neurons to convey motor commands from the brain to precisely control the specific muscle movements?

Assuming that the neurons/brain exist and functional, can the muscles function without a structural frame to support it (endoskeleton/exoskeleton)?

Assuming that the structural frame exists, can the muscles function without a system to supply energy utilizing oxygen and nutrients from the specific environment?

Assuming that the metabolic functions exist to supply energy, can the muscles function without a system to remove toxins/waste from the body?

If all of that somehow exist and functional can a mammal survive a single day without the “Epiglottis” to prevent food and drink from entering the windpipe?

If you ignore everything I said and just provide a satisfactory explanation for how the “Epiglottis” allegedly evolved or how can a mammal survive a single day without it, then I’ll accept that irreducible complexity is debunked.

A random organism missing any of the interdependent biological functions necessary for survival would not survive a single day let alone millions of years waiting to somehow get the essential system that it needs for survival. If it doesn’t have what it needs from day one, it will not survive to day two.

Take only one of the interdependent functions out and the entire system becomes nonfunctional, a nonfunctional system will neither survive to leave offspring nor get naturally selected.

You have to understand that the concern here is survival (staying alive). Survival is a product of numerous extremely complex interdependent functions. You may argue that every individual function can play different role and eventually change but you fail to understand that these alleged different roles would not support the collective goal of survival. No function can develop or change further unless it’s already a component of a surviving system (If it doesn’t survive, it doesn’t evolve). To achieve the goal of survival, the organism must have all necessary interdependent systems functioning from day one otherwise it will not have any chance of survival. Again, if it doesn’t survive, it doesn’t evolve. Do you understand?


The absolute truth is independent of our relative needs.

Really! Every hypothesis is an assumption. abiogenesis is an assumption that was elevated to an axiomatic status.

False. See the article below if you want to know.

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis | Chemical Reviews (acs.org)

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis (acs.org)

Every observation of purpose/design is evidence for creationism. It’s everywhere around us. It’s impossible not to see unless you are blind.

Axiom means self-evident truth. “Self-evident” means that the axiomatic status is not dependent on evidence.

Again, I said “there is no evidence that nucleotides, nucleic acids or self-replication exist in "nature" outside the living cell”.

Your article is taking about “nucleobases” in space rocks. Do you understand?

To avoid confusion, the main point is specifically that self-replication doesn’t exist in "nature" outside the living cell.


You wish. You don’t understand what you’re talking about. Accumulation of changes (variants) never causes a new family to emerge.

View attachment 76746


Neither adaptation nor Artificial selection gives rise to new family. Again, I’m specifically saying “family” because the definition of species is controversial. The inability of natural interbreeding is not enough delineation of a species. Variants of the same species may not naturally breed yet they are still the same species. (Such as the example of different variants of dogs).

Variants of the same species do not give rise to macroevolution, Neither adaptation nor Artificial selection gives rise to the alleged macroevolution.

If you don’t agree, go ahead and provide evidence that artificial selection can create new “family”.

How do you know that? What is your reference? You’re making an assumption based on nothing but your own limitations but why would that be a factor at all?

Consciousness, feelings, thoughts, sensations, desires, love, hate, joy, pain are not physical. No interaction of matter can give rise to “qualia”.

You didn’t get it. Again, the materialistic realm has nothing but waves, lots of waves of varying length/frequency/strength vibrating in every direction. There are no images, colors or sounds only vibrating waves. Only consciousness allows “qualia” of all kind. “qualia” is not possible beyond consciousness. qualia” is not physical.

False. Ring species variants are technically the same species. The variants are not different species, they are “subspecies”.

Again, the definition of species is controversial. The inability of interbreeding is not enough delineation of species. We discussed that many times. Why can’t you get it?

False logic. The absolute is not subject to the laws that control the contingent. Do you understand?

Its an irony that you see intelligence in these pathetic watermarks and don’t see it in something like the human genome.

The process performed by the cell machinery (the hardware) to translate the coded info (the software) into proteins is nothing but intelligence at an unimaginable magnitude beyond any intelligent process achieved by man (see #5554).

The natural genome doesn’t need a substitution code to translate it to some other language known to us. The natural genome itself is the language. The words of this language are translated into body plans as well as all interdependent internal systems of the organisms. Once you understand the translation, you get the message, do you understand?

Very nice Gish Gallop and world class quote-mining. My congratulations.