Darwin's Illusion

[cladking]

I'm content with science accurately anticipating outcomes as my standard for its correctness.

What's Ohio weather going to be for the next eclipse?

Who's going to be the next premier in Moscow?

When will we land on mars? (and this one's easy)

 

[shunyadragon]

No.

Anomalies are the shavings created by pounding a square peg in a round hole.

Not remotely related to science. You need help with the English language.

 

[shunyadragon]

What's Ohio weather going to be for the next eclipse?

Who's going to be the next premier in Moscow?

When will we land on mars? (and this one's easy)

These are not predictions remotely related to science.

 

[blü 2]

Most of what people call science today is actually technology or statistics. Computer modeling is not science. It's a very useful tool but is not science.

You can't write even the first line of code without the science.

I'm astonished you don't understand that ─ though by now I guess I shouldn't be.

 

[gnostic]

No. You are mistaken. All evidence and logic suggest that even the tiniest events reverberate through time. All things are interrelated and interconnected.

And you still don’t understand the fairly accurate and precise meteorological predictions are still based on observations of satellite mapping -

• of the temperatures (not just surface temperature, but atmospheric temperatures at elevated altitude),
• of humidity levels,
• of local wind patterns,
• of low/high pressure areas (wind directions are the opposite, depending on the locality of hemisphere, eg Australia, hence Southern Hemisphere, with the low pressure area, winds circulate clockwise, high pressure area, winds circulate anti-clockwise; these would be reverse directions in the Northern Hemisphere, like in North America, Europe & mainland Asia),
• of atmospheric (barometric) pressures,
• etc.

As satellites would provide minute-to-minute base, hourly-based & day-to-day base results, it can provide fairly accurate & precise readings/results, from local (eg Melbourne and suburbs), to regional (eg mapping each individual states, like NSW, Victoria, South Australia, etc) and to larger regional (eg mapping of Australia, or continental zones).

Yes, i do understand chaos theory and the butterfly effect, that small change can effect larger m

But satellite image won’t be observing just a single butterfly flying over a rice farm in rural Guangdong, China.

You seemed to forget that evidence required something that you can detect and measure, cladking!!!

• So how would you measure the strength of air flow from a single butterfly’s wing, that cause the tropical storm or cyclone hitting Queensland?
• How would know it is this particular butterfly, and not from a pigeon in Christchurch in New Zealand, or from the wings of a seagull in Honolulu, or the finch at Galapagos, or the mosquito from the Amazon, and so on?

My point is that you would never able to measure such a single tiny creature. But there isn’t just a single butterfly, there would be many, as there would be many mosquitoes, many flies of all species, bees, bats, birds, large & small, etc. if you were to measure every single one of these animals that have wings, the variable would be too many to observe, measure and track.

To sum up my point, you would have no weather forecast at all, as you would be trying to measure something too insignificant, because you would over-complicate meteorological science to the point of uselessness.

The butterfly effect is great for something theoretical discussion, but for all practical purposes, it would be useless discussion if you cannot measure the original effects (eg butterfly flapping its wings), and then keep tracking and measuring the increasing “effect”, to its the final point (eg cyclone in coastal Queensland).

The butterfly effect is metaphor that would only work in thought experiment, but offer no real scientific values if you cannot detect, measure and track from cause to the final effect.

Thought experiments are utterly useless, IF YOU CANNOT PUT THESE THOUGHT TO PRACTICE, LIKE THROUGH REAL EXPERIMENTS!

Do you always have to pick something of so utterly useless argument?

 

[gnostic]

No. You are mistaken. All evidence and logic suggest that even the tiniest events reverberate through time. All things are interrelated and interconnected.

If you cannot detect, track & measure the changes, then of what bloody use is the butterfly effect?

Thought experiment don’t count as real experiment.

Even Darwin's belief in survival of the fittest is still killing people.

Oh, good grief. This same bloody idiocy again.

Darwin didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t fight in any battle or plan any military strategy, and he certainly doesn’t decree or enact any government policies. And lastly, Darwin didn’t coin “survival of the fittest”; if you want to blame anyone, blame it on the sociologist Herbert Spencer.

This stubborn ignorance and intellectual dishonesty of yours, are simply irritating. You keep recycling this same false and useless garbage, incessantly and ad nauseam.

 

[gnostic]

You can't write even the first line of code without the science.

I'm astonished you don't understand that ─ though by now I guess I shouldn't be.

No, you shouldn’t.

He is predictable in this way. He doesn’t understand science at all, and I am finding it to be increasingly pointless with someone who refuse to understand even the most basic in science.

And the moment you corner him, he will start blaming ALL OF NATURAL SCIENCES UPON UNRELATED TOPIC OF EGYPTOLOGY!!!

As I said...he is predictable in the pointless argument.

 

[cladking]

You can't write even the first line of code without the science.

I'm astonished you don't understand that ─ though by now I guess I shouldn't be.

I wrote code in the 1960's. I knew enough science to know I didn't need any science to write code.

 

[cladking]

• So how would you measure the strength of air flow from a single butterfly’s wing, that cause the tropical storm or cyclone hitting Queensland?
• How would know it is this particular butterfly, and not from a pigeon in Christchurch in New Zealand, or from the wings of a seagull in Honolulu, or the finch at Galapagos, or the mosquito from the Amazon, and so on?

By George I think you got it.

If there is such complexity in weather forecasting how many orders of magnitude more complex do you think understanding the fossil record is?

 

[gnostic]

I've already explained why science "works'. Science reality and math are all based in logic. Any logical system applied to the study of anything at all will have correspondences and correlations to reality. "Technology" is merely a parlour trick of every scientific system caused by the ability of understanding to be applied to the real world. Agriculture was applied ancient science for instance.

You don’t understand anything, do you?

There are no science, because science required explanations.

During the thousands and tens of thousands of years, the entire Quaternary period were a series of glacial period and interglacial period, where the former is when large regions were covered in deep ice sheets, the later were warmer periods, (thus the interglacial periods), the Homo species (from the earlier Homo erectus to Homo sapiens), have to live nomadically, the hunting-and-gathering cultures, moving constantly to find food, what they can hunt and what they can foraging.

Even in regions that weren’t covered by ice sheets, the Homo species still have to move, because animals they hunt moved where they can find food and water, and glacial periods were cooler and dryer climate causing drought and famine in non-ice-sheet regions.

The reason why the latest interglacial period - the Holocene, about 11,000 years ago - agricultural farming occur, is the ice sheet had receded and drought ended elsewhere, so that humans can settle more or less permanently for generations.

Here they start growing their own food, near water sources. They didn’t yet know automatically how to irrigate, didn’t how to create plows, didn’t know how to use clay for pottery to create vessels in which they can store food or drink, they didn’t create wheeled vehicle for transportation, 11,000 years ago. Each of these were learned over times, and when they did invent these stuffs, it still time to improve on them.

And beside that, not everyone settle permanently, nor started farming at the same time, 11,000 years ago.

What they did, didn’t require “science”...but they were common sense and practical.

 

[cladking]

If you cannot detect, track & measure the changes, then of what bloody use is the butterfly effect?

It shows exactly how little we really know.

We can watch storms tracking across the country but we can't even guess which butterfly caused it.

Imagine if we really could make predictions we could simply wave an arm and make good weather. No silver iodide or rain dances no bulldozing power plants and building windmills, just a hand waving at which so many have become so adept.

 

[cladking]

What they did, didn’t require “science”...

How convenient!

I'm also impressed that this can be determined by modern science. I can't imagine how to set up an experiment to show agriculture and cities can be invented without any kind of science. Until you do I'll assume this is another one of your beliefs about nature. It seems about as likely as a storm blowing through a scrap yard and assembling cars, washing machines, and cameras to me. In fact considering the relatively very few different parts made by man that a storm of this nature is far more likely than stinky footed bumkins accidently making farms and cities. Nature has a virtually infinite number of parts.

 

[gnostic]

By George I think you got it.

If there is such complexity in weather forecasting how many orders of magnitude more complex do you think understanding the fossil record is?

Weather forecasting are based on observations that include measurements, fossils are also evidence observed, compared and measured, neither of these are abstract.

Your stupid butterfly/hurricane example is only metaphor plus thought experiment, nothing realistic to detect and to measure, so it is purely abstract speculation. The butterfly effect would have too many unseen variables that it would be counted as scientifically useless, something that you cannot add or implement in meteorological science.

Are you really that blind that you cannot see that your claim offer nothing useful?

Do not confuse thought experiments and actual experiments as if they were the one and the same. How do you test untestable thought experiment?

Untestable thought experiment are just that, cladking, speculation. Speculation, no matter how logical it may be, are utterly useless if you cannot test such speculation. And untestable speculation is never science.

It staggers me, that you are incapable seeing and learning that real science required TESTING. That always escape your attention.

 

[cladking]

Untestable thought experiment are just that, cladking, speculation. Speculation, no matter how logical it may be, are utterly useless if you cannot test such speculation. And untestable speculation is never science.

I hate to break this to you but there has been real progress in chaos theory in the last couple dozen years.

Of course it is useless to try to factor butterflies into weather forecasting. THIS IS THE POINT. You can only predict so far in the future before a butterfly will (have) disrupt(ed) your prediction.

Initial conditions prevail in change in species too. Not only can we not know initial condition but we don't know how individuals reacted to specific changes nor what those changes were. We are left to guess at what caused the fossil record and Darwin guessed wrong.

 

[Valjean]

Of course modern science doesn't really "work" anyway or we could make predictions. Any understanding in perfect agreement with reality would generate no anomalies. Even though our brains work in such a way as to not even see anomalies there are still many.

But science does make predictions, that's how hypotheses are tested. That's why science is such a monumentally productive methodology.

"Science" isn't right but logic, mathematics, and experiment are.

Science is the best and most productive investigative modality ever devised.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And you still don’t understand the fairly accurate and precise meteorological predictions are still based on observations of satellite mapping -

• of the temperatures (not just surface temperature, but atmospheric temperatures at elevated altitude),
• of humidity levels,
• of local wind patterns,
• of low/high pressure areas (wind directions are the opposite, depending on the locality of hemisphere, eg Australia, hence Southern Hemisphere, with the low pressure area, winds circulate clockwise, high pressure area, winds circulate anti-clockwise; these would be reverse directions in the Northern Hemisphere, like in North America, Europe & mainland Asia),
• of atmospheric (barometric) pressures,
• etc.

As satellites would provide minute-to-minute base, hourly-based & day-to-day base results, it can provide fairly accurate & precise readings/results, from local (eg Melbourne and suburbs), to regional (eg mapping each individual states, like NSW, Victoria, South Australia, etc) and to larger regional (eg mapping of Australia, or continental zones).

Yes, i do understand chaos theory and the butterfly effect, that small change can effect larger m

But satellite image won’t be observing just a single butterfly flying over a rice farm in rural Guangdong, China.

You seemed to forget that evidence required something that you can detect and measure, cladking!!!

• So how would you measure the strength of air flow from a single butterfly’s wing, that cause the tropical storm or cyclone hitting Queensland?
• How would know it is this particular butterfly, and not from a pigeon in Christchurch in New Zealand, or from the wings of a seagull in Honolulu, or the finch at Galapagos, or the mosquito from the Amazon, and so on?

My point is that you would never able to measure such a single tiny creature. But there isn’t just a single butterfly, there would be many, as there would be many mosquitoes, many flies of all species, bees, bats, birds, large & small, etc. if you were to measure every single one of these animals that have wings, the variable would be too many to observe, measure and track.

To sum up my point, you would have no weather forecast at all, as you would be trying to measure something too insignificant, because you would over-complicate meteorological science to the point of uselessness.

The butterfly effect is great for something theoretical discussion, but for all practical purposes, it would be useless discussion if you cannot measure the original effects (eg butterfly flapping its wings), and then keep tracking and measuring the increasing “effect”, to its the final point (eg cyclone in coastal Queensland).

The butterfly effect is metaphor that would only work in thought experiment, but offer no real scientific values if you cannot detect, measure and track from cause to the final effect.

Thought experiments are utterly useless, IF YOU CANNOT PUT THESE THOUGHT TO PRACTICE, LIKE THROUGH REAL EXPERIMENTS!

Do you always have to pick something of so utterly useless argument?

There are 160,000 described species of Lepidoptera. That's a lot of wings. Where are all the hurricanes from that? Are they here? No. Is that one over there? No. Maybe they are hiding under the bed?

And over 350,000 described species of beetles and all their wings. And 150,000 recognized species of flies. Even all the ones that land upside down. And all the species of bees, wasps and ants known. Some 130,000 species. All causing hurricanes when they flap their wings. But where are the 800,000 plus hurricanes? It's one of the great unanswered questions of science.

 

[gnostic]

I hate to break this to you but there has been real progress in chaos theory in the last couple dozen years.

And I hate to break this to you, meteorology have come a long way, and made even more progress in the last decade.

Of course it is useless to try to factor butterflies into weather forecasting. THIS IS THE POINT. You can only predict so far in the future before a butterfly will (have) disrupt(ed) your prediction.

But what you don't seem to understand is that because of all the other variables, both local and global, they would disrupt and dissipate have whatever insignificant effect that of one butterfly that you wouldn't even know if the speculative butterfly had any effect at all.

The point that you keep missing, is that daily forecasts of weathers are based on real measurable evidence where science can calculate the predictions, which are not the same in imaginary speculations of WHAT YOU PREFER IN YOUR FANTASY.

Your fantasy and you overcomplicating the metaphor, is only you playing the "what-if" game, that may or may not have happened.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There are 160,000 described species of Lepidoptera. That's a lot of wings. Where are all the hurricanes from that? Are they here? No. Is that one over there? No. Maybe they are hiding under the bed?

And over 350,000 described species of beetles and all their wings. And 150,000 recognized species of flies. Even all the ones that land upside down. And all the species of bees, wasps and ants known. Some 130,000 species. All causing hurricanes when they flap their wings. But where are the 800,000 plus hurricanes? It's one of the great unanswered questions of science.

You got that right. Where are they? It's a mystery.

 

[John53]

You got that right. Where are they? It's a mystery.

Throw in the millions of birds flying around.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I've previously mentioned four of the basic assumptions for Darwin's formulation of the theory of evolution in post #5719. As a reminder those are:

1. Heritable variation (asymmetrical) with reproduction.
2. Non-random mating. Successful mating varies with fitness.
3. Unstable populations. A continual struggle for resources in varying environments.
4. Time. Evolution occurs gradually over time.

Given that there has been a lot of misinformation, belief and denial regarding Darwin and the theory of evolution presented on this thread, I thought it important to raise the topic up from beating on a dead man and moving it into the present and discuss the modern theory. Taking the opportunity to post on this, the 300th page of this thread, seems a long overdue need to post the basic concepts of the modern synthesis (MS) and burn some of the straw that has been laid down in the place of facts. For those interested, these concepts can be found in more detail in the review by Futuyama (2017).

1. Evolution occurs at the population level and not at the individual level. The change is in the frequency of heritable variation within populations from one generation to the next.

2. The basic unit of heredity are the genes represented by RNA and DNA. The individual experiences of organisms do not affect the transmission of these genes.

3. Variation arises primarily by mutations that are random with respect to their usefulness and are not directed to some perceived need. Claims of directed mutation have been demonstrated to be groundless.

4. Gene frequencies in a population are altered by mutation, gene flow, genetic drift and natural selection. Evolution can be and has been defined as change in gene frequencies of populations over time and those four mechanisms are the cause of that change.

5. Natural selection is a consistent, biased difference in the production of offspring by living things and the sole cause of adaptive change.

6. Species of sexually reproducing organisms arise gradually over time through allopatric (geographic isolation) and non-allopatric mechanisms.

7. Higher taxa evolve through the accumulation of small changes evolving gradually over time.

Thus, the MS is the current theory derived from Darwin's work with the addition of all we have learned through genetics and population biology where it acts as the foundation for modern biology. The theory itself has been in a steady state of revision and any new revision will still be a theory of how life is related, changes and diversified over time.

Futuyma, D.J. 2017. Evolutionary biology today and the call for an extended synthesis. Interface focus. 7(5), 20160145.

I wonder why the science deniers can't name these assumptions as proposed by Darwin or those supporting the Modern Synthesis. The science deniers like to declare that these are all wrong, but can't list one of them. Not one my friend. Here you have them all listed just so easy. Why is it so hard for the ideological science deniers to do the same thing? It's another mystery. Maybe butterflies are at fault.