Darwin's Illusion

[Augustus]

How many militant or extremist scientific organizations are there in the world?

Science isn’t an ideology so it’s a false comparison, as all “science v religion” tropes tend to be.

How many harmful ideologies have used science to underpin oppressive actions?

Actually quite a few…

(Nazis, Communists, Russian Nihilists, Racialists, eugenicists, etc.)

Science can as easily underpin harmful actions as it can good ones. It’s not intrinsically noble, even though it brings many benefits.

The problem is humans, not science or religion which simply serve human ends.

 

[Valjean]

The conversation started even earlier when no one wanted to respond directly to my statement;

Rather than actually discuss the nature of reality and Darwin's beliefs we ended up on a tangent. Most of the argument for Evolution is semantics and tactics. Ra6ther than even admit Darwin had assumptions we get hand waving and deflection.

The arguments for evolution are reasonable, tested and productive. They have overwhelming, consilient support.

I think I'm justified in saying you do not understand evolution, it's claims, its mechanisms, or its evidence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I wrote, "The sine qua non of a correct idea or system of idea is [1] it cannot be successfully rebutted and [2] it can be used successfully to predict outcomes not predicted as well without it. The stunning success of science is smoking gun validation of its methods" to which you responded, "A FAR better method of judging whether an understanding is accurate and complete is that it agrees with all known science and creates no anomalies." I answered, "I'm content with science accurately anticipating outcomes as my standard for its correctness" and your comment above was your response.

My comments are based on what science has accomplished, not what it has yet to explain. That there remain unanswered questions is not an indictment of science or its methods and does not diminish its accomplishments to date.

Creationists and others grossly underestimate what has been accomplished by science.

They indict science and anyone that accepts science as some sort of believer, because that is how they see everything, as belief-based. They have all the answers and will just repeat on heavy rotation, because they must be correct. These omniscient have no evidence, only claims of evidence they never present. They have fanciful stories of ancient this and ancient that. They speak as if their beliefs are fact and they are believers that are the holiest of all. They are omniscient.

The only people that seem to believe they know everything are not the people that accept science based on the reason and evidence. It is those that repeat Denis Noble says, or fish are still fish or nonsense about ancient civilizations.

This is a favorite of the creationists, with whom you have a lot in common - a grievance with science.

That is what the evidence tells us.

I mentioned a few pages back to LIIA that, "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," another argument condemning science for being a work in progress rather than a fait accompli.

It is interesting to note the tenor of the posts offering alternative versions of reality that offer nothing. Not even a work in progress. Fantastical speculation with no basis to show anyone. Some even sound as if they are convinced of their own omniscience. It all represents what I consider closed minds that no longer think they need to learn anything.

You'll need to talk to government and industry about how they use the science.

I'm sure there are conspiracy theories aplenty without having to scratch the surface too much.

We know that man had ancestors that you and I would recognize as fish - obligate marine vertebrates (animals with bony spines confined to the oceans) with bilateral symmetry, a head and a tail, eyes, a mouth, gills, and fins. Reptiles, birds, and mammals including man develop gill slits like fish, but they do not become gills. Also, man has lost his tail save for a vestigial coccyx:

View attachment 77199

Not yet. Given enough time, that well may happen. Some fish evolved into amphibians, some of which evolved into reptiles, which generated the birds, but that is as far as evolution has come to date along that branch. Reptiles also evolved into mammals including insectivores, which evolved into tailed, vegetarian, quadrupedal, arboreal primates, which evolved into man, but that's how far that branch has evolved.

I'm not clear why the continual queuing up for another bite at the apple, when the claim is that there is no evidence and scientific explanations are rejected. At least those that create uncomfortable problems with ideology. You'd think if someone said they were done, they would follow through and be done.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

John Snow was an English physician and is credited as one of the founding fathers of epidemiology. He was able to determine the source of a cholera outbreak in 1850's Soho, London through observation and analyzing his data. No experiments. Good observation and evidence. Real science. Not some nonsense about languages that can't be determined to have ever existed.

If experiment is the criteria for real science, than ancient science, ancient language, homo omniwhatever and so on are not science and just belief. There isn't even evidence of these things, let alone experiments demonstrating them.

There are no experiments that show that fish still being fish means anything except as a meaningless observation.

There is no experiment that demonstrates a controversy in science means that a theory no longer exists and ideology gets to replace it by default.

There is no reason to see these latter things as anything but empty assertions, wishful thinking and nonsense.

You don't have to have all the answers or know everything to recognize nonsense.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Science isn’t an ideology so it’s a false comparison, as all “science v religion” tropes tend to be.

How many harmful ideologies have used science to underpin oppressive actions?

Actually quite a few…

(Nazis, Communists, Russian Nihilists, Racialists, eugenicists, etc.)

Science can as easily underpin harmful actions as it can good ones. It’s not intrinsically noble, even though it brings many benefits.

The problem is humans, not science or religion which simply serve human ends.

I agree that it is people using whatever is at hand to promote their own ends. It keeps getting said in one way or another and continues to be ignored with claims that some science is inherently evil.

It doesn't even make sense to blame it on Darwin, since he wasn't around and neither was his theory during most of recorded history and the attendant human atrocities that occurred during that span.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Odd, then, that you never point to experimental evidence of your claims. Or any evidence, really.

You can buy bulk agar from China and that is the main (only) evidence offered against the Lenski E. coli experiment.

It's a real case cracker.

 

[John53]

Creationists and others then to grossly underestimate what has been accomplished by science.

As they use computers, phones, fibre optics, satellites etc to spread their conspiracies around the world in the blink of an eye.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Hey @John53 was that supposed to be a critique of my excellent grammar and poor proofing. Even if not, I fixed it.

I see. The new system has caught you too. That happened to me a couple of times already.

It's a real puzzler how they don't like science, yet use all the applications coming from science.

 

[John53]

Hey @John53 was that supposed to be a critique of my excellent grammar and poor proofing. Even if not, I fixed it.

I see. The new system has caught you too. That happened to me a couple of times already.

It's a real puzzler how they don't like science, yet use all the applications coming from science.

That was an old man error who is confused by science but I fixed it so it never happened lol

 

[Valjean]

It's a real puzzler how they don't like science, yet use all the applications coming from science.

They doubt something intuitive like evolution, yet say nothing about the monumentally counter-intuitive claims of quantum mechanics -- as they use their cell-phones or computers.

 

[YoursTrue]

A few intermediaries? Are you serious?

ok, quite a few intermediaries. Yes, I'm serioius. Lots and lots supposedly of intermediate organisms. All by natural selection, from, accordig to scientists, fish to -- humans. OK.
Since you seem to know more about this than I do, why not explain it in a clear, cohesive and understandable way? Of course, not provable. Just figuring.

 

[YoursTrue]

Hey @John53 was that supposed to be a critique of my excellent grammar and poor proofing. Even if not, I fixed it.

I see. The new system has caught you too. That happened to me a couple of times already.

It's a real puzzler how they don't like science, yet use all the applications coming from science.

I appreciate "science" in that it has helped stem the tide of certain diseases such as polio. The attempts of experimentation there have been "proven." I guess you would object to that way of explaining it, since it seems science doesn't "prove" anything, is that right?

 

[John53]

ok, quite a few intermediaries. Yes, I'm serioius. Lots and lots supposedly of intermediate organisms. All by natural selection, from, accordig to scientists, fish to -- humans. OK.
Since you seem to know more about this than I do, why not explain it in a clear, cohesive and understandable way? Of course, not provable. Just figuring.

There was a lot went on pre fish as well. You seem to be fixated on fish at the moment.

 

[YoursTrue]

There was a lot went on pre fish as well. You seem to be fixated on fish at the moment.

In other words, you can't explain it. I'm not fixated on fish. Seems scientists though do say that humans eventually evolved after a good long time from -- fish. Why the big deal over this if you believe it? Or, shall we say, if you agree with the scientists that say it likely is true. Or is true.

 

[John53]

In other words, you can't explain it. I'm not fixated on fish. Seems scientists though do say that humans eventually evolved after a good long time from -- fish. Why the big deal over this if you believe it? Or, shall we say, if you agree with the scientists that say it likely is true. Or is true.

So you think fish were the start?

 

[YoursTrue]

There was a lot went on pre fish as well. You seem to be fixated on fish at the moment.

Not to dispute this, and yes, scientists posit that a lot went on pre-fish. They did, however, say that humans eventually came (after a long time of course) from fish. Anatomical clues to human evolution from fish
So to say that one's predecessors biologically are virtually directly in the lineage of (some) fish according to scientists is appropriate for scientific logic.

 

[YoursTrue]

So you think fish were the start?

Nope. I can guess you do not.

 

[Valjean]

ok, quite a few intermediaries. Yes, I'm serioius. Lots and lots supposedly of intermediate organisms. All by natural selection, from, accordig to scientists, fish to -- humans. OK.
Since you seem to know more about this than I do, why not explain it in a clear, cohesive and understandable way? Of course, not provable. Just figuring.

OK, in a nutshell:
Cells assembled from chemical components. Some cleaved together. Cells specialized. These multi-cellular organisms competed, adapted, and speciated. Tetrapodal aquatic organisms found a beneficial niche out of water, and ventured onto land. Land organisms specialized, competed and occupied new niches. Selective pressures continued, and animals adapted and diversified. Furry endothermic tetrapods were selected, competed and radiated into multiple niches. Arboreal, furry, endothermic tetrapods found a food source on the forest floor. Arboreal-terrestrial tetrapods occupied different niches and specialized. Some specialized in terestrial, savanna habitats. Selection favored bipedalism in some. Bipedal apes competed, specialized, and developed into new species.
One was your grandfather.
QED.

 

[John53]

Nope. I can guess you do not.

I thought when I said a lot went on pre fish it might have been a clue.

 

[gnostic]

ok, quite a few intermediaries. Yes, I'm serioius. Lots and lots supposedly of intermediate organisms. All by natural selection, from, accordig to scientists, fish to -- humans. OK.
Since you seem to know more about this than I do, why not explain it in a clear, cohesive and understandable way? Of course, not provable. Just figuring.

Did you not read @blü 2’s comprehensive timeline summary?

Here's an outline of human evolution (which I confess I haven't updated for a decade, but the basics are in order) ─

Human evolution goes from the most basic form of life (protobionts, presently undefined)
to the single cell (Prokaryota) 3.7 bya
to nucleated multicelled (Eukaryota) [though some say Eu- was before or simultaneous with Pro-] 1.7 bya
to bilateral symmetry (Bilateria) ›555 mya
to a stomach with two openings [mouth and anus] (Deuterostomia) ›555 mya
to a notochord [‘spinal chord’] (Chordata) ›555 mya
— Ordovician - Silurian Extinction 440–450 mya
to a backbone (Vertebrata) ›525 mya
to a movable lower jaw (Gnathostomata) ›385 mya
to four legs (Tetrapoda) ›385 mya
— Late Devonian Extinction From ~360 to 375 mya
to eggs with water retention suitable for dry land (Amniota) ›340 mya
to eye sockets each with a single opening into the skull (Synapsida) ›324 mya
to mammal-like reptiles (Therapsida) ~274 mya
to ‘dog teeth’ (Cynodontia) ~260 mya
— Permian-Triassic Extinction 251 mya
to milk glands (Mammalia) ~200 mya
to vivipars and monotremes (Theriiformes) ›160 mya
to modern vivipars (Holotheria)
to proto-placentals and marsupials (Theria)
to placentals and certain extinct non-marsupials (Eutheria) ›160 mya
to placentals (Placentalia) ~110 mya
to all mammals except the Xenarthra [sloth, armadillo, anteater] (Epitheria) ~100 mya
to bats, primates, treeshrews (Archonta) ~100 mya
— Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 mya
to tarsiers, monkeys, apes (Haplorrhini) ~63 mya
to New and Old World monkeys and apes (Simiiformes) ~40 mya
to Old World monkeys and gibbons (Catarrhini) ~35 mya
to apes [great apes and gibbons] (Hominoidea) ~29 mya
to hominids / great apes [orangutans, gorillas, chimps, Homo] (Hominidae) ~25 mya
to hominins [gorillas, chimps, Homo, H. floresiensis, H. Denisova] (Homininae) ~4.5 mya
to Homo [H. sapiens, H. Neanderthalis, ] (Homo) ~2.4 mya
to Homo sapiens [Homo sapiens Idaltu, Homo sapiens sapiens] (Homo sapiens) 250 kya
to Homo sapiens sapiens.

So you can see that our ancestors separated from the fish line about 385 mya, came ashore maybe 365 mya, became mammals maybe 275 mya, primates maybe 100 mya, then hominids say 25 mya, genus Homo say 2.5 mya, Y-chromosomal Adam maybe 250 kya, mitochondrial Eve maybe 150 kya, and here we are.

Yes, you and fish have a common ancestor ─ because on the present evidence there is at the start one kind of cell which had the excellent quality of being able to reproduce itself. (The study which seeks to find a satisfactory description of that cell ─ the processes of abiogenesis ─ is of course a work in progress.)

But that research, like the list above, works with examinable evidence, and draws conclusions and explains them openly; so if you want to disagree, all you have to do is learn enough and understand enough about evolution and biology to avoid looking like a dope, and then present your own fact-based and openly reasoned conclusions to show that the theory of evolution is in fundamental error.

If it's any encouragement, there's a Nobel Prize in it for the winner.

Funny how no creationist has done anything like that already, eh?

blue has covered much of the basis.in the above timeline.