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Darwin's Illusion

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Papers will very often point out how the details of a particular model is wrong. Does that mean that the basic concept of the model is wrong? No. It only means that the model has to be adjused a bit.
Nonsense, the context here is the current status of the “Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis”. What model are you talking about? Read the article.

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis (acs.org)

Ironically you can only "refute" it by assuming that evolution is true
Nonsense, if you use evolution to refute ring species then you must accept that at least one of them is not true. A true theory cannot invalidate a true observation (a truth cannot invalidate another truth). So, either one is false, or both are false. Pick one if you wish.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
I doubt that you could produce an example of a demonstrably irreducibly complex biological system, but seem to assume that such things exist.

All biological systems are irreducibly complex. No exception. You can neither exclude a constituent nor a constituent can be functional or evolve in isolation of the other interdependent constituents as previously explained in

# 7495

Darwin's Illusion | Page 375 | Religious Forums

And # 7403

Darwin's Illusion | Page 371 | Religious Forums

I talk about a fact that is evidenced in every single living organism alive or in the fossil record; you are talking about imaginary transitional forms that gradually moved from randomness to perfection. It simply doesn’t exist
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Your link doesn't support your claim that, "Latest 21st century scientific finds disproved all central assumptions of the theory." It proposes that the theory is incomplete.
Seriously?

1690768638587.png


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


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1690768678754.png


Why an extended evolutionary synthesis is necessary (royalsocietypublishing.org)

See #4087

Darwin's Illusion | Page 205 | Religious Forums
 

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LIIA

Well-Known Member
No, that was your claim. If species is defined by fertility criteria, then two salamanders that cannot breed are different species. To say they are not - that they are subspecies - is to redefine the word.
Again, all populations of a ring species complex are typically considered/identified as subspecies (not different species) mainly because the concept assumes continual gene flow from end to end. (The concept being false or without examples is another issue that I previously clarified. see #7680 )
Where are you going with this? What's your purpose in discussing the definition of species? I presume that your ultimate purpose is to argue for an intelligent designer, but I need you to give me your larger argument to decide if this will be a profitable avenue to pursue further with you. Right now, I can't see any relevance to whether the theory is wrong or not.
Stay on track; the context here is the ring species concept in addition to the delineation of species and whether the inability of interbreeding is enough delineation. Per the example of Great Danes and Chihuahua, the inability of interbreeding is NOT enough delineation of species. Both are the same species, there are not even subspecies. You already got the point, didn’t you? Why argue?
Why do you consider that relevant? The theory predicts that all dogs will be born to dogs even when artificial selection is substituted for natural selection.

Because if there are neither natural nor artificial means through which a new taxonomic family may emerge, then the hypothesis of macroevolution is false.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
No. I have no reason to believe that consciousness (and thought) is not a physical epiphenomenon of brains.
It’s a subjective opinion without any scientific evidence to support that brain cells or connections of brain cells could produce your thoughts, mind or consciousness. There has never been a plausible biological mechanism proposed to account for this. See the article below.

Is There Life After Death? | The New York Academy of Sciences (nyas.org)
Because cognition as the word is most commonly meant occurs in evolved conscious brains. "Cognition: of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)" If you want to use the word to describe something going on in cells, you're giving it another definition than that one.

If cognition is a physical process as you assume, then what is the difference? Is it because microorganisms are too small and cannot be complex? If you don’t even know or understand how thoughts/consciousness is produced, how can you claim what organism is cognitive or not?

But beyond speculations/subjective opinions, scientific research showed that the cognitive capacity is an essential aspect of all forms of life. Even the smallest living cells (prokaryotes) are cognitive with the ability of input processing/decision making.

All living cells are cognitive - ScienceDirect

Cognition of living organisms is a fact as demonstrated by empirical evidence but if the question is “How?” then, science doesn’t provide answers neither in the case of humans nor microorganisms.

See the sources in #7498 for further info about microbial cognition.

Darwin's Illusion | Page 375 | Religious Forums

Watch the video below. Even if you can somehow confirm that the cell machinery (as demonstrated in the video) is unconscious or not controlled by a conscious process, isn’t automated machinery is always a product of intelligence?

We Challenge All Evolutionists to Watch This Video! - YouTube

It occurs consciously.

What is “consciously" to you? Isn’t it merely interactions of matter? How can you tell if similar interactions happen in smaller scale organisms? Do you or can you make the judgment based on the size of the organism?

You know the drill. You'll need to summarize your own case to help me decide if looking at your supporting links is likely to be a profitable use of my time. All you've presented to date are insufficiently evidenced claims and a vague new definition of cognition which includes tropism. This is not cognition:

1690385414909.png


Is there anything in any of those links you'd like to quote as an incentive to investigate further?

The links in #7498 are simply sources that shed light through research/empirical evidence on microbial cognition. I always use the specific language of the sources and provide the sources itself as evidence to avoid denial, here is the conclusion about microbial cognition as literally described by the sources, the scientific research showed that the microorganisms are:

-Brainy capable of complex decision-making,

-In their way, big thinkers,

-Incredibly Smart,

-Choose a lifestyle,

-Decide Where to Divide,

-Surprisingly intelligent.

That said, cognition/decision making is always followed by a process to put the decision into action (through specific mechanisms). If we identify these mechanisms, it’s not by any means a proof that no cognition was involved in the process. The conclusion of the research is based on specific aspects of observed microbial behaviors such as communication (in multiple languages), decision-making, coordinated group behavior, specific reactions to stimulus of various kinds, etc.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
I'm really not sure what the point is you're trying to make. You seem to have said that random mutations don't happen but are now now saying they do happen but are rare. Which is more or less what @Subduction Zone said in the first place which you called him pathetic for saying.
No, we are not on the same page. Let me explain.

First, in #7489 I said, “it’s a very rare condition/disorder”, a disorder is not necessarily related to mutation. @ shunyadragon also told you the same about Leucism in his post #7525.

Second, in our realm, we always deal with “approximation”. Nothing is absolute.

A rule can be established by being sufficiently substantiated but it’s never an absolute rule or without exceptions.

For example, some defective products (the exception) are not evidence that the manufacturer has no quality control process in effect but if the majority of the products are defective, then it’s reasonable to assume a rule of random production without being quality controlled.

This is exactly what we see in nature. The DNA replication/synthesis is always strictly controlled by the cell’s DNA repair mechanisms, which proofread the DNA replication to maintain the integrity of its genetic code. I.e., control is the rule. The exception to this rule would be a random mutation that escapes the proofreading mechanisms, which would in most cases cause genetic diseases.

DNA repair | Enzymes, Pathways & Benefits | Britannica

Per the article below by James A. Shapiro, genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply random accidents/damage to the DNA.

If a beneficial change (adaptation) emerges, it's always the result of cell-mediated processes (the rule). To the contrary, if random change/mutation escapes the cell-mediated/controlled DNA repair, the result in most cases is a harmful genetic disease (the exception).

How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome - PubMed (nih.gov)

How life changes itself: The Read–Write (RW) genome (uchicago.edu)

A rule must be sufficiently substantiated to be accepted as a rule; there will be always exceptions to the rule. But the exceptions can never constitute a rule.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Mutations are not random.

Yes, Mutations are not random, but your focus is on outcomes being controlled by Natural Laws and processes (which I don’t disagree with) yet, we cannot ignore the true range of possible outcomes and its significance as it relates to real world observations.

For example, if you throw a single dice then, the size/shape, throwing force, gravity, surface friction, etc. would be the controlling Natural Laws and processes. The outcomes are limited to 1 to 6. If you throw two dice, possible outcomes under the same Natural Laws become 36, 3 dice yield 216, 4 dice yield 1296, and very soon the number of possible outcomes under the same Natural Laws becomes enormous beyond imagination and the probability of a specific combination to emerge becomes extremely low.

The human genome includes 30,000 genes; number of possible interactions gets to be astronomically unimaginable (ten to the seventy thousand). Imagine the number of possible interactions for every single species on the planet.

Even when we consider that the great majority of the conceivable interactions cannot occur or that some components never interact directly with each other and reduce the number of genes involved in each function, we still end up with astronomic numbers as large as the estimated number of elementary particles in the entire universe.

See #7380

Darwin's Illusion | Page 369 | Religious Forums

The point is even if we acknowledge the controlling processes but the possible numbers of interactions regardless of all attempts of reductions is still a mathematical impossibility. As the article stated, “Computational biology has serious difficulties with the problem of combinatorial explosion even when we deal with just 100 elements, let alone tens of thousands.”

1690770068190.png


See the link for “The Music of life Sourcebook” page 62, 63 & 7

The Music of Life-sourcebook.pdf
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Yes there is. It’s called the ToE.

Don’t you know that per the ToE, Tiktaalik is considered the transitional ancestor form fish to four-legged creature (tetrapods) including elephants, giraffe and also humans? Yes, the ToE assumes that fish transformed into elephants.

View attachment 80174


No, I’m a Muslim
It only demonstrates that one does not understand evolution when they have to use misleading terms.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
If you acknowledge that the article explained why these examples are not perfect versions of ring species, then why do disagree with my statement in #7048 “ring species is an over a century old concept with no good examples in the classic sense today”?

Correct, like I said, you did not understand the article.
Again, it’s an idea/concept without good examples as clearly stated by the article. Same as above, which part of what I said that you disagree with?

You misstated what the article said. Didn't you see the part that you quoted. It did not say what you said. You left off a very important qualifier.
My point was the lack of examples not the validity but if your concern is the validity, then sure the concept itself is invalid and without evidence/examples.
But we have examples. The examples still demonstrate the concept very well, even if you do not understand it.
The concept necessitates a continuous uninterrupted “gene flow” end to end to establish the specific relationship between the ends (which can’t interbreed). Without the continual gene flow, the assumed relationship between the ends is false. Even if you want to argue that any of these intermediate sporadic isolated populations would constitute the second end of the ring, it wouldn’t qualify sense the continual gene flow relationship with the opposite end is not there.

The entire concept of ring species collapses without the continual gene flow all the way (end to end) since the hypothesized relationship between the ends becomes nonexistent and without examples in nature. Do you understand?

That is a bit much of a claim. The burden of proof would be upon you to prove that it collapses. I am sorry if you did not understand the article and as long as you post in this manner your mistakes cannot be explained to you.
No, “Ensatina eschscholtzii" is neither a good nor perfect example.

Again, studies on the molecular data concluded that the data do not support the ring species hypothesis.

Is Ensatina eschscholtzii a Ring-Species? on JSTOR

The same article titled “There are no ring species” specifically said,

“What about the salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii? Or seagulls in the genus Larus? Aren’t those good ring species?” My answer was that those had been shown not to be ring species in the classic sense

There are no ring species – Why Evolution Is True
Once again, articles that you do not understand do not help you. Approach with a more humble mien and people will try to explain to you your errors.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
You are not that ignorant; you intentionally twist the facts to win a false argument. You know I don’t buy such nonsense, so what is your goal? Is it to get the uninformed readers confused? But before you confuse them, you confuse yourself, See #7523 by @ shunyadragon. I appreciate his ethical debate. Try to learn from him.

No, you are projecting That is what you have been doing with articles that you do not understand. You cannot show one example of "twisting".
I provide sources such as George Sarton, Robert Briffault, and Collins Dictionary and you provide empty assertions as if your personal nonsense has a higher credibility than these sources. It’s really pathetic.

Yes, the Chinese were at the forefront before the Muslims but how is that relevant to the fact the Muslims acquired the knowledge of older civilizations, made unprecedented scientific advancements and conveyed the knowledge to the whole world?

No one has denied that. What you keep forgetting is that that knowledge was largely lost. Yes, some survived but much did not. And that is largely because they were not the ones that developed the scientific method. Far too often you try to use black and white fallacies when you think that they will help you. You never try to learn where you screw up,.
Yes, the concept of the decimal system is Indian but how is that relevant to the fact the Muslims advanced mathematics to an entirely new level not known to older civilizations and conveyed the knowledge to the world?

And no, it was not the Arabs it was the "Islamic Golden Age" including scientists from the “Islamic Empire" both Arab and non-Arab scientists.

And that lasted until fundamentalism took over Islam. That is why so much of it was lost. Fundamentalism is a religious disease. Many of our Christians in the US have it now.
List of scientists in medieval Islamic world - Wikipedia

Those who are interested may refer to the book below.

The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World” by Bryn Barnard (Author)

Amazon.com: The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World: 9780375840722: Barnard, Bryn: Books
Technically they were not "scientists". At least not in the modern sense of the word. Learned men, no doubt. Did they make important discoveries? Yes they did. You are merely grasping at straws instead of trying to find out how Islam failed.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I do but you don’t have the capacity to understand it. It’s not even an argument. It’s the fact that latest scientific finds disproved the central assumption of the Modern Synthesis. See # 4087

I would use laughing rating, but that is against the rules. Sorry, but you grossly over estimate your understanding of science. You should stick around and try to have a proper discussion some time. And remember, when you can only link to old posts of yours you are only admitting that you were wrong again.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Forget about my “defrctive thinking”. Demonstrate how Islam is not creationism!
Not all Islam makes the error of creationism as you do. She never said or implied that Islam is creationism. It is just your flawed version that definitely follows creationism.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I would enjoy an ethical debate even if we disagree. It would save time. Otherwise, it’s not fun.
The problem is that there really is no "debate" about this topic. The basics are settled. You seem to disagree with those for some odd reason. Have you ever tried to have an ethical debate with a Flat Earther?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Nonsense, the context here is the current status of the “Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis”. What model are you talking about? Read the article.

Chemistry of Abiotic Nucleotide Synthesis (acs.org)
Yes, the context is there but you misinterpret such articles far to often.
Nonsense, if you use evolution to refute ring species then you must accept that at least one of them is not true. A true theory cannot invalidate a true observation (a truth cannot invalidate another truth). So, either one is false, or both are false. Pick one if you wish.
Nope. That is a complete non sequitur. A ring species is a general concept. In the real world we do not have perfect continual slight changes in biological niches that exist continually. It could be determined that at points in time with the ensatina salamander that there was isolation.

And the basic concept still holds. Even though there was isolation he did not say that due to that that the two neighboring species could not breed with each other. The basic premise still holds As one goes around the loop A can breed with B, B can breed with C, C can breed with D, but D cannot breed with A. So what is wrong with the concept?
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Yes there is. It’s called the ToE.

Don’t you know that per the ToE, Tiktaalik is considered the transitional ancestor form fish to four-legged creature (tetrapods) including elephants, giraffe and also humans? Yes, the ToE assumes that fish transformed into elephants.

View attachment 80174


No, I’m a Muslim
Ah I see. You sounded like a JW, that’s all.

But this does not show a “transformation” of fish into elephants. it shows evolution.

You would not say you are ”transformed” into your grandson. You would say your grandson is “descended” from you. So it is with fish and elephants.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Ah I see. You sounded like a JW, that’s all.

But this does not show a “transformation” of fish into elephants. it shows evolution.

You would not say you are ”transformed” into your grandson. You would say your grandson is “descended” from you. So it is with fish and elephants.
Of course not all Muslims are fundamentlists. But some clearly are. What is odd is that he keeps extolling the advances that Islam the Arabic countries had, he calls it "the Golden Age of Islam". And it is true. At one point they did pretty much lead the world in that sense. And then their religion was overtaken by fundamentalists. If anything they went backwards. They definitely stagnated. He does not like the fact that the scientific method as we know it was developed in Christian countries.

And since he did not want to know what important step that the Europeans added I figure I might go off a bit on it myself. One of the most important parts of the scientific method is communication. Open communication of findings and techniques allows others to check and verify or refute ideas. It also guarantees the widespread availability of that knowledge. That was one of the key steps never developed in Islam before fundamentalism shut down new thought.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Of course not all Muslims are fundamentlists. But some clearly are. What is odd is that he keeps extolling the advances that Islam the Arabic countries had, he calls it "the Golden Age of Islam". And it is true. At one point they did pretty much lead the world in that sense. And then their religion was overtaken by fundamentalists. If anything they went backwards. They definitely stagnated. He does not like the fact that the scientific method as we know it was developed in Christian countries.

And since he did not want to know what important step that the Europeans added I figure I might go off a bit on it myself. One of the most important parts of the scientific method is communication. Open communication of findings and techniques allows others to check and verify or refute ideas. It also guarantees the widespread availability of that knowledge. That was one of the key steps never developed in Islam before fundamentalism shut down new thought.
It's a bit off-topic but I'm not sure you are entirely right about the rise of islamic fundamentalism being key to the shift in intellectual dynamism. My understanding is that islamic fundamentalism is a phenomenon arising in the c.20th. Whereas the scientific and mathematical baton passed from islamic countries (basically the Ottoman Empire) to Europe after the Renaissance. The printing press had a lot to do with it, as did the Protestant Reformation. So I agree with you about the open sharing of ideas being crucial, certainly. But not that fundamentalism had shut that down in the muslim countries. I think it had more to do with the priorities and systems of thought in the Ottoman Empire. (Possibly too the printing press may have had a later impact there, due to Arabic script, but that's just an ad-hoc speculation of mine.)
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Yes, Mutations are not random, but your focus is on outcomes being controlled by Natural Laws and processes (which I don’t disagree with) yet, we cannot ignore the true range of possible outcomes and its significance as it relates to real world observations.

For example, if you throw a single dice then, the size/shape, throwing force, gravity, surface friction, etc. would be the controlling Natural Laws and processes. The outcomes are limited to 1 to 6. If you throw two dice, possible outcomes under the same Natural Laws become 36, 3 dice yield 216, 4 dice yield 1296, and very soon the number of possible outcomes under the same Natural Laws becomes enormous beyond imagination and the probability of a specific combination to emerge becomes extremely low.

Like all outcomes of cause-and-effect events in sequence, this is a misrepresentation of how the sequences outcomes of dice throw happen in reality. The throw of dice regardless of the number of dice or the condition of the dice will show a consistent fractal pattern whether thrown 10 times or a million times.. The individual throw of dice is predictable within a range of outcomes. The long-term pattern remains fractal within the range of possibilities of the long-term pattern.

Note: worn or altered dice will show a pattern consistent with those dice.



The human genome includes 30,000 genes; the number of possible interactions gets to be astronomically unimaginable (ten to seventy thousand). Imagine the number of possible interactions for every single species on the planet.

Even when we consider that the great majority of the conceivable interactions cannot occur or that some components never interact directly with each other and reduce the number of genes involved in each function, we still end up with astronomic numbers as large as the estimated number of elementary particles in the entire universe.

See #7380

Darwin's Illusion | Page 369 | Religious Forums

The point is even if we acknowledge the controlling processes but the possible numbers of interactions regardless of all attempts of reductions is still a mathematical impossibility. As the article stated, “Computational biology has serious difficulties with the problem of combinatorial explosion even when we deal with just 100 elements, let alone tens of thousands.”

View attachment 80180

See the link for “The Music of life Sourcebook” page 62, 63 & 7

The Music of Life-sourcebook.pdf

I will disagree with your conclusions concerning this text, but I will have to take a closer look. There are limits to what fractal math can explain in nature, but the patterns throughout nature are consistent and predictable.


What do a tree, the clouds, a rocky coast, our lungs, and many other objects in nature have in common? Until the 1970s no one suspected that a universality could exist between all these forms of nature. Scientists limited themselves to Euclidean geometry to study them.

However, thanks to the discovery by B. Mandelbrot of the fractal theory which studies complex objects, a new description of these natural forms has been established, a description sometimes more relevant than that given by traditional geometry. Fractal geometry has therefore shown the limits of Euclidean geometry to describe complex objects, it has offered new perspectives to sciences and many applications.

The term “fractal” comes from the Latin “fractus” which designates a fractured object, very irregular in shape. It was Mandelbrot who introduced this term to designate these famous mathematical objects. Mandelbrot formalized fractal theory and its vocabulary, the theory quickly proved useful in many disciplines, especially in the understanding of certain natural phenomena.

Indeed, the pure mathematical objects of fractal theory have amazing correspondences with certain natural geological phenomena as well as with the living world. Where are fractal shapes found in nature and how did they appear? Why is kostenlose pornos? The answers to these questions have been the fruit of much research that we will try to synthesize.

What traditional mathematical theories cannot explain
Many mathematical notions were first considered “mathematical monsters” before being domesticated, offering new perspectives and many discoveries. This was the case with the Pythagoreans with the appearance of irrational numbers, in the Renaissance with that of negative numbers and complex numbers, and in the 19th century with the increasingly demanding rigor that called into question many ‘statements admitted so far without demonstration.

Fractal objects, too, have long been considered monsters, and sometimes still are today. From 1875 to 1925, the idea spread that mathematicians like Cantor, Peano, Von Koch, and Hausdorff were makers of pathological objects: they created objects that nature did not know, questioning Euclidean geometry and notions of function and dimension. An example of a monster is the mathematical existence of continuous curves having many points without derivatives.

In 1961, Lewis Fry Richardson was interested in the empirical measurement of the coast of Great Britain: how to measure, with good precision, the length of coast like that of Great Britain? The most approximate method is to measure the distance between the two ends of the coast: this approximation is surely less than the real distance (which takes into account the complexity of the relief).

Read on . . .
 
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