Audie
Veteran Member
The ToE is not " the modern synthesis".
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Darwin's Illusion
- Thread starter Neuropteron
- Start date
False beyond belief. The irreducible complexity of biological systems has not been falsified by any scientific research.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
False., as these cells produce measurable energy and energy has its effects.
Also, common sense through observations tells us that all materials appear to change over time and genes are material objects. Within the Eastern traditions, they recognized this reality many centuries ago.
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That was your response to, "I doubt that you could produce an example of a demonstrably irreducibly complex biological system." So, no then to you being able to do that. You've just repeated your unsupported claim.
Incidentally, the opposite is correct as far as we can tell. No irreducibly complex biological system has ever been identified.
Neither of your links even address this matter, and that sentence doesn't describe what happens in nature. Evolution doesn't occur in isolation and no intermediate is missing a vital part.
Every living organism is evidence that every form from zygote to mature adult is viable. There is no reason that abiogenesis followed by evolution could not have generated the last universal common ancestor and from it the tree of life including the extinct forms.
You answered, "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."
Yes, seriously. What do you think that graphic does to support your claim?
I wrote, "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."
Nothing has changed with your answer, so I ignored your subsequent comment about ring species. I have no further interest in discussing what you consider a species and a subspecies. You've already said what you believe, I disagreed, and since your purpose in pursuing this line of questioning if any is going to remain a mystery, that's a hard pass on spending more time there.
Do you think you showed that to be the case with dog breeding? I don't. You also don't have a mechanism to prevent macroevolution from proceeding. Saying that it's never been observed is meaningless. We wouldn't expect to have observed new taxonomic families arise in the time we've been looking.
A complete orbit of Pluto around the sun has also never been observed, but I dare say that if the possibility contradicted biblical scripture, we'd be seeing the same argument there - "nobody's ever seen a complete orbit, so macro-orbiting is impossible" and my objection would be the same: "What's going to stop Pluto from macro-orbiting given the necessary time?"
No evidence for you perhaps. I have plenty, albeit not conclusive.
My comment was, "I have no reason to believe that consciousness (and thought) is not a physical epiphenomenon of brains." Your comment doesn't address mine. I still have no reason to believe that mind is not an epiphenomenon of brain.
Cognition implies consciousness. Other physical processes don't.
I decide based in the behavior of the organism and the understanding that all life is made of the same stuff in the same way. So, when I see you acting like me - opening your umbrella when it begins to rain - I project my consciousness known to me directly and immediately onto you. A tree shows no sign of self/other awareness. An ant is a harder call. Although it's made of the same stuff and in the same way as a tiger or a man, it's believable that all of its behavior is mindless (unconscious) reflex and tropism. It's harder with a human appearing robot (think Data on Star Trek: TNG or Robin Williams' character in the movie AI - robots with apparent emotion and human concerns), since it's not made of the same stuff in the same way as life.
You can predict the card you will get out of the range of 52 cards in a deck of cards. The pattern of a large number of outcomes of selecting a card from a full deck would follow a fractal pattern. If you are playing a game with a card sharp you are in trouble with his/her ability to determine the odds of the card chosen if the number of cards is smaller and some cards are removed in the course of the game.
Not sure what your point is. This does not have much to deal with whether mutations are random or not.. Sable patterns of different types of mutations (not necessarily directed} are actually the rule in the history of life. The resulting 'natural selection' based on the diversity of the gene pool is a separate issue and has its own fractal patterns based on the influence of environmental changes
Your bolded assertions concerning what science has determined concerning the relationship of the physical brain and consciousness and intelligence are overwhelmingly false, based on ancient tribal agenda. You need to do your homework on the current knowledge of science.
This is also reflected in your claim of 'irreducible complexity.' Bolding stuff without knowledge of science does not help your agenda.
The sciences of evolution are based on 'objectively verifiable evidence.' Your ancient mythical Genesis is based on an ancient tribal worldview without science. It has no provenance of authorship, original documents, or based on facts of historical or geologic history.
Your response here is not based on evidence or sound logic. It is based on the circular reasoning of your religious based assumptions without science.
Statistical theory is NOT used to maintain the DNA-centric theory, which in reality does not exist. The bold above is gibberish and not based on science. Please show scientific references to justify these meaningless assertions.
The environment and changes in the environment are the driving force behind evolution.
None of this or your previous posts has any relevance to the sciences of evolution. Please reference peer-reviewed scientific publications to support your argument. So far you have only cited questionable sources.
gnostic
The Lost One
Well done, wellwisher.
You have just spectacularly demonstrated that you have failed to show where “Evolution falls short”, because you were using Abiogenesis as example, which has nothing to with Evolution.
(A) Evolution is all about the biodiversity of life, both extinct and extant species, over periods of time. This would include passing traits genetically to descendants, either through “common ancestry”, which is divergence evolution or through convergence evolution.
(B) Abiogenesis is about the origin of first life from a number of different models. Regardless of which model is true, they involved twofold approaches:
- To understand the origin of the first cell.
- To understand the origins of biological macromolecules (eg proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, etc) that played essential roles of cells.
And beside that, Abiogenesis is still in a hypothesis, but it is a working hypothesis, meaning they are still doing researches and experiments. They are still seeking answers, through understanding what Earth was like 3.7 or 3.8 billion years ago (eg atmosphere composition, climate, terrains, etc).
That’s just blatant misinformation, wellwisher.
Genesis creation is just a story. Neither Adam, nor the book we called “Genesis”, existed 6000 years ago, or about 4000 BCE.
Do not confuse narrative as “history”. There are not single historicity in Genesis, in which we can either collaborate and verify with from independent sources or with archaeological evidence with either people or events that supposedly happened in Genesis.
There is nothing new, nor unique about Genesis creation (including the Flood myth), because it is based on much older Mesopotamian creation (and flood) myths that have popular from the 1st century BCE, all the way back to 2400 BCE, when Sumerians and the Akkadians ruled Mesopotamia.
If you really want to talk about "innovation thinking", then the Sumerians & Akkadians were ones who started the creation and flood myths, that the Jews borrowed 1800 years later from the Chaldeans at Babylon. What ever innovation you believe that exist, then know that the Sumerian and Akkadian myths were scientifically wrong (creating humans from clay), which would mean who ever wrote Genesis (eg creating man from dust) were also wrong.
BESIDE THAT. Genesis wasn’t written 6000 years ago, Genesis didn’t even exist 3000 years ago.
you don’t find any so-called “biblical” texts until 2600 years ago at the most, when Jews were living in exile at Babylon in the 6th century BCE, borrowing ideas of creation and the flood from the Babylonians, but the polytheistic tales, predated the 7th-6th centuries BCE Chaldeans.
The fact that Jews have traditions that attribute Moses as the author of Genesis, is fabricated traditions, with no basis in history. There are no evidence that Moses & Joshua led the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 12:37), after through some miracles is a myth just as Genesis is a myth. There are nothing to collaborate & verify Genesis and Exodus narratives. Adam to Joshua are all mythological or fictional characters, not historical ones.
The points is that Genesis is neither a science book, nor a history book. It failed at both.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
It, along with all other scriptures, are "myths", which doesn't mean nor imply falsehood, but that it is use of the basic art of storytelling that is used virtually in all cultures. The "Power of Myth" by Joseph Cambell & Bill Moyers should be a must read for those truly interested in comparative religions.
gnostic
The Lost One
The problem isn’t really about recognizing the scriptures being myths.
The real problems are those people who refuse to recognize they are myths, and think the religious (or the scriptural) myths are “history” or “science”.
It is those people who seriously think non-living dust (or soil or clay) can transform into living human, or turn water into wine.
Neither of these miracles are scientifically possible.
Personally, I actually love myths, legends, fables and other forms of storytelling, because I admired the imagination of people from ancient cultures, just as I loved arts that tell some stories.
I like to describe "myths" as ancient cultures 'telling their own story' beginning with handed down oral traditional stories, and then written down when the first writing appeared. We only know of the earliest "myths" through the first written versions and some rock carvings. My favorite foundation mythical writing remains Gilgamesh, which is the basis for evolving "myths" of the Middle East up until the compilation editing, and writing of the texts.
Myths are not necessarily false and may be based loosely on historical persons and history like in Gilgamesh. but in general, they are mythical narratives and not factual in nature.
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metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
IMO, whether Gilgamesh was an actual person is irrelevant to me as it's "the moral of the story" that I find most important.
I did not say it was important or not. Actually, much of the Pentateuch is mythical, but yes there are probably real people..
Actually, my favorite theme of Gilgamesh is Gilgamesh the King represents the civilized human and Enkidu represents the primal human.. Gilgamesh represents all that is evil in civilization, and Enkido was untouched by civilization. Gilgamesh discovers Enkidu and arranges for him to be seduced and brought to him. They fight and no one wins. They make dear friends and go on a quest to kill mythical monsters. Enkido dies saving Gilgamesh's life by fighting the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh mourns the loss of Enkido and goes on a quest for immortality to bring Enkido back.
AdamjEdgar
Active Member
there are 386 pages of responses...so i hope im not repeating something someone else has already noted...the above was of Aristotle origins not Charles Darwin...
Aristotle's theory of the “spontaneous generation” of life
It was debunked by Louis Pasteur
“Spontaneous generation” was the idea that living organisms can spring into existence from non-living matter. In the late 19th century, in a showdown between chemist Louis Pasteur and biologist Felix Pouchet put on by the French Academy of Sciences, Pasteur famously came up with an experiment that debunked the theory.
I think we are arguing about two different things.
I am sim[y arguing that the outcomes of cause-and-effect events on nature are not random ALL outcomes of cause-and-effect events follow predictable fractal patterns described by Chaos Theory.
When you go beyond this to relationships of mutations with natural selection, adaptation to the environment, and changing environment we are dealing with different chains of outcomes of cause and effect events. but yes, they follow the same fractal nature of the chain of natural events.
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gnostic
The Lost One
No biologists would say either about “randomness” or “perfection”, or about “from randomness to perfection”. These are actually your false claims; you are attacking strawman, the strawman you had created.
Natural Selection doesn’t work through randomness.
Natural Selection occurred, depending on the environment. When the environment changed, then it is better if organisms have necessary physical traits that ensured reproduction for population to flourish.
Say, for instant, a glacial period of no warmer seasons for several or more generations, then would populations of animals that grow thicker hairs or fur, or would populations of animals that are hairless, survive better in future generations?
It isn’t random, if animals are selected with thicker hair or fur, when there are no warm seasons in their lifetime.
Likewise, it isn’t “random”, when people explore the depth of oceans, only to find many species of marine life (eg unknown species of fishes, marine arthropods, mollusa or cephalopods) have no eyes, or do have eyes but are completely blind, because no sunlight can penetrate this depth. They often find their foods through other means.
To say, Natural Selection involved randomness, just demonstrates how little you understand the subject.
Even, with Mutations, there are still limits as to what changes can occur at genetic-level or at cellular-level.
When scientists introduce new antibiotics or new vaccines to fight off bacteria pathogens, over times, bacteria pathogen will change through mutations that new species becomes either resistant or immune to the new antibiotics or vaccines. Then scientists would have to find another ways to develop new antibiotics or vaccines.
This changes via mutations, are not random.
And when two populations intermix, to reproduce generations of with hybrid traits (example of Gene Flow), then that’s outcome is also predictable, not random.
gnostic
The Lost One
Oh.
I forgot
@LIIA
I had forgotten to say more about your faulty claim that evolution is about “perfection”.
Evolution isn’t about achieving “perfection”.
For organisms to continually reproduce, even when the environmental conditions have changed, they require to pass on heritable adaptable traits that are advantageous for that ”changed environments“.
The changes don’t have to be large changes.
For instances, trees around the world, are naturally “selected” for their environments.
The types of trees and shrubs with broad leaves in the tropical rainforests, are normally found in the tropic regions, around the equator, where the climate are often hot and wet, with much higher humidity.
Around high mountainous terrains such as alpine, or in the much colder climates of the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, like the taiga regions, the forests found here tends to be of the conifer families. Conifers are more resistant to freezing than deciduous trees.
You won’t find tropical rainforest in the taiga or in alpine regions.
These trees growing in the environment suited for such forests, have nothing to with any tree being “perfect“.
you are being ignorant on the subject of evolution if you are making false claims that organisms are seeking to reach perfection.
I forgot@LIIA
I had forgotten to say more about your faulty claim that evolution is about “perfection”.
Evolution isn’t about achieving “perfection”.
For organisms to continually reproduce, even when the environmental conditions have changed, they require to pass on heritable adaptable traits that are advantageous for that ”changed environments“.
The changes don’t have to be large changes.
For instances, trees around the world, are naturally “selected” for their environments.
The types of trees and shrubs with broad leaves in the tropical rainforests, are normally found in the tropic regions, around the equator, where the climate are often hot and wet, with much higher humidity.
Around high mountainous terrains such as alpine, or in the much colder climates of the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, like the taiga regions, the forests found here tends to be of the conifer families. Conifers are more resistant to freezing than deciduous trees.
You won’t find tropical rainforest in the taiga or in alpine regions.
These trees growing in the environment suited for such forests, have nothing to with any tree being “perfect“.
you are being ignorant on the subject of evolution if you are making false claims that organisms are seeking to reach perfection.