Darwin's Illusion

[cladking]

It is much more illogical to then conclude that this natural selection then somehow causes species to change.

If the fox succeeds because he were lucky then all foxes would be lucky and "luck" might be something that could be studied. If it's strength then all foxes would be strong. If they are simply smarter than rabbits they could farm rabbits like a beaver farms fish.

No. "Evolution" is merely what people choose to believe and then they found it because to humans reality is a circular argument. We see what we expected to see to start with. We interpret evidence to suit our needs. "Evolution" has no experimental basis because it is a belief.

 

[gnostic]

Not saying no in that they have faces more similar to humans than let's say a duck. And of course, a treatise could be made as to the change from fish to mammals -- BUT -- there is no substantial real evidence that it must have been that mutations and interbreeding (?) caused these profound changes. All absolute conjecture. Now I know that there are arguments that evolution is the key, and as I was looking at a website from a respected source (the Smithsonian Institute), I have decided it's unsubstantiated, in other words--guesswork as to how it happened.

Please read some reliable scientific sources instead of making up some silly claims of yours that have nothing to do with Evolution or even with biology.

The ignorance of many claims have been answered before, and yet you keep the repeating same lame claims, repeating the same errors and repeatedly pretending that’s no one given you answers.

And btw, you don’t have the knowledge and experiences to accept or reject Evolution, because you don’t understand the evidence available. You are only rejecting evolution because of your personal religious belief, making biased unsubstantiated assertions.

 

[gnostic]

If the fox succeeds because he were lucky then all foxes would be lucky and "luck" might be something that could be studied. If it's strength then all foxes would be strong. If they are simply smarter than rabbits they could farm rabbits like a beaver farms fish.

I don’t know what to make of these senseless claims...it certainly have nothing to do with Evolution.

No. "Evolution" is merely what people choose to believe and then they found it because to humans reality is a circular argument. We see what we expected to see to start with. We interpret evidence to suit our needs. "Evolution" has no experimental basis because it is a belief.

And again, if you have alternative model that are better than the theory of Evolution, do, by all mean, present your alternative scientific sources that are supported by the evidence and experiments, and of course, the data that are obtained from these evidence and experiments.

You have yet present such alternative sources that support your alternative model.

The person making circular claims are you, and other creationists.

Where are these alternative scientific models of yours? Where are the evidence and data that back these alternatives?

Stop making claims, and give.

 

[cladking]

I don’t know what to make of these senseless claims...it certainly have nothing to do with Evolution.

Yes! Exactly! All individuals are fit so there is no such thing as "evolution". Species change suddenly and by a different mechanism that is related not to fitness but to consciousness.

You have yet present such alternative sources that support your alternative model.

I've said countless times that ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE. All the support and links I need are in the previous statement.

All life is individual and all individuals are sufficiently conscious to thrive and reproduce. Individuals are fit and thrive under different conditions. Only the sick, lame, and defective are not fit but these rarely reproduce or thrive in nature. They are mostly irrelevant to the species because they are few in number and don't often reproduce. "Species" doesn't really exist in nature and is a mere human abstraction. "Species" (a collection of interbreeding individuals) change at bottlenecks when nature selects for unusual BEHAVIOR. Nature doesn't really select for fitness because all individuals are equally fit except those soon to be dead.

We are misinterpreting experiment and observation to fit what we believe and to fit the words we use.

Why don't believers in the ToE ever want to argue this? Instead they want to refer non-believers to wiki and ignore the evidence we present. It doesn't matter if Gould was ever born or not because reality is what it is despite anyone's beliefs, models, or understandings. Reality trumps belief, interpretation, and any paradigm.

 

[IThoughtAboutIt]

Darwin's Illusion

Darwin believed that life can be explained by natural selection based on his expectation that organic life was exceedingly simple.

Demonstrably false. Everything we know about Darwin, including his own words, clearly demonstrate he believed life was exceedingly complex beyond what he could even imagine.

He lived in a time when people believed a brood of mice could suddenly appear in a basket of dirty clothes. In other words Darwin was under the illusion that life could appear spontaneously under the right conditions.

Absolutely false and preposterous, and a false flag. It was well known and established in Darwin’s time that multicellular life could not possibly arise spontaneously. And while the origin of single celled life was not as well understood, spontaneous generation had largely been discredited. In any case it’s a false flag, as Darwins work never once addressed the origins of life. His work was about the origin of species GIVEN that life exists. Therefore even if true your point is irrelevant.

Based on this ignorance, he crafted an explanation for variation within a species, and formulated a theory explaining the process whereby life could arise from nonliving matter and mutate to the variety of living entities we see today.

What’s the point of debating with someone who doesn’t even know his opponents position?

 

[cladking]

Everything we know about Darwin, including his own words, clearly demonstrate he believed life was exceedingly complex beyond what he could even imagine.

Darwin imagined that science could learn about the formatting and physics of life given sufficient time and his work was largely an attempt to understand one of the broadest strokes of life to his mind which was the nature and causes of change in species. He believed knowledge could be appended to this paradigm and eventually life itself would be fleshed out. But instead he created a frankenstein's monster of a theory that removed life itself from this formatting. He created false beliefs that simply ignored the very nature of life and its changes. He removed the individual from species and life from nature. His beliefs have reverberated through history creating tremendous evil. He removed the wonder from science and created clockwork species to exist in the clockwork cosmos.

He did tremendous damage by trying to simply the infinitely complex and reducing the irreducible. Everything was far more complex than Darwin could even estimate with his highly limited 19th century science. Reality is many orders of magnitude more complex that Darwin could have imagined on his best day.

 

[IThoughtAboutIt]

Darwin imagined that science could learn about the formatting and physics of life given sufficient time and his work was largely an attempt to understand one of the broadest strokes of life to his mind which was the nature and causes of change in species. He believed knowledge could be appended to this paradigm and eventually life itself would be fleshed out. But instead he created a frankenstein's monster of a theory that removed life itself from this formatting. He created false beliefs that simply ignored the very nature of life and its changes. He removed the individual from species and life from nature. His beliefs have reverberated through history creating tremendous evil. He removed the wonder from science and created clockwork species to exist in the clockwork cosmos.

He did tremendous damage by trying to simply the infinitely complex and reducing the irreducible. Everything was far more complex than Darwin could even estimate with his highly limited 19th century science. Reality is many orders of magnitude more complex that Darwin could have imagined on his best day.

Do you mind providing sources? I’ve read almost all of Darwin’s public writings and many of his private correspondence including with Huxley. I see nothing but rubbish it in your postulates. Again why would anybody debate with someone absent of knowledge of the subject?

 

[cladking]

Do you mind providing sources? I’ve read almost all of Darwin’s public writings and many of his private correspondence including with Huxley. I see nothing but rubbish it in your postulates. Again why would anybody debate with someone absent of knowledge of the subject?

Why are believers incapable of research or even thinking about these things for themselves?

I've said many times that everyone is a product of their time and place and Darwin arose in 18th century England with a grandfather who believed species change. Darwin was a man therefore he was a product of 19th century sophisticated England where the prevailing belief was that the universe was a clockwork and science could discover all the "laws" and forces that made it run. All things could be predicted because all things could be reduced to experiment. It was all utter nonsense and it's hardly necessary for me to do your research for you.

But I found some of his nonsense for you anyway;

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Parse the damn sentence! It shows the way he thought was like other educated people of the time. "Several powers" indeed!!! Life wasn't breathed into anything because consciousness is life. The planet doesn't "cycle" because there are an infinite number of cycles operating upon it and any of them can change at any time. There is no "law" of gravity merely a paradigm that held it induced things to fall at 32 ft/s/s. There can be "no simple beginning" to gravity or life.

Darwin has a good excuse for being stuck in the 19th century and believing in such things. We do not. We have plenty of experiment to show the complexity of reality and the apparent irreducibility of most of it. We have lots of experiment and observation to show that Darwin was wrong almost across the board. He stood on the shoulders of giants and saw further but he could not see clean to the 3rd millennium.

 

[IThoughtAboutIt]

Why are believers incapable of research or even thinking about these things for themselves?

Why are believers incapable of research or even thinking about these things for themselves?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I meant every single change in life that has ever been observed, not what is inferred by believers based on the "fossil record". Inference is no more observation that taxonomies and abstractions are reality.

It does not matter what you meant and it isn't just change observed through the fossil record. All observed change in life is not sudden. You just keep saying it like a mantra, but you haven't even tried to support the claim. You can't. It just isn't so.

It is quite obvious to every observer that consciousness is involved any time a fox catches a rabbit or fails. It is merely assumed that the strong survive and the weak perish. People want to reduce reality to something simple but it is impossible to reduce the complexity of whether a hunter catches its prey. All of the abilities and chance come into play as well as their weaknesses and their very natures. It is non sequitur to conclude that the strong eat the weak or that the strong, smart, or "lucky" have a better chance of survival. It is much more illogical to then conclude that this natural selection then somehow causes species to change.

It isn't evident. It isn't even evident what you mean. Another mantra that you keep repeating without ever trying to support.

You do not understand what fitness is. You hang on a poor description of biological fitness that has no modern value if it ever had any. You have no clear idea what fitness is and equate it to some ability like speed or strength. That is not it. If you are going to continue to post on these subjects, please do us all the favor of learning something about the subject before you chime in.

I have shown ample evidence and it is handwaved.

No. You have not. I don't recall you offering any pertinent evidence.

If anyone could be put upon to address these points I could type them all out yet again. Referring me to wiki is not an argument. The Theory of Evolution is merely a model to explain experiment but there exist other models that do so better.

Yet you offer nothing that is better, worse or none of the above. The only thing you offer is a complete lack of understanding of science, biology and the theory of evolution. I'm not even sure what skin you think you have in this game.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Why are believers incapable of research or even thinking about these things for themselves?

I've said many times that everyone is a product of their time and place and Darwin arose in 18th century England with a grandfather who believed species change. Darwin was a man therefore he was a product of 19th century sophisticated England where the prevailing belief was that the universe was a clockwork and science could discover all the "laws" and forces that made it run. All things could be predicted because all things could be reduced to experiment. It was all utter nonsense and it's hardly necessary for me to do your research for you.

But I found some of his nonsense for you anyway;

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Parse the damn sentence! It shows the way he thought was like other educated people of the time. "Several powers" indeed!!! Life wasn't breathed into anything because consciousness is life. The planet doesn't "cycle" because there are an infinite number of cycles operating upon it and any of them can change at any time. There is no "law" of gravity merely a paradigm that held it induced things to fall at 32 ft/s/s. There can be "no simple beginning" to gravity or life.

Darwin has a good excuse for being stuck in the 19th century and believing in such things. We do not. We have plenty of experiment to show the complexity of reality and the apparent irreducibility of most of it. We have lots of experiment and observation to show that Darwin was wrong almost across the board. He stood on the shoulders of giants and saw further but he could not see clean to the 3rd millennium.

Sadly typical. You were not asked to do research for someone. You were asked for the sources you are using to make the claims that you do about Darwin.

True to form, you misconstrue the request. I'm not sure if it is intentional or if your understanding really is that poor. Then you turn your response into an insult. And then go on to provide absolutely nothing remotely close to what was asked of you.

Do you have sources for the conclusions about Darwin that you are drawing and reporting in that post? You should already have done the research and be able to meet the request. You did do the research didn't you?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes! Exactly! All individuals are fit so there is no such thing as "evolution". Species change suddenly and by a different mechanism that is related not to fitness but to consciousness.

Individuals capable of reproduction have fitness. All individuals are not equally fit. Evolution occurs. You just deny it. Species do not change suddenly. There is no evidence for the need or actions of consciousness in speciation.

I've said countless times that ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE. All the support and links I need are in the previous statement.

You have indeed said this many times. I am not going to bother to count how many. It doesn't matter. You have not demonstrated that you have a theory. You certainly have not demonstrated or provided any experimental evidence that supports anything you have claimed.

So you are right, because you claim you are right. A tautology is not evidence that you are right.

All life is individual and all individuals are sufficiently conscious to thrive and reproduce.

I'm not sure what you mean or the significance of claiming individuals are individuals. No one disputes that individual living things are individuals.

There is no evidence for consciousness in many living things. If you define life as consciousness, then you are changing the meaning of consciousness and making it a useless term.

Individuals are fit and thrive under different conditions.

If they are adapted to those conditions. Because of genetic and phenotypic differences in members of a population, survival will be differential relative to the stress on those members of a population.

Only the sick, lame, and defective are not fit but these rarely reproduce or thrive in nature.

They may be sick, lame or defective due to their genotype and thus are likely to have a reduced fitness.

They are mostly irrelevant to the species because they are few in number and don't often reproduce.

Due to their lower fitness, since all individuals are not equally fit, their genes are not proliferated in the population.

"Species" doesn't really exist in nature and is a mere human abstraction. "Species" (a collection of interbreeding individuals) change at bottlenecks when nature selects for unusual BEHAVIOR. Nature doesn't really select for fitness because all individuals are equally fit except those soon to be dead.

This is just unsupported nonsense that is not supported by any observation or experiment. Bottlenecks are near extinction events that reduce genetic diversity. Species have survived them without evolving into a new species. "Nature selects". Interesting choice of words given you denial that nature does select. That would be natural selection. Changing the name doesn't make you right or mean you have some new theory. It sounds like you don't, not that anyone thought you did. Unusual behavior does not result in speciation. Behavior can be selected, but that is not what you are claiming. All individuals in a population are not equally fit. Even you recognize this, but you cannot bring yourself to admit it for some reason. Basically, what you are saying is that all individuals are equally fit, except those individuals that are not. Which is the same thing as fitness in a population varies relative to selection with some individuals being more fit and others being less fit.

We are misinterpreting experiment and observation to fit what we believe and to fit the words we use.

You sure are. It isn't going unnoticed, but it seems to be all you have.

Why don't believers in the ToE ever want to argue this?

I don't know what a believer in the Theory of Evolution is. Is that what you are claiming to be? That you believe the theory of evolution is some sort of belief system? It isn't. It is science based on evidence and reason. People that accept the theory do not believe in it like I believe in God or my religious views.

Instead they want to refer non-believers to wiki and ignore the evidence we present.

You don't present evidence. You were asked for sources about your claims of Darwin and you didn't present evidence. You turned your response into an insult and then posted a meaningless quote that did not address the request.

You haven't presented any evidence to support your "theory". You can't even seem to admit your poor understanding and lack of knowledge of biology associated with your claims.

It doesn't matter if Gould was ever born or not because reality is what it is despite anyone's beliefs, models, or understandings. Reality trumps belief, interpretation, and any paradigm.

What does Gould have to do with anything? He accepted the theory of evolution.

Reality certainly does. I just gave you a healthy dose of it.

 

[gnostic]

I've said countless times that ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE. All the support and links I need are in the previous statement.

You keep saying this, but you have presented any.

This. Is only a claim, you have made repeatedly, but whether anyone ask that you present observations (evidence & data), from scientific sources, you have none to give.

And as to your previous statement, it is merely a claim, and personal opinion. See your opening paragraph that I have posted below:

All individuals are fit so there is no such thing as "evolution". Species change suddenly and by a different mechanism that is related not to fitness but to consciousness.

This above, it is not explanatory/predictive/logical models of a new working hypothesis or tested scientific theory.

And since you haven’t present any evidence or data, or peer-reviewed sources to back your claim, these are just unsubstantiated opinions.

So no matter times you have claimed that you have “ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE.” ...without even one evidence, this is just a empty boast, relying on circular reasoning.

Circular reasoning don’t equate to having evidence or data.

And since you are a scientist, and your claims are not a hypothesis or a theory, I have been asking for your sources - published alternative (scientific) theory or even a working theoretical & falsifiable hypothesis that have some published “verifiable evidence & data”.

What I mean by “alternative scientific theory”, is one or more peer-reviewed sources.

Any published scientific theory should have test results (meaning “data”) from observations of evidence or experiments, or both. So would any working hypothesis.

For instance of a “working hypothesis”, there have been a number of experiments of Abiogenesis hypothesis for decades, since 1952 (Miller-Urey experiment, but also other experiments, eg Joan Oró (1961, and again 1967), Jeffrey Bada (early 2000s).

These experiments show how certain inorganic matters plus some sort of heat sources, will trigger chemical reactions to produce amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, as Miller have demonstrated, or amino acids plus nucleotide bases, eg adenine, as Joan Oró shown in 1961 & 1967.

You have yet to present evidence that “all life” change instantaneously, or evidence of consciousness in “all life” being essential required for changes in species.

This “ALL” life is bold claim, but all without substances, without observed evidence.

 

[cladking]

You do not understand what fitness is. You hang on a poor description of biological fitness that has no modern value if it ever had any. You have no clear idea what fitness is and equate it to some ability like speed or strength.

Your definition is a circular argument. Fitness leads to success which leads to change in species. Nature does not select by strength, color, intelligence, size of beak, etc, etc, etc, etc. Nature selects nothing at all. There is no magical entity that determines what is best suited for an environment and then supports that instead of anything else. There is no mystical force that slowly changes species to better themselves or their place in their niche. Species simply change as soon as is needed. All the genes from the parent species are preserved in the new one.

The fossil record does not prove that species change slowly based on survival of the fittest or by mother nature determining which individuals are more worthy.

You are simply obfuscating the issue,. You are using your typical semantical argument much like the rest of the post.

 

[cladking]

They may be sick, lame or defective due to their genotype and thus are likely to have a reduced fitness.

This is possible but mostly irrelevant because the sick, lame, and defective are quickly removed from the population and are typically excluded by sexual selection.

 

[cladking]

You don't present evidence. You were asked for sources about your claims of Darwin and you didn't present evidence. You turned your response into an insult and then posted a meaningless quote that did not address the request.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Reread the post #847.

I gave him exactly what he asked for after he called me ignorant (not that this is far off).

 

[cladking]

"I've said countless times that ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE. All the support and links I need are in the previous statement."

You keep saying this, but you have presented any.

Did you intentionally highlight the wrong statement???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure you must have. How many times can I say this same thing in how many ways until you take my meaning?

Everything is being misinterpreted. It is a paradigmatical and metaphysical issue. All life is consciousness and individual so can not be factored out. Experiment must be correct by definition but our interpretation is NOT.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Your definition is a circular argument. Fitness leads to success which leads to change in species. Nature does not select by strength, color, intelligence, size of beak, etc, etc, etc, etc. Nature selects nothing at all. There is no magical entity that determines what is best suited for an environment and then supports that instead of anything else. There is no mystical force that slowly changes species to better themselves or their place in their niche. Species simply change as soon as is needed. All the genes from the parent species are preserved in the new one.

The fossil record does not prove that species change slowly based on survival of the fittest or by mother nature determining which individuals are more worthy.

You are simply obfuscating the issue,. You are using your typical semantical argument much like the rest of the post.

It isn't a circular argument. If you truly understood what fitness means, then you would know that.

Now you're saying nature doesn't select when you just previously said that it does. You can't get your story straight.

The theory of evolution and science does not claim magical entities. Where are you coming up with this nonsense?

Species change as soon as needed? Needed by whom? It sounds like you do support some magical system.

It is not true that all the genes from the ancestral species are preserved in a derived species. They could be, but it is not a given.

You are right, it does not show slow change based on survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest is not a criteria used in evolution. It is a mantra you use to fill in the obvious gaps in your knowledge.

I am not obfuscating the issue, but it appears you are trying to do that by saying so.

It is not a semantic argument.

You do not offer evidence.

You do not understand science or biology based on what you post.

You do not defend your claims with evidence or explanation.

You do not have a theory. You have conjecture based on what appears to be a false sense of understanding.

You cannot even address what people actually post.

 

[cladking]

I gave him exactly what he asked for after he called me ignorant (not that this is far off).

Of course I'm ignorant and I don't even believe in "intelligence" but this doesn't make me wrong or stupid. We should be arguing the facts and logic but believers are the last people who want to do this. I find myself doing more searches reading posts by the disbelievers because they are on subject where believers only want to lecture and cite Peers.

Again, I don't care about anyone's opinion. I'm pretty tired of hearing the opinion of Peers in Evolution. I have heard their opinions for too man decades and it's been a very long time since I thought they were probably right. We're well into the 3rd millennium now and there is still no experiment or conclusive test that says that any major species (all internal consciousness and memory) gradually evolved through survival of the fittest.

Why the word games? Address the argument.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Reread the post #847.

I gave him exactly what he asked for after he called me ignorant (not that this is far off).

You gave him a quote. You didn't provide sources to the statements about Darwin in your post. You made an insult out of your post instead of providing those sources. Apparently, and not unexpectedly, you could not provide any. He did not call you ignorant. He asked a question that many of us probably ask ourselves all the time. Why do you enter this debate when you so clearly do not understand.

I have years of education and even more years researching and I have never run across someone that believes they know so much about science when they clearly do not as evidenced by your many posts.

I don't doubt you find it interesting and even like science from a non-practitioners perspective, but your conjecture and flights of fantasy are not science or replacement for facts.