Darwin's Illusion

[Dan From Smithville]

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.

No one is claiming you are stupid.

Your attempts to make peer review into some sort of global science conspiracy is an example of what I mean by not understanding. You clearly do not know what peer review means or what a reviewer actually does.

You are not arguing facts or using logic. You are making claims that are empty and you don't even offer a pretense of support for. You provide no facts. You don't have a theory. You have offered nothing meaningful that would cause anyone to reconsider their understanding.

Who are you talking to when you post to yourself? What sort of game are you trying to play doing that?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

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.

They are not excluded by sexual selection. They are excluded by natural selection. Do you know what sexual selection is, because your statement indicates that you do not.

The sick, lame and defective, depending on the timing, will likely either not reproduce or have a lower reproductive success than average. They are less likely to reproduce if at all. Thus they have lower fitness. Not all members of a population are equally fit. Even you say that, though you avoid admitting that for some weird reason that is not apparent.

 

[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).

That is not a source. It is a quote. It is not what was requested.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

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.

You claim to want to argue the facts and logic. Well, you have been rightly informed that survival of the fittest is a poor definition of natural selection and does not describe biological fitness at all. You have had this pointed out to you by a number of different posters many times. Given those facts, how rational is it that you continue to use it as if your incorrect version were a fact?

 

[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.

Actually, it is you that relies on semantic arguments. You modify the meaning of terms out of proportion of reason and utility to make many of your claims.

You modify bottleneck event to mean selection. You modify theory to mean your personal conjecture. You modify natural selection to mean survival of the fittest. It goes on. I haven't modified terms. I have tried to explain them to you and you apparently do not like their actual definitions.

 

[IThoughtAboutIt]

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.

LOL I’m sorry but this just cracks me up. I know there are plenty of people that argue from the position of their conclusion in order to support a biased interpretation of the evidence. I just didn’t expect such prominent examples of it on a debate forum. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it or checkout.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

LOL I’m sorry but this just cracks me up. I know there are plenty of people that argue from the position of their conclusion in order to support a biased interpretation of the evidence. I just didn’t expect such prominent examples of it on a debate forum. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it or checkout.

It is unfortunately common.

 

[IThoughtAboutIt]

.
I've said countless times that ALL experiment and observation support my theory preferentially to the ToE.

Say it 1 million more times. It still will not be true. HINT; Evidence works much better than random sound waves.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

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.

Beavers do not farm fish. Where do you come up with these things? Beavers are not carnivores and do not eat fish.

Evolution is the conclusion based on the evidence.

Some foxes might be lucky, but that does not mean all of them are. Are you going someplace with this or is it more irrelevant statements without connection?

 

[gnostic]

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?

Yes, he (@cladking) does.

He and others like him (@LIIA) think Darwin was the one who created the term "Survival of the Fittest" and wrote "Social Darwinism", I have told them it wasn't Darwin, it was the sociologist and anthropologist Herbert Spencer.

They both say it doesn't matter, and try arguing as if it was Darwin who made those things up.

What was cladking's response when I informed him Spencer, not Darwin, who coined Survival of the Fittest and Spencer being the author of Social Darwinism:

More semantics.

It's fact, not semantics.

He does that all the times. He won't admit he made errors, and he can never show evidence or data or peer-reviewed sources to support his personal opinions.

 

[gnostic]

Darwin has a good excuse for being stuck in the 19th century and believing in such things. We do not.

Again you are projecting your own failing on everyone else.

And this is hypocrisy too.

You claimed that we shouldn't accept old things (eg Darwin's Natural Selection), today, but aren't you forgetting that you are the one continuously postulating (without evidence) that 40,000 years ago, people spoke metaphysical language (which you called "Ancient Language") and they were true scientists (your "Ancient Science")?

There were some symbols here and there in prehistoric times, and you want to call it "metaphysical language", and yet you cannot even translate these symbols yourself, so how do you even possibly know it is "metaphysical"?

The symbols are not even written language, that image you keep posting up. Written languages required at least some pattern that can show words are string together in some context, but you cannot translate them, so you cannot conclude those symbols are metaphysical in meaning.

You say that science have to deal with evidence and logic, but claimed that fossil records are not evidence, but “INTERPRETATIONS” of the evidence. But what do you think you are doing when you are claiming untranslatable and indecipherable symbols, and yet you claimed them to be metaphysical language of science? Aren’t you making unsubstantiated “INTERPRETATIONS” about the symbols and their meaning? That’s more double standard from you.

Anyway, you are advocating "old things", prehistorical things - a language and science that don't exist 40,000 years ago, and you tell use we shouldn't be believe anything that are less than 200 years ago?

Again, you are no better than Graham Hancock, Eric von Daniken, and Immanuel Velikovsky, who all like to make up things that have no evidence to support their beliefs. You might as well as believe in Atlantis and alien abductions, while you at it.

 

[gnostic]

Your attempts to make peer review into some sort of global science conspiracy is an example of what I mean by not understanding. You clearly do not know what peer review means or what a reviewer actually does.

Only creationists and some people who have tried to publish their unsubstantiated pseudoscience claims, get “rejected” by Peer Review (PR), would complain the loudest about PR being some sorts of elaborated conspiracies.

 

[cladking]

Beavers do not farm fish. Where do you come up with these things? Beavers are not carnivores and do not eat fish.

Well this is very embarrassing. Thanks.

But the point stands because they create dams and grow water plants.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well this is very embarrassing. Thanks.

But the point stands because they create dams and grow water plants.

It is pretty much what I have come to expect of your level of biological expertise and why you have little credibility in what you say regarding biology.

What point? They don't farm fish. They don't grow plants. The fish already live there. The plants already grow there.

 

[cladking]

Your attempts to make peer review into some sort of global science conspiracy is an example of what I mean by not understanding.

No. You misunderstand. I have no problem with Peers or the Peer review process. I'm sure that for the main part peers do far more good than harm.

My problem is two fold. One, and less important, is that everything they do will tend to support the status quo and it's the status quo I hate. But the major problem is that many people believe Peers and science are infallible and that something can't be Science at all until a Peer says it is. "Peers" are irrelevant to science and the scientific method. They are extra-metaphysical but many encourage those who don't understand science to believe in Peers to feather their own nests.

Schools have failed and nowhere is this failure more pronounced than in teaching metaphysics. I guess it's easier to just teach hat Peers are the be all end all of science and drop it there instead of getting into critical thinking that smacks of philosophy. Just as biology has removed consciousness from the study of life Peers remove the need to understand how science works.

We've reached a point not where science understands the formatting of reality but that a formatting has been forced upon all and if you want to get funding you must work within it. We have essentially enshrined the status quo and no deviation, no science, and no research can even take place in this country unless it's sanctioned by Peers.

 

[cladking]

That is not a source. It is a quote. It is not what was requested.

Do you dispute Darwin said it?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What source would you trust? Would you need to sit and hear him say it? How would you know he wasn't reading from a script?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Do you dispute Darwin said it?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What source would you trust? Would you need to sit and hear him say it? How would you know he wasn't reading from a script?

This is another reason that calls your credibility into question. You were asked for the sources behind your claims. Not a quote about the person for whom you were making claims.

You are in an argument involving subjects you clearly do not understand using methods you clearly do not understand.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No. You misunderstand. I have no problem with Peers or the Peer review process. I'm sure that for the main part peers do far more good than harm.

My problem is two fold. One, and less important, is that everything they do will tend to support the status quo and it's the status quo I hate. But the major problem is that many people believe Peers and science are infallible and that something can't be Science at all until a Peer says it is. "Peers" are irrelevant to science and the scientific method. They are extra-metaphysical but many encourage those who don't understand science to believe in Peers to feather their own nests.

Schools have failed and nowhere is this failure more pronounced than in teaching metaphysics. I guess it's easier to just teach hat Peers are the be all end all of science and drop it there instead of getting into critical thinking that smacks of philosophy. Just as biology has removed consciousness from the study of life Peers remove the need to understand how science works.

We've reached a point not where science understands the formatting of reality but that a formatting has been forced upon all and if you want to get funding you must work within it. We have essentially enshrined the status quo and no deviation, no science, and no research can even take place in this country unless it's sanctioned by Peers.

None of this is factual. It is just your belief system.

 

[cladking]

Yes, he (@cladking) does.

I take NO source as gospel. Where you want to judge the source instead of the evidence I care only about the evidence and logic and don't care one whit about how I acquire it. But this is because you are making a very fundamental mistake; you believe evidence is science. You believe evidence is theory. So to you sources have to be vetted so you don't get the science wrong. The reality is evidence can only be used to formulate hypothesis and has nothing to do with theory. As such if I get bad evidence (like beavers eating fish) it has no effect at all on my theory because my theory is the product of experiment and logic.

 

[cladking]

It's fact, not semantics.

You can write an 8000 word definition of "natural selection" and anyo9ne can properly call it "survival of the fittest". Mere words and fixation on words is semantics. Any argument that relies on mere words is a semantical argument which isn't really an argument at all but is mere word play.