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Darwin's Illusion

Audie

Veteran Member
It seems the mechanism of selection in ring species, is speciation by distance. Distance between populations is so great that gene exchange between the most distant populations is so greatly reduced that new species evolve that can breed with neighboring populations, but are incapable of breeding with more distant populations. In the case of ring species, distance is the barrier.

It is interesting that distance is a proposed mechanism for a population bottleneck of about 100,000 years ago in cheetahs. They expanded their range so rapidly, genetic variation was greatly reduced by the limitation of distance on gene introgression between populations over the new, expanded range. Their genetics was diluted by distance.
I had a Jewish boyfriend at, Uni
in NYC. We were idly wondering how
far into the past we'd have to go
( he imagined reception lines of ancestors,
in the aftrrlife) before finding a common ancestor.

I think his family line has gone its way, I mine for an awful lot of generations.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Interesting. A wild rabbit isn't likely to be munching a carrot.

Bottlenecks, as it has been pointed out many times, are not speciation events. A bottleneck involves a population and not an individual. It is the critical reduction of a populations size and genetic variation. They remain the species that they were.
Interestingly (and rather tellingly) @cladking has been told that (about rabbits/carrots) several times, right in this thread -- and yet he keeps repeating it. Does that say that he is either not reading what others write, or that he is incapable of or uninterested in learning? I'm sure it's one or the other.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
The main problem with the theory of evolution, as is, is it cannot make accurate future predictions. It is more like a catalog structure for the past; life forms as function of time, instead of a practical theory that can anticipate the future.

The main problem is the Life science, as a whole, are currently is too dependent on casino math; math of dice and cards. This particular math creates a mindset that the whims of the gods; Lady Luck, rule or decide the future. Evolution is set up similar to a lottery game. We have good records of who won in the past, but we have no clue who will win the lottery, today. This gap in the future, is how you get people to buy tickets; dreams and hopes. The Life Sciences need to leave the casino mentality and advance to their own age of reason; gamblers anonymous.

Darwin's theory of natural selection sounds rational and not interned to be just a lottery. It sort of sounds like Mother Nature making a sober choice; nature is very healthy. I do not interpret national selection to mean Mother Nature spinning the big wheel to pick the daily numbers.

Science was moving along with the rational ideas of Darwin, but it went to the casino one day, and never came out. Darwin did not do or endorse this. This explains why Evolution is the only "science", that "feels the need" to compare itself to religion theory. The battle comes down to the gods of cards and dice, versus the God of Hosts.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
The main problem with the theory of evolution, as is, is it cannot make accurate future predictions. It is more like a catalog structure for the past; life forms as function of time, instead of a practical theory that can anticipate the future.

The main problem is the Life science, as a whole, are currently is too dependent on casino math; math of dice and cards. This particular math creates a mindset that the whims of the gods; Lady Luck, rule or decide the future. Evolution is set up similar to a lottery game. We have good records of who won in the past, but we have no clue who will win the lottery, today. This gap in the future, is how you get people to buy tickets; dreams and hopes. The Life Sciences need to leave the casino mentality and advance to their own age of reason; gamblers anonymous.

Darwin's theory of natural selection sounds rational and not interned to be just a lottery. It sort of sounds like Mother Nature making a sober choice; nature is very healthy. I do not interpret national selection to mean Mother Nature spinning the big wheel to pick the daily numbers.

Science was moving along with the rational ideas of Darwin, but it went to the casino one day, and never came out. Darwin did not do or endorse this. This explains why Evolution is the only "science", that "feels the need" to compare itself to religion theory. The battle comes down to the gods of cards and dice, versus the God of Hosts.
This is simply untrue. There are multiple experiments in which scientists have predicted how organisms would respond to environmental pressures, set up the required experiments and let them run. And lo and behold, organisms did just what was predicted. Here are just two of them:


 

Audie

Veteran Member
The main problem with the theory of evolution, as is, is it cannot make accurate future predictions. It is more like a catalog structure for the past; life forms as function of time, instead of a practical theory that can anticipate the future.

The main problem is the Life science, as a whole, are currently is too dependent on casino math; math of dice and cards. This particular math creates a mindset that the whims of the gods; Lady Luck, rule or decide the future. Evolution is set up similar to a lottery game. We have good records of who won in the past, but we have no clue who will win the lottery, today. This gap in the future, is how you get people to buy tickets; dreams and hopes. The Life Sciences need to leave the casino mentality and advance to their own age of reason; gamblers anonymous.

Darwin's theory of natural selection sounds rational and not interned to be just a lottery. It sort of sounds like Mother Nature making a sober choice; nature is very healthy. I do not interpret national selection to mean Mother Nature spinning the big wheel to pick the daily numbers.

Science was moving along with the rational ideas of Darwin, but it went to the casino one day, and never came out. Darwin did not do or endorse this. This explains why Evolution is the only "science", that "feels the need" to compare itself to religion theory. The battle comes down to the gods of cards and dice, versus the God of Hosts.
No, it's not a problem with ToE,
but you do reveal a huge problem
with your comprehension of math,
and the nature of science.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
... This explains why Evolution is the only "science", that "feels the need" to compare itself to religion theory. The battle comes down to the gods of cards and dice, versus the God of Hosts.

There is no " religion theory" that relates in any way to evolution. The Bible has fanciful,stories, perhaps intended to be literal, perhaps symbolic; who knows. But no theory in any religion.

IF there were a theory", it would be an explanation for a body of data. That's what a theory is.

There is zero data for this so called " religion theory".

i suppose there is a comparison there, between
ToE, which is a theory, and whatever " religion
theory" might be. The comparison boils down to
the comparison between something, and, nothing.
A theory and no theory at all.


A subset of nominal "Christians" feel a need to
dispute the reality of evolution, though they have not one fact to present against it.

Those "Christians" are characterized by profound
ignorance of science and / or a habit of intellectual
dishonesty.

The flow of intellectual progress will continue regardless of such rather pathetic countercurrents and eddies, and their load of flotsam,
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
No, it's not a problem with ToE,
but you do reveal a huge problem
with your comprehension of math,
and the nature of science.

Yeah, your cultural understanding in effect of science as having apparently learned science in the USA or mine as Danish.
Both are non-religious, but they are not the same.
Now what?
 

gnostic

The Lost One
No. The species changed. It changed when the egg was fertilized and the change becomes permanent when the baby has off-spring and begin a continuous link of its genes. All of these changes are sudden and even the unbroken chain of the genes begins suddenly with a single birth.

This paragraph is clear example of just how very little you understand Evolution.

Yes, a person go through a number of stages during his or her lifetime: fetus, infancy, preadolescent, adolescent & adulthood, none of these stages are speciation.

Seriously, you need to go back to high school, and learn basic biology, and basic evolutionary biology, because it all sorts of wrong.

You are using words that you don’t even understand, thereby you would apply faulty usages of the words.

Which leads to another example of you redefining words (eg speciation, species) to mean something else. You are playing word games, but games you are playing - they are all wrong.

The problem is, that you have no interested in learning sciences, that don’t agree with this fantasy you have made up, that you have mistaken for reality. You need help...lots of help, to untangle all the misinformation you have accumulated in your head.
 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It seems the mechanism of selection in ring species, is speciation by distance. Distance between populations is so great that gene exchange between the most distant populations is so greatly reduced that new species evolve that can breed with neighboring populations, but are incapable of breeding with more distant populations. In the case of ring species, distance is the barrier.
I understand that as a series of founder effects rather than the result of competition for scarce resources. It was no only a good example of speciation, but a rebuttal to the claim that speciation was only the result of niches changing.
Science was moving along with the rational ideas of Darwin, but it went to the casino one day, and never came out.
Here's what I call the theory-in-crisis claim so often seen in critics of evolution. Cladking goes there as well. It's the implication that the scientists have taken a wrong term somewhere that has cost them, something that needs to be corrected. But they can never show us just what that problem is, what harm it is doing, or how whatever they recommend instead can help. You might think from their telling of the crisis that if one went to a symposium of experts, that they would be in a state of chaos and disorganization, perhaps wondering about their future in a science in such disrepair. Instead, we find consensus up until the most recent issues being decided, and progress continuing unimpeded. False alarm.
The main problem with the theory of evolution, as is, is it cannot make accurate future predictions.
But it does. Others have explained. A theory has to be falsifiable to be called scientific. It has to make claims about the future that might be shown wrong. The theory predicts that that will never happen. The theory predicts that the results of animal testing can be valid for human beings. The theory predicts that viruses might mutate and vaccines become less effective.
Again! Darwin used "survival of the fittest"
Apart from that being technically incorrect, it's irrelevant to my comment, which is that *I* didn't use that phrase in my definition of adaptation which you misquoted by inserting that phrase into it for me.
No. The species changed.
Do you mean physically such as morphologically? Both occur with evolution. The gene pool changes and with it, structure and function.
All of these changes are sudden and even the unbroken chain of the genes begins suddenly with a single birth.
Yet evolution remains gradual. The individual changes are discrete events as you suggest, coming in packets (individual births), but the process is cumulative over indefinite periods of time - billions of years already.
If every child is the same species as its parent then we are homo erectus.
No. We are Homo sapiens.

Did you look at the sorites paradox when I presented it? It refers to transitions with no clear line of division. At what precise moment did it become light out this morning? When does stubble become a beard and what is the first moment of baldness? With what birth did the first Homo sapiens appear?
Actually definitions can be circular.
Agree. They can be tautological if one uses the definiendum as the definiens, as with 'Truth (definiendum) - that which is actually true (definiendum).' But that didn't happen here, and that wouldn't be a circular argument since it isn't an argument.

By any name it's a circular argument because no matter which individual survives you can just point to it and say "see it was fittest"
It's not an argument. It's a definition.
If you give a bunch of dogs enough poison to kill 90% of them you have not proven the fittest 10% survived.
Disagree. This is how bacterial resistance to antibiotics occurs. The survivors who then go on to reproduce and generate more copies of themselves have been naturally selected.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
scientists have taken a wrong term somewhere that has cost them, something that needs to be corrected. But they can never show us just what that problem is,

I've laid out more than a dozren places Darwin went wrong including four times in the last few pages I said "Darwin assumed populations were stable". THIS is just one of the places Darwin went wrong. You can't see species change at bottlenecks if you believe there are no bottlenecks.

Now go ahead and ignore this again so I don't have to repeat all his other errors as well.

For the uninitiated this post is invisible to believers.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
if one went to a symposium of experts, that they would be in a state of chaos and disorganization,

You mustta been to an Egyptological symposuium lately.

Apart from that being technically incorrect, it's irrelevant to my comment, which is that *I* didn't use that phrase in my definition of adaptation which you misquoted by inserting that phrase into it for me.

And here I believed the problem with my terminology was that "Evolution" and "Adaptation" were as much synonyms as "life" and "consciousness".
Do you mean physically such as morphologically? Both occur with evolution. The gene pool changes and with it, structure and function.

I define speciation as a fundamental change in behavior caused by a change in the genetic make-up. This can be gross or highly subtle. Proto-humans were identical to homo sapiens in every way except they lacked the ability to to manipulate language using higher brain functions. they had no complex language so every individual started at square one. Homo sapiens were able to climb on the shoulders of giants through commanding a complex language I call "Ancient Language". They were identical to us in every way except they lacked a broca's area that allowed the usage of abstract symbolic language that we use to communicate and to think. They didn't think, we do. Because we compare sensory input to our models and beliefs we delude ourselves into believing we know everything. Since everything we see is consistent with what we believe we mistake this for omniscience. This is why I call our very new species "homo omnisciencis" ("all knowing man").

Everyone on the planet either knows the "Tower of Babel" existed or knows as fact that the "the tower of babel" did not exist. We each know everything. It would never occur to the latter that stories can be true or to the former that it might be false.

One species can appear nearly identical to the one it replaces. When I use the word "adaptation" I'm am referring to less dramatic changes in behavior and genetics. These can occur over several or dozens of generations by a process that looks a lot like "survival of the fittest" but can be described in better terms. Again though, this is not "Evolution" because it occurs so rapidly. The difference between adaptation and speciation is causation principally. In adaptation the typical individual has about the same chance of survival if you factor out the cause of the change. In speciation it's the survival of unusual behavior driven by consciousness and unusual genes that drives the event. Odd individuals breed a new species.

Reality is very complex. There will never be a one size fits all answer to anything at all. Reductionistic science seeks such but it doesn't exist in a digital reality.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Did you look at the sorites paradox when I presented it? It refers to transitions with no clear line of division. At what precise moment did it become light out this morning? When does stubble become a beard and what is the first moment of baldness? With what birth did the first Homo sapiens appear?

These are all simple questions. First you define "species", "beard", etc and then you just look.

I believe the first homo sapien was called "S3.h" in Ancient Language and is remembered by a star. I'm guessing it was Polaris but this is not clear. His mate was a well spoken proto human named "Sopdet' (possibly Venus).

There are no paradoxes in reality. Reality is digital and forever changing in every way. All things affect all other things. All observed phenomena are "sudden". Nothing occurs gradually because reality is a series of events dependent on initial conditions. Things that appear gradual are actually a series events related to a (momentarily) continual process such as movements in the interior of the planet. If something appears gradual then you need to view it with a longer time frame.

This is how bacterial resistance to antibiotics occurs. The survivors who then go on to reproduce and generate more copies of themselves have been naturally selected.

This is highly predictable by either of our theories. But the drug resistant bacteria are hardly the result of any kind of "natural selection". Nothing can be less natural than humans discovering an antibiotic and administering it to anything that moves. Just as poisoning dogs is not natural. While something like a lake's salinity might increase in nature causing changes in the niche it is highly unlikely to create a new species. It merely changes the balance and natures of whatever lives in it.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The main problem with the theory of evolution, as is, is it cannot make accurate future predictions. It is more like a catalog structure for the past; life forms as function of time, instead of a practical theory that can anticipate the future.

The main problem is the Life science, as a whole, are currently is too dependent on casino math; math of dice and cards. This particular math creates a mindset that the whims of the gods; Lady Luck, rule or decide the future. Evolution is set up similar to a lottery game. We have good records of who won in the past, but we have no clue who will win the lottery, today. This gap in the future, is how you get people to buy tickets; dreams and hopes. The Life Sciences need to leave the casino mentality and advance to their own age of reason; gamblers anonymous.

Darwin's theory of natural selection sounds rational and not interned to be just a lottery. It sort of sounds like Mother Nature making a sober choice; nature is very healthy. I do not interpret national selection to mean Mother Nature spinning the big wheel to pick the daily numbers.

Science was moving along with the rational ideas of Darwin, but it went to the casino one day, and never came out. Darwin did not do or endorse this. This explains why Evolution is the only "science", that "feels the need" to compare itself to religion theory. The battle comes down to the gods of cards and dice, versus the God of Hosts.
It cannot make the hard predictions of physics, that is true. But it does make predictions that have been used to further the science. For example Tiktaalik was found by applying the theory of evolution to paleontology. They used when it should have roughly first appeared and the environment that it would have lived in and it applied that to known geology and found a likely source for it. Since that time other transitional fossils have been found using the same methodology. Originally finding fossils used to be more due to happenstance. In the last thirty years there was a boom in finding transitional fossils by applying evolution to finding its own data.

Predicting the future is very limited. But one does not need to predict just the future to make a science valid.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've laid out more than a dozen places Darwin went wrong including four times in the last few pages I said "Darwin assumed populations were stable". THIS is just one of the places Darwin went wrong.
That's a claim, not an argument. You had written, "scientists have taken a wrong term somewhere that has cost them, something that needs to be corrected. But they can never show us just what that problem is." Saying that this or that is a problem is just a claim until you can specifically identify a problem and demonstrate why you think it's a problem. Show where Darwin said what you claim he said. I'm hoping to eventually show you what it takes to convince so you'll stop making ineffectual comments.
Now go ahead and ignore this again so I don't have to repeat all his other errors as well.
Did you mean reject your unsupported claim again? Already done. This is the loop you're stuck in that I think you would appreciate being made aware of, but I need your cooperation to do that. You'll need to look at the suggestions and hopefully test them open-mindedly.
For the uninitiated this post is invisible to believers.
Not invisible. Ineffective.
I believed the problem with my terminology was that "Evolution" and "Adaptation" were as much synonyms as "life" and "consciousness".
OK. What is your position on that now? Mine is that biological evolution is a type of adaptation. They have a set-subset relationship.
I define speciation as a fundamental change in behavior caused by a change in the genetic make-up.
That's not a useful definition. If Dahmer's cannibalism impulse was in part or whole genetic, then we can say that evolution experimented and produced a cannibal. That turned out to be maladaptive behavior in Dahmer's environment, behavior that led to his incarceration and then murder, and he was removed from the gene pool before leaving offspring. But he wasn't a new species.
They were identical to us in every way except they lacked a broca's area that allowed the usage of abstract symbolic language that we use to communicate and to think.
It sounds like you have an interest in the neurology of speech. Broca's area is concerned with articulating speech. Strokes to this region don't impair understanding language, just the ability to speak, as if one had a stutter so bad that he couldn't express his thoughts to others. Wernicke's areas is concerned with comprehension. Strokes in this area result in words becoming meaningless sounds. In between comprehension and articulation is silent thought. Chomsky referred to neural circuits that facilitated language usage, but I don't believe he referred to specific brain areas.
They didn't think, we do.
Oe doesn't need language to think. My dogs think.
Because we compare sensory input to our models and beliefs we delude ourselves into believing we know everything.
I don't know anybody who believes that.
Since everything we see is consistent with what we believe we mistake this for omniscience.
Who are you describing? I frequently see things that I wasn't expecting, the evidence of which can change my mind.
Everyone on the planet either knows the "Tower of Babel" existed or knows as fact that the "the tower of babel" did not exist.
I have no opinion on that other than I don't believe it was the source of linguistic diversity, but maybe such a tower was built, maybe not. I don't have any means to rule either possibility in or out. It doesn't matter if the story is based in an actual construction project or not
this is not "Evolution" because it occurs so rapidly.
This has already been rebutted. It doesn't matter how quickly natural selection makes changes, it's still evolution by the definition of the word, which has no temporal aspect except that evolution occurs over time, whatever its rate. You didn't attempt to rebut that when it was presented, so I have no reason to change my position no matter how many times you repeat yourself if there is no attempt to falsify my position. And I remind you that falsify means more than just dissent with or without what you believe instead. Such responses do nothing toward resolution of differences in opinion as you might have noted. I'm hoping you'll eventually see the futility of that approach and change it.
These are all simple questions. First you define "species", "beard", etc and then you just look.
The problem is that none of those things can be defined precisely enough to allow one to pick a moment of transition, such as the moment when baldness begin following natural balding. They are known as vague predicates for that reason. Go ahead and try to define human being in a way that would allow one to recognize which birth produced the first human being and that it's parent wasn't human. You can't. That's the paradox: Though human beings once didn't exist and now do, there was no first human.
But the drug resistant bacteria are hardly the result of any kind of "natural selection". Nothing can be less natural than humans discovering an antibiotic and administering it to anything that moves.
Natural selection in this context is not referring to man selecting antibiotics, but to nature selecting which genomes survive them.
 
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cladking

Well-Known Member
Show where Darwin said what you claim he said. I'm hoping to eventually show you what it takes to convince so you'll stop making ineffectual comments.

I've already cited chapter and verse of Holy Doctrine several times including where He said that survival of the fittest is the most apt term for the cause of speciation. I've listed numerous of His logical and definitional failings. I know google sucks now but I wager you can find it as easily as I could.

Nothing will convince most people short of Peers telling them something new. But, of course, this won't happen because just like species science changes one funeral at a time. In fifty years the schools will just teach different claptrap about change in species as the final word about reality. The new claptrap will look more like my theory than Darwin's. The reality will be that new claptrap is still wrong but more realistic than Darwin's illusion. It will more closely approximate reality and better explain every observation and experiment to date. Much of the new paradigm will be based on things learned in the next half century to which I am not privvy but can predict to some limited extent.

Not invisible. Ineffective.

Almost everyone can see an anomaly sometimes. But then they quickly just fly out of the mind in most cases.

I frequently see things that I wasn't expecting, the evidence of which can change my mind.

You must interpret this "new" evidence in terms of what you already know. Sure, everyone but the most closed minded can learn or change. But we all still live in a world of our beliefs. We all build models to interpret things and very few people ever tear everything down and start afresh. I'm not even sure I could any longer but I did it a couple times as a boy when new facts came to light that didn't fit my models.

Of all things that exist that are least like they appear homo omnisciencis leads the list. We speak a highly confused language and there's no such thing as "intelligence" as we define it. Every individual of our species is vastly different but is still a product of his time and place. We are the only species to think and the only species not to experience reality directly. These are absolute truths that apply to every one of us. There are no "facts", "evidence" or theory that can create theory because all theory derives from experiment which is the only thing that must change your mind. But not even this changes most minds so science changes one funeral at a time.

Science is hardly "immune" from beliefs even performed properly because it is still founded on axioms and definitions. Darwin's illusions were all founded on 19th century logic. As I've suggested many times most "logic" performed by our species is more semantics than mathematics. You must factor abstractions out of equations if yo are to perform logic on them. There are no abstractions in nature and there were no abstractions in Ancient Language or in the languages of any other species. Induction might or might not create true statements and deduction can't be used on abstractions. Darwin used lots of induction.

I don't have any means to rule either possibility in or out. It doesn't matter if the story is based in an actual construction project or not

I agree entirely.

It sounds like you have an interest in the neurology of speech. Broca's area is concerned with articulating speech. Strokes to this region don't impair understanding language, just the ability to speak, as if one had a stutter so bad that he couldn't express his thoughts to others. Wernicke's areas is concerned with comprehension. Strokes in this area result in words becoming meaningless sounds. In between comprehension and articulation is silent thought. Chomsky referred to neural circuits that facilitated language usage, but I don't believe he referred to specific brain areas.

Very interesting. Thank you.

One of these days I'll have to focus more on this but now I'm still working on other things. I've believed that the ears are hooked up to wernickes and the tongue to brocas. What you say isn't entirely consistent with my model so my model might need to be repaired. Of course my models also says the entire brain and entire organism work in concert.

I'll have to think about this and then possibly study it.

Go ahead and try to define human being in a way that would allow one to recognize which birth produced the first human being and that it's parent wasn't human. You can't.

I already did. I believe it was "S3.h" and he was remembered by Polaris.

S3.h was a mutation that had his wernickes area more closely tied (more nerves) to higher brain functions allowing the invention of complex language. He taught the proto-humans around him as much as he could and his children were all born with the mutation that suddenly spread among the entire population creating the first human race. We are the second human race because S3.h's language became far too complex for the average man to use. This is the nature of metaphysical language; to reflect all knowledge and in this case to become overly complex.

No doubt the various dialects became a hodge podge of science much as our science is now fragmenting, becoming incomprehensible, and based less on metaphysics than appearances. I believe all ancient history and all ancient science was lost when the official language was changed.

The first human is by definition the first individual to act human and to breed true. This occurred some 40,000 years ago regardless of whom this individual was or how exactly he arose. I'm just mostly guessing here and trying to incorporate all knowns into a single theory. I am not an anthropologist nor a neurologist or any of the other 1000's of specialties that would be required to invent such a comprehensive theory.

You must filter out language and abstractions. In part this means defining each word in concrete terms. I prefer concrete terms that are the closest approximation and most descriptive of the concept or referent. A "human" must act human and have human genes to be called human. If there really were a gradual evolution then you'd just have to commit yourself to defining one as "human". But there is no such evolution and words are abstractions that mean something different to every user.

Reality is complex, there is no reason this must be true for language other than this is the way we like it. It's easier for truth and anomalies to get lost in words and not to assail our beliefs.

Natural selection in this context is not referring to man selecting antibiotics, but to nature selecting which genomes survive them.

But nature NEVER selects for tamer and tamer wolves so nature would never have invented dogs. Just as nature wouldn't poison even bacteria in humans and their food supply. Nature can do anything it wants but some things are very very highly improbable. Have you ever observed even the tiniest little vacuum while walking in the woods?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've already cited chapter and verse of Holy Doctrine several times including where He said that survival of the fittest is the most apt term for the cause of speciation.
I must have missed it.
I know google sucks now but I wager you can find it as easily as I could.
Google is fine, but I'm not motivated to go find the support for your claims.
everyone but the most closed minded can learn or change.
You had said, "Since everything we see is consistent with what we believe we mistake this for omniscience." Then this only applied to the closed-minded?
But we all still live in a world of our beliefs. We all build models to interpret things and very few people ever tear everything down and start afresh.
I did when I left Christianity, but have no need to do so again. The model I have used for decades now has served me well.
We speak a highly confused language
I don't think I do. Do you have trouble understanding me?
there's no such thing as "intelligence" as we define it.
There is as I and most others define it. In short, it's the ability to effect short-term goals, which means knowing what causes lead to what effects and how to make them occur.
Science is hardly "immune" from beliefs even performed properly because it is still founded on axioms and definitions.
Justified beliefs are helpful. We don't want to be immune from them. We should want to identify and collect them.
Darwin's illusions were all founded on 19th century logic.
And Newton's on 17th century logic. Pythagoreas' theorems are based in 5th century BCE logic. We still benefit from them all.
The first human is by definition the first individual to act human and to breed true.
How do you know when a mother who didn't act human produced a son or daughter who did? And I don't know what breeds true means.
A "human" must act human and have human genes to be called human.
What's your metric for determining which genes are human? What makes mom prehuman and sonny human?

Just as nature wouldn't poison even bacteria in humans and their food supply.
Many human beings have been poisoned eating natural substances.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Oe doesn't need language to think. My dogs think.

All species have language. But, I believe, no other species than ours (the 2nd human race) experiences thought. Yes, all other species think but they don't know they think. And they don't think anything at all like us. They have no symbolism and no abstractions. Dogs might be a tiny exception to this rule since they understand an abstraction like pointing but this is, I believe, highly unusual in the natural world.
 

Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
I understand that as a series of founder effects rather than the result of competition for scarce resources. It was no only a good example of speciation, but a rebuttal to the claim that speciation was only the result of niches changing.

Here's what I call the theory-in-crisis claim so often seen in critics of evolution. Cladking goes there as well. It's the implication that the scientists have taken a wrong term somewhere that has cost them, something that needs to be corrected. But they can never show us just what that problem is, what harm it is doing, or how whatever they recommend instead can help. You might think from their telling of the crisis that if one went to a symposium of experts, that they would be in a state of chaos and disorganization, perhaps wondering about their future in a science in such disrepair. Instead, we find consensus up until the most recent issues being decided, and progress continuing unimpeded. False alarm.

But it does. Others have explained. A theory has to be falsifiable to be called scientific. It has to make claims about the future that might be shown wrong. The theory predicts that that will never happen. The theory predicts that the results of animal testing can be valid for human beings. The theory predicts that viruses might mutate and vaccines become less effective.

Apart from that being technically incorrect, it's irrelevant to my comment, which is that *I* didn't use that phrase in my definition of adaptation which you misquoted by inserting that phrase into it for me.

Do you mean physically such as morphologically? Both occur with evolution. The gene pool changes and with it, structure and function.

Yet evolution remains gradual. The individual changes are discrete events as you suggest, coming in packets (individual births), but the process is cumulative over indefinite periods of time - billions of years already.

No. We are Homo sapiens.

Did you look at the sorites paradox when I presented it? It refers to transitions with no clear line of division. At what precise moment did it become light out this morning? When does stubble become a beard and what is the first moment of baldness? With what birth did the first Homo sapiens appear?

Agree. They can be tautological if one uses the definiendum as the definiens, as with 'Truth (definiendum) - that which is actually true (definiendum).' But that didn't happen here, and that wouldn't be a circular argument since it isn't an argument.


It's not an argument. It's a definition.

Disagree. This is how bacterial resistance to antibiotics occurs. The survivors who then go on to reproduce and generate more copies of themselves have been naturally selected.
Ring species are great examples of speciation. Of course that fact won't have any impact on someone that believes nonsense is fact.
 

Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
I must have missed it.

Google is fine, but I'm not motivated to go find the support for your claims.

You had said, "Since everything we see is consistent with what we believe we mistake this for omniscience." Then this only applied to the closed-minded?

I did when I left Christianity, but have no need to do so again. The model I have used for decades now has served me well.

I don't think I do. Do you have trouble understanding me?

There is as I and most others define it. In short, it's the ability to effect short-term goals, which means knowing what causes lead to what effects and how to make them occur.

Justified beliefs are helpful. We don't want to be immune from them. We should want to identify and collect them.

And Newton's on 17th century logic. Pythagoreas' theorems are based in 5th century BCE logic. We still benefit from them all.

How do you know when a mother who didn't act human produced a son or daughter who did? And I don't know what breeds true means.

What's your metric for determining which genes are human? What makes mom prehuman and sonny human?


Many human beings have been poisoned eating natural substances.
You are a much more patient person than I am. My level of tolerance for unsupported claims and wild, unsupported claims is much lower.
 

Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
I must have missed it.

Google is fine, but I'm not motivated to go find the support for your claims.

You had said, "Since everything we see is consistent with what we believe we mistake this for omniscience." Then this only applied to the closed-minded?

I did when I left Christianity, but have no need to do so again. The model I have used for decades now has served me well.

I don't think I do. Do you have trouble understanding me?

There is as I and most others define it. In short, it's the ability to effect short-term goals, which means knowing what causes lead to what effects and how to make them occur.

Justified beliefs are helpful. We don't want to be immune from them. We should want to identify and collect them.

And Newton's on 17th century logic. Pythagoreas' theorems are based in 5th century BCE logic. We still benefit from them all.

How do you know when a mother who didn't act human produced a son or daughter who did? And I don't know what breeds true means.

What's your metric for determining which genes are human? What makes mom prehuman and sonny human?


Many human beings have been poisoned eating natural substances.
I like the contradiction that humans, with our sophisticated brains, didn't have a language until, poof, magically we did, but every other thing, even without brains has language.

When someone embraces a position that all things are relative, yes and no is the right answer to everything and you lose the race by running the race and end up going no where. It's the strangest stuff I have ever read outside of a bad sci-fi novel.
 
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