Each event in time can be plotted on a timeline, with every event to the right representing later than moments, and every event to the left representing earlier than. There would be neither later than or earlier than points on the timeline if the past is eternal.
Then I shall discard your hypothetical situation as irrelevant: neither proving nor disproving anything on the table, and adding nothing of value to the debate.
I know it is tough, River. It is tough. I understand how difficult it is for you to come up with a half way decent answer as to how your birth would come to pass if an infinite number of births preceded it. Failure to answer the question doesn't do anything but let me know that I am on the right track.
All of this ducking, dodging, stalling, prolonging crap is well noted. Very well noted.
'Course not. But if a dog and a coyote to copulate, you'd get something that's neither dog nor coyote: we call it a coydog. Same with jackals and dingos. Domestic dogs are a subspecies of wolf (wolves are canis lupis, and domestic dogs are canis lupis familiaris.)
And the common ancestor that canis shares would have likely been able to interbreed with the common ancestor to vulpes (foxes), even though they can't now, being completely different animals.
If you accept the existence of a single common ancestor (more likely several common ancestors interbreeding) to canis and vulpes, then you accept all the biological mechanics necessary for there to have been a common ancestor to both canidae and felidae. Now, you'd have to go back quite far, to be sure; domestic dogs are more closely related to bears than they are to cats. Bears and dogs, in addition to pinnipeds (which includes seals), and musteloids (which includes otters, badgers, raccoons, etc.), are grouped under caniformia, or dog-like. The animals that fall under feliformia, or cat-like, include animals I'm sure you've never heard of, as well as cats, hyenas, and mongooses. Both groups share a common mammalian ancestor, categorized as carnivora.
All the children of any one generation of this carnivora, would have been the same species. But those children would have been very slightly different. The children of those children would have been still slightly different. This is the case in modern times. Now, give about 100 years, and the initial parents we started with will likely have several hundred direct descendents, each with a degree of genetic variance. Give 1,000 years, and they wouldn't recognize their descendents as related in any way. Give 1,000,000 years, and many of those descendents would have such vast genetic variance, that not only would interbreeding be impossible, but they'd not even look the same. Just as we don't look the same as our ancestors from 1,000,000 years ago.
Since you've never denied that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, with life appearing roughly 1-2 billion years ago(though there is still some debate about that), there's no reason why this can't extend far enough into the past.
If that's not enough, consider this: dogs are carnivorous, right? Well... not really, not anymore. Their diets nowadays consist of plenty of fruits and vegetables, which means that domestic dogs are, themselves, in a state of transition from full carnivore, to omnivore.
More bio-propaganda. You know, River...if you verbally expressed the above post word for word in a science class full of evolutionists...you know what you would be doing? PREACHING :yes::clap
Don't know. If infinite events cannot happen, then infinite time cannot happen, as you cannot have time without events, and you cant have events without time.
More bio-propaganda. You know, River...if you verbally expressed the above post word for word in a science class full of evolutionists...you know what you would be doing? PREACHING :yes::clap
My education is based on observation...the observation that animals will only produce what they are, not what they aren't. I refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what I, or anyone else has ever seen in the history of mankind.
My education is based on observation...the observation that animals will only produce what they are, not what they aren't. I refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what I, or anyone else has ever seen in the history of mankind.
Yes, your are way more gullible than you realize. The basic flaw in your thinking (well ... not thinking, but what you have been told) is that parents do not produce clones of themselves, their offspring are not identical to either parent, of for that matter, to other offspring of the same paring. These differences may help or hinder the offspring with respect to parents, siblings, and conspecifics. Those best equipped for the future will produce more (non-identical) offspring who are also more likely to do better than will conspecfics, thus the gene frequency changes in favor of those with the more fit genome. It is really quite simple. A rat does not become a bat overnight, or in one generation, or even at all ... an ancestral kind "becomes," over time, given genetic change and no gene flow, two different kinds, first two different species that even when their distribution brings them back together can not (or will not) mate and each of these new kinds goes on, in time, to become what it will, one a rat and the other a bat, with many other possible branches along the way. That, in a slightly simplified view, is how it works.
If you refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what your know-nothing preachers have told you, then there is no hope for you since that is the difference between being stupid and being just ignorant.
Yeah, but regarding events in time...those are POINTS...and if the past is eternal, no event would come to pass.
Each event in time can be plotted on a timeline, with every event to the right representing later than moments, and every event to the left representing earlier than. There would be neither later than or earlier than points on the timeline if the past is eternal.
A line is a line. In Euclidean geometry, all lines are effectively infinite, since the planes upon which they're placed are effectively infinite. They can still have points plotted on them, and still be measured. When you have two points that are a certain distance from each other on a line, the area between those two points is called a line segment.
This is basic high school geometry.
A line can be plotted easily, regardless of whether it's a line segment, or a true line.
There is no theoretical limit to how far you can zoom out, or how far you can magnify something. The further out you go, the less details one sees; the further in one goes, the more details one sees. Theoretically, this can be done infinitesimally. The coordinates for 0,0 on the plane is the place from which the distance is measured, and in terms of time, generally the present.
Failure to answer the question doesn't do anything but let me know that I am on the right track.
If P, then Q.
P is a fallacious argument.
Therefore, Q is false.
Objection Tom: All cats are animals. Ginger is an animal. Therefore, Ginger is a cat.
Bill: You have just fallaciously affirmed the consequent. You are incorrect. Therefore, Ginger is not a cat.
Tom: I speak English. Therefore, I am English.
Bill: Americans and Canadians, among others, speak English too. By assuming that speaking English and being English always go together, you have just committed the package-deal fallacy. You are incorrect. Therefore, you are not English.Both of Bill's rebuttals are arguments from fallacy.
Ginger may or may not be a cat, and Tom may or may not be English. That Tom's argument was fallacious is not, in itself, sufficient proof that his conclusion is false. Counterargument Joe: Bill's assumption that Ginger is not a cat uses the argument from fallacy. Therefore, Ginger absolutely must be a cat.
That one can invoke the argument from fallacy against a position does not prove one's own position either, as this would be an argument from fallacy itself, as is the case in Joe's argument.
Just as your failure to convince me doesn't automatically mean I'm "on the right track", my failure to convince you is no indication that you are, either.
I suggest you do some research into logical fallacies (it's something I should do more of, as well). It can help you formulate your arguments better, and be more academic and less emotional in argumentation. I recommend the Fallacy Files as a web resource: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/whatarff.html
My education is based on observation...the observation that animals will only produce what they are, not what they aren't. I refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what I, or anyone else has ever seen in the history of mankind.
My education is based on observation...the observation that animals will only produce what they are, not what they aren't. I refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what I, or anyone else has ever seen in the history of mankind.
Well it's a good thing there are so many hard working science "gurus" out there observing evolution in action because otherwise we'd all know as little as you do about the world around us.
Your "kinds" hypothesis doesn't make any workable sense, as many on this, and other threads have shown over and over.
Have fun wilfully wallowing in ignorance. It's your choice. But you don't get to pretend that evolutionary theory isn't scientific, testable or observable. It is all of those things, as evolution is one of the best attested theories in science, corroborated by multiple scientific disciplines and fields and multiple lines of independent research conducted over more than a century.
You can still have an infinite number of events with finite time(that begins and ends).
Don't know. If infinite events cannot happen, then infinite time cannot happen, as you cannot have time without events, and you cant have events without time.
Because any given object doesn't have to start at an infinite distance in time relative to a given event. Hence, I didn't traverse 13.7 billion years to get to my birth.
No, an infinite number of births preceding yours simply means that there were an infinite number of births prior to yours. Plain and simple
You're talking about it as if there's a specific starting point that something has to start from in time to lead to the present. That you have to prove first in order for the rest of your argument to be valid.
A line is a line. In Euclidean geometry, all lines are effectively infinite, since the planes upon which they're placed are effectively infinite. They can still have points plotted on them, and still be measured. When you have two points that are a certain distance from each other on a line, the area between those two points is called a line segment.
This is basic high school geometry.
A line can be plotted easily, regardless of whether it's a line segment, or a true line.
There is no theoretical limit to how far you can zoom out, or how far you can magnify something. The further out you go, the less details one sees; the further in one goes, the more details one sees. Theoretically, this can be done infinitesimally. The coordinates for 0,0 on the plane is the place from which the distance is measured, and in terms of time, generally the present.
My education is based on observation...the observation that animals will only produce what they are, not what they aren't. I refuse to go to schools where science "guru's" will tell me something different than what I, or anyone else has ever seen in the history of mankind.
Evolution does not require organisms to produce "something other than what they are" - it only requires organisms to produce A VARIATION OF WHAT THEY ARE!
Do you not understand that yet?? It's been explained to you on dozens of occasions! What about this is too difficult for you to understand??
Events are constantly coming in to existence, and out of existence. I am typing right now, that is an event that is currently happening, when I stop typing, that particular event would have been traversed into the next event that I partake in.
It is obvious that you are stalling...which is quite amusing, actually. But again, I understand how difficult the problem is for you to find a solution to the infinity problem.
I have a problem with the possibility of an actual infinity, not potential infinity. Unless you know the difference between the two, you wouldn't be giving statements like the above one.
You can have time in a universe where nothing CONTINUES to happen, meaning if everything became motionless, time would continue...but in order to have time at all, SOMETHING had to happen initially.
Because any given object doesn't have to start at an infinite distance in time relative to a given event. Hence, I didn't traverse 13.7 billion years to get to my birth.
Evolution does not require organisms to produce "something other than what they are" - it only requires organisms to produce A VARIATION OF WHAT THEY ARE!
Do you not understand that yet?? It's been explained to you on dozens of occasions! What about this is too difficult for you to understand??
But that's not the same thing as saying something produced something other than what it is. Elephants and snakes are both variations on living organisms that came before them.
Now, for once, I'd like you to actually answer a question I ask rather than dodging it: do you understand the difference between "reproducing a variation of what you are" and "producing something other than what you are"?
I await your answer, though I will not hold my breath.
1. I've already explained to you that your use of Voodoo in this manner demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of what Voodoo is, and thus tells me that you don't really care about accuracy. That's backed up by our occasional use of "close enough". That lack of care for precision and accuracy will only keep you from the truth, even of your own religion, let alone how the sciences work.
2. Snakes didn't even exist until well into the Cretaceous. That means late into the time of the dinosaurs. During this time, all mammals were rodent/shrew-like, and had been around for quite some time: longer, in fact, than the length of time between now, and the K-T event that killed the dinosaurs. The split between reptiles and mammals had already happened: we are closer in time to our mammalian common ancestor, than the first snakes were to the common ancestor between reptiles and mammals. This is observed in the fossil record.
An artistic recreation of one of the mammals from this time, repenomamus, eating a small dinosaur:
Worth noting that, from what I can see, repenomamus has no modern descendents, so no, you're not looking at your great*1,000,000 grandfather. This one died with the dinos.
...oh, and speaking of dinosuars, allow me to blow your mind again. Turns out, notall of the dinosaurs died at the K-T event. Some of them did, in fact, survive, and their descendents live among us today: members of the maniraptora clade, which also included dromaeosauridae(which includes the creatures mistakenly labelled as "velociraptors", but were more likely dromaeosaurae or perhaps utahraptors, in Jurassic Park), troodontidae (regarded as the "smartest dinosaurs"), and oviraptors. We call them birds. In fact, I promise you that you will laugh when you learn what the closest living relative to the T-rex is, and you'll laugh hard whether you believe it's true or not, I guarantee it. ^_^ (Not descendent, mind; tyrannosauroids have no living descendent. Just closest common relative; like a great*1,000,000 grand nephew, twice*1,000,000 removed).
(Side note: I'm really loving the existence of this thread; it's forcing me to go research this fascinating topic, and so I can learn things I never knew before).
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