Evolution of what?

[gnostic]

A

That's interesting because I don't think one can test Intelligent Design. That is probably not the best term for what I believe, but I do believe there is an originator of life. People have different ideas about God, what He created, what He does, etc. I do not agree with all their ideas, and so even the idea of intelligent design can be misleading. The Bible says (and I believe it), "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." There is nothing to show/prove/demonstrate or evidence otherwise.

if you really understand what science is, you would know that any hypothesis or theory must be at least, “testable”. That means the hypothesis or theory is “falsifiable“.

Hypothesis is a set of proposed explanations and proposed predictions. And there are only one to know if it is ”scientific“, and that’s TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS.

And the only to test the hypothesis is with observations, and these observations are any combination of the three:

• evidence
• experiments (that are repeatable)
• data.

For hypothesis, it is more than okay that the evidence and experiments DON’T SUPPORT the hypothesis, because then we know that hypothesis has been refuted. Because then we know that the hypothesis is weak, flawed or simply wrong, but the hypothesis is still falsifiable.

Intelligent Design doesn’t even meet this first requirement, “being falsifiable“, because it is untestable. If you cannot test & observe the Designer, then the whole Intelligent Design is unfalsifiable and untenable, and therefore there are no evidence to support ID. You cannot even refute Intelligent Design.

Sure, you may believe Intelligent Design if you want, but it is unscientific and it is wrong.

What you don’t seem to un is that ZERO EVIDENCE or the “absence of evidence” are much worse than a refuted falsifiable hypothesis. A zero-evidence claim is no better than believing in fairytale or believing in supernatural.

What you are accepting with Intelligent Design, is pseudoscience…it has no basis in reality…and the Intelligent Designer itself is unnatural.

And as to God (you cited Genesis 1:1…it is in the same boat as Intelligent DESIGNER…you cannot test & observe God any more than you test & observe the Designer or Zeus or Odin or Osiris or Brahma.

But no one is trying to claim Greek or Norse or Egyptian creation myths to be science. Strangely enough, it is only Christian creationists and Muslim creationists trying to mix their religions with natural sciences.

 

[YoursTrue]

Fish remain fish and the theory of evolution doesn't demand that they change or explain that fish will magically change into something else right in front of ones eyes either.

What it explains is that some line of fish evolved in response to the environment to the point that the descendants could exploit new niches including the shallows and eventually land.

Fish remaining fish is a variation of the old "if man evolved from monkeys (apes), then why are there still monkeys" that still gets repeated despite the rational explanations that have been provided since that question was first flung.

Ok. Does the theory demand that humans, gorillas, bonobos and the like came from or evolved from anUnknown Coom Ancestor?

 

[wellwisher]

"Evolutionists" are not obsessed with any chain. We accept evolution for the same reason we accept the germ theory: because there is abundant supporting evidence.
Yes, environments change. If organisms cannot adapt they die out. This has happened to most species we're aware of.

Because by "evolution" we mean biological evolution, driven by reproductive variation. The environment also changes, but by entirely different mechanisms.

Before there were any animals to evolve.

Evolution is also connected to natural selection which includes all the pressures from the changing environment. In the case of humans, human can change the environment, and therefore humans can alter the selective pressures of natural selection with all the unnatural addenda.

Part of the problem is science is based on specialties, where each speciality loses track of the forest; all of science, because of the trees; so many details of each local specialty. We end up with half-baked theories that work well close to the specialty, but need casino math fudge to work globally beyond the specialty into all of science.

Evolution will use reproduction, mutation variations and natural selection. The first two are tight science, but natural selection interface is left too nebulous and does not include the changing environmental parameters in great detail. This is deeper in the forest of science, where the vision of the biology specialty starts to get blurred and fuzzy. A better theory needs to be far sighted instead of just near sighted with dice and card fudge to approximate seeing further from a speciality center.

This is why I like water as the central variable. Water accommodates life, from day one, as well as weather, climate, oceans, geological change; erosion, rain forest and deserts, snow, etc. Life needs water and will follow the water. Water is also the foundation of chemistry and can interface quantum physics. DNA is too narrow to interface beyond the cell. Water can do that plus deal with the DNA for changes connected the impact of water; weather. It is a view from the hill that overlooks the forest. The details are thin but the bones are there.

I was talking with a friend, the other day, who likes to canoe in Maine during the spring thaw; 100 mile camping and canoe trip. We were talking about beaver dams and how they can flood an area and alter the selection parameters by forming ponds and lakes. Natural selection by beavers can alter the environment in one season, causing animals to migrate in and out of the area; deer to fish. Fossils and mutations may not tell the whole story for such rapid change in the fauna. The physical environment leads is this case for a second round of natural selection with the same already living critters.

 

[YoursTrue]

if you really understand what science is, you would know that any hypothesis or theory must be at least, “testable”. That means the hypothesis or theory is “falsifiable“.

Hypothesis is a set of proposed explanations and proposed predictions. And there are only one to know if it is ”scientific“, and that’s TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS.

And the only to test the hypothesis is with observations, and these observations are any combination of the three:

• evidence
• experiments (that are repeatable)
• data.

For hypothesis, it is more than okay that the evidence and experiments DON’T SUPPORT the hypothesis, because then we know that hypothesis has been refuted. Because then we know that the hypothesis is weak, flawed or simply wrong, but the hypothesis is still falsifiable.

Intelligent Design doesn’t even meet this first requirement, “being falsifiable“, because it is untestable. If you cannot test & observe the Designer, then the whole Intelligent Design is unfalsifiable and untenable, and therefore there are no evidence to support ID. You cannot even refute Intelligent Design.

Sure, you may believe Intelligent Design if you want, but it is unscientific and it is wrong.

What you don’t seem to un is that ZERO EVIDENCE or the “absence of evidence” are much worse than a refuted falsifiable hypothesis. A zero-evidence claim is no better than believing in fairytale or believing in supernatural.

What you are accepting with Intelligent Design, is pseudoscience…it has no basis in reality…and the Intelligent Designer itself is unnatural.

And as to God (you cited Genesis 1:1…it is in the same boat as Intelligent DESIGNER…you cannot test & observe God any more than you test & observe the Designer or Zeus or Odin or Osiris or Brahma.

But no one is trying to claim Greek or Norse or Egyptian creation myths to be science. Strangely enough, it is only Christian creationists and Muslim creationists trying to mix their religions with natural sciences.

While I realize there have been experiments with chemicals, or observation of natural reactions, these do not solidify the theory of evolution and..abiogenesis. yes I know that you or some scientists may not consider abiogenesis as part of or crucial to begin the process of evolution, but again, here is where I differ, since I believe that evolution or the theory of is impossible without something to start life. Or abiogenesis. You can't have one without the other.

 

[Revoltingest]

Many evolutionists are so obsessed with the idea of a chain of related animals that they forget that the environment around them must have evolved along with or faster than these animals' supposed biological evolution, or else they would not have survived in a hostile environment like the one that suggests a universe in formation.

Why do evolutionists limit their evolutionary theory only to animals, and forget about the environment that also had to be transformed to welcome them upon their "evolutionary" arrival?

For example: when did the water appear in the evolution of the animals?

It seems that you're unaware of how we consider
the environment as integral to the process of evolution.

 

[Audie]

While I realize there have been experiments with chemicals, or observation of natural reactions, these do not solidify the theory of evolution and..abiogenesis. yes I know that you or some scientists may not consider abiogenesis as part of or crucial to begin the process of evolution, but again, here is where I differ, since I believe that evolution or the theory of is impossible without something to start life. Or abiogenesis. You can't have one without the other.

a. It makes no difference in ToE whether
life originated in a pond or via pixie- poof.

b. There is no data on origin of life.
Theoties require data.

Whete you " differ" from researchers is that they understand this. You dont.

 

[Heyo]

Sorry but it really does not show that they stay anything but fish.

Do you know how many species of fish there are, or genera, or families?
If a cow would give birth to a human you could, with the same ignorance, say "it's still a mammal".

 

[Subduction Zone]

@YoursTrue Tiktaalik is only one species of transitional fossils from the sea to the land. It clearly was still a "fish". It could walk across the bottom, which might have been highly useful in shallow water. I might have even walked up on the shore a bit, but studies indicated that it was more aquatic than not. But it is not the only one. It is merely famous because the theory of evolution was used to find it.

The article that the following image comes from goes into much more detail:

The Fish–Tetrapod Transition: New Fossils and Interpretations - Evolution: Education and Outreach

Our information on the transition between fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs and digits has increased manyfold in the last 15–20 years and especially in the last 5 or 10 years, with some spectacular finds of new material. Some of these include new tetrapod-like fish and very primitive...

evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com

 

[Audie]

It helps to have studied comparative vert anatomy,
and have an understanding of what youre looking at.

 

[YoursTrue]

Do you know how many species of fish there are, or genera, or families?
If a cow would give birth to a human you could, with the same ignorance, say "it's still a mammal".

LOL, thanks for my first out loud laugh of the day. No, I don't think I would say (still laughing here) that if a cow gave birth to a human that it's still a mammal. But!! are humans apes? (according, of course, to the theory of evolution)

 

[Dan From Smithville]

a. It makes no difference in ToE whether
life originated in a pond or via pixie- poof.

b. There is no data on origin of life.
Theoties require data.

Whete you " differ" from researchers is that they understand this. You dont.

It seems a fact that creationists don't get or want to get that there was not even any idea of how life originated when Darwin formulated and proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Well, other than various claims of some form of creationism perhaps.

The theory could not be based on any particular idea of the origin of living things, given that any natural origin was entirely unknown at the time. Darwin could and did speculate on the idea of the so called "warm little pond", but that was, as you point out, not integral to the theory.

You can tell this to creationists, point out the obvious, show the history and still they will ignore all that has been said and repeat that evolution relies on abiogenesis to occur.

To me, it is as if you are talking to a wall.

 

[John53]

It seems a fact that creationists don't get or want to get that there was not even any idea of how life originated when Darwin formulated and proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. I could not be based on any particular idea of the origin of living things, given that it was entirely unknown at the time. Darwin could and did speculate on the idea of the so called "warm little pond", but that was, as you point out, not integral to the theory.

You can tell this to creationists, point out the obvious, show the history and still they will ignore all that has been said and repeat that evolution relies on abiogenesis to occur.

To me, it is as if you are talking to a wall.

You have to wonder how many times it has to be explained that evolution doesn't care how life started.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I wonder how many times now, that it has been pointed out that evolution explains and predicts the relationship found in human evolution, but it is taxonomy that is the science that is used to group organisms by related traits and that it did not require a theory of evolution to do this.

Taxonomy predates Darwin.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You have to wonder how many times it has to be explained that evolution doesn't care how life started.

Many times and many more to come I predict.

I don't think you need special abilities to recognize evidence indicating that some people do not want to learn the science.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I wonder how many times now, that it has been pointed out that evolution explains and predicts the relationship found in human evolution, but it is taxonomy that is the science that is used to group organisms by related traits and that it did not require a theory of evolution to do this.

Taxonomy predates Darwin.

Not in the Kent Hovind school of creationism. It is all evolution or "Darwinism" from the Big Bang and everything on down.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Not in the Kent Hovind school of creationism. It is all evolution or "Darwinism" from the Big Bang and everything on down.

Is that pre-arrest/prison Kent or post? I can't think of anything really funny here and Kent really deserves something humorous to do him justice.

 

[YoursTrue]

I wonder how many times now, that it has been pointed out that evolution explains and predicts the relationship found in human evolution, but it is taxonomy that is the science that is used to group organisms by related traits and that it did not require a theory of evolution to do this.

Taxonomy predates Darwin.

So then are humans considered apes in the scientific sense? How about according to evolution? Are they in the ape family?

 

[exchemist]

So then are humans considered apes in the scientific sense? How about according to evolution? Are they in the ape family?

Google is your friend: Hominidae - Wikipedia

 

[Astrophile]

So then are humans considered apes in the scientific sense? How about according to evolution? Are they in the ape family?

Yes. Linnaeus (who was a creationist) classified us as primates in 1758, 101 years before the publication of The Origin of Species.

Why do you refer to humans as 'they'? Are you not yourself a human?

 

[Audie]

You have to wonder how many times it has to be explained that evolution doesn't care how life started.

Its creationists' secret weapon
to destroy evolution in one sentence