Scientific Evidence for Universal Common Descent

[Jim]

I am not even sure what specifically this is in response to.

It was in response to comparing my friendly conversations with @usfan to having friendly conversations with terrorists, bank robbers and other criminals, without caring about what they are doing to other people. What do you think I should do about his “criminal” behavior? Report it to the police, the FBI and the CIA? Report it to the principal, or go tell his mom and dad? The moderators? Maybe you think that there’s something happening here that none of the moderators have noticed yet? Are you afraid that what usfan is doing is going to force someone to take more meds, or commit suicide? Do you think that I might have some ideas about how to malign his character, capacities, motives and intentions, that no one else has thought of yet?

But in this case, it is my opinion that it amounts to trying to have a friendly conversation with someone who is trying to hold the rest of the group hostage.

I would say that bank robbers have personal views and it may be of some value to establish a dialogue with them. But missing that they are criminals and what that means, while trying to establish a dialogue about those beliefs, would be ignoring some very important and very relevant points.

 

[Thief]

Animals did not evolve from a plant ancestor.

so....none of the living plant life contributed to a line of divergence

and animals are a line of descent not at all tracing back to plant

oooops

in previous post......you agreed
at least it appeared that you did

we share a common genetics
tracing back to that primordial mud puddle

all life sharing that event

 

[Jim]

I think most of us have figured out that you were looking for very precise, specific statements ...

Actually I had forgotten, myself, why I was looking for clarification about “scientific consensus. My reason for that in the beginning was seeing some people being accused of rejecting the scientific consensus. Now I need to start all over. Sometime when I see that happening I might try to find out what it means to say that someone is rejecting the scientific consensus, and how that’s relevant to any discussion, without specifying what the scientific consensus is, and how it came to be called “scientific consensus.”

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It was in response to comparing my friendly conversations with @usfan to having friendly conversations with terrorists, bank robbers and other criminals, without caring about what they are doing to other people. What do you think I should do about his “criminal” behavior? Report it to the police, the FBI and the CIA? Report it to the principal, or go tell his mom and dad? The moderators? Maybe you think that there’s something happening here that none of the moderators have noticed yet? Are you afraid that what usfan is doing is going to force someone to take more meds, or commit suicide? Do you think that I might have some ideas about how to malign his character, capacities, motives and intentions, that no one else has thought of yet?

Now they are terrorist bank robbers. The comparison was not about you. It was about our host.

I am not suggesting you do anything. It just does not seem like you are aware of it, or are just not taking that into account.

You are making claims about the behavior of people on this forum. Don't you think it would be more honest to recognize all the behavior that is expressed here. I do.

 

[Subduction Zone]

so....none of the living plant life contributed to a line of divergence

and animals are a line of descent not at all tracing back to plant

oooops

in previous post......you agreed
at least it appeared that you did

we share a common genetics
tracing back to that primordial mud puddle

all life sharing that event

Plants did not appear until after the split with the common ancestor of plants and animals. That common ancestor was neither a plant nor an animal.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Nevermind. You guys make your tactics and preferences clear.

..just don't expect a rational, civil reply, to irrational, incivil posts..

LOL! Massive projection again.

 

[Jim]

@Jose Fly My current theory is that it’s part of the social problem that I’ve been discussing of people using the word “science,” fallaciously and with harm to all people including themselves, to validate to themselves and others what they are saying. What I think people are are really doing when they accuse people of rejecting the “scientific consensus” is depreciating and vilifying all the people with science degrees who disagree with them, and using dishonest polarizing opinion polls, and political statements from professional associations, to excuse and camouflage what they’re doing.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

so....none of the living plant life contributed to a line of divergence

Living plant species would be the most recent groups and species and evolved post-divergence. I am uncertain about the nature of the common ancestor between plants and animals or when that took place.

and animals are a line of descent not at all tracing back to plant

Only so much as the last shared common ancestor.

oooops

It is s a lot of stuff to remember and keep track with.

in previous post......you agreed
at least it appeared that you did

Sorry if I posted something that was not clear or was misleading.

we share a common genetics
tracing back to that primordial mud puddle

Sometime after that, when the first life emerged.

all life sharing that event

As far as we know. The roots of the tree are very murky due to horizontal gene flow.

Ultimately, the evidence indicates that all living things come from a common origin. After that, evolution took over and different groups diverged from that common ancestry. As time progressed, these divergence events would not have been simultaneous.

The evidence indicates that all plants evolved from a freshwater organism that would have been a type of charophycean green algae. I am not sure when this is supposed to have occurred, but it would have been well past the divergence with the line that lead to animals. Land plants did not make the scene until about 450 million years ago.

 

[Subduction Zone]

@Jose Fly My current theory is that it’s part of the social problem that I’ve been discussing of people using the word “science,” fallaciously and with harm to all people including themselves, to validate to themselves and others what they are saying. What I think people are are really doing when they accuse people of rejecting the “scientific consensus” is depreciating and vilifying all the people with science degrees who disagree with them, and using dishonest polarizing opinion polls, and political statements from professional associations, to excuse and camouflage what they’re doing.

There is a reason that I try to get the science deniers involved in a discussion on the scientific method and what is and what is not scientific evidence and there is a very good reason that science deniers run away from such offers. Most of them do know that there is solid evidence for the theory of evolution and all they have is denial and personal attacks. If they learned both the scientific method and the concept of evidence they would be no longer able to deny without openly lying. They are trying to preserve plausible deniability as far as their actions go.

 

[Jim]

@mikkel_the_dane @Thief It just now dawned on me, some irony I see in the way that @usfan is using the words “scientific” and “evidence,” in this thread.

 

[Jim]

@usfan We might not be seeing the same problem after all. Part of the problem that I see is in the ways that people use the words “science” and “evidence,”and you appear to me to be using those words in exactly the same ways. We do seem to have a common view of the difference between the belief systems that people are calling “science” and substituting in the place of religious beliefs, and the kind of science that was associated with the explosion of modern technology. Also it looks to me like we both have the same nostalgia for the world of our childhood, but I think now that we were already living in a matrix then. I think that the stories that were fed to us then were just as fictitious as the ones we’ve seeing now, and for all the same reasons. Also I see a lot missing in your discussion of the benefits of science and technology. That might be because it’s outside of the scope of what you want to discuss, but I don’t see any sign of awareness of what you’re leaving out.

 

[Jim]

@usfan I’m still confused about what you think you’re doing. Are you picturing yourself as Davy Crockett at the Alamo? Husayn at Karbala? Sometimes I’ve pictured myself as a Man of La Mancha, the little drummer boy, or Dorothy of Oz. Do you actually have any hope of anyone benefiting from this? There I go again. I already have benefited from it, and someone else told me he has too. I still would like to know, can you imagine anything that you would count as evidence for common descent, other than eyewitness accounts?

 

[Jim]

Just out of curiosity, I did a Web search with these words:
fossil records within between species

I was wondering if there is anything in the fossil records showing stages of evolution from one species to another, ever, for any species, comparable to the stages that are seen within some species. One of the results that came up was this:

New technique fills gaps in fossil record

That looks to me like researchers juggling numbers around until the results come out the way they want them to. That could possibly result in some useful models, but it certainly is not a way of finding out what actually did happen.

Considering that, and some other things I’ve read, it looks to me like what researchers in evolution are doing with speciation is starting with the premise of common ancestry, and then trying to find ways to explain how that could be possible. Again and again, their explanations have failed in the face of paleontology. Even if they do find some plausible models, and those models turn out to be useful, that has nothing to do with the actual history of life on earth, and it is not a reason to denounce people for not believing in common descent, and depreciating their character and capacities.

I don’t think of history, including the history of life on earth, as something that can be true or false. It’s a model, and we don’t even understand what it is that we’re modeling. Models are more or less useful, depending on how they are used and what they are used for. It may or may not be true that most people with science degrees agree with imposing a premise of common descent on all research, and the models that result might turn out to be useful even if that premise is false. The people that I would most trust to construct a history of life on earth would be paleontologists, and I would hope that they would not allow that premise to be imposed on them.

In any case, I denounce tha use of any evolutionary theory to excuse and camouflage denouncing people for not believing in common descent, and depreciating their character and capacities.

 

[Jim]

Common ancestry is not a belief.

That isn’t how it looks to me. It looks more to me like an unfalsifiable axiom or premise. Can you imagine any way that it could be disproved?

 

[Jim]

Is there nobody here who will take the challenge for a rational debate on this topic?

Please give me an example of what you would count as evidence for common descent.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

That isn’t how it looks to me. It looks more to me like an unfalsifiable axiom or premise. Can you imagine any way that it could be disproved?

Correctly dated fossils of organisms significantly pre-dating their proposed evolutionary ancestors (pre-cambrian rabbits is the classic example), or a demonstration of entirely unique genotypes across phyla.

 

[Jim]

Is there nobody here who will take the challenge for a rational debate on this topic?

Tell me honestly. If, in fact, humans and other species did have a common ancestor, would there be any conceivable way for anyone to find anything that you would count as evidence for that?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You guys are funny.. kind of pathetic, but funny.

So, you figure, by berating and focusing on me, personally, and affirming your collective 'intelligence', by demeaning mine, this will substitute for 'scientific evidence!', in your world.

They're not talking about you. They are talking about the things you say.

EDIT: just noticed the thread has moved up some 40 pages since the post i'm apparantly replying to. Nevermind, didn't realise this when posting

 

[Jim]

I think that overlooking what is going on instead of following the evidence is a social problem. That one seeks to resolve perceived social issues by establishing a dialogue with different sides does not make one immune to confirmation bias.

I see this as vilification too, but I have been trying to discuss these things with you. You are basically dismissing sound arguments based on scientific principles and evidence as mere opinion. I think you are missing the facts of what is actually going on in this thread.

Right here you are accusing me of religious persecution and that is not the case and never has been. I could care less about the religious ideologies of the person making false claims about science and have not given any reason to conclude otherwise, yet here you are, claiming it anyway.

Now they are terrorist bank robbers. The comparison was not about you. It was about our host.

I am not suggesting you do anything. It just does not seem like you are aware of it, or are just not taking that into account.

You are making claims about the behavior of people on this forum. Don't you think it would be more honest to recognize all the behavior that is expressed here. I do.

That helps. As I understand it now, you have some concerns about what I’ve been doing in this thread, and I overreacted to your ways of trying to explain that to me. Sorry. I would like to discuss those concerns with you, but I would rather do it in some other thread.

 

[Jim]

@Dan From Smithville On second thought, maybe there’s nothing to discuss. Maybe you were just telling me your concerns about my behavior, and not inviting me to a discussion about it. I think that I overreacted to the way you described your feelings. I’ll try to remember that the next time.