The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[cladking]

In terms of mutations, true.

Not really. Smaller changes can and have led to much larger changes if given enough time. IOW, they "add up". The gradual enlarging of the human brain, as well as some reconfigurations of the brain, skull, and the birth canal, are just one area of myriads of examples can be observed.

I don't disagree.

But we are extrapolating the "smaller changes can and have led to much larger changes' to apply to almost all change. Worse is that we are assuming most of these smaller changes are caused by "survival of the fittest" which is probably not true in the majority of instances. Species change but this knowledge does not imply we know the mechanisms or understand. We can not predict and we don't understand what has already occurred. We believe we do.

 

[tas8831]

I can't prove a negative.

I didn't ask you to.

You claimed that all change is sudden, I asked you for evidence FOR that.

It is YOUR JOB to show some change that is gradual.

You asserted that change is sudden, yet presented no evidence.
Now you are engaging in the fallacy of shifting the burden.

I made no claim regarding the speed of change, YOU did.

You cannot possibly think that you are so clever so as to be able to get away with this sleazy, pathetic antic, can you?

ALL OBSERVED CHANGE IN ALL LIFE ON EVERY LEVEL IS SUDDEN.

And there you go.

A mere repeated assertion.

WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE FOR THIS?????

It is YOUR JOB to show ANY CHANGE AT ALL to individuals, species, or any life on any level that is gradual.

And it is your job to provide evidence for your ASSERTION "ALL OBSERVED CHANGE IN ALL LIFE ON EVERY LEVEL IS SUDDEN."

Why do you think you have no burden of proof?

Who do you think you are?

But here you go, superstar - I will indulge your egotistical fantasies if only to demonstrate how disingenuous and dishonest you are -

Your "challenge":

It is YOUR JOB to show ANY CHANGE AT ALL to individuals... that is gradual

OK - it takes a human ~ 12-15 YEARS to reach sexual maturity from the zygote stage.

It is NOT "sudden."

Your silly challenge is met.

YOUR TURN.

You are the one who maintains that species change gradually through "survival of the fittest".

I have never said, written, or agreed to any such claim, for I am not so self-indulgent and stupid as to think that evolution = "survival of the fittest."

I do not pretend to understand things I do not, unlike the guy guy that thinks he knows more about the pyramids than actual pyramid researchers, more about biology than actual biologists, more about neuroscience than actual neuroscientists, etc., while writing truly stupid things like how "broccas area" (can't even spell it correctly) is both "bifurcated" and found in the "middle of the brain."

You are the one that claims changes in individuals and species is sudden - WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE???

Show it! Try showing a fossil of something that gradually changes into something much different.

Are you really this dense, or this desperate? How would a fossil change into something else? Dumb...

"Horse" is the best example that comes to mind but this isn't so gradual (think punctuated equilibrium) and today's horse isn't so much different than fossil horses as it is smaller.

And dumber...

Modern horses are MUCH larger than fossil forms.

Is there ANYTHING you actually understand above a middle-school level? It seems not.

You are the one that claims changes in individuals and species is sudden - WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE???

Yes, I agree horses "evolved" into what we see today but I do not agree that it was caused by "survival of the fittest"

Please provide a quote from an actual biologist in which they claim that evolution proceeds via "survival of the fittest."

Again, is there ANYTHING you understand above a middle-school level?

Looking and seeing the fossil record is Look and See Science and this is NOT SCIENCE AT ALL.

What super genius wrote this:

"It's easier to study things you can see."

A guy that claims it is a problem of language when you were called out for claiming something stupid like 'broccas area' is "bifurcated" is not worth wasting time on for their opinion on what constitutes 'science.' You seem to think that merely asserting something is science.

it isn't.

You are the one that claims changes in individuals and species is sudden - WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE???

Looking and seeing is at best a means of inventing hypothesis but NOT THEORY.

Good thing nobody 'looked and saw' and claimed it was a theory.

You are the one that claims changes in individuals and species is sudden - WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE???

Even scientists now days rarely seem to understand metaphysics and epistemology.

And dopes that cannot understand science pretend that they know more about it than they do.

We are living in the dim ages and heading for a new dark ages.

Thanks to people like you.

You failed and flailed in your sad reply to me, as is your norm. And I'm guessing that you are too self-absorbed to realize it.



You are the one that claims changes in individuals and species is sudden - WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE???

 

[rrobs]

Sorry, that does not really help either. Read that in context. He was referring to the disciples and their word. That is not about the Bible. The "thy" in that verse does not refer to God, but to the disciples. Quote mining almost always gives an incorrect interpretation. By that standard the Bible says "there is no God" twelve times. Unfortunately my source for that is gone. I can give a few of them but not all. Of course those quotes are taken out of context. It is an example of quote mining used to demonstrate that one should not quote mine to support or oppose an argument. Always read the Bible in context.

What's wrong with God inspiring men to write what other men said?

 

[tas8831]

I listed several examples in this very thread within the last two days.

Didn't see them, I will look. But I am guessing what you claim to have done and what you actually did are 2 very different things.

If I list them again you won't see them again just like you don't see the evidence I post.

I've never seen you post actual evidence for anything, this is true. because you do not seem to understand what actual evidence is.

I'm not new at this.

True - which makes it all the more staggering that you are so bad at it.

 

[gnostic]

I keep presenting evidence and you keep ignoring it.

You mentioned "tested methodology" in another post. Nothing underlies theory other than the scientific method and it employs experiment. Without experiment there is only Look and See Science.

I do sympathize though.

You keep saying “Look and See”, but you are refusing to acknowledge that when you are performing experiments are observing the results.

Testing is a very important part of Scientific Method, and that is observation.

And there are two methodologies for scientists to make observations:

1. Finding evidence in the fields, hence fieldworks.
2. Finding evidence through experiments in a controlled environments, like a laboratory.

Both methodologies are valid, and ideally if you can do both, that’s even better. The more observations you can achieve, the better it is. It doesn’t matter if the evidence or observations occurred in the fields or in the labs.

You being ignorant if you think that experiments don’t involve observations.

 

[gnostic]

What's wrong with God inspiring men to write what other men said?

Because inspiration don’t necessarily mean they are true.

Most inspiration come from making things up, like stories.

Stories like creating light from nothing, or transforming lifeless dust into living adult human being, or talking serpent or donkey. These are all made up stories - they are made up allegory, myth or fable.

 

[rrobs]

You don’t know me so don’t judge.

I was believer in the Bible for years, since my older sister gave me a bible as a present when I was 15, and though I nearly joined a couple of churches, the first one being my sister’s, I never did join any church.

My point is that even without joining a church, for 19 years I believed in the Bible, so I am quite familiar with church teachings and Christian interpretations of the Bible.

Of those 19 years, 14 years of those years I was in hiatus, didn’t seek any more churches to join, because I was busy with my life (first with studies, then with works), but I still believed in the Bible.

Then one day, while I was researching Joseph of Arimathea for my website Timeless Myths in 2000 (then age, 34) - I came to realization that the gospel’s quoting Isaiah’s sign about the virgin and Immanuel - have completely taken Isaiah 7:14 out of context.

So for 19 years, I believed in the whole Bible for 19 years, and took Matthew’s version and Christian interpretation of the sign at face value or for granted, without cross-referencing Isaiah 7:14.

Matthew’s version of Isaiah’s passage is taken out of context, because it left out the rest of sign regarding to Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14-17). The sign was about the war Ahaz have with his enemy rulers from Israel (Pekah) and Aramaic Damascus (Rezin) (see Isaiah 7:1, and the sign is really about Assyria’s interventions in the war. Assyrian army would save Judah, when the boy Immanuel would be old enough to eat honey and curds, old enough to know right from wrong.

A similar sign was given in Isaiah 8:3-4, reinforcing the boy in the sign was Isaiah’s own son. Immanuel (in 7:14-17) is the same person as Maher-shalal-hash-baz (8:3-4), both relating a sign when the king of Assyria will capture cities in Israel and Aram.

I read both gospel of Matthew 1 and Isaiah 7 & 8 countless times, but I didn’t understand it until 2000 that Isaiah’s original sign had nothing to do with Mary and Jesus.

When I did more research about Christian versions of the messianic signs/prophecies about Jesus from other OT quotes found the gospels and reinterpreted (eg the massacre at Bethlehem, Jesus riding into Jerusalem on mule, Jesus’ resurrection in 3 days), I came into realisation that the gospels have been lying to us, taking OT passages out of contexts, because every single signs were wrong and nothing more than propaganda.

It was Matthew 1:23 & Isaiah 7:14 was my first step towards agnosticism, not Genesis 1& 2 creation. I didn’t have doubts about creation and flood, until I joined my Internet forum in 2003 (Free2Code).

Although I knew about creation and flood stories, I didn’t know about “creationism” and people who called themselves “creationists”. And since I was never biology student, I have learned Evolution and didn’t know anything about Charles Darwin and his Natural Selection (his voyage onboard HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836, and his publication of On Origin Of Species, in 1859).

I was more of physics person, because after high school, I studied civil engineering in the mid-80s, and in the mid to late 90s, I still think of myself as engineer, after graduating computer science (1999).

I didn’t know why they were arguing, so I borrowed my cousin’s old biology textbook and read up on it, as well as researching what creationism is.

Only then, I can make informed decision, that creationists’ claims were wrong. It was only then, in another forum, that. I had my first doubts about Genesis creation and flood.

But it wasn’t just the creation story don’t match with science. Much of the stories from Adam to Solomon, don’t match with history and archaeology.

For instances, Genesis 10, the Table of Nations, particularly about Egypt and Mesopotamia, are all wrong, historically and archaeologically.

The last 20 years from 2000 to present, I have different insight about church reinterpretation of the scriptures.

No, rrobs, you shouldn’t be judging me what I do or what I don’t know about the Bible.

Do you always judge people by stereotyping anyone who disagree with you, not knowing and understanding the Bible?

I thinking many people living in western countries, were brought up with being Christians, but for whatever reasons, left their churches, and become atheists. Just because they are atheists, it doesn’t mean they have no understanding of the Bible, or they forgotten what their former churches taught them.

Jesus told us not to judge, unless you wants to be judged.

Although I don’t take the Bible at face value anymore, I still value Jesus’ teaching about morals, tolerance and compassion. Being agnostic, doesn’t mean I have forgotten some of Jesus’ positive teaching. What I disagree with mostly are interpretations of the messianic signs.

Don’t crap with me, and I won’t crap about you, rrobs...meaning don’t you presume I know nothing about the Bible.

True about not judging if you don't want to be judged. Perhaps you got judged because you first judged, "Either creationists are stubbornly ignorant, or they are inherently dishonest...or it could be both."

BTW, crap all you want on me. I've been judged righteous by God Himself (Rom 3:22), so man's crap matters very little; actually not at all. It is those who are not confident in their own beliefs that get offended. And I wasn't even particularly speaking about you. I was just talking about the general trend and I stand by my statement.

 

[rrobs]

Because inspiration don’t necessarily mean they are true.

Most inspiration come from making things up, like stories.

Stories like creating light from nothing, or transforming lifeless dust into living adult human being, or talking serpent or donkey. These are all made up stories - they are made up allegory, myth or fable.

You are just speaking from your own ideas with no authority, as though you are God Almighty. As such they would be little more than allegory, myth or fable.

 

[gnostic]

I can't prove a negative. It is YOUR JOB to show some change that is gradual.

Wrong.

All scientific evidence already pointing diversity among species, occurred slowly over time. Some would required hundreds or tens of thousands of generations, while some occurred in matter of less than a year, but these quick changes occurred with bacteria, but animals, including humans, aren’t bacteria.

If you are saying the opposite, then you must be the one to show evidence.

 

[tas8831]

I listed several examples in this very thread within the last two days.

If I list them again you won't see them again just like you don't see the evidence I post.

I'm not new at this.

OK... here are all the times that you posted in this thread using the word "sudden", starting with the oldest and ending with the most recent:

1. The Believabliltiy of Evolution

"The problem here is that there is not real evidence that change in complex species is the result of survival of the fittest or that there is any substantial change in species that is gradual. All observed change in species is sudden just as all observed change in living individuals is sudden."​

No examples, just that assertion.

2. The Believabliltiy of Evolution

"All life is individual so there is no such thing as "a population" or a "species". These are merely terms we use to study what we see but these terms have no meaning and no study has meaning outside of the definitions. You are claiming off springs of peppered moths can have vastly different characteristics than their parents and grandparents as a result of killing the weak, or unadaptable in the lab. I'd hardly be surprised. This is even reported to happen in nature in simple species. Given that every species has countless genes for which their is no known purpose there is an implication that species may be far more adaptable than apparent by looking at individuals. ie- Some individuals can survive almost any insult at all and conditions can favor off spring that display a trait arising from unknown or observable forces. To then conclude that some mysterious "mother nature" favors individuals that are stronger, smarter, faster, or more resistant to an imposed condition and extrapolate this to all observations is simply Look and See Science. Archaeopteryx didn't die out because its color didn't change as it flitted about in the street lights. WYSIWYG and all observed change in life is sudden. Why does science propose that change in groups of animal (which aren't even "real" because every animal is different) occur gradually? What basis is there for extrapolating changes in the lab to changes 80,000,000 years ago? Science is incapable of showing how even one of these ancient changes occurred or even one individual was eradicated or another spared to father slightly different off spring."​

Gibberish in which is couched the repeated assertion. No list, no examples, no evidence. Just assertions.

3. The Believabliltiy of Evolution

"All observed change in all life is sudden. Individuals come and go just like species. These comings and goings occur in the blink of the eye. Why would change in species be an ongoing process that requires millions of years to make significant changes? There is no evidence it happens this way. Species obviously change but the mechanism has nothing to do with the notion that the weak and slow are eradicated or that the strong and the fast are promoted. This only causes a healthier species and not a change in species."​

No examples, no evidence, just the repeated assertion.

4. The Believabliltiy of Evolution

"... It is a collection of unusual behavior that is bred to create new species and these species are sudden. There were no dogs and then there suddenly were."​

No examples, no evidence, just a dopey assertion again.

5. The Believabliltiy of Evolution

"Yes! And almost all major changes in almost everything and in all life forms on the individual or species basis are "sudden".

You can't step into the same river twice but when it changes its course it is always sudden. There is no significant gradual change in species caused by "survival of the fittest" that wasn't engineered in the lab. We see sudden change when we see it at all."​

More assertions, no evidence, no examples.

Either cladking is a horrible liar, or he simply has no idea what "evidence", "examples", "sudden", "gradual", etc. actually mean.

Merely asserting over and over that "all change is sudden" is not evidence, it is not an example of how change is sudden. And modifying the claim by adding the name of a group of animals (e.g., dogs) is STILL not evidence, it is just yet another unsupported, evidence-free assertion.

Here is how idiotic your position is - the 1984 eruption of Mauna Loa lasted 22 days, and lava flows went as far as ~33 miles.

I would describe the lava flow as gradual, since it took 3 weeks. You would declare it "sudden", because one day the lava wasn't there, then it was. Sudden! You define "sudden" and "gradual" to mean what you want them to, then expect everyone else to accept your idiosyncratic definitions when there is no rationale to do so. Then you yammer on about 'metaphysics' and the like, as if that will rescue your ignorance.




I fully admit that the ONLY reason I engage you at all anymore is to document your ignorance/errors/arrogance - because you make is so, so easy.

 

[tas8831]

Wrong.

All scientific evidence already pointing diversity among species, occurred slowly over time. Some would required hundreds or tens of thousands of generations, while some occurred in matter of less than a year, but these quick changes occurred with bacteria, but animals, including humans, aren’t bacteria.

If you are saying the opposite, then you must be the one to show evidence.

I mean, isn't that obvious?


He is making a claim that is contrary to all extant evidence, yet claims that others have to provide evidence counter to his evidence-free assertions.


Any psychologists in the house?

 

[rrobs]

But what are written, drawn or spoken don’t necessarily mean these inspirations are true.

But your written inspirations are true?

 

[rrobs]

I still think you need to learn and understand what are probable and possible in evolutionary biology, instead of making yourself a complete fool in making claims about something (that’s not true), which clearly you don’t understand.

Wow! Didn't you say something about not judging? I think you may have missed something in all your years of Bible research.

 

[tas8831]

All life is individual so there is no such thing as "a population" or a "species".

Dumb. Individuals are part of a group.

These are merely terms we use to study what we see but these terms have no meaning and no study has meaning outside of the definitions.

And thus we can dismiss all of your rants because the terms you use have no meaning outside of your inane rambling.

That was easy!

 

[rrobs]

It is so annoying when theists do this.
Especially when they top their blatant ignorance of the their scriptures with something like "you are not a {insert denomination here} so you can not possibly understand"

And you don't see any possibility that unbelievers can be annoying when they repeat the same basic mantra over and over (believe me, they do)? The only difference is that believers don't take it personal. Instead they pray for all unbelievers to come to a knowledge of the truth. Way more loving.

 

[metis]

Worse is that we are assuming most of these smaller changes are caused by "survival of the fittest" which is probably not true in the majority of instances.

There are three main processes at work, namely mutations, natural selection, and genetic drift. But now we also know that within many living organisms some internal chemicals can alter d.n.a. when influenced by external factors.

For example, one my close friends has identical twins who were d.n.a. tested shortly after birth. However, somewhere along their life, there was a d.n.a. alteration of one of the twins, who now is visibly different and also with a different personality. The doctors believe one of them may have caught a virus that altered her d.n.a.

Thus, even though we have long known about the main three influences of evolution I mentioned above in my first paragraph, this does not imply that there can't be other factors at stake.

BTW, "Scientific American" has run numerous articles about how d.n.a. can be affected in a living organism by outside factors in the last couple of years.

 

[rrobs]

Get a dictionary. Then read a science book.

I read several as a Dean's List student at Georgia Tech.

 

[tas8831]

Do you have any evidence that this is true of "most change", and what mechanism do you propose produces these selective bottlenecks?

Oh, dude... Bringing back bad memories.


As is the case with pretty much everything scientific, he does not understand what a bottleneck is. I've gone down that rabbit hole with the dude before... It goes nowhere... He actually seems to think that species choose to have bottlenecks... or something... Lunacy.

 

[tas8831]

I read several as a Dean's List student at Georgia Tech.

None on biology, it is obvious.

But no dictionary?

 

[gnostic]

But your written inspirations are true?

Inspiration isn’t a reliable indicator of what is true, rrobs.

Inspiration are the main sources for writing fictional stories or writing myths.

Genesis creation and flood are myths, not facts. Stories that have talking serpent or donkey are called fable or myth, or even fairytale.

The only times I seeing talking animals today, are found in children’s fictions, in comics and cartoons, and in movies and tv. These are modern fables.

And btw, parrots only mimic what people say, but they don’t actually understand what people say.

 

[tas8831]

But "evolution" is still highly flawed. It still leads us to see what is not there and not see what is.

So you say.

So you are 100% incapable of providing any evidence for.

So your rants have ZERO relevance or meaning.