The Evolution Chamber: Early Fossil Record

[Audie]

Sure, go ahead and yell "Beetlejuice" at the top of your lungs.

Huh?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Huh?

Beetlejuice - Wikipedia

An American movie. Beetlejuice was an extremely annoying spirit. Saying his name three times summoned him and one always regrets it.

 

[shunyadragon]

The giraffe example you give isn't an example of logic, it's premise is evolution, which is faulty. Maybe the giraffe can eat leaves because it has a long neck. To throw evolution in there is an Occam's razor.

The fossil evidence for giraffe's ancestors confirm their relationship with animals with shorter necks. Save Occam's razor for where it demonstrate the failure of your own argument.

 

[ecco]

Save Occam's razor for where it demonstrate the failure of your own argument.

Simplisticans like Occams's razor because they do not really understand it.

 

[exchemist]

You claim there is a problem of limited evidence for Darwin to propose a Theory of Evolution in the first 50 years. Well, ah . . . this is common in science. For example, when Einstein proposed his original Theory of Relativity he had very little objective evidence, probably none, to support his proposal. It was based mostly on math trying to resolve problems with the properties of light that could not be explained by conventional physics. In fact the early research to confirm Einstein's work was flawed and did not in reality work involving an eclipse in 1919, even though it appeared to confirm Einstein's work. It was later work and research that confirmed Einstein's work and theories.

Einstein's work was primarily based on the desire to resolve problems with the behavior of light initially based on limited evidence. Darwin's proposal for the relationship between the ancestry of animals was based on the problems of how to resolve these similarities in science, and of course, initially based on limited evidence.

Yes indeed.

What we see here is a classic example of a scientific theory making a testable prediction. As with the Higgs Boson, the the theory predicts what we should be able to find in nature by observation, so that we can then go looking for it. And we did in fact find the evidence predicted, after a while, thus providing more evidence that the theory is a good one.

The idea that predicting what fossils might be found is somehow not an appropriate thing to do is perfectly idiotic. It is at the heart of what the theory is for!

 

[exchemist]

The giraffe example you give isn't an example of logic, it's premise is evolution, which is faulty. Maybe the giraffe can eat leaves because it has a long neck. To throw evolution in there is an Occam's razor.

So you have no idea of what Ockham's Razor is, either. You don't say something is "an Ockham's Razor". Ockham's Razor is the practice of not invoking more hypotheses than are needed, to account for something. In other words, it tells you to avoid redundant hypotheses.

In the case of the giraffe, saying "it can eat leaves [on higher trees] because it has a long neck" does nothing to account for how it got its neck, which is the question evolution addresses. Obviously therefore, evolution is not a redundant hypothesis for answering that question.

 

[exchemist]

Maybe the roth is gone forever again.

He's just gone off to other parts of the forum, I think.

This has been the classic creationist experience, in fact. They arrive with great swagger, armed with lots of biblical quotations and standard propaganda from creo websites, but unable to string together a cogent argument for themselves. They fairly rapidly find the weapons the creo websites have given them are fairly useless in serious argument, then find a reason to take umbrage and abandon the discussion.

I can only think of one creationist I have met who could argue properly. He was an interesting character: an astronomer who was at the same time a YEC! Of course he relied very heavily on miracles being worked on the Earth, implying a large degree of special attention being lavished on it by God. It was a very contorted position. I think he was quite young. I expect in time he will come to a more subtle view of his religion, but the website where I encountered him is not active any more, so I can't check and see how he's getting on.

 

[shunyadragon]

Maybe the roth is gone forever again.

Not likely the gooney birds will always return, because of evolution.

 

[Audie]

Not likely the gooney birds will always return, because of evolution.

I kinda subtly implicated that with "again".

 

[Audie]

He's just gone off to other parts of the forum, I think.

This has been the classic creationist experience, in fact. They arrive with great swagger, armed with lots of biblical quotations and standard propaganda from creo websites, but unable to string together a cogent argument for themselves. They fairly rapidly find the weapons the creo websites have given them are fairly useless in serious argument, then find a reason to take umbrage and abandon the discussion.

I can only think of one creationist I have met who could argue properly. He was an interesting character: an astronomer who was at the same time a YEC! Of course he relied very heavily on miracles being worked on the Earth, implying a large degree of special attention being lavished on it by God. It was a very contorted position. I think he was quite young. I expect in time he will come to a more subtle view of his religion, but the website where I encountered him is not active any more, so I can't check and see how he's getting on.

An underlying prob is that a creationist (feels he) must rigidly
hold whatever position they've taken, or all is lost.

Conceding the smallest irrelevant point is like unto a crack
in the pressure hull of a submarine, or maybe more like a
pinprick in a taut balloon.

Some "evos" actually know their topic. We get the
occasional self styled "scientist" on the creoside,
but they are quickly smoked out.

We dont see any who are biologists or geologists,
or even vets of a course or two.

Resort to creosites for predigested quote mine
misrepresentation etc does not equip a person
to engage someone with a little actual background.


What is the creationist to do?
Get slaughtered, look more and more ridiculous?

Have his world come apart, or-
flee the interview?

 

[exchemist]

An underlying prob is that a creationist (feels he) must rigidly
hold whatever position they've taken, or all is lost.

Conceding the smallest irrelevant point is like unto a crack
in the pressure hull of a submarine, or maybe more like a
pinprick in a taut balloon.

Some "evos" actually know their topic. We get the
occasional self styled "scientist" on the creoside,
but they are quickly smoked out.

We dont see any who are biologists or geologists,
or even vets of a course or two.

Resort to creosites for predigested quote mine
misrepresentation etc does not equip a person
to engage someone with a little actual background.


What is the creationist to do?
Get slaughtered, look more and more ridiculous?

Have his world come apart, or-
flee the interview?

Sometimes they get sent to do it, to "witness" (I nearly typed "witless") for their faith.

I have read that Dembski used to run a course in which students got points towards their coursework by visiting science sites to push ID. They used to appear, argue for 48hrs and then vanish - seagull posters, we called them. They are less common nowadays. (Dembski got sacked of course, eventually.)

P.S. Here is documentary evidence of the requirements of Dembski's courses (amazing what one can research on the web!):
QUOTE

Intelligent Design (SOUTHERN EVANGELICAL SEMINARY #AP 410, 510, and 810; May 11 – 16, 2009)
<> THE DUE DATE FOR ALL WORK IN THIS COURSE IS AUGUST 14, 2009. Here’s what you will need to do to wrap things up:


AP410 This is the undegrad course. You have three things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 40% of your grade); (2) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 40% of your grade); (3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).


AP510 This is the masters course. You have four things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 30% of your grade); (2) write a 1,500- to 2,000-word critical review of Francis Collins’s The Language of God -- for instructions, see below (20% of your grade); (3) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 30% of your grade); (4) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 3,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).
UNQUOTE

From this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20120805163716/http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm

 

[ecco]

My numbering in the following quote...

What is the creationist to do?

1. Get slaughtered,
2. look more and more ridiculous?
3. Have his world come apart, or-
4. flee the interview?

Usually 2, at least in the eyes of an independent observer.
Never 3.

 

[Milton Platt]

"The early theories of human evolution are really very odd, if one stops to look at them. David Pilbeam has described the early theories as ‘fossil-free.’ That is, here were theories about human evolution that one would think would require some fossil evidence, but in fact there were either so few fossils that they exerted no influence on the theory, or there were no fossils at all. So between man’s supposed closest relatives and the early human fossils, there was only the imagination of nineteenth century scientists." - The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "Fifty Years of Studies on Human Evolution," by Sherwood Washburn, May 1982, pp. 37, 41

Don't understand the relevance.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Don't understand the relevance.

He made the rather strange assumption that fossil evidence is the only evidence for evolution when there is far stronger evidence today, and that was the case in Darwin's time as well. Like a typical creationist not being able to understand the evidence, or in many if not most cases, refusing to let oneself understand the evidence they assume that it does not exist. Nor, like most intelligent people would do, he did not even try to find out what the evidence was.

 

[Audie]

Don't understand the relevance.[/QUOTE

 

[Milton Platt]

He made the rather strange assumption that fossil evidence is the only evidence for evolution when there is far stronger evidence today, and that was the case in Darwin's time as well. Like a typical creationist not being able to understand the evidence, or in many if not most cases, refusing to let oneself understand the evidence they assume that it does not exist. Nor, like most intelligent people would do, he did not even try to find out what the evidence was.

Yes, I've been following his posts. We've gone from the Piltdown Man to this.........

 

[Audie]

He made the rather strange assumption that fossil evidence is the only evidence for evolution when there is far stronger evidence today, and that was the case in Darwin's time as well. Like a typical creationist not being able to understand the evidence, or in many if not most cases, refusing to let oneself understand the evidence they assume that it does not exist. Nor, like most intelligent people would do, he did not even try to find out what the evidence was.

He is gone again anyway

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

He made the rather strange assumption that fossil evidence is the only evidence for evolution when there is far stronger evidence today, and that was the case in Darwin's time as well. Like a typical creationist not being able to understand the evidence, or in many if not most cases, refusing to let oneself understand the evidence they assume that it does not exist. Nor, like most intelligent people would do, he did not even try to find out what the evidence was.

"Arguments against macroevolution, based on so-called gaps in the fossil records, are also profoundly weakened by the much more detailed and digital information revealed from the study of genomes. Outside of a time machine, Darwin could hardly have imagined a more powerful data set than comparative genomics to confirm his theory."--Dr. Francis Collins, "Faith and the Human Genome"
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/p142_53FCollins.pdf

I am sure you are aware of this, but it is worth mentioning that Dr. Collins is a devout Christian and a world renown geneticist who ran the NIH Human Genome Project and now heads the NIH itself. I would strongly encourage everyone, and Christians in particular, to give the essay a read.

 

[viole]

Little to no evidence needed. Just the imagination of scientists.

And a very good resemblance to hairless gorillas.

Isn’t that evidence enough? Or is God so fond of apes to make the pinnacle of His creation, the main reason He created the whole Universe for, look like a shaved chimp?

So, what is more likely, in your opinion, even if we really had no evidence whatsoever for evolution?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Audie]

And a very good resemblance to hairless gorillas.

Isn’t that evidence enough? Or is God so fond of apes to make the pinnacle of His creation, the main reason He created the whole Universe for, look like a shaved chimp?

So, what is more likely, in your opinion, even if we really had no evidence whatsoever for evolution?

Ciao

- viole

Ya know, a fox can resemble a dog, a duck can resemble a
goose, and trout can be a lot like salmon, and thus
be of a "kind" but, not so with people and other apes.