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The Grand Evolution Conspiracy
- Thread starter Matthew78
- Start date
McBell
Unbound
As presented, it looks like someone took their beliefs and tried to make them look all logically scientific.
brightsurprise
New Member
Good morning all,
I'm a new member here and this is going to be my first post, I hope that it adds to the conversation at the very least. This post, what I originally read as a debate of evolution vs creationism, is what I am responding to. Specifically the post from Freethinker44, which as far as I can tell, is the only post which deals with specific examples of why the poster believes that evolution is proven fact. I'm going to make my position clear, I will always do my best to make it clear. I'm not afraid of saying I don't know or understand and if I am wrong I will be the first to admit it. I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God that died for my and all of humanity's sins on the cross. I believe that he was resurrected, conquering death, and the only path to salvation. I also want to state I am not a scientist and don't purport to be one. I'm just an average guy reading through whatever material is posted and am going to do my best to communicate what I am thinking with the tools that I have.
In response to Freethinker44's post, the only post that had examples to examine, I went through the links that you provided. I am going to respond to each one and I hope that it sparks some positive debate over the topic.
To start, and understand the examples given I had to do some quick research into Phylogenetics. I admit that I was not familiar with the word at first, so I looked it up. What I found was phyolgenetics is the study of relatedness among groups of organisms which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices. It is derived from a Greek root dealing with tribe and relative to birth. It was also described as essential in the research of the evolutionary tree of life.
The first problem I ran into with this is that the only genetic data that is available for record is with living taxa (or animals that are alive at the moment as I took it). Most fossil records rely on morphological characters than actual phylogenetics. The use of phylogenetic systems without the necessary data, or direct gene sequencing from generation to generation becomes an unprovable extrapolation by definition of the practice itself. If someone disagrees with this point, please explain and clear me up on any confusion.
The next part of my quick research explains cladistics and other commonly used methods to infer (key word being infer) phylogenetic trees include maximum likelihood and a few other ways of inferring (or guessing) what would be related without the data to prove it. My information on this came from Wikipedia. I understand it is not always the best source of information, but if I am wrong please correct me.
The first example from freethinker44 was a link that led to a picture of a fossil of an animal fossil that was titled "Archaeopteryx". From what I could tell, for those that haven't seen it, it is a fossil of a bird like creature with a claw, fully formed feathers that are visible in the fossil itself and other characteristics of a bird. It is coupled with a picture of a modern day albatross and a computer generated picture of a reptilian (presumably dinosaur) creature with some feathers on it's neck. From the evidence of the fossil I did not see a scientific connection between Archaeopteryx and any other species at all. There is much interpolation of the information given, yes the fossil has feathers. Fully formed feathers that are presumed to be fully functional and used by the creature. There is a claw in the creature. This is all true, but any use of this evidence to tie the creature into evolution is purely speculation. The fossil itself doesn't say anything than what you can see and anything else is purely interpretation and opinion. If indeed this animal's feathers were fully functional and it was a fully functional flying bird like organism, it is not a step in evolution at all, but a separate and distinct, albeit extinct life form that was in and of itself. It's not like the fossil had a few feathers and mostly reptilian features. It's not like you can genetically tie this fossil to anything that was before or after it. From a fossil you can't prove anything more than what you see. Anything else is just speculation.
The next example from freethinker44 involved mutations in a fruit fly. A popular example given by evolutionists as proof for origin of species. The root of the fruit fly ordeal comes down to mutation within a species. It is a scientific fact that there are mutations within a species. No-one should and no-one usually is debating this fact. If you irradiate a fruit fly it will have mutations which result in no wings, strange mandibles, bent wings, whatever. Humans have known for a long time that you can change the traits of a species through selective breeding. Look at the different species of dogs. Or horses. The problem I have with the example is that no matter how hard you try, you will never get anything other than a fruit fly out of a fruit fly if you mutate it. Same with a dog or a horse. You can try as long as you want and get as many different versions of the same thing as you want, but I have yet to see a human generated mutation that moves from one species to another. The small research I've done into the subject seems to point to the fact that all of these mutations and changes in dogs and horses go back to the fact that you can take as much out of a gene sequence as you want to selectively change a kind of animal into a different same kind of animal, but that only proves that there are variations within a species or animals of the same kind. It is a bit of an assumption to expand this small variation to explain how cows turn into manatees or humans evolved from apes.
The next example was a study on the nesting habits of birds and how their behavior differed when faced with danger and how that then tied into population. I will admit again I am not a scientist and admittedly not interested in reading scientific papers, but I did have a few problems with how this specific paper used it's findings. Most importantly, I don't understand how the conclusion of evolution is proved comes from the, most likely true, results of the nesting habits of the birds studied. Yes it is true that the behaviors observed happened. But how does this prove that evolution is a fact and not just a theory? Nesting habits were observed. Not change in the species of birds themselves.
Just to be thorough I checked out the last example which was a brief piece on E coli bacteria. In the experiment the bacteria had learned to "eat" or whatever bacteria does, something that it didn't eat at the beginning of the experiment. From what I can tell, the snide remarks at the end of the article against creationists aside, at the end of the experiment the e coli was still bacteria.
There were a few more examples involving fish size and yeast in beer, all of which proved that, within a species, there are changes over time. That's not the topic that's being debated. The topic is, is this proof of the origin of life on planet earth was one organism that evolved into every different living thing, alive and extinct, on the planet today.
I'm new here, don't know how this is going to be taken, but I'd like to think I gave my best shot and a fair chance to the one post that had examples for me to see concerning evolution and it's "proof". I have seen many people with opinions on this matter in this thread. Some on both sides, but what I am seeing is mainly opinions. I'm not here to change your opinion. I personally have nothing invested in what any of you believe or don't believe. I'm not here to belittle or get angry. From what I've seen in this post though, all these posts have been opinion with little to back them up from both sides and the one post that had examples I addressed. If anyone sees flaws in my thinking please tell me and explain. Preferably civilly, but I'll work with what I get. In this debate of evolution vs creation I have only one problem. I do not believe that the "evidence" stated by evolutionists is evidence at all. What it comes down to is, if you look at the evidence found with assumptions, you're going to interpret it as you see fit. And that's not science. That's opinion.
Thanks for your time, and thank you freethinker44 for your examples. I look forward to chatting with everyone!
I'm a new member here and this is going to be my first post, I hope that it adds to the conversation at the very least. This post, what I originally read as a debate of evolution vs creationism, is what I am responding to. Specifically the post from Freethinker44, which as far as I can tell, is the only post which deals with specific examples of why the poster believes that evolution is proven fact. I'm going to make my position clear, I will always do my best to make it clear. I'm not afraid of saying I don't know or understand and if I am wrong I will be the first to admit it. I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God that died for my and all of humanity's sins on the cross. I believe that he was resurrected, conquering death, and the only path to salvation. I also want to state I am not a scientist and don't purport to be one. I'm just an average guy reading through whatever material is posted and am going to do my best to communicate what I am thinking with the tools that I have.
In response to Freethinker44's post, the only post that had examples to examine, I went through the links that you provided. I am going to respond to each one and I hope that it sparks some positive debate over the topic.
To start, and understand the examples given I had to do some quick research into Phylogenetics. I admit that I was not familiar with the word at first, so I looked it up. What I found was phyolgenetics is the study of relatedness among groups of organisms which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices. It is derived from a Greek root dealing with tribe and relative to birth. It was also described as essential in the research of the evolutionary tree of life.
The first problem I ran into with this is that the only genetic data that is available for record is with living taxa (or animals that are alive at the moment as I took it). Most fossil records rely on morphological characters than actual phylogenetics. The use of phylogenetic systems without the necessary data, or direct gene sequencing from generation to generation becomes an unprovable extrapolation by definition of the practice itself. If someone disagrees with this point, please explain and clear me up on any confusion.
The next part of my quick research explains cladistics and other commonly used methods to infer (key word being infer) phylogenetic trees include maximum likelihood and a few other ways of inferring (or guessing) what would be related without the data to prove it. My information on this came from Wikipedia. I understand it is not always the best source of information, but if I am wrong please correct me.
The first example from freethinker44 was a link that led to a picture of a fossil of an animal fossil that was titled "Archaeopteryx". From what I could tell, for those that haven't seen it, it is a fossil of a bird like creature with a claw, fully formed feathers that are visible in the fossil itself and other characteristics of a bird. It is coupled with a picture of a modern day albatross and a computer generated picture of a reptilian (presumably dinosaur) creature with some feathers on it's neck. From the evidence of the fossil I did not see a scientific connection between Archaeopteryx and any other species at all. There is much interpolation of the information given, yes the fossil has feathers. Fully formed feathers that are presumed to be fully functional and used by the creature. There is a claw in the creature. This is all true, but any use of this evidence to tie the creature into evolution is purely speculation. The fossil itself doesn't say anything than what you can see and anything else is purely interpretation and opinion. If indeed this animal's feathers were fully functional and it was a fully functional flying bird like organism, it is not a step in evolution at all, but a separate and distinct, albeit extinct life form that was in and of itself. It's not like the fossil had a few feathers and mostly reptilian features. It's not like you can genetically tie this fossil to anything that was before or after it. From a fossil you can't prove anything more than what you see. Anything else is just speculation.
The next example from freethinker44 involved mutations in a fruit fly. A popular example given by evolutionists as proof for origin of species. The root of the fruit fly ordeal comes down to mutation within a species. It is a scientific fact that there are mutations within a species. No-one should and no-one usually is debating this fact. If you irradiate a fruit fly it will have mutations which result in no wings, strange mandibles, bent wings, whatever. Humans have known for a long time that you can change the traits of a species through selective breeding. Look at the different species of dogs. Or horses. The problem I have with the example is that no matter how hard you try, you will never get anything other than a fruit fly out of a fruit fly if you mutate it. Same with a dog or a horse. You can try as long as you want and get as many different versions of the same thing as you want, but I have yet to see a human generated mutation that moves from one species to another. The small research I've done into the subject seems to point to the fact that all of these mutations and changes in dogs and horses go back to the fact that you can take as much out of a gene sequence as you want to selectively change a kind of animal into a different same kind of animal, but that only proves that there are variations within a species or animals of the same kind. It is a bit of an assumption to expand this small variation to explain how cows turn into manatees or humans evolved from apes.
The next example was a study on the nesting habits of birds and how their behavior differed when faced with danger and how that then tied into population. I will admit again I am not a scientist and admittedly not interested in reading scientific papers, but I did have a few problems with how this specific paper used it's findings. Most importantly, I don't understand how the conclusion of evolution is proved comes from the, most likely true, results of the nesting habits of the birds studied. Yes it is true that the behaviors observed happened. But how does this prove that evolution is a fact and not just a theory? Nesting habits were observed. Not change in the species of birds themselves.
Just to be thorough I checked out the last example which was a brief piece on E coli bacteria. In the experiment the bacteria had learned to "eat" or whatever bacteria does, something that it didn't eat at the beginning of the experiment. From what I can tell, the snide remarks at the end of the article against creationists aside, at the end of the experiment the e coli was still bacteria.
There were a few more examples involving fish size and yeast in beer, all of which proved that, within a species, there are changes over time. That's not the topic that's being debated. The topic is, is this proof of the origin of life on planet earth was one organism that evolved into every different living thing, alive and extinct, on the planet today.
I'm new here, don't know how this is going to be taken, but I'd like to think I gave my best shot and a fair chance to the one post that had examples for me to see concerning evolution and it's "proof". I have seen many people with opinions on this matter in this thread. Some on both sides, but what I am seeing is mainly opinions. I'm not here to change your opinion. I personally have nothing invested in what any of you believe or don't believe. I'm not here to belittle or get angry. From what I've seen in this post though, all these posts have been opinion with little to back them up from both sides and the one post that had examples I addressed. If anyone sees flaws in my thinking please tell me and explain. Preferably civilly, but I'll work with what I get. In this debate of evolution vs creation I have only one problem. I do not believe that the "evidence" stated by evolutionists is evidence at all. What it comes down to is, if you look at the evidence found with assumptions, you're going to interpret it as you see fit. And that's not science. That's opinion.
Thanks for your time, and thank you freethinker44 for your examples. I look forward to chatting with everyone!
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
Firstly, welcome to the forum and apologies for quoting such a tiny snippet of your long and involved post. I hope what follows will make my motive clear.
Most posters on this board live in enlightened democratic societies which value freedom of speech: this means anyone is, quite rightly, free to express an opinion on anything they wish. That said, most of us are wary about insisting that our views should prevail in areas of which we have little or no direct knowledge or experience. With all due respect, I would ask brightsurprise if (s)he would have posted on a history discussion board
and then proceeded to trash historians' conclusions, declaring that (s)he "does not believe that the "evidence" stated by historians is evidence at all".
On a pure science forum, I doubt again that brightsurprise would have admitted so candidly to a lack of scientific expertise, and then proceeded to declare the chemiosmotic theory of oxidative phosphorylation mere opinion and its evidence guesswork.
Now, none of the above is intended as an attack on our new poster, whose thorough and civilised approach is very welcome: it is rather intended to pose the following question.
What is it about the theory of evolution, out of all the theories that constitute science, that makes it 'public property'? Few people would set about writing a critique of the chemiosmotic theory of oxidative phosphorylation without first acquiring some background knowledge and understanding: why is it assumed that critiquing evolution requires none? Do critics of ToE who are not scientists assume that there is no necessary technical background to the subject at all, and that the bits and pieces they've picked up from popular articles and creationist websites really are all they need?
With that off my chest, I'll be happy to try and address some of brightsurprise's specific points just as soon as I have time (though I'm sure others will beat me to it).
Logic & sciencey talk are great decorations.