Observing evolution and design

reply to post by Leahn


Exactly. Its not unlike a baseball machine playing the bean bag game. Successful trajectories are recorded and failures are erased. Eventually, the machine will score every shot.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


I would say that when someone makes the claim
that nature is all that is needed for life to thrive
and for intelligent life to then spring from that
platform ?

Only makes sense if that same claim can be applied to cars.
i.e. cars evolve thru mechanics. There is no need for
an unobservable intelligent mechanic. Thus it's kind of
hard to prove the mechanic exists in the garage from
down the road driving in the car. That runs perfectly
by the way. In fact, it's a Ferrari.

Krazysh0t
reply to post by flyingfish

 

It would be nice if an actual discussion between evolution and creationism could occur without Creationists using their repertoire of fallacies to derail the discussion. Of course, it is pretty obvious why that never occurs; if Creationism (at least the one depicted in the bible) were to come under close scrutiny, it would fall apart pretty quickly.

Is that a request? By all means, reply to all my replies, then. Let's put Evolution under close scrutiny.

Astyanax
reply to post by flyingfish

 

There is no doubt that human technology is evolving, and is intelligently designed. The problem is using this principle to suggest or prove life was designed.

Indeed. There is no evidence whatsoever that life was designed.

Of course, there is. DNA has grammar and information, and there are no known sources of such on the Universe that are not designed.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

Wrong.

Your first sentence proves you have no idea what your talking about. If you wish to refute a theory, you must first understand what it says accurately.

Organisms do not improve existing traits. The survivors of populations pass on mutations that may, or may not be beneficial.

You're arguing semantics, which is usually the case for those that are on the side of the wrong and have no way to counter an argument. Since you seem to demand the need for exactness, my whole point is that organisms have not been observed to evolve new traits by mutation, but rather suffer mutation on existing traits resulting on them being more beneficial under specific environmental pressures.

Also, you may want to do a bit of research on Epigenetic Inheritance.

flyingfish

It has also been observed that such adaptations only last for a little longer than the external pressure from the environment, reverting to what they were previously if such pressure is removed in a few generations.

Did you just make this up?
There is no "reverting" organisms either survive and pass on their genes, or die off. If they survive, those beneficial traits are reflected, as variation is expressed in population size and density in a given area at a particular time.

Did you miss the part where I said that they revert in a few generations? It seems to me that you didn't even bother to read what I wrote. You simply jumped at first possible straw you could grasp and replied from there.

Peter Grant and Lisle Gibbs published an article on Nature Magazine in 1987 explaining their much deeper study on the infamous Galapagos' Finches. They found out that during periods of drought, the environmental pressure because of the scarcity of food enables finches with longer and stronger beaks to thrive because they can eat seeds that finches with smaller beaks cannot, increasing the average beak size. However, the end of the drought brings forth an environment with abundance of food where finches with smaller beaks thrive better and that causes the average beak size to go back to its previous values. Peter Grant's exact words were "the population, subjected to natural selection, is oscillating back and forth."

reply to post by Leahn


Are you arguing that creationism is an answer, or the answer?

reply to post by Leahn

You asked, and I quote:

"If you don't have a better and more easily proven/demonstrated theory, then why try to kick evolution to the curb? As far as I'm aware, it's still the best working theory we have to date, scientifically speaking. If I'm wrong, please show me how."

And I answered:

"Because sometimes one has to understand that his current path is leading nowhere and not to fear to try something new just to see if it leads to a better path, or even to drop everything and start from scratch."

If you don`t understand how it proves your statement wrong, the fault lies entirely on your side.

Er, no. I don't see how it proves AfterInfinity's statement wrong either.

A general statement about coping with one's personal life issues has no bearing on a specific question about the validity of a scientific theory. If you intend to draw a connexion between them, you'd better make it explicit. Not that I have any expectation that you can. You're obviously operating well out of your intellectual depth here.

As flyingfish advises, go and learn a little bit about a subject before you start chucking opinions about.

reply to post by flyingfish

I would like to add that even tho the effects of selection are similar in technology, complexity is a factor in the evolution of human technology, while in nature complexity is not a driver in evolution.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Even the simplest organisms are quite complex. On the whole, the products of nature are vastly more complex than the products of human design.

Complexity is certainly not one of the goals of human design except, occasionally, when it comes to ornamentation. If anything, designers strive for simplicity; simple devices are easier and cheaper to make and maintain, simple designs tend to have wider applicability, and so on.

Complexity is not a goal of natural evolution either. But it is there partly because of a genuine distinction between natural evolution and design: a designer can abandon an existing model and begin again from scratch; evolution does not have that luxury.

In one of his books, Richard Dawkins invokes the analogy of aircraft design; when it proved impossible to squeeze further performance and efficiency out of engines that drove propellers, the jet engine was invented — a completely new type of power plant utilising different design principles and sharing few if any components with the older one. Imagine, he says, trying to evolve a jet engine from an ordinary internal-combustion engine by modifying successive parts one at a time, with every successive modification producing a functioning engine! Obviously it can't be done.

Nature, however, must work with materials already to hand. Natural organisms are full of 'legacy systems', design faults, adaptations of systems formerly dedicated to one function to serve a completely different one, and other results of this limitation. This is one of the sources of complexity in nature — not a 'design goal' but an unavoidable result.

So that's one real difference between natural evolution and that of human products. There may be no 'tree of life' or 'hierarchy of being' as long-ago philosophers and naturalists thought, but it is patent that all life is functionally related and derives from a common ancestor. If we could discover a single organism that appears to be formed on different principles from those shared by all living things, it would be a strike against the theory of evolution by natural selection. That no such organism exists bears witness to the correctness of the theory.

reply to post by Astyanax

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Even the simplest organisms are quite complex. On the whole, the products of nature are vastly more complex than the products of human design.

Indeed, but what I was saying is complexity can be, and is, in some cases, the reason technology evolves more and more complexity, and even is the goal of some technology.

While In nature, evolution within a given lineage does not necessarily advance toward increasing complexity. A lineage can also dispense with complexity when a particular complex trait provides no selective advantage in a particular environment.
There is never a goal to become more complex, evolutionary change does not progress towards a goal or final destination.

But, I don't think we are really in any disagreement here?

I don't do grammar and sometimes I can be a bit hard to understand..sorry

reply to post by flyingfish

I don't think we are really in any disagreement here?

We agree, I'm sure, upon the truth of the theory of evolution and the principles by which it is understood to work. We may disagree over the details, just as professional evolutionary biologists do.

Where we really disagree is on the way artifacts evolve — the degree to which their evolution is random and differs from the intent of their makers and users. We also have different views regarding the role of complexity in human design.

I used to work in advertising, so I know something about the process by which markets shape products and processes. I know that the results of design are always the result of a collaborative, synergetic dialogue between manufacturers and consumers. I liken this to the dialogue that takes place between mutation and selection in natural evolution — it's a lot like sexual selection, actually — but I certainly don't imagine it implies that living things were designed. It seems to me rather obvious that they were not.

reply to post by Leahn

You're arguing semantics, which is usually the case for those that are on the side of the wrong and have no way to counter an argument. Since you seem to demand the need for exactness, my whole point is that organisms have not been observed to evolve new traits by mutation, but rather suffer mutation on existing traits resulting on them being more beneficial under specific environmental pressures.

If that's the case then show me why I'm factually wrong.

Biologists are uncovering thousands of examples of how mutations lead to new traits and even new species. Your claim not only flies in the face of the evidence, it is also a logical impossibility.
How do you think some people acquired the ability to digest milk?

They've evolved new traits by mutation!

In fact, several groups of people in Europe and Africa independently acquired mutations that allow them to digesting milk.

Your a typical example of intellectual dishonesty that’s the hallmark of the steadfast creationist. I have no patience for this kind of behavior, and certainly absolutely zero respect for it.

You keep misrepresenting and deliberately disrespecting truth in favor of demonstrably erroneous bullsh#t and while your at it, add semantics to the list of stuff you misrepresent..

Also, you may want to do a bit of research on Epigenetic Inheritance.

LOL, The idea of epigenetics as a Darwin-destroyer is completely bogus.

Many of the phenomena of “epigenetics” still evolved by natural selection. I think these findings make evolutionary biology more wondrous, and don’t disrupt evolutionary biology or the central place of Darwin’s theory of natural selection at all.

If you think your so schooled in the subject answer this question:
If “epigenetics” is so important in evolution, show me a list of a hundred adaptations of organisms that evolved in this Larmackian way as opposed to the old, boring, neo-Darwinian way involving inherited changes in DNA sequence.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by Leahn

 

Are you arguing that creationism is an answer, or the answer?

I argue for nothing. I am here as an exercise to keep my mind sharp. With experience, I learned that you lose what you do not use. And your attempts to avoid my questions and statements, and label me instead as a quick way to dismiss any future arguments, has failed.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Er, no. I don't see how it proves AfterInfinity's statement wrong either.

A general statement about coping with one's personal life issues has no bearing on a specific question about the validity of a scientific theory. If you intend to draw a connexion between them, you'd better make it explicit.

Sure. For those that lack the necessary intelectual horsepower to understand the analogy, I will make it explicit.

Latest developments in multiple fields, including Chemistry, Biology, Archeology, Math (Theory of Information) and Genetics have demonstrated that the current version of the Theory of Evolution, more widely known as TENS (Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection), lack the necessary explanatory power to cope with the current state of the scientific body of knowledge. It is time to move foward, in the same way that the original Theory of Evolution coined by Darwin was abandoned in exchange of the current version of the theory, not much after the inception of the field of Genetics.

Let's face it; Archeology disagrees with Evolutionary Timeline by placing together species that Evolution claimed otherwise. Theory of Information disagrees that RNA and DNA could arise spontaneously because it contains too much complex information, like an actual grammar. Genetics disagrees with Evolutionary Tree of Life by putting together (or close) rather different animals. Biology disagrees with Evolution by showing that Natural Selection lacks the necessary explanatory power to explain the scope of variation between beings, forcing evolutionists to come up with multiple other explanations, which put together still lack the explanatory power to explain such scope. Chemisty disagrees with Evolution by showing the nearly impossibility that any primordial soup could have generated life, in any form. We have evolutionists now begging for meteor showers as a solution to that. What will happen when someone decides to venture and test the hypothesis and prove that PAH World Hypothesis is not scientifically possible? What will you do, then? Claim fairies did it? Aliens? Refrigerator mold?

However, it seems that evolutionists, not wanting to deal with admiting that they were wrong, and that their beloved pet theory wasn't really the final answer to Life, Universe, and Everything and face the shame, rather than abandoning it, are claiming that we ought to stick to such theory until something better comes along.

AfterInfinity comes here and asks what's wrong with doing it, and I am answering it. What's wrong is that nothing better will come because you are sticking to it and hampering scientific progress only to avoid admiting being wrong, as we both know what the Creationists will do to you if you admit.

Mendell published his works around five years after Darwin published his book, and yet it took evolutionists nearly seventy years to accept it. What we see today is the same situation, and AfterInfinity here is asking what's wrong with doing it. Is that explicit enough for you, sir? Or need I draw pictures?

Astyanax
reply to post by flyingfish

 

it is patent that all life is functionally related and derives from a common ancestor.

A question for you since you claim to know so much. Do you believe that DNA is shared among all beings that exist, and that one could possibly use DNA to trace life back to the first common ancestor?

Astyanax
reply to post by flyingfish

 

If we could discover a single organism that appears to be formed on different principles from those shared by all living things, it would be a strike against the theory of evolution by natural selection. That no such organism exists bears witness to the correctness of the theory.

You mean, like the bacteria that used arsenic rather than phosphorus? I know that it was a fluke in the end, but when it was announced, do you know what exactly was the impact on TENS? Nothing.

Evolutionists keep saying that "if this and that would be discovered, it would prove the theory wrong" but this and that are discovered multiple times and the impact is always nothing whatsoever. They simply won't let go of the theory.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

If that's the case then show me why I'm factually wrong.
Biologists are uncovering thousands of examples of how mutations lead to new traits and even new species.

Show me a single example of an undisputed instance of a mutation that led to a new trait rather than adapted and improved an existing trait. Since you are saying that there are thousands of examples, show me one.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

Your claim not only flies in the face of the evidence, it is also a logical impossibility.
How do you think some people acquired the ability to digest milk?

They've evolved new traits by mutation!

You are begging the question. Look, you may even have some knowledge of Biology. You don't seem to be up to date, but you are certainly knowledgeable about what I learned in class room twenty years ago from my teacher that learned that on her degree forty years or so ago, but you certainly know nothing of Logic, or you would not be begging the question this way, so I'd rather not hear you talk about what is logical and what is not. You're just gonna make a fool of yourself.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

LOL, The idea of epigenetics as a Darwin-destroyer is completely bogus.

Many of the phenomena of “epigenetics” still evolved by natural selection. I think these findings make evolutionary biology more wondrous, and don’t disrupt evolutionary biology or the central place of Darwin’s theory of natural selection at all.

Yes, that's the usual answer given by evolutionists to any challenge to their pet theory; "So evolution can do that, too? Wow!" Nothing can disprove Evolution because Evolution can do anything. If something contradicts a prediction of Evolution, it only means that evolutionists were wrong about that prediction, and Evolution could actually do that too.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

If you think your so schooled in the subject answer this question:
If “epigenetics” is so important in evolution, show me a list of a hundred adaptations of organisms that evolved in this Larmackian way as opposed to the old, boring, neo-Darwinian way involving inherited changes in DNA sequence.

Moving goalposts so soon? As far as science goes, one example suffices. You need a hundred to be convinced? Then if I show 99 you will make a fool of yourself by saying that you don't believe it until I find yet another example? Is that it?

www.sciencedaily.com...

"Degrees of a kind of epigenetic modification, DNA methylation, were measured in several thousand genes. This is a chemical alteration of the DNA molecule that can affect gene expression, but unlike a mutation it does not appear in the DNA structure. (...)

Researchers also examined whether the epigenetic differences were hereditary. The answer was yes (...)

Since methylation is a much faster process than random mutations, (...)this may explain how variation within a species can increase so dramatically in just a short time."

If you read the actual (much longer) study, you will see that the research was about discovering how domesticated chicken diferentiated from their wild cousins. This is an example of an organism that adapted entirely by non-Darwinian ways, as the difference between domesticated chicken and wild ones lies entirely on methylation rather than mutations.

reply to post by Leahn

Latest developments in multiple fields, including Chemistry, Biology, Archeology, Math (Theory of Information) and Genetics have demonstrated that the current version of the Theory of Evolution, more widely known as TENS (Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection), lack the necessary explanatory power to cope with the current state of the scientific body of knowledge.

Is that what they tell you on creationist web sites?

Archeology disagrees with Evolutionary Timeline by placing together species that Evolution claimed otherwise.

Archaeology makes no comments about evolution whatsoever.

Theory of Information disagrees that RNA and DNA could arise spontaneously because it contains too much complex information, like an actual grammar.

Only if you make the false assumption that evolution is a wholly random process.

Genetics disagrees with Evolutionary Tree of Life by putting together (or close) rather different animals.

The 'tree of life' is not a concept recognised by modern evolutionary biology.

Biology disagrees with Evolution by showing that Natural Selection lacks the necessary explanatory power to explain the scope of variation between beings, forcing evolutionists to come up with multiple other explanations, which put together still lack the explanatory power to explain such scope.

That must be why the overwhelming majority of biologists are also evolutionists.

hemisty disagrees with Evolution by showing the nearly impossibility that any primordial soup could have generated life, in any form.

It's a big universe. A 'nearly impossibility' will suffice.

*

A question for you since you claim to know so much. Do you believe that DNA is shared among all beings that exist, and that one could possibly use DNA to trace life back to the first common ancestor?

That's two questions.

Here are the answers:

1. 'All beings that exist' is exactly the sort of phrase a scientifically ignorant person steeped in religious jargon would coin to try to elide the difference between viruses and other organisms.
   
   
2. No. Obviously.

You mean, like the bacteria that used arsenic rather than phosphorus?

No, I mean like the organism that was found not to contain nucleic-acid transcriptors of the usual type.

Only, of course, it wasn't found. Thanks for the entertainment.

ETA: I just read your reply to flyingfish's last. If he doesn't rip it to small pieces I shall be more than happy to oblige in his stead. I don't like your arrogant tone, especially since it is founded in such egregious ignorance.

Those are your answers? I am supposed to take your statements at face value, then? You could have saved server space by simply covering your ears and shouting "I am not listening" on your own home, instead of filling the server with evasive answers.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Archaeology makes no comments about evolution whatsoever.

Archaeology and Evolution cross paths with regards to Fossil Evidence. And Archaeological Fossil Evidence disagrees with the Evolutionary Timetable by placing together species that were not suposed to live together according to Evolutionary predictions. Those suposed to be ancient ancestors living together with their "evolved" descendants.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Only if you make the false assumption that evolution is a wholly random process.

Please, elaborate on that.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

The 'tree of life' is not a concept recognised by modern evolutionary biology.

Please, show me the article where the idea was declared abandoned and no longer recognised.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

That must be why the overwhelming majority of biologists are also evolutionists.

Please, elaborate on that. Show me the statistics.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

It's a big universe. A 'nearly impossibility' will suffice.

No, it will not. The Universe being big is irrelevant as we are talking about the process developing on Earth, but even the Universe itself has a limited processing power (limited both by entropy and age) to do it. There are, in fact, processes that couldn't be finished even if they started at the inception of the Universe as the Universe itself would die before it was done. It is up to you to show that it is mathematically possible to happen, instead of waving your hands and declaring that it happened.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Here are the answers:

1. 'All beings that exist' is exactly the sort of phrase a scientifically ignorant person steeped in religious jargon would coin to try to elide the difference between viruses and other organisms.
   
   
2. No. Obviously.

Once more an evasive answer. Viruses are not alive. They do not meet the criteria. You can exclude them from the question. Now answer it.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

You mean, like the bacteria that used arsenic rather than phosphorus?

No, I mean like the organism that was found not to contain nucleic-acid transcriptors of the usual type.

Only, of course, it wasn't found. Thanks for the entertainment.

Moving the goalpost again. Of course. As we know, if one was found, the answer would be that "evolution can do that too" and you would ask for something else. Because that's what you just did with the example I provided.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

ETA: I just read your reply to flyingfish's last. If he doesn't rip it to small pieces I shall be more than happy to oblige in his stead. I don't like your arrogant tone, especially since it is founded in such egregious ignorance.

You mean you're going to be giving more and more evasive answers to my questions, is that it? How will I survive? You haven't answered a single one of my statements, except to say that I am wrong and you are right, just because you said so. Or to declare that you will not answer it.

reply to post by Leahn

Those are your answers?

That's right. If you want to check their veracity, it is quite easily done; these are publicly available scientific facts, not some kind of religious arcana. I don't waste my time explaining science to creationists. By the way, you should consult a dictionary on the meaning of 'archaeology'.

How will I survive?

Time will tell.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Those are your answers?

That's right. If you want to check their veracity, it is quite easily done; these are publicly available scientific facts, not some kind of religious arcana. I don't waste my time explaining science to creationists. By the way, you should consult a dictionary on the meaning of 'archaeology'.

As always, ask an evolutionist to show evidence for their statements, and they run away. That's why there can be no discussion on the topic of Evolution, despite evolutionist's oftenly made claims that they would like to have one.

None of what you said is actually any available scientific fact because you didn't say anything. You simply avoided all questions.

Astyanax
reply to post by helldiver

 

See rnaa's post just after my earlier one.

Sorry cant find it. Can you post a link please? Cheers.

Leahn

helldiver
I'm sure some have, bacterial resistance to antibiotics would be one example.

Bacterial resistance is not an example of evolution, sorry. There are "always" some bacteria of any species that are resistant to any given antibiotics because those have deleterious mutations that happen to have the side-effect of preventing the antibiotics from working.

It is no more an example of evolution as killing all male population of a country in a war would be an example of such population evolving to become an all-female species.

Antibiotics work by targeting specifics biological processes on bacteria, preventing their replication (allowing your body to have time to kill them) or even killing them with such disruption. A bacteria that has a mutation on such process will simply survive such targeted killing because the process will not be disrupted by the medication. But the process itself is already "pre-disrupted" in a sense as such mutations are always deleterious.

Sorry i'm not sure about that, It's still an example of microevolution driven by natural selection. The population in question becomes resistant and remains resistant where the antibiotic is present in the environment.

The deleterious mutations you refer to are really only deleterious in the absence of the antibiotic. Resistance comes at a cost which is why, in the absence of an antibiotic, those members of the population that are resistant are the minority.

I'm not sure how your example of one sex being removed from a population relates to bacterial resistance.

Astyanax
reply to post by Leahn

 

Here are the answers:

1. 'All beings that exist' is exactly the sort of phrase a scientifically ignorant person steeped in religious jargon would coin to try to elide the difference between viruses and other organisms.
   
   
2. No. Obviously.

Once more an evasive answer. Viruses are not alive. They do not meet the criteria. You can exclude them from the question. Now answer it.

Sorry but didn't you use HIV mutation rate as an argument against speciation in an earlier post?

Leahn

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

If that's the case then show me why I'm factually wrong.
Biologists are uncovering thousands of examples of how mutations lead to new traits and even new species.

Show me a single example of an undisputed instance of a mutation that led to a new trait rather than adapted and improved an existing trait. Since you are saying that there are thousands of examples, show me one.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

Your claim not only flies in the face of the evidence, it is also a logical impossibility.
How do you think some people acquired the ability to digest milk?

They've evolved new traits by mutation!

You are begging the question. Look, you may even have some knowledge of Biology. You don't seem to be up to date, but you are certainly knowledgeable about what I learned in class room twenty years ago from my teacher that learned that on her degree forty years or so ago, but you certainly know nothing of Logic, or you would not be begging the question this way, so I'd rather not hear you talk about what is logical and what is not. You're just gonna make a fool of yourself.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

LOL, The idea of epigenetics as a Darwin-destroyer is completely bogus.

Many of the phenomena of “epigenetics” still evolved by natural selection. I think these findings make evolutionary biology more wondrous, and don’t disrupt evolutionary biology or the central place of Darwin’s theory of natural selection at all.

Yes, that's the usual answer given by evolutionists to any challenge to their pet theory; "So evolution can do that, too? Wow!" Nothing can disprove Evolution because Evolution can do anything. If something contradicts a prediction of Evolution, it only means that evolutionists were wrong about that prediction, and Evolution could actually do that too.

flyingfish
reply to post by Leahn

 

If you think your so schooled in the subject answer this question:
If “epigenetics” is so important in evolution, show me a list of a hundred adaptations of organisms that evolved in this Larmackian way as opposed to the old, boring, neo-Darwinian way involving inherited changes in DNA sequence.

Moving goalposts so soon? As far as science goes, one example suffices. You need a hundred to be convinced? Then if I show 99 you will make a fool of yourself by saying that you don't believe it until I find yet another example? Is that it?

www.sciencedaily.com...

"Degrees of a kind of epigenetic modification, DNA methylation, were measured in several thousand genes. This is a chemical alteration of the DNA molecule that can affect gene expression, but unlike a mutation it does not appear in the DNA structure. (...)

Researchers also examined whether the epigenetic differences were hereditary. The answer was yes (...)

Since methylation is a much faster process than random mutations, (...)this may explain how variation within a species can increase so dramatically in just a short time."

If you read the actual (much longer) study, you will see that the research was about discovering how domesticated chicken diferentiated from their wild cousins. This is an example of an organism that adapted entirely by non-Darwinian ways, as the difference between domesticated chicken and wild ones lies entirely on methylation rather than mutations.

A list of peer reviewed sources documenting observed speciation.

www.talkorigins.org...