Darwin's Myth is not "quite credible"

[Wesley]

Hey ccuthbert. I'm sorry for all the attacks you've suffered in this thread. Unfortunately it is too often the case that when people disagree, they will attack, even in a place like FDR.

Can you point out where such an attack occurred? I would be very interested to downvote the post as I am not a fan of personal attacks, it is against general board guidelines, and someone who does this should be downvoted so that they are known by reputation to potentially do this kind of thing.

 

Of course, "attacking" ideas is different and is somewhat encouraged by the board and should be distinct from attacking the person.

 

I may have missed it, so I am very interested in your response.

[ccuthbert]

wesley said:

"You on the other hand are calling his posts "mentally defective" which I would consider an insult."

 

Clarification: I was saying that his post implies that I am mentally defective.

[Wesley]

wesley said:

"You on the other hand are calling his posts "mentally defective" which I would consider an insult."

 

Clarification: I was saying that his post implies that I am mentally defective.

That is a good clarification and I appreciate that. I am sure you could reread the post and understand where my confusion was.

 

However, I am still confused as to why you think his post was implying you were mentally defective. Again, I could be easily missing it, so I would like you to point it out.

 

Feel free to click the "MultiQuote" button on any posts and then add your own comments to explain the thought process.

[ccuthbert]

Here's the deal. I posited that Darwin was wrong. That means that his incremental changes over many years lead to new species is wrong. That is his myth. I did NOT say that there is no evolution. The idea of evolution pre-dates Darwin. His myth was proposing a mechanism and that mechanism has been shown to be incomplete and incorrect. Further, many scientist have known that Darwin was wrong including from the very beginning all the way to today, yet this "theory" is taught as gospel and over the years it hasn't been unknown for a dissenter to be busted by the thought police. These days, scientists come up with alternative "theories" that imply Darwin was wrong, then cover themselves by insisting that Darwin was right. These things should make us suspicious.

 

I propose that Darwin caught on bc he had a PR machine behind him--kind of like global warming.

 

Friendly can say all day that Darwin was wrong and Darwin was right and don't you know ANYTHING? but that doesn't really address the argument. I mentioned an excellent pamphlet that discusses why darwin was wrong and posted a paragraph from it to try to cut off the religion v science squabble. Religious belief should be irrelevant in this debate. To the extent that it isn't should also make us suspicious.

 

If you don't want to buy the cheap pamphlet (I have no affiliation with it) point your search engine to "darwin was wrong" and I'm sure you'll find many weeks worth of reading. It's fascinating and it would be nice to discuss that instead of going back and forth on how great darwin was.

 

Here are three things to think about: 1. st434u's comment on drosophila experiments, 2. the development of grains as a food source and 3. development of complex structures such as eyes and wings.

[Wesley]

Here's the deal. I posited that Darwin was wrong. That means that his incremental changes over many years lead to new species is wrong. That is his myth. I did NOT say that there is no evolution. The idea of evolution pre-dates Darwin. His myth was proposing a mechanism and that mechanism has been shown to be incomplete and incorrect. Further, many scientist have known that Darwin was wrong including from the very beginning all the way to today, yet this "theory" is taught as gospel and over the years it hasn't been unknown for a dissenter to be busted by the thought police. These days, scientists come up with alternative "theories" that imply Darwin was wrong, then cover themselves by insisting that Darwin was right. These things should make us suspicious.

 

I propose that Darwin caught on bc he had a PR machine behind him--kind of like global warming.

 

Friendly can say all day that Darwin was wrong and Darwin was right and don't you know ANYTHING? but that doesn't really address the argument. I mentioned an excellent pamphlet that discusses why darwin was wrong and posted a paragraph from it to try to cut off the religion v science squabble. Religious belief should be irrelevant in this debate. To the extent that it isn't should also make us suspicious.

 

If you don't want to buy the cheap pamphlet (I have no affiliation with it) point your search engine to "darwin was wrong" and I'm sure you'll find many weeks worth of reading. It's fascinating and it would be nice to discuss that instead of going back and forth on how great darwin was.

 

Here are three things to think about: 1. st434u's comment on drosophila experiments, 2. the development of grains as a food source and 3. development of complex structures such as eyes and wings.

We can get back to this, but i am much more concerned about you calling a post a mentally defective post. You have then said that you meant that he was implying that you were mentally defective, but I see no evidence of this.

 

I would like to see evidence of your assertion. The evidence should be right here in this thread and involves clicking a button labeled "Quote" and then adding a sentence of explanation.

 

Personal attacks are very important to identify and I would be very concerned if I missed one.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Here's the deal. I posited that Darwin was wrong. That means that his incremental changes over many years lead to new species is wrong. That is his myth. I did NOT say that there is no evolution. The idea of evolution pre-dates Darwin. His myth was proposing a mechanism and that mechanism has been shown to be incomplete and incorrect. Further, many scientist have known that Darwin was wrong including from the very beginning all the way to today, yet this "theory" is taught as gospel and over the years it hasn't been unknown for a dissenter to be busted by the thought police. These days, scientists come up with alternative "theories" that imply Darwin was wrong, then cover themselves by insisting that Darwin was right. These things should make us suspicious.

 

I propose that Darwin caught on bc he had a PR machine behind him--kind of like global warming.

 

Friendly can say all day that Darwin was wrong and Darwin was right and don't you know ANYTHING? but that doesn't really address the argument. I mentioned an excellent pamphlet that discusses why darwin was wrong and posted a paragraph from it to try to cut off the religion v science squabble. Religious belief should be irrelevant in this debate. To the extent that it isn't should also make us suspicious.

 

If you don't want to buy the cheap pamphlet (I have no affiliation with it) point your search engine to "darwin was wrong" and I'm sure you'll find many weeks worth of reading. It's fascinating and it would be nice to discuss that instead of going back and forth on how great darwin was.

 

Here are three things to think about: 1. st434u's comment on drosophila experiments, 2. the development of grains as a food source and 3. development of complex structures such as eyes and wings.

If you think religious belief is not important then why is this being discussed on this philosophy forum? Why not take it to a biology forum or better yet, take the evidence you have that falsifies the theory and present it? If this subject isn't being discussed directly because it is so tied to religion then why is it important to attempt to convince a bunch of people here that "Darwin was wrong"?

[st434u]

We can get back to this, but i am much more concerned about you calling a post a mentally defective post. You have then said that you meant that he was implying that you were mentally defective, but I see no evidence of this.

 

You should go back and reread the post he was responding to. I don't believe that personal attacks are something that distresses you a lot. I think when the attack is made towards someone you disagree with, you don't even register it as an attack. Seriously, I can see how you can miss it the first time you read the post he was responding to, but to miss it even after he made the comment, and to go from there to suggesting that he was the one making the attack, is something I can't explain in any other way. But then again, I've already seen how you interact in the bitcoin threads and chat. So it doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that you continue to push the issue and pretend like this is very important to you. If it was up to me, I'd just stick to the topic at hand (Darwinism), which is why I ignored your other post. But I felt I had to respond now, even if I prefer that we drop this issue because I don't think any progress will be made in this regard.

 

If you think religious belief is not important then why is this being discussed on this philosophy forum? Why not take it to a biology forum or better yet, take the evidence you have that falsifies the theory and present it? If this subject isn't being discussed directly because it is so tied to religion then why is it important to attempt to convince a bunch of people here that "Darwin was wrong"?

 

This is the science subforum. There used to be a religion subforum, but it's gone now. Either way, your complaint is quite meaningless because with that logic, you shouldn't talk about anything here. Since whatever topic that is discussed in the FDR forums is also discussed in other more specific forums for the particular topic.

 

First off, it's not either/or. You can talk about something in many forums at the same time.

 

Second, it's a matter of community. ccuthbert probably feels like it's more important to him to generate good and interesting discussion here than in some other forum that exclusively deals with biology.

 

Third, as he explained, most biology forums would crucify him for saying these things, and the personal attacks he'd receive would be much more numerous and nasty.

 

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ccuthbert, could you expand on your objections to the idea that incremental steps caused by mutations + natural selection, over a long period of time, could have caused speciation?And, are you saying that anagenesis doesn't happen because of the regression to the mean and/or diluting and eventual elimination of the mutations over the general population?Are you also saying that cladogenesis does happen, and that it is the only process that generates speciation, but that it requires significant genetic isolation to take place?In either case, how do the incremental steps play or not play a role here? It seems to me that however you look at it, incremental steps would be necessary for speciation.Also, what did you mean when you said we should think about the development of grains as a food source for humans?

[dsayers]

What about me? When Wes asked you where the personal attack was, that was my thought as well. If there is none to be identified, you should withdraw that falsehood. Otherwise, it should be easy to point out. The only attacks I saw in the thread was by somebody no longer participating in the thread, that agreed with cuthbert's stance.

 

Oh and science and biology are offshoots of philosophy. There shouldn't be any contention as to whether or not they are fair topics.

[Wesley]

What I am seeing in this thread is a lot of assertions without evidence. This claim of personal attack is very easy to prove by simply clicking a button. 

 

I am also interested in how evolution may be incorrect, but that would require evidence. I figured that I would give the option to present evidence in a situation that everyone here can verify and look at and only requires to click a button labeled "Quote".

 

Here are the options of what will happen:

 

1. The evidence cannot be found and the claim of attack is withdrawn. People gain some respect that opinions will actually be based on evidence, however somewhat more wary for fear of being attacked with claims of personal attacks again.

 

2. The evidence can be found and is pointed out as evidence. People gain respect and sympathy for your position as attacked people. The boards gets better at identifying personal attack. Everyone wins.

 

3. The evidence can be found but isn't pointed out and the claim is still asserted. People assume that it was crap as the evidence wasn't presented to them. The rest of this thread is not worth participating in as no evidence that could actually change minds will ever be presented.

 

4. The evidence can't be found and the claim is still asserted. People assume it was crap as the evidence wasn't presented to them. The rest of this thread is not worth participating in as evidence or lack thereof will not actually change anyone's mind.

 

This is a small-microcosm of asserting claims that need evidence. After all, evidence and empiricism are the standards of truth in science.

 

However, this doesn't have all the preconceived emotions and ideas and it is easily verifiable. 

 

I cannot think of a better way to collect evidence as to whether evidence matters in this conversation or if the whole thing will just be arbitrary assertions without evidence.

[st434u]

5. The evidence can be found and is pointed out (as it already has been to some degree), but people like you disagree in that it shows that the attacks happened. Then we go on for another 300 posts without getting anywhere.

[Wesley]

5. The evidence can be found and is pointed out (as it already has been to some degree)

I don't understand this. It either has or is hasn't. The quote feature is an easy way to tell if it has.

 

 

but people like you disagree in that it shows that the attacks happened.

Luckily, as I said, this is easily verifiable by everyone as opposed to large abstractions that are hard for people to verify or not.

 

 

Then we go on for another 300 posts without getting anywhere.

No, I think I am beginning to understand what is going on.

[ccuthbert]

Well, Stefan's Feb 13 podcast where he treated the caller who wanted to challenge the evolution orthodoxy with avante garde theories about extraterrestirals was one of the most disgusting interchanges I've witnessed. "You have crazy ideas, you must have been abused as a child. Instead of discussing evolution, let's discuss YOU."

 

ST, the "incremental steps" or (should we say randome point mutations?) seem to create changes within a species, what has been termed microevolution. There is a leap to a new species that is not supported by random point mutation for two reasons that I can think of off the top of my head: 1. the mutations are lost in the gene pool, as you mentioned and 2. point mutation can't create complex systems changes.

 

It seems to me that large changes (saltation) are required for a new species to "evolve."

 

About the grains, read these few paragraphs by Lloyde Pye at http://newbeing.org/NB_Pye.html

 

"Nearly all domesticated plants are believed to have appeared between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, with different groups coming to different parts of the world at different times. Initially, in the so-called Fertile Crescent of modern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, came wheat, barley and legumes, among other varieties. Later on, in the Far East, came wheat, millet, rice and yams. Later still, in the New World, came maize (corn), peppers, beans, squash, tomatoes and potatoes.

 

"Many have "wild" predecessors that were apparently a starting point for the domesticated variety, but others--like many common vegetables--have no obvious precursors. But for those that do, such as wild grasses, grains and cereals, how they turned into wheat, barley, millet, rice, etc. is a profound mystery.

 

"No botanist can conclusively explain how wild plants gave rise to domesticated ones. The emphasis here is on "conclusively." Botanists have no trouble hypothesising elaborate scenarios in which Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers somehow figured out how to hybridise wild grasses, grains and cereals, not unlike Gregor Mendel when he cross-bred pea plants to figure out the mechanics of genetic inheritance. It all sounds so simple and so logical, almost no one outside scientific circles ever examines it closely.

 

"Gregor Mendel never bred his pea plants to be anything other than pea plants. He created short ones, tall ones and different- coloured ones, but they were always pea plants that produced peas. (Pea plants are a domesticated species, too, but that is irrelevant to the point to be made here.) On the other hand, those New Stone Age farmers who were fresh out of their caves and only just beginning to turn soil for the first time (as the "official" scenario goes), somehow managed to transform the wild grasses, grains and cereals growing around them into their domesticated "cousins." Is that possible? Only through a course in miracles!

 

"Actually, it requires countless miracles within two large categories of miracles. The first was that the wild grasses and grains and cereals were useless to humans. The seeds and grains were maddeningly small, like pepper flakes or salt crystals, which put them beyond the grasping and handling capacity of human fingers. They were also hard, like tiny nutshells, making it impossible to convert them to anything edible. Lastly, their chemistry was suited to nourishing animals, not humans.

 

"So wild varieties were entirely too small, entirely too tough and nutritionally inappropriate for humans. They needed to be greatly expanded in size, greatly softened in texture and overhauled at the molecular level--which would be an imposing challenge for modern botanists, much less Neolithic farmers.

 

"Despite the seeming impossibility of meeting those daunting objectives, modern botanists are confident the first sodbusters had all they needed to do it: time and patience. Over hundreds of generations of selective crossbreeding, they consciously directed the genetic transformation of the few dozen that would turn out to be most useful to humans. And how did they do it? By the astounding feat of doubling, tripling and quadrupling the number of chromosomes in the wild varieties! In a few cases, they did better than that. Domestic wheat and oats were elevated from an ancestor with seven chromosomes to their current 42--an expansion by a factor of six. Sugar cane was expanded from a 10-chromosome ancestor to the 80-chromosome monster it is today--a factor of eight. The chromosomes of others, like bananas and apples, were only multiplied by factors of two or three, while peanuts, potatoes, tobacco and cotton, among others, were expanded by factors of four. This is not as astounding as it sounds, because many wild flowering plants and trees have multiple chromosome sets."

 

He goes on to talk about the mystery of angiosperms and then domesticated animals. Lots of question...

 

Here's another thing that has bothered me for a long time. Biologists say that when a population becomes small, lethal recessive genes will be expressed leading to extinction. Ok, but what about on the other end of the time line. Would not the emergence of a new species presuppose a small population? If so, wouldn't lethal recessive genes lead to extinction? If the new species is not a small population, how did that happen if one depends upon the theory of random point mutations driving evolution?

[LanceD]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiktaalikHere is a transitional species of fish that had begun to develop lungs, feet, and other tetrapod-like characteristics.Fish who were able to develop muscles and skeletal structure to start having load-bearing limbs became the species that won out the natural selection game in areas of shallow water pools and muddy land.

Yes a species that is very well suited to its environment.The whole idea of evolution is weird to me. I can't see any way for it to work without a guiding force behind it making decisions, and we all know that is nonsense. Why would a species that is surviving fine in water evolve in a manner that allowed it to move out onto the shore? If it's current existence is successful then it has no factors driving evolution and if suddenly the water it lives in is threatened how will a process as slow as evolution be able to save them? Also why are dogs still dogs? Humans have spent at least ten thousand years breeding the domestic dog. We've created all sorts of amazing variations. Yet genetically they are all descendants of wolves and all capable of procreating with each other. Also what advantage does an animal get by evolving to a point where it cannot reproduce with the animals it came from? Are you really going to get similar versions of the same updated evolved animal to all be born at the same time so they can procreate?

[Josh F]

To me, it is dishonest to pretend to know how life came about on Earth.  There were no surviving witnesses.  Also, any evidence is quite old and often contradicts other evidence.  I have a hard time myself discrediting the idea of a higher power when there is a very natural, observable rule called entropy that life somehow defies.  LIfe is special in this way.  However you decide to explain it in your own mind, you must at least admit that life is vastly different from anything else in the observable universe.

 

I don't know about that, from my perspective, some lifeforms are nearly indistinguishable from things which are not alive.  Humans are vastly different than a rock, but is coral as different?  Live and inanimate things share many qualities.  They're composed of atoms.  They have weight.  They both have motion.  They both involve complex chemical reactions.  Are they so different? 

[ribuck]

dogs ... all capable of procreating with each other ...

 

Have you seen any Great Danes procreating with chihuahuas recently?

[LanceD]

Have you seen any Great Danes procreating with chihuahuas recently?

Genetically nothing prevents this. However that was a long post, this is the only thing you can respond too?

[ribuck]

... that was a long post, this is the only thing you can respond too?

 

LanceD, it's difficult to respond adequately and in full to a post like that one. I admit I took the easy way out and cherry-picked the one part that interested me.

 

When you write "The whole idea of evolution is weird to me. I can't see any way for it to work without a guiding force behind it making decisions, and we all know that is nonsense" it's clear to me that you haven't put a huge amount of effort into learning about evolution. So how can I respond adequately to your entire post without writing a book about evolution?

 

If you're interested in how complex creatures can arise through evolution, a great place to start is to look at the evolution of eyes. This process is well-understood. Furthermore, the process is understood for many different types of eyes which evolved separately. For example, vertebrate eyes evolved completely independently from octopus eyes, and as a result there are some very interesting design differences. Insect eyes evolved independently too, and ended up as compound eyes. Interestingly, there are still species surviving that show almost all of the intermediate stages in the evolution of highly-developed eyes (because those species gained some other evolutionary advantage).

 

The Wikipedia page on Evolution of the eye is a good introduction to this subject. If you prefer a simpler video introduction, here's an extract from a practical demonstration by Richard Dawkins:

 

 

Are you really going to get similar versions of the same updated evolved animal to all be born at the same time so they can procreate?

 

It doesn't work anything like that. Numerous genetic changes get mixed back into a substantial portion of the population of a species (because of sexual reproduction). At some point, some of those changes turn out to be incompatible with different changes that exist in some other portion of the population, and from that point on we have two different species.

 

This is well-observed in nature. You may find the Wikipedia page on Ring species interesting. We can study a species that populates a range of environments (e.g. from the coast to the mountaintops). There are many different adaptations found in the population that inhabits each environment. Typically, each population can breed successfully with the adjoining populations but not with the distant ones. If the intermediate population dies out for any reason, we end up with two distinct species which then evolve further and further apart.

[Wesley]

Why would a species that is surviving fine in water evolve in a manner that allowed it to move out onto the shore? If it's current existence is successful then it has no factors driving evolution and if suddenly the water it lives in is threatened how will a process as slow as evolution be able to save them?

There are periods in time where there is an evolution pressure. Sometimes, food scarcity forces a species to move to a new area. For a period, there might be an ice age. For another period, there could be heavy rains for a long time. For another period, there could be large droughts that dry up a lot of water in an area. There could be a disease that wipes out a large portion of the population.

 

In a time of rest and plenty and when a species has what they need, there tends to be a lot of species diversity and many different types flourish. Then, some disaster happens that separates the species into several groups or kills off the species except the best at surviving that particular catastrophe.

 

This is why evolution happens, because the environment the species inhabits is not a constant. As long as the environment changes, then it is necessary for the species to change and evolve to survive.

[J-William]

Well, Stefan's Feb 13 podcast where he treated the caller who wanted to challenge the evolution orthodoxy with avante garde theories about extraterrestirals was one of the most disgusting interchanges I've witnessed. "You have crazy ideas, you must have been abused as a child. Instead of discussing evolution, let's discuss YOU."

That's funny, because it seemed to lead to a very productive place for the caller.

It's like if I walk into a political discussion and say that Lincoln was a genocidal racist, it may very well be true but I really need to look at how I am presenting myself, my arguments, and my evidence before anyone will listen.

 

Stef did not call into the Rush Limbaugh show and tell everyone that the military industrial complex was ruining America, stop hitting your kids and the state is immoral, because they would have hung up on him as a crank.

He took the long road, convincing people with gentle humor and engaging videos and whatever other candy he could use to sweeten the way to truth.

 

So, as others have pointed out... if you wanted a biology discussion you could talk to biologists, but you aren't, so you must be looking for something else in this discussion. 

 

If you want to convince people of something it's more of an art than a science.

[ccuthbert]

J, maybe it was productive for the caller, I certainly don't know, but it was insulting, nevertheless. Frankly, the morphing of his show into a voyeuristic, psuedo-psychology session (and often times into a men's lonely hearts session, ugh) I find both appalling and totally uninteresting. If these people need help from him, so be it, but I don't want to listen to it and i turn it off immediately. Talking about interesting ideas, such as exploring the weak points of orthodox science, or new historical information, or better ways of organizing our society, or new tech, or I could go on for a long time, are all preferable. "Someone done me wrong" just doesn't interest me, nor does "it's all my mother's fault."

 

About bringing up evolution out of context (or something), the caller said that Stefan had mentioned evolution and that's why he wanted to discuss it--why shouldn't he bring it up? I have noticed a couple of times Stefan saying something about evolution, too, one time triggering this thread. I think he has a sort of pop grasp on the topic, very conventional, and I think he's wrong. Do I need to talk about my childhood to continue posting here? Got one word for that, f'getaboutit.

[LanceD]

LanceD, it's difficult to respond adequately and in full to a post like that one. I admit I took the easy way out and cherry-picked the one part that interested me.When you write "The whole idea of evolution is weird to me. I can't see any way for it to work without a guiding force behind it making decisions, and we all know that is nonsense" it's clear to me that you haven't put a huge amount of effort into learning about evolution. So how can I respond adequately to your entire post without writing a book about evolution?If you're interested in how complex creatures can arise through evolution, a great place to start is to look at the evolution of eyes. This process is well-understood. Furthermore, the process is understood for many different types of eyes which evolved separately. For example, vertebrate eyes evolved completely independently from octopus eyes, and as a result there are some very interesting design differences. Insect eyes evolved independently too, and ended up as compound eyes. Interestingly, there are still species surviving that show almost all of the intermediate stages in the evolution of highly-developed eyes (because those species gained some other evolutionary advantage).The Wikipedia page on Evolution of the eye is a good introduction to this subject. If you prefer a simpler video introduction, here's an extract from a practical demonstration by Richard Dawkins:

It doesn't work anything like that. Numerous genetic changes get mixed back into a substantial portion of the population of a species (because of sexual reproduction). At some point, some of those changes turn out to be incompatible with different changes that exist in some other portion of the population, and from that point on we have two different species.This is well-observed in nature. You may find the Wikipedia page on Ring species interesting. We can study a species that populates a range of environments (e.g. from the coast to the mountaintops). There are many different adaptations found in the population that inhabits each environment. Typically, each population can breed successfully with the adjoining populations but not with the distant ones. If the intermediate population dies out for any reason, we end up with two distinct species which then evolve further and further apart.

Thanks for the long post. Since I haven't based my life on a belief that requires evolution to be false or had a particular interest in biology I've never bothered to seek the information that could answer my questions about the subject. However I'm now interested after this thread and your suggestions seem like a good place to start

[Rainbow Dash]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik

 

Here is a transitional species of fish that had begun to develop lungs, feet, and other tetrapod-like characteristics.

 

Fish who were able to develop muscles and skeletal structure to start having load-bearing limbs became the species that won out the natural selection game in areas of shallow water pools and muddy land.

 

The Tiktaalik reminds me of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth is a fish that was once thought to be a transitional fossil between fish and land animals. It has since been discovered that the Coelacanth is not a transitional fossil, and it continues to live today, even though it was believed to be extinct for 70 million years. Another example of a false evolutionary claim is the Neanderthal. Scientists claimed humans evolved from Neanderthals, but we now know that is not true. Evolutionary scientists have proven to not be credible, so I am skeptical that the Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil.

 

 

Hey ccuthbert. I'm sorry for all the attacks you've suffered in this thread. Unfortunately it is too often the case that when people disagree, they will attack, even in a place like FDR.

 

Being someone who is always questioning the status quo of things, I often find myself in this situation. I don't like to say it, but you do get used to it.

 

I agree with you that many sciences have been corrupted by the State to the point where they get many or even most things wrong, to varying degrees. From my own research I can include here the sciences of economics, psychology, parenting/education, archeology, medicine and climatology; and I have questions about many others, such as physics (think: quantum mechanics).

 

I often doubt the validity of fossil records. It often seems to me like they might just be sculpting a stone into looking like a fossil, or finding a rock with particular attributes that make it look like what they're trying to find. Likewise I question the reliability of radiocarbon dating. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the decay will be exactly the same over 100 million years as it can be observed in a few years in a lab. And where did they come with this "margin of error" for it?

 

Either way, I don't think any of that is necessary to recognize the implications of the Theory Of Evolution By Natural Selection. Even if the Earth is very young, and even if none of the fossils we've found are real; once you agree that mutations happen, that they can sometimes be passed on from one generation to the next, and that certain mutations will be more or less fit to the environment, you have evolution.

 

Species, in sexually reproducing organisms, are classified mainly by the ability of a male to produce fertile offspring with a female. So a horse and a donkey are a different species because they will only be able to produce non-fertile offspring, a mule (or a hinny). Mules or hinnys can't produce offspring with any other animals, even with other mules or hinnys. The reason we say all mules are the same species as other mules is because they all have this similarity, and look the same (without getting to the DNA level). A horse and a lion are different species because they can't produce any offspring at all. The genetic difference between a horse and a donkey is much smaller than between a horse and a lion, but in both cases they are different species. This leads to interesting experiments.

 

For instance, there was this experiment I read about where they fed two groups of fruit flies different diets. I think one of the groups had fruits, and the other had honey, or something like that. Either way, after a few generations (which with fruit flies only takes a short period of time), the flies from one group were no longer able to produce fertile offspring with flies from the other group. However, they were both still able to produce fertile offspring with fruit flies found in the wild. Here you have an example where A and B are different species, but C is the same species as both A and B.

 

If the fruit flies from the experiment were to be released in the wild, they would soon mix with the wild population until the genetic differences would dilute enough for them to all become the same species again. But if they are kept in isolation, there will be no genetic mixing between the two groups, and each will follow a different evolutionary path.

 

So when you ask "how did species arise", the answer I would give is that species evolve. If what you're asking is how did life first arise, that's another question. But once you have lifeforms, the development of different species is simply a matter of genetic mutation + selective pressure (either natural selection or artificial selection), for the transformation of one species into another, and in particular, the addition of genetic isolation (which may or may not include physical isolation), for the splitting of one species into two or more different ones.

 

Different races or breeds (race is natural, breed is artificial) of the same species have genetic differences, but because they're still able to produce fertile offspring with each other, they are able to dilute these differences if the genetic isolation is removed (and a significant degree of genetic isolation is required to produce different races or breeds). The process by which a single species can get different races or breeds, when taken to a larger level, produces different species.

 

Although species are often classified by whether or not they can reproduce, sometimes this does not work. One example is Polar bears and Grizzly bears. It has been discovered that they can reproduce with each other and their offspring can reproduce, but grizzly bears and polar bears and classified as different species. Another example is that it is believed that humans and Neanderthals reproduced with each other, but we are classified as different species. The difficulty of defining the term species is referred to as the “species problem”. Another popular way of classifying species is by DNA. All humans share 99.9 percent of DNA. If an organism has 99.9 percent human DNA it is human, if its DNA Differs by a certain amount, then it is not human. So saying that group A can't breed with group B doesn't prove speciation.

 

 

As for the Richard Dawkins evolution of the eye video, a problem I found is that an eye improving to better observe its surrounding is useless without a brain that can gather valuable information from the improved observation of the eye. The brain being able to make sense of higher quality observation is useless if the eye can't observe in a higher quality. If the eye mutates to learn to detect the location where light is coming from, and the brain doesn't make the connection with the location of light means the location of an object, it gives an evolutionary neutral advantage. If a feature gives an evolutionary neutral advantage, the feature will go away over several generations because mutations that degrade outnumber the mutations that improve. The eye's observation skills can't evolve without the brain's ability to gather information from an image evolving first, and the brains ability to gather information from an image can't evolve without the eye's observation skills evolving first.

[ccuthbert]

"Richard Dawkins thinks that the eye evolved step by step through a series of intermediate stages. But even the 'light-sensitive spot' that Dawkins takes as his starting point is a multicell organ, each of whose cells makes the complexity of a motorcycle or television look paltry in comparison. Dawkins merely adds complex systems to complex systems and calls that an explanation. Behe comments: 'This can be compared to answering the question how is a stereo system made? with the words, by plugging a set of speakers into an amplifier and adding a cd player, radio receiver and tape deck.'" --David Pratt

 

The video clip above does not address any of the complexity on a biochemical level of processing of light to vision. There are many vastly complex systems and behavior that are difficult to explain by random mutation. If one peruses a molecular biology text, one is overwhelmed by it. There are many cellular process even in single cell organisms where one missing protein would make the whole system inoperative, yet how could such complexity arise from a series of random mutations?

 

And speaking of complexity...

 

"An astonishing example of seemingly 'impossible' design, which has quite rightly been much cited by recent 'creationist' writers, is the bombardier beetle Brachinus, which is now known to be equipped for its defense with a miniature liquid fuel rocket engine. Stored hydroquinone fuel and hydrogen peroxide oxidizer are suddenly mixed in a tail end combustion chamber where they react explosively to generate a jet of steam and boiling water ejected through a trainable nozzle at any threatening predator. Another example of an extraordinary 'natural' weapon...: the 'nemotacysts' (stinging cells) of cnidarians (hydroids, jellyfish, sea anemones and relatives). In each of these cells lies a barbed microharpoon on a coiled up tether which is violently ejected if a nearby "trigger" is touched; these microharpoons inject a poison so potent that some jellyfish... maybe fatal for a swimmer to encounter. Far more astounding than the design of these weapons themselves is the fact that some other organisms command the skill to steal these deadly spring-guns from cnidarians in order to make use of them for their own defense!

 

“Two quite unrelated creatures are known to perform this hardly credible feat. One is the flatworm Microstoma which gets them from the small freshwater polyp Hydra. Since it has no hands, it is obliged to eat the Hydra for the purpose--though it must find its flavor repulsive, since it would rather starve than live on an all-Hydra diet. It somehow deactivates the triggers so as to keep the cells from firing; then in its stomach, somehow keeps them from being digested, and passes them through to stomach wall to wandering cells that carry them it its outer skin, where they are installed, and finally furnished with new triggers grown by the new owner. (I could hardly blame you if you refused to believe a word of this.) The other deft thieves are the marine nudibranchs (sea slugs) such as Aeolidia which attack sea anemones and jellyfish to obtain their nematocysts and install them on their own backs--or alternatively to hoard them in special sacs for the purpose of spewing them en masse into the mouth of an attacker."  --Alexander Mebane

 

Another problem is that random mutation appears to be a subtractive process rather than additive.

 

These are very difficult concepts to reason through. The glib type of answers as from Dawkins do not address the crucial questions. The fact is that darwin did not propose an answer to the question of how species arise. Tinkering around with darwinism is not going to give us an answer and only shows that the theory was never a theory at all.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

This is the science subforum. There used to be a religion subforum, but it's gone now. Either way, your complaint is quite meaningless because with that logic, you shouldn't talk about anything here. Since whatever topic that is discussed in the FDR forums is also discussed in other more specific forums for the particular topic.

 

First off, it's not either/or. You can talk about something in many forums at the same time.

 

Second, it's a matter of community. ccuthbert probably feels like it's more important to him to generate good and interesting discussion here than in some other forum that exclusively deals with biology.

 

Third, as he explained, most biology forums would crucify him for saying these things, and the personal attacks he'd receive would be much more numerous and nasty.

What makes you think I said he shouldn't talk about it? I asked him a question? 

The type of discussion cchuthbert's engaging in never goes anywhere. No one is going to change their minds based on arguments from incredulity. It's a monumental waste of time. So why is in not reasonable for me to suggest that cchuthbert focus on biology forums or actually go do some science and prove something? What is it that creationists expect to happen HERE? 

So what if he receives nastiness from biology forums? Evolutionists received nastiness from all sides so maybe he should stop being a pussy.

[ccuthbert]

Pro, I posted the topic on this board because Stefan mentioned evolution and I was hoping he would explore the topic to challenge his position. I chose the science forum bc it is a science question, not a religious one. I don't think that religion is relevant. This is a matter of science, the author I cited challenges the darwin myth based on science, and I agree with him. Darwin's science is incorrect, as many scientists agree. Friendly right here on this thread agreed that darwin was wrong, with the excuse that darwin didn't know about dna. (?!?)

 

I noticed on a podcast this week, Stefan again mentioned evolution, saying that if you read the bible and not Richard Dawkins you are not being intellectually rigorous. How about if you read Dawkins and none of the scientists who challenge Darwin's myth? I contend that also is not being intellectually rigorous. I'll bet he doesn't even realize that there are scientific challenges to the Darwin myth, which is worse.

 

But then, Stefan shows an interesting mixture of unorthodox and extremely orthodox thinking. For example, he gets that gov't school sucks, but he doesn't get all the reasons why, so he bribes his daughter, bosses her to swim, and says how she just has to be reading by the age of 5. (eye roll, sounds a lot like gov't school to me.)  He gets that medical care market is thoroughly distorted, but doesn't get that one of the results is that main stream medicine does not cure disease, and gets surgery and chemo. I guess we all have our bug-a-boos. I'm just always surprised when an unconventional thinker can be so conventional.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Pro, I posted the topic on this board because Stefan mentioned evolution and I was hoping he would explore the topic to challenge his position. I chose the science forum bc it is a science question, not a religious one. I don't think that religion is relevant. This is a matter of science, the author I cited challenges the darwin myth based on science, and I agree with him. Darwin's science is incorrect, as many scientists agree. Friendly right here on this thread agreed that darwin was wrong, with the excuse that darwin didn't know about dna. (?!?)

 

I noticed on a podcast this week, Stefan again mentioned evolution, saying that if you read the bible and not Richard Dawkins you are not being intellectually rigorous. How about if you read Dawkins and none of the scientists who challenge Darwin's myth? I contend that also is not being intellectually rigorous. I'll bet he doesn't even realize that there are scientific challenges to the Darwin myth, which is worse.

 

But then, Stefan shows an interesting mixture of unorthodox and extremely orthodox thinking. For example, he gets that gov't school sucks, but he doesn't get all the reasons why, so he bribes his daughter, bosses her to swim, and says how she just has to be reading by the age of 5. (eye roll, sounds a lot like gov't school to me.)  He gets that medical care market is thoroughly distorted, but doesn't get that one of the results is that main stream medicine does not cure disease, and gets surgery and chemo. I guess we all have our bug-a-boos. I'm just always surprised when an unconventional thinker can be so conventional.

Okay then, book a call on his call-in show and argue your case. Also, be sure to mention how he bosses his daughter and how main-stream medicine did not cure his disease. 

[st434u]

ccuthbert,I'm sorry that all your posts are getting negative ratings by default now, and are thus hidden from view. I find them interesting and thought provoking.Why are random point mutations always lost in the gene pool? It is conceivable that a mutation would arise where the "gene" is still viable, and is passed on from one generation to the next. If this mutation happened to be beneficial, it would have a greater chance to be passed on further, and spread out through the gene pool. Is this incorrect?And, why is it that point mutations can't create complex system changes, by the addition of "incremental steps", where each mutation only makes the organism a little bit more fit (on average) than the rest of the competing genes; and then it takes many more small mutations like this in order to add up to a complex system change? 

It seems to me that large changes (saltation) are required for a new species to "evolve."

Couldn't one species slowly change over time, through the abovementioned small steps? About the grains, I read what you posted. It isn't clear to me what you are trying to say. Where do you think that these came from?Also, does the fact that it is a mystery how a wild plant could turn into a domesticated one, invalidate the idea that it happened in this way? In other words, do we need to always be able to tell what the wild ancestor was and how it was changed into it's more modern form, in order to theorize that a plant that didn't seem to exist until it was domesticated, was probably domesticated from a wild ancestor? 

"No botanist can conclusively explain how wild plants gave rise to domesticated ones. The emphasis here is on "conclusively." Botanists have no trouble hypothesising elaborate scenarios in which Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers somehow figured out how to hybridise wild grasses, grains and cereals

Is hybridization necessary here? Couldn't incremental changes over a long period of time have achieved the same thing? Is there proof that the domestic plant species were hybridized from two or more separate wild ancestors?  

"Gregor Mendel never bred his pea plants to be anything other than pea plants. He created short ones, tall ones and different- coloured ones, but they were always pea plants that produced peas.

But there is a difference between what can be achieved in a lifetime, and what can be achieved through many generations of artificial selection. Also, did Gregor Mendel intend to create plants that produced something other than peas? If he was just selecting for height and colors, that would probably not be a strong enough selective pressure for the plant to start producing something other than peas. 

"Actually, it requires countless miracles within two large categories of miracles. The first was that the wild grasses and grains and cereals were useless to humans. The seeds and grains were maddeningly small, like pepper flakes or salt crystals, which put them beyond the grasping and handling capacity of human fingers. They were also hard, like tiny nutshells, making it impossible to convert them to anything edible. Lastly, their chemistry was suited to nourishing animals, not humans.

People eat things like quinoa today. Those are pretty small too. And through soaking and/or cooking, maybe humans managed to deal with the chemistry part. They could have incrementally bred the bigger, softer, more nutritious varieties; over many generations. 

Over hundreds of generations of selective crossbreeding, they consciously directed the genetic transformation of the few dozen that would turn out to be most useful to humans.

I think selective breeding would be enough, no need for selective crossbreeding. However you do have a point in that selectively breeding from seeds that are very small could be a challenge. 

And how did they do it? By the astounding feat of doubling, tripling and quadrupling the number of chromosomes in the wild varieties! In a few cases, they did better than that. Domestic wheat and oats were elevated from an ancestor with seven chromosomes to their current 42--an expansion by a factor of six. Sugar cane was expanded from a 10-chromosome ancestor to the 80-chromosome monster it is today--a factor of eight. The chromosomes of others, like bananas and apples, were only multiplied by factors of two or three, while peanuts, potatoes, tobacco and cotton, among others, were expanded by factors of four. This is not as astounding as it sounds, because many wild flowering plants and trees have multiple chromosome sets."

I'm not sure why this is an issue. I was under the impression that alterations to the chromosomal structure of organisms within a species are a relatively common sort of mutation. 

Here's another thing that has bothered me for a long time. Biologists say that when a population becomes small, lethal recessive genes will be expressed leading to extinction.

I'm not sure they would say this. I certainly don't agree that this must always be the case. 

Ok, but what about on the other end of the time line. Would not the emergence of a new species presuppose a small population? If so, wouldn't lethal recessive genes lead to extinction? If the new species is not a small population, how did that happen if one depends upon the theory of random point mutations driving evolution?

Well again, in the fruit fly experiment, the groups weren't small, yet they were able to speciate from the other group through genetic isolation. And in the case of anagenesis, a whole species can change simultaneously (over time) through the spread over the gene pool of a series of mutations.

[st434u]

What makes you think I said he shouldn't talk about it? I asked him a question? 

The type of discussion cchuthbert's engaging in never goes anywhere. No one is going to change their minds based on arguments from incredulity. It's a monumental waste of time. So why is in not reasonable for me to suggest that cchuthbert focus on biology forums or actually go do some science and prove something? What is it that creationists expect to happen HERE? 

So what if he receives nastiness from biology forums? Evolutionists received nastiness from all sides so maybe he should stop being a pussy.

 

So before, you didn't say that he shouldn't talk about it, but that's exactly what you're saying now? I see.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

So before, you didn't say that he shouldn't talk about it, but that's exactly what you're saying now? I see.

I guess that was a rhetorical question.

[pipeline_mike]

The big red flag I often notice regarding this topic is the appeal to scientific consensus. Historically, appeals to consensus(if valid) indicate that the theory is wrong, because scientific consensus is historically wrong; consensus in general as well.

 

 

But, maybe it is indicative only of poor arguing ability. To what extent does that inform about the scrutiny of the theory?

[Kevin Beal]

The big red flag I often notice regarding this topic is the appeal to scientific consensus. Historically, appeals to consensus(if valid) indicate that the theory is wrong, because scientific consensus is historically wrong; consensus in general as well.

A consensus that turns out to be wrong is more memorable than a consensus that was right all along.

 

The very fact that a debate from first principles is possible about scientific disciplines is only possible because of an overwhelming amount of shared conclusions about the natural world.

 

The existence of a premise in an argument is an appeal to shared consensus.

 

Language is an appeal to shared consensus!

 

Shared consensus is ubiquitous and you engage in it every single day hundreds of times.

 

The appeal to numbers is a logical fallacy because if offered as proof of a conclusion, then one can always say "not necessarily". But it is absolutely evidence.

 

I have never been to australia. It could be that all these people are making up this strange continent's existence as part of some monumental error. The primary reason I believe that australia exists is because almost everyone tacitly accepts this, and only after the fact did I look at images from space, talk to people from Australia and whatever other non-consensus pieces of evidence.

 

If the majority of scientists who are experts in a field have a conclusion about that field that they all operate from and have for a hundred years and make lots of progress operating under that theory, then I'm inclined to dismiss skepticism like the kind expressed in the original post. Especially after it's pointed out that Gould's criticisms were far too trivial to be considered being against Darwin's theory. There is no one that I'm aware of that says that Darwin was right about every single thing. And neither is it established that Gould was right about his punctuated equilibrium.

 

Like the atomic theory of matter, the evolutionary theory of biology is so incredibly established because it's as proven as these things can be. Speciation has been observed many times in nature. That's proof as far as I'm concerned.

[greekredemption]

The big red flag I often notice regarding this topic is the appeal to scientific consensus. Historically, appeals to consensus(if valid) indicate that the theory is wrong, because scientific consensus is historically wrong; consensus in general as well.

 

 

But, maybe it is indicative only of poor arguing ability. To what extent does that inform about the scrutiny of the theory?

 

You may say that consensus doesn't guarantee accuracy, but you have to temper this. Scientific consensus is typically correct according to information available at the time, and radical changes in information shift the paradigm to a new consensus which is correct in the same way. To say that 'scientific consensus is historically wrong' is to miss the point entirely; in a field whose raison d'etre is to attain and evaluate new information, all consensuses will be wrong to some extent at some point in the future.

 

As to the appeal to consensus, what we have to understand is that science generally is populated by many people with many specialised areas of study. No one person can claim to have excellent knowledge in enough areas to establish originally - i.e. doing the work herself - whether any given claim is accurate. So when somebody says, "There is a scientific consensus on evolution through natural selection, mutation, and other means," what she's really saying is that the scientific method is good enough to ensure with a good level of confidence that many disparate areas of study may reach a similar conclusion and will agree on a given conclusion. So we trust that the output of palaeontologists and geneticists has gone through a robust process and that their findings are accurate.

 

Ergo, on the balance of probability, the theory of evolution almost certainly accounts for the diversity of life.

[pipeline_mike]

The way I see it, the appeal to consensus is an extremely effective catchall that is employed against scrutiny, legitimate or illegitimate. In the long run, we observe that consensus ends up being wrong longer than it rightfully ought to remain so. The next obvious question is: what is current consensus wrong about?

 

Perhaps its just that the consensus theory du jour is so effective at dissuading scrutiny, that it perpetuates and ensures its own eventual failure to remain consistent with the ever-growing body of empirical observation.

[TheRobin]

Mike, if you can show how a theory is flawed, either by the methodology that was used to prove it or by data that it can't explain, then that's certainly valid and encouraged. But simply using the word "perhaps" and then making some assumptions (without showing how they apply to a specific theory) is just an appeal to people's insecurity.

 

When one argues against a well established concensus usually it takes a lot more than just a post or two. (iirc correctly Einsteins Theory of Relativity was 900 pages long or so). Also because you have to go over everythign that the theory has explained well so far and show how it comes that it is correct in all those areas, but not in another area, and how a new theory can explain both without contradiction.

 

That's not to say, that people can just say "consensus" and then be done, but usually when someone argues against a well established position they very often don't to so very accurately. At times, all it takes is a simple google search to see good arguments against most of the common "anti-consensus"-theories, so when people then don't even list some counter arguments and show how they were misapplied and make their own counterarguments then that's not very thorough research on their part.

[pipeline_mike]

To what extent might the evolutionary theory community be anti-evolutionary as far as the theory itself is concerned? What insights can we glean from an appeal to consensus?

 

Admittedly, I am no expert in evolution. I do, however, value my own intelligence. Appealing to consensus, rather than simply addressing the topic through reason and observation, demonstrates that my own ability to think rationally has already been discounted by the other party.