Evolution and Creationism

[Techno2000]

If you do believe in the supernatural, then the irrational have you right where they want you.

Kinda goes both ways, right?

And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2:14

 

[Hume]

All that is is a ward against criticism. It’s intellectually dangerous and irresponsible.

For example, Muslims that follow the same advice against outside influence have placed themselves beyond your gospel, right?

 

[o_mlly]

There are a few species out there that are still genetically related enough to successfully interbreed.

So, are Neaderthals properly classified as a species distinct from homo sapiens sapiens?

A Genome Study Has Caught Humans And Neanderthals Having Lots of Sex All Over Eurasia

The more we learn about our evolutionary history, the more it seems like early humans and Neanderthals just couldn't keep their hands off one another.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[gama232]

The fact Neanderthals and modern humans could interbreed proves they were completely human.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

You weren’t saying that cladistics comes up with the wrong conclusions. Please adress the point being made.

The point being discussed is: Do all living things have a common ancestor?.

Citing a study that assumes the truth of the issue under discussion does not further the discussion. The study is irrelevant.

It’s not possible to discuss what the conclusions are if you can’t accept the initial assumptions.

There is no need to discuss conclusions when those conclusions are based on an assumption which has no warrant or argument in support; that’s why we call it an assumption. Yes, I reject the assumption that all living things have a common ancestor.

Why do you reject the rational principle of sufficient reason?

Can you please put the goalposts back where they were? You specifically said that the assumptions that cladistics is based on were wrong. Not that their conclusions are wrong. That’s another matter…which cannot be determined until you agree that the assumptions you listed are correct. Or explain why they are not.

Which puts you in something of a quandry of your own making. You want to deny the very assumptions that enable cladistics to be used because you know what the conclusion is but you have no basis for doing so.

So again, either accept those assumptions as you listed or give reasons why they are not valid.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

o_mlly:

Freddy:

Edit: And do you accept Buff’s claim that speciation occurs when the ‘new’ species cannot mate with the ‘old’ species?

How do you define “species”?

As regards the case in point, Buff claims that it’s an inabilty to mate with another group. Specifically the ‘earlier’ group from which the new one evolved. He’s quite adamant about that. It’s a bedrock claim of his that this inability is a negative result of the evolutionary process. And he accepts it as one of the definitions of species. I agree with him.

Do you?

But that’s the darnedest thing. It’s a pretty good definition of “species”, but it can still be broken occasionally. There are a few species out there that are still genetically related enough to successfully interbreed. Like lions and tigers making ligers and tigons. Horses and donkeys can make mules and hinnys.

Hard to define.

Now, back to the gallery with me…

In this case I think we can accept it as one of the general definitions of species and use any examples that don’t as examples that prove the rule.

The problem that you might have noticed is that some on this thread deny that ‘macroeveolution’ occurs. Now I don’t know about you but if we have one species evolved from another and they can’t interbreed then it’s pretty much an example of ‘macroevolution’. Yet some (Buffalo) would argue that not being able to interbreed with the original species is an example of how evolution works in a negative sense.

So on one hand he says it doesn’t happen and on the other says that when it does happen it proves evolution works in a negative way. Such is the tortuous logic with which we have to wrestle.

 

[Freddy]

The fact Neanderthals and modern humans could interbreed proves they were completely human.

All this time and you still didn’t know that the prefix homo meant human? It designates the genus. Neanderthals are a sub species. Genetically different but capable of interbreeding with the species on higher in tbe taxonomic rank.

Why don’t you know this after so long…?

 

[Pattylt]

There are a few species out there that are still genetically related enough to successfully interbreed. Like lions and tigers making ligers and tigons. Horses and donkeys can make mules and hinnys.

They do not have normal fertility rates however. They are greatly reduced and would lead to either extinction or becoming their own species if they can successfully mate with each other. Does anyone know if Ligers or Tigons can successfully breed with each other? There is very few as it does not occur in nature.

Rarely, and I mean very rarely, a mule can breed. It’s so rare that extinction would occur before establishing a herd of fertile mules.

 

[Freddy]

Hume:

There are a few species out there that are still genetically related enough to successfully interbreed. Like lions and tigers making ligers and tigons. Horses and donkeys can make mules and hinnys.

They do not have normal fertility rates however. They are greatly reduced and would lead to either extinction or becoming their own species if they can successfully mate with each other. Does anyone know if Ligers or Tigons can successfully breed with each other? There is very few as it does not occur in nature.

Rarely, and I mean very rarely, a mule can breed. It’s so rare that extinction would occur before establishing a herd of fertile mules.

From wiki:

The fertility of hybrid big cat females is well documented across a number of different hybrids. This is in accordance with Haldane’s rule: in hybrids of animals whose sex is determined by sex chromosomes, if one sex is absent, rare or sterile, it is the heterogametic sex (the one with two different sex chromosomes e.g. X and Y).[ clarification needed ]

According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile; however, in 1943, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an ‘Island’ tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, though of delicate health, was raised to adulthood.[22]

 

[Pattylt]

I definitely need to read up more on this! It’s fascinating and shows one pathway for evolution to go from two species to three or four. Cool beans!

 

[o_mlly]

Can you please put the goalposts back where they were? You specifically said that the assumptions that cladistics is based on were wrong. Not that their conclusions are wrong. That’s another matter …

No, conclusions that derive from a wrong assumption are not another matter. GIGO. You have already answered your own question. See below. Good for the goose …

First, the assumptions in cladistics that you cited as evidence supporting that all living organisms descend from a common ancestor:

Let’s look at the first study which @Freddy proposed as supporting the truth of macroevolution, cladistics.

Assumptions
There are three basic assumptions in cladistics: …

1. Any group of organisms is related by descent from a common ancestor.

And your reply alerting Duke on the fallacy of begging the question:

You make a lot of assumptions, Duke. …

I’m simply pointing out that you are assuming in the first instance that which you are trying to prove.

History shows the validity of the idea that more humility by evolutionary scientists in advancing hypotheses based on unwarranted assumptions is valid. How did ether cause Egg on the Face syndrome?

The Mistaken Assumptions That Changed Physics History

Discover how mistaken assumptions have changed the course of physics history.

www.pbs.org

In the years after scientists came to accept light as a wave, brilliant researchers spent untold hours chasing after the “ether,” hypothetical stuff through which light waves were thought to propagate. Water waves are disturbances in water, sound waves are disturbances in air, and so light waves must be a disturbance in something , the reasoning went. When the sophisticated experiments built to search for the ether couldn’t find it, theorists got to work trying to explain away ether’s experimental no-show. It was only when Einstein published his theory of special relativity in 1905 that the solution became clear: Ether wasn’t just hard to find. It didn’t exist. […]

It’s hard to imagine an astronomer dismissing observational data on the evidence of her “instinct for astronomy,” which highlights a key difference between the two fields. “The special aspect of astronomy is that we have limited information on things far away; it’s not like experiments in the laboratory where we can control conditions,” says Loeb. Astronomers therefore have to make more judgment calls than their colleagues in physics, and when they get it wrong, it’s usually because they don’t recognize the limits of their knowledge—their mistakes are failures of humility.

 

[Freddy]

No, conclusions that derive from a wrong assumption are not another matter. GIGO. You have already answered your own question. See below. Good for the goose …

1. Any group of organisms is related by descent from a common ancestor.

Yet again…this is nothing more than pointing out that lineages can be traced backwards exactly as you can trace your own and that a group of, for example, cousins can be traced back to a common ancestor. That they are linked. Simple groups of individuals can be linked to a family - almost by definition. And then families to genus. And so on.

It would serve you well to follow on from the page to which you linked to see how the process works. One cannot continue unless the preceeding step indicates that there are no conflicts in the interpretation. And then the subsequent phylogenetic tree can be used to make predictions about other aspects of the evolutionary process.

If the predictions prove to be valid then it adds weight to the veracity of the tree. Nothing is proved. But the weight of evidence in favour of the process increases to even greater degree. And this is a small subset of one of the very many methods used to validate evolution. To dismantle even the validity of cladistics for just one small family to genus would be a monstrous undertaking. And nobody has done it.

You need to ask yourself why.

 

[buffalo]

The problem that you might have noticed is that some on this thread deny that ‘macroeveolution’ occurs. Now I don’t know about you but if we have one species evolved from another and they can’t interbreed then it’s pretty much an example of ‘macroevolution’. Yet some (Buffalo) would argue that not being able to interbreed with the original species is an example of how evolution works in a negative sense.

So on one hand he says it doesn’t happen and on the other says that when it does happen it proves evolution works in a negative way. Such is the tortuous logic with which we have to wrestle.

It was a concession in definition I made to @rossum. He wanted to define speciation as macro. I disagreed and redefined it as essentially long term lineage splitting leaving organism less fit and on the path to extinction. If he was OK with it I said OOOOOOOKKKKKKKK.

 

[IWantGod]

The real enemy is not evolution, it’s the insistence that we should treat the biblical story of creation as an objective literal reality; no less than dogma.

It’s an infection, a virus that feeds the unrelenting idea that there are two conflicting realities competing for dominance; one biblical truth, the other scientific fact.

But it’s not the bible that contradicts evolution, it’s the unfounded belief in creationism as dictated by scripture according to those who believe themselves to be infallible interpreters of God’s word.

It’s an unjustified conflict. If it were not for these infallible interpreters what christian would care if evolution were true or not?

 

[BT3241]

God did give man understanding to explore and try to understand our environment . It should not be ignored We have come a long way in understanding some of it and that is what man is doing working towards the truth and that cannot be done with a closed mind.

Everything was put in front of us to learn and explore its Gods will. If it wasn’t he would of made it so.

 

[o_mlly]

Yet again…this is nothing more than pointing out that lineages can be traced backwards exactly as you can trace your own and that a group of, for example, cousins can be traced back to a common ancestor. That they are linked. Simple groups of individuals can be linked to a family - almost by definition. And then families to genus. And so on.

Evidence of microevolution is not evidence for macroevolution.

It would serve you well to follow on from the page to which you linked to see how the process works. One cannot continue unless the preceeding step indicates that there are no conflicts in the interpretation. And then the subsequent phylogenetic tree can be used to make predictions about other aspects of the evolutionary process.

It would serve you well to understand the scientific method.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-not-scientifically-valid/

6 steps to the Scientific Method.

1. Make an observation about what is witnessed in its current state, not something believed to have happened.

Speciation has never been witnesses by anyone. Darwin looked at fossils and came up with macroevolution without any evidence to support his claim.

No fossils have ever been found to explain how the Cambrian Explosion came into existence.

1. Ask questions and gather information.

Where are the positive mutations in nature? There has never been a positive mutation witnessed by anyone, which is needed for macroevolution to occur.

1. Form an hypothesis about what has been observed and information received.

This is Darwin’s first step and he simply ignored what should have been the first step. He believed speciation occurred before he ever set sail home.

(Continued)

 

[o_mlly]

1. Test the hypotheses and make predictions in experiments that can be reproduced.

No one in the scientific community has been able to reproduce speciation. Every experiment ends up with the species or organism remaining exactly what they started with on the genetic level. To wit:

In 1988, Biologist Richard Lenski, started a project working with E. coli bacteria to prove macroevolution exists. Over the course of those 30 years, there were over 68,000 generations witnessed, which is the equivalent of 1,000,000 years to human beings. It is believed this is the amount of generations needed to witness speciation. The reason they had to discontinue the research was from a lack of evidence to support macroevolution. E. coli remained E. coli at the genetic level, which showed signs of microevolution only.

1. Analyze the data and either accept or reject the hypothesis.

Despite the constant failures to prove macroevolution exists, since it has never actually been observed and not once has anyone come close to replicating the results, there is a refusal to give up on the theory

If macroevolution were scientific, the hypothesis would have to be rejected due to a lack of evidence.

1. Reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observation and theory.

It is difficult to reproduce something that has never been witnessed in nature. If macroevolution were a valid theory, a 30 year study of E. coli would have shown something genetically different than E. coli.

In order for something to be a valid scientific theory, it must be observed, and the results replicated. Without observation and replication, it is nothing more than science-fiction being sold as science fact.

 

[rossum]

Speciation has never been witnesses by anyone. Darwin looked at fossils and came up with macroevolution without any evidence to support his claim.

False. We have observed examples of macroevolution. Your sources are grossly misinforming you. You even refute yourself in this post; below you correctly point out that Darwin observed living species, not fossils, in the Galapagos.

No fossils have ever been found to explain how the Cambrian Explosion came into existence.

False. We have Tommotian, Vendian and Ediacaran fossils from before the Cambrian explosion. Your sources are grossly misinforming you.

Where are the positive mutations in nature? There has never been a positive mutation witnessed by anyone, which is needed for macroevolution to occur.

False. We have plenty of observations of beneficial mutations. HbC protects against malaria. Apo AI Milano protects against arteriosclerosis. Many mutations in insects and weeds protect against various insecticides and herbicides. MRSA has beneficial mutations to resist antibiotics. Your sources are grossly misinforming you.

This is Darwin’s first step and he simply ignored what should have been the first step. He believed speciation occurred before he ever set sail home.

Darwin observed different species on different islands: tortoises, finches etc. He observed that those species were related to other species on the nearest mainland. He formed a hypothesis. That is correct science. Your sources are misinforming you.

 

[buffalo]

he other scientific fact.

The theories are not facts.

 

[Hume]

Just add to the dog pile of beneficial mutations there is a mutation common in the people of Tibet to help them cope with living at such high altitude. Does something to their blood.