Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[edwest]

Pope Benedict:

"In the book, Benedict reflected on a 1996 comment of his predecessor, John Paul II, who said that Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution were sound, as long as they took into account that creation was the work of God, and that Darwin’s theory of evolution was “more than a hypothesis.”

“The pope (John Paul) had his reasons for saying this,” Benedict said. “But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”

Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.

“We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory,” he said.

 

[Wozza]

buffalo:

Evo does not qualify as empirical science. SInce it is not, it is philosophy

Most of it is theories that can’t be tested, so most of it doesn’t even qualify as science.

Whoops.

Keep 'em coming, Ed.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

THEORIES CANNOT BE PROVED

I didn’t actually say theories can be proven. I said it (the theory that evolution, which proposes that the common ancestor of all life on earth is unicellular) can’t be proven.

Quote adjusted for the purpose of clarity.

What is Evolution? | Science for kids
https://scienceforthekids.wordpress.com › …

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

But seriously, what do you think of this article: https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html#jCp

Hello… That is the article I have linked.

Uh? That cannot be right.

I went looking for an article about EVOLUTION that was written by EVOLUTIONARY scientists that discussed the EVOLUTIONARY process and I found that one.

It proposes that EVOLUTION went through something of a recent bottleneck like an ice age which affected the EVOLUTION of organisms in a way relevant to that event. What they describe would make no sense if you didn’t understand EVOLUTION. And one of the writers of the paper actually said: " ‘The simplest interpretation is that life is always EVOLVING’ said Stoeckle."

The same guy also said: ‘It is more likely that—at all times in EVOLUTION —the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently’.

So no. There must be some mistake. I know that some of you guys are not entirely up to speed with this subject (morning, Ed), but nobody in their right mind would post a link to an article that cannot be read without acception the EVOLUTIONARY process when trying to deny EVOLUTION itself.

 

[guanophore]

I am not trying to refute the bible, i am just telling you whats not in it.

Yes, you are. You are imposing and operating from the false premise that anything and everything related to the creation of species must or should be included in the Bible, or it is not true. This is not what Catholics believe about Scripture, which is why it is also a strawman.

 

[o_mlly]

Are you an atheist? Coz you really sound like one.

The theory of macro-evolution has many proponents and opponents who profess also to be Christians. But how many atheists oppose macro-evolution? I think that number is zero. Prove me wrong.

 

[Wozza]

Edgar:

Are you an atheist? Coz you really sound like one.

The theory of macro-evolution has many proponents and opponents who profess also to be Christians. But how many atheists oppose macro-evolution? I think that number is zero. Prove me wrong.

If I might clarify what you have said…

You are saying that people who don’t believe in the supernatural oppose suggestions that there is a supernatural answer to how life evolves. I’m not sure that many people will be even mildly surprised at that statement of the obvious.

But if you could suggest some alternatives to evolution (that result in new species) that are not predicated on a belief in a deity or deities then I’d love to discuss them.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

But this is the wrong hypothesis. The hypothesis you really need to support is:…

If a natural object contains high levels of CSI, then it was designed.

No. Nature contains patterns and such without design. All designs however, contain patterns. Language, maps, symbols, codes, specifications, instructions etc are designed.

You still don’t get it. To prove Intelligent Design is a scientific theory you do need to attempt to support the hypothesis:

If a natural object contains high levels of CSI, then it was designed.

Otherwise ID is not even a theory. The hypothesis you proposed was the logical converse of this. Until you correct your logical error, you cannot make your case.

 

[buffalo]

So no. There must be some mistake. I know that some of you guys are not entirely up to speed with this subject (morning, Ed), but nobody in their right mind would post a link to an article that cannot be read without acception the EVOLUTIONARY process when trying to deny EVOLUTION itself.

“another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there’s nothing much in between."

“If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,” said Thaler. “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Wozza:

So no. There must be some mistake. I know that some of you guys are not entirely up to speed with this subject (morning, Ed), but nobody in their right mind would post a link to an article that cannot be read without acception the EVOLUTIONARY process when trying to deny EVOLUTION itself.

“another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there’s nothing much in between."

“If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,” said Thaler. “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”

You are really good at quote mining, but I have yet to see you actually use any of these quotes in a logical argument.

 

[buffalo]

All designs however, contain patterns. Language, maps, symbols, codes, specifications, instructions etc are designed.

You don’t get it -

All you have to do is empirically prove that language, maps, symbols, codes, etc are routinely written by nature, without foresight.

 

[buffalo]

You are really good at quote mining, but I have yet to see you actually use any of these quotes in a logical argument.

Thank you.

This new finding has to be reconciled with evo theory.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

So no. There must be some mistake. I know that some of you guys are not entirely up to speed with this subject (morning, Ed), but nobody in their right mind would post a link to an article that cannot be read without acception the EVOLUTIONARY process when trying to deny EVOLUTION itself.

“another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there’s nothing much in between."

“If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,” said Thaler. “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”

Hello, I recognise that. It’s from the site to which I linked. It’s about a type of punctuated equillibrium.

This might seem like a dumb question, but has someone told you that it disproves evolution?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You don’t get it -

All you have to do is empirically prove that language, maps, symbols, codes, etc are routinely written by nature, without foresight.

No, you are the one making a claim. I don’t have to do anything until you present a logical argument supporting that claim. In case you forgot, your claim was this: “Intelligent Design is a Scientific Theory.” You don’t even need to prove your theory is true. You just have to prove it qualifies as a theory according to the Scientific Method. You haven’t even done that.

 

[PickyPicky]

Hello, I recognise that. It’s from the site to which I linked. It’s about a type of punctuated equillibrium

That site has become the personal property of Buffalo. He has quoted it so often now that he has squatter’s rights.

He has yet to tell us how it is evidence against evolution (which is not surprising since it isn’t).

 

[Wozza]

LeafByNiggle:

You are really good at quote mining, but I have yet to see you actually use any of these quotes in a logical argument.

Thank you.

This new finding has to be reconciled with evo theory.

Ah, someone HAS told you it disproves evolution. Well, you’d better tell them that they are very wrong indeed. It’s a variation on the generally accepted version that might be described as the ‘steady state’ version.

This proposal just suggests that gaps in the fossil.record are explained by large scale extinctions and that evolution runs through a bottle neck every now and then. Like when man first emerged from Africa.

You should read more of what Gould has written about evolution for more details.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

You are really good at quote mining, but I have yet to see you actually use any of these quotes in a logical argument.

Thank you.

This new finding has to be reconciled with evo theory.

Is it your claim that it cannot be so reconciled? If so, make that claim and support it. If not, then your observation is just a curiosity and no more.

 

[Wozza]

This new finding has to be reconciled with evo theory.

You should check the original.paper here: Stoeckle MY Thaler DS Why should mitochondria define species? - Program for the Human Environment - Rockefeller University
PDFhttps://phe.rockefeller.edu › 2018/05 › St…

It’s a pdf so you might have to cut and paste the link (should be straight forward for you I’d imagine).

In it, Thaler (the guy you keep quoting) refers to how dna barcoding confirms that we genetically overlap with other species as defined by domain experts.

He goes on to discuss the evolutionary processes that account for this and makes reference to the evolution of modern man and how we compare to other species in an evolutionary context.

Key words for the paper (so you can search quickly for what the paper is about) are: Species evolution, mitochondrial evolution, speciation and human evolution.

That is, the paper doesn’t discount any of those subjects - it includes them and uses them to formulate the conclusion.

The precis is also interesting. It says that dna bar coding began as an aide to species identfication but made no contribution to evolutionary theory. Now (and this guy is an expert at dna bar coding) it does.

Read that last bit again, Buffalo. The paper where you have squatters rights, which you have been quoting ad nauseum for months, is a paper that confirms that dna barcoding is an additional means of verifying the evolutionary process.

You say it has to be ‘reconciled’ with it? Good grief. It is BASED on it.

Now, are we done with you pasting your favourite link from here on in? I’d suggest that you go go back to quoting people from the DI. This has been amusing for some time but is begining to become embarrassing.

 

[o_mlly]

If I might clarify what you have said…

Clarify? You mean muddle, don’t you?

You are saying that people who don’t believe in the supernatural oppose suggestions that there is a supernatural answer to how life evolves.

No, that would be you saying, or more precisely, strawmanning.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

You are saying that people who don’t believe in the supernatural oppose suggestions that there is a supernatural answer to how life evolves.

No, that would be you saying, or more precisely, strawmanning.

But I’m just stating the obvious, as were you. Atheists, by definition, are not going to believe in a proposal that requires a belief in God (or any other gods for that matter).

But if you know of alternative theories of evolution that don’t require that belief, then I’m keen to discuss them.