YEC's and Evolution

[AvalonXQ]

It was suggested over in R&P that a thread where a YEC explains what he knows about evolution would be useful/enjoyed, so I made one.
My general understanding of the Theory:

One or more mechanisms allow for living organisms to include randomly-generated heritable variations. Some of these variations affect the survivability of the organism. Variations which aid survivability of the organism are (more likely to be) carried on and perpetuated, while those that harm survivability are not.
These changes account for all of the present diversity of life on earth. All life on earth shares a common ancester.

How's that? What would be useful for me to explain next?

[drkitten]

It was suggested over in R&P that a thread where a YEC explains what he knows about evolution would be useful/enjoyed, so I made one.
My general understanding of the Theory:

One or more mechanisms allow for living organisms to include randomly-generated heritable variations. Some of these variations affect the survivability of the organism. Variations which aid survivability of the organism are (more likely to be) carried on and perpetuated, while those that harm survivability are not.
These changes account for all of the present diversity of life on earth. All life on earth shares a common ancester.

How's that? What would be useful for me to explain next?

I'm impressed. Most YECs can't even get that much right.

So why do you reject that theory?

[AvalonXQ]

I'm impressed. Most YECs can't even get that much right.

So why do you reject that theory?

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

[Last of the Fraggles]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

At the threat of a derail why do you find the evidence for evolution less compelling than you find the evidence for God?

More to the point above where do you feel the evidence is lacking? What evidence would convince you that evolution as a process is a fact?

[AvalonXQ]

What evidence would convince you that evolution as a process is a fact?

I don't know. That's why I'm trying to read, learn, and gather all of the evidence that I can.
The key, though, comes from a distrust of "digested" conclusions. I want primary sources; to be convinced, I need the evidence itself.
Easy example: I wouldn't find "this rock is 2 million years old" to be convincing; that's a conclusion. However, I might very well find "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" to be convincing. Does that make sense?

[paximperium]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.
What would be "persuasive" evidence?

[Last of the Fraggles]

I don't know. That's why I'm trying to read, learn, and gather all of the evidence that I can.
The key, though, comes from a distrust of "digested" conclusions. I want primary sources; to be convinced, I need the evidence itself.
Easy example: I wouldn't find "this rock is 2 million years old" to be convincing; that's a conclusion. However, I might very well find "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" to be convincing. Does that make sense?

Hmm, well since we are talking science here the data and working is publicly available, its not hidden. Of course most people would not think starting from zero is the place to start, presumably you accept some tenets of science without seeing the data?

Could you be more specific in terms of which parts of evolution you are unconvinced of? Maybe start with your definition and point out which parts you accept and which parts you don't?

[AvalonXQ]

I'm like most IDers and creationists: I accept the mechanism, but not the history. Heritable variation is fact. Common ancestry is what I don't accept.

[paximperium]

Could you be more specific in terms of which parts of evolution you are unconvinced of? Maybe start with your definition and point out which parts you accept and which parts you don't?
Seconded.
Do you accept common descent?
What about change in gene allele frequencies in a population?

[paximperium]

I'm like most IDers and creationists: I accept the mechanism, but not the history. Heritable variation is fact. Common ancestry is what I don't accept.
Why? Unless you say why, we won't know what to present as evidence.

[Last of the Fraggles]

I'm like most IDers and creationists: I accept the mechanism, but not the history. Heritable variation is fact. Common ancestry is what I don't accept.

What is your specific issue with common ancestry? And what is your alternative hypothesis?

You accept that thing A can evolve into A-, A+ and A* what then is A if not a common ancestor of A-, A+ and A*?

[AvalonXQ]

What is your specific issue with common ancestry? And what is your alternative hypothesis?
I don't see the evidence that shows that the current diversity of life on Earth could or did arise from common ancestors. My alternative hypothesis is that many different organisms were created independently.

You accept that thing A can evolve into A-, A+ and A* what then is A if not a common ancestor of A-, A+ and A*?
The issue is whether A can also evolve into B, which seems wholly different than A in a way that A-, A+, and A* does not.

[Olowkow]

It was suggested over in R&P that a thread where a YEC explains what he knows about evolution would be useful/enjoyed, so I made one.
My general understanding of the Theory:

One or more mechanisms allow for living organisms to include randomly-generated heritable variations. Some of these variations affect the survivability of the organism. Variations which aid survivability of the organism are (more likely to be) carried on and perpetuated, while those that harm survivability are not.
These changes account for all of the present diversity of life on earth. All life on earth shares a common ancester.

How's that? What would be useful for me to explain next?

This is true, but more than "survivability", my understanding is that it is the ones which reproduce the most that are perpetuated. If an organism merely survives without reproducing, then the variation is lost.

[JHGRedekop]

I might very well find "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" to be convincing. Does that make sense?

Sure. But geological research is already full of "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" results which show the ages of the rocks -- decades worth of such results. We've dated most of the geologic column to great precision. All of the geologic research from is available for you to examine. Just visit a university library and have a look at the journals in the collection.

Likewise, the results of ~100 years of genetic study are available, not to mention ~50 years of DNA research, including the comparative genetics used to build the phylogenetic tree.

Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True and Richard Dawkins's The Greatest Show On Earth both outline the evidence behind evolution, but if you want primary sources, read the geologic, biologic, genetic, and evolutionary journals. There are, literally, tens of thousands of papers presenting this primary evidence, each building on the ones that went before.

Be prepared for very dense, technical writing, though.

In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

Why default to that particular text, and not another? If you reject evolutionary biology, cosmology, geology, and so on, you still have thousands of creation stories to choose from.

[AvalonXQ]

This is true, but more than "survivability", my understanding is that it is the ones which reproduce the most that are perpetuated. If an organism merely survives without reproducing, then the variation is lost.

Thank you for the clarification; I agree.
From what I've read, some folks divide heritable traits into "survival advantages" and "reproductive advantages", while others consider the distinction to be improper. But I do understand the distinction and your point.

[AvalonXQ]

Sure. But geological research is already full of "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" results which show the ages of the rocks -- decades worth of such results. We've dated most of the geologic column to great precision. All of the geologic research from is available for you to examine. Just visit a university library and have a look at the journals in the collection.

Likewise, the results of ~100 years of genetic study are available, not to mention ~50 years of DNA research, including the comparative genetics used to build the phylogenetic tree.

That sounds excellent. Can you help point me in the right direction as to which discussions and articles to look for that have primary data?

[Psi Baba]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.
Would you be more likely to accept the body of evidence (of which there is much--whether it is "persuasive" is subjective) for evolution if the concept of evolution did not in any way contradict the teachings of the Bible?

[AvalonXQ]

Would you be more likely to accept the body of evidence (of which there is much--whether it is "persuasive" is subjective) for evolution if the concept of evolution did not in any way contradict the teachings of the Bible?

Yes I would.

[joobz]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.
Let's start simply.

How about evidence of the emergence of a bacterial adaptation that had not previously existed?
For instance, the ability of a new strain of bacteria which is capable of digesting byproducts of nylon products.

http://www.pnas.org/content/81/8/2421.long
"Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the
preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence" PNAS V 81, p 2421-2425.

[JoeTheJuggler]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

Have you taken a class in biology?

There are multiple independent lines of evidence that evolution by natural selection is an accurate account of life on Earth. The evidence is so overwheleming that this theory is the central organizing principle of the study of biology.

ETA: Even if you were ignorant of such evidence, how would ignorance support the teachings of the Bible? Why the Bible and not some other culture's creation myths?

[paximperium]

I don't see the evidence that shows that the current diversity of life on Earth could or did arise from common ancestors.
Why? A single scoop of dirt in your backyard has more bacteria then the entire population of China. What is the major problem with the current evidence concerning the diversity of life or common ancestry?

My alternative hypothesis is that many different organisms were created independently.
Here is your first major error. Evolution does not deal with the beginning of life so you are asking evolution to explain something it was never meant to do.

[Olowkow]

....


The issue is whether A can also evolve into B, which seems wholly different than A in a way that A-, A+, and A* does not.

The point that might help is that A*****+++++-----, way down the line after thousands of generations of subtle changes, get very close to what we would call B, and eventually A, with all its **'s and sub species etc, no longer is viable, and is completely replaced by B. A'ness vs. B'ness is really in the eye of the beholder. It is not the case that dogs evolved into cats. Something else split off into catlike and doglike animals. Subtle differences at first, but again, after a long time, these differences became more pronounced.

[drkitten]

I don't know. That's why I'm trying to read, learn, and gather all of the evidence that I can.
The key, though, comes from a distrust of "digested" conclusions. I want primary sources; to be convinced, I need the evidence itself.

Hmmm. Well, that's fair enough in principle, but may be a hard standard to meet in practice.


Easy example: I wouldn't find "this rock is 2 million years old" to be convincing; that's a conclusion. However, I might very well find "these are the concentrations of several elements in the rock, and these are the known decay rates of these elements" to be convincing. Does that make sense?

It does, but I'm not sure how far you want to take this.

Would you want to see the rock itself to be convinced?
Would you want to see the original lab notebook of the researcher who ran the atomic dating on it?
Would you want to see a photocopy of the lab notebook?
Would you accept a paper written by the researcher in which he said "we found the elements in the following concentrations and therefore conclude the rock to be two million years old"?
Would you accept a paper written by the researcher in which he said "we applied the Snidely-Whiplash method of dating [17] and determined the rock to be two million years old"?

Fortunately, even these are not necessary to refute young earth creationism. The Grand Canyon (or similar sites, but the GC is worth visiting anyway) clearly illustrates that the Earth is not less than 10,000 years old. (In fact, it clearly shows that the Earth is at least several hundred million years old, but even 10,000 is enough to refute YEC.) And you can pick up primary source data to your heart's content.

Indeed, if you want to date a rock, almost any piece of basalt or granite that you find anywhere in the world will be too old for a young earth. Again, if you're willing to take a trip, head to Pike's Peak, where the bedrock at the top of the mountain is more than a billion years old.

So I guess my question at this point boils down to -- in light of my previous claim, that the rock atop Pike's Peak is more than a billion years old, what would I need to provide in terms of evidence to convince you?

I mean, I could easily provide a rock (just phone a friend in Colorado), but I'm not sure you're qualified to run the radiometric dating. I could with slightly more difficulty provide the name of a lab to whom you could send the rock, but I'm not sure you would be willing to pay the costs of the analysis. I could send you a peer-reviewed paper in which the age of Pike's Peak is discussed, but now we're back to '"digested" conclusions.'

So what do you need?

[Last of the Fraggles]

I don't see the evidence that shows that the current diversity of life on Earth could or did arise from common ancestors. My alternative hypothesis is that many different organisms were created independently.


The issue is whether A can also evolve into B, which seems wholly different than A in a way that A-, A+, and A* does not.

Would you agree that if A evolves into A+ A- and A* then they evolve into A++ A+- A+* A-- A-* A-+ A*- A*+ and A** and so on that you can easily create a huge diversity of different things given enough time? Do you then disagree with the process being able to create diversity or just with the time being sufficient?

For your second point, how do you distinguish between A++++++++++++++ and B? Scientifically, logically or consistently how do you decide when something is no longer thing A but is actually thing B?

[paximperium]

When is a dog no longer a dog?
Start with a wolf. Breed it to be small. Breed it to very small. Breed it to fear humans. Breed it to be a loner. Breed it to have no fur. Breed it to have no tail. Breed it to have a long neck.

When does this creature stop being a dog?

[drkitten]

That sounds excellent. Can you help point me in the right direction as to which discussions and articles to look for that have primary data?

I would start at this web page (http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html). While it is not itself a primary source, it has links to a number of both primary and secondary sources and it may also help explain the background you will need for primary sources.

If you want a primary source, try :

Bowring, S.A., and Williams, I.S. (1999) Priscoan (4.00-4.03 Ga) orthogneisses from northwestern Canada. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 134(1), 3-16.

... or indeed, any of Sam Bowring's work. This one (and the work on which it comments) aregood because it discusses a number of different techniques:

Schmitz, M.D., Bowring, S.A., Ludwig, K.R. and Renne, P., Comment on Precise K-Ar, 40Ar/39Ar, Rb-Sr and U/Pb mineral ages from the 27.5 Ma Fish Canyon Tuff reference standard by M. A. Lanphere and H. Baadsgaard: Chemical Geology, v.199 (3-4): p. 277-280.

[AvalonXQ]

So what do you need?

I need persuasive evidence of a starting event to get the clock running, persuasive evidence that the current conditions are at a predictable length of time from the starting event, and step-by-step explanation of the data analysis that gets us there. I don't think I'll need to run the tests myself; at present, I don't have access to the tools needed to do so anyway.

[temporalillusion]

Starting with scientific journals and primary sources might be tough going depending on your background and education.. those are the kind of materials that are written by and for those who have gone through the education process. A biology textbook and popular books like those mentioned might be a better place to start.

[AvalonXQ]

Would you agree that if A evolves into A+ A- and A* then they evolve into A++ A+- A+* A-- A-* A-+ A*- A*+ and A** and so on that you can easily create a huge diversity of different things given enough time?
If A is a small proto-shrew and B is an orangutan, I'm not convinced that there IS a set of changes to get from A to B. I see a proto-shrew turning into a slightly larger proto-shrew, maybe with different sizes of teeth; about the same amount of variation as we see among modern dogs (all of which are descended from wolves). But I don't see the evidence that shows how these small changes accumulate into changes as large as the diversity we see on earth.

[Last of the Fraggles]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

Let's try another tack at the same time.

Do you believe that the scientists who support evolution are a) wrong or b) lying?

If a) why do you believe that the many thousands of scientists who have studied this have not pointed out that this theory doesn't work? Someone who disproved evolution would surely be as famous as Darwin?

Do you believe these scientists are not smart enough to find out that it's wrong? Do you think you have found something that no biologist has ever investigated or thought of?

If b) to what end are they lying? Do you think scientists are evil and trying to disinvent God? Do you think scientists benefit from putting forward a lie? Why do you feel nobody within the scientific world has ever exposed this fraud?

This would be a massive conspiracy theory on a par with the 9-11, moon landings and JFK combined!

Finally, why is it do you think that biology which assumes evolution to be a fact works? Is it just a coincidence?

[joobz]

I need persuasive evidence of a starting event to get the clock running, persuasive evidence that the current conditions are at a predictable length of time from the starting event, and step-by-step explanation of the data analysis that gets us there. I don't think I'll need to run the tests myself; at present, I don't have access to the tools needed to do so anyway.
Dr.Kitten asked rather specifically this question and gave examples of the details involved.

To avoid too many topics, why don't we narrow down our focus. As you say, you are a YEC.

So, what would you prefer to talk about:

1.) Evidence for an old earth?
2.) Evidence for natural selection?
3.) Evidence for speciation?
4.) Evidence for the emergence of new genes/traits.
5.) Evidence for human evolution?

[Shalamar]

If A is a small proto-shrew and B is an orangutan, I'm not convinced that there IS a set of changes to get from A to B. I see a proto-shrew turning into a slightly larger proto-shrew, maybe with different sizes of teeth; about the same amount of variation as we see among modern dogs (all of which are descended from wolves). But I don't see the evidence that shows how these small changes accumulate into changes as large as the diversity we see on earth.

There is. time.

A 'proto-shrew' may well have walked with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Compare to todays great apes, and yes, there seems to be very little in common, especially when you consider the scarsity of fossils and DNA from such ancient organisms.

However, we can follow certain traits in the creatures we do have, and be able to place them along the evolutionary 'bush', so to speak.
And if something new comes along? Well, we might have to re-write what we know.

[paximperium]

If A is a small proto-shrew and B is an orangutan, I'm not convinced that there IS a set of changes to get from A to B. I see a proto-shrew turning into a slightly larger proto-shrew, maybe with different sizes of teeth; about the same amount of variation as we see among modern dogs (all of which are descended from wolves). But I don't see the evidence that shows how these small changes accumulate into changes as large as the diversity we see on earth. Why?
And what prevents continued accumulating changes from happening?

[AvalonXQ]

Let's try another tack at the same time.

Do you believe that the scientists who support evolution are a) wrong or b) lying?

If a) why do you believe that the many thousands of scientists who have studied this have not pointed out that this theory doesn't work? Someone who disproved evolution would surely be as famous as Darwin?

Do you believe these scientists are not smart enough to find out that it's wrong? Do you think you have found something that no biologist has ever investigated or thought of?

If b) to what end are they lying? Do you think scientists are evil and trying to disinvent God? Do you think scientists benefit from putting forward a lie? Why do you feel nobody within the scientific world has ever exposed this fraud?

This would be a massive conspiracy theory on a par with the 9-11, moon landings and JFK combined!

Finally, why is it do you think that biology which assumes evolution to be a fact works? Is it just a coincidence?

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority of the scientific community that accepts the theory of evolution as historical fact. "A whole lot of smart men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.
However, to briefly address the post as to my own personal opinion: it's (a), mistake, and definitely not (b), dishonesty.

Finally, why is it do you think that biology which assumes evolution to be a fact works? Is it just a coincidence?
To what extent does biology make common ancestry assumptions rather than simply assumptions for natural selection across a distinct population? To what extent are the processes of biology reliant on these assumptions?

[Last of the Fraggles]

If A is a small proto-shrew and B is an orangutan, I'm not convinced that there IS a set of changes to get from A to B. I see a proto-shrew turning into a slightly larger proto-shrew, maybe with different sizes of teeth; about the same amount of variation as we see among modern dogs (all of which are descended from wolves). But I don't see the evidence that shows how these small changes accumulate into changes as large as the diversity we see on earth.

Do you think an ape and a human are 2 different things?

At the level of DNA how different are apes and humans?

Or even more simply... can you imagine a sperm cell turning into a fully grown hairy chested beer-swilling man? That's quite some change isn't it and that's not even evolution.

Can you at least concede that what you can imagine is not necessarily a good guide to what is true and that 'hmm i can't really see that' is not really a compelling argument?

[godless dave]

Common ancestry is an observation, not an assumption.

[AvalonXQ]

Dr.Kitten asked rather specifically this question and gave examples of the details involved.

To avoid too many topics, why don't we narrow down our focus. As you say, you are a YEC.

So, what would you prefer to talk about:

1.) Evidence for an old earth?
2.) Evidence for natural selection?
3.) Evidence for speciation?
4.) Evidence for the emergence of new genes/traits.
5.) Evidence for human evolution?
How about evidence of the common ancestry of humans, chimpanzees, gila monsters, and E. coli?

[Segnosaur]

I'm like most IDers and creationists: I accept the mechanism, but not the history. Heritable variation is fact. Common ancestry is what I don't accept.

Ok, a few questions:

- You accept that 'inheritable variation' is a fact. Just how much 'variation' do you find acceptable? How much do you think a species can 'change' before you reach some sort of limit where no more change or variation can occur?

- If you accept that change can occur, can you also accept that there can be enough variation between individuals within a species that individuals at the 'extremes' can no longer interbreed?

- Lastly, if you are discounting evolution because of lack of evidence, how do you explain the results that we HAVE found? Most importantly how do you explain the convergence? Example: how can you explain why astronomers place the universe at 10-15 billion years old, geologists place the earth at ~5 billion years, and earliest multicelular organisms at less than 1 billion? (Why, if evolution and the 'old age' of the universe were not true, do the numbers fit in?) And why does genetic analysis, morphology and our examination of the fossil record seem to give 'similar' results? (After all if all species were created separately, why would birds and dinosaur tissue analysis show the same type of relationship that the fossil records show? How come an all-powerful god did not create dinosaurs with tissues more closley related to mammals, or echinoderms, or any other creature?) Do you think it was all a coincidence or was god playing a trick on people?

[paximperium]

To what extent does biology make common ancestry assumptions rather than simply assumptions for natural selection across a distinct population? To what extent are the processes of biology reliant on these assumptions?
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA215.html

[AvalonXQ]

Do you think an ape and a human are 2 different things?
Yes.

Can you at least concede that what you can imagine is not necessarily a good guide to what is true and that 'hmm i can't really see that' is not really a compelling argument?
Certainly.

[paximperium]

How about evidence of the common ancestry of humans, chimpanzees, gila monsters, and E. coli?

Random nucleotide substitutions in primate nonfunctional gene for L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase, the missing enzyme in L-ascorbic acid biosynthesis.

Ohta Y (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Ohta%20Y%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Nishikimi M (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Nishikimi%20M%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus).
Department of Biochemistry, Wakayama Medical College, Japan.
Humans and other primates have no functional gene for L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase that catalyzes the last step of L-ascorbic acid biosynthesis. The 164-nucleotide sequence of exon X of the gene was compared among human, chimpanzee, orangutan, and macaque, and it was found that nucleotide substitutions had occurred at random throughout the sequence with a single nucleotide deletion, indicating that the primate L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase genes are a typical example of pseudogene.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10572964

[AvalonXQ]

And why does genetic analysis, morphology and our examination of the fossil record seem to give 'similar' results?

Evidence, please.

[drkitten]

I need persuasive evidence of a starting event to get the clock running, persuasive evidence that the current conditions are at a predictable length of time from the starting event, and step-by-step explanation of the data analysis that gets us there.

I'm not sure I follow this exactly.

Let's look more closely at the formation of granite.

A starting event to get the clock ticking : is "the granite formed" such an event? We have a pretty good understanding of how granite forms; magma cools underground and therefore crystallizes, which more or less locks the various elements into the crystal matrix of the rock. In particular, there will be a particular proportion of uranium to lead, and among the various isotopes of uranium.

Persuasive evidence that the current conditions are at a predictable length of time from the starting event : again, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. We don't "predict" the age of rocks; we discover them by analysis. So on to the analysis....

There's a very good step-by-step explanation of the process of the data analysis for "isochron dating" at this site. (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html#generic) Essentially, we observe that the ratio between two substances at any one time is fixed, representing their proportion in the original rock, which we can represent graphically as a horizontal line. As radioactive decay occurs, the proportions between those substances will change, and result in the horizontal line 'tilting' when the actual proportions are measured.

But -- and here's the key insight -- the process demands that the line remain straight.

Getting back to the "persuasive evidence,".... we've done those experiments. And the line remained straight, and illustrated (in some cases) multibillion year ages.

[Last of the Fraggles]

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority of the scientific community that accepts the theory of evolution as historical fact. "A whole lot of smart men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.
However, to briefly address the post as to my own personal opinion: it's (a), mistake, and definitely not (b), dishonesty.


To what extent does biology make common ancestry assumptions rather than simply assumptions for natural selection across a distinct population? To what extent are the processes of biology reliant on these assumptions?

I was carefully trying to avoid appeal to authority, I was more trying to explore what you think about the motivations of science/scientists.

No amount of authority necessarily makes evolution right but its worth bearing in mind what your argument logically entails ... that the many thousands of scientists who have studied in depth biology and evolution have missed something that you, a layman, have identified with only a cursory knowledge of the subject at hand.

This may well be the case, but it would me stop and consider the possibility that my objections have probably already been made, addressed and moved beyond.

It does seem that you are at least open to that possibility as you are asking questions.

[AvalonXQ]

No amount of authority necessarily makes evolution right but its worth bearing in mind what your argument logically entails ... that the many thousands of scientists who have studied in depth biology and evolution have missed something that you, a layman, have identified with only a cursory knowledge of the subject at hand.

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo. The more I see that professionals actively TACKLE these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.
I'm much more interested in discussing the evidence here; people are being happily forthcoming with it.

[laca]

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo.

Ka-ching! Bingo! That is exactly what's going on here. What you don't seem to realize is that you're talking about yourself.

[AvalonXQ]

Ka-ching! Bingo! That is exactly what's going on here. What you don't seem to realize is that you're talking about yourself.

The possibility has not escaped me.
It always disturbs me that, between myself and those of my associates who have spent more time in academia than I have, I'm the only one who considers the possibility of personal indoctrination.
(BTW, I put laca on ignore.)

[godless dave]

I was wondering if anyone would choose the ad hominim path. Disappointing.

That's not an ad hominim.

[paximperium]

I was wondering if anyone would choose the ad hominim path. Disappointing.
It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo. The more I see that professionals actively TACKLE these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.
I'm much more interested in discussing the evidence here; people are being happily forthcoming with it.
I'll let Avalon's own words speak for itself.

[laca]

I was wondering if anyone would choose the ad hominim path. Disappointing.

Please explain (or anyone else) how that is an ad hominem. Thank you.

[AvalonXQ]

That's not an ad hominim.

It's not? My mistake.

[AvalonXQ]

Again, I wasn't interested in debating the authority of scientists; I was answering the questions that were asked me. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but assaults on my background or the origin of my beliefs aren't valuable in this (or really any) discussion.

[drkitten]

Evidence, please.

Look at the primate family tree.

It should be obvious from morphology that humans are more similar to apes than to monkeys, that humans and apes collectively are more similar to old world monkeys than to new world monkeys, that old world monkeys collectively are more similar to each other than they are to apes, and so forth. You can confirm this for yourself with a visit to any decently equipped zoo.

The corresponding tree as obtained from genetic studies can be seen here. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/56095?seq=4) (The actual citation is : A Composite Estimate of Primate Phylogeny, by Andy Purvis Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences © 1995 The Royal Society.)

Note the similarities. See in particular figures 8 and 4, which show that "humans are more similar to apes than to monkeys, that humans and apes collectively are more similar to old world monkeys than to new world monkeys, that old world monkeys collectively are more similar to each other than they are to apes." And so forth.

[AvalonXQ]

Any more questions I can answer?

[Last of the Fraggles]

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo. The more I see that professionals actively TACKLE these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.
I'm much more interested in discussing the evidence here; people are being happily forthcoming with it.

You feel that science should continually question its assumptions? Really? How on earth would we ever progress if we continually repeated the analysis and experiments of the past? Do you continually check that gravity still works before you leave the house just in case?

Surely you only need to question your assumptions when you find some evidence that they may be incorrect? If your assumption always works all the time what's the point in questioning it again?

This is not argument from authority, I am not stating evolution is true because of this. I am examining your worldview and the logical consequences of it. If you feel its an inappropriate path then I thank you for at least humoring me.

I'll predict now that no amount of evidence presented in this thread will change your view. In my opinion, the issue is not with the lack of evidence its with how you choose to process that evidence and your expectations of how that evidence should look and how the scientific community should present it and deal with your objections.

[Last of the Fraggles]

Again, I wasn't interested in debating the authority of scientists; I was answering the questions that were asked me. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but assaults on my background or the origin of my beliefs aren't valuable in this (or really any) discussion.

Why is it that you find that statement an assault on your background and beliefs when directed at you and yet an acceptable logical criticism when directed at scientists?

We established that you hold God and Science to different standards of evidence but also to different standards of behaviour???

[paximperium]

Any more questions I can answer?
Do you have any questions?

[AvalonXQ]

I'll predict now that no amount of evidence presented in this thread will change your view. In my opinion, the issue is not with the lack of evidence its with how you choose to process that evidence and your expectations of how that evidence should look and how the scientific community should present it and deal with your objections.

That may be. Nonetheless I appreciate the evidence being presented -- and even more than that, I appreciate any outline of a PROCESS by which I can arrive at evidence that "should" be persuasive.
The articles already cited and linked to should provide plenty of information for me to digest; some reflect phenomena I was familiar with before and some reflect phenomena that are new to me. All (to be honest, actually just most) seem worth my time to examine.
The thread seems to be devolving into bashing me as ignorant since you brought up the scientific community, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to stomach sticking around, but I at least appreciate the discussion so far.

[drkitten]

I'll predict now that no amount of evidence presented in this thread will change your view. In my opinion, the issue is not with the lack of evidence its with how you choose to process that evidence and your expectations of how that evidence should look and how the scientific community should present it and deal with your objections.

That's harsh. Not necessarily unwarrantedly harsh (in light of the forum's previous experiences with YECs), but definitely harsh.

How about we wait and see how AvalonXQ responds to the evidence presented (e.g., in posts 19, 26, 39, 41, 43, and 53)?

I believe that most of his concerns about evidence have been addressed; if there are any specific concerns he wishes to raise, we should be able to address them as well.

In a civil fashion.

[Olowkow]

Clearly a tiger and a leopard are different animals today. Could they both have evolved from a common ancestor? How about a hyena and a wolf? I am just pointing out that often what we as humans perceive to be similar animals (wolves and dogs for example), are just an extension of what can be proven to be the same phenomenon in other species. The proof is in the genetics. Let's say that evolution is not true, but all the evidence that we use in modern medicine points to its validity, then it may as well be true, just by Occam's razor.

I agree that bashing is out of place in this thread. This is getting very interesting. I actually see AvalonXQ's point, since he is quite articulate.

[Last of the Fraggles]

Any more questions I can answer?

How about my earlier question... how do you decide what is thing A and thing B and when two things are different or the same fundamental thing?

What's the definition of a unique 'type of thing'?

[AvalonXQ]

Why is it that you find that statement an assault on your background and beliefs when directed at you and yet an acceptable logical criticism when directed at scientists?

I brought up a mechanism that is commonly at work, and gave it as a reason why a community of knowledgeable and intelligent people could arrive at a mistaken conclusion. The next post was a simple, "Ah! Gotcha! Actually, that's exactly what YOU do!" Which, when applied to me personally, is pretty clearly intended to be a mean-spirited attack.
And the back-and-forth on my ignorance continues. I'm just happy we made it fifty posts before it became personal.

[Dr H]

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority of the scientific community that accepts the theory of evolution as historical fact. "A whole lot of smart men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.

You are making the common mistake of assuming that the logical fallacy of appealing to authority means that -all- appeals to authority are fallacious. This is not the case.

Appeal to authority is fallacious if a) the authority in question is not an authority on the topic under discussion; or b) if the appeal is made that "X" is true primarily or exclusively -because- "Y" says so, and "Y" is an authority on "X".

It is /not/ fallacious, however, to support an argument for "X" by citing work done by those who are authorities on "X", where that work is a) supported by objective evidence, and b) the work is independently replicable and verifiable. Published, peer-reviewed scinetific research meets these criteria.

The scientific community accepts the theory of evolution as valid, -not- as "a historical fact,", but based upon the accumulated physical evidence of controlled, replicated, peer-reviewed research. To reject the conclusions of that community out-of-hand as an "appeal to authority" is to commit a logical error akin to denying the existence of Europe on the basis that you haven't been there yourself, and aren't willing to accept the authority of people who live there.

[AvalonXQ]

How about my earlier question... how do you decide what is thing A and thing B and when two things are different or the same fundamental thing?

I think another poster answered that one pretty well -- you look to the genetics, see what sorts of variation exist, and determine whether the available variation is sufficient to explain the differences in a given situation.
My understanding is that, when evolutionists apply this method, they come to the conclusion that the available variation is sufficient to explain ALL differences among living organisms.

[Last of the Fraggles]

That may be. Nonetheless I appreciate the evidence being presented -- and even more than that, I appreciate any outline of a PROCESS by which I can arrive at evidence that "should" be persuasive.
The articles already cited and linked to should provide plenty of information for me to digest; some reflect phenomena I was familiar with before and some reflect phenomena that are new to me. All (to be honest, actually just most) seem worth my time to examine.
The thread seems to be devolving into bashing me as ignorant since you brought up the scientific community, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to stomach sticking around, but I at least appreciate the discussion so far.

I'm certainly not trying to bash you as ignorant, I'm just trying to ask questions to make you think about your point of view. Ignorance is not necessarily an insult anyway, its just an assessment of your or my current level of knowledge of a topic.

I'm assuming that you, like me, don't have a doctorate in biology which probably renders us both ignorant to some extent on the finer details of this topic.

[Christian Klippel]

Avalon, please don't take the following wrong. But you should be aware that what you are complaining about, is exactly what you yourself do.

Let me give you two examples of your posts, and then let me change only a few words.

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority of the scientific community that accepts the theory of evolution as historical fact. "A whole lot of smart men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority of the religious community that accepts the theory of creation as historical fact. "A whole lot of religious men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo. The more I see that professionals actively TACKLE these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting beliefs are wrong, when you've been taught those beliefs as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a religious environment where questioning those beliefs is taboo. The more I see that religious leaders actively TACKLE these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're religious; you're an atheist " is the argument, and it's a poor one.


See, what i want to say is that, in my opinion, you make the wrong arguments here, simply because the very same arguments can be made against your side as well. This, in the end, will lead to nothing.

You said that you recon that wolves are the common ancestors of dogs. So, there you have a small part of evidence right before your eyes. You have something called A that evolved into B. Yet, you also argue that you can not accept that this would happen on a larger scale. But it happened, happens now, and will happen tomorrow.

See, where do you want to draw the line between A and B? Thing is, there is no sharp line. Live evolves, split's into different directions, undergoing slow changes. Sure, we can look back X years and say "Organism Y was very different at point X in time from what we have now". But what if you divide the time between X and now into single years, and follow the evolution of said organism? Do you think that Y would change suddenly between a certain date and the year before?

It's more like a gradual, slow change. Some species got extinct back then, others continued to exist. What if apes got extinct, and only humans survived? Would you then accept that apes and humans come from the same "line of evolution", and there isn't that much difference between them and us? Is it that you reject that simply because apes are still alive today?

Greetings,

Chris

[temporalillusion]

Evidence, please.

Here's a good summary of one line of genetic evidence.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

With links to the papers involved. EDIT: The Lebedev one in particular.

You'll notice the illustration with the specific ERVs insertions, branched according to what the ERV insertions dictate, mirrors the same evolutionary branching that was determined via morphology, and the fossil record as well though I can't think of a link about that directly off the top of my head.

The nested hierarchy of ERVs in the genetic code only makes sense in the context of evolution. If each species is created separately, then having this nested hierarchy of genetic code from dead viruses makes no sense; in fact it's misleading! If all species are created by God, the only reason God would have put those ERVs where he did was to mislead people intentionally...

[Dr H]

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo.

Does that not describe the transference of Biblical knowledge from generation to generation, to a -T- ?

[Last of the Fraggles]

That's harsh. Not necessarily unwarrantedly harsh (in light of the forum's previous experiences with YECs), but definitely harsh.

How about we wait and see how AvalonXQ response to the evidence presented (e.g., in posts 19, 26, 39, 41, 43, and 53)?

I believe that most of his concerns about evidence have been addressed; if there are any specific concerns he wishes to raise, we should be able to address them as well.

In a civil fashion.

I wasn't trying to be harsh so apologies if it reads that way.

I am assuming, maybe wrongly, that Avalon has probably seen SOME good evidence for evolution in the past but remains unconvinced. My hypothesis then is that the problem is not with the evidence but with the 'convincing' part. It would therefore pay more dividends to explore the process of convincing and Avalon's expectations on being convinced than it would to keep putting more and more evidence in front of him.

I could be wrong though, I'm neither a biologist nor a psychologist.

[drkitten]

I think another poster answered that one pretty well -- you look to the genetics, see what sorts of variation exist, and determine whether the available variation is sufficient to explain the differences in a given situation.
My understanding is that, when evolutionists apply this method, they come to the conclusion that the available variation is sufficient to explain ALL differences among living organisms.

Yes.

The evidence on which they base this is pretty compelling, too. For example, all life on earth share the same genetic code (e.g. GGU corresponds to glycine in all cases); the genetic structure of even extremely different life is very similar (for example, both humans and fruit flies have identifiable Hox genes; humans share both alpha- and beta- globin genes with all other amniotes, and so forth. Even plants have alpha-globin-like genes in the form of leghemoglobin.)

So it appears that simple tweaking of human hemoglobin genes can produce plant proteins. We've found no plant proteins that can't be expressed in terms of animal genetics, or vice versa. In what way is available variation NOT sufficient?

[Last of the Fraggles]

I think another poster answered that one pretty well -- you look to the genetics, see what sorts of variation exist, and determine whether the available variation is sufficient to explain the differences in a given situation.
My understanding is that, when evolutionists apply this method, they come to the conclusion that the available variation is sufficient to explain ALL differences among living organisms.

This is what science does and science decided that it IS sufficient.

I was more interested in your personal definition of thing A and thing B and why, for example, you are unwilling to personally accept that a significantly evolved proto-shrew is actually an orangutan?

How does evolution know when to stop?

[AvalonXQ]

It would therefore pay more dividends to explore the process of convincing and Avalon's expectations on being convinced than it would to keep putting more and more evidence in front of him.

I agree. I'm not willing to dismiss any of the presented evidence out of hand, so I will already take a considerable amount of my time to genuninely understand everything that's been linked to. Piling more and more of it up isn't going to help, since I don't accept its source as a priori authoritative.

[temporalillusion]

I think another poster answered that one pretty well -- you look to the genetics, see what sorts of variation exist, and determine whether the available variation is sufficient to explain the differences in a given situation.
My understanding is that, when evolutionists apply this method, they come to the conclusion that the available variation is sufficient to explain ALL differences among living organisms.

Pretty much all life shares the same basic genetic code, and there's an infinite amount of variation possible (well not infinite, there's probably some kind of reasonable limit to the size of a genome).

Do you have a more detailed example of what you are saying here, I don't really understand what it is you are saying scientists do.

[paximperium]

Evolution of the whale:
http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/lines/IAtransitional.shtml

[AvalonXQ]

How does evolution know when to stop?

The question isn't, how does it "know" when to stop; rather, it's what sort of changes does this mechanism reasonably provide for?

[drkitten]

I agree. I'm not willing to dismiss any of the presented evidence out of hand, so I will already take a considerable amount of my time to genuninely understand everything that's been linked to. Piling more and more of it up isn't going to help, since I don't accept its source as a priori authoritative.

Well, this gets back to the question of what you want.

I already provided what most people would accept as an "authoritative" citation for the existence of rocks too old to fit into a young earth:

Bowring, S.A., and Williams, I.S. (1999) Priscoan (4.00-4.03 Ga) orthogneisses from northwestern Canada. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 134(1), 3-16.

What is it about the source that you find less than compelling? Do you disbelieve the journal? Do you disbelieve Dr. Bowring? Do you believe that he falsified his measurements? Do you believe that he took the measurements but made errors in his processing? Do you believe that he obtained the measurements he describes, but that he is misinterpreting them?

And what would you need to see in order to find this paper compelling? You can probably fly to Dr. Bowring's lab -- he's in Cambridge, at MIT. It's a little late in the year to fly to northwestern Canada if you want to collect the rocks yourself.....

[kbm99]

I am assuming, maybe wrongly, that Avalon has probably seen SOME good evidence for evolution in the past but remains unconvinced. My hypothesis then is that the problem is not with the evidence but with the 'convincing' part.

And indeed - no *one* piece of evidence for evolution is particularly convincing. It's easy to dismiss any given point of data in the absence of supporting data. Someone who looks at a few (or many, to be fair) pieces of evidence and dismisses each in turn without ever considering them in a broader context can quite easily convince themselves that they have seen no evidence at all.

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, and much of what we observe in the world only makes sense in the context of evolution and natural selection. But its easy for an individual - even a well-intentioned individual as the OP seems to be - to miss this if their focus is narrowed down to find that *one* bit of data that will make them go "Ahah! This is the proof!"

[Aepervius]

ACtually one things you have to udnerstand is that tehre is no A, there is no B, there is no Z. Those are steps that *WE* human put as to more easily classify animal, genus, and evolution. In reality to take your example, starting with A a proto bacteria billion of years ago, going toward single cell animals which are A*++-+*, that WE human calssify as B, going forward one branch goes to multicellular carnivore protozoaire A*++-+*//*-+ which we classify as B and algaes like organism which we classfiy as C but inr eality is A++*-+/**-+-- and then going forward are the first plant which we qualify as D but are in realiy A++*-+/**-+--++-++- and then also parallel terrestrial moos which areA++*-+/**-+--//*/* but qualifeid as F etc... until you get to human which have so many modification, expansion, inclusion, substraction of the genetic code, that nothing from the start is recognizable is a a chain of /**-+ too long to print that we qualify as Z but is a very very long tree with parallel branch.

To put it bluntly, there is a set of small change going on for the last 2 billion years, but WE human can only catch in the fossile record steps because the probability of saving all steps is nearly NIL. But we are lucky enough we can in some case keep some steps and find fossile. Look for example horse evolution, or heck human evolution with a proto ancestor and branch evolving out.

Basically genetic code is also really helpful for this. Some of the gene we have in common with our "cousins" some we do not have because they were overwritten by virus/mutated. And if memory is correct one of our chromosome also split etc...

This is a link showing such genetic evidence and is not at all an argment from authority. It clearly shows why we think there is a common ancestor

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html

The following observations can be made about similarities and differences among the four species. Except for differences in non genetic heterochromatin, chromosomes 6, 13, 19, 21, 22, and X have identical banding patterns in all four species. Chromosomes 3, 11, 14, 15, 18, 20, and Y look the same in three of the four species (those three being gorilla, chimps, and humans), and chromosomes 1, 2p, 2q, 5, 7 - 10, 12, and 16 are alike in two species. Chromosomes 4 and 17 are different among all 4 species.

SNIP

Now, the question has to be asked - if the similarities of the chromosomes are due only to common design rather than common ancestry, why are the remnants of a telomere and centromere (that should never have existed) found at exactly the positions predicted by a naturalistic fusion of the chimp ancestor chromosomes 2p and 2q?

[Last of the Fraggles]

The question isn't, how does it "know" when to stop; rather, it's what sort of changes does this mechanism reasonably provide for?

I'm not sure what you are seeing as the limit then?

If all living things are effectively made of DNA of different sequences and evolution can change any particular part of that sequence then why should any particular change not be possible?

[temporalillusion]

Piling more and more of it up isn't going to help, since I don't accept its source as a priori authoritative.

So what is it exactly that you reject then? Do you distrust the scientific process? The peer review process?

A scientific journal doesn't exist in a vacuum... it's been vetted by peers, it's transparent, and other scientists will reproduce it to try and disprove the conclusions.

[Dr H]

You feel that science should continually question its assumptions? Really? How on earth would we ever progress if we continually repeated the analysis and experiments of the past? Do you continually check that gravity still works before you leave the house just in case?

Surely you only need to question your assumptions when you find some evidence that they may be incorrect? If your assumption always works all the time what's the point in questioning it again?

Hmm... I would argue that science does do exactly that. Replication is a mainstay of the scientific method, as is meta-analysis of past experimental work when one is seeking historical precedent for a new hypothesis (e.g., the story of quarks).

It's true that not every experiment requires that the experimenter re-invent the wheel from component parts before proceeding further. There are, however, whole institutions which maintain departments devoted to the continual and ever more refined verification of already established physical constants (e.g., the speed of light). NIST is one such institution (and was formerly known as the National Bureau of Standards).

[Last of the Fraggles]

ACtually one things you have to udnerstand is that tehre is no A, there is no B, there is no Z. Those are steps that *WE* human put as to more easily classify animal, genus, and evolution. In reality to take your example, starting with A a proto bacteria billion of years ago, going toward single cell animals which are A*++-+*, that WE human calssify as B, going forward one branch goes to multicellular carnivore protozoaire A*++-+*//*-+ which we classify as B and algaes like organism which we classfiy as C but inr eality is A++*-+/**-+-- and then going forward are the first plant which we qualify as D but are in realiy A++*-+/**-+--++-++- and then also parallel terrestrial moos which areA++*-+/**-+--//*/* but q

I think this is basically the thing we need to convince Avalon of. He doesn't necessarily accept this.

[AvalonXQ]

I'm not sure what you are seeing as the limit then?

If all living things are effectively made of DNA of different sequences and evolution can change any particular part of that sequence then why should any particular change not be possible?

Can it? I mean, you certainly don't believe that EVERY change is immediately possible. None of the E. coli bacteria currently under test are going to develop into a human embryo tomorrow.
Evolution is about heritable variations. The question is, WHAT variations, under WHAT conditions? The conventional wisdom is that ALL the variations that we see originally came from the same simple source.

[AvalonXQ]

I think this is basically the thing we need to convince Avalon of. He doesn't necessarily accept this.

Well, yes. Considering that it's just a re-statement of a claim for common ancestry, that's exactly what I'm not yet convinced of.

[Olowkow]

The question isn't, how does it "know" when to stop; rather, it's what sort of changes does this mechanism reasonably provide for?
Look at birth defects in humans, or any animals. All kinds of things can go wrong. I would say limitless. It's just that some of these "wrong" things turn out to be positive changes in terms of reproduction of the species, because of the environment they happen to occur in.

[Segnosaur]

And why does genetic analysis, morphology and our examination of the fossil record seem to give 'similar' results?
Evidence, please.
First of all, I notice that you totally ignored the 2 other questions I asked. (And these questions were similar to ones other people have asked.)

Namely:

- Just how much 'variation' do you think is possible in a species? For example, you suggested something like a 'proto-shrew' could change, but not enough to change into a proto-hominid. So how 'close' could it get? What limits the amount of change?

- Is it possible for individuals in a species to vary so much that they cannot interbreed?

If you really want to get any sort of respect, you should actually deal with questions like that which are asked. After all, others here have been willing to answer your questions.

Secondly, regarding the fossil record, morphology and chemcial analysis giving 'similar' results: I'm thinking specifically of a couple of cases:

- The fossil record suggests that birds and dinosaurs are closely related. (For example, the fossils of Archaeopteryx and Velociraptor show characteristics of both birds and dinosaurs). When protien from a T-rex skeleton was analyzed, it was most closely related to birds. If birds and dinosaurs were created 'separately', why did this commonality occur? Why did the protein from T-rex closely resemble a bird and not, for example, an elephant, or whale, or some other group? Why the coincidence?

See:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=t-rex-protein-sequenced-similar-to-chicken
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm

- When we look at the fossil record, we find creatures that appear to be intermediates between modern whales and land animals. If we look at modern morphology, we find that the bones in the whale fipper are the same as the limbs of land animals. If the creation of whales were some separate 'event' from the creation of land animals, why would the flipper have such a similar bone structure to that of land animals? Why didn't god use some other bone arrangement? (Or even create a flipper with no bones, as other sea creatures have?)

See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1283186
http://www.allaboutscience.org/anatomical-homology.htm

- When we look at humans, the species we share the most in common with genetically is the Chimpanzee. When we look at the fossil record, we have what appears to be a divergence of human ancestors from the line that became the chimpanzees. Why did that happen? If the creation of humans was a seperate event from the creation of other apes and monkeys, why isn't our DNA more similar to the Orangutan? Or even totally unique?

See:
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/12/7181.full

[temporalillusion]

The question isn't, how does it "know" when to stop; rather, it's what sort of changes does this mechanism reasonably provide for?

That's still a question of limits. The "alphabet" of DNA is extremely variable (as evidenced by the diversity of life now and in the past), so the ability of DNA to provide vast solutions for various problems is no obstacle to evolution.

And gene duplication is a well known and documented phenomenon; an entire gene can be duplicated. So now you have more genetic material to work with, random mutations supply the changes and natural selection ensures that any beneficial mutations will stick around.

So it's a question of limits, what limits this mechanism from producing changes above a species level?

[Last of the Fraggles]

Can it? I mean, you certainly don't believe that EVERY change is immediately possible. None of the E. coli bacteria currently under test are going to develop into a human embryo tomorrow.
Evolution is about heritable variations. The question is, WHAT variations, under WHAT conditions? The conventional wisdom is that ALL the variations that we see originally came from the same simple source.

Nobody argues that every change is immediately possible. Its a slow gradual process of change.

However, its possible to get from any particular sequence to any other particular sequence by changing things a bit at a time. Just like you can get from pretty much any word in the language to another word by changing one letter at a time.

Your argument seems to be that at some point A can go to A+ A- but NOT A*; do you have any evidence to support this or is it your position that it is up to evolutionists to provide evidence that every single sequence can be obtained from any other sequence and document the processes?

[Last of the Fraggles]

Well, yes. Considering that it's just a re-statement of a claim for common ancestry, that's exactly what I'm not yet convinced of.

So what is it that makes certain sequences special and how is this encoded within the sequence?

It seems that you are happy enough that a proto-cat can evolve into a tiger, lion and Tiddles and every other variation up to and including one tiny step away from actually being a dog.

What stops the sequence then making that one final mutation and actually being a dog?

[temporalillusion]

Can it? I mean, you certainly don't believe that EVERY change is immediately possible. None of the E. coli bacteria currently under test are going to develop into a human embryo tomorrow.
Evolution is about heritable variations. The question is, WHAT variations, under WHAT conditions? The conventional wisdom is that ALL the variations that we see originally came from the same simple source.

Well no of course not, that would be far too many changes to the genetic code at once.. if that DID occur that would be clear evidence of God.

There's a LOT of time involved, changes happen a tiny bit at a time, but accumulate over time. Populations evolve, not individuals.

Check out info on ring species, where you can see a populations evolve slowly such that eventually the individuals at each end of the ring cannot breed with each other, but individuals all along the ring can breed with their neighbours. Where before there was one species, there are now two. If those two species get separated from each other (i.e. the ring is broken), those two species will continue to evolve further and further apart genetically, becoming a branch in the nested hierarchy.

[Christian Klippel]

Evolution is about heritable variations. The question is, WHAT variations, under WHAT conditions? The conventional wisdom is that ALL the variations that we see originally came from the same simple source.

You are aiming at an impossible task. What you ask for is basically an exact, detailed description off all events beginning at the big bang until today. We can not ever know all of the variations that happened, and the exact conditions they happened in. This is simply because some organisms got extinct, while others survived.

Since we don't have any and all organism that ever existed at hand, and since we don't have detailed records of all conditions (like weather, for example) that have ever been, you simply ask for the impossible here.

Basically, due to random mutation of genes, pretty much everything is possible under pretty much any condition, as far as those conditions allow, of course. In addition to that, take into account the age of the earth, or the universe, and it becomes pretty clear that the possible number combinations of genes is a damn high number.

Also, keep in mind that evolution from A to B does not mean that all organisms of type A changed into the same direction, to evolve to B. Imagine a sea containing billions times billions of a single species alone. That allows for the same number of random mutation _at_once_, in a very short period of time. Now, one mutation survives and reproduces. In a year you have billions times billions of that species in the same sea. At which point you can again randomly mutate every one of them differently, again giving you billions times billions different mutations.

Again, take into account the age of the earth. During that time up until today there have been so many mutations that printing out the number would possibly kill this forum's database.

Really, you can not look at a single species and think that in one step a single mutation occurs, is "tested" if it can survive, and then either goes extinct or survives. It happens in parallel, allowing for incredible many mutations in a very short time.

Greetings,

Chris

[AvalonXQ]

It seems that you are happy enough that a proto-cat can evolve into a tiger, lion and Tiddles and every other variation up to and including one tiny step away from actually being a dog.

What sequence of beneficial variations in cat traits move you to "just short of" a dog?

[Olowkow]

What sequence of beneficial variations in cat traits move you to "just short of" a dog?
I think Fraggles is confusing the matter. The cat and the dog start out as something different from each, and like the branches of a tree, they go their separate ways to cathood, or dogdom.

[Last of the Fraggles]

What sequence of beneficial variations in cat traits move you to "just short of" a dog?

I don't know, it's irrelevant to the question, dog and cat were examples try A and B again if it helps you. You accepted evolution within a species so I thought you were happy that a proto-cat could evolve into any type of cat including one that is one step away from being something else (say a dog) but not make the final step to actually being something else.

Have I misunderstood your position?

[Dr H]

Well, yes. Considering that it's just a re-statement of a claim for common ancestry, that's exactly what I'm not yet convinced of.

Even in the absence of any other evidence, would not the fact that pretty much all forms of life on Earth share a trememdous amount of DNA in common suggest a common ancestry to you?

[Thabiguy]

AvalonXQ, if I understand you correctly, you accept evolution as an existing mechanism, but ask for evidence of common ancestry - i.e. that all life is related, rather than having evolved from a set of unrelated ancestors (as the existence of the mechanism alone obviously doesn't allow to decide which is the case).

In addition to that, you have special requirements about the kind of evidence you want.

Normally, I would recommend someone interested in evidence of common ancestry to start with the short overview at Wikipedia (Evidence of common descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent)) and continue with the excellent summary (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) at Talk.origins.

I wonder which of the following is true? (You can answer for each link separately.)

- You have not read these, but you are going to.
- You have not read these, but you don't need to, because you are already familiar with the information contained within.
- You have not read these and you are not familiar with the information contained within, but you're still not going to read them, because you want something else.
- You have read these, and you are not satisfied with the information contained within, and you want something more/something else.
- Some other variant that I haven't thought of.

[AvalonXQ]

I don't know, it's irrelevant to the question, dog and cat were examples try A and B again if it helps you. You accepted evolution within a species so I thought you were happy that a proto-cat could evolve into any type of cat including one that is one step away from being something else (say a dog) but not make the final step to actually being something else.

Have I misunderstood your position?

I think so.
The basic idea of "types" is that the range of variation that is expected is not unlimited; it's the range of variation usually expected within a species. Dogs, for instance, vary greatly in size and less in shape, but no matter how carefully you breed them, you're never going to get a cat or a cow. All of the organism's traits will be variations of existing dog traits.

EDIT: Thabiguy, I have read them.

[Last of the Fraggles]

I think Fraggles is confusing the matter. The cat and the dog start out as something different from each, and like the branches of a tree, they go their separate ways to cathood, or dogdom.

I think you are right that my example confused. My point was that evolution doesn't know dog or cat. The process just goes from proto-cat to many different mutations of proto-cat some of which WE decide to call cats and some WE decide to call dogs.

Avalon seems to be arguing that evolution can tell the difference and that proto-cat DNA would somehow be limited to only the sequences of things that we call cats.

[godless dave]

Again, I wasn't interested in debating the authority of scientists; I was answering the questions that were asked me. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but assaults on my background or the origin of my beliefs aren't valuable in this (or really any) discussion.

There weren't any "assaults" on your background. Someone just took a statement you made about other people's backgrounds and applied it to yours. That's not an assault.

[AvalonXQ]

Avalon seems to be arguing that evolution can tell the difference and that proto-cat DNA would somehow be limited to only the sequences of things that we call cats.

Right. Not that evolution is an intelligent thing that cares about our distinctions, but that the range of variation available isn't going to take us from dog to cat; it will take us from dog to smaller dog to dog with different shape of snout or color of coat. It will not give us a dog with the ability to speak, or opposable thumbs, or retractable claws, or tapeta (tapetums?).

[Olowkow]

I think so.
The basic idea of "types" is that the range of variation that is expected is not unlimited; it's the range of variation usually expected within a species. Dogs, for instance, vary greatly in size and less in shape, but no matter how carefully you breed them, you're never going to get a cat or a cow. All of the organism's traits will be variations of existing dog traits.

EDIT: Thabiguy, I have read them.
No one with any understanding of the problem has ever said this. If you get hung up on that, you will never get anywhere. This is what guys like Ray Comfort like to spout. They are either misinformed or lying.
It takes millions of years to get what you suggest cannot be done. That's a long time.

[godless dave]

Can it? I mean, you certainly don't believe that EVERY change is immediately possible.

Nobody said they were immediately possible.

[temporalillusion]

Right. Not that evolution is an intelligent thing that cares about our distinctions, but that the range of variation available isn't going to take us from dog to cat; it will take us from dog to smaller dog to dog with different shape of snout or color of coat. It will not give us a dog with the ability to speak, or opposable thumbs, or retractable claws, or tapeta (tapetums?).

Why not? What limits this?

[Last of the Fraggles]

I think so.
The basic idea of "types" is that the range of variation that is expected is not unlimited; it's the range of variation usually expected within a species. Dogs, for instance, vary greatly in size and less in shape, but no matter how carefully you breed them, you're never going to get a cat or a cow. All of the organism's traits will be variations of existing dog traits.

EDIT: Thabiguy, I have read them.

Hmm we've gone off on a bit of a tangent here then. Many things to clarify now:

1. What is a type? How would I know if a previously undiscovered animal is a new type or an existing one? How do I know that a tiger is actually a type of cat and not a separate type of tigers or big cats?

2. How do you know what variation is expected and what isn't?

3. Do you think that evolution argues that you should be able to breed modern dogs and eventually get a cat or a cow?

4. Do you accept that an ancestor of (and I'm regretting my example now) modern cats and dogs doesn't necessarily need all the traits of all cats and dogs but just some common traits?

[Christian Klippel]

I think so.
The basic idea of "types" is that the range of variation that is expected is not unlimited; it's the range of variation usually expected within a species. Dogs, for instance, vary greatly in size and less in shape, but no matter how carefully you breed them, you're never going to get a cat or a cow. All of the organism's traits will be variations of existing dog traits.

EDIT: Thabiguy, I have read them.

But it is _us_ who defines the types and species. These categories are somewhat arbitrary. Even more, some species get recategorized over time. Taking your argument, we don't have dogs, but wolves as pets. They share the same traits, to a varying degree. However, it is _us_ who decided that a certain amount of variation is enough to call them dogs instead of wolves.

In addition, the process of breeding, as we do it with animals and plants, is designed to _preserve_ as much as possible of the existing traits/genetics. However, the process of evolution is about _randomizing_ that, it is the exact opposite. After that randomization, some traits/genes stay, others go away, and even others appear new.

Taking the classification game a step further: dog is not the same as dog. We have poodles, retrievers, shepherds, and so on. So, we could in theory say that there is no "dog" at all, but only poodles, etc. It is, again, _us_ who put them in a category and labeled it "dog".

Greetings,

Chris

[Magyar]

I'm not interested in appeals to the authority ---munity that accepts the theory of evolution as historical fact. "A whole lot of smart men believe this" does not an evidentiary argument make.

I am reading all the posts, but I just HAD to jump in and say that the above comment is rip roaringly hularious considering the special pleading the poster has for the "authority" of the buy bull

[Last of the Fraggles]

Right. Not that evolution is an intelligent thing that cares about our distinctions, but that the range of variation available isn't going to take us from dog to cat; it will take us from dog to smaller dog to dog with different shape of snout or color of coat. It will not give us a dog with the ability to speak, or opposable thumbs, or retractable claws, or tapeta (tapetums?).

To the best of your knowledge, what is the process or feature of the process or whatever you want to call it that stops a particular DNA sequence mutating to another one?

What's the limiting factor?

[Segnosaur]

Right. Not that evolution is an intelligent thing that cares about our distinctions, but that the range of variation available isn't going to take us from dog to cat; it will take us from dog to smaller dog to dog with different shape of snout or color of coat. It will not give us a dog with the ability to speak, or opposable thumbs, or retractable claws, or tapeta (tapetums?).

Once again, please answer the questions...

Just how much variation do you think is possible? What exactly do you think is the limiting mechanism? What is preventing dogs, if there were an adaptive advantage from, for example, eventually obtaining retractable claws? If you think it is impossible, then why do you think its impossible?

And you still haven't addressed the other question: do you think its possible for there to be so much variation in a species that individuals at the 'extremes' no longer have the ability to mate with each other?

[AvalonXQ]

1. What is a type? How would I know if a previously undiscovered animal is a new type or an existing one? How do I know that a tiger is actually a type of cat and not a separate type of tigers or big cats?
By knowing what sorts of variations are possible, and analyzing traits and history to determine whether these variations likely occurred. IE, observation.

2. How do you know what variation is expected and what isn't?

I don't know that you do, a priori. You take a look at the existing varieties and the genome and see what's possible.

3. Do you think that evolution argues that you should be able to breed modern dogs and eventually get a cat or a cow?

Yes, I do.

4. Do you accept that an ancestor of (and I'm regretting my example now) modern cats and dogs doesn't necessarily need all the traits of all cats and dogs but just some common traits?

I accept that as a rational assertion; not necessarily an accurate one.

[AvalonXQ]

I am reading all the posts, but I just HAD to jump in and say that the above comment is rip roaringly hularious considering the special pleading the poster has for the "authority" of the buy bull

So you agree that an argument from authority is insufficient for someone looking for evidentiary arguments?
If so, I fail to see the hypocrisy in acknowledging that this fact applies to ANY authority. I don't accept special pleading when I'm looking for evidence.
Perhaps you could stick with substantive contributions, or stay silent, rather than just ridiculing me? You're lowering the tone of the debate.

[Yoink]

I'm always amazed at the generosity people on this site exhibit with their time and expertise. I mean, here's someone who has one trick and one trick only--the argument from personal incredulity ("No WAY could a whale and a dog have a common ancestor--nuh-UH!") and yet all these intelligent and informed people are engaging with him/her for page after page after page.

Why bother? There's simply no way to engage with the argument from personal incredulity--that's why it's a fallacy. Unless Avalon is willing to make some positive claim (which can either be proven or disproven) this argument is pointless--and, quite literally, interminable.

[Last of the Fraggles]

By knowing what sorts of variations are possible, and analyzing traits and history to determine whether these variations likely occurred. IE, observation.

I don't know that you do, a priori. You take a look at the existing varieties and the genome and see what's possible.

Yes, I do.

I accept that as a rational assertion; not necessarily an accurate one.

So we define types by first defining types and then deciding that everything that fits within this type fits within this type? That's basically what you have argued here.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution if your answer to point 3 is true.

[AvalonXQ]

Why bother? There's simply no way to engage with the argument from personal incredulity--that's why it's a fallacy. Unless Avalon is willing to make some positive claim (which can either be proven or disproven) this argument is pointless--and, quite literally, interminable.

I began this thread by request. If you feel it's pointless, stay away. If the general consensus becomes that it's pointless, I'll happily refrain myself. But noncontributing posts are not appreciated.

[Last of the Fraggles]

So you agree that an argument from authority is insufficient for someone looking for evidentiary arguments?
If so, I fail to see the hypocrisy in acknowledging that this fact applies to ANY authority. I don't accept special pleading when I'm looking for evidence.
Perhaps you could stick with substantive contributions, or stay silent, rather than just ridiculing me? You're lowering the tone of the debate.

I think his point was that you are willing to accept your alternative hypothesis without anywhere near the supporting evidence that you demand from the evolution argument. Why is this?

[Segnosaur]

So you agree that an argument from authority is insufficient for someone looking for evidentiary arguments?

What you fail to understand is that people don't believe in evolution because people successfully engage in "argument from authority". We believe in evolution because we have seen the details of evolution discussed amongst thousands of scientists (making up virtually the entire scientific community). Furthermore, those discussions are open to the public, and can often be accessed through various peer reviewed publications.

"Argument from authority" suggests that you are basing your beliefs on what just a single (or very small group of people) say. I don't believe evolution because Darwin or Dawkins told me to, I believe it because thousands of scientists have worked on the theory.

[godless dave]

By knowing what sorts of variations are possible, and analyzing traits and history to determine whether these variations likely occurred. IE, observation.



I don't know that you do, a priori. You take a look at the existing varieties and the genome and see what's possible.

That only tells us what's possible with the current genome. If the genome is different in the next generation, then new things will be possible, and some things that are possible with the current genome will be impossible with the new one. And the same goes with the genome after that, and the one after that, and the one after that.



Yes, I do.

Well, it doesn't, and I'm not sure where you got the idea it did.

It does say that it's possible for a modern dog species to evolve into a species that has very similar traits to a modern cow - but it wouldn't be able to interbreed with a modern cow or a descendant of a modern cow.

For example, whale sharks have some features in common with whales, even though they evolved from very different lineages. But a whale shark can't interbreed with a whale.

[AvalonXQ]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution if your answer to point 3 is true.

... which is precisely what this thread was originally designed to ferret out, was my understanding of evolution and places where it's lacking.
I've been hearing, from multiple people on this thread, that there is no intrinsic limit to the amount of change possible in the genome. Apparently, though, it's impossible to get from a dog to a cow. So, there are limits in what changes are possible.
The question is, empirically, what are these limits, and what changes have historically occurred?

[Christian Klippel]

So you agree that an argument from authority is insufficient for someone looking for evidentiary arguments?
If so, I fail to see the hypocrisy in acknowledging that this fact applies to ANY authority. I don't accept special pleading when I'm looking for evidence.
Perhaps you could stick with substantive contributions, or stay silent, rather than just ridiculing me? You're lowering the tone of the debate.

OK, then please, tell us: what are the arguments, having the quality you ask, for a god having created all the life on earth, instead of evolution?

And i too don't accept special pleading, for example to unverifiable books, when i like to see evidence for that.

You know, as a matter of fact it _does_ go both ways. You ask us for evidence for evolution, you define what kind of evidence you accept. That's fine. But we can also ask for your evidence that this didn't happen, but that some god did that all instead.

So, again, please show us your evidence for your side of the view as well. Can you do that?

Greetings,

Chris

[Last of the Fraggles]

I began this thread by request. If you feel it's pointless, stay away. If the general consensus becomes that it's pointless, I'll happily refrain myself. But noncontributing posts are not appreciated.

Do you understand his point about incredulity though?

You are prepared to say Evolution can do A, Evolution can do B, Evolution can do C but at the same time you are arguing that Evolution cannot do D.

The evidence for A,B,C and D are the same.

The process is the same.

What evidence do you have that evolution cannot do D?

[AvalonXQ]

"Argument from authority" suggests that you are basing your beliefs on what just a single (or very small group of people) say. I don't believe evolution because Darwin or Dawkins told me to, I believe it because thousands of scientists have worked on the theory.

How many people have to believe something before trusting them becomes a valid argument, tantamount to evidence? What credentials do they need to have?
And can we have this discussion elsewhere?

[AvalonXQ]

You are prepared to say Evolution can do A, Evolution can do B, Evolution can do C but at the same time you are arguing that Evolution cannot do D.


And, at the same time, you're telling me that evolution cannot do E, which seems to be in the same category as D.

A, B, and C, are all small changes; we have evidence for them. D is a change of a much more different and drastic kind. I understand that the wisdom is that D is just A repeated over millions of years, but I need direct evidence of D. A just isn't convincing of D.

[Yoink]

I began this thread by request. If you feel it's pointless, stay away. If the general consensus becomes that it's pointless, I'll happily refrain myself. But noncontributing posts are not appreciated.

I'm pointing out that your entire style of arguing is disingenuous and guaranteed to lead nowhere. You are free to ignore me, of course, but you could also change your style of arguing to one that is more honest and productive.

All you need do is make some positive claim as to why evolution cannot result in speciation (something other than "of course it can't" or "I don't believe it"). Then you will be making an actual argument--one that can be tested. At the moment all you are saying is "I refuse to believe this." That might be an interesting thing for your friends to know about you, but it is of no possible intellectual interest whatsoever.

[Last of the Fraggles]

How many people have to believe something before trusting them becomes a valid argument, tantamount to evidence? What credentials do they need to have?
And can we have this discussion elsewhere?

Again its not argument from authority its the rather sensible presumption that if you are going to announce that all those thousands of people who dedicated their life to studying this specific thing have made a mistake then you might want to actually bring something to the table with some data or evidence to discuss that shows where there mistake is, rather than the argument that 'I can't imagine it happens that way'

[AvalonXQ]

Again its not argument from authority


Yes, it is.
Thanks for your time today.

[Last of the Fraggles]

D is a change of a much more different and drastic kind.

In what way?

You haven't justified that statement yet.

[Segnosaur]

... which is precisely what this thread was originally designed to ferret out, was my understanding of evolution and places where it's lacking.
I've been hearing, from multiple people on this thread, that there is no intrinsic limit to the amount of change possible in the genome. Apparently, though, it's impossible to get from a dog to a cow. So, there are limits in what changes are possible.

This demonstrates a complete ignorance of the process of evolution.

Nobody is saying that a dog could evolve into a cow, because a cow is a unique animal with a specific genetic makeup, which evolved over millions of years.

What IS possible is for a dog to evolve into an animal with similar characteristics... a large-size, grazing herbovore if there is an advantage for that to happen.

You see, you have things backwards - The issue is not "Can species X turn into species Y", the issue is "Can species X change enough so that it no longer can be viewed as species X".


The question is, empirically, what are these limits, and what changes have historically occurred?

First of all, I find it ironic that you would be raising these questions, since you have been asked multiple times just how much variation YOU think is possible and what exactly limits further changes.

Secondly, there are a few basic rules:
- changes must not violate any physical laws (e.g. you'll never see a 1 mile high animal since it is unlikely that an animal of that size would have the bone or muscle structure to support itself)
- an animal is unlikely to evolve into a previously occupied niche (hence you won't see dogs evolving into cows because we already have various species of large land-based herbivores)
Apart from that, the issue isn't so much what the limits are, but how much time is available.

[Last of the Fraggles]

Yes, it is.
Thanks for your time today.

No, it isn't.

If you bring some evidence to the table that shows those scientists to be wrong then you will win. No matter how many thousands of them agree.

You have failed to do this so far. Your entire argument is 'I don't believe them'

[godless dave]

Forgive me while I delve into the land of analogy. I'll be using language for this example.

A change from Classical Latin to modern French would be a drastic change. But nobody claims that Classical Lating changed immediately into modern French. Classical Latin evolved into Vulgar Latin through a few minor changes. Vulgar Latin evolved into Old French through a few minor changes. Old French evolved into Middle French through a few minor changes. Middle French evolved into Modern French through a few minor changes.

Simultaneously, Vulgar Latin evolved into Old Spanish, then Medieval Spanish, then modern Spanish.

Could Classical Latin evolve, in only a few generations, into Modern French or Modern Spanish? No. Can Modern French evolve into Modern Spanish, or vice versa? No. But nobody doubts that Modern French, Modern Spanish, Modern Portuguese, Modern Italian, and Modern Romanian, among others, evolved from Classical Latin.

Does that analogy make sense? Do you see how it applies, crudely, to biological evolution?

[Christian Klippel]

I've been hearing, from multiple people on this thread, that there is no intrinsic limit to the amount of change possible in the genome.

Right. However, only so much of the genome gets changed with every mutation. No one ever claimed that very big parts of the genome will change in a single step.

Apparently, though, it's impossible to get from a dog to a cow. So, there are limits in what changes are possible.

Wrong. It is perfectly possible to get from a dog to a cow. Just not in a single step. It would happen over a long period of time, through billions of billions of small mutations in the genome.

The question is, empirically, what are these limits, and what changes have historically occurred?

Theoretically i would say (attention: uneducated guess) the only limit is 4 (the four bases GATC) to the power of the maximum number of them possible in a single genome. Like, the limit of an 8 bit binary number is 256 possibilities, or 2^8. However, unlike a binary number, not every combination makes sense and is able to "exist".

What changes have historically occurred? That is again asking for the impossible, since we simply don't know, and will never know, what combinations ever existed successfully, much less which combinations have ever been tried due to mutation but didn't survive.

Greetings,

Chris

[godless dave]

Wrong. It is perfectly possible to get from a dog to a cow. Just not in a single step. It would happen over a long period of time, through billions of billions of small mutations in the genome.

It depends what you mean by "cow".

[Segnosaur]

On aspects of evolution...
Again its not argument from authority
Yes, it is.
Thanks for your time today.

Sooooo... in other words, what you're saying is that not only are you ignorant of what the theory of evolution is, you are also ignorant about what an "argument from authority" is...

From Wikipedia:
... a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.
...
This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false).
...
On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.

Once again, when we talk about evolution, we are not basing our understanding on the statements by a single individual (or group of individuals)... we are basing our understanding on the work of thousands upon thousands of individuals, working through the process of peer review.

Perhaps you should go back and take a remedial science course.

[Foster Zygote]

The key, though, comes from a distrust of "digested" conclusions. I want primary sources; to be convinced, I need the evidence itself.

Do you therefor share similar doubts regarding the findings of chemistry, astronomy, nuclear physics, etcetera?

[Yoink]

Nobody is saying that a dog could evolve into a cow, because a cow is a unique animal with a specific genetic makeup, which evolved over millions of years.

What IS possible is for a dog to evolve into an animal with similar characteristics... a large-size, grazing herbovore if there is an advantage for that to happen.

Someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is truer to say that there is no physical reason why some species of dogs could not evolve into animals that were genetically indistinguishable from (and interbreedable with) modern day cows. The point is that it is vanishingly improbable. The series of steps that would require such a "targeted" evolution are each astronomically improbable. Multiply each improbability by the next and you have the kinds of improbability that make macroscopic quantum effects look commonplace.

But I don't think there is any inherent limit to the plasticity of a dog's (or any other animals) DNA code.

[Foster Zygote]

Yes, it is.
Thanks for your time today.

You seem to have little problem with argument from Biblical authority.

[Christian Klippel]

It depends what you mean by "cow".

Right. My point simply is that, when viewed only from a "end point" X to a "starting point" A, a big, heavy change seem to happen, while in reality it is very, very many small steps that led from A to X.

Greetings,

Chris

[AvalonXQ]

You seem to have little problem with argument from Biblical authority.

Again, an argument from authority is an argument from authority; it's useful if you trust the source, and not useful if you're looking for evidence. When I quote the Bible as a source of authority, I'm making an argument from authority; I usually do so in the context of explaining Christian beliefs and/or my beliefs rather than as any sort of "proof" that the ideas are objectively correct.
I'm aware that most people here accept the scientific consensus as authoritative, and therefore that using this consensus without additional evidence can often be useful (as the Wikipedia post indicated). However, without presenting the underlying facts themselves, it's still engaging in an argument from authority -- and, in this case, the source is one that I do not accept as authoritative in all areas. It doesn't mean that I won't look at the underlying evidence; it means that the underlying evidence and not the conclusions of others are necessary to convince me in these matters.
I know that bothers a lot of atheists and other science-minded people, so I didn't really want to go into it here. But there you go.
I regret starting this thread, because rather than attempting to explain what I understand and get feedback, it became something else entirely -- first, a "why don't you accept evolution?" and then a "how can you be so ignorant/stupid/incredulous/unscrupulous/hypocritical as to not accept evolution?" However, thread degeneration aside, I'll definitely learn something from reading some of the linked articles, so that's a plus. It's also helped me know some of the names that should go on my ignore list, so that's a plus as well.
I'm done here, at least for now.

[Magyar]

It's easy to make mistakes when your starting assumptions are wrong, when you've been taught those assumptions as basic from the beginning, and when you're in a cultural environment where questioning those assumptions is taboo. The more I see that professionals actively tackle these questions without assuming the outcome, the less likely it is that they're making this particular mistake.
But let's not mince words here: you're arguing from authority, plain and simple. "They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.
I'm much more interested in discussing the evidence here; people are being happily forthcoming with it.

HMM, just musing here, but I WONDER - why exactly does the above line of reasoning NOT apply to your buybull and YEC theory!? After all YOU want to talk about an environment where certain assumption are taboo!?

"They're experts; you're a layman," is the argument, and it's a poor one.

Really, WHY!? I mean I understand the falacy of argument from authority and what it means, but not only do you NOT seem to understand it you're headlong deep into using it here!

And do you really assume that your understanding of this subject, or for that matter any complex one that envolves multiple lines of evidence and discipline is equal to someone who has spent often decades studying it?. I mean on the one hand YOU ask for evidence and on the other you dismiss the evidence given to you by simply claiming that their word/knowledge of the subject is not any better than yours (someone who displays less than high school level understanding on the subject at hand) What more is there to discuss here? You pretend that you want evidence but when given to you and explained that it is backed by papers written by and reviewed by people who have spent decades working in the filed you blow it off because it doesn't mesh with YOUR argument from authority - the bible.

And while we're at it, lets address your total missconception of the scientific community.
From your post above you seem to live under the delusion, probably braught on by your experience being indoctrinated into your cult, that people interested in studying this or any other scientific field come into the discipline begging to please and cow tow to their elders. You couldn't be more wrong! Every scientist, to some degree or another, is an egotist and part of the motivation that drives them to endure YEARS of study, YEARS of field work and research publishing peer reviewed papers is because they want to prove the other guy wrong and discover the TRUE answer! The most famous scientists, including Darwin, are so famous precisely for this reason! They proposed something that was TOTALLY against the norm and dispite all the crap they took and all the efforst of the powers that be THEIR ideas withstood the test of time.

Now I grant you there are people who are disshonest or so commited to an idea that they will lie or hide info _ BUT this is what peer review adn the scientific method is in place for. It seems to me that when it's all said and done, the ONLY evidence that you will accept for ToE is one that is impossible to give because that evidence would actually disprove ToE ala
Originally Posted by Last of the Fraggles
3. Do you think that evolution argues that you should be able to breed modern dogs and eventually get a cat or a cow?
Yes, I do So in the final analisys you are nothing but the typical xian fundi to damend lazy or dumb to do the actual work for yourself and sell out the easy answer of the big sky daddy.

[Last of the Fraggles]

Someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is truer to say that there is no physical reason why some species of dogs could not evolve into animals that were genetically indistinguishable from (and interbreedable with) modern day cows. The point is that it is vanishingly improbable. The series of steps that would require such a "targeted" evolution are each astronomically improbable. Multiply each improbability by the next and you have the kinds of improbability that make macroscopic quantum effects look commonplace.

But I don't think there is any inherent limit to the plasticity of a dog's (or any other animals) DNA code.

My thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that for a dog to get to be a cat or a cow would first require the modern dog to mutate backwards to something closely resembling the common ancestor before then evolving down the 'cow' route.

While it might be theoretically possible for this to occur given enough millions of years I don't think there is any process by which the breeding of modern dogs would cause this to happen. At some point wouldn't you need a drastic change in conditions/environment?

[temporalillusion]

Someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is truer to say that there is no physical reason why some species of dogs could not evolve into animals that were genetically indistinguishable from (and interbreedable with) modern day cows. The point is that it is vanishingly improbable. The series of steps that would require such a "targeted" evolution are each astronomically improbable. Multiply each improbability by the next and you have the kinds of improbability that make macroscopic quantum effects look commonplace.

But I don't think there is any inherent limit to the plasticity of a dog's (or any other animals) DNA code.

Thank you, I think that clarifies that issue up perfectly.

[Niggle]

Complete layman here, except for a high school biology class, so I hope I'm not muddying things further, but I think I see part of Avalon's problem, and it's about a point of evolution that I don't understand myself, so I'll ask it.

Evolution is depicted pictorially as a tree, from a common ancestor to many, completely separate, branches, all of which fork away from each other at different points along the trunk. Each branch occurs when some of the DNA changes enough that the new creature can no longer interbreed with the rest of the branch. Hence, each branch is missing some of the source DNA (or, more properly, it has changed from the source).

The branch labelled "dog" has a different pool of DNA to work with than the branch labelled "cow". Hence, a dog cannot interbreed with a cow. However, large portions of the DNA are the same, since both creatures are still on the main branch labelled "mammal" (or some such).

Therefore, "dog" can never become "cow" because it's missing the necessary DNA; it was lost when the two species split from the "mammal" branch.

Is it also true that said DNA could redevelop eventually through further mutation that reintroduces those changes? Essentially, that "dog" could "unevolve" back to the main branch, then "re-evolve" along the same lines as the current "cow"? Leaving aside any possibilities of that actually occurring, of course, which I understand are staggeringly unlikely, given that there is currently no evolutionary pressure or advantage to encourage it.

This, I think, is Avalon's main point of confusion. Evolution, as he/she understands it, would allow for "dog" to become "cow" without the "de-evolution" part, which I guess could be just as possible if those DNA mutations happened forward instead of going backwards instead, however unlikely that may be.

I think a contributing factor to the confusion is that he/she compares the process to the only method of species change he/she knows of, which is selective breeding. But he/she doesn't take into account that that will never produce "cow" because it can only be done using all "dog" genes. He/she can also only look at the direct results observed over the lifetimes of the people doing the breeding, not over the millions of years necessary for such a drastic DNA change.

Am I anywhere close?

[Yoink]

My thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that for a dog to get to be a cat or a cow would first require the modern dog to mutate backwards to something closely resembling the common ancestor before then evolving down the 'cow' route.

While it might be theoretically possible for this to occur given enough millions of years I don't think there is any process by which the breeding of modern dogs would cause this to happen. At some point wouldn't you need a drastic change in conditions/environment?

I don't think there's any inherent reason for the dog to "mutate backwards" to the common starting point and then reduplicate the evolutionary course followed by the modern cow. As long as the end-point was equivalent, the course it used to get there would be immaterial (although it is conceivable that the course you suggest would be the most economical).

More importantly, my argument was simply to suggest that it is "theoretically possible." I hope I was very clear that I regarded it as a practical impossibility.

[temporalillusion]

However, without presenting the underlying facts themselves, it's still engaging in an argument from authority -- and, in this case, the source is one that I do not accept as authoritative in all areas. It doesn't mean that I won't look at the underlying evidence; it means that the underlying evidence and not the conclusions of others are necessary to convince me in these matters.

I would again ask what exactly do you distrust? The scientific process? Peer review? The openness of the process?

The scientific process has a history that can be evaluated and has proven worthy of some measure of "trust" with respect to its methods. This isn't appeal to authority, this is knowledge that if a large number of papers on a particular subject have appeared in journals and have been extensively referenced and verified, that the conclusions have some merit, because so many people have tested them and tried to undermine them without success.

No one views any conclusion as absolute truth, but some conclusions are very well supported.

[Last of the Fraggles]

Thank you, I think that clarifies that issue up perfectly.

Of course the complication is that anti-evolution argument would simply contend that its still a dog, just a cowy looking and acting dog.

The argument so far has been that any variation we see is within a kind and that we define kind by observing the variations which means by definition anything that a dog gives birth to is still a dog in their book.

Without any kind of definitive statement of what a kind is we're always going to come back to that circular argument and I don't see any way to overcome it to Avalon's satisfaction.

[godless dave]

I don't think there's any inherent reason for the dog to "mutate backwards" to the common starting point and then reduplicate the evolutionary course followed by the modern cow. As long as the end-point was equivalent, the course it used to get there would be immaterial (although it is conceivable that the course you suggest would be the most economical).

But an equivalent endpoint would be a different species than a cow - it wouldn't be interfertile with a cow. It would only be a cow in the sense that a marsupial lion is a lion - superficially the morhphology is similar, but the genome is quite different.

What you're describing is something that's not ever seen in nature.

[Yoink]

It doesn't mean that I won't look at the underlying evidence; it means that the underlying evidence and not the conclusions of others are necessary to convince me in these matters.
I know that bothers a lot of atheists and other science-minded people, so I didn't really want to go into it here. But there you go.

I assume I'm on Avalon's ignore list now, but I'd like to point out that for all his vaunted willingness to look at the "underlying evidence," that's just what he is refusing to do. He hasn't bothered to avail himself of any of the myriad opportunities that lie quite literally at his fingertips (given that he's clearly writing on a computer connected to the internet). He can find a great deal of the "underlying evidence" and examine it in great detail if he has any interest in doing so.

Quite clearly, however, he's never bothered to take even a cursory glance at it, because he can't cite a single part of that evidence which troubles or puzzles him. That would have been a potentially productive discussion. The route he has chosen instead--the argument from personal incredulity--is guaranteed to be unproductive.

[AvalonXQ]

Of course the complication is that anti-evolution argument would simply contend that its still a dog, just a cowy looking and acting dog.

I guess I'm not done after all.
I would not accept the argument that it's just a "cowy looking and acting dog"; I would accept it as evidence for variations broad enough to bridge the two species. In fact, it would probably be enough for me to seriously question/reevaluate the whole idea of seperate genesis.

[Segnosaur]

Again, an argument from authority is an argument from authority; it's useful if you trust the source, and not useful if you're looking for evidence. When I quote the Bible as a source of authority, I'm making an argument from authority; I usually do so in the context of explaining Christian beliefs and/or my beliefs rather than as any sort of "proof" that the ideas are objectively correct.
I'm aware that most people here accept the scientific consensus as authoritative...

And by definition, the 'scientific consensis' is not "argument from authority".

Got it?


... and therefore that using this consensus without additional evidence can often be useful (as the Wikipedia post indicated). However, without presenting the underlying facts themselves, it's still engaging in an argument from authority -- and, in this case, the source is one that I do not accept as authoritative in all areas.

So, what exactly do you expect us to do, drag you out to the badlands of mongolia so you can examine the fossils yourself? Send you to university for a decade so you can learn enough to conduct genetic analsis yourself?

From the looks of things, you appear to be spectacularly ignorant when it comes to understanding basic science. Yet you don't want to listen to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about, somehow thinking you'll be able to understand the evidence when its presented to you.

This reminds me of a quote from the movie "A Fish Called Wanda"...

Wanda: But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: [superior smile] Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it! Let me correct you on a few things; Aristotle was not Belgian! The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself!" And the London Underground is not a political movement! Those are all mistakes. I looked them up.

By the way, we're still waiting for you to answer a few basic questions, such as:

- Just how much 'change' or variation do you think can exist in a species, and what do you think limits it.

- Can individuals within a species exhibit so much variation that they are no longar able to interbreed?

- How do you explain convergence? The way that genetics, the fossil record, geology and astronomy all give supporting conclusions on so many issues (I gave several examples) when they wouldn't have to if there were separate creation events?

Perhaps the biggest question of all... why are people like you so intellectually dishonest? You started this thread so well, I'm sure people actually had hope. Now, within a very short period of time, you have exhibited the standard traits of any illogical buffon, ignoring any questions that they are unable to answer.

[temporalillusion]

Well then I suggest you read up on ring species, because that's effectively exactly what we're talking about.. variation broad enough to result in two species.

[Yoink]

But an equivalent endpoint would be a different species than a cow - it wouldn't be interfertile with a cow. It would only be a cow in the sense that a marsupial lion is a lion - superficially the morhphology is similar, but the genome is quite different.

What you're describing is something that's not ever seen in nature.

My whole point is that such a thing cannot be seen in nature. Did you miss the bit where I said that it would be so astronomically improbable as to make macroscopic quantum effects look commonplace?

What I'm saying is that there's no inherent limitation that prevents this being possible. It won't happen, of course, but that's simply because it is so staggeringly implausible--not because of any inherent physical limitation in the possible future sequence of changes that the dog's DNA sequence can undergo.

And no, I'm not saying "some sort of cow-like animal"--I'm talking about an animal that would be genetically indistinguishable from a modern cow. An animal, in other words, that could interbreed with the modern cow.

Again--I'm not saying that this will happen or that it could happen in reality--it's far too improbable. I'm saying that I can't see any physical limitation that would make it literally impossible.

[Last of the Fraggles]

I don't think there's any inherent reason for the dog to "mutate backwards" to the common starting point and then reduplicate the evolutionary course followed by the modern cow. As long as the end-point was equivalent, the course it used to get there would be immaterial (although it is conceivable that the course you suggest would be the most economical).

More importantly, my argument was simply to suggest that it is "theoretically possible." I hope I was very clear that I regarded it as a practical impossibility.

Yeah I guess part of the problem is that from our vantage point at the end of the branches it seems that through time dogs have been becoming more doggy, and cats more catty and cows more cowy as time progresses. It therefore seems difficult to imagine something becoming less doggy and more cowy through evolution.

Its hard not to think that way, and I have to remind myself that dog, cat and cow are lagely arbitrary definitions of sequences that happen to be present on the planet at the same time as me and there is nothing inherently special about dogness, catness and cowness that mean evolution should select for them.

Some of this stuff is just hard to compute and I guess that's why some people fall at that hurdle. Simplistic explanations do make life much simpler.

[Segnosaur]

Someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it is truer to say that there is no physical reason why some species of dogs could not evolve into animals that were genetically indistinguishable from (and interbreedable with) modern day cows. The point is that it is vanishingly improbable. The series of steps that would require such a "targeted" evolution are each astronomically improbable. Multiply each improbability by the next and you have the kinds of improbability that make macroscopic quantum effects look commonplace.

But I don't think there is any inherent limit to the plasticity of a dog's (or any other animals) DNA code.

You're right, the only reason a dog couldn't evolve into somethign genetically identical to a cow is due to the improbability.

However, we ARE dealing with a creationist; as such, he's pretty scientifically ignorant. The last thing we need is to confuse him more with talks of probability.

I figured the more productive thing to do would be to discuss what actually might happen, if the niche of large grazing herbivores opened up and dogs were able to evolve.

[Yoink]

Well then I suggest you read up on ring species, because that's effectively exactly what we're talking about.. variation broad enough to result in two species.

No no, you don't understand. "Reading" things is succumbing to the "argument from authority." He would have to actually do all the basic research himself or it wouldn't count. And as he's not going to bother to do even a half-assed job of research, he's invincibly armored in his ignorance. A great victory for God!

[Last of the Fraggles]

I guess I'm not done after all.
I would not accept the argument that it's just a "cowy looking and acting dog"; I would accept it as evidence for variations broad enough to bridge the two species. In fact, it would probably be enough for me to seriously question/reevaluate the whole idea of seperate genesis.

So how do you tell when something is no longer a dog? What's the criteria you use to make this judgement?

Given the timescales that evolution works on you do realise that not only would none of us be around to witness both modern dog and new cow-dog but civilisation would probably have ended and the planet died long before we even got close? So what evidence could be provided that would convince you?

[Magyar]

So you agree that an argument from authority is insufficient for someone looking for evidentiary arguments?
If so, I fail to see the hypocrisy in acknowledging that this fact applies to ANY authority. I don't accept special pleading when I'm looking for evidence.
Perhaps you could stick with substantive contributions, or stay silent, rather than just ridiculing me? You're lowering the tone of the debate.

I always find it funy when people like you claim that you're being mistreated when one points out your hypocracy.

Or was it someone else who posted and I am paraphrasing - that you accept the bible in favor of ToE because the evidence for ToE being given you is an argument from authority WHICH IS NOT by the way.


Just what exactly do you think claiming that the bible is right about creation instead of ToE if not an appeal to authority.

[technoextreme]

Perhaps you could stick with substantive contributions, or stay silent, rather than just ridiculing me? You're lowering the tone of the debate.
He's right though. You can't seem to accept that the informal logical fallacies are not absolute.
When I quote the Bible as a source of authority, I'm making an argument from authority; I usually do so in the context of explaining Christian beliefs and/or my beliefs rather than as any sort of "proof" that the ideas are objectively correct.
Actually, no. Your invoking the argument from ignorance or god of the gaps fallacy.

[Professor Yaffle]

Is a marsupial wolf of the same "kind" or "type" as a placental wolf? What about a mouse and a marsupial mouse?

[Marduk]

SNIP

youve mentioned a couple of times that you are just trying to explain your christian beliefs, but in reality you arent, the vast majority of christians on this planet have no issue with darwinian evolution at all. What you are actually stating is that your beliefs are in line with a bunch of semitic Jews circa 500bce, who in turn got their beliefs froma bunch of semitic babylonians, who in turn got their beliefs from the semitic akkadians circa 1900bce, who in turn got their beliefs from the sumerians circa 2500bce, who from all appearences made them up as a way of explaining something they were underequipped to understand. Newsflash, we are equipped to explain it, but you are incapable of listening because you are deluding yourself that what the Sumerians believed is 100% correct

none of your claims are christian, christian ideology says to follow the teachings of christ, last time I checked he taught christianity, not science, so your claims are neither christian or scientific.

sucks to be in a cult religion eh
:rolleyes:

[Third Eye Open]

Is it also true that said DNA could redevelop eventually through further mutation that reintroduces those changes? Essentially, that "dog" could "unevolve" back to the main branch, then "re-evolve" along the same lines as the current "cow"?

As far as I know, evolution can never move backward. There is no way that something can become less adapted to the environment, and still survive through enough generations to keep moving backward. But I suppose it is just semantics when you say 'backward' or 'forward'
Chickens still have the gene for teeth, if the environment changed so that having teeth was again beneficial, I suppose you could say that was moving 'backward' because the chicken was going back to how it was in earlier stages in some way. But this is not really 'backward' because it is still an improvement, based on whatever environmental or selection pressure is requiring it.

Even in the case of increased numbers of elephants being born with smaller or even absent tusks due to extensive poaching for ivory, this may not be immediately seen as an improvement and may be thought as a 'backward' move, but it increases the survivability of the elephant, and that is all evolution 'cares' about.

[ben m]

And, at the same time, you're telling me that evolution cannot do E, which seems to be in the same category as D.

A, B, and C, are all small changes; we have evidence for them. D is a change of a much more different and drastic kind. I understand that the wisdom is that D is just A repeated over millions of years, but I need direct evidence of D. A just isn't convincing of D.

I don't know if this has come up earlier in the thread, but think about the proof by contradiction. If you think that A has indeed repeated over millions of years, but has not led to speciation and large changes---well, what stopped it?

Imagine (say) two birds of species A which have been blown to different Galapagos islands. You agree that the A+ generation can differ from the A generation, and the A++ from the A+, and so on. How does that still look like A after a million years? Does someone take a hole of A++++++ and say, "Here now, you fellas are awfully short-beaked compared to your ancestors A, and your cousins A''''''''' on the other island are awfully long-legged these days. You're supposed to be the same species; please look at this breed-standard and sort yourself out."

What's the stabilizing force? Obviously if the environment is stable and the population is large enough, the law of averages can be the stabilizing force. But the environment is rarely stable (remember, "environment" includes predators, prey, food plants, and diseases, all of which are also evolving, as well as climate and whatnot), so how could A+++++++++ possibly be able to avoid diverging from some A'''''''' cousin it's never encountered or from an A ancestor it doesn't remember?

[MattC]

I think it fair to say that Avalon has been presented with a fair amount of reading material, and that it is unjust to expect him to comprehend all of them and reply to this thread at the same time. Perhaps this petty bickering over logical fallacies could cease and we allow him to return to the thread when he has perused the literature?

I would suggest, Avalon, that you make a start with drkitten's links.

~ Matt

[Olowkow]

Yeah, too bad Avalon is so easily scared off. I find this very interesting. One thing that posters seem to be forgetting though, me included, is the "Y", in YEC. Everyone is throwing around millions of years, when he is presupposing 6000. That kind of gets in the way.

[Lucian]

Right. Not that evolution is an intelligent thing that cares about our distinctions, but that the range of variation available isn't going to take us from dog to cat; it will take us from dog to smaller dog to dog with different shape of snout or color of coat. It will not give us a dog with the ability to speak, or opposable thumbs, or retractable claws, or tapeta (tapetums?).

Most dogs DO have tapeta: http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/index.html?quid=597

[Roboramma]

Look at the primate family tree.

It should be obvious from morphology that humans are more similar to apes than to monkeys, that humans and apes collectively are more similar to old world monkeys than to new world monkeys, that old world monkeys collectively are more similar to each other than they are to apes, and so forth. You can confirm this for yourself with a visit to any decently equipped zoo.

The corresponding tree as obtained from genetic studies can be seen here. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/56095?seq=4) (The actual citation is : A Composite Estimate of Primate Phylogeny, by Andy Purvis Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences © 1995 The Royal Society.)

Note the similarities. See in particular figures 8 and 4, which show that "humans are more similar to apes than to monkeys, that humans and apes collectively are more similar to old world monkeys than to new world monkeys, that old world monkeys collectively are more similar to each other than they are to apes." And so forth.

Avalon, considering that you are interested in the evidence, this is probably the most important post in this thread (though Dr Kitten made a few others of similar worth). Just thought it was worth reposting in case you missed it.

[pakeha]

An interesting thread, I've just now caught up.
As has been pointed out, evolution is something which occurs over time; time which YEC denies.
While dating according to the known process of molecular breakdown is understood, it is too abstract to offer as proof, I think, at least at this point.
How about the different magnetization of rock layers, which testifies the changes (flips) in the earth's poles?
Too abstract?

Tree rings are observable and understandable- the alternating summer/winter rings are consistent and verifiable.

The same thing occurs with winter and summer ice falls and this gives us, through the ice core sampling done, some extremely indicative results.
Here's a link to what I found to be an excellent paper on the subject:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf

Because it's simple, 'just snow' the banding modestly yields little more than the tale of the years which have passed. Occasionally there's an band of ash from major volcanoes or meteor hits over the millenia, but other than that, the cores (some over 1,500 meters long) show winter following summer during a very, very long time.

This is just my own take on the subject.
I can see Avalon's frustration with dependance on lab results whose provenance and interpretation can't be verified personally without the necessary technical background to handle the data. It will be interesting to see where the thread goes as Avalon takes on-board the information which has been posted up.

Now I'm off to read the links which have been provided up til now.

[Roboramma]

Pakeha, nice post.

One of the interesting things about it is that all of those various lines of evidence agree about the earth being very old. If they were all mistaken, we wouldn't expect them all to err in the same direction. That is, if the methods used were somehow flawed, we'd likely see some pointing to an earth much younger than it is, as well as some pointing to an earth much older.
But we don't.

Which is more evidence that the earth is in fact old.

[H3LL]

Fascinating thread.

Summary by analogy; IMHO, AvalonXQ believes in inches but not in miles and will not accept evidence from those that do believe in miles because they're not in his club.

Did I miss something?

[TheDaver]

A more general summary:
AvalonXQ prefers a hypothesis with zero evidence over one with an abundance of evidence… ironically, citing lack of evidence as the reason.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Clearly a tiger and a leopard are different animals today. Could they both have evolved from a common ancestor? How about a hyena and a wolf? I am just pointing out that often what we as humans perceive to be similar animals (wolves and dogs for example), are just an extension of what can be proven to be the same phenomenon in other species. The proof is in the genetics. Let's say that evolution is not true, but all the evidence that we use in modern medicine points to its validity, then it may as well be true, just by Occam's razor.

A good example of this is while one might at first think Hyenas were Canids, they're actually a branch of Feliforma. Creationists seem to think common ancestry and relatedness are determined only by superficial characteristic, but we can more accurately determine relatedness through closer anatomical comparisons and finally, as you noted, genetics.

[laca]

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm disappointed. The thread started off well. Avalon seemed to be genuinely interested in discussion. After a few pages however, probably due to the many excellent links disproving his "ideas", the true creationist got out, barricaded behind a pile of crap called the bible. Truly sad.

[MRC_Hans]

I don't see the evidence that shows that the current diversity of life on Earth could or did arise from common ancestors. My alternative hypothesis is that many different organisms were created independently.


The issue is whether A can also evolve into B, which seems wholly different than A in a way that A-, A+, and A* does not.

Ahh, speciation. Then you need to define what makes B fundamentally different from A.

Please don't be put off by this definition racket, but it is my experience that especially the definition of a species becomes a stumbling block in evolution/creation debates. So when you claim that variation within a species cannot become speciation, you need to define where the border between variation and speciation is.

Hans

[Aepervius]

Read link ? As far as I can tell he ignored all argument about it. Heck way earlier in the thread I provided a link to the GENETIC evidence of common ancestry of human and other simian species, what are the gene diffierence with our "cousins" and he fully ignored it, squaring instead with the more easily "fightable" poster.

There are enough evidence out there with protein make up, mitochondria etc... which shows how some species came in the "tree of evolution" heck this is why some speccy migrated from a branch to anotehr or were put to be branching earlier, because some of the protein make up showed an earlier genetic change.

All that was ignored to dwelve into petty argument.

As for the argument from authority... You have to reject it outright (so NO you cannot use it to support your own pet-belief, like YEC) or accept that specialist have some authorithy on what they discuss on (I would consult a priest if I wanted to know more about religion, but about SCIENCE and particularly EVOLUTION I consult a BIOLOGIST).

[Aepervius]

A more general summary:
AvalonXQ prefers a hypothesis with zero evidence over one with an abundance of evidence… ironically, citing lack of evidence as the reason.

perfect summary.

[H3LL]

A more general summary:
AvalonXQ prefers a hypothesis with zero evidence over one with an abundance of evidence… ironically, citing lack of evidence as the reason.

Nicely put.

[KarlG]

I need persuasive evidence of a starting event to get the clock running, persuasive evidence that the current conditions are at a predictable length of time from the starting event, and step-by-step explanation of the data analysis that gets us there. I don't think I'll need to run the tests myself; at present, I don't have access to the tools needed to do so anyway.


The problem with the bolded parts above is that (as far as i understand it) evolution does not concern itself with a 'starting event'. In YEC, the 'starting event' is god creating everything. The alternate explanation would be a big bang event or abiogenesis.

Evolution deals with change over time, not the beginning of time. Am i right?

[drkitten]

A good example of this is while one might at first think Hyenas were Canids, they're actually a branch of Feliforma.

... which neatly answers AvalonXQ's question posed earlier about what type of changes might cause a cat-like animal to become a dog-like animal.

[laca]

The problem with the bolded parts above is that (as far as i understand it) evolution does not concern itself with a 'starting event'. In YEC, the 'starting event' is god creating everything. The alternate explanation would be a big bang event or abiogenesis.

Evolution deals with change over time, not the beginning of time. Am i right?

Yes, you are perfectly right.

[drkitten]

Yeah, too bad Avalon is so easily scared off. I find this very interesting. One thing that posters seem to be forgetting though, me included, is the "Y", in YEC. Everyone is throwing around millions of years, when he is presupposing 6000. That kind of gets in the way.

Well, that's why I was trying -- unsuccessfully, I guess -- to address the issue of age of rocks.

It's not like it's hard to find a rock that's demonstrably more than 100,000 years old. Quite the opposite; it's hard to find rocks that are newer than that.

[KarlG]

Yes, you are perfectly right.


Thank god this forum for that :)

Thanks laca.

[Elvis666]

Yeah, too bad Avalon is so easily scared off. I find this very interesting. One thing that posters seem to be forgetting though, me included, is the "Y", in YEC. Everyone is throwing around millions of years, when he is presupposing 6000. That kind of gets in the way.

I'm sorry he took off so soon. I just found this thread and was wanting to discuss his belief in a young earth from a believer's perspective. There's actaully nothing in the Bible that requires that belief. It's something tacked on a few centuries ago.

[Elvis666]

youve mentioned a couple of times that you are just trying to explain your christian beliefs, but in reality you arent, the vast majority of christians on this planet have no issue with darwinian evolution at all.

You're right. I wanted to discuss his questions from his standpoint of taking the Bible as a valid authority. If he does it honestly, he would see that there is nothing there to back up a belief in a 6000 year old earth and very little that isn't completely consistent with modern theories of evolution.

[drkitten]

I'm sorry he took off so soon. I just found this thread and was wanting to discuss his belief in a young earth from a believer's perspective. There's actaully nothing in the Bible that requires that belief. It's something tacked on a few centuries ago.

Actually, that's not true. The belief in a 6,000(ish) year old Earth based on Biblical chronology goes back well before Bishop Ussher; it's simply that Ussher has been getting most of the press. But anyone who sits down and reads Genesis can do the same type of math he did, and I believe the Venerable Bede did so in the 7th century and got about the same answer. (See this wikipedia article for some other early examples. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_mundi))

You're welcome to reject the literal interpretation of the dates in Genesis, of course. But it's a little misleading to suggest that "there's nothing in the Bible" requiring a young earth.

[steenkh]

Does AvalonXQ have drkitten on ignore? I believe that drkitten has made some very good posts at the beginning of the thread leading the reader towards evidence of an old world based on rock dating. However, not a single time has these posts been replied to by AvalonXQ, that I noticed.

[steenkh]

Therefore, "dog" can never become "cow" because it's missing the necessary DNA; it was lost when the two species split from the "mammal" branch.
Just to be sure that you have understood this correctly: genetic change is not just caused by losing information. There are a number of ways that new information can be built in the genome.

[learner]

Does AvalonXQ have drkitten on ignore? I believe that drkitten has made some very good posts at the beginning of the thread leading the reader towards evidence of an old world based on rock dating. However, not a single time has these posts been replied to by AvalonXQ, that I noticed.

I think AvalonXQ Has much on ignore.

[Magyar]

Does AvalonXQ have drkitten on ignore? I believe that drkitten has made some very good posts at the beginning of the thread leading the reader towards evidence of an old world based on rock dating. However, not a single time has these posts been replied to by AvalonXQ, that I noticed.

err, he's yec, evidence and the long string of posters of his ilk here have proven that by definition he has anything that contradicts his pet delusion on ignore.
That's why these threads are such a waist. Future yecs/fundies coming here will not bother to search the forum because they believe that their 'special' relationship with the skyfairy will win us over and any evidence to the contrary will be ignored.

wash rinse repeat

edit - I firmly believe that one of these days we'll find out that fundies or some such group has a specialmerrit badge for their cult members for posting on boards like this. If you can create a 15 page thread on a AAATHIEST forum you can get a hand job without sin. If you can get it up to 40 you can get laid. (avolon only gets to play with himself)

[drkitten]

Does AvalonXQ have drkitten on ignore?

I don't think so, at least not initially.

As late as post #27, AvalonXQ was still reading, quoting, and responding to my points.

I think he tuned out at about the first actual citation of old earth rocks.

I believe that drkitten has made some very good posts at the beginning of the thread leading the reader towards evidence of an old world based on rock dating.

(Thank you.)


However, not a single time has these posts been replied to by AvalonXQ, that I noticed.

I noticed that, too. I think that was when he might have started to realize he was over his head, because from that point on, he started more or less responding only to Last of the Fraggles.

It might be that he's off reading the papers I cited -- they're certainly deep enough that I would expect him to devour them in seconds. Or he might simply have gotten scared off by the risk of learning something.

Hard to tell.

[joobz]

It might be that he's off reading the papers I cited -- they're certainly deep enough that I would expect him to devour them in seconds. Or he might simply have gotten scared off by the risk of learning something.

Hard to tell.
We've been chatting in the R&P section. He started to adopt a "I won't believe you unless you formulate a highly detailed argument..." position without offering any support for his counterclaims. It became clear that it was more of a debate tactic than an honest request for clarity.

So, I'm not really surprized things fizzled here.

[Prometheus]

...
It might be that he's off reading the papers I cited....

Well, he's made 53 posts today in other threads, so it seems more likely he's just abandoned this one.

[laca]

We've been chatting in the R&P section. He started to adopt a "I won't believe you unless you formulate a highly detailed argument..." position without offering any support for his counterclaims. It became clear that it was more of a debate tactic than an honest request for clarity.

So, I'm not really surprized things fizzled here.
Well, he's made 53 posts today in other threads, so it seems more likely he's just abandoned this one.

:(

[Elvis666]

Actually, that's not true. The belief in a 6,000(ish) year old Earth based on Biblical chronology goes back well before Bishop Ussher; it's simply that Ussher has been getting most of the press. But anyone who sits down and reads Genesis can do the same type of math he did, and I believe the Venerable Bede did so in the 7th century and got about the same answer. (See this wikipedia article for some other early examples. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_mundi))

You're welcome to reject the literal interpretation of the dates in Genesis, of course. But it's a little misleading to suggest that "there's nothing in the Bible" requiring a young earth.

To do that you have to assume that that genealogy in Genesis is complete. There is no reason to do so. To be valid from the Jewish perspective, it would need to be matriarchal.

And, of course, you have to accept the standard translation of the first few chapters that the "days" mention for creation are our normal 24-hour days. There's really no reason for that either. The 6000 years could be counting just from the first humans with language to tell stories, which really isn't too far off (at least not by 14 billion years).

Ussher gets all the press because his calculations were the first to be taken seriously, mostly due to its inclusion in the King James Bible, only one example of things that translation's responsible for spreading that are considered "gospel" today. Most biblical authorities have always held that the Earth was much older than that and that the Genesis timeline is not be taken literally.

[drkitten]

To do that you have to assume that that genealogy in Genesis is complete. There is no reason to do so.

By the contrary, there's no reason NOT to do so. To do otherwise is to assume a deliberately non-standard translation, where "begat" (or the Hebrew original word) takes on something other than its standard meaning.

E.g, Genesis 5:28-32.

28 ¦ And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:
29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.
30 And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:
31 And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.
32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

I suppose you could claim that "son" in Gen5:28 really means "grandson" or "great-grandson," but that doesn't help; it still puts Noah as being born 182 years after Lamech.

And since there are no gaps between the various begats and the fall of Jerusalem (588 B.C.), there's no basis for you to claim the geneology is incomplete.


To be valid from the Jewish perspective, it would need to be matriarchal.

No. Jewish inheritance is still largely patriarchal, as is the family naming scheme. How many times does the phrase "Solomon the son of David" appear vs. "Solomon the son of Bathsheba"?


And, of course, you have to accept the standard translation of the first few chapters that the "days" mention for creation are our normal 24-hour days.

Of course. And, again, the reason to do that is precisely because it's standard. If you want to reject the standard translation, I would think you would want to present an argument about why the standard translation fails -- the simple text of Genesis states that creation took place across seven days. If you're going to argue that the "days" were in fact millions of years but that creation was otherwise as described, then you get the rather interesting factoid that flowering plants (which are photosynthetic) predate the existence of any light source like the sun by those same millions of years.

I.e. the day/aeon argument simply doesn't hold water.

Genesis either says what it says (a seven day creation period about 6000 years ago) or it's a work of fiction. You can't reconcile the two.


Ussher gets all the press because his calculations were the first to be taken seriously,

Er, no. The first whose calculations were taken seriously were those of Rabbi Jose ben Halafta. The first christian whose calculations were taken seriously were the Venerable Bedes.

Most biblical authorities have always held that the Earth was much older than that and that the Genesis timeline is not be taken literally.

Only in if "most" in this case means "very few, almost all from the last two hundred years."

[pakeha]

Here's a new dating method fo pottery.
Well, new to me.
From the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8058185.stm

The earliest known pottery has been dated to 17,000 bce, as far as I know.
What's Avalon's take on evidence of human activity before 6,000 bce?

[Elvis666]

By the contrary, there's no reason NOT to do so. To do otherwise is to assume a deliberately non-standard translation, where "begat" (or the Hebrew original word) takes on something other than its standard meaning.

I guess we'll just disagree, then.

[drkitten]

I guess we'll just disagree, then.

I suppose. But only because I'm right and you're wrong, I'm afraid.

I don't disagree that there can be variant interpretations of Genesis. But you're making a much stronger claim -- that there is no reasonable interpretation of Genesis that leads to a 6000 year old Earth. And that's clearly and obviously false; the most superficial and literal interpretation of Genesis does exactly that.

[JCL]

edit - I firmly believe that one of these days we'll find out that fundies or some such group has a specialmerrit badge for their cult members for posting on boards like this. If you can create a 15 page thread on a AAATHIEST forum you can get a hand job without sin. If you can get it up to 40 you can get laid. (avolon only gets to play with himself)

There is, but it is for class credit at at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, not sexual favors

See:

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm

specifically This is the undegrad course. You have three things to do: (1) take the final exam (worth 40% of your grade); (2) write a 3,000-word essay on the theological significance of intelligent design (worth 40% of your grade); (3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
Well, I can prove that the basic principle is operational:


The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.
This doesn't prove that there has been enough time to evolve life on Earth as we know it. For that, you'll have to have patience while we flesh out the fossil record and continue to analyze genomes. Of course, if you insist that the Earth is young, then it is impossible.

~~ Paul

[Blackadder]

There is, but it is for class credit at at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, not sexual favors

See:

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm

specifically

please tell me that that came from some comedy show or that I am asleep right now and dreaming this.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Should Avalon still be reading this thread (or for any other creationists).

One of the arguments I've most commonly heard against evolution is that it is extremely unlikely/impossible to mutate something essential without killing off the organism depending on it. Therefore creation must have taken place.
I'm afraid this is a misconception based on a limited understanding of genetics.
From what I know, most introduction on genetics and reproduction shows how as a cell divides its two progeny get an equal amount of the genetic information.
However, nature is nowhere near as efficient as its made out in begginers text books. It is not unlikely for one cell to get over 50% and the other cell less. If this contains something essential, we now have one cell with two essential genes and one without (which dies).

The one that got the two copies will now give these two copies to any further progeny. Since there are now two identical copies present there is no more pressure to prevent either from mutating and gaining a different function. As mutations are random in fact a number of daughter cells can gain a number of different mutations, causing one species to adapt to several different environments.

Now of course one might argue that this applies only to single cell organisms, but this is not true. To go with the dog-cow anology. A duplication in a gene in the digestive system could lead to dogs that can digest plants more effciently. Not normally an advantage (but not a bad thing either) unless there is a lack of prey, in which case dogs that can also eat leaves would start being more advantageous. Further events could lead to dog-like creatures that cannot use meat anymore but only eat grass. This would in time lead to a herbivore descended from dogs. However the timescale for this to happen is millions of years given the current rate of mutation, and as mentioned before, an ecological nice needs to be there.

[AvalonXQ]

Well, he's made 53 posts today in other threads, so it seems more likely he's just abandoned this one.

I've abandoned the discussion, but I'm still reading (or at least skimming) the thread. The primary discussion here quickly moved into an attack stance that I no longer considered valuable.
Digesting drkitten's and others' excellent links will take time.

I'll admit that the constant insults and jabs at my intelligence, education, and intentions here make me, viscerally, just want to abandon the whole thing. But the fact that many people here have been jerks to me, is no excuse; information has been shared here that I either didn't have or didn't understand. I'll take the opportunity to learn.
I just wish people would keep their nastiness to themselves.

[Prometheus]

I've abandoned the discussion, but I'm still reading (or at least skimming) the thread. The primary discussion here quickly moved into an attack stance that I no longer considered valuable.
Digesting drkitten's and others' excellent links will take time.

I'll admit that the constant insults and jabs at my intelligence, education, and intentions here make me, viscerally, just want to abandon the whole thing. But the fact that many people here have been jerks to me, is no excuse; information has been shared here that I either didn't have or didn't understand. I'll take the opportunity to learn.
I just wish people would keep their nastiness to themselves.

FWIW, I agree with you about the attack/insult thing. It does seem to stifle a lot of otherwise useful discussion. Cheers.

[Olowkow]

I've abandoned the discussion, but I'm still reading (or at least skimming) the thread. .....
I just wish people would keep their nastiness to themselves.
The little "!" in the triangle is for reporting a post that is "nasty". The mods take this very seriously here.

[Reality Check]

I just wish people would keep their nastiness to themselves.
Perhaps you would like to cite the "nastiness".
I have not seen anything other than comments you may be acting like the other YECs we have seen in the forum.

[AvalonXQ]

Perhaps you would like to cite the "nastiness".
I have not seen anything other than comments you may be acting like the other YECs we have seen in the forum.

These meta-discussions are also not very useful.
I was attacked more than a dozen times for being disingenuous, stupid, ignorant, and/or uneducated. I'm surprised if you can't see that just from reading over the thread.
Bottom line: this thread started promising, and very quickly turned into something else, and as a result, I'll likely be the only one to get much of value out of it. Disappointing.

[Olowkow]

Very disappointing indeed. I have done a search for "stupid", and all I find is this so far:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5200871#post5200871
wherein we find:
I regret starting this thread, because rather than attempting to explain what I understand and get feedback, it became something else entirely -- first, a "why don't you accept evolution?" and then a "how can you be so ignorant/stupid/incredulous/unscrupulous/hypocritical as to not accept evolution?"and then there is this:
by AvalonXQ: I was attacked more than a dozen times for being disingenuous, stupid, ignorant, and/or uneducated. I'm surprised if you can't see that just from reading over the thread.I could search for the other descriptors you mention, but I find this claim that you have been called "stupid" to be a false accusation. Do you have a response to this? A dozen times? Sir, I cannot find even one time you were called "stupid". The poster would have been warned, and then suspended if he had persisted. What on earth do you mean?

Whoa! Just did a search for "ignorant". It was used once to mean "not aware", which is a perfectly good usage and was not meant as an offense, by Joe the Juggler. After that, it seems you are the only poster using the word. I am going to make a wild guess and say that I would find the same for "uneducated". People just don't often pull that kind of ad hom on the forum. In very bad taste.
So, what is going on here? A case of paranoia? You have some 'splainin' to do, my friend.
"incredulous"!! Sorry, dude no one ever used the word.
So let's try this word on for size: prevaricator, look it up.

[Roboramma]

I'll predict now that no amount of evidence presented in this thread will change your view. In my opinion, the issue is not with the lack of evidence its with how you choose to process that evidence and your expectations of how that evidence should look and how the scientific community should present it and deal with your objections.

Well, in Avalon's defense, things like the above, whether true or not, only serve to bring the discussion down.

I mean, if someone posted something like that in response to me, I would certainly feel insulted by it.

And personally, I think that we have so few YECs on here, I'd prefer that they were given the benefit of the doubt so we could see how they respond to actual arguments.

[Elvis666]

Withdrew comment.

[UnrepentantSinner]

edit - I firmly believe that one of these days we'll find out that fundies or some such group has a specialmerrit badge for their cult members for posting on boards like this. If you can create a 15 page thread on a AAATHIEST forum you can get a hand job without sin. If you can get it up to 40 you can get laid. (avolon only gets to play with himself)

This isn't an atheist forum. It's a skeptics forum.

[Segnosaur]

I've abandoned the discussion, but I'm still reading (or at least skimming) the thread. The primary discussion here quickly moved into an attack stance that I no longer considered valuable.

Perhaps the reason why you feel 'attacked' (and the reason why you have not always been treated 'nicely') is because of your lack of response to simple questions.

You see, some of us are used to dealing with creationists who use the 'gun and run' approach... they post nonsense statements, then when you point out problems with their claims, they disappear without responding, only to 'pop up' later with pretty much the same claims they had made before (totally ignoring the fact that their arguments were already debunked.). People who engage in such dishonest tactics should, in my opinion, receive little if any respect.

For example, you were asked (both by paximperium and myself) about limits to genetic changes that you think would be possible within your 'creationist' framework. No answer was provided, even though you had made several postings AFTER this question was asked.

We also questioned your mis-definition of the concept of an "argument from authority".

You see, you started the thread reasonably, yet it didn't take long for you to start acting like a more "typical" creationist, by avoiding avoiding questions that might expose flaws in your belief and by using incorrect definitions and facts, in other words, the type of individual who normally deserves no respect. Perhaps you actually are an honest, well-meaning person capable of rational thought who clearly just needs some correct information. But if you ACT like a typical disreputable creationist, there is a pretty good chance you will be treated as a disreputable creationist.

[Aepervius]

This isn't an atheist forum. It's a skeptics forum.

off topic, but do you really believe the southern baptist university even realize there is a difference or care about it ?

[Aepervius]

Well, in Avalon's defense, things like the above, whether true or not, only serve to bring the discussion down.

I mean, if someone posted something like that in response to me, I would certainly feel insulted by it.

And personally, I think that we have so few YECs on here, I'd prefer that they were given the benefit of the doubt so we could see how they respond to actual arguments.

The problem is, it jsut happened the standard way I see YEC doing thread discussion on evolution. Pray tell me how this one diverged from it :

* make a bold statement asking for evidence but put a high enough standard that nothing short of divine intervention would fullfil it (example : require a complete chain of evidence going from a very ancient common specy to a very different descendant , aka proto shrew to cow).
* IGNORE all the good post and link, then instead concentrate on the petty or shallow post (no offense meant to the posters)
* Say that you were insulted. It does not matter whether it is true or not, it is enough to state it. Some forum member will anyway say "yes , it might be construed as insult" (that is where you come in)
* say you will think about what you were linked / posted to. Either : 1) never come back or 2) ignore all evidence and just state the evidence are not enough

I have yet to see a YEC - evolution debate end otherwise.

[Roboramma]

I agree with you that this is the way these "debates" tend to go. I also think, though, that we can't put all of the blame on the YECs.

I'm not suggesting that they are right to fail to address the important points. I actually went ahead and pointed one such ignored post out to Avalon. I'm just saying that I think we would do better to let them address those and avoid semi-insulting posts.
I say this mainly because when I read posts like those by Dr Kitten I was looking forward to Avalon's response. I wanted to see where that part of the discussion went.

When they were overlooked, in part because of the posts made by others, I was disappointed.

Edit: Anyway, this is off-topic, sorry for the detour, and I hope Avalon has the intellectual courage to return and address the real points made, and the links he said he's looking over.

[Jonnyclueless]

These meta-discussions are also not very useful.
I was attacked more than a dozen times for being disingenuous, stupid, ignorant, and/or uneducated. I'm surprised if you can't see that just from reading over the thread.
Bottom line: this thread started promising, and very quickly turned into something else, and as a result, I'll likely be the only one to get much of value out of it. Disappointing.

not exactly a very honorable way to sneak out of a debate...

[Segnosaur]

I'm not suggesting that they are right to fail to address the important points. I actually went ahead and pointed one such ignored post out to Avalon. I'm just saying that I think we would do better to let them address those and avoid semi-insulting posts.
I say this mainly because when I read posts like those by Dr Kitten I was looking forward to Avalon's response. I wanted to see where that part of the discussion went.

When they were overlooked, in part because of the posts made by others, I was disappointed.

Of course, you're assuming that at least part of the reason Avalon didn't respond actually had something (at least in part) with the supposed poor treatment he received. Frankly, its quite likely that DrKitten's questions were going to be ignored anyways. His 'avoidence' goes all the way back to the first page of the thread, long before people started being mean.

Heck, I myself would love to have seen him answer some of the questions. I just don't hold much hope of that happening.

[pakeha]

There is, but it is for class credit at at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, not sexual favors

See:

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm

specifically


I find that very dishonest.

[pakeha]

About the need for courtesy in a YEC/evolution discussion:
it's for readers and lurkers since the discussion as such is a display piece, obviously.

Evolution, as we know it to date, cannot exist in the timeframe of YEC.
Can't.
YEC cannot exist in the timeframe of evolution.
Can't.

In my view, however, the discussion is useful, very useful for the information and links and I'd like to see a similar offer of information and links from Avalon or any other YEC supporter.

[laca]

Perhaps the reason why you feel 'attacked' (and the reason why you have not always been treated 'nicely') is because of your lack of response to simple questions.

You see, some of us are used to dealing with creationists who use the 'gun and run' approach... they post nonsense statements, then when you point out problems with their claims, they disappear without responding, only to 'pop up' later with pretty much the same claims they had made before (totally ignoring the fact that their arguments were already debunked.). People who engage in such dishonest tactics should, in my opinion, receive little if any respect.

For example, you were asked (both by paximperium and myself) about limits to genetic changes that you think would be possible within your 'creationist' framework. No answer was provided, even though you had made several postings AFTER this question was asked.

We also questioned your mis-definition of the concept of an "argument from authority".

You see, you started the thread reasonably, yet it didn't take long for you to start acting like a more "typical" creationist, by avoiding avoiding questions that might expose flaws in your belief and by using incorrect definitions and facts, in other words, the type of individual who normally deserves no respect. Perhaps you actually are an honest, well-meaning person capable of rational thought who clearly just needs some correct information. But if you ACT like a typical disreputable creationist, there is a pretty good chance you will be treated as a disreputable creationist.

Nicely put. This neatly sums up my opinion about this thread too.

[laca]

Edit: Anyway, this is off-topic, sorry for the detour, and I hope Avalon has the intellectual courage to return and address the real points made, and the links he said he's looking over.

I hope too, but I'm not holding my breath and you shouldn't either...

[laca]

In my view, however, the discussion is useful, very useful for the information and links and I'd like to see a similar offer of information and links from Avalon or any other YEC supporter.

There is no "similar information" on the YEC side. All they got is the bible.

[UnrepentantSinner]

off topic, but do you really believe the southern baptist university even realize there is a difference or care about it ?

Probably not, but my response was to what Magyar was saying about the forum, not what the folks at SBTS think.

[dafydd]

1) I haven't seen persuasive evidence that this is an accurate account of life on Earth.
2) In the absence of persuasive evidence, I accept the teachings of the Bible, which contradict the theory.

There is evidence for evolution,there is no evidence for the existence of god or creationism.

[AvalonXQ]

Let's try another tack at the same time.


This was the post where the thread got off track -- where we stopped talking about the actual evidence, and started talking about the trustworthiness of academics. To quote my favorite Marion Zimmer Bradley novel, "This question neither interests us nor has meaning."
And since then, I've been spending so much energy defending myself from accusations of ignorance and hypocrisy, the good arguments ABOUT THE EVIDENCE being made started getting lost in the fray.
This is my last post on this subject. If I post here again, it will be to talk about the evidence. Any post on any other subject I will quote, label, and not respond.

[Christian Klippel]

This was the post where the thread got off track -- where we stopped talking about the actual evidence, and started talking about the trustworthiness of academics. To quote my favorite Marion Zimmer Bradley novel, "This question neither interests us nor has meaning."

But that quote does in no way match what you said and demanded. It was your very own demand to show evidence far beyond of what is possible, and far beyond of what many academics have already provided. You denied the existing evidence that the very same academics have collected and referred to it as "appeal to authority".

So, yes, that question is of interest, and it has indeed a meaning. Because if someone would bring up evidence, and another person would refer you to that evidence, it would be automatically voided by your standard, because it would be said appeal to authority in your opinion.

And again: How does "The bible says so, and the people studying the bible say so too", but without any evidence at all, not account as such an appeal to authority, while actual existing evidence for evolution, collected by a large body of scientists, does?

[godless dave]

So you admit nobody called you stupid?

[AvalonXQ]

The problem is, it jsut happened the standard way I see YEC doing thread discussion on evolution. Pray tell me how this one diverged from it :

* make a bold statement asking for evidence but put a high enough standard that nothing short of divine intervention would fullfil it (example : require a complete chain of evidence going from a very ancient common specy to a very different descendant , aka proto shrew to cow).
* IGNORE all the good post and link, then instead concentrate on the petty or shallow post (no offense meant to the posters)
* Say that you were insulted. It does not matter whether it is true or not, it is enough to state it. Some forum member will anyway say "yes , it might be construed as insult" (that is where you come in)
* say you will think about what you were linked / posted to. Either : 1) never come back or 2) ignore all evidence and just state the evidence are not enough

I have yet to see a YEC - evolution debate end otherwise.

Then please leave, and let the rest of us engage in this futility (to you) in peace. If you're right, you won't have wasted your time. If you're wrong, then you will have avoided making your situation a self-fulfilling prophecy by adding to the level of attacks.
Again, if you don't want to talk about evolution and the evidence, please don't hang around to talk about how disingenuous I am. It's not helping.

[AvalonXQ]

But that quote does in no way match what you said and demanded. It was your very own demand to show evidence far beyond of what is possible, and far beyond of what many academics have already provided. You denied the existing evidence that the very same academics have collected and referred to it as "appeal to authority".

Incorrect. I never dismissed a single shred of evidence, or confused a citation of evidence with an appeal to authority. If something I posted was understood to mean that, then that was a misunderstanding.
A raw assertion that "this is what scientists believe, and so you should too" is an appeal to authority. A link to a paper discussing evidence or observations is not an appeal to authority.
Again, I consider this issue closed as irrelevant. I have some reading to do.

[AvalonXQ]

Of course, you're assuming that at least part of the reason Avalon didn't respond actually had something (at least in part) with the supposed poor treatment he received. Frankly, its quite likely that DrKitten's questions were going to be ignored anyways. His 'avoidence' goes all the way back to the first page of the thread, long before people started being mean.

Heck, I myself would love to have seen him answer some of the questions. I just don't hold much hope of that happening.

Just to give another example on the attack of my motives that contributes to neither the evidence nor anyone's interpretation of it. Stop it, please.

[drkitten]

This was the post where the thread got off track -- where we stopped talking about the actual evidence, and started talking about the trustworthiness of academics. To quote my favorite Marion Zimmer Bradley novel, "This question neither interests us nor has meaning."

The only problem is that it's not at all off-track.

Questions of credibility are key for studying any kind of evidence : eyewitness, physical, scientific, whatever. Credibility is one of the reasons that IQ studies are so controversial, precisely because some of the early pioneers of IQ studies have been shown to have actively falsified data, which makes many of the fundamentals of the field questionable propositions at best. Credibility is also one of the reasons that there's such a flap about the practice of drug companies "ghost-writing" articles for medical journals.

Let's go back to one of the early articles I cited : Bowring, S.A., and Williams, I.S. (1999).

In this article, Dr. Bowring claims to have actively held in his hand a sample of a rock that is much, much older than any possible "young earth" could have produced.

This is a prima facie disproof of Young Earth Creationism; if his claim is true, YEC cannot be correct. In order to continue to believe (rationally) in YEC, you must therefore reject Dr. Bowring's claim.

Why?

Do you believe him to be incompetent?
Do you believe him to be misinformed?
Do you believe him to be actively lying?

Why does his rock sample appear to be multiple billions of years old, when it is in fact less than 10,000 years old?

[KingMerv00]

Avalon,

I haven't read all of this thread so I assume this link (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) has been brought up already but I'll post it again anyway. I recommend this section (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses) in particular.

Out of curiousity, what are your beliefs involving Noah's flood?

[AvalonXQ]

Avalon,

I haven't read all of this thread so I assume this link (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) has been brought up already but I'll post it again anyway. I recommend this section (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses) in particular.

Out of curiousity, what are your beliefs involving Noah's flood?

TalkOrigins is a great resource; thank you for highlighting it again.

I believe that Noah's flood happens as described in Genesis. Evidence that a worldwide flood is geologically or physically unreasonable, or other problems with the flood story, would be of great interest to me -- but I'm not sure how it fits into the evolution discussion.

[AvalonXQ]

The only problem is that it's not at all off-track.

I say it is. And whether or not is ACTUALLY is? I'm not interested in discussing it.
As I said before, I'm quite happy to accept that the papers are an accurate account of what the scientists saw or the measurements they took (no deceit). I'm not willing to accept their conclusions unless I can do the footwork myself to understand them (I don't trust them to think for me). You can make a hundred posts CONVINCING me to accept the scientists' conclusions, because they're much smarter than me or they know more; I'm not interested.
Can we PLEASE get away from this?

[volatile]

I say it is. And whether or not is ACTUALLY is? I'm not interested in discussing it.
As I said before, I'm quite happy to accept that the papers are an accurate account of what the scientists saw or the measurements they took (no deceit). I'm not willing to accept their conclusions unless I can do the footwork myself to understand them (I don't trust them to think for me). You can make a hundred posts CONVINCING me to accept the scientists' conclusions, because they're much smarter than me or they know more; I'm not interested.
Can we PLEASE get away from this?

I don't think we can. It seems - and correct me if I'm wrong - that to achieve the evidence you will accept you will need to repeat, from scratch and with your own hands, the experiments that underpin geology and evolutionary biology. Sure, we can give you the papers - indeed, many already have, and Dr Kitten cited another one in the post you quoted only in part - but you can use the same form of objection to reject their methodology as you do their conclusions.

That's the point Dr K was making regarding credibility. If you don't trust their conclusions, on what basis can you logically and rationally trust their methodologies, or data sets? How, other than doing the experiments yourself (all the experiments, from working out whether atoms are radioactive all the way up), can you ever avoid someone else - an authority, no less - from "doing the footwork"?

[Christian Klippel]

Incorrect. I never dismissed a single shred of evidence, or confused a citation of evidence with an appeal to authority. If something I posted was understood to mean that, then that was a misunderstanding.

You think so? I could easily compose a post full of quotes of your posts that will show that. However, giving you the benefit of doubt, you may not have made yourself clear as to what your real intentions are and as such might be an misunderstanding.

A raw assertion that "this is what scientists believe, and so you should too" is an appeal to authority. A link to a paper discussing evidence or observations is not an appeal to authority.
Again, I consider this issue closed as irrelevant. I have some reading to do.

The raw assertion that creation and/or YEC is true because that is what some people believe, and so should we, is pretty much also an appeal to authority.

You have repeatedly made posts in which you stated that "evolutionists" are making errors because, well, basically because they have been teached what is known about evolution and base their statements and conclusions on that. You then complained that they "appeal to authority".

Tell me, where do you learn things from, if not from an authority on the topic that you want to learn? You simply misuse the "appeal to authority" fallacy, thats all. You simply can not complain about that, while doing it yourself. Either refrain from doing so, or live with the fact that people will constantly point that out to you. As said, such things work both ways.

Greetings,

Chris

Edit: As to you assertions that evolution can only make small changes, but you deem it impossible to make big changes over time. Imagine a vertical line. You have billions of billions of iterations available. With each iteration you are allowed to rotate the line around any point you want, but only by a maximum of 0.5 degrees.

Now, tell us, at what point there is a big change in the position of the line, lets say a rotation by 90 degrees? Why do you think it is not possible to reach such a big change by simply repeating many, many small changes?

Add a "degree of freedom" and lets allow the line to be bent at any position on that line during each iteration, but again only by a tiny angle. This will now allow you to get an triangle, a rectangle, or any other polygon out of that single line, over time, given enough iterations.

Now add a nice thing to that: With each iteration, you actually duplicate the original, and can do different modifications to all of them in the next iteration, but still only by a very small amount.

All of a sudden you end up with a vast number of things that you can manipulate, practically speeding up the whole process. Yes, most of the iterations will lead to anything, but not to a triangle, for example. But the more iterations you do, the higher the chances that you will get one. The more material you have to do that with, the faster you will come to that chance.

[AvalonXQ]

The raw assertion that creation and/or YEC is true because that is what some people believe, and so should we, is pretty much also an appeal to authority.

Yes, it is. It's an appeal to authority, and if you don't trust that authority, then it's a bad argument.
On the other hand, linking to articles written by YEC people explaining WHY they believe YEC, and from what EVIDENCE would be a good argument.
There's a difference between these two.

[Personal Grudge]

I say it is. And whether or not is ACTUALLY is? I'm not interested in discussing it.
As I said before, I'm quite happy to accept that the papers are an accurate account of what the scientists saw or the measurements they took (no deceit). I'm not willing to accept their conclusions unless I can do the footwork myself to understand them (I don't trust them to think for me). You can make a hundred posts CONVINCING me to accept the scientists' conclusions, because they're much smarter than me or they know more; I'm not interested.
Can we PLEASE get away from this?

Obviously, part of the discussion of evidence for evolution must involve disproving the idea of YEC. Therefore, you state that you are willing to accept the accuracy of the measurements that geologists present regarding the age of rocks on our planet.

However, you then state that you will not accept the conclusion that these reported measurements disprove young Earth creationism without doing the footwork yourself. Is this an accurate summary of your position?

If this is the case, then I am interested... what are your plans on doing the footwork yourself? If you are presented with scientific articles that provide geological evidence that rocks are much much older than YEC would allow, do you then plan to devote yourself to an education in geology? Do you plan on actually learning to perform the measurements yourself?

I'm not trying to state this as an insult, but this is very related to whether or not this discussion can possibly be intellectually honest from both sides. If you first state that you are not interested in article after article of scientific measurements unless you can do the footwork yourself... but then have actually no plan to pursue the education and resources necessary to perform that footwork... then wouldn't this just be a dishonest waste of the work and time other posters are providing in order to link you the evidence you requested?

I hope that we can all have intellectual honesty from both sides in this discussion. However, if you have absolutely no intent on actually pursuing the necessary steps in order to do the footwork that you state that you require, then it would be more honest of you to let people know now. Wasting their time further would not seem very ethical.

However, if you are interested in pursuing the education and experimentation to perform these experiments and measurements yourself, then that would probably encourage a lot of honest discussion. You would likely receive a great deal of advice on how to start, and this conversation would most certainly take a much more productive tone.

[AvalonXQ]

I don't think we can. It seems - and correct me if I'm wrong - that to achieve the evidence you will accept you will need to repeat, from scratch and with your own hands, the experiments that underpin geology and evolutionary biology. Sure, we can give you the papers - indeed, many already have, and Dr Kitten cited another one in the post you quoted only in part - but you can use the same form of objection to reject their methodology as you do their conclusions.

That's the point Dr K was making regarding credibility. If you don't trust their conclusions, on what basis can you logically and rationally trust their methodologies, or data sets? How, other than doing the experiments yourself (all the experiments, from working out whether atoms are radioactive all the way up), can you ever avoid someone else - an authority, no less - from "doing the footwork"?

This is a reasonable criticism, but I think at this point it's still speculative. I don't expect that I'm going to have any issue with their data sets; I don't expect I'm going to need to re-do the experiments they've done. But, I agree, the possibility exists; if you insist that that's what will happen, then I'd recommend going elsewhere. Again, accusing me of it a priori is just poisoning the well.

[AvalonXQ]

Obviously, part of the discussion of evidence for evolution must involve disproving the idea of YEC. Therefore, you state that you are willing to accept the accuracy of the measurements that geologists present regarding the age of rocks on our planet.

However, you then state that you will not accept the conclusion that these reported measurements disprove young Earth creationism without doing the footwork yourself. Is this an accurate summary of your position?

I don't think it is.
I am willing to accept the data that the geologists have; I won't necessarily accept the conclusion as to what this data shows.
It appears I shouldn't have made the mistake of using the term "footwork". I was talking about intellectual footwork, not physical footwork -- seeing the data and deciding for myself what it MEANS rather than assuming it means whatever somebody else says it means.
Hence, I'm very interested in the articles that have been provided here, and their presented data.

[Personal Grudge]

I don't think it is.
I am willing to accept the data that the geologists have; I won't necessarily accept the conclusion as to what this data shows.
It appears I shouldn't have made the mistake of using the term "footwork". I was talking about intellectual footwork, not physical footwork -- seeing the data and deciding for myself what it MEANS rather than assuming it means whatever somebody else says it means.
Hence, I'm very interested in the articles that have been provided here, and their presented data.

But is it then unreasonable to expect that one may need an education in geology to accurately interpret the measurements provided by geological experimentation?

I'll be the first to admit: I'm not terribly knowledgeable about geology. Therefore, it I'm presented with the raw data from the measurements, I may not have the education to actually make an informed conclusion. Therefore, I either need to rely upon those who actually are educated in geology... or I must commit myself to gaining that education myself.

Since you do not wish to rely upon the conclusions of those who have an extensive education in geology, are you planning on pursuing this education yourself in order to draw your own conclusions?

[drkitten]

I say it is.

Uh-huh. And why should we accept YOUR unsupported word?

And whether or not is ACTUALLY is? I'm not interested in discussing it.

In other words, you admit that you're not actually interested in participating in this discussion; it has nothing to do with the "poor treatment" and the "nastiness" involved.

The reason you're being accused of disingenuousness is because you're being disingenuous.

You've been presented with evidence. You've failed to respond to the evidence.

People have noticed that you've failed to respond to the evidence. For some reason, you're willing to respond to that notice, but not to the evidence itself.

... and you wonder why people are now considering your behavior to be dishonest.

So, no, I don't think we can get away from this. This is a fundamental question. Why kind of evidence will you accept? If you accept the observations I've cited, but reject the conclusions, presumably you have some basis for doing so. But given that you've admitted both that you're cannot run the tests yourself (post #27), but that you will not accept the conclusions unless you can run the tests yourself (post #230).

Simple predicate logic shows that this is equivalent to an a priori rejection of all evidence presented.

[volatile]

This is a reasonable criticism, but I think at this point it's still speculative. I don't expect that I'm going to have any issue with their data sets; I don't expect I'm going to need to re-do the experiments they've done. But, I agree, the possibility exists; if you insist that that's what will happen, then I'd recommend going elsewhere. Again, accusing me of it a priori is just poisoning the well.

I'm not "accusing" you of anything; I'm just trying to work out exactly what it would take to satisfy you, in your own mind, that YEC is an erroneous belief. My questions were quite legitimate - if you doubt the conclusions, on what logical basis can you not doubt the methodologies, or the datasets?

I'm sure you know that there are literally millions of articles, across fields as diverse as anthropology, archaeology, astrophysics, molecular biology and even linguistics which run counter to the YEC hypothesis. You doubt every single one of these author's (replicable, repeatable, checkable) conclusions but you do not doubt their methods or their data? I just don't understand on what basis you can make that claim.

Maybe we could focus on Dr Kitten's rock. That seems to be a sensible, small-scale and easy-to-focus-on example of the type of issues your YEC position faces. If you accept the data - that is, you accept the radiocarbon and other data which show an age older than YEC would allow - on what basis can you discard the conclusions?

See what I mean? It's simply not logically coherent to handwave all conclusions because you haven't done the footwork yourself, but at the same time to accept the data and methodologies and centuries of prior experiments upon which those conclusions are based. If you want to "do the footwork" on this rock, you're right back to questioning the validity of radiocarbon dating, which means you're going to have to go right back to first principles and get yourself a degree in nuclear physics, repeating as you go the experiments of Rutherford, Curie and the rest. Hell, you may even need to go back to the 18th century experiments establishing the atomic structure of matter. I mean - how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

[AvalonXQ]

Uh-huh. And why should we accept YOUR unsupported word?



In other words, you admit that you're not actually interested in participating in this discussion; it has nothing to do with the "poor treatment" and the "nastiness" involved.
I'm unwilling to get into a discussion ABOUT WHY I DON'T ACCEPT SCIENTIST'S CONCLUSIONS AT THEIR WORD. I'm happy to talk about the evidence.

You've been presented with evidence. You've failed to respond to the evidence.
I haven't yet had the time to STUDY the evidence! Firing off a link takes how many seconds? Wading through an actual study to understand it (especially when it's outside my areas of expertise, which as I've acknowledged before are not biology or geology) takes a lot longer. If you want to call the discussion done because you're impatient with me, that's your right, but disingenuous I have not been.

If you accept the observations I've cited, but reject the conclusions, presumably you have some basis for doing so. But given that you've admitted both that you're cannot run the tests yourself (post #27), but that you will not accept the conclusions unless you can run the tests yourself (post #230).
I didn't say that. Like I said, I think people are misinterpreting the term "footwork" in post #230; in context, it should be clear that I haven't claimed I need to collect the data myself but have instead consistently indicated the opposite.

[Subduction Zone]

AvalonXQ, it seems that you are a Young Earth Creationist. So perhaps the first stage in educating you would be to show you that the Earth is much older than you think it is. So out of curiosity what is the upper limit of age that your study of the Bible indicates?

[Personal Grudge]

So, no, I don't think we can get away from this. This is a fundamental question. Why kind of evidence will you accept? If you accept the observations I've cited, but reject the conclusions, presumably you have some basis for doing so. But given that you've admitted both that you're cannot run the tests yourself (post #27), but that you will not accept the conclusions unless you can run the tests yourself (post #230).

Avalon, please don't take drkitten's post as an insult, because I don't think it is intended in that way at all. It's not an attack.

As I've inquired in my own posts, we don't know how to debate this subject with you unless you can define what you will accept as evidence. We really need to know if you plan on doing the footwork yourself (since you have implied that this would be required for you to accept the conclusions.)

I won't make any assumptions at this point about your honesty or dishonesty. You can prove everyone honest by clearly stating your intentions about how you will pursue the evidence provided. If you cannot accept conclusions presented by numerous educated scientists, but if you also have no plans whatsoever to pursue the education necessary to draw your own informed conclusions... then why should anyone with any intellectual honesty wish to continue this discussion?

Please just let us know what you plan to do or hope to gain from the discussion.

[Subduction Zone]

volatile, one small correction. Radio Carbon dating is only good for roughly 50,000 years. Even many YEC's can live with this figure. There are many other radioactive dating methods that are used by geologists, C14 is pretty much in the realm of anthropologists, in the terms of the Earth's history that is very recent indeed.

[drkitten]

I believe that Noah's flood happens as described in Genesis. Evidence that a worldwide flood is geologically or physically unreasonable, or other problems with the flood story, would be of great interest to me -- but I'm not sure how it fits into the evolution discussion.

Noah's flood is often used as a (demonstrably false) argument to explain some of the various geological features that actually prove both the old earth and evolution. The Grand Canyon, for example, is actually one of the best proofs of evolution out there. Within a hundred meters of the Bright Angel trailhead, for example, is a bed of exposed limestone that is filled with fossils of what are demonstrably sea creatures, most of which are extinct (a few of which have modern analogues).

So the first question : if the earth is young and unchanging, how did sea creatures get to an elevation of 8000 ft above sea level? The "obvious" answer that the YECs use is that they were carried there by the flood, which submerged all the mountains of the earth.

The only problem with this is that among the fossils at the Grand Canyon are also fossilized mud tracks and other things that show that the seabed that formed this limestone was relatively undisturbed, which is not compatible with a global flood. In other words, there was no flood during the time that the rocks were laid down.

The other question, of course, is the age of the rocks themselves. The limestone I'm talking about can be easily dated (by appropriately skilled geologists) to about 230 million years ago; the schist at the bottom of the canyon is about two billion years old.

How would you explain the existence and nature of the canyon from a YEC framework?

[AvalonXQ]

volatile, one small correction. Radio Carbon dating is only good for roughly 50,000 years.

I was about to make the same correction (that drkitten isn't relying specifically on carbon dating), but it's nice to see we're all fact checking each other. :)

[volatile]

volatile, one small correction. Radio Carbon dating is only good for roughly 50,000 years. Even many YEC's can live with this figure. There are many other radioactive dating methods that are used by geologists, C14 is pretty much in the realm of anthropologists, in the terms of the Earth's history that is very recent indeed.

Thank you! By "radiocarbon" I meant "radioactive dating" - I understand the difference but "radiocarbon" seems to be synecdochal!

[AvalonXQ]

Thank you! By "radiocarbon" I meant "radioactive dating" - I understand the difference but "radiocarbon" seems to be synecdochal!

Yes, that's a common mistake to make -- it never occurred to me that it could be a valid synecdoche, and hence my corrections thereof pedantic.

[KingMerv00]

I believe that Noah's flood happens as described in Genesis. Evidence that a worldwide flood is geologically or physically unreasonable, or other problems with the flood story, would be of great interest to me -- but I'm not sure how it fits into the evolution discussion.

If we are going to prove evolution, it is a good idea to disprove YEC theories along the way. I brought up the flood in particular as a contrast. The flood fails to explain the geographic distribution of life the way evolution can.

Say the ark landed in Turkey. The animals would have poured out and scattered randomly when the doors of the ark were opened. If that is the case, why did all of the marsupials ONLY travel to Australia? On the way there, why didn't a single marsupial remain behind in Asia and repopluate that area? Why did penguins ONLY go to the South Pole when then North Pole is closer and just as hospitable to them? Noah's flood has no answer.

Evolution explains geographic sorting by saying that some ancestral marsupial originated in Australia and diversified into the species we see today. Also, they are contained to that area because of the ocean.

[AvalonXQ]

Drkitten, let me ask you a question: can we definitively use the available evidence to show the date when rock with fossils in it would have had to be formed?

[volatile]

Yes, that's a common mistake to make -- it never occurred to me that it could be a valid synecdoche, and hence my corrections thereof pedantic.

Fair enough.

Now we have that cleared up, how about the substance of my post:

if you doubt the conclusions, on what logical basis can you not doubt the methodologies, or the datasets?

I'm sure you know that there are literally millions of articles, across fields as diverse as anthropology, archaeology, astrophysics, molecular biology and even linguistics which run counter to the YEC hypothesis. You doubt every single one of these author's (replicable, repeatable, checkable) conclusions but you do not doubt their methods or their data? I just don't understand on what basis you can make that claim.

Maybe we could focus on Dr Kitten's rock. That seems to be a sensible, small-scale and easy-to-focus-on example of the type of issues your YEC position faces. If you accept the data - that is, you accept the radioactive and other data which show an age older than YEC would allow - on what basis can you discard the conclusions?

See what I mean? It's simply not logically coherent to handwave all conclusions because you haven't done the footwork yourself, but at the same time to accept the data and methodologies and centuries of prior experiments upon which those conclusions are based. If you want to "do the footwork" on this rock, you're right back to questioning the validity of radioactive dating, which means you're going to have to go right back to first principles and get yourself a degree in nuclear physics, repeating as you go the experiments of Rutherford, Curie and the rest. Hell, you may even need to go back to the 18th century experiments establishing the atomic structure of matter. I mean - how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

We need to know this in order to take the discussion forward. What level of scientific evidence will you take as true? Do you accept radioactivity? The atomic structure of matter? DNA? At some point, we're going to have to commit to some basic level of common ground...