Freethought & Rationalism Archive

wildlifer · 06-08-2004, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

This is a problem, even among evolutionists. You can't seem to keep a definition long enough to make it stick. At one time, evolution meant progressive change to higher species.

Evolution has never meant "progressive" change to a "higher" species.

Mikie · 06-08-2004, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freewalker

You should have answered your friends that Jesus came up with his son of a God theory to annoy is jewish parents/heritage! Would also be more provable based on biblical verses, i wonder if anyone would be patient enough to investigate it tough, i know i ain't.

According to historical documentation (not just the Bible, but independent writings by Josephus and others) it wasn't just a theory. His claim was demonstrated to be fact by instances of supernatural acts.

Funny how science can piece together detailed information from fossils, and speculate about events that occured millions of years ago with no one there to document it, but rejects eyewitness accounts of events that happend only a couple thousand years back.

We see what we want to see.

freewalker · 06-08-2004, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oolon Colluphid

*Ahem*

About that coccyx...?

coccyx??????????????? What is that?

READ: I do not understand your post.

Sven · 06-08-2004, 08:50 AM

[edited out - Rufus had the better list and more elaborated arguments

]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

or develops a trait that is extreme

Hmm, someone posted some nice pictures of plants a while ago... have to look this up...

Edited to add: Found it! It was MrDarwin "himself"!

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...49#post1591149

Mikie: Please take a look and explain why this doesn't count as "macroevolution".

Sven · 06-08-2004, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

According to historical documentation (not just the Bible, but independent writings by Josephus and others) it wasn't just a theory. His claim was demonstrated to be fact by instances of supernatural acts.

Ahem. Please discuss this in BC&H - they will have a good laugh. Hint: The supernatural acts of Jesus can only be found in the bible.

Quote:

but rejects eyewitness accounts of events that happend only a couple thousand years back.

Ahem. Please also discuss this in BC&H - they will have another good laugh. Hint: No reputable scholar today (including almost all Christian ones) still believes that the gospels are eyewitness accounts.

Kingreaper · 06-08-2004, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

This is a problem, even among evolutionists. You can't seem to keep a definition long enough to make it stick. At one time, evolution meant progressive change to higher species. Today, most evolutionists claim that it just means "change". They do this most likely in response to the good scientific claims that militate against evolutionary theory, as you do here.

as there is no such thing as a "higher species" in evolution, the heirachy of species idea was debunked a long time ago, only a more adapted one, and I find that the general usage of the term evolution is still consistent withwhat has always been the normal definition "adaptation to an environment due to mutations and natural selection " and as for "good scientific claims" all those claims, which aren't very useful without evidence, have been debunked

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

"Change" alone does not constitute evolution in the sense that you need it to. You need to show how higher life forms came to be, not just "change". If you look at change alone, that can be explained by adaptation within a local gene pool - designed that way. In the case of the flies, they are still flies. They didn't change into toads or elephants. A fly will always be a fly. Macro change would be that the fly changes to something other than a fly, or develops a trait that is extreme. None of the examples ever given of fly mutation take that mutation beyond the explanation of adaptation - sorry.

define what exactly a fly is, and what change would make it cease to be a fly, the only three arguments against Micro*N=Macro are
a) an inexplicble barrier to mutations, presumably placed there and maintained by God (with no evidence that such a thing exists or would exist if God did)

b) information (generallly left undefined) cannot be gained in mutations, however information (for any known definition) gaining mutations have been observed (I can't remember the details (anyone got a link documenting it?))

c) It would take too long, this is generally based on a lack of understanding of the timescale or of the mechanisms of evolution

freewalker · 06-08-2004, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

According to historical documentation (not just the Bible, but independent writings by Josephus and others) it wasn't just a theory. His claim was demonstrated to be fact by instances of supernatural acts.

Funny how science can piece together detailed information from fossils, and speculate about events that occured millions of years ago with no one there to document it, but rejects eyewitness accounts of events that happend only a couple thousand years back.

We see what we want to see.

Care to demonstrate how the events that happened 2000 (random number?) years ago aren't just embelished narrative related to a revolutionary individual and his "freedom fighters"? And how science should deem these evidences has valid data. What makes the "son of God" theory more valid than, let's say, egyptian mythology wich was based on relatively valid eyewitnesses including kings, scribes and health specialists. Should we start dreading the wrath of RA based on egyptian eyewitnesses? What about the Incas? Do you think that every old drawing/symbol/story represents a scientific truth? How do you differentiate stories/science? Is your only basis faith in a story?

RufusAtticus · 06-08-2004, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikie

This is a problem, even among evolutionists. You can't seem to keep a definition long enough to make it stick. At one time, evolution meant progressive change to higher species. Today, most evolutionists claim that it just means "change". They do this most likely in response to the good scientific claims that militate against evolutionary theory, as you do here.

"At one time" refers to 150 years ago. Can you guess who refuted the idea of a great progession of life? Darwin. Anti-evolutionism has had exactly zero impact on scientific knowledge.

Quote:

"Change" alone does not constitute evolution in the sense that you need it to. You need to show how higher life forms came to be, not just "change". If you look at change alone, that can be explained by adaptation within a local gene pool - designed that way. In the case of the flies, they are still flies. They didn't change into toads or elephants. A fly will always be a fly. Macro change would be that the fly changes to something other than a fly, or develops a trait that is extreme. None of the examples ever given of fly mutation take that mutation beyond the explanation of adaptation - sorry.

In the case of the animals, they are still animals. They didn't change in to plants or fungi. An animal will always be an animal. Macrochange would be that an animal changes into something other than an animal, or develips a trail that is extreme. Chimps and Humans are still animals. No macroevolution occured, just good ole fassion microevolution. Clearly then you must agree that the two share a common animal ancestor.

The point is that evolution does not claim or expect a fly to evolve out of being a fly anymore than we expect an animal to evolve out of being an animal. Likewise, humans and chimps are still apes because they share an ancestor that was an ape.

Humans are still hominids (apes), primates, eutherians, mammals, amniotes, tetrapods, gnathostomes, vertebrates, chordates, deutrostromes, bilaterates, animals, eukaryotes, and biotes.

Likewise chimps are still hominids, primates, eutherians, mammals, amniotes, tetrapods, gnathostomes, vertebrates, chordates, deutrostromes, bilaterates, animals, eukaryotes, and biotes.

There was much debate in the early part of the twentieth century about whether microevolutionary changes could lead to macroevolutionary changes. Many scientists thought that they were different processes, but since the middle of that century biological data has demonstrated that they are not.

Quote:

One of the most important tenets of the theory forged during the Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s was that “macroevolutionary�? differences among organisms—those that distinguish higher taxa—arise from the accumulation of the same kinds of genetic differences that are found within species. Opponents of this point of view believed that “macroevolution�? is qualitatively different from “microevolution�? within a species, and is based on a totally different kind of genetic and developmental repatterning. The iconoclastic geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940), who held this opinion, believed that the evolution of species marks the break between “microevolution�? and “macroevolution�?—that there is a “bridgeless gap�? between species that cannot be understood in terms of the genetic variation within species. Genetic studies of species differences have decisively disproved Goldschmidt’s claim. Differences between species in morphology, behavior, and the process that underlie reproductive isolation all have the same genetic properties as variation within species: they occupy consistent chromosomal positions, they may be polygenic or based on few genes, they may display additive, dominant, or epistatic effects, and they can in some instances be traced to specifiable differences in proteins or DNA nucleotide differences. The degree of reproductive isolation between populations, whether prezygotic or postzygotic, varies from little or none to complete. Thus, reproductive isolation, like the divergence of any other character, evolves in most cases by the gradual substitution of alleles in populations.

(Futuyma 1998 pp 477-478)

Or to put it another way, differences between individuals of different species (macroevolutionary changes) are no different than differences between individuals of the same species (microevolutionary changes); they just have had longer to accumulate. Dr. Schaefer’s third concern is a view of biology that the evidence dismissed over fifty years ago.

Mikie · 06-08-2004, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildlifer

Evolution has never meant "progressive" change to a "higher" species.

Webster's On-Line Dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-b...tion&x=21&y=17
2 a : a process of change in a certain direction : UNFOLDING b : the action or an instance of forming and giving something off : EMISSION c (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state :

Now, what we will most certainly hear next, is that Webster has it all wrong. We'll hear how only evolutionists really understand the term, and the rest of us are stupid, including those that write dictionaries.

This claim has some merit, because evolutionists have, for some time, been changing the term to dodge and adapt (pardon the pun) so that they can meet the stringent critisicm that is being thrown at them. I guess we can't blame them for that, but it is sad.

What really needs to happen is we need to stop calling it "evolution". It should be called what it is, the religion of naturalism.

Mikie · 06-08-2004, 09:13 AM

In the case of the animals, they are still animals. They didn't change in to plants or fungi. An animal will always be an animal. Macrochange would be that an animal changes into something other than an animal, or develips a trail that is extreme. Chimps and Humans are still animals. No macroevolution occured, just good ole fassion microevolution. Clearly then you must agree that the two share a common animal ancestor.

You need to do your homework. If what you say is true, there would be no angst from Gould, who sought desperately to develop PE to explain away the problem of macro change.

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06-08-2004, 09:13 AM	#120
Mikie Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: USA Posts: 75	In the case of the animals, they are still animals. They didn't change in to plants or fungi. An animal will always be an animal. Macrochange would be that an animal changes into something other than an animal, or develips a trail that is extreme. Chimps and Humans are still animals. No macroevolution occured, just good ole fassion microevolution. Clearly then you must agree that the two share a common animal ancestor. You need to do your homework. If what you say is true, there would be no angst from Gould, who sought desperately to develop PE to explain away the problem of macro change.

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