My last post in this
<a href="http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=000158;p=3" target="_blank">http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=000158;p=3</a>
was a victim of the BB propaganda protection squad... The unadluterated version appears below:
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Scott Page:
Science does take time. But as you just admitted, creation had been the reigning paradigm since well before the ToE.
John Paul:
That’s a little deceptive.
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Accusation noted.
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Scott Page:
Regardless of your personal distaste for and inexperience in the sciences, the ToE is, in fact, scientific and it has in its support data from numerous fields of science. These repeated charges of the ToE not being science and such smack of desperation and an ignorance of the available data.
John Paul:
…Also I understand the available data and I also understand the grand sweep of the ToE is out of the reach of science and scientific method.
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What,
exactly, do you mean by “grand sweep”? I want to be clear so as to avoid being accused of ‘twisting’ and such. You realize, do you not, that evolution has several aspects to it?
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So when you say “…the ToE is, in fact, scientific and it has in its support data from numerous fields of science”, I see guy lines to a non-existent tower. I also see how the same evidence when viewed under a different framework, i.e. the Special Creation, can be used to infer that premise is correct.
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And what,
exactly, is this ‘tower’ supposed to represent? I doubt that you have actually looked at any of the actual evidence. See <a href="http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignment1.htm" target="_blank">http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignment1.htm</a> and please explain how the patterns of synapomorphy can be ‘explained’ (or inferred) via common creator, given that: 1. it is known that mutations occur; 2. it is known that mutations are passed on via descent.
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That evolution occurs is not the debate, no matter how much you (all evolutionists) want to make it the debate.
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I do not think that this is a correct representation. It has (had) long been the creationist’s staple argument that NO evolution at all occurs.
Only when it became clear that this position was ludicrous, did the creationists ‘admit’ that evolution takes place – indeed, now they
need evolution to occur, and plenty of it!
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Also, what you may fail to realize, science comes into play after all this came into existence therefore hypothesizing a supernatural origin in no way interferes with the systematic observation of and experiment (i.e. scientific investigation) with the Creation and all it contains.
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I don’t believe that I addressed such an issue, but in fact, I do realize this. The problem with such a program is: At what point does Divine intervention have a place? For example, using such a framework, I can envision ‘olden day’ scientists postulating divine intervention as an explanation for how plants convert sunlight into energy. Would the discovery of photosynthesis falsify Divine intervention? Or just push it back some (as has been the basic creationist tactic all along)? Would continued investigation render the Divine irrelevant? Or would convention dictate that the original postulate be all that is necessary, i.e., the ‘determination’ that the Divine was required for plants to make energy be the end of it?
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Scott Page:
As for the ‘questions’ posed to evolutionists, they are largely of the type that there will probably be no answers for, as they seem to be in the realm of the origin and very early diversification of life. Not coincidentally, I’m sure, an area that there is very little physical evidence for.
John Paul:
Thank you. Then the ToE is out of the realm of science and out of reach of scientific method.
Scott Page
Now THAT is a non-sequitur. Please produce documentation that abiogenesis is the pillar of the ToE that you seem to be making out to be. If this one tangential issue is inaccessible to the normal routes of investigation, I fail to see any logic or rationale in proclaiming that the ToE is therefore not scientific. A dearth of physical evidence means simply that any given hypothesis will benefit from only a small amount of evidence. Your ‘conclusion’, therefore, is quite unwarranted.
John Paul:
Now THAT is a red-herring. My questions covered more than abiogenesis and I never stated abiogenesis was a pillar of the ToE.
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I never wrote that you stated such a thing. However, that you think this is obvious from what you have been writing, for if you did
not think that abiogenesis was a ‘deal breaker’ for ToE – the ‘grand sweep’ – I can see no reason whatsoever for your statements:
“Then the ToE is out of the realm of science and out of reach of scientific method.”
“…and I also understand the grand sweep of the ToE is out of the reach of science and scientific method…”
since these were in response to my statements about abiogenesis. Abiogenesis may very well be “out of the reach of science”. However, as the ToE as a whole does not
require a ‘proven’ naturalistic, objectively tested abiogenesis, your ‘grand sweeping’ claims are quite beside the point.
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Scott Page:
The questions have little to do with evolution as such.
John Paul:
They show the grand sweep of the ToE can’t be objectively tested.
Scott Page:
No, they show that you have latched onto an area of research for which there is very little physical evidence and have proclaimed it the most important such area, and that if none of the handful of lurkers or participants on this discussion board can answer the ‘questions’ to your satisfaction – and I doubt you would accept any answer as valid regardless of the source or the amount of documentation – that, therefore, evolution must be wrong/unscientific/etc.
John Paul:
It would appear I have “latched on” to several areas of research for which there is very little (or any) physical evidence. And I know I could come up with many, many more. BTW, I have posed my questions to many evolutionists on several discussion boards as well as Ken Miller- guess what; no one can give me an answer. If anything it shows there are people out there who accept something as being scientific when they don’t know why. It makes me wonder why people cling to it so tightly.
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I guess I should notify the Nobel committee right away… Imagine – no discussion board participants can provide Joe Gallien with the specific answers to his specific questions about abiogenesis, so we must conclude that must be no answers and that therefore abiogenesis is false and that therefore the ToE is wrong and that therefore Creationism must be correct. What I wonder is why so many people simply dismiss that which they are not well versed in because it conflicts with their worldview.
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On the alleged whale evolution, specifically the alleged femur.
John Paul:
Wouldn’t they only be femurs if they belonged to legs? So by calling these femurs it is being assumed they are legs or were from legs.
Scott Page:
Grin… They are called femurs because they are attached to or associated with pelvi which are attached to or associated with the sacral portion of the skeleton, just like in us… and mice… and other mammals.
John Paul:
From Britannica:
FEMUR: limb or appendage of an animal, used to support the body, provide locomotion, and, in modified form, assist in capturing and eating prey (as in certain shellfish, spiders, and insects). In four-limbed vertebrates all four appendages are commonly called legs, but in bipedal animals, including humans, only the posterior or lower two are so called.
Are you changing the definition of “femur” to suit your needs? Do you have a definition of “femur” other than the one Britannica offers?
Scott Page:
I wasn’t aware that
1. Brittanica is the ultimate authority on scientific terminology
2.That shellfish, spiders, and insects have femurs (they have exoskeletons).
3. that a femur is a “limb or appendage”
Looking into point 2 above should make it clear what I think of my point 1.
John Paul:
1. Britannica might not be the ultimate authority, but it is an authority.
2. Yes, Scott, spiders do have femurs:
[snip links to insect exoskeleton anatomy]
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Well, I stand corrected. I am not, afterall, an entomologist.
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3. If it isn’t a “limb or appendage”, what is it?
This is inexcusable for someone with a Ph.D. from the department of anatomy and cell biology.
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What is inexcusable? That a primate anatomist didn’t know that spiders have femurs? Well, spank my fanny and call me Elvis. Of course, I DO know that a
FEMUR is NOT a “limb or appendage.” Check out your spider links – not one of the them shows a femur as an appendicular entity unto itself. A femur is, contrary to your preferred source of anatomical knowledge,
part of a limb. There is a difference between a part and a whole.
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Scott Page:
I prefer to use ‘definitions’ that are relevant to the discussion at hand and that are produced in the proper context. From Kardong’s “Vertebrates”, 2nd Ed., 1998. In the section on the basic parts of the appendicular skeleton:
“The limb region closest to the body is the stylopodium, with a single element: humerus of the upper arm, femur of the thigh.”
John Paul:
OK taken in context, where is the whale’s thigh? We are discussing whales and their alleged femur aren’t we? Of course the whales alleged ancestor had a thigh, but that would mean you are calling that bone in a whale a femur because you think it was at one time part of a leg, just like I stated above.
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One of the many pitfalls of replying point-by-point
prior to finishing the entire paragraph…
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Scott Page:
A few pages later, there is some detail on the anatomy of living and fossil tetrapods and bony fish. On p. 314, Fig. 9.13 has drawings of the limb (fin) structure of some living sarcopterygians. In particular, the Neoceratodus fin/limb structure has a femur explicitly indicated. It is a single bone that connects the pelvic fin to the pelvic girdle (with a ball and socket joint, no less). I would dare say that such an arrangement – the presence of a femur in this fin/limb assemblage – has nothing to do with a leg.
John Paul:
I was unaware that I said the femur had to be related to a leg.
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I don’t recall writing that you had. Please, point it out for me. Your entire argument on this topic seems to be your own personal dislike of the bones in whales being called femurs. You erroneously cite an encyclopedia trying to ‘prove’ your dislike. My point above should have been obvious – the single bony element of the stylopodium of a tetrapod is called a femur. Tetrapod refers to the number of appendages. Not all appendages are weight bearing, not all are legs or arms. So no assumption of a ‘leg’ need be warranted in calling the bones in question ‘femurs.’ (ignoring, of course, the fossil and developmental evidence for the sake of discussion here).
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The only reason I referred to legs above is because the alleged ancestor of the whale (Ambulocetus) had them and that appears to be the only reason for calling the specified bone on whales a femur.
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Erroneous, as the Kardong quote indicates.
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The femur in the example you gave provides locomotion, just like the Britannica article states. And in the ToE scheme of things it also provided support. The alleged femur in the whale does not provide locomotion or support, nor is it part of a thigh. And you still have provided no way to objectively test that what is seen in whales was once a fully functional rear limb used to walk on land.
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Perhaps instead of banging your head against a wall on a discussion group, you should busy yourself re-writing the books on comparative anatomy, embryological development, etc. so that in the future we can all use the definitions of words that you will accept, rather than making the layman have to use the terminology used by those in the field.
I did not realize that it was my charge to provide you specifically with a way to ‘objectively test’ the hypothesis that whales have what deserve to be called femurs. Oh wait – I meant a way to objectively test that what is seen in whales was once a fully functional rear limb used to walk on land.
So – what is the method by which one can objectively test hypotheses of
ex nihilo creation again? You must know of several off the top of your head, lest you weould not be sop demanding that your opponents provide you with the same.
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BTW, I noticed the word limb appears in the reference you gave.
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Yeah, and apples still fall from trees even though I personally have not observed gravity nor tested it objectively…
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Do we have any genetic evidence that would show that legs can be “erased” like that?
Let me explain: If these bones were at one time femurs that did form hind limbs, then what happened to the rest of the leg? For example, can we, with genetic engineering, alter some organism’s (with legs) genome and see if we can get an organism with only femurs for hind limbs? Or maybe take a whale and using genetic engineering splice the necessary sequence into the whale’s genome (or whatever was necessary) to see if fully formed legs appear?
[i]Scott Page:
What is this ‘genetic engineering’ all about? There are plenty of genetic conditions that result in the formation of stunted limbs (or no limbs at all). Meromelia is a condition in humans that results in limb malformations. Caudal dysgenesis results in the absence of the coccyx and in some cases the sacrum in humans. It is no real surprise that such anomalies exist. In the case of terrestial bipeds, these conditions are of course non-adaptive. So, yes, there is evidence that limbs or parts of limbs can be un-developed.
John Paul:
Perfect. We should be able to check a whale’s genome for signs of this genetic condition. Hopefully this condition became fixed in the whale population after it became fully aquatic. Nice timing. Also much more than a loss of part of the rear limbs was taking place:
What is the genetic evidence that can objectively tested that would show us a fore-limb used for walking can evolve into a flipper used for aquatic locomotion?
What is the genetic evidence that can objectively tested that would show us a nose at the end of a snout can evolve into a blowhole?
What is the genetic evidence that can objectively tested that would show us a tail can evolve into a fluke?
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While I am surely impressed that you can tack on more and more sub-demands to your previous ones, all you are doing is securing that win-win scenario for yourself. I am not an expert on whale evolution. I am not a genetic engineer. I cannot provide you with the ‘objective’ tests that you seek to these questions. I guess we should all just conclude that because you did not get your questions answered to your satisfaction that creationism must be true.
But I am still waiting to see YOUR methods to ‘objectively test’ the various things you apparently believe to be true…
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On chromosomal fusion
As for chromosomal fusion, this has turned into a red-herring (i.e. a distraction) as far as this thread is concerned. I brought up chromosomal fusion in response to a question by Paul of Eugene as a possible way to objectively test the hypothesis that man and the great apes shared a common ancestor. Why would a Creationist know how objectively test something Creationists say didn’t occur? Why is it that evolutionists can’t come up with a way for objectively testing their theory? I am telling you if it could be objectively tested it wouldn’t have the opposition it has today.
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Why can’t creationists explain the objective tests of what they claim occurred and is occurring? A ‘red herring’, it is called. John Paul claims that chromosome fusion might be a good way to ‘objectively test’ the hypothesis of man-ape descent. How? He does not really say. I guess John Paul has never heard of things like molecular phylogenetics – OBJECTIVE tests of evolutionary hypotheses. Or is it that he has heard of this, but rejects it?
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But anyway, my objective was that event (chromosomal fusion) could be duplicated via genetic engineering
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and? What would that demonstrate? As I pointed out with my guenon example, which, tellingly, John Paul deigned not to respond to and omit form this reply, chromosomal fusion is most likely not a major evolutionary event.
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Scott Page:
Duplicate what? What would we perform this fusion in? I was unaware that the ape-like ancestor from which humans and apes descended had been identified, much less that it is still alive and available for us to perform chromosomal fusion experiments on.
John Paul:
It would appear you are guilty of doing what you accuse Walter ReMine of doing. If we don’t know what the alleged common ancestor is how the heck can we know random mutations culled by natural selection would be enough to give rise to its alleged descendants?
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I am? The evidence is that evolution occurred. You not only admit that, but have stated that to imply that creationists don’t think this is deceptive. But for some reason, the evolution stops at certain points. For that caveat, the creationist offers no plausible explanations.
But you are garbling
in toto my accusation directed at ReMine. ReMine claims that 1667 beneficial mutations (plus some number of neutral ones) is not enough to account for human evolution from an apelike ancestor in 10 million years. He does not know what the apelike ancestor was, thus he
cannot know how few is too few to account for human evolution. I made no explicit claims as to a proposed ancestor. Unlike ReMine, I do not claim omniscience. I have no idea what the ancestral primate that gave rise to human and apes was. Nor do I need to know, since genetic evidence indicates that such an ancestor did exist, and that extant apes and humans descended form it.
You are conflating disparate ideas – one premised on personal opinion and incredulity, the other on actual data.
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So now my question would be: What would be an objective test to the hypothesis that humans and apes are descended from some unknown common ancestor?
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Explain exactly what you mean by objective test. Recreating it in a lab? That’s a non-starter – the creationist would use it as evidence for design (see Wysong’s book). DNA evidence is about as objective as you can get. It has already been done.
What, again, is the objective test for special creation of humans?
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As for the number of chromosomes an organism has in relation to other organisms as the basis for relationships, until we decipher the genome of the organisms being compared, each case would have to be looked at separately, using various methods.
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Now I am at a complete loss as to why you brought up chromosomal fusion at all! Amazing…[/quote]
But if evolutionists are going to continue use the chromosomal fusion argument as evidence for common descent (human/ apes) they had better find a way to objectively test that premise.[/quote]
You misrepresent the way in which evolutionists use the chromosome fusion issue. Indeed – you have it just about backwards. It is not used as evidence of descent, rather chromosomal fusion explains why, if common descent occurred, humans and chimps have a differing chromosome number.
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On extrapolating knowns to unknowns using phylogenetic analysis
Scott Page:
So you have no answer then, fine. The methods employed by those using ToE-based hypotheses of descent have been tested on knowns.
Science 1991 Oct 25;254(5031):554-8
Gene trees and the origins of inbred strains of mice.
Atchley WR, Fitch WM
“Phylogenetic analyses of 144 separate loci reproduce almost exactly the known genealogical relationships among these 24 strains.”
John Paul:
Wow, mice evolving into mice. Producing a genealogy tree? That’s what you are offering? Are you saying that because this appears to work on knowns that it is OK to extrapolate to unknowns? This is the crux of the debate- extrapolating from knowns. It is hardly a given.
Scott Page:
You failed to grasp the significance of the results I cited.
It is not a question of “mice evolving into mice” – it is an issue of the testing of the methodology employed examining hypotheses of descent. The methods employed in molecular phylogenetic analyses were used on a known geneaology[sic] of inbred mouse strains to see whether or not these methods would reproduce the known relationships. Pretty straightforward.
John Paul:
Yes it is pretty straightforward and I am not debating that.
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Then what are you debating? Let me guess – since this does not ‘objectively test’ macroevolution to your specifications, it is irrelevant?
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Scott Page:
I am saying that when a methodology works on knowns, that it is standard procedure to then be confident that the conclusions based on these methods, when applied to unknowns, is valid.
John Paul:
Sorry, it’s not always that neat.
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Great. Provide some real life examples.
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Scott Page:
That is how science – and even, I would hope, engineering – works.
John Paul:
Applying knowns in explosives to the atomic bomb (itself an explosive) didn’t work. Do you think I can apply the knowns of climbing Mount Monadnock (3100+ feet to the summit) in Southern New Hampshire to the unknowns of climbing to the summit Mount Everest? One thing for sure I couldn’t apply the knowns of my 11 years of driving in Florida to the unknowns of driving in a New England snowstorm. And applying knowns about hijacking didn’t help out the crew and passengers of 3 flights on September 11. Granted there may be some times it works out, but it is far from being a given. (I can give many more examples if you like)
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Please do. This time, make them relevant. Of course, driving in Florida for 11 years is better than never driving at all. Who would do better climbing Everest– the person that climbed Mount Monadnock or someone that had never climbed a mountain before?
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I do know (first hand knowledge) that in engineering (applied science) extrapolating knowns to unknowns most often will get you in trouble.
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Too bad thast doesn’t hold in
research science, from which
applied science gets all of its underpinnings.
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Scott Page:
Or do you, in designing software, have to continually re-invent the various methods of writing software?
John Paul:
It would all depend on the scenario. There are various software languages, each invented separately and each with its own purpose. I know I can’t apply the knowns of the computer language BASIC to the ‘unknowns’ of C++. I have to learn C++. I can’t then apply the knowns of C++ to the unknowns of some company’s proprietary language.
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Red herring. You are comparing different methods of writing software to each other. My question was:
“Or do you, in designing software, have to continually re-invent the various methods of writing software?”
In other words, if you were writing a program in C++, do you have to re-invent C++ each time? Or does the fact that C++ has been used in the past by other program writers sufficient?
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I do know (first hand knowledge) that sometimes it is just plain necessary to start all over. Starting from scratch is not to be confused with ‘re-inventing’. The Wright brothers didn’t ‘re-invent’ transportation, they just invented another mode of it. Seeing that there were no other (known) airplanes at the time they had to start from scratch.
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Sure, you start form scratch/start over. But you do not re-invent the tools each time. The Wright brothers did not need to reinvent ‘transportation.’ Others had been doing research in gliders. Others had done the R&D in internal combustion engines. They took already established principles (Lord Kelvin be darned) and did something different. That is actually my argument. The equations and models used by the glider enthusiasts of the time (I forget their names) worked well, they just had no propulsion systems. The Wrights did not have to reinvent the wing, or the internal combustion engine. They did not have to reformulate the principles established by Bernoulli and Venturi. They just extrapolated them to meet their needs.
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Homology in biology and the alleged universality of the genetic code are supposedly strong evidence for descent with modification (from alleged genetically simpler unknown population of single-celled organisms that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate, or at the very least had the ability to share genetic material with other populations, which led to reproduction). However both can easily be used to infer a Common Creator or at the very least a common plan.
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You can keep writing that as often as you wish, but it does not make it any more correct.
Please, see <a href="http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignment1.htm" target="_blank">http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignment1.htm</a> and please explain how the patterns of synapomorphy can be ‘explained’ (or inferred) via common creator.
07-03-2002, 06:01 AM
It never ends... (BB censorship)
