Stephen T-B

I just lurve this from our Radoth: “They are basically using lousy evidence to deny the possibility of creation, or creation plus evolution, and thus God.”
So, Creation is supported by something better than lousy evidence?”
The Bible for instance?
Yes. Yes. Yes. No one ever amended the Creation Story because the Creation Story is not dependent upon knowledge which accumulates and grows and becomes, gradually and over a very long time, more complete. The Biblical story of Creation is unsupported by any evidence outside that which is provided by the Biblical story of Creation, and to change it any any way so that it can incorporate minor little things like the Earth being a spinning globe in a solar system instead of the bottom layer of a sandwich is blasphemous.
Stick to the myths, Rad. They obviously make you happy. But don’t pretend they equate with evidence - even the “lousy” evidence which supports evolution.

MrDarwin

I'm still trying to figure out just which of Darwin's ideas Radorth thinks have been invalidated. That individuals of a species vary in their characteristics? That these variations can be inherited? That individuals of a species produce more progeny than can possibly survive? That, because of this variation, some of these individuals reproduce more successfully than others (=natural selection)? That the result is that species change over time? That two (or more) different species can be descended from one ancestral species? That this is a good explanation for the fact that living things have changed considerably during the history of the earth?

Which of these ideas have been proven untrue, and how?

Nice try, though.

Jan Haugland

I sometimes suspect creationists like "punctuated equilibrum" because they misunderstand totally what it means when it says "rapid evolution." They try to make it fit into a <10K year history of the world, while, in fact, one single significant evolutionary change occuring over that timespan would alone be "rapid" in evolutionary terms.

Besides, I have failed to see Gould/Eldridge actually say anything new in their theory that was not already done earlier and better by Muir. But perhaps I am just prejudiced because Gould wrote so many utterly stupid things in his popular science books.


- Jan

...who rants and raves every day at Secular Blasphemy

Mageth

Posted by Radorth:

Anyway can we assume now that Darwin's theory is nonsense, by his own admission?

Referring, I assume, to where Darwin said:

"We have seen in the last chapter that the species of a group sometimes falsely appear to have come in abruptly; and I have attempted to give an explanation of this fact, which if true would have been fatal to my views. "

Did it not occur to you that not only, as others have pointed out, was Darwin capable of being wrong about some aspects of his theory (such as PE), but he was just as capable of being wrong in the above assessment that a species appearing "abruptly" (e.g. over thousands of years) would be "fatal" to his views?

lpetrich

Or else they like punc-eq because it looks as if all those species had been miraculously created. This would have to be Hugh-Ross-style old-earth creationism; the young-earthers like it because it seems like it's on their side.

Like what?

Doubting Didymus

Well, like the idea that there was a different kind of evolution going on in the cambrian, because there are have been no new phyla appearing since then?

Radorth

I agree with some (not all) of the "evidence." I am objecting mainly to the conclusions drawn from the "evidence" and pointing out where blind faith in Darwin's simplistic theory has led to a false belief that there must be no God. Also, it is ridiculous to teach "evolution" in middle schools if only a biologist with a Phd can grasp the complexities involved. I suggest we teach nothing at all which even remotely suggests how we originated. There is no reason whatsoever for them to know, and nothing they cannot do without the knowledge of evolutionary theory, especially one which changes weekly. Discovery channel recently posted a news item saying some biologists now think land creatures evolved into sea creatures. In other words, even Phd's don't know a damn thing about how or where life originated, but you guys want to teach evolution as FACT anyway. You can't teach "basic evolutionary theory" and then "advanced evolutionary theory." It is not like physics, although some wish to make it so.

Personally I think the "survival of the fittest" theory has done far more harm to civilized thinking than all the Popes put together. I think Hitler and Stalin used it to justify the slaughter of 50,000,000 people. I don't claim to have direct proof, my suspicions are as sound as those claiming Jesus was anti-semetic and Hitler was a Christian.

Species adapt to their environments. Darwin well proved that. And it's about all we know, even 150 years later.

Darwin also said we would find all kinds of missing links and there are shamefully few so the theory had to be reinvented for all practical purposes. And maybe one of the true believers can explain how some people 2000 years ago lived to be 100 on lousy diets and bad medicine, and some today die at 50 on good diets with good medicine. When does this natural selection process start to kick in anyway?

Rad

lpetrich

Radorth:
I agree with some (not all) of the "evidence." I am objecting mainly to the conclusions drawn from the "evidence" and pointing out where blind faith in Darwin's simplistic theory has led to a false belief that there must be no God.

Like how is that supposed to be the case? Radorth, I don't see you moaning and groaning about the electricity theory of lightning and how it implies that there is no such thing as Mr. G.

Also, it is ridiculous to teach "evolution" in middle schools if only a biologist with a Phd can grasp the complexities involved.

I don't see how evolutionary biology is much worse than the Bible in that regard. The basic ideas are actually easy to understand.

I suggest we teach nothing at all which even remotely suggests how we originated. There is no reason whatsoever for them to know, and nothing they cannot do without the knowledge of evolutionary theory, especially one which changes weekly.

It's the cutting edge of research that tends to be changeable in that fashion; behind that cutting edge is a lot of well-established results. Radorth, would you knock any other field of science for seemingly being so changeable?

Discovery channel recently posted a news item saying some biologists now think land creatures evolved into sea creatures.

I will need more details before I can evaluate that claim.

However land-to-water evolution has happened several times, in some cases producing a complete return to the water (cetaceans, ichthyosaurs).

In other words, even Phd's don't know a damn thing about how or where life originated, but you guys want to teach evolution as FACT anyway.

The origin of the ultimate ancestor of all present-day Earth life is, I will concede, a murky question. However, there have been some valiant stabs taken at it.

And it is a question entirely separate from the evolution of life.

Personally I think the "survival of the fittest" theory has done far more harm to civilized thinking than all the Popes put together. I think Hitler and Stalin used it to justify the slaughter of 50,000,000 people. I don't claim to have direct proof, my suspicions are as sound as those claiming Jesus was anti-semetic and Hitler was a Christian.

Darwin himself did not support this "might makes right" interpretation; he compared it to saying that Napoleon was right and every cheating tradesman was right. Also, neither Hitler nor Stalin were known for having much interest in evolutionary biology -- did either of these gentlemen wave the Origin of Species around as if it was the Bible?

And there have been plenty of pre-Darwinian mass murderers; their kill count has not been as high simply because there had been fewer people to kill. How many people were available for Genghis Khan's armies to kill?

Darwin also said we would find all kinds of missing links and there are shamefully few so the theory had to be reinvented for all practical purposes.

Like how?

And maybe one of the true believers can explain how some people 2000 years ago lived to be 100 on lousy diets and bad medicine, and some today die at 50 on good diets with good medicine. When does this natural selection process start to kick in anyway?

I don't see what's the difficulty. Radorth, could you explain to us what you think "natural selection" means?

Stephen T-B

Radoth: “I am objecting mainly to the conclusions drawn from the "evidence" and pointing out where blind faith in Darwin's simplistic theory has led to a false belief that there must be no God.”
That’s not true: there are very many Christians who accept the fact of evolution.

“it is ridiculous to teach ‘evolution’ in middle schools if only a biologist with a Phd can grasp the complexities involved.”
So it’s ridiculous to teach anything which requires great knowledge in order to understand all its complexities?

“I suggest we teach nothing at all which even remotely suggests how we originated. There is no reason whatsoever for them to know...” So they shouldn’t be told the Biblical story of Creation?

“Phd's (sic) don't know a damn thing about how or where life originated” As Ipetrich gently and patiently pointed out, evolution says nothing about how life originated. No one yet knows. (But I think that one day we will do.)

“Personally I think the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory has done far more harm to civilized thinking than all the Popes put together.” That’s like blaming gravity for the deaths of people who jump out of windows.

Oolon Colluphid

Please identify some of the “evidence” you do not agree with. Personally, I’m stumped as to how anyone can agree or disagree about evidence. About what it shows, sure. But the evidence itself? So out with it then: what evidence don’t you agree with?

(I thought I was being a little semantically pedantic in reading your above statement that way... but then you say the following, so it seems you really meant it about not agreeing with evidence... either that, or I detect some unclear thinking on your part.)

Okay... please explain...

I suggest you get down to your library and get hold of, eg, a copy of Futuyma’s textbook Evolutionary Biology. Please do so, then report back the sections containing “blind faith”. Till you do, I shall regard that comment as issuing -- whoopee-cushion-like -- from your lower alimentary canal.

Meaning ‘oversimplified’, and hence ‘unrealistic’? If it were such an oversimplification, why did it take Darwin 400-odd pages to explain, and why is Futuyma’s book over 800 pages? It will clearly come as a surprise to you, but there’s a little more to it -- though it’s an important and easy-to-grasp idea -- than ‘survival of the fittest’ .

Now I’m confused. Evolutionary theory says no more about the existence of god(s) than does quantum theory or atomic theory. Science deals with the natural world; gods and their ilk are by definition supernatural, and so are not a consideration, nor are they considered, by science. And please note that many many ‘evolutionists’ are also theists. The only theology evolution challenges is biblical literalism, and most christians seem to get by fine without believing in Noah’s bleedin’ ark.

Equally, there is nothing to be gained in teaching children about electricity since they won’t grasp quantum mechanics; no point in teaching that we are held on the earth by gravity since there’s no way they’d understand the mathematics of relativity and curved spacetime... At what point in their education, pray, do you propose we do start teaching children [/I]anything[/I]?

Since ‘where do we come from?’ is regarded as one of mankind’s oldest questions, how might we avoid it? And anyway, evolution is both a theory and a fact. We do, now, know where we came from -- and the fact that we are still filling in finer details is irrelevant. That we are related to every other living thing is one of the most fundamental pieces of our modern scientific understanding about ourselves. On what grounds would you deny children this information whilst still teaching them science at all?

So because you are ignorant, you wish to keep others that way too? Sheesh!

Except of course anything remotely related to any life science field...

Funny, that looks like ‘filling in the details’ to me... Since we are not dealing with mathematics -- in which we set out the parameters of the universe we’re operating in beforehand -- but instead with the complexities of the real world, it is hardly a surprise if new information causes us to revise some detail. Sure, keeping track of the latest fossils for hominids or pleuronectiforms can be difficult. But not one single discovery in the last 150 years has overthrown the more fundamental principle of the relatedness of all life. An odd sort of ‘changing weekly’, is it not? So your objection is...?

True. Some such sea creatures are whales, sea snakes and ichthyosaurs. So? (I also applaud your use of such a prestigious scientific sourse for your claims )

In other words, you don’t know a damn thing about what PhDs do and do not know on the matter. Try a google for ‘origins of life’. Try looking for PhDs with names like Leslie Orgel, Arthur Weber, James Ferris, Stephen Sowerby... Try a search on PubMed. Try Mark Twain’s (iirc) dictum: It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool rather than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Perhaps that is because it is a fact. It is both a fact and a theory. See for instance here. It is also nothing to do with how life got started. The first self-replicating molecules could have been sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure for all I care. Evolution is what happens once you have such replicators.

Why not? One can perfectly well grasp the basics of natural selection without knowing about Hardy-Weinberg equilibria, Muller’s ratchet or the Baldwin effect. I’m intrigued as to how one might grasp the advanced stuff without knowing the basics.

Correct. Physics is about simple things; biology is about organised complexity.

Huh? Hmmm, let’s guess... ‘not an exact science’, perhaps? Oh well, palaeontologists can throw away those calipers, geneticists can ditch that pointless PCR equipment, and whole bioinformatics departments can go home...

Personally I think you don’t have the slightest clue what you’re on about. Whether an idea has been used for good or ill is irrelevant to its veracity. (Can’t remember which fallacy that is, but it is fallacious.)

Even if true, so what? That is the naturalistic fallacy, whereby how things are is taken as a guide to how things should be.

Note, however, that Stalin’s understanding of evolution was sufficiently lousy that he fell for Lysenko and his lunatic crop breeding ideas, which led to millions starving to death. So if anything, a lack of understanding of evolution was the cause of many of the deaths you refer to.

What are you blathering about?

No, its’ about all you know. What, for example, do you make of the long string of generations ‘adapting to their environment’ that turned wolves into chuhuahuas? And what of pseudogenes such as the ones birds possess for making teeth and dromaeosaur-type lower legs? Get thee thither to a remedial biology class immediately.

Note: ‘few’. Not ‘none’. Should we ignore the data we do have, and base our theories on that which we don’t? The mere presence of some (actually, there’s tons) vindicates the theory. Anyone who argues that there are no missing links sets himself up to have to prove a negative. Fine, if that’s how you want it. We’ll keep on finding fossils that fill the gaps in the record; you can stick your fingers in your ears and go “La-la-la-la-I’m-not-hearing-you” all you want.

Nonsense. Punk eek (which I assume you’re getting at) was not invented to explain gaps, but to account for stasis. It only overturned ‘constant speedism’, which nobody gave much creedence to anyway. And oddly enough, when you look closely enough at the sudden shifts of a punctuation event, you’ll sometimes find good old gradualism lurking in the short timescale. (Phacops trilobites spring to mind, I’ll get details if necessary.)

Well since I don’t ‘believe’ in evolution, I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer, but I’ll give it a go...

Ah, plurium interrogationum

Really? Data please. But even so, ever heard of a bell curve? An occasional long-lived individual is hardly ruled out by biology. What we need is some way of checking the average lifespan of the population.

... and some are still-born, and others (c.33%) spontaneously abort in the first trimester...

Funnily enough, there are ways of judging median lifespans in the past. And according to this page which compiles such figures in the table halfway down, the median male (for simplicity) lifespan 2000 years ago was 41.9 years. 2000 years before that it was 36.5. It has been at that sort of level throughout history: bobbing up to 46 in Byzantium, but mainly 35-40. Till modern times, when good diets and good medicine kick in. Then, oddly, it shoots up by thirty years or more, to 71.

Perhaps you’ll argue that correlation does not indicate causation?

Your premise is false, so your argument’s stuffed.

Given the number of ignoramuses that pop up on here spouting their misbegotten ‘thoughts’, it appears not to apply to humans any more.

TTFN, DT