ps418

A lot of creationists who are pretty much completely ignorant of the evidence supporting evolution think that evolution is infinitely malleable, and can accomodate any conceivable evidence. But of course, even a moment's thought shows that this is not true.

For instance, if you took the established distribution of fossil taxa by time (e.g. <a href="http://ibs.uel.ac.uk/ibs/palaeo/benton/" target="_blank">Fossil Record 2 Database</a>) and randomized it, virtually all of the randomized outcomes would be inconsistent with evolution. A human or whale or dinosaur skeleton in Archean strata, for instance, would be flatly inconsistent with evolution. The article <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/" target="_blank">29+ evidences for evolution</a> gives many additional examples of possible observations which would strongly falsify common descent. So its not that "whatever evidence is found ultimately supports evolution," as you erroneously assert. Its just that all the evidence discovered to date either supports, is consistent with, or does not falsify, evolution.

On the other hand, creationists themselves have admitted outright that the converse is not true. That is, many creationists have asserted that no possible observation could falsify creationism. So your criticism does apply to creationism.

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

Neruda

EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM!!!

Come on people, how many times do we have to say it? mutations are random. Natural selection is NOT random. It's not that hard to understand!

"man will never prove either the existence of Fairies, and proving their non-existence in the universe is a logical impossibility."

"Man will never prove either the existence of unicorns, and proving their non-existence in the universe is a logical impossibility."

(faulty grammar left on purpose)

I consider god to be on pretty much the same level as fairies and unicorns; there's no evidence for their existence, but you can't prove they don't exist either. And if people really want to believe in them, there's no way you can get them not to. (I've met people who believed in fairies before.) But given the total, utter, complete lack of evidence for unicorns and fairies, what logical reason is there to believe in them? Belief in God is equally irrational as belief in mythical creatures such as those.

dk

Neruda: EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM!!!
Come on people, how many times do we have to say it? mutations are random. Natural selection is NOT random. It's not that hard to understand!
dk: Hey, I’ll buy that, but then what laws govern evolution?
Neruda: Man will never prove either the existence of God, and proving his non-existence in the Universe is a logical impossiblity.
dk: Says who, science?
Neruda:- "man will never prove either the existence of Fairies, and proving their non-existence in the universe is a logical impossibility."
dk: Man will never prove what came first, the chicken or the egg, it’s a logical impossibility.
Neruda:-"Man will never prove either the existence of unicorns, and proving their non-existence in the universe is a logical impossibility."
dk: Man will never prove his dreams are real/unreal, it’s a logical impossibility.
Neruda: I consider god to be on pretty much the same level as fairies and unicorns; there's no evidence for their existence, but you can't prove they don't exist either. And if people really want to believe in them, there's no way you can get them not to. (I've met people who believed in fairies before.) But given the total, utter, complete lack of evidence for unicorns and fairies, what logical reason is there to believe in them? Belief in God is equally irrational as belief in mythical creatures such as those.
dk: Man will never disprove evolution, because whatever science finds is evolution, and that’s a logical truism.

That was a fun game...

Doubting Didymus

No it isn't. The egg came first. Do you deny the existence of dinosaurs now?

Doubting Didymus

If the fossil record was in any different order than it is, then we would not be able to infer evolution from it. Therefore evolution is a falsifiable theory.

dk

dk: Oh, I see, now its ignorance that proves evolution?
dk: So now the proof of evolution is contained in evidence inconsistent with evolution? ps I’m not trying to be an asshole, but whatever life forms existed in the Cambrian Period don’t exist today, because they evolved. Were I to try and disprove evolution I’d look at living fossil. How did living fossils escape evolution? Nonetheless whatever existed 6 million years ago wasn’t human, therefore doesn’t comment on what it is to be human, anymore than a container of two moles of hydrogen and a container of one mole of oxygen comment about the properties exhibited by a mole of H20. That’s the truth you guys won’t admit.
dk: I think you’re wrong. If evolution proved people sprang to life from several independent sources that would shred creationism. If God’s chosen people the Jews had gone to ruins like so many ancient dead cultures, that would have shredded creationism. Archeologists could have shredded the Biblical account, but instead verifies it. I think its nuts to present the bible as scientific cook book, its not a book of science.

dk

If pigs had wings they could fly! Hey, the fossil record didn't support Darwin, so the theory was augmented to punctuate evolution with a little zesto. No matter how stuff changes over time, scientific theory adapts and that's a good thing. Hey!!!

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

dk

So are you going to address the issue, or blindly turn your back and wink.

lpetrich

Some organisms do better than others, and their genes will be better represented in later generations, thus giving rise to a population with genetic programming for superior performance.

Not that "superior" is relative to circumstances in many cases, what is good for one place is often bad for other place.

And how is that supposed to be the case?

Specializing to chicken eggs, however, one finds that this is an interesting conundrum. Here's a Darwinian answer:

The egg has the variation (new gene sequences), and the chicken the selection (domestic chickens are selected for various features that their owners find desirable).

They don't -- their outward features evolve at a rate of nearly zero compared to the outward features of other organisms.

And molecular-evolution studies show that "living fossils" do plenty of molecular-level evolution.

I fail to see the point of that remark.

However, these several independent sources could also be special creations. In fact, some pre-Darwinian biologists, the "polygenists", had had exactly that opinion.

What a load of camel dung. They've successfully continued their ethnic identity, but they've remained a very small population. Which says nothing about which deities, if any, rule the Universe.

Some Biblical history does indeed hold up, but some of its "history" might best be described as pure fiction.

So what? That does not change the family trees one can derive from the fossil record; it simply shows that outward-feature changes occur in bursts in small offshoot populations.

What do you consider "positivism", O dk?

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

Daggah

There is no issue, as you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.