NialScorva

Sounds like an uniformitarian assumption to me.

But there's an interpretation to gravity as well. Dropping a ball and measuring gravity is as trivial as poking a fossil and saying that it exists. You aren't testing anything, you're measuring it or showing that it exists. In the Newtonian scheme of things, gravity is just an acceleration. Plug it into the right equation and you can calculate orbits. Except that it doesn't always work, as is the case with Mercury's orbit. Special relativity eliminates this contradiction, but at the expense of making the ball dropping measurement a somewhat special case where the observer is in the same frame of reference as the observed object. There are quite a few people who have issues with special relativity as well, and yet physics is considered the hardest of the hard sciences (hard in the sense that it produces results that aren't subject to bending or interpretation). You can also look at any number of proposals for quantum theories of gravitation and get an entirely different set of interpretations.

I guess my major point is that all science is based upon evidentiary arguments, it's just a matter of degree as to how pedanticly you want to argue against them. As I joke above, one could argue that 9.8 m/s^2 as Earth's gravity is just a uniformitarian assumption and that such a thing changes over time. Setterfield did much the same in his arguments for a exponentially decaying speed of light. On the other hand, he positted that the decay was uniformly exponential until the 1960s, so he wasn't really arguing that uniformitarian assumptions are wrong in general, but that particular ones were wrong.

The question becomes not so much whether one is making uniformitarian assumptions (because you will *always* be doing so), it's whether one is making good uniformitarian assumptions.

There's somewhat of a category error in comparing evolution to measuring g, as well. The burden of proof on evolution would be the equivalent of relativistic physics or some other large collection of interconnected processes, not the measurement of a single constant.

Malachi256

However, I can test gravity all I want. It won't run out.

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"Sounds like an uniformitarian assumption to me. "

Lol, good one =)

Yeah, I have no problem with most natural laws =) I'm just not convinced of the fact of macroevolution nearly as much as others...

Your other points are interesting, but I will have to resume at another time. For now I'm takin' off =)

faust

Malachai, I'd like to return to your earlier question, re: which species concept, where's the line, macro=micro+time.

I'll take the position of BSC. Also, I disagree with the premise that macro=micro+time. That doesn't answer the question of "where's the line between them?" since you don't give a minimum amount of "time" required.

If your position is that the minimum length of time for micro-evolution to result in macro-evolutionary changes is defined as a time longer than is observable in a human lifespan, well, even that isn't long enough since there are experiments (with fly colonies for example, and plants) that have been running far longer than a single human lifespan.

Just how much "time" must be added to microevolution before it becomes macroevolution? I personally don't think it's a good way to draw a line (if there is indeed any good way). The distinction between the two is posited by you, therefore I would like to see what the distinction is, since observable time makes no sense.

I'll provide examples and answer all questions that you ask.

PS: If you would like, we can start a thread in formal debates and define our positions, and debate goals and i challenge you to a moderated debate in "Formal Debates"

Dr.GH

On a personal note, I would like to know what school gave you your degrees? Thanks.

pz

I weep for my country.No. It's a cop-out. You are grasping at excuses to rationalize a prejudicial disbelief.

You should have learned early in your education that the word "proof" has no place in science, for one thing. The phrase "proven science" is hopeless.

The court case analogy is horribly flawed. The logic of the law and science are very different, as is the methodology.

Macroevolution is as securely demonstrated scientifically as is microevolution. Both happened. The mechanisms of macroevolution are murkier and are currently being debated, but there is no scientific doubt that it occurs, nor is there any lack of evidence for it.

And when I say the mechanisms are being debated, I mean there are serious discussions of legitimate candidate hypotheses...and no, creationism isn't one of them. And young earth creationism? Jebus. That's barely a joke in the scientific community. It's more a symptom of gross mental derangement.

Spenser

If this isn't evidence for macroevolution of hominids, then what is it?




God created all these at different times in differing images, yet let them die out in an order that looks suspiciously like they are becoming more advanced through time until he created us? :banghead:

Malachi256

Dr.GH:
Given the current hostile climate against creationists in public education, I would have to know your motivations before giving out that personal information... entirely out of defense for my school, as I could care less what conclusions about me that information may let you come to.


Faust:
I would enjoy a discussion about the "line" between micro and macroevolution (do you agree this is also largely a discussion about the biblical concept of "kinds"?). Before it can be a debate, though, I would need to solidify my own position, as you are trying to get me to do now (keep in mind, I come to these forums not to clobber atheists or something, but rather to refine my own positions). Macro=Micro + Time was not meant to be an exhaustive definition of macro evolution, but rather just another way of describing it... and one that I've never heard challenged before. Heck, if I remember correctly, it's one of the ways Dawkins describes it in Blind Watchmaker... although I could be wrong.

Ultimately, I don't think there's an easy line that can be drawn. The fact that there are different species concepts shows how unified the experts are on the most fundamental taxonomic categorization.

Perhaps it's something as vague as pornography, "I know it when I see it..." (anyone know which supreme court justice said that??)

Would you call a change in allele frequencies in a population over multiple generations macro evolution? I would hope not.

And surely the path of early reptiles descending into modern reptiles and birds would not be microevolution, but taken as a whole, this is a macroevolutionary "event" (although obviously not a single event...). In contrast to the Coelacanth, which has achieved some sort of evolutionary statis and has not "macro evolved" despite some inevitable micro evolution...

I could keep going, but I'm going to ask you to make a statement of your own, hopefully clarifying where I need to take the discussion next...

Noting the examples I gave above, the extremes of a simple shift in allele frequency over a few generations, and the significant difference between Aves and Reptilia, what is your definition of evolution? Do you not make any sort of "sub" definitions or distinctions?


pz:
"I teach Biology,
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I weep for my country."

Why's that, exactly?


"You should have learned early in your education that the word "proof" has no place in science, for one thing. The phrase "proven science" is hopeless."

Of course science never proves anything 100%, but rather agrees on trends until counterexamples are shown. I apologize for my mis-use of words.


"Macroevolution is as securely demonstrated scientifically as is microevolution. Both happened."

This sounds like a "fundy" statement. I can demonstrate, or at least easily understand, how I can observe microevolution in my lifetime. I cannot do this with macroevolution. Saying "both happened" does about as much for me as me saying "God said so in the bible" does for you. Unless you want me spouting off christian rhetoric in here, please don't do the same for me.

"The mechanisms of macroevolution are murkier and are currently being debated, but there is no scientific doubt that it occurs, nor is there any lack of evidence for it.
And when I say the mechanisms are being debated, I mean there are serious discussions of legitimate candidate hypotheses...and no, creationism isn't one of them. And young earth creationism? Jebus. That's barely a joke in the scientific community. It's more a symptom of gross mental derangement."


Well, I've heard enough intelligent people express rational doubt, that I disagree about there being "no scientific doubt" (rather obviously, I would assume).

I'll just assume you're atheist, and will ask you not to use the Lord's name in vain. Saying "Jebus" in a forum that is supposed to be about rational discussion seems silly, it baits an emotional response from me, which I don't appreciate, and furthermore makes you seem more like a Jesus hater, rather than someone who is enlightened and would therefore (hopefully) tend towards benevolence.

The borderline ad hom of suggesting I have a "symptom of gross mental derangement" also does nothing to contribute to the discussion.
If you honestly feel I'm looney, then what does that say about you for attempting a rational discussion with me.
If you are not attempting a rational discussion, then you are participating in an immature attack that reminds me of (an intellectual equivalent to) the physical bullying that many boys took part in during the very insecure and confusing times of their junior high years.

The fact that your are a moderator saddens me, and I only hope this sort of attitude does not pervade because I have clearly already found several very sharp people who are willing to talk with me, and that's got me excited.

Malachi256

Spenser:

I could throw the usual creationist responses at that statement, and on the surface it's a very compelling picture.

Unfortunately, I'm not a trained paleontologist, nor have I done much independent studying in that field...

All I can say is that I've seen hoaxes along those lines, I've heard of men using similar displays to make similar arguments about the superiority of whites over blacks, and I've seen in my own lifetime human beings who clearly have a wide range of skull sizes, and most of the knowledge comes to me second hand from other creationists.

Obviously there are responses to all of these arguments, but I'm not in a position to really make an educated discussion about it.

The short version - it's interesting, but no, I'm not convinced, nor do I agree with your statement about God making them at different times, all in His image, etc etc....

RufusAtticus

Dang it why do I have to be taking my writtens.

No that is a hypothesis. But it appears that you don't understand exactly what type of hypotheses that are made in the study of evolution.

For example, "birds are descended from dinosaurs" is a hypothesis. Such a hypothesis leads to predictions such as:

1. There existed creatures in the past that contained both avian features and dinosaurian features.
2. Out of all living taxa, birds' closest relatives are crocidillians and thus should share similar DNA, phylogenetically.

And guess what. Uncovered fossils confirms 1 and bioinformatics confirms 2. These are examples of how scientists test "macroevolutionary" predictions. It seems to me that you are laboring under a false notion of what science is. Science isn't about experimentation. Science is about the analysis of data. Experimation is only one of the many ways in which science acquires and analysizes data. Arguing that since we cannot predict the outcome of evolution exactly that it is not scientific is like arguing that one cannot study casinos because it is impossible to predict how the dice will land.

Actually one cannot because healing miracles are supernatural events and science can only address the natural world. Although one might be able to determine the natural cause for something, people can still cling to whatever adhoc supernatural explaination they want. Take for example the following one. "The Doctor's didn't heal me; God did. Satan planted false evidence to make you believe that the Doctor did it."

Kevbo

Malachi, I think that making a distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" with inexperienced students (is this a high school class?) serves to obfuscate the issue, because life exists on a continuum. There really isn't a universal definition of species, and when it comes down to it, there isn't a universal definition of life. For example, would an intelligent, self-replicating program be a form of digital life? Should a virus be considered alive? Every generation of organism is at least slightly different in average allele frequency than its parent generation, and sometimes posesses novel alleles. Over time, average characteristics shift, change, and branch. All those things are accounted for by mutation, genetic drift, natural selection, and environmental changes. That's the explanation of evolution that I'd give to students, because micro and macro are really just semantic devices of our language that don't have a corresponding universal reality in biology.