Denial of evolution IV

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Hercules Rockefeller, Oct 27, 2009.

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  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    It is a demonstrated fact (you can even see a video of the dissection showing the path of this nerve is more than 4 meters longer than it need be as it still passes under the aorta and collar bone as the giraffes evolved longer necks of millions of years).

    Here is the creationist’s attempt to cope with this embarrassing fact:

    … giraffe fossils were laid down in depositional events after the global Flood, we might conclude that the fossil record of giraffes represents post-Flood intrabaraminic (‘within-kind’) diversification. Furthermore, recognizing that the earliest known Cenozoic giraffids (as well as the only other living member of that family, the okapi) possess short necks, we might well infer that the ancestral giraffe on the ark was short-necked and subsequently diversified into longer-necked forms, …” From: http://thenewcreationism.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/musings-on-loopy-laryngeal-nerves/

    They did not choose the alternative that God was a very stupid designer. Instead suggest that in the short time since the biblical flood the giraffes grew (by adaptation? To reach higher leaves?) their long necks; yet say that supporters of evolution are wrong as we don’t see significant changes from one generation to the next.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Thank you! He had me fooled for a while and I was actually wasting my time responding to him.

    I should have realized he's no scientist when he doesn't have the healthy curiosity to spend a few minutes figuring out how to use the QUOTE and /QUOTE commands.

    Hint: Hit the REPLY button and study how the software builds the original quoted text!
     
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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have a reading problem? In post 119, I said “Namely it is know that small changes do occur and no reason is known that limits what gross change may accumulate by many small steps.” And again as: “OBVIOUS TRUTH, unless you can show some limitations on the extent of change that can be achieved one small step at a time over very long periods.”

    Instead of trying to show some limitations on the change that can accumulate from many small sequential changes, you pretend you cannot read the twice stated description of the “OBVIOUS TRUTH.”

    If your problem is understand what “accumulation” means, I will give an math example of small changes accumulating: Start with value 0 and then at random( as the “small steps”) add or subtract 1. After a large number of these small steps it is highly likely that the value achieved will have a magnitude of greater than a million. (The expected net movement from the starting point in a random walk is the step size times the square root of the number of steps taken.)
    Yes, Evolution is the ONLY known theory to explain the vast set of different creatures that do exist, unless you want to drop the the scientific method and postulate, with zero proof or support: (1) God exist. (2)God created this vast set of different creatures. Or….. {You are welcome to supply an alternative scientific explanation if you can, but don’t pretend to be just here to learn, etc. until you meet the minimum requirement of logical thought. I.e. existing things have a cause}

    You should also learn the difference between evolution and adaptation. Your confusion is seen here: “, chance mutatios giving an individual a slight benefit simply says NOTHIGN about the origin of adaptions such as the desert beatle,…”

    Individuals make adaptation and do NOT pass them on to their offspring. For example you can develop an muscular body if you work out with weights. But your children will not be any more muscular as a result of your workouts. – It is your body that is adapting, nothing is changing in the genes which your child will get from you.
    Probably were moved as you don’t seem to understand much about what evolution states. There are no mechanisms –There is a mechanism, which is changes in the information use to create the next generation. Until recently with man’s active selection to server some goal, these changes were random alternations in the genes. First purposeful changes in the gene pools were things like the domestication of wolfs to make dogs, then later cows to give more milk, etc. In the last couple of decades man has learned how to transfer sections of DNA from one creature (or even plants) to another to produce organisms with characteristic he wanted.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 6, 2011
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I would like to state that I disagree with any talk of abiogensis here: evolution is a process, like nuclear fusion or photosynthesis or rainfall. Abiogensis on the other hand may just be an event requiring bizarre, extremely rare circumstances and incredible luck for all we know; the two are completely different topics and I think a separate sticky should be made for abiogenesis.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Although a bizarre stroke of luck may be the event, the odds seem really long against that.

    Evolutionary theory seems a far more likely approach to explanation of abiogenesis. It seems to fit everything we know, so far is in agreement with each new discovery bearing on the matter, and would require much less in the way of improbable happenstance.
     
  9. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Sure it could but evolution as being disused here in about biology evolution, not the evolution of not living molecules into a fully biological system. We don't discuss social and technological evolution here do we?

    Yeah with more galaxies than grains of sand I don't think so! Life could be astronomically unlikely for all we know, for all we know it has only happened once in this whole universe! Now I'm willing to entertain theories on how life arose, and certainly not "theories" involving sky wizards either, but I fail to see what scientific theories on how life arose have to do with arguments on evolution.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2011
  10. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    tell, me, what kind of evidence could i provide to contradict the assertion that mutations and selecton created the co evoluton of anything?
    I am here, as i stated, to debate and question the theory and learn more about it, not to give an alternate one but too see are my opinoins so far(ie, im not at all convinced of the mechanisms) totally off.




    I indeed understand "darwinian " thoery(neo darwinian), simply becuase i may have said somethign silly doesnt mean i dont automatically not understand the theory, it means i said somethign silly about a part of it i did not grasp. Although i notice you didnt tell me why it was silly?
    are you saying there was no first cell, becuase that contradicsts what i have been reading in my textbooks? and why wasnt there a first time DNA supercoiled? how about explaining it instead of quickly asserting I understand nothing?

    you are not seriuos? all that proves is that there are girrafes, not how they came to be? unless you assume before hand you know indeed how they came to be which i do not since i cannot yet apply the mechanism without feeling incredulous. come on you cannt honestly beleive that since there here that is evidence for the thoery?



    well unfortunatly i dont imagine everthing happening in one step, but you see for these parts of the girrafe to coevolve there would indeed need to be co ordination of mutations of specific parts, all you can do is imagine something like that as it is(for me at the moment) pure fantasy.
    how do you actually imagine it? you dont get a mutation that would lengthen lets say the bones withotu gettign one that lenghted everthign else in the neck, and if a girrafe did , it would be selected out becuae it would most likly have a big problem in its neck. So how exactly do you explain this co evolution of parts in the girrafe? I would like to know or be directed to a paper dealing with it if you have the time..

    and that propositon is.....coevolution!! and the reason is.....BECAUSE there here and becuase small chagnes occur in modern animals dna....which we have never seen accrue to produce co evolution of parts(as far as im aware) not in bacteria and not in fruit flies...you are taking the extrapolation too far, evidence for a theory is not evidecne that it is fact(liek many would have you believe)...when i say theory i am referign to the mechanisms not the fact that evolution occurs.


    and what predictions would be made with the assumption that parts co evolved? hmmm, that an animal would have multiple parts all functionign together!1 yes amazing predicton there, im not convinced but i would like to no what predcitions you refer to.
    when you say its succsefull, im sure there were many scientific theories that were succseeful but were overtured, that is to say they didnt have the full picture and were later replaced..i agree it has been sucsesfull, but that does not mean it accounts for everything in nature and in fact there countless things within the natural would that all we can do is simply apply the thoeries mechanissm on top of what we see , and most without critically evaluating the mechanisms


    Well im not claiming to be an expert, but if you think i havnt actaully questioned anythign to do with the theory, then im afraid you have a bit of reading to do before spouting out such wild allegations.


    what a dreadfull presumption, i understand the theory, im just not convinced of the mechanissm by which it gets its results.
    Is that a crime? does that make me a creationist? come on were more mature then this!
     
  11. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    wow

    This is the strange argument Ive heard from dawkins and others? I dont get it for many reasons..

    1. If there was indeed a desinger(i would never rule it out!) then how in the hell could we assume he would be (as theists agree) perfect in any way?

    2. for all we know there may well be a reason it is like that, we once thougth teh appendix was useless, and that was proven wrong, simply not understanding the function of something or rather the reason it was "layed out" in a certain way proves nothign except that we dont know!

    3. its a silly argument considering it is utterly and completely overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of natures brilliance, beauty, logic, balance, practicallity and invention, so i actaully think people arguing for "bad design" are slightly dead inside or have not studied the natural world!
    (since it didnt harm the girrafe, couldnt it simply be a mutation that was neutral)..but anywho

    silly argument.
     
  12. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    what is this "he had me fooled" crap?
    I dont see what i have done wrong, unless it is wrong to question anything to do with the thoery?
    of course im not a scientist, but i never claimed to be?
    i indeed DID spend the time to figure out the quote function thanks to help from pete, this is very odd and addresses nothing but your ad hominem attitude. come on a bit more maturity please!
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    1. Anyone can see it's a compromised design, so whatever led to that arrangement was not intelligent.
    2. The appendix is still a vestigial organ, even if it isn't completely useless.
    3. We aren't arguing that nature cannot come up with brilliant solutions to various problems, but we do argue that the nature of those solutions reveal how they came to be, as variations on previous forms, not intelligent overview.
     
  14. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    ok

    What a strange argument? when you say one small step at a time you almost infer logic. when indeed it is not one small step over time, it is many many in many different random palces which have got no co ordination and are stochastic,(not to mentions punctuated equillibraim, dosent soud like "small step over time" to me) you are infering that it happened that way simply becuase we have as yet seen no limits? infact i have read articles about limits to variations in species, if there are no limits then why indeed do we see just that when growing foods or breeding animals? are you saying there is no limits to the changes you can make to such organisms?

    By saying many small steps you utterly trivialize the task you are setting such an uncoordinated mechansm, it is almost presuming that, once something is selected for, it automatically sets the species on the road to higher complexity, when infact it just survived, and more often then not that is by pure chance, not what mutations it had or inherited. if you are a fish in a shoal, it wont matter what slight variation you have once a shark comes randomly snapping its jaws around..
    You forget the sheer amount of co ordinated changes you are invoking
    here!

    so how about giving me evidence that when for example circadean clock is "hit on"(adn it was separatly many times which is very suspect, since it obviously took many many generations to get to 24 hours so what happened before that?) that the section of the brain dealing with the circadean clock co evolved also, for if it didnt, well you know!
    or how bout some evidence other then handwaving and point mutations or deletions in bacteria that countless organsism coudl co evolve there sexual organs, chemicls, emotions, mechanism etc, soem to the point of unbelievable contrivincy! where is the evidnce for that other then specualation im curios?




    nope wrong again, i pretended nothing, and it is NOT an obvious truth that those changes will accumualte to higher complexities at all, that is an assumption based on your logic that "becuase there here" is good evidence.


    oh i know what accumulation means, but i dont simply state it happened for everthing i see in nature. oh look, tree frog puts its egg inside carniverous pitcher plant, oops! but wait, the eggs secrete the perfect enzyme to stop them bieng digested! must have been those forsight lacking accumultions again.

    male angler fish loses its abiltiy to digest food when it reaches maturity...
    Must fid femael to live off of her,
    female emits chemal, male finds her due to specialised front olafactory system..
    now, when male reaches female, eh secrets just the right enzyme(even though they evloveld separatly) to break down the females skin adn fuse it to his own(wow) therefore feeding off her blood supply! interstingly his gonads do not gete digested like the rest of his insides..

    problem

    the first males to have lost the function of there insides(strange thing to be selected for indeed) would simply have to have produced taht enzyme otherwise there species is kaput!
    can you simply attribute this to them blind stochastic mechanisms of evolution? or is that faith on your part?





    when you say evolution, do you mean change over time? because that pretty much explains everything, it does not prove the mechanisms did it.
    It proves it happened.
    And no i dont want to propose god did it, although i am not opposed to design i am not theistic in any way either. Certinaly it would be far from unreasonable to assert design in nature, that does not make it true of course.
    oh, and lets just for a moment assume it was all the product of desing, would that then be ignored because it was unscientfic?
    i am willing to look at all avenues, limiting yourself is not the way too move forward!




    First off i have no alternative, but i dont claim to, second i am not pretending anythgn and i find your supposition utterly childish. If you'd read my nitrogen thread i freely admited i was utterly wrong, therefore i learned somethign in my very first post! so please save it and adrress my remarks..


     
  15. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    so a compromise is not intelligent? again you are arguing from incredulity, simply saying, I dont know why its like that so therefore it is bad desing!
    all the while not weighing teh evidence, ie there is much more "good desing" in nature then "bad desing"...you are thinking of a god, i simply suspect design!



    2. The appendix is still a vestigial organ, even if it isn't completely useless.

    And my point still stands, it was once thougth useless, now its not!
    we simply didnt know its purpose.
    again, couldnt the nerve be the result of neutral mutations accruing?
    either way, its simply foolsih to infer bad desing through somethign you cant understand.


    3.
    cars are variations on previous forms and intelligently overviewed?
    Either way, the nerve neihter prooves design or chance, its simply reveals its own existence and our ignorance..

    lets just say it did turn out to be bad desing though i,e it could have been done better, does this prove evolution, no, does it disprove desing no(unless your closed minded enough to belive that the only desinger could be a perfect god of the theists?)
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    A compromise is neither intelligent nor stupid. It is simply an intermediate solution.

    That's sort of subjective. Is a backwards retina in an eye a good design or a bad design? The question is sort of immaterial. The important question is - is it good ENOUGH? And evolution says it is.
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Why? What specific mutation (i.e. what phenotype change) could not occur on its own?

    Why? You might end up with a giraffe with a pain in its neck who nevertheless could get a lot more to eat, so he will do better than his short-necked cousins.
     
  18. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    Ive seen many intelligent compromises from an engeneering standpoint.



    its subjective....yet you clearly think you can pick out bad design? thats called hiipocracy..
    your supposed mistake in the eye is also ignoring the fact that the eye is one the most coplex, mind blowing, co ordinated and miraculous things in the known universe.
    again, it is an argument for incredulity saying that the reitina is backwards, therefore bad design.
    there could be very good reason why its like it is. This neither disproves design OR proves evolutoins mechanissms.

    Why be so quick to presuem there is no reason for such design?
    From what i no about nature i would much more reasonably think there is a reason until proved otherwise..Unless of course i had a prejudice against anythign other then what fits my world view but you dont do you? no never...

    recent research interestingly shows that the "inverted desing " is actually quite alot more effective then verted soo...dont be so quick to jump to conclusion.
     
  19. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Compromises can be intelligent, but in this case, it is not. There is no reason to have such a long nerve, as it does give the giraffe problems there is no benefit. This arrangement could only have arisen if it evolved through variation from previous forms. Only evolution explains it. There are no viable alternative theories.



    But we do understand the function of an appendix, it exists in functional form in other animals! If I was born with an extra thumb, I would probably find a use for it, that doesn't mean it's there for a purpose. The giraffe's nerve is indeed a function of mutation and natural selection that lengthened it's neck, the nerve was just along for the ride.

    Cars are intelligently designed because they aren't limited to variations on previous forms, they can be re-designed from scratch and often are. A designer would necessarily have seen that the nerve was routed in a awkward way and fixed it. This is evidence for evolution because evolution explains it perfectly and no other theory does. Intelligent design isn't even a theory.
     
  21. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    "there is no reason"? again all you are doing is arguign from incredulity, I dont know what its function could be, therefore ill presuem it has none and use that as evidenec for evolution...
    to say only evoluton explains it is odd, becuase if you mean change over time then yes you've explained it, but it proves nothing about the mechanisms or how it co evolved through them.




    clearly iwas talking about when we didnt understand it, now we do, and now we know it has a function, why not presume there is a reason for the wiring of the nerve since such presuppositions have been proven wrong in the past, incredulity is not evidence.


    [/quote]If I was born with an extra thumb, I would probably find a use for it, that doesn't mean it's there for a purpose. The giraffe's nerve is indeed a function of mutation and natural selection that lengthened it's neck, the nerve was just along for the ride.
     
  22. Zenithar66 Registered Member

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    yes it is a fact that the nerve is there, not that it is "wired incorectly", that is presupposition and incredulity, again i refer to the appendix, once thoght to have no function, now we know it does.
    anyway this implies that this "faulty" wiring evolved AFTER the girrafes divergence doesnt it? or did there ancsters have this wiring?
    becuase if not, then why would natural selection favour such wiring?
    hmmm



    indeed a terrible explanation, but this adds nothing to the debate and neither prooves or disproves anything.

    again, do you know if we can expect the girrafes ancestors to have such wiring?...and does this "faulty" wiring seem any less silly then you believeing that that nerve could co evolve along everthing else?
     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not incredulous, I do understand it. The giraffe received tremendous benefits from a long neck, and a nerve that used to be short had to become longer because there is no evolutionary mechanism that would radically rethink the routing. The nerve does have a function, but it's tremendous length does not. There can be no benefit from a longer nerve, since it's function is to transmit sensory information and obviously a longer one wouldn't be as fast.

    There are too many examples of this to dismiss as a misunderstanding of it's true function. For example, a whale's vestigial hind leg bones may have a purpose, but they are quite obviously a remnant of an animal that used to use them to walk.

    It had to. Any giraffe who's nerves didn't keep up with it's neck would die. They might even be part of the same gene. Any giraffe who's neck didn't evolve would also die.



    It works, but it's not optimal. A designer can start from scratch. So say there is a designer that could not change the design is inherently contradictory.

    No dude, you don't get to postulate a designer for life and say it isn't the god of religion. You are trying to remove the religion from Intelligent Design, which is the reason for the term replacing "creationism" in the first place.
     
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