Denial of Evolution V

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Hercules Rockefeller, Mar 7, 2012.

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  1. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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  3. Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

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    One can hope so. We suck!

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  5. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I asked you several times to speak to the actual content of the study you cited. You have been dodging that.

    No, what I said said is that you helped me understand the war on science. I have learned more about how denialists think and the basis for their war. The theory stands undisturbed by that war. What's suffering is the effects of propaganda on the congregations, and the disturbances in the state assemblies and courthouses, where some of the war is waged. Public policy suffers. As for god, god is irrelevant to science, except as reminder of the ages when superstition and myth ran roughshod over science, and as a cautionary tale to students who are only now discovering the creation myth. I don't know what you mean by "your god" since I have no god.
     
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  7. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Because intelligence doesn't appear until nearly 4 billion years after the fact. And it's not design either. It's a gradual and random winnowing out of local weaknesses, then passing the better genes down by an automaton (meiosis). It's just a fundamental aspect of nature. Besides, the notion of ID is the entirely bogus product of superstitious and - in many cases ignorant - minds.

    In any case intelligent design wouldn't need to make your DNA closely match that of a banana, it wouldn't have left the birth canal marginally able to pass the infant cranium, it wouldn't leave the human spine incompletely adapted for bipedalism, or have made the embryo susceptible to genetic damage. Nor would it have needed to make the embryo morph through primordial stages of evolution (notochord, eye bud, gill slits, tail, etc). It wouldn't allow for genetic birth defects and numerous weaknesses that bioengineers are racing to fix. And so on.
     
  8. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i did not read what "science" had to say about the matter.
    i do not have access to the issue.

    i downloaded the material you linked to.
    i cannot open anything except the code book.
     
  9. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    You mean, as soon as anybody wakes up to the fact that you're a creationist, you will refuse to have any further discussions with them. How convenient for you. And how dishonest.

    Why don't you just out yourself and your religion?
     
  10. Aladdin Registered Senior Member

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    Because he gains precisely nothing by doing that, so why would he do it?

    Creating an impression of dishonesty and narrow-mindedness doesn't seem to bother him at all, so really there is no motivation in being open and forthcoming about his religious affinities and/or philosophy regarding the beginnings of life on Earth.

    My take is that he is either a very immature person or a troll. And considering the efforts already done by various members of this community in educating him, it is probably best if everyone just ignores him from now on.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Let's review your position on this:

    #1- "the original study was published in "science". that's the only source i will personally trust in this matter."

    #2 - "let's just say i have more faith in "science". i consider it more culpable."

    #3 - "i haven't read what was printed in "science" and therefor i cannot comment on what exactly they did. printed a story, did the "peer review" process, who knows?"

    #4 - "i did not read what "science" had to say about the matter. i do not have access to the issue."

    So you have a very strong opinion on an article you have never read, and indeed you're not even sure what it's about - and you don't plan on finding out. But you have faith in it. Sounds almost like religion.

    "fuck your god and fuck your theory, THAT'S the attitude you must take."

    If anger and bitterness won arguments here you'd have won a long time ago.
     
  12. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    why attack the messenger?
    is that going to make what i presented somehow invalid?
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Oh.

    Well, here again is the link to the original article:

    http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060124

    You need only read it to concur with what it says, what several of us are saying here, and what the many sites that reference it are saying.

    Yes, I also wasn't willing to pay for the material you were seeking from Science, but there is no logical connection between that and the content of the study itself which the authors themselves directly published in PLoS. If your intention is to present their study, then go to the study. Go to the link above. You will notice the authors are speaking the first person, and that they have fully authenticated that this is their original work, copyrighted by them, and this is where they posted the codebook, the data, their plots, the article, and other supporting documentation that exceeds the any normal confirmation of authorship.
     
  14. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I think you've done a pretty good job of that by yourself.
     
  15. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i will be honest.
    i am having a hard time in accepting what PLOS would say about this matter.
    dr. ayalas so called retraction for example.
    it's a direct result of that.
    the intention of the "sciencedaily" piece was to show that educated people in their field are having problems teaching what they are supposed to be "experts" at.
    most probably have bachelors degrees, and a good deal more probably masters.
    you can not simply brush this away as some kind of "religious motivation".
    some could be caused by that, but i believe they are having problems because the evidence just isn't there.
    evidence in this case of verified lab results.

    how scientific is the following?
    hey guys, evolution happens, we don't know how it happens but it does"
    be honest here.
    you speak of "the war on science".
    i ask you, who exactly is waging it?
    another "scientific" scenario:
    we know lifeforms change to produce completely different lifeforms.
    we don't know how or why but we know it for a fact.
    no, i don't think religion has as much to do with this as the lack of evidence does.

    what do these teachers know about evolution in the way of verified lab results?
    the short answer is practically nothing.
    yes, i will read the material, BUT with the view it is NOT from a peer reviewed source.
     
  16. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    It's the original essay of the Berkman et al, not a commentary by PLoS.
    Again, it's their original work copyrighted by them.
    It's just a summary of Berkman's PLoS article, which delivers a different message than that.
    Berkman surveyed their education and reaches a different conclusion.
    I am un-brushing-away Berkman's findings about religious motivation.
    Not according too Berkman.
    That's not what Berkman says.
    It takes several pages to be scientific about evolution, so to that extent I would have to say that your remark is not very scientific.
    you mean the Republican War on Science?
    If you mean species evolve through common ancestry, OK.
    If you mean species evolve by way of natural selection, that's a how and a why.
    You will if you read Berkman.
    They know it conflicts with their religious beliefs and they know it conflicts with the religion of the students and their parents. See Berkman.
    The short answer is creationism, Republicans, Tea Party, Limbaugh et al and FOX news.
    It's the authors' original work. If you want to know what they found out, you would have to read it. Peer review is probably moot, since it's been sitting in the public domain for about four years. You might want to ask yourself what a reviewer would be checking.
     
  17. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    leopold

    First, there is the FACT that evolution has occurred on Earth throughout the history of life as seen in the fossil record and as recorded by all the DNA of all of the lifeforms that exist today. Nothing in biology or paleontology makes sense without taking the fact of evolution into account

    We know a good bit about how it occurs, but there is still much to learn. Our THEORIES explaining the FACT of Evolution are always subject to change, revision or outright replacement given new evidence or understanding, but the need for change in our theories to correct errors does not indicate a change in the facts and the trend in our theories is toward greater congruence with reality over time(IE closer to TRUTH(TM)).

    Grumpy

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  18. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    A new genetic line in blond hair has been discovered in an unlikely place - among the people of Melanesia in the Solomon Islands and Fiji.

    The magazine Science reports today that scientists now realise that blond hair evolved independently at least twice in human history.
    Source

    After testing 1209 Solomon Islanders scientists compared the entire genetic makeup of 43 blond and 42 dark-haired islanders.

    The two groups, they found, had different versions of a crucial gene, TYRP1, one that coded for a protein involved in pigmentation. Switching one "letter" of genetic code - replacing a "C" with a "T" - meant the difference between dark hair and blond hair. A similar mutation creates blond mice by reducing the melanin content in their fur. ​

    ...​
    "If you can find a gene for blond hair that exists in Melanesia and nowhere else," Myles says, "then there's no reason why those sorts of genes don't exist all over the world in under represented populations, and affect not only hair pigmentation, but also disease-related traits."

    The study refuted the possibility that blonde hair was introduced by colonial Europeans, said Carlos Bustamante, a geneticist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, and a senior co-author on the study.

    "Blonde hair has clearly evolved twice," he said.

    Bustamante said the genetics behind blond hair in Europe were distinct from those leading to flaxen locks in the South Pacific.

    The Origin of Blond Afros in Melanesia (Original Article)
     
  19. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    the links i presented on page 2 this thread throws this entire post into dispute.

    which implies what?
    that evolution is mutation driven?
    countless thousands of fruitflies have given their lives to prove that false.
     
  20. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Precisely.
    It proves that the same trait arose in two isolated populations (isolated from each other) within the same species, by two different mechanism.

    One of those mechanisms requires the substitution of just one amino acid in one gene - which is a random mutation.

    While there's no evolutionary pressure for its selection, there is also no evolutionary pressure for its removal.

    Utter bollocks.
     
  21. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    then provide the lab results that prove fruitflys have been mutated into something other than a fruitfly.
     
  22. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I don't have to - evolutionary theory predicts that there will be many more failed, unsuccessful mutations than there are successful ones, and mutating a fruitfly into something else would require a sequence of multiple mutations.

    Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Your disingeuine trolling doesn't even constitute an absence of proof.

    Meanwhile, you deny evidence that has been placed in front of you.
     
  23. Hercules Rockefeller Beatings will continue until morale improves. Moderator

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    Mod note: I am not interested in your out-of-context Gould quotations. I have clearly indicated to you in post #32 that Gould does not discount a role for small gradual changes. Gould sees gradual change as having an influence in evolutionary history and his opinion is one of relative frequency of one process as against the other (ie. gradualism versus punctuated equlibrium).

    So, I am issuing you a formal warning that if you say once more that Gould does not support small gradual changes as a mechanism for evolutionary change, I will ban you for trolling.
     
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