Denial of Evolution VI.

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by garbonzo, Jun 4, 2013.

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  1. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    How so? Because someone among them caught wind of a debate about gradualism?

    I think if we analyzed the content of the site we would probably find plenty of evidence of absurd and dishonest arguments against science.

    I still haven't understood how the 1980 debate, or neo-Darwinism in general, alters the fact that evolution happens. And that's all that matters to creationists. They want it not to be true and will resort to lies and attacks on science to try to unring the bell.

    You haven't said what is wrong with what is being taught to our students:

    • A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring.
    • Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them.
    • Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened:
    — More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources.
    — Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources.
    — Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring.
    — Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others.
    — Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation.
    — Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.

    Which of the above needs to be removed from the curriculum?
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2013
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Most rely on ignorance to maintain their beliefs.

    I thought so.
     
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  5. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    don't ask me stupid questions like this, go patronize some other dumbass.
     
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  7. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    while you are thinking, think about this:
    why has NAS decided to make this particular issue unavailable even though the issue resides on their server?
     
  8. AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe I'm going to wake up tomorrow and my driveway will be made of rubies.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because it's a 33 year old article, and sensible websites will concentrate on maintaining more recent research.
     
  11. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    doesn't fly, older issues are still available.
     
  12. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    oops, double post.
     
  13. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i wouldn't hold my breath if i were you.
     
  14. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    On which one? Hoping that creationists aren't idiots, or finding ruby driveways?

    Probably the same likelihood of both, come to think of it . . . .
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    There are older articles that have not been superseded by more recent ones, and that are not duplicates from other sites. So?

    Although I can see a political motive available as well: reputation is a serious matter, and the NAS may wish to disassociate itself from the kind of public reference and argument visible on this thread. If that article has become famous for its use as seen here, they might want to shift the taint to its original publishers.
     
  16. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i can no longer defend my position because i do not have the original text.
    i DO know what i read.
     
  17. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    What do you mean, that they posted all the issues for 1980 except this one?

    I am still having trouble understanding what it is you are proposing. On the one hand you want to focus on Gould's 1980 remarks, because, as I understand you here and in earlier threads, publication of this controversy in Science elevates Gould to a position of authority.

    But now you also want to say that NAS (or perhaps you meant AAAS) is censoring Gould?

    What exactly are you getting at? Are you trying to say, yes, there is a split among experts over Gould's punctuated equilibrium, or that most of them simply discount it? Or that something is rotten in the state of science? All of the above?

    All of this is very confusing since you have still not said why it matters as to the question of whether Darwinism, neo-Darwinism and/or Modern Synthesis are subject to the remarks by Gould, since whether any of them are or are not, we are still talking about the fact that species evolved, creationism is a hoax, and the creationists' catastrophic version of origins is utterly absurd. Feel free to correct me if I'm not representing your position correctly.
     
  18. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    I am still having trouble understanding what it is you are proposing. On the one hand you want to focus on Gould's 1980 remarks, because, as I understand you here and in earlier threads, publication of this controversy in Science elevates Gould to a position of authority.

    But now you also want to say that NAS (or perhaps you meant AAAS) is censoring Gould?

    What exactly are you getting at?

    Edit:

    So in other words you believe the archived article at JSTOR is a counterfeit version? So something is rotten somewhere, perhaps a conspiracy or something similar. To do what, undermine Gould? We have other ways of looking at that position than relying on the theory that the JSTOR copy is a fraud. We can simply go to some of the more recent debate on this subject. There are several camps, I can think of three: Gould, Ayala and Dawkins. That covers an awful lot of evolutionary biology, and none of them denies that species evolved from ancestral forms. That's why your remarks are so confusing to me. I don't get the point of all of this.
     
  19. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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  20. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    you obviously misread the post. (#164)
    see post 173
    i cite gould because he's a paleontologist, biologist and a darwinist.
    he has the expertise to make the judgments i use, not because of his "position".
    in my opinion his hypothesis of punctuated equilibria (with modifications) will explain the current state of evolution.
    are you feeling okay?
    it was a simple question, with an apparent not so simple answer.
    reread post 173.
    yes, you are by about 100%.
    for one thing, you should never refer to evolution as a fact.
    the best you can possibly do is say as far as science has been able to determine evolution is a fact.
    another danger is correlating a third variable with 2 others without cause.
    i believe this is what happened.
    it made sense, and everyone agreed it made sense, and that's the way it happened.
    there is one other scenario:
    i'll send a PM on this.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2013
  21. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    no, that is not what i believe.
    maybe.
    the crazy thing is i can understand why there would be.
    if you think about it, our mod team is a bunch of conspirators.
    your parents are conspirators.
    you are terribly confused
    find the issue, read it.
    it's been hacked before, someone has probably got it somewhere.
     
  22. Rav Valued Senior Member

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    Then we would expect you to agree with him when, in the context of discussing his hypothesis, he says things like this:

    "For a variety of reasons, small isolated populations have unusual potential for effective change: for example, favorable genes can quickly spread throughout the population, while the interaction of random change (rarely important in large populations) with natural selection provides another effective pathway for substantial evolution. Even with these possibilities for accelerated change, the formation of a new species from a peripherally isolated population would be glacially slow by the usual standard of our lifetimes. Suppose the process took five to ten thousand years. We might stand in the midst of this peripheral isolate for all our earthly days and see nothing in the way of major change."

    Do you see now how his hypothesis, although opposed to conventional conceptualizations of gradualism, is actually a form of it? As such, far from it being a radical overhaul of evolutionary theory, it simply promotes a particular variable speed model.
     
  23. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    Rav

    Punctuated equilibrium and gradual change are basically the same process, but during times of great stress(evolutionary pressure)when ecosystems are changing rapidly, the outliers that are damped down in less stressful times are suddenly offered a chance, mainly because the status quo becomes unsustainable. There are likely to be traits among those outliers that increase suitability in the new conditions and those will survive where other traits die out. Thus evolutionary change becomes relatively rapid. The Cambrian explosion was one such period where the new forms seemed to appear instantly in the fossil record, though it actually took several million years. That instance was caused by the innovation of differentiated multicellular life.

    Grumpy

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