Does Common Descent Follow Logically From Darwin's Four Postulates?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Eugene Shubert, May 10, 2017.

  1. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    Where did you get your degree in math?
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    As usual, the creationist dodges round the engine of natural selection, in order to make specious claims about tornadoes in junkyards or the equivalent.

    Deliberately missing the point is a useful rhetorical trick, when preaching from the pulpit, to people already predisposed to one's line of argument. Unfortunately, when one's words are written down and people have the chance to scrutinise them, the shortcoming in reasoning become all too apparent.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I could have got it from a Crackerjacks box and corrected you on that one.

    What's the first physical model you see after a coin flip in an introductory "Probability and Statistics" class? A marble cascade - a triangle of layers of shunts of 50% presumed left/right deflection, a place at the top to put in a few marbles, the distribution in the bottom layer of catch cups illustrates the first distribution studied by the student. They are called Galton Boards, or Galton Machines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_machine.

    If you look at Francis Galton's first design, on the right of the link, you can see that the odds of ending up in one catch basin or the other at the bottom are not at all the same as the odds of ending up back at the funnel entrance if the apparatus is turned over.

    X to Y odds are not at all the same as Y to X odds - in one of the simplest possible physical situations.

    This, from you,
    is simply and obviously wrong.
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You believe something about someone else and therefore you have defined something to be a molecular property ? That begs the question.
    If I believe you engage in incoherent (or say, erotic) thinking, have I defined a certain molecular property to be incoherent (or erotic)?
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2017
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Forums like this are used to alternative theories

    Recently the world was introduced to alternative facts

    Now comes alternative definetions

    Stand by to beam over to alternative reality

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  9. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    So what do you think? Is it about time to shovel this pile over to the "Denial of Evolution VII" or even make a new "Denial of Evolution VIII" or just 'cut to the chase' and go straight to the Cesspool?
     
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, it is no use beating a dead horse, but some of the responders to the OP made interesting and logical arguments, which I would hesitate to throw in the trashcan.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. Nothing like that. You claim DNA is "maximally magical." It is not.

    Words mean things.
    Then you have failed, since neither is true.
     
  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Not quite to any of those

    At least this one appears less likely to live under a bridge

    Not like another with a 3 letter name who I will not name

    Answers <<< and I use the term lightly are extremely repetitive and frequently a question in reply to a question

    This one is more cute than obnoxious

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  13. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    I wholeheartedly agree. Whining about the supposed magic in magic numbers, magic squares and maximally magical molecules, while refusing to acknowledge the scientific properties of their perfectly valid scientific definitions, is incredibly shameful.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Except its you who is doing the whining.

    In native language you would be called a "contrary".
     
  15. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    I first defined an inheritable magical molecule in post #142.

    "An inheritable magical molecule specifies all the molecular information needed for building and maintaining an organism such that virtually every mutation of that magical molecule represents a viable form of life."

    Mutations are random. If virtually every random mutation of that molecule would represent a viable form of life, then it's perfectly acceptable to say that that molecule is magical. Look up the definition of a charmed life.

    "Definition of charmed life. : a life protected as if by magic charms : a life unusually unaffected by dangers and difficulties."

    Clearly, if magical inheritable molecules were maximally magical, then we can just exclude the "virtually every random mutation" condition. That would be having a maximally charmed life.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    OK. We'll call that the Eugene Molecule.
    Agreed.
    Yes. If the Eugene Molecule existed, it could do that. Of course, it does not actually exist. (But you can believe it does if you engage in magical thinking; that's always popular with creationists.)
     
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  17. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    Incidentally, I'm not the first person to write authoritatively about magical molecules. Imagine a glass of water suddenly starting to boil, producing ice cubes in the glass and a small cloud of steam rising slowly toward the ceiling.

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    Such a scenario is perfectly consistent with all the fundamental laws of physics. For a first course in the concept of fantastic molecular improbabilities, see chapter 9 of MR TOMPKINS IN WONDERLAND by the prominent physicist George Gamow.

    Back to what I was getting at about charmed molecules. An inheritable magical molecule is maximally magical if it specifies all the molecular information needed for building and maintaining an organism such that it and every successive random mutation of that unusually charmed molecule represents a viable form of life.

    Now, it's conceivable that an inheritable magical molecule can be more magical than that. And I specified an additional property in post #142 that is conceivably possible, which also strikes me as adding to the magic. "Clearly, if magical inheritable molecules were maximally magical, then every life form could evolve into every other life form."

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    I believe that all these clarifications should help. Who isn't understanding this?
     
  18. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Still dodging the engine of natural selection, is he?

    Or are we now reaching for the next rhetorical tool in the creationist box, which is to conflate abiogenesis with the theory of evolution?

    Ho hum.
     
  19. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I understand that you do not seem to have the foggiest idea what the theory of evolution is about. You also appear to be running some sort of strawman factory.

    I have no idea why you are permitted to post this continual nonesense in the science section.
     
  20. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    Natural selection is the pea in a shell game. I have yet to see anyone refute Dr. John Sanford's fifth axiom, which is obviously an inescapably true universal principle.
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Only you.

    The Eugene Molecule is indeed magic. No one here believes it exists other than you.
     
  22. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

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    If you understand evolution, then answer my question. Can one life form evolve into any other life form?
     
  23. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Why bring "magic" into it at all?
     

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