Denial of Evolution VI.

It doesn't tighten anybody's pants. The only thing that does is you, in your obstinate clinging to a meeting 30 years ago and your stubborn determination to ignore everything that has happened since in this field.

It is as if someone were to point to the disputes that took place in the early years of the c.20th over the Rutherford model of the atom, as evidence that physics is in disarray. It's just bonkers.

Face it, Leopold, the caravan has long since moved on. If you want argue about evolutionary theory, at least have the wit to do so on the basis of today's version, not some piece of history from a generation ago.

 

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Is it difficult to breath with your head buried in the sand like that?

 

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You have long argued this, but it is incorrect. Both patterns are found in the fossil record. The statement "small accumulating changes do not occur" is by itself incorrect. That leaves it to decide whether the statement "50 attendees were incorrect" is true, or whether you are mistaken in your opinion of what they said.

Punctuated equilibrium seems to have a specific meaning to you which I think needs to be refined. For one thing, when sudden speciation occurs, the trail that scientists would like to see recorded is broken geographically. Spurts in speciation tend to coincide with changes in pressure at the geographical edge of the niche in which the ancestral phenotype had a foothold. In part punctuated equilibrium relates to punctuation in location of the finds.

You also said earlier that modern humans did not evolve gradually. Given the short history of Homo, it's not clear to me what that means. For one thing, the process of finding fossils is a work in progress, with new subspecies being found at random times in recent years. No doubt there will be more to follow. For another, it raises the question of what a skeptic such as yourself would require of a fossil in order to say it demonstrates gradual speciation within Homo.

Is it your contention that punctuated equilibrium undermines the Theory of Evolution?

 

He has made it pretty clear that he's not making any claims; he realizes he's in over his head. Thus his strategy has been to "manufacture doubt" and claim that evolution is, somehow, wrong. That's why he keeps saying "but the conference people disagreed!" rather than stating his beliefs on the issue.

 

Would be consistent with the "Teach the Controversy" strategy followed by the ID people, certainly.

But that strategy is all to do with hoodwinking ignorant senators, congressmen and other legislators. Trying it on in the science community is never going to get far.

 

The problem here is that, to the average person, it can be hard to tell the science community from the mildly curious from the blatantly dishonest. All he needs to do is muddy the waters.

 

It may be that his unwillingness to speak candidly is held in check by the enforcement of the policy against trolling. I'm at a loss to explain why that would serve as a deterrent except for someone who really wants to engage in dialogue here. But why engage on a science site against science except to enjoy bickering? He does seem to want to say something - he has invested quite a large number of posts to his insistence that this particular conference marks some substantial change in science. This includes several threads I've followed over the past year or so. At the same time he doesn't seem to want to talk about the content of he theory and not even the related material from Gould, Ayala et al.

In fairness, I suppose one's personal world view should not be used to minimize the content of their ideas, the ideas should stand on their own merit. Ayala is an ordained priest, but his science chops and his brilliant insight into this issue aren't discounted for it. leopold should take heart in that.

You may be right, and I see gmilam is corroborating what you say. My thinking is to offer him an objective platform to say that it either undermines evolution or not, and take it from there. That being said, I would not want to play poker against either you or gmilam as you both have a knack for reading a bluff.

 

Is there such a policy? After watching people like Chung, MotorDaddy V.Espinoza etc post I find it hard to believe that such a policy is enforced here.

 

Maybe it depends on how much science content the devil's advocate is able to draw out of us. My earlier thoughts here were to post the tenets of the theory in dispute and show that as much as the deniers will discredit theory generally, they aren't willing to talk about the truth of any specific tenet. Darwin was aware that the fossil record was not smooth and continuous, so there's really no argument there. The other statements claiming that evolution is a belief, or that there is no proof, can be defeated by establishing the logic that says that a conclusion held to be true can only be defeated by proving one or more of its supporting facts as false. But it's hard to get the naysayers to use even basic logic.

 

The moderators seem to be far more concerned with decorum than with content or trolling.

 

billvon

The policy on this forum is just about right, IMO. While we don't want abusive, blatant trolling but we can't get rid of all of them, it gets pretty boring if everyone just agrees, or if all the disagreement is about the minutia of scientific theory. These types of threads provide the lurkers or browsers with good information, exposes the stupidity of the anti-science crowd and provides entertainment for grumpy, old curmudgeons who no longer have classrooms full of mush brains to abuse or make fun of.

Grumpy

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Nothing we "know" can be "known". For every known there is an unknown...

For every "belief" there are facts and logic which derive belief. This does not mean the belief is accurate or intelligible to communicate to another. It is only important to understand the reason the person decided to create "purpose" from this belief.

For every "belief" there is a known and unanswered "why". For every unknown there is multiple people to argue "how" unknown. Until someone asks a stupid question that appears to be an answer..

 

i would very much like an open and candid discussion on this topic and on the article in science in particular without all the creationist, religious, supernatural, anti evolution horseshit.

there is a reason these scientist reached the conclusion they did.

 

Is this your rebound, to post more meaningless nonsense?

Meaning what? What does this have to do with the topic?

You really don't need to be so vague. It's pretty clear that there is rational belief, which is supported by some logic (which may even be faulty) and then there is irrational belief, which is the belief that persists in the face of sufficient reasons against it. Except for true delusions (as in schizophrenia) the irrational mind is in deliberate denial of the facts, evidence and logic that would lead to a rational belief.

As far as the questions concerning origins of the universe and of organisms are concerned, it reduces to a division between rational and irrational belief. The rational mind tries to stay reasonably informed, recognizing that inadequate facts and evidence can lead to false conclusion. That is, the rational mind seeks truth. The irrational mind ignores facts and evidence, at risk of falling into false conclusions. Truth is expendable.

Since science is the method of explaining unknowns, it does no good to stop and declare that the facts supporting a belief remain unanswered. That's simply dodging science, and inevitably it's done to prop up a false, irrational belief.

More vague generalizing. You need only establish that people who bother to do the work to collect the answers remain the authorities on the subject, and the lazy people forfeit their rights to complain further.

If that's an attempt to glorify stupidity, it's worthless.

 

Fossil evidence is based on sparse data, that could span thousands of years between specimens. Say we were collecting fossils which are dated hundreds of years apart, and all of a sudden we see a new bird species that seems similar but different. Say the forest has long recovered and we may not be able to tell that Yellowstone burnt and that the newly evolved species, actually migrated in. We would say mutation and evolution by default, correct? Biologists are not geologists so they would not bother to check.

Darwin's lab was based on an island and therefore a biased eco-system where even if there was a fire the same species would move back in. If he had gone to Yellowstone, which is more open, before the fire and collected specimens and then returned after the fire a decade later, he would conclude the speed of nature to reform and for local species to change quickly, almost like genetic magic. Darwin's journey is almost like a religion so this may be hard to see or accept.

With respect to the entropic force, If you look at osmosis, we have a membrane permeable to water with high solute concentration on one side. The water will freely diffuse in the direction of higher solute concentration. The reason is this is the direction of increasing entropy. Osmotic pressure is what is generated by this diffusion based on entropy. The force generated by the entropy generates pressure where pressure is force/area. This force generated by the increasing entropy of water is called the entropic force. Life makes use of this force as does evolution. I can accept the general concept of biological change that we call evolution. But the current mechanisms is short a few variables. It does not do a proper energy balance by failing to include the entropic force. That brings new things to the table not limited to empirical. The migration consideration is to show how easy it is to come up with an empirical theory. Making it a religion takes time.

 

a clear, NO!
of course this could mean anywhere from a no to a yes if you are the poster known as grumpy.

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What is your thesis then? That punctuated equilibrium discounts the Theory of Evolution?

What conclusion do you mean, the one that says there is no such thing as gradual speciation, or the one that says that both gradualism and punctuated equilibrium are consistent with the data?

 

Let me reply to myself with a challenge. Let us assume Darwin came to Yellowstone instead of Galapagos and based on this huge scale observations how would have altered the theory? This takes thinking and not memorizing.

Survival of the fittest is more important when the ecosystem is reaches steady state, not when it is being filled. Darwin was comparing England and not the US frontier, when it used the island as the criteria. England had old blood and old money and power. Yellowstone was full of opportunity and options.

 

leopold

Just as there are reasons we now know the conclusion they reached was wrong. 30+ years of additional scientific inquiry tends to do that to old scientific arguments.

You are going to find(if you are honest)that Grumpy knows something about the subject. Their no was an opinion, it turns out that it was wrong.

Grumpy

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