Denial of evolution II

Specific inadequacies:
Why do you think micro proves macro?
What about the thousands of non-existent intermediary species?
Why does dna contain information and where does that information come from?
What about the Laws of Thermodynamics, proven true a thousand times over?
Why are there species like sharks and crocs that haven't evolved for 65 million years?

Trust me, I've heard dozens of explanations for these problems - but the explanations were about as see-through as a teenager's excuse for not completing his homework on time. If the theory of evolution is so rock hard, tried and true, proven over and over, why are there no fallacy free answers? I hope someone can clear this up, but I really am starting to have my doubts.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't think it does. The current paradigm in scientific methodology and one that has served us effectively for some time is that we can disprove, we can never prove. This is mark of the openmindedness of the scientific method.

What micro-evolution does do is offer a plausible mechanism for achieving macro evolutionary steps over a sufficiently long period. The reason, I suspect, that the debate has continued as long as it has is that macro evolution probably occurs in two ways: either it is the slow, gradual accumulation of small changes over a long period as envisaged by Darwin, Dhobzansky and many others; or it is occurs in leaps - as with Goldschmidt's 'hopeful monsters' - or in bursts, as with Gould and Eldridge's punctuated equilibrium model. There is evidence for both, because both models exist in nature. The apparent uncertainty is simply a reflection of the duality of the process.

[You might want to do some reading on homeobox genes; a very fruitful area.]

Your question needs rephrasing before it makes sense. What about the thousands of non-existent fossils of intermediary species ?

This is not much of a problem, at least not in the sense you intend it. The process of fossilisation requires a sequence of events that is extremely unusual. Most dead animals are very efficiently disposed off, skin, flesh and bone, by all kinds of animals and organisms, not to mention the inanimate forces of weathering and erosion. Add to this that we can access only a tiny slice of rock at the surface, which represents a very small percentage of the total volume of that rock. It should then be apparent that most animals will not be fossilised and an even smaller percentage of these will remain out of reach of the palaeontologist.

Chance and the self organising tendencies of matter. I expect you will have more to ask about this point, but I shall await your specific questions before answering in more detail.

I don't wish to give offence, but your questions are sounding as if they have been lifted straight from a creationist website, which makes me wonder if you are sincere in your quest for answers, or if you are simply trolling. I hope it is the former.

1. What about it?
2. No, it has never been proven, it has just been found to be so universally applicable that one cannot easily doubt the truth of it. (Nor should we.)
3. The observation that entropy either remains the same or increases in any reaction is only true for closed systems. The biosphere is most decidely not a closed system, so thermodynamics presents no problem for evolution.

You are mistaken. They have evolved. Very slowly, very slightly and generally without any impact upon their behaviour or form. (Since you say you have read in this field, I'll simply note that the broad phenotype may remain the same despite subtle changes in the genotype.)

However, the previous remarks are really incidental and I add them only for completeness. The fact of the matter is that those beasts have evolved so little because they are well suited to their environment. While evolution is generally seen as a process of change, its mechanisms are also well suited to maintaining stasis.

I'm trying to hold a civil conversation with you. I think we shall get along better if you hold the snide remarks in check: trust me, when it comes to snide remarks I have some experience in that area.

If you want fallacy free answers try a fundamental religion. If you want challenging questions, where the answers are wrested from nature by hard work, an open mind and the readiness to abandon a hypothesis on the turn of a piece of evidence, then stick with the science. It has a track record for those with the courage to follow it, even if they don't like its apparent destination.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Ophiolite, I felt this was simpler than producing a giant multi-quote post, sorry if its not as clear this way.

Okay, micro does not prove macro. And you seem to be saying that it's a good idea and people are working on it. Fair enough.

And we take it on faith that the intermediaries existed. I like it - it's honest.

Self organizing tenancies? Doesn't that suggest direction? And exactly what odds are we talking about in the chance department here?

Oh, and I believe I mentioned my distaste for biased sources...

I am sorry, but... the biosphere not a closed system? Yes we are affected by the universe around us to an extent... but how open is that system as of the day life formed till today? And wouldn't the solar system or even the galaxy qualify as a closed system which we are a part of?

Sorry, I thought that the evolution of sharks fit the micro category. My question was why they hadn't gone beyond that.

My snide remarks have not been directed at anyone here yet. Only where earned.

As to that last bit you posted, if all that is true, why is I.D. met with such hostility? If it's false why not just disprove it? I mean it's just science right - not a philosophy or religion or otherwise a way of life - or is it more than just data to most people?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Ophiolite answered all Pteriax's questions well, but I doubt Pteriax's learned or will thank him. (Typically the people asking these questions either have no desire to learn or are incapable of learning as blinded to evidence by faith.)

I can extend Ophiolite's answer to this question:

Why does DNA contain information and where does that information come from?

with an example:

First admit that a human who can ride a bicycle has acquired some information ("control information" if you like). The DNA information was acquired the same way the bicycle information was - by repeated trials, most of which failed, but slowly these errors were eliminated. Thus your logic has you in the awkward position off saying that no one can learn to ride a bicycle by trial and error unless God gives them the information needed.

------------------
** The DNA information can not only be applied but now even be expressed in words and where it is stored is very precisely know in some cases. (In the current epic, mankind is rapidly learning how various sections of DNA information are applied to determine various things like eye colors. how it is transferred to RNA, where and how it is "read' to make complex molecules, etc.)

No one knows as well precisely where the "bicycle information" is stored or how it is applied to let you ride a bicycle. At least we do now know much of it is stored somehow, somewhere, in the cerebellum part of the brain. In 100 or so year we may know precisely where and how it is applied at least as well as we currently understand how the DNA information is applied and where it is stored.

 

Again let me use an example to help you understand. Suppose you have gallon of a 1 molar NaCl solution which has ~6E23 molecules of salt in it. Let it slowly evaporate during more than one year in a constant high humidity (~95% relative) and temperature box. It will make a few, very large, cubic NaCl crystals.

What are the odds that the largest crystal has exactly a pre-specified set of the original molecules? OR re dissolve those 6E23 molecule and repeat the process. - What are the odds that the largest crystal this second time has exactly the same set of molecules as the first made earlier?

SUMMARY:
The fact that it is highly improbably that any particular set of molecules will form a particular large crystal does not prevent SOME set from always forming a largest crystal. LIKEWISE fact that it is highly improbable that any particular set of life forms, such as those now on Earth, can be produced by a long chain of accumulated random chance events does not mean no complex life forms can now exist by chance. As illustrated in my prior post, the Darwinian trial and error rejection (no reproduction of that mutation eventually) process is sort of like learning to ride a bicycle – keep trying long enough and you get a set of viable life forms for almost every “nitch” that can sustain a living organism.

Must leave how now so will give quick answer to another question:

The sun is the important energy source that lets a local decrease in entropy occur on Earth. - Things such as a random pile of bricks becoming well organized into a wall or molecules becoming well organized into an organism (or a salt crystal) are decreases of local entropy with no violation of the law that the total system entropy increasing.

 

I just want to restate things, so that there is no doubt. In science we do not prove anything, therefore our inability to prove macro-evolution is quite irrelevant. Secondly there may not be anything as distinct as macro evolution. It may all be one and the same.

It will be interesting to determine just what the detailed mechanisms involved actually are, but this doesn't really have much bearing on the reality of evolution. We all, plants, fungi, e.coli, frogs and man, have a common ancestor. That's a done deal, as it were. We are merely dotting the eyes and crossing the T-bones.

No. I haven't explained myself clearly. We don't take on faith, we take it on the basis that the simplest explanation for are multitude of observations is that the intermediaries do exist. We are continually adding to our library of intermediate forms. Guess what; the intermediaries generally have the form we anticipated they would have.

Moreover, in some circumstances, for some organisms, an excellent chain of evolving forms exist. We see the intermediate forms here and so can reasonbaly expect they will exist for others organisms even though they have not enjoyed such effective fossilisation.

Of course creationists, who obsess over the issue of human evolution, seem to have difficulty appreciating the importance of intermediate forms in the likes of brachiopods and graptolites.

Of course it isn't. The sun is pumping energy into the system 24/7. It is that energy that is utilised by life to forestall the second law.

Because there was no environmental pressure on them to change. They are a very succesful form in their environment. The environment has remained stable in all important ways.

No. Why do you think it does?

1. It makes no meaningful predictions, therefore it is not falsifiable, therefore it is not science.
2. It has been cynically dreamt up as backdoor method of introducing creationist thinking into as many walks of public life as possible.

 

This is very helpful. It provides insight to your nature. The above sentence contains two logical fallacies and one unverified assertion. Not helpful to the discussion, but I learn much about you.

I personally was told how to ride a bike, then did it correctly the first time. The information was placed there by an outside source (my dad) and was immediately useful.

 

What are the odds of that amount of sodium dissolved in water being in a controlled environment in that container size for the one year time period, without a scientist or other intelligent being putting it there?

As you can see, that is a fruitless debate that can easily go on infinitely.

 

Really? Plants and animals - the same ancestor? And what of ancient life forms like the octopus having an eye as sophisticated (and evolved) as a relatively new life form such as Humans?

Could you give some examples please?

Could you give some examples please?

Do computer programs self organize? Or must there be input from a programmer?

1. It does make predictions (Which could be meaningful) and is falsifiable - or have you only read about it from biased sources?
2. Doubtful, since scientists came up with the theory - and they were not creationists.
3. So I ask again, why discount it out of hand rather than analyze and disprove it?

 

I think not.
I think you are just "ducking and weaving" with an attempt to divert from a question which can be discussed to a question of "first cause" which cannot be.

Theories of Evolution (for the solar system, the planets and living organism) do not address the question of how it all started. - Asking that is how you are trying to divert, instead of discuss in the area of question about how living creatures changed.

Let me ask three point blank questions (to cancel your attempted diversion and return to the subject of evolution theory):

(1) Do you deny that life, original in the sea, came onto the barren (at least of animals) land and evolved into the vast array of creatures we find today?

(2a)* If yes, is your position God made them all (life forms) as different species, which can only slightly change / adapt (or go extinct) as their environments change?

(3) If my guess in (2) as to what your POV is, is wrong, then what is your POV as to how this vast array of creatures now on Earth came to be?

BTW your request 3 at end of post 369 (why discount it out of hand rather than analyze and disprove it?) is a fair question. It is part of the reason I asked (2a & b) and (3). I.e. I cannot disprove creationism until you clearly tell me which version you want to have disproved. There is a "creationism museum" with people and dinosaurs living side by side - is that your POV to? If not, tell what "creationism" is for you.

---------
*(2b) I am curious as to how long ago God last made a new species. I.e. if "Yes" is your answer to (1) and my guess in (2) is correct, then he made man long after the dinosaurs. I hope you have read post 83** about the preá species, which we know is less than 8000 years in existence. I.e. has God made this new specie less than 8000 years ago?

**See subsequent related ones, especially 131.

PS congratulation on not falling down from the bicycle even once after only receiving verbal instructions for your father. (I admit I find that hard to believe but it is possible, only extremely rare.)
I do not deny that God could exist, could make different species at different times, even only 8000 years ago. But do not believe it happened that way as there is no supporting evidence for that POV and literally rooms full of evidence in many different cities supporting the Darwinian POV (with slight refinements for the original version).

PS2 It is bed time for me - I'll try get back to your reply in the morning.

 

Then your thoughts are inaccurate assumptions, which fits with my earlier assessment of your debating abilities.

Yes. Laugh if you like, but I cite lack of evidence.

Yes.

I would have to go into detail on relativistic expansion of the universe to thoroughly answer that question, but the short version is that they were made over a large period of time. Also, could you explain how you 'know' this species is less than 8000 years old? (you just telling me 'it is so' does not qualify as evidence)

Logical fallacy. What the existing evidence supports changes with our understanding of various factors. As well, types of evidence are not specified; examples: circumstantial, implicit, empirical, etc. Furthermore, the quality of evidence and just what constitutes evidence are left to the imagination.

 

Hey guys, go easy on Pteriax. Though he's a creationist troll, I sense that he is young and has much promise. His problems with evolution are old ID talking points, with which he seems to have little exposure to an honest counter-argument. His confusion over thermodynamics is laughably sophmoric. I think is ignorance is genuine naivety, not the sort of deliberate retardation demonstrated by our lovable Baron.

Wanted to point out a couple of things-

Homeobox, or Hox genes, are gene clusters that control other genes. Eukaryotic organisms have the genetic code for all sorts of weird, prmitive stuff. Relatively simple mutations can result in flies' halteres becoming another set of wings- essentially moving the fly several orders backwards in evolutionary time. Legs and other organs can be moved or duplicated, thanks to Hox mutations. Ducks can be given chicken feet, and chickens duck feet, by a Hox controlled gene, Gremlin (that we also have homologues for).

I think you phrased this the wrong way- sharks haven't changed due to continuous pressure that selects for a similar phenotype. Without any environmental pressure, we would expect drift, especially in apex predators with relatively small populations, over hundreds of millions of years, and with numerous mass extinction events.

 

I wasn't going to mention it, but since you have raised the issue, homeobox genes were first recognised (IIRC) in drosophilia melanogaster, beloved of experimental geneticists and popularily known as the fruit fly. So I thought my reference to a frutiful area was elegant.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

In my original post I said this.

You are mistaken. They have evolved. Very slowly, very slightly and generally without any impact upon their behaviour or form. (Since you say you have read in this field, I'll simply note that the broad phenotype may remain the same despite subtle changes in the genotype.)

Which pretty much matches what you are saying, I think.

Pteriax,
earlier you said this:
"If the theory of evolution is so rock hard, tried and true, proven over and over, why are there no fallacy free answers? I hope someone can clear this up, but I really am starting to have my doubts."

Later you responded to this question from BillyT "is your position God made them all (life forms) as different species, which can only slightly change / adapt (or go extinct) as their environments change? ”

You replied, "Yes".

It didn't take long for those doubts to become total, did it?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

It is clear, as I suspected, that you came here with an agenda and no real intention to learn. That is dishonest. If you wish to apologise for that dishonesty I shall be pleased to resume a dialogue with you. If you do not I shall merely attack your more ludicrous observations at my leisure. The choice is yours.

 

Hey Roman, go easy on Ophiolite.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

It is clear what he meant; I gave the same answer, but perhaps a little better some posts back, by including the phrase "near optimal design for their environment"

Ophiolite is saying the same thing, implicitly - I.e. after long period in which they became sharks, in an essentially unchanging ocean environment, they were "optimized sharks" and had no competitors to knock them off the top of food system but very minor changes did occur with drift.) Lower down on the food chain there were lots of major changes with many competing, both to eat and not get eaten, so even slight enviromental changes could make one species go extinct and another expand to replaced it.

Thus for top of the food chain sharks, almost any significant change by mutation would be sub optimal and disadvantaged. True, if the optimum is broad peak of some design curve, there could be (and probably has been) some drift in the design of sharks.

 

Actually, we already have an affirmative answer to the first and a negative one to Pteriax's second question.

There are computers that are both non digital and yet not analogue computers, called "neural networks." I hate that name as they have nothing to do with neurons, but are sets of manmade units, typically in three* layers (input, intermediate and output) where the strength of the "connections" changes as they are organized to learn their task. - I prefer to call them "connection machines" or "connection computers" but lost that battle long ago.)

They lean from a "trial set of problems" When their output is correct (answers are supplied for the trial problems) the stronger existing connections are increased in strength and/or the weaker ones diminished in strength. There are many "rules" now used to make these changes in connection strengths, one of the simplest was the first and is called Hebbian learning. (Hebb was a doctor, neurologist, I think, and was trying to make a commuter work like the brain which does learn without anyone programming it.) His rule is much like what happens in the brain to make the connections between various nerves change as you learn something. The more modern "rules" for changing the connection weights make the learning of most tasks much faster than Hebb's rule.

Pteriax might (and should) try to defend his POV by saying: OK, but someone still needs to supply (or program in) the learning "rule." That is true for almost all connection machines, but not all. I forget his name but am almost sure he was a Finn that made a connection machine that did not even need to have any rule given to it to use to learn. I.e. its first task was to learn how to learn. Thus this anticipated "Pteriax objection" that machines need someone to tell them how to learn is not universally true. This Finnish version needs no instructions of any kind. It is never used as it is much slower in learning than even the Hebbian rule machine.

SUMMARY:
Thus the answer to "Do computer programs self organize?" is already "Yes, some do."

but I agree with Fraggle, that in a hundred years or so they will not only self organize quickly and efficiently, but also have as one of their tasks to design (or to evolve, if you like) even better faster versions of machines that can self organize to an even wider ranges of tasks. When this stage of evolution of intelligence is reaches the rate of increase in intelligence evolution will increase at least a million times. I.e. what took life forms millions of years to advance by even one percent will require only a few weeks. I just hope these rapidly evolving super intelligent forms still have some use for humans - perhaps we will be able to amuse them with our stupid quaint ways?

What connection machines can learn to do is amazing. For example, given as the "training set" the bank's records of loan application data and the subsequent loan repayment records, the connection machine can do better than most humans in deciding which new loan applications to reject. I do not think they are "smarter" than most humans yet, but they are immune to the wink from a good looking lady applicant or the “brother in law” effect. etc.
Second example:
Terrence Sejnowski was at Johns Hopkins Un. the year I was there in the cognitive science department on sabbatical scholarship from my APL/JHU job. His 1980s Netalk connection machine impressed the hell out of me and many others. It learns to talk / read out loud! (Well actually, it only learns how to drive a voice synthesizer, which does the talking.) I just discovered that wiki has a page on it and Terrence Sejnowski, which even include a sample of Netalk reading. See (and hear) it at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NETtalk_(artificial_neural_network)
(Use the sub link to hear sample) Read at least the abstract here:
http://www.cnl.salk.edu/ParallelNetsPronounce/index.php

PS Terry was at JHU for only that year and then went to Salk Institute, in CA. I have heard about an half hour of Netalk at various stages of its learning. It is very much like a baby learning to speak - first dicovers an < a > sound and combines it alternatingly with the < m > sound, but the baby is also learning the meaning of "mama" whereas Netalk is not understanding anything. - That is the hard part. - Why I bet on ~100 years instead of Fraggle's 50.

--------------
* It has been proven that a three layer connection machine can do any task that a n>3 layer manchine can do, but in some cases for at least n = 4 the extra layer does make learning faster.

 

/groan

Re: sharks

I understand what you meant, it's just that what I said and you said in the latter post (I missed the earlier one) are represented differently, mathematically. ie, no selection over long evolutionary periods vs. purifying selection.

 

I think post 83 and others in the exchange with the Baron up to an including 131 makes it quite clear that is the case, but for your benefit here is the main evidence:

More than 8000 years ago the tiny rocky island on which up to 40 preá can live (It is 90% rocks with little grass - most of each generation die of starvation, yet somehow up to 40 have survived and evolved for 8000 years.) was joined with the much bigger Santa Catalina Island, only 8 km away. It could support 100,000 preá but none are there and not one preá bone has been found there. (Pre historic shark teeth are found after storms on the beach other bones are found when graves, wells and house foundations are dug, so some should have been found if any were preá there only 8000 years ago.) The preá give every sign, including DNA studies, of having evolved from the Santa Catalina Guinea Pigs, SCGPs, which are themselves distinct from other guinea pigs. (See photo of one in post 131.) but not a separate species of guinea pigs. Thus, one can be quite confident that the preá never lived on the nearby big Island.

More than 8000 years ago, when the last ice age had lowered the sea level, these two island were one - one joined land mass. If preá had existed on their current land back then at least their bones would be found all over the big island and since it is very lush with all sort of vegetation. I.e. the preá should still be there in abundance instead on the edge of extinction on their tiny isolated island. One fisherman's cat let loose on their tiny island would have then extinct in no more than a month. (There are no predators on their tiny island and that cat would be dead of starvation a month after eating the last preá.) Again: the preá did not exist 8000 years ago when the current two island were one.

SUMMARY:
8000 Years ago the preá did not exist anywhere. Once the melting ice raised the sea level to cut off their SCGP ancestors on their own island, then all 5 factors that the theory of evolution says speed the development of a new species, were operating and evolved the preá (They are about half the size of the SCGPs as not needing as much food was a distinct advantage. Not having to watch out for any animal that might eat you made their eyes move from the SCGP's side positions to look forward for better depth perceptions, etc. All of the difference between the preá and their SCGP ancestors are exactly what would give slight advantages to the mutants that had these slight changes in the struggle not to be among the ones that starved to death.

Unless you think God made them less than 8000 years ago or some spacemen had them as pets and landed on the tiny island to release some of the preá pets I see no other alternative consistent with the current facts (which agree 100% with the theory of how they might evolve from their closely related DNA found in the SCGPs). If you have a “not evolution” idea, which is consistent with the facts, please tell it.

Do you really think God put them there, less than 8000 years ago, and nowhere else on Earth, for most of each generation to starve? Not my idea of a kind God.

 

Well, then. It's much worse than I thought. Particularly eye-opening is the behavior of a 'moderator'. Ophiolite, that you think if I believe in God I must not believe in evolution is retarded. I was trying to have a civil discussion - I had honest questions and doubts about evolution. The sad part is that you people actually seem smart. I had thought smart enough not to make snap judgments and so forth. If you so inaccurately assess me, your assessments of anything else are also suspect. Sorry to have wasted your time.

 

I must have missed the moderator's bad behavior you refer to and where Ophiolite said God did not believe in evolution. (I sort of doubt he did as that as it would be, I think, like his saying “Unicorns do not swat flies with their tails.”) Can you give links for me to read what you are talking about? What is “much worse”?

I have not insulted you but do get the impression you do not actually want to learn by the "duck and weave" reply you gave me in post 368. (It has been made quite clear to you in several posts that you ignore by again bringing up the first cause problem in 368 that evolution theory has nothing to say about first causes -only about how life forms change and why and remarkably this theory was done prior to any knowledge about DNA coding of how an organism is made or how there may be a slight mutations.)


Also to best of my knowledges you have never corrected or refuted any of my posts with any sort of evidence. Also I am driven to think you do not want to discuse at all by your refusal to tell what type of the mutually contradicting version of Creationism you do accept. Etc. (Your creationism must be well defined before I can try to disprove it as you requested.) - All I know is you are not in the group that thinks God made all the creatures at one time about 6000 years ago. I.e. unlike them, you accept that man came on the scene much later, after the dinosaurs were long gone.

I am still giving you the benefit of the doubt about your desire to learn. We no longer have the services of the Baron here (a definite moderator's mistake, IMHO) so I am happy to have you here letting me make the pro-evolution case by replying, respective fully to you, as I did the Baron from post 83, until he was locally banned. I assume you have read at least post 83 and 131 by now but you have not discussed either or any of the related between. Do you really want to discuss, or just duck and weave to avoid doing so while posting your POV?