Ice Age Civilization

October 13, 2012

Patently false, and probably the most absurd thing I've seen you say in a long string of absurdaties.

Modern Taxonomy is based on evolution therefor any branch of biology that requires taxonomy is dependant on evolutionary theory. Those dealing with extinct species would have a particularly difficult time of it, and the cross-over field of physical anthropology would be dead in the water.

Studying general physiology and ecology in comparison with other species requires bringing evolutionary concepts like adaptive radiation and co-development to bear. Physiology by itself uses evolution to explain the development of biological structures and by extension includes a sizable chunk of genetics.

In short, in the big picture, you can't completely divorce the study of something from the study of it's origins. Do they all study it? No, but you'd be hard pressed to find a dicipline that doesn't include it at least in part.

Variation and Hereditary and adaptation are processes well understood by study of genetics and molecular biology and biochemistry,the theory of evolution is no where involved.There was nothing really wrong with the Linnaeus system of classiffication so there was no real need to come up with a new system of classification by evolutionists and in most areas of studies it doesn't even matter.Taxonomy is not depended on the theory of evolution,it is a grouping of closely related similar organism.

The only real utility the theory of evolution has is for the historians and atheists and not the scientists.

According to your claim is that you can't divorce the study of anything from the study of it's origin is really amusing and depicts the general mentality of evolutionist.How do you think we started studying the Universe?.You don't really need to dream up an imaginary theory of origins before studying something empirically especially in biology.And i agree that origins should be studied further and we need to find an answer that is not fairytales.

Few examples of mainstream scientists and evolutionists stating the uselessness of the theory of evolution:

1.Jerry Coyne

Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist 08/30/2006

Supporters of evolution often tout its many benefits. They claim it helps research in agriculture, conservation and medicine (e.g., 01/13/2003, 06/25/2003). A new book by David Mindell, The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life (Harvard, 2006) emphasizes these practical benefits in hopes of making evolution more palatable to a skeptical society. Jerry Coyne, a staunch evolutionist and anti-creationist, enjoyed the book in his review in Nature,¹ but thought that Mindell went overboard on “Selling Darwin” with appeals to pragmatics:

To some extent these

excesses

are not Mindell’s fault, for,

if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits.

Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that

there is not much to say.

Evolution

cannot help us predict

what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding?

Not very much.

Most

improvement

in crop plants and animals

occurred long before we knew anything about evolution

, and came about by

people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’

. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of

quantitative genetics

has been of

little value

in helping improve varieties.

Future advances

will almost certainly come from

transgenics

, which is

not based on evolution at all.

Coyne further describes how the goods and services advertised by Mindell are irrelevant for potential customers, anyway:

One reason why Mindell might

fail to sell Darwin to the critics

is that

his examples all involve microevolution

, which

most modern creationists (including advocates of intelligent design) accept

. It is

macroevolution

– the evolutionary transitions between very different kinds of organism – that

creationists claim does not occur

. But in any case,

few people actually oppose evolution because of its lack of practical use

.... they oppose it because

they see it as undercutting moral values.

2.Philip S Skell and many others.These are not small names and are people who have spawned entire subjects i.e 'fathers'.

Philip S. Skell, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote in the August 29, 2005 edition of The Scientist: "I recently asked more than seventy eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding discoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss." --Philip S. Skell. August 29, 2005. Why Do We Invoke Darwin? The Scientist, Vol. 19, No. 16, p. 10.

Philip S. Skell was Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at Penn State University. He is sometimes called "the father of carbene chemistry" in organic chemistry, and is widely known for the "Skell Rule", which was first applied to carbenes - the "fleeting species" of carbon. The rule, which predicts the most probable pathway through which certain chemical compounds will be formed, found use throughout the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. He said that during World War II "I was personally associated with an antibiotics research group, engaged in the full range of activities, from finding organisms which inhibited bacterial growth to the isolation and proof of structure of the antibiotics they produced." Professor Skell died Nov. 21, 2010.

Ernst Chain (1906-1979) and two others were awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Chain identified the structure of penicillin, and isolated the active substance. He is considered to be one of the founders of the field of antibiotics. Concerning Darwin's theory of evolution, Chain found it to be "a very feeble attempt" to explain the origin of species based on assumptions so flimsy that "it can hardly be called a theory."^A He saw the reliance on chance mutations as a "hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts."^B He wrote: "These classic evolutionary theories are a gross oversimplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they were swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest."^B Chain concluded that he "would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation" as Darwinism.^A He was born in Berlin, Germany, and obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry and physiology there. He worked as a research scientist at Cambridge (also studying for a Ph.D. there), at Oxford University until 1948, and then as a professor and researcher at several other universities. In 1938, Chain came across Alexander Fleming's 1929 paper on penicillin, and showed it to his colleague Howard Florey. In their research, Chain isolated and purified penicillin. --Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. April 2008. Ernst Chain: Antibiotics Pioneer. Acts&Facts, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 10-12.

A. Clark, R.W. 1985. The Life of Ernst Chain: Penicillin and Beyond. New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 147.

B. Chain, E. 1970. Social Responsibility and the Scientist in Modern Western Society (Robert Waley Cohen memorial lecture). London: The Council of Christians and Jews, p. 25.

"My experiences with science led me to God. To be forced to believe only one conclusion -- that everything in the universe happened by chance -- would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye? Some people say that science has been unable to prove the existence of a Designer... They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But, must we really light a candle to see the sun?" --Wernher von Braun 1912 - 1977

"Wernher von Braun is, without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history. His crowning achievement, as head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was to lead the development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969." --From NASA's webpage: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/vonBraun/

Richard C. Strohman, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley, and an evolutionist, wrote in the March 1997 edition of Nature Biotechnology: "There is a striking lack of correspondence between genetic and evolutionary change. Neo-Darwinian theory predicts a steady, slow continuous, accumulation of mutations (microevolution) that produces a progressive change in morphology leading to new species, genera, and so on (macroevolution). But macroevolution now appears to be full of discontinuities (punctuated evolution), so we have a mismatch of some importance. That is, the fossil record shows mostly stasis, or lack of change, in a species for many millions of years; there is no evidence there for gradual change even though, in theory, there must be a gradual accumulation of mutations at the micro level." "We currently have no adequate explanation for stasis or for punctuated equilibrium in evolution, or for higher order regulation in cells." "We seem to lack any scientific basis with which to explain, for example, evolution." "Not necessarily so. It does suggest, however, that our evolutionary theory is incomplete." "The theory is in trouble because it insists on locating the driving force solely in random mutations." "It is becoming clear that sequence information in DNA, by itself, contains insufficient information for determining how gene products (proteins) interact to produce a mechanism of any kind. The reason is that the multicomponent complexes constructed from many proteins are themselves machines with rules of their own; rules not written in DNA." "The rules... of brain formation are not reducible to genetic maps and to the rules of genetic theory. Each higher level of organization has its own rules, and there is no continuous gradual transition from one level or hierarchy to the other." "We have been lulled into reasoning that if the gene theory works at one level--from DNA to protein--it must work at all higher levels as well. We have thus extended the theory of the gene to the realm of gene management. But gene management is an entirely different process, involving interactive cellular processes that display a complexity that may only be described as transcalculational, a mathematical term for mind boggling." "Understanding of complex function may in fact be impossible without recourse to influences outside of the genome." --Richard C. Strohman. March 1997. The coming Kuhnian revolution in biology. Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 15, pp. 194-200.

Sean B. Carroll, of the Medical Institute and Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, wrote in a 2001 edition of Nature: "A long-standing issue in evolutionary biology is whether the processes observable in extant populations and species (microevolution) are sufficient to account for the larger-scale changes evident over longer periods of life's history (macroevolution). Outsiders to this rich literature may be surprised that there is no consensus on this issue."-- Sean B. Carroll. 8 February 2001. Nature, Vol. 409, p. 669.

A symposium on evolution was held at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany in November 2001, organized by PhD students. The meeting report says that "the symposium ended with a panel discussion about questions of microevolution (evolution within the species) and macroevolution (evolution after speciation). The issue at stake was whether extrapolation from the selection theory operating on organisms is sufficient to explain all patterns of macroevolution. In other words, do we need an independent body of theory to explain the changes occurring above, as opposed to at, the species level? There was no general agreement among the panel members. It seems that the jury is still out on this important question."-- Gaspar Jekely. 2002. Meeting report - Evolution in a nutshell. European Molecular Biology Organization reports, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 307-311.

"Biology has been re-integrated twice already, first by Darwin in 1859 and then during the 'Modern Synthesis' of the 1920s and 1930s. In both cases, the success of these syntheses rested in part on ignorance. Charles Darwin could reasonably integrate biology in the 19^th Century on a relatively elegant evolutionary foundation partly because a great deal was not yet known about cellular and biochemical machinery." "Like Darwin's synthesis, the form of the Modern Synthesis was shaped in part by ignorance of important features of life that were at the time unknown to science. Specifically, the molecular biology of the cell remained largely unknown." "The view of life that most biologists had from 1935 to 1965 was highly simplified. Some of the assumptions at the foundation of the Modern Synthesis started to crumble in the 1970s. Common mid-20^th Century assumptions about how cells, organisms, and species work have thus been undermined." "This might seem like reason for despair about the future of biology, but there are two mitigations to consider. First, this complexity was always there. Darwin and many later biologists realized that their simple models were erected like piers over swampy ground. They just didn't know how deep the muck was. Second, we now have powerful genomic tools for addressing complex phenomena throughout biology." "Some may feel that the view of life supplied by nascent 21^st Century biology is painfully complicated, if not perverse. For our part, we think that the historical complexity and versatility that we now know to characterize life are inspiring and challenging." "The fundamental landscape of biology is undergoing a major upheaval, much as it did in the first decades of the 20^th Century. This upheaval will take time to fully reveal its implications."-- Michael R. Rose, Todd H. Oakley. 24 November 2007. The new biology: beyond the Modern Synthesis. Biology Direct, 2:30, 17 pages (published online). Michael Rose is an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine.

There are countless other testaments from the high and mighty mainstream biologist that accept that theory of evolution has little or no benefit or impact on other streams of empirical biology.Most of them are evolutionist but are honest enough to admit the uselessness of the theory of evolution in empirical biology.

October 13, 2012

So, you won't bother to look then?

You're confusing Darwin with Lamarck.

Harte

Harte genetics/DNA etc were discovered way after Darwin was dead and gone.If genetic material was unknown then how can Darwin know about or incorporate Genetic mutations in his theory.I am not confusing anyone with anyone.Most of the Hogwash and 'Just so' stories that evolutionist give you at present have been formulated as apologist explainations by evolutionist with subsequent progress of biology.Darwin thought the 'Cell' was a blob of protoplasm and hence evolution seemed justifiable to him,now we know that the 'Cell' is more complex than space shuttles and with every breakthrough in cell biology the complexity of the 'cell' is only increasing as we know it.Darwinian and Evoutionary mechanism cannot explain this complexity,most biochemical pathways are not explained by the theory of evolution,only mere story telling is offered with little or no objective proof.So if Origins is just a story telling competition then everyone can take part.

Forget about objective proof evolutionisgt can't even dream up viable hypothesis to explain certain complex pathways on the drawing board before proceeding to experimentation.

Behe and a few other brave souls are talking about these issues and are being crucified for no real reason.Arbitran posted a video to explain 'irreducable complexity' which was probably enough for his intellectual level to sweep away the problem.Here are a few refutations of stupid explainations for irreducably complex scenarios,please go through them and judge for yourself:

Disclaimer on the top of the site,all the information and links i am about to post are from Behe who is a scientist with multiple publications in Biology:

Note: Though Behe is not a creationist, this response to criticism is provided here for the benefit of those considering the questionable nature of today’s mainstream evolutionary paradigm.

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe08.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe02.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe03.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe05.asp------------------>for you tran and the Mouse trap explaination.Leave the rest since they will be to difficult for you to grasp.

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe06.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/behe07.asp

All the links given above are showcasing information from Behe and are completely scientific beyond any contestation.Sadly only sites that are willing to post such scientific information are creationist sites but nothing in the links i have posted above is about creationism etc.

October 13, 2012

For tran:

1.45% of scientist are theistic.

2.If you are theistic what do you propose God does if you beleive he exists.Does he create or interfere?If no then why beleive he/she/it is there?

3.Ther are various commentaries on the unfalsifaibility of the theory of evolution but i found this quite relevant:

It seems then, perhaps counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for that can be seen when we examine the basic claims of the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical system like, say, the bacterial flagellum. The claim of intelligent design is that “No unintelligent process could produce this system.” The claim of Darwinism is that “Someunintelligent process (involving natural selection and random mutation) could produce this system.” To falsify the first claim, one need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second claim, one would have to show the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do.

Evolution is a subjective belief and no rational convincing can prove otherwise to the believers.(everything is postulated in terms of billions/millions of years and random beneficial genetic mutations and other unintelligent processes and none on empirical evidence other then variation which is perfectly explained by our studied in genetics along with it's boundaries).

4.Evolution and theism are not connected in any way but if one is theistic he acknowledges a supreme entity called God who very well could have created or interferred in life on Earth as we know it.The connection is very evident also in 'Abiogenesis' which often is assumed by evolutionist,if one denies 'Abiogenesis' then by default you have to be a creationist or hanging in between i.e Lost,which is a state i am in as far as the question goes since the evidence is to slim to believe either.

5.You deny lephrachauns and fairies but if you believe in evolution then you can very well speculate on how they evolved,somewhat like the Unicorn.The lack of evidence for these creatures is comparable to the lack of any fossil data etc for evolution but you continue to believe it,you imagine speculate and tell stories without any demonstrations in the lab.Can you ever show how one 'class' can give rise to another by darwinistic principles? Have you seen in yourself? But you still choose to believe it.The reason for you to believe this is because the concept is presently fashionable and your career depends on it,it is not based on conclusive evidence.All you can ever produce is examples of 'variations',and never one class divurging into another.So why impose extrapolations on others or yourself ? and if you claim you have a scientific attitude then even you should be questioning it.

6.I thought you would be having a shrine to Haldane at your place:

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS (5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964^[1]), known as Jack (but who used 'J.B.S.' in his printed works), was a British-borngeneticist and evolutionary biologist generally credited with a central role in the development of neo-Darwinian thinking (popularized by Richard Dawkins' 1976 work titled The Selfish Gene). A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Britain, move to India and become an Indian citizen. He was also one of the founders (along with Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright) of population genetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

But you clearly claimed that you know more then him,so why not give credence to the fact that we know much more then Darwin did so time to shelve his asanine theory and the intellectual laziness it promotes same like many religions do by attributing everything to God.We should be focusing in creating a whole new more empirical theory rather then Darwin's half witted one which could have been excused in his times.

October 13, 2012

For tran:

1.45% of scientist are theistic.

Ah, yes, my mistake. I was confused with the statistics from the National Science Institute, where my figure of 2% is entirely accurate. In any case, the majority of that 45%, I'll note, aren't exactly credible scientists... I mean, most of them happen to rank as "scientists" in the first place for the same reasons as your creationist list gave: they happen to have a degree in a science-related field. Theistic mathematicians, engineers, and the like don't interest me. It is noteworthy too that a great many of those theistic scientists are theistic for thoroughly un-scientific reasons; i.e., a scientist in Egypt is a Muslim because he was already a Muslim when he earned his degree, because his parents were Muslim, because he was born in Egypt... (not scientific) etc., etc.

2.If you are theistic what do you propose God does if you beleive he exists.Does he create or interfere?If no then why beleive he/she/it is there?

Any of the billions of theists on this planet will give you a different answer if you ask them. Given I'm an atheist, it's rather futile to be asking me these questions, isn't it? I mean, I could certainly answer them: you just wouldn't like the answers.

3.Ther are various commentaries on the unfalsifaibility of the theory of evolution but i found this quite relevant:

It seems then, perhaps counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for that can be seen when we examine the basic claims of the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical system like, say, the bacterial flagellum. The claim of intelligent design is that “No unintelligent process could produce this system.” The claim of Darwinism is that “Someunintelligent process (involving natural selection and random mutation) could produce this system.” To falsify the first claim, one need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second claim, one would have to show the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do.

You have entirely misunderstood what was meant by falsification in that context. Evolutionary theory's "imperviousness" to falsification referred quite plainly to the fact that it has not been falsified, whereas creationism has. Again, produce me a crocoduck, and then I'll say that evolution might need some revision.

Evolution is a subjective belief and no rational convincing can prove otherwise to the believers.(everything is postulated in terms of billions/millions of years and random beneficial genetic mutations and other unintelligent processes and none on empirical evidence other then variation which is perfectly explained by our studied in genetics along with it's boundaries).

That you believe this is irrelevant; that doesn't make it true, which it certainly isn't. Evolutionary biology, along with not being a dogmatic belief (if you had any valid points, I would be more than happy to acknowledge them; but if you have any, you're withholding them so far...), is (for the umpteenth time) based on empirical evidences. That you continue to baldly assert that it isn't, thankfully, doesn't affect the reality of the matter in the slightest.

4.Evolution and theism are not connected in any way but if one is theistic he acknowledges a supreme entity called God who very well could have created or interferred in life on Earth as we know it.

Again, any one of the billions of theists in the world will give you their own views on their god; many of them don't ascribe creative capability to it.

The connection is very evident also in 'Abiogenesis' which often is assumed by evolutionist,if one denies 'Abiogenesis' then by default you have to be a creationist or hanging in between i.e Lost,which is a state i am in as far as the question goes since the evidence is to slim to believe either.

That's a staggeringly-stupid false dichotomy you have yourself there. A very plainly creationist false dichotomy. You assume that the only two possibilities are abiogenesis or creation. That's absurd. In any case, unless you have some great piece of work discrediting abiogenesis (unlikely), it remains the best model of the origins of life yet developed. (And, again, to be clear, evolutionary biology studies what happened after life began; abiogenesis is a different field of research.)

5.You deny lephrachauns and fairies but if you believe in evolution then you can very well speculate on how they evolved,somewhat like the Unicorn.

One cannot simply invent evolutionary lineages; another example of your blatant ignorance of evolutionary biology's actual work.

The lack of evidence for these creatures is comparable to the lack of any fossil data etc for evolution but you continue to believe it,you imagine speculate and tell stories without any demonstrations in the lab.

Again, patently false. The fossil record is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for evolutionary history; and supplemented with genetic and epigenetic (etc.) studies, the combined evidence of these two alone (excluding the mountains of other evidence) would be more than sufficient to empirically prove evolution. (Again, genetics has done that all on its own.)

Can you ever show how one 'class' can give rise to another by darwinistic principles?

Gladly. Would you like if I started with the emergence of Aves from Theropoda, or Labyrinthodontia from Sarcopterygii?

Have you seen in yourself? But you still choose to believe it.

Have you ever seen a god create life? No, you haven't. Was I there to watch Newton formulate his theories of physics? No. There are other ways of knowing than by direct observation. You and your creationist ilk are the only ones who don't seem to grasp this fact.

Evidence is the tool by which science learns things; it is by evidence that we know evolution is a fact, just like any other fact (gravity, for instance; though it's noteworthy that evolution has accumulated more empirical evidence for its veracity than gravity ever has...).

The reason for you to believe this is because the concept is presently fashionable and your career depends on it,it is not based on conclusive evidence.

Patently false. Watch a bit of Expelled did we? If this is your way of telling us that you've fallen for Ben Stein's crap, it's certainly in poor taste, I must say.

All you can ever produce is examples of 'variations',and never one class divurging into another.So why impose extrapolations on others or yourself ? and if you claim you have a scientific attitude then even you should be questioning it.

Do you question gravity? No, you don't. If scientists followed the absurd rules you've invented, nothing would ever be done, because nobody could ever trust anybody else. Is it not enough for you that we have peer-review, assuring that all research is thoroughly scrutinized before it's accepted by the mainstream? Because that's worked pretty damn well, if the fact we're communicating via a science-created medium at the moment is any indication...

6.I thought you would be having a shrine to Haldane at your place:

John Burdon Sanderson HaldaneFRS (5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964^[1]), known as Jack (but who used 'J.B.S.' in his printed works), was a British-borngeneticist and evolutionary biologist generally credited with a central role in the development of neo-Darwinian thinking (popularized by Richard Dawkins' 1976 work titled The Selfish Gene). A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Britain, move to India and become an Indian citizen. He was also one of the founders (along with Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright) of population genetics.

http://en.wikipedia....._B._S._Haldane

But you clearly claimed that you know more then him,so why not give credence to the fact that we know much more then Darwin did so time to shelve his asanine theory and the intellectual laziness it promotes same like many religions do by attributing everything to God.We should be focusing in creating a whole new more empirical theory rather then Darwin's half witted one which could have been excused in his times.

Yes, science today knows more than Haldane did. Haldane certainly wasn't without his achievements, which are noteworthy, but his attribution of evolutionary models to the avatars of Vishnu simply has no merit at all. It was an interesting thought, but not scientifically credible. Yes, we also know much more than Darwin did. You continue to insinuate that evolutionary theory is solely based on Darwin's thesis; as if no progress has been made in the past century-and-a-half. Contrary to your insinuations, Darwin's core theory (though a few of his claims have been disproved or modified) has been empirically proved (hence, science accepts it). I also noticed you tried to use the word "asinine"; trying to mimic me now, are you? Childish. You continue to call it "Darwin's Theory", though evolutionary biology today is only faintly related to Darwin's original thesis, which established the core principles and concepts of the theory. You simply know nothing whatsoever about evolution however. I cannot stress enough: do yourself a favour, and read a bloody Wikipedia article about evolution; educate yourself about what evolution is actually about, and not just more filling your head up with the idiotic creationist bile you've been (pitiably) gullible enough to fall for.

October 13, 2012

Variation and Hereditary and adaptation are processes well understood by study of genetics and molecular biology and biochemistry,the theory of evolution is no where involved.There was nothing really wrong with the Linnaeus system of classiffication so there was no real need to come up with a new system of classification by evolutionists and in most areas of studies it doesn't even matter.Taxonomy is not depended on the theory of evolution,it is a grouping of closely related similar organism.

But that grouping requires a mechanism to explain how those related organisms came to differ, and vise versa. To have meaning, a taxonomy must be extended temporaly and made to account for itself, and so far there's only one way to do that. A pure linnean system is essentially useless in that regard by itself.

The only real utility the theory of evolution has is for the historians and atheists and not the scientists.

According to your claim is that you can't divorce the study of anything from the study of it's origin is really amusing and depicts the general mentality of evolutionist.How do you think we started studying the Universe?.You don't really need to dream up an imaginary theory of origins before studying something empirically especially in biology.And i agree that origins should be studied further and we need to find an answer that is not fairytales.

Not before but certainly after. One cannot profess to understand a system fully without knowing how it came to be, which in turn may lead to the means to percieve how it may develop under given conditions in the future. Sure, you can study the hell out of all the other aspects of it but there's always going to be that one point beyond which you can't go.

And it's funny to hear you talk about fairytales when as others have noted you're the one consistantly invoking the explanation that requires magic.

Few examples of mainstream scientists and evolutionists stating the uselessness of the theory of evolution:

1.Jerry Coyne

Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist 08/30/2006

Supporters of evolution often tout its many benefits. They claim it helps research in agriculture, conservation and medicine (e.g., 01/13/2003, 06/25/2003). A new book by David Mindell, The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life (Harvard, 2006) emphasizes these practical benefits in hopes of making evolution more palatable to a skeptical society. Jerry Coyne, a staunch evolutionist and anti-creationist, enjoyed the book in his review in Nature,¹ but thought that Mindell went overboard on “Selling Darwin” with appeals to pragmatics:

To some extent these
excesses
are not Mindell’s fault, for,
if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits.
Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that
there is not much to say.
Evolution
cannot help us predict
what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding?
Not very much.
Most
improvement
in crop plants and animals
occurred long before we knew anything about evolution
, and came about by
people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’
. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of
quantitative genetics
has been of
little value
in helping improve varieties.
Future advances
will almost certainly come from
transgenics
, which is
not based on evolution at all.

Coyne further describes how the goods and services advertised by Mindell are irrelevant for potential customers, anyway:

One reason why Mindell might
fail to sell Darwin to the critics
is that
his examples all involve microevolution
, which
most modern creationists (including advocates of intelligent design) accept
. It is
macroevolution
– the evolutionary transitions between very different kinds of organism – that
creationists claim does not occur
. But in any case,
few people actually oppose evolution because of its lack of practical use
.... they oppose it because
they see it as undercutting moral values.

Here you're making the obvious error of assuming knowledge requires application. Of what use is the study of dinosaurs? Who benifits directly from knowing the mating habits of a wood louse, besides other wood lice? How much of biology in fact is intended to have real-world relevance?

Of those individuals you cited, half were experimental rearchers, one entirely outside the field of biology, and none of whom were doing work that required placing it in a deveopmental context. The other half I found amusing in that as examples of how evolution was completely irrelevant to biology, they did an aweful lot of talking about evolution.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Oniomancer

October 14, 2012

1)'Devolution' can be simply described as a reversal of whatever progressive observations...

2)Everything stated in your second point is an example of empirical studies of genetics and observations made in genetics which i never contested.None of the processes you mentioned can demonstrate progressive evolution

3)...but extrapolating them to prove evolution in higher animals can only be taken as a joke.

4) If you claim these new genes formed in nature and incorporated themselves into the normal functioning and reproducing 'higher' organisms you are doing it under the pain of being daft and without any observed objective proof.

5) 'Evolutionary theory' doesn't figure as an empirical science...

6) ...but i always questioned the odds of a 'completely' new protein(not a hybrid caused by changing of a couple of aminoacids due to errors in translations or genetic mutations which again is destructive in most cases) formed by random mutations to impart beneficial characteristics in higher animals without causing any destructive effects and being favoured by natural selection.

7) There is no real benefit or utility value of the 'Theory of evolution' to empirical Biology or Chemistry

8) You have failed to provide any legitimate proof of evolution(origin of species) .

9) Chemistry is independant of biology,organic biological processes use principles of chemistry for explanations.

10) New protein production was never argued or contested,the effects of such new proteins which can be formed naturally in organic systems and it's capability of imparting beneficial physical effects was questioned and was never answered.In either case synthesis of new defective proteins is hardly a case for 'evolution' and lab production of new proteins is also not a case for evolution.

i would question the probability of the same since there is no objective evidence for the incorporation of an 'entirely new gene' which is beneficial into existing genetic material of higher animals by natural processes.

Major shortfalls of the theory of evolution:

1.Fossil evidence doesn't colaberate.

2.No entirely new gene has been synthesized using natural/biological processes or no experiment has demonstrated the same.

3.Speciation has been not observed unless you equate speciation with reproductive isolation given this scenario how do you demonstrate evolution above the 'Families' level?

4.Variation and adaptation are extrapolated to speciation for which there is no empirical evidence (unless you equate speciation with reproductive isolation but then again no demonstration of how evolution can branch out above the 'families' level in classification)

5.Abiogenesis which is a fundamental assumption of the theory of evolution has no objective proof.(without acknowledging abiogenesis there is no way to explain evolution of life for the non-creationists though there is a large amount of scientists who believe in theistic evolution to dodge this major faith based assumption with another faith based assumption)

6.Random beneficial mutations and billions of years can account for anything under the sun but cannot be made a part of empirical science until demonstrated in experiments.These are subjects of faith and philosophy and not science.The billions of years hypothesis is nothing less then an unfulfilled prophecy.

7.Theory of evolution has no practical benefit for Humanity or empirical science and is not applied in any beneficial advances of empirical science.The theory of evolution is a construct to explain origin of species (as postulated by Darwin) and nothing else so get a grip over it and don't give undue importance to it.

1, 2, & 3) - Once again, flawed conceptualization. Please provide your personal definition of "progressive". Evolutionary theory is (for the n^th time), non-linear. Your position would appear to reflect a distinctly anthropocentric perspective. Would you now be implying that the extremophiles that inhabit deep-ocean volcanic vent regions are any less well adapted to their environment than you are to your own? Would you choose to exchange environments?

4) - However, qualified documentation for speciation, beneficial mutations, new protein production, new genes, related genetic studies, and osteological modification/change have been recently provided. Thus, your statement is inaccurate.

5) - Empirical science also includes, in its definition, "by means of observation". This can be applied to a number of aspects including, but not limited to, genetics and the fossil record. Thus, your perception in this regard is again inaccurate.

6) - Your personal questioning of the "odds" is irrelevant and not empirical.

7) - No, none at all. Other than providing the underlying framework for the referenced fields.

8) - See 4). Further data can be supplied.

9) - This is yet another of your poorly conceived statements. As you well know, organic life can not exist without the multitude of chemical interactions inherent in every aspect from basal energy production to reproduction. One cannot study or understand organic chemistry (biological chemistry) without incorporating the biological makeup/stage/function of a given element of an organism.

10) - Again, inaccurate as per Long, et. al., 2003:870.

Major shortfalls -

1) - Kindly present documentation that supports this statement.

2) - Irrelevant, as documentation for the biological development of new genes has been previously supplied.

3) - a) Speciation has been observed, branching on the family level would not be expected to be observed under natural conditions within the limited time-frame of recent human observation and understanding. See: Fossil record.

4) - See 3).

5) - No, it is not. Other concepts such as transpermia have also been entertained. Your perception in this regard is flawed.

6) See 5), Section 1. Your obsession with laboratory replicability is not serving you well. Laboratory conditions are not well suited to reproducing long-term environmental factors in regards to larger species. Hence the extensive related laboratory research involving micro-organisms. Which has supported evolutionary theory.

7) - Please define your interpretation of "practical". Also see 7) Section 1.

Further - You would appear to put great faith in your understanding (?) of genetics. Yet, when the same genetic techniques and methodologies that you support provide extensive information related to (and supportive of) evolutionary theory, you would appear to reject these findings.

How do you personally rationalize this apparent conundrum? Do you reject the validity of the research of the likes of Paabo, etc., etc., etc.?

.

October 14, 2012

Posters are reminded to avoid copying and pasting huge chunks of type. Not only is it overwhelming, it might also risk copyright issues.

Post a sentence or two from the source to make the point, and include a link to the source. If the material is from a book, post a sentence or two and correctly cite the book.

Thank you.

October 14, 2012

My understanding is that a lot of the continental shelf was exposed during the last ice age. Areas that are now completely underwater were covered in trees and grass and people lived there that we just don't have any way of knowing what their life was like. We're talking miles out on the continental shelf. I even think parts of the coastline in California were exposed to where Amerindians could walk to the channel Islands and was completely different from what we see now.

October 14, 2012

My understanding is that a lot of the continental shelf was exposed during the last ice age. Areas that are now completely underwater were covered in trees and grass and people lived there that we just don't have any way of knowing what their life was like. We're talking miles out on the continental shelf. I even think parts of the coastline in California were exposed to where Amerindians could walk to the channel Islands and was completely different from what we see now.

Your understandings are not inaccurate in regards to the post-Pleistocene basin rise or the Channel Islands land connection. The primary issue under this heading would be related to speculation in regards to a full-blown civilization existing prior to the Holocene. That human cultural elements utilized currently off-shore topography is not debated, and, with the advancements in marine archaeology, these environments are becoming somewhat more accessible to research.

One point to bear in mind is that, despite the total rise in basin levels as a result of the glacial wasting, the rate of this rise was generally quite gradual and could have been comfortably adjusted to by an established civilization. Even punctuated events such as the Agassiz breach(es) would not appear to have resulted in rise rates capable of eliminating all vestiges of a such a proposed civilization.

Also keep in mind the distinction between cultural elements and "civilizations".

.

October 15, 2012

Posters are reminded to avoid copying and pasting huge chunks of type. Not only is it overwhelming, it might also risk copyright issues.

Post a sentence or two from the source to make the point, and include a link to the source. If the material is from a book, post a sentence or two and correctly cite the book.

Thank you.

Sorry for the long Copy paste but the Information is from a link that i posted on two occasions before this,so credit to the website.

October 15, 2012

Ah, yes, my mistake. I was confused with the statistics from the National Science Institute, where my figure of 2% is entirely accurate. In any case, the majority of that 45%, I'll note, aren't exactly credible scientists... I mean, most of them happen to rank as "scientists" in the first place for the same reasons as your creationist list gave: they happen to have a degree in a science-related field. Theistic mathematicians, engineers, and the like don't interest me. It is noteworthy too that a great many of those theistic scientists are theistic for thoroughly un-scientific reasons; i.e., a scientist in Egypt is a Muslim because he was already a Muslim when he earned his degree, because his parents were Muslim, because he was born in Egypt... (not scientific) etc., etc.

Any of the billions of theists on this planet will give you a different answer if you ask them. Given I'm an atheist, it's rather futile to be asking me these questions, isn't it? I mean, I could certainly answer them: you just wouldn't like the answers.

You have entirely misunderstood what was meant by falsification in that context. Evolutionary theory's "imperviousness" to falsification referred quite plainly to the fact that it has not been falsified, whereas creationism has. Again, produce me a crocoduck, and then I'll say that evolution might need some revision.

That you believe this is irrelevant; that doesn't make it true, which it certainly isn't. Evolutionary biology, along with not being a dogmatic belief (if you had any valid points, I would be more than happy to acknowledge them; but if you have any, you're withholding them so far...), is (for the umpteenth time) based on empirical evidences. That you continue to baldly assert that it isn't, thankfully, doesn't affect the reality of the matter in the slightest.

Again, any one of the billions of theists in the world will give you their own views on their god; many of them don't ascribe creative capability to it.

That's a staggeringly-stupid false dichotomy you have yourself there. A very plainly creationist false dichotomy. You assume that the only two possibilities are abiogenesis or creation. That's absurd. In any case, unless you have some great piece of work discrediting abiogenesis (unlikely), it remains the best model of the origins of life yet developed. (And, again, to be clear, evolutionary biology studies what happened after life began; abiogenesis is a different field of research.)

One cannot simply invent evolutionary lineages; another example of your blatant ignorance of evolutionary biology's actual work.

Again, patently false. The fossil record is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for evolutionary history; and supplemented with genetic and epigenetic (etc.) studies, the combined evidence of these two alone (excluding the mountains of other evidence) would be more than sufficient to empirically prove evolution. (Again, genetics has done that all on its own.)

Gladly. Would you like if I started with the emergence of Aves from Theropoda, or Labyrinthodontia from Sarcopterygii?

Have you ever seen a god create life? No, you haven't. Was I there to watch Newton formulate his theories of physics? No. There are other ways of knowing than by direct observation. You and your creationist ilk are the only ones who don't seem to grasp this fact.

Evidence is the tool by which science learns things; it is by evidence that we know evolution is a fact, just like any other fact (gravity, for instance; though it's noteworthy that evolution has accumulated more empirical evidence for its veracity than gravity ever has...).

Patently false. Watch a bit of Expelled did we? If this is your way of telling us that you've fallen for Ben Stein's crap, it's certainly in poor taste, I must say.

Do you question gravity? No, you don't. If scientists followed the absurd rules you've invented, nothing would ever be done, because nobody could ever trust anybody else. Is it not enough for you that we have peer-review, assuring that all research is thoroughly scrutinized before it's accepted by the mainstream? Because that's worked pretty damn well, if the fact we're communicating via a science-created medium at the moment is any indication...

Yes, science today knows more than Haldane did. Haldane certainly wasn't without his achievements, which are noteworthy, but his attribution of evolutionary models to the avatars of Vishnu simply has no merit at all. It was an interesting thought, but not scientifically credible. Yes, we also know much more than Darwin did. You continue to insinuate that evolutionary theory is solely based on Darwin's thesis; as if no progress has been made in the past century-and-a-half. Contrary to your insinuations, Darwin's core theory (though a few of his claims have been disproved or modified) has been empirically proved (hence, science accepts it). I also noticed you tried to use the word "asinine"; trying to mimic me now, are you? Childish. You continue to call it "Darwin's Theory", though evolutionary biology today is only faintly related to Darwin's original thesis, which established the core principles and concepts of the theory. You simply know nothing whatsoever about evolution however. I cannot stress enough: do yourself a favour, and read a bloody Wikipedia article about evolution; educate yourself about what evolution is actually about, and not just more filling your head up with the idiotic creationist bile you've been (pitiably) gullible enough to fall for.

The evolution of the theory of evolution proves my assertation of it being impervious to falsification since when one mechanism is debunked an equally ridiculous one is suggested,though no empirical evidence exists for either.It is a hell bent attempt to justify naturalism under all costs and nothing else.The hypothesis of billions of years and random beneficial genetic mutations and countless imagined untintelligent process leaves a lot for the evolutionist to pick and choose from for telling their 'just so' stories.Falsifying and debunking all suspect unintelligent processes that could give rise to life and subsequent evolution of life is impossible feat,since if one is debunked a different one is suggested.So without 'class' transitions can happen under direct observation in the lab it shouldn't be assumed,there are a series of biological barriers that would not allow such a transition and instead of thinking critically all we do is say it must have happened over millions/billions of years,this is flawed logic and is not a empirical hypothesis.By stating variation happens you can't by default assume that variation caused 'class transitions' ,there is lot of empirical biological evidence that such transitions are impossible by darwinistic principles etc but still we assume that it happened.

One can easily justify the difficulty theistic scientists would have to admit that they are theists especially in surveys done by mainstream organisation.Behe suggested design and he got crucified for no reason.

The assertion stands that if you are a theist you have to give credit some sort of creation.I am not a atheist or a theist,i am in limbo so you can criticise God doen't effect me none.But i would sure like to see why you dismiss God?

And you are a evolutionary biologist by your own admission so it is pretty rational to infer that your carreer does depend on the theoru of evolution,it is pretty obvious and evident.

Seeing shapes in clouds doesn't mean that the shapes are real objects,finding fossils of completely formed distinct species is not proof of evolution.Suggest one transition fossil we have found yet which passes all the critical reviews,there are none.

Gravity is demonstrateable emprically and doesnt take billions of years so i don't question it exists.Gravity is a good example of scientific concepts and studies that are formulated without knowing origin/source.

Science knows more today then Darwin did.

October 15, 2012

But that grouping requires a mechanism to explain how those related organisms came to differ, and vise versa. To have meaning, a taxonomy must be extended temporaly and made to account for itself, and so far there's only one way to do that. A pure linnean system is essentially useless in that regard by itself.

Not before but certainly after. One cannot profess to understand a system fully without knowing how it came to be, which in turn may lead to the means to percieve how it may develop under given conditions in the future. Sure, you can study the hell out of all the other aspects of it but there's always going to be that one point beyond which you can't go.

And it's funny to hear you talk about fairytales when as others have noted you're the one consistantly invoking the explanation that requires magic.

Here you're making the obvious error of assuming knowledge requires application. Of what use is the study of dinosaurs? Who benifits directly from knowing the mating habits of a wood louse, besides other wood lice? How much of biology in fact is intended to have real-world relevance?

Of those individuals you cited, half were experimental rearchers, one entirely outside the field of biology, and none of whom were doing work that required placing it in a deveopmental context. The other half I found amusing in that as examples of how evolution was completely irrelevant to biology, they did an aweful lot of talking about evolution.

You can group organisms based on "observed similarities" no need to give a evolutionary twist to it.Purely linnaen system will not be useful to whom?is it evolutionists?.

If i object to the current theory of evolution does it mean i invoke magic. Life coming randomly from a soup and billions of years and random beneficial mutations also sounds like magic i.e none of them empirically prove evolution.So i agree with you and say that we should not invoke magic as an explaination for anything when talking about science and when we don't know a scientifc reason for something we should accept that we don't know yet and do more research to better understand why something happened and how it happened.

I gave these excerpts to support my prior assertion that the theory of evolution is practically useless, "Biology is not useless and is not based on the theory of evolution".

Defination of magic changes as we progress,90% of technology we have now would seem like magic to our not very distant predecessors.

October 15, 2012

The evolution of the theory of evolution proves my assertation of it being impervious to falsification since when one mechanism is debunked an equally ridiculous one is suggested,though no empirical evidence exists for either.

How inane. I don't think you know what falsification means. If part of a scientific theory is challenged or discredited, then it adapts to the new information by altering the aspect in question to correspond to the new observations. And you continue to soldier on in your mis-/ill-informed view that evolution had no empirical evidence, eh? Even though it has been reiterated ad nauseam that this is incorrect? That is the very definition of closed-mindedness. Incidentally, I don't think you grasp what empirical evidence is, either.

It is a hell bent attempt to justify naturalism under all costs and nothing else.The hypothesis of billions of years and random beneficial genetic mutations and countless imagined untintelligent process leaves a lot for the evolutionist to pick and choose from for telling their 'just so' stories.Falsifying and debunking all suspect unintelligent processes that could give rise to life and subsequent evolution of life is impossible feat,since if one is debunked a different one is suggested.

I'll ask you to please cease in your repetitive statements of the same falsehoods; they don't become any more true the more times you say them. You simply have failed to demonstrate the veracity of a single one of yours claims. Again, evolution has nothing to do with the age of the Earth, or the origin of the universe. Get your scientific fields straight. Sorry if that's too much to ask; I am well aware that one who reads only creationist propaganda espousing this garbage and scientific misunderstanding might have difficulty comprehending actual science.

And yes, a new theory will always fill the void in the place of a discredited theory. Magic, as you are suggesting is the answer, is what is, in fact, unfalsifiable; hence, science cannot look to it as an answer. Fortunately though, nature seems to work perfectly well on its own, without having to invoke magic.

So without 'class' transitions can happen under direct observation in the lab it shouldn't be assumed,there are a series of biological barriers that would not allow such a transition and instead of thinking critically all we do is say it must have happened over millions/billions of years,this is flawed logic and is not a empirical hypothesis.By stating variation happens you can't by default assume that variation caused 'class transitions' ,there is lot of empirical biological evidence that such transitions are impossible by darwinistic principles etc but still we assume that it happened.

There are known class transitions in the fossil record. They took place over millions of years; this is indisputable. You have given no substantiation whatsoever of your asinine claim that biology prohibits class transition. You're just spouting more creationist bull**** that you've bought into hook, line, and sinker.

One can easily justify the difficulty theistic scientists would have to admit that they are theists especially in surveys done by mainstream organisation.Behe suggested design and he got crucified for no reason.

It certainly wasn't "for no reason" that Behe is rejected; his hypotheses were poorly-conceived and easily debunked. In other words: he was wrong. Plain and simple. That is the reason why scientists universally reject him.

The assertion stands that if you are a theist you have to give credit some sort of creation.I am not a atheist or a theist,i am in limbo so you can criticise God doen't effect me none.But i would sure like to see why you dismiss God?

You cannot be neither an atheist nor a theist. If you are not a theist, you are, by default, an atheist.

Theist = one who believes in a god or gods

Atheist = one who does not believe in a god or gods

If you are not a theist (one who believes in god), then you are automatically an atheist (one who does not believe in god). It's that simple.

You could theoretically be an agnostic (one who believes that the proposition of the existence of god is unanswerable, and therefore futile to speculate about); but even agnostics usually, by technicality, fall under the category of atheist.

And again, I've already told you why I don't believe in god (I reiterate: please cease in your total ignorance of my responses, and your repetitions of the same statements over and over; it's pointless). I disbelieve in god for the same reason I disbelieve in leprechauns or fairies: there is simply no evidence for their existence. In other words: there is no reason to believe in them, ergo, I don't believe in them. It's like not believing in magical catfishes that cause headaches: there just isn't any evidence/reason to think that they exist. God fall under this same category.

And you are a evolutionary biologist by your own admission so it is pretty rational to infer that your carreer does depend on the theoru of evolution,it is pretty obvious and evident.

The first accurate thing you've said.

Seeing shapes in clouds doesn't mean that the shapes are real objects,finding fossils of completely formed distinct species is not proof of evolution.Suggest one transition fossil we have found yet which passes all the critical reviews,there are none.

You have no idea what evolution is. Plain and simple. I'll link to the same page (for the umpteenth time):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

Every single organism which has ever existed is a transitional form between its parents and its offspring. Transitions between species, genera, families, etc., are simply transitions between larger groups of organisms, classified based on their genetic/reproductive relations to other taxa.

Evolution does not predict the existence of half-formed or "morphing" animals. It never has. That's absurd. Every organism which has ever swum, crawled, flown, burrowed, slithered, hopped, or ambulated on our planet has been a whole, fully-formed organism. However, these whole organisms happen to reproduce; a process which, based on the mechanics of biochemistry and genetics, results in mutations from generation to generation, which, over successive generations, yield different organisms that those which did the yielding (i.e., you aren't a clone of either of your parents; you have traits of both of them, as well as a number of mutations which are unique to you). These mutations gradually accumulate, and through the principle of natural selection (e.g., female deer are attracted to males with large antlers, particularly the male with the largest antlers; hence, the males which have the largest antlers will be more likely to pass on their trait of large antlers, and thus the smaller-antlered males will occur with less frequency, because they will not be favoured for mating, and thus to pass on their trait of small antlers), changes in the traits of organisms slowly shift (through the process of gene flow), until organisms of one group are rendered reproductively-incompatible with their ancestor group: or speciate. The more time you give to organisms reproducing, the more variation and reproductive isolation is liable to arise, and thus, the more speciation is prone to occur. It is virtually impossible to prevent these processes from occurring; they are a simple product of the mechanics of reproduction and genetics. The principles of natural selection, speciation, and evolution are as inevitable and predictable under the mechanics of genetics as energy equaling mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light under the mechanics of the theory of relativity.

Gravity is demonstrateable emprically and doesnt take billions of years so i don't question it exists.Gravity is a good example of scientific concepts and studies that are formulated without knowing origin/source.

Science knows more today then Darwin did.

Yes, science today knows more than Darwin did; not sure why you're repeating that, since I already said that in my previous post. Gravity, like evolution, is a theory; meaning, it is the best explanation for observed phenomena. In like manner to my previous statement, evolution is as evident and inevitable under genetic mechanics as gravity is under relativity mechanics. You can't deem one more "empirical" than the other on the basis of "one operates under longer durations of time". And, really, evolution doesn't take billions of years. That you've deluded yourself to think that it does is simply further evidence that you completely ignore my posts, and instead just continue to stuff your head full of creationist propaganda. You are an evolution of your parents; you have evolved from them. How? You aren't a clone of them, ergo, you have evolved from them. Simple. Again, every single organism, ever (apart from those produced through cloning of course), have been evolutions from their ancestors. That's all evolution is about: descent. You are evolved from your parents, grandparents, etc.; the sort of larger-scale evolution that is more commonly discussed is the very same process, merely with a greater duration of processing. The only difference between you being evolved from your parents and you being evolved from Homo heidelbergensis is the amount of time it took: the amount of generations it required. In the case of your parents to you, the generation-count is, of course, one. The generation-count between you and a Homo heidelbergensis is in the range of five to five-and-a-half thousand generations (though the line dividing species is blurry, and somewhat arbitrary). Go back further, to early primates, early mammals, or even all the way back to therapsids, and the generation-count becomes staggering, and essentially incalculable; though it would doubtless number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

October 15, 2012

You can group organisms based on "observed similarities" no need to give a evolutionary twist to it.Purely linnaen system will not be useful to whom?is it evolutionists?.

A purely Linnaen system of taxonomy would be disjoined and chaotic; it would be rather arbitrary as well: a game of pick-and-choose what you think looks similar. It's ridiculous. Evolutionary biology/genetics however makes up for this failing: it establishes solid, empirical relationships between organisms, on a genomic level, and can directly define the lineages from whence every species descends/evolves.

If i object to the current theory of evolution does it mean i invoke magic. Life coming randomly from a soup and billions of years and random beneficial mutations also sounds like magic i.e none of them empirically prove evolution.

For ****'s sake, cease your use of these "random beneficial mutations" and "billions of years" that you're parroting from your precious creationist sites! It really is getting to be very aggravating.

And, incidentally, your sheer ignorance of the processes and principles of nature's mechanics in no way qualifies you to deem them "magical". Just because you think that evolution sounds like "magic" because you don't understand it, does make that assertion any more correct than me saying: "I don't believe that anybody could be this mis-/ill-informed about evolution in this day and age, therefore, Harsh86_Patel must actually be a super-sophisticated cyborg from the future, whose informational processing only computes creationist propaganda."

So, unless you're going to admit to being a machine from the future (unlikely), then it really is completely absurd for you to deem evolution "magic" based on nothing more than the fact of your ignorance of it's mechanics.

So i agree with you and say that we should not invoke magic as an explaination for anything when talking about science and when we don't know a scientifc reason for something we should accept that we don't know yet and do more research to better understand why something happened and how it happened.

A miracle. A statement of yours I actually agree with. Now that's magic. (I mean, I don't understand it, so...)

I gave these excerpts to support my prior assertion that the theory of evolution is practically useless, "Biology is not useless and is not based on the theory of evolution".

Which, again, is incorrect. Your excerpts were totally useless in way of demonstrating such a subjective and unfalsifiable assertion.

Defination of magic changes as we progress,90% of technology we have now would seem like magic to our not very distant predecessors.

True. But the difference between magic and technology is not merely perception; it is understanding. Again, you deem evolution to be "magic", and yet it is understood and known as fact today. Your perception of evolution seems to be as ill-informed as my great-grandfather's perception of the Internet would have been; i.e., you have no understanding of the concept, and so, instead of seeking to educate yourself, you give up and declare it to be "magic". Of course, in that respect, you're probably worse-off than my late great-grandfather would have been in his situation; he at least would almost certainly have striven to understand the concept of the Internet without resorting to calling it "magic".

October 17, 2012

For Tran-

Classification is for organizing the large set of Data to maintain a disciplined approach.No need for evolutionary claims to be translated to classification of living organism when the claims themselves are based on shaky grounds.(I know why you are quibling over classification since there is no real practical use of the theory of evolution,please don't mention antibiotic resistance as it would be false.)

Please put forward the fossil evidence that Darwin expected or you propose.Please give evidence of how one class gave rise to another by active evolution.

Please demonstrate a transition of a 'class' into another in the laboratory.Or else don't claim that one class transitioned to another just by observing variety.

You write a long post about falsities and vicious denial and not a grain of logic or evidence.

If you claim that you do not believe in Abiogenesis then clarify,so we can better understand your position on creationism and if you do then please clarify the empirical evidence for believing 'Abiogenesis'.Can you really be a evolutionist without believing in magic like 'Abiogenesis' 'Billions of years for magic to happen' 'Random Beneficial genetic mutations' that give rise to new species and classes' by 'Unlimited fasifiable unintelligent processes'.

Nature does not advocate the theory of evolution hence we don't have even one natural example of a species giving rise to a completely different species observed say ever since we started looking for such examples.All examples that you can give are already existing species (you might like to point out three different species of the same bird where the centre one can mate with the one on the left and the right but the one on the left and right can't mate with each other,but this doesn't prove anything).Have you observed personally or is there any documented case where we observe one species evolve from another naturally i.e has the formation of a new species by natural processes ever been witnessed?.Dont say that what we can't see doesn't mean it doesn't happen or exist because formation of new species from natural processes by evolution can be perfectly observed by sight if it happened.

I still don't see the long list of practical applications of the theory of evolution,i can't see how the theory can really impact any empirical science.If you know of such things please put them forward and enlighten me.

So basically we can correctly surmise that the theory of evolution is a poorly thought of outdated theory,without much empirical evidence to support it's major suggestions,and it has no real practical use.Now since evolutionist claim that evolution has no real direction and can't be predicted so it becomes even more futile as it can't really make any useful predictions for future events in the evolutionary view of things.I seriously fail to see any real utility of the theory of evolution other then observing existing species and saying one evolved from the other.

There are a wide variety of religions to pick and choose from and most of them promise a pleasure palace called heaven as an incentive to believers,but what does the theory of evolution promise.Initially it promised to be useful but by now attributing it to randomness you can't even make scientific predictions regarding evolution.The theory doesn't even promise to explain origins of life as you clearly stated so what does the theory of evolution contribute to? There is no real empirical evidence,the billions of years timer must be getting over atleast for a few species so why can't we see atleast one case of a new species which previoulsy didn't exist coming into existence?

You wan't me to believe fairy tales in the guise of science,how is your proposition different from any other religions which are also based on extrapolations of observed evidence.The issue is not with the evidence it is with the extrapolations.

Your views on magic is very amusing.I would take your great grandfathers view with more sincerety then yours.Creation by any creator doesn't tenamount to magic.We as humans create so many things does it mean we are doing magic?

Scientist would make more advances if they accept that they don't know rather then spin stupid lies to explain things.It would increase the aggression with which we persue answers through science if we first accept that we don't know how something happened and not the contrary.So accepting that we don't know can only make our search more profound and deep,but if you nip scientific spriit in the bud and see we already know though we don't have any empirical evidence,you are just going to spawn a bunch of lazy intellectuals who are not really looking for anything or are looking down the wrong road.

P.S-it is not i that is parroting 'random beneficail genetic mutations' stored in duplicate genes but it is the evolutionist who do this.They assume without any empirical evidence that all biochemical processes 'evolved' by these mutations in duplicate genes without demostrating even one instance of the same happening naturally.Genetic studies have often destroyed any similarities that evolution percieved between it's related species,the end result was the tree of life as proposed by evolution fragmented into countless hypothetical trees with vague branches.But i can see that my restating of 'random beneficial mutations' and 'billions of years' which are basic premises for evolutionists is causing so much irritation for you as even i share you irritation for the same.

Theist- one who believes in God/Gods

Atheist- one who doesn't believe in God/Gods

Limbo- one who can't be intellectually dishonest and choose either of the above without conclusive evidence.

In this case i fear the one in Limbo can be the most scientific.

October 17, 2012

1, 2, & 3) - Once again, flawed conceptualization. Please provide your personal definition of "progressive". Evolutionary theory is (for the n^th time), non-linear. Your position would appear to reflect a distinctly anthropocentric perspective. Would you now be implying that the extremophiles that inhabit deep-ocean volcanic vent regions are any less well adapted to their environment than you are to your own? Would you choose to exchange environments?

4) - However, qualified documentation for speciation, beneficial mutations, new protein production, new genes, related genetic studies, and osteological modification/change have been recently provided. Thus, your statement is inaccurate.

5) - Empirical science also includes, in its definition, "by means of observation". This can be applied to a number of aspects including, but not limited to, genetics and the fossil record. Thus, your perception in this regard is again inaccurate.

6) - Your personal questioning of the "odds" is irrelevant and not empirical.

7) - No, none at all. Other than providing the underlying framework for the referenced fields.

8) - See 4). Further data can be supplied.

9) - This is yet another of your poorly conceived statements. As you well know, organic life can not exist without the multitude of chemical interactions inherent in every aspect from basal energy production to reproduction. One cannot study or understand organic chemistry (biological chemistry) without incorporating the biological makeup/stage/function of a given element of an organism.

10) - Again, inaccurate as per Long, et. al., 2003:870.

Major shortfalls -

1) - Kindly present documentation that supports this statement.

2) - Irrelevant, as documentation for the biological development of new genes has been previously supplied.

3) - a) Speciation has been observed, branching on the family level would not be expected to be observed under natural conditions within the limited time-frame of recent human observation and understanding. See: Fossil record.

4) - See 3).

5) - No, it is not. Other concepts such as transpermia have also been entertained. Your perception in this regard is flawed.

6) See 5), Section 1. Your obsession with laboratory replicability is not serving you well. Laboratory conditions are not well suited to reproducing long-term environmental factors in regards to larger species. Hence the extensive related laboratory research involving micro-organisms. Which has supported evolutionary theory.

7) - Please define your interpretation of "practical". Also see 7) Section 1.

Further - You would appear to put great faith in your understanding (?) of genetics. Yet, when the same genetic techniques and methodologies that you support provide extensive information related to (and supportive of) evolutionary theory, you would appear to reject these findings.

How do you personally rationalize this apparent conundrum? Do you reject the validity of the research of the likes of Paabo, etc., etc., etc.?

.

Ok the best way i can explain devolution is by defining it as a process that is opposed to whatever progression evolutionist observe for the origin of species on Earth.(the assumptions that i make in giving this theory are similar to assumptions made by evolutionists)

(weaker being "less fit to survive")

I would propose that an Animal more fit to survive gives rise to a weaker animal by process of "random destructive genetic mutations" over "billions of years".

The weaker animal which has a reduced functionality from the intial can only survive by the principle of "Nartural protection" by "geographical isolation".

Over time the weaker species loses more of it's biological functions/complexity by the the process of "random destructivce genetic mutations" and gives rise to more weaker species,and this process continues till we reach a blob of self replicating simple cell/virus.

Don't ask me how the first animal came into existence as that is a different subject and doesn't come in the purview of devolution.

P.S.-You have not provided any evidence for class transitions but only repeated experiments demonstrating 'variation' and 'adaptation' and 'Hybrid genes' (as opposed to completely 'new genes')which i never contested in the first place.

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds and is independant of biology.I think you are confusing organic chemistry with biochemistry.Empirical observations of how chemicals interact does not dependend on Biology.On the contrary principles of Chemistry are used to explain Bio-chemical processes.

Energy is also a concept studied under physics and does not depend on biology.On the contrary transfer and generation of energy in biological systems is studied under Bio-physics. Energy mechanics and principles are independant of Biology and are dealt with in Physics.

I love Biology because it deals with observation of life and how it works and explaining how various principles of Physics and Chemistry can be used to explain various processes happening in Life.

October 17, 2012

You can group organisms based on "observed similarities" no need to give a evolutionary twist to it.Purely linnaen system will not be useful to whom?is it evolutionists?.

I clearly said modern taxonomy, which as Arbitran noted leans heavily on phylogenetics and pretty much operates as if evolution were a given, or are you going to pretend the tree of life as viewed by biology doesn't exist, disputes over the fine points of arrangement not withstanding?

You're not very good at picking up on subtext, or extremely good at ignoring it where it suits your purpose. You can group them any way you like but as I said, that tells you nothing about how and why they they should be related in the first place, and any subset of biology that wants to concern itself with the nature of that relation de facto needs a way to explain it. Linneas assumed they were all created as once, which preludes the need for relation at all.

If i object to the current theory of evolution does it mean i invoke magic. Life coming randomly from a soup and billions of years and random beneficial mutations also sounds like magic i.e none of them empirically prove evolution.So i agree with you and say that we should not invoke magic as an explaination for anything when talking about science and when we don't know a scientifc reason for something we should accept that we don't know yet and do more research to better understand why something happened and how it happened.

Yet all your arguements to date have been aimed toward refuting evolution and abiogenisis and you put forth no alternative explanation that I've seen, which doesn't leave many other choices. Even space gods need to come from somewhere. Your own source Strohman said:

"We seem to lack any scientific basis with which to explain, for example, evolution." "Not necessarily so. It does suggest, however, that our evolutionary theory is incomplete."

I gave these excerpts to support my prior assertion that the theory of evolution is practically useless, "Biology is not useless and is not based on the theory of evolution".

Practically, practically, practically. There's that subtext problem again. The statements were entirely right on that, you can't use it as for most applications in the lab, you can't patent new processes for it, etc., etc., but those aren't involved with situations where you even would use evolution, as the one guy comes right out and says. There's no reason to. It's like expecting orbital mechanics to apply in general to geophysics. And again, you presume that science must be practical. What earthly good does it do you to know that the

Ursidae and Procyonidae are both closely allied to the Canidae?

Defination of magic changes as we progress,90% of technology we have now would seem like magic to our not very distant predecessors.

Now you're dragging in Clarke? Then I suppose I should cite the inverse corralary: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistingueshable from science. In essence, we're talking about complex chemical processes over time here. Does chemistry work by nature or design? Do you perhaps side with the poster from another thread who believed that water was wet because it was intended that way? How about the joining of atoms into molocules and those molocules into specific substances, and those sustances into the shapes and forms of ordinary gross matter as we know it?

What makes one random end-process more sensible than another?

October 17, 2012

Harsh86_Patel, I really do pity you. You have been so completely brainwashed by the creationist propaganda that you can't distinguish science from the creationist counterfeit. It really is saddening, but your posts make clear that there isn't any hope for you. You just repeat the same meaningless and fallacious statements over and over, and force us to correct you about the same things ad nauseam. It is clear thought that you are trapped in the deceitful web of the creationist propaganda. And now you're just writing posts of extreme length, with zero intellectual content whatsoever. I am not going to waste my time correcting your same fallacies. I'm done with you, until further notice: until you decide to write something original, and cease posting creationist propaganda over and over. Namaste.

October 17, 2012

I was about to suggest we allow this thread to get back to its intended topic: Ice Age Civilizations. But then I went into the history of the discussion and saw that it was co-opted way back on Page 3, so there's little point in trying to save this thread. It's original intent is dead and gone. I'd suggest Harsh start a new discussion on creationism vs. evolution, perhaps in the Science section, but I don't know what the point would be now. I'm tempted to close the thread but that's probably not fair.

All I can say right now is, the past 20-plus pages have had nothing tangible to do with the intended topic.

Edited October 17, 2012 by kmt_sesh

October 18, 2012

There were a lot of people contributing to the discusion and not only me.I remember creating a thread regarding "ice age civilizations" with almost the same title and intent earlier on and it is still active.Though you are the moderator.

Conventional views on evolution are directly related to the possibility of ice age civilizations that is why the argument was brought here though if you feel that we are going off the topic or disturbing anyone who want's to discuss the intended topic more directly i can stop posting here.

October 18, 2012

There were a lot of people contributing to the discusion and not only me.I remember creating a thread regarding "ice age civilizations" with almost the same title and intent earlier on and it is still active.Though you are the moderator.

Conventional views on evolution are directly related to the possibility of ice age civilizations that is why the argument was brought here though if you feel that we are going off the topic or disturbing anyone who want's to discuss the intended topic more directly i can stop posting here.

So that is the reason for evolution .vs. creationism to be in a thread about ice age civilization! I've been trying to figure that out for the past thirty pages. Evolutionary biology has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the possibility of ice age civilization, Harsh86_Patel.

October 18, 2012

So that is the reason for evolution .vs. creationism to be in a thread about ice age civilization! I've been trying to figure that out for the past thirty pages. Evolutionary biology has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the possibility of ice age civilization, Harsh86_Patel.

You'll recall he was citing cremo's contention that man and thus human civilization was many millions of years old. Dinosaur old.

October 18, 2012

You'll recall he was citing cremo's contention that man and thus human civilization was many millions of years old. Dinosaur old.

I had almost forgotten! So that's what this is all about... That certainly explains a thing or two.

October 18, 2012

So that is the reason for evolution .vs. creationism to be in a thread about ice age civilization! I've been trying to figure that out for the past thirty pages. Evolutionary biology has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the possibility of ice age civilization, Harsh86_Patel.

I said conventional views on evolution have a direct impact on when we believe the first civilization came into existence.Though i can see you are relieved by my motives for the argument,i have already and clearly mentioned this before to Sesh but i guess you skipped the part and called me a troll several times for no reason.I am not heralding 'creationism' and i never proposed it strongly even once but you have by default labelled the debate so and me a supporter of creationism,all i was arguing was that the present theory of evolution is highly flawed.

I would also like to highlight that the group that most uses the theory of evolution for explainations is the Historians and anthropologists and not the scientists.

October 18, 2012

I would also like to highlight that the group that most uses the theory of evolution for explainations is the Historians and anthropologists and not the scientists.

And biologists.. oh wait they're scientists.

Ice Age Civilization

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