Dover Penn ID trial

[PatKelley]

It's the states that are being selected, not the rocks themselves.

Okay, so let's take a look at the example and what states exist.

Pebbles come in all shapes and sizes. Pebbles with extrusions are more likely to hit another object, or be hit against by an object, in a way that causes wearing. Wearing can cause a jagged edge to become rounded, or a rounded pebble to become jagged again, but rounded edges are harder to turn jagged than vice versa. Over time, the distribution of shapes will be dominated by roundness.

I'll start with the population diagram again, with population as the x-axis and roundness as the y.
We'll start with a population of rough rocks.

[FONT=Courier New]
|   _
|  / \
|_/   \__
|________
[/FONT]

Now, we expose them to river water wear and tear.

[FONT=Courier New]
|    _
|   / \
|__/   \_
|________
[/FONT]

Versus having a person walking along the river select for round rocks

 [FONT=Courier New]
|    
|     _ 
|____/ \_
|________
[/FONT]

Because we've not really selected for anything in the first diagram, all we've done is shift the population as a whole. There is no selection pressure winnowing the population based on an attribute, but rather a shift of all of the population one direction. This differs from selection pressure in that there is no population reduction. The states are not being selected independant of the objects, as if states are selected there is no population. It is the population of physical objects in those states which determines what your population is, oddly enough. Without a population, one has a pressure with no subject to be selected.

 

[delphi_ote]

The people who don't allow drastic & rapid change are neo-Darwinist evolutionists.

Care to point me to a place where a scientist has said that? You seem to enjoy inventing your opponent.

 

[PatKelley]

Segueing back to Dover for a minute.

Vote still at issue in Dover


Not that it matters as far as the ID decision goes. There are still more against than for it.

Now, one vote for Cashman and ninety for all of the others... well, I'd say that's either selection pressure or God's will...

 

[delphi_ote]

Segueing back to Dover for a minute.

Vote still at issue in Dover


Not that it matters as far as the ID decision goes. There are still more against than for it.

Clearly the satanists rigged the machine. Only through Pat Robertson's appeals to the almighty God was the deception revealed. Praise Jesus!

Think that'll be on the 700 Club next week?

By the way, why is it we can't get elections right in this bastion of democracy? Seems like we should get the whole counting thing down ourselves before we try exporting our democracy.

 

[PatKelley]

Clearly the satanists rigged the machine. Only through Pat Robertson's appeals to the almighty God was the deception revealed. Praise Jesus!

Think that'll be on the 700 Club next week?

By the way, why is it we can't get elections right in this bastion of democracy? Seems like we should get the whole counting thing down ourselves before we try exporting our democracy.

Home schooling. I blame home schooling.

 

[hammegk]

Care to point me to a place where a scientist has said that? You seem to enjoy inventing your opponent.

Should I now infer that mutation and selection is not 'slow'? What part of The Theory suggests otherwise? Obviously the fossils do.

I notice no one yet cares to follow up linking, say, chaos & strange attractors to explosive cycles of mutation followed by stasis.

Since you don't have a definition for "micro-ev vs. macro-ev", "significant event", or "catastrophic", this statement is entirely meaningless.

To you, apparently. Hopefully a brighter bulb grasps the import and responds to it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No really, Hammy, it's meaningless. We don't understand what you are saying. We argue incessantly over the meanings of words without making any forward progress.

As far as I can tell, this is what you are saying: Hey! This evolution thing just can't possibly produce whatever it is *I* think exists. Much too complicated. Can't get started. Everyone to get from street!

~~ Paul

 

[chipmunk stew]

Hopefully a brighter bulb grasps the import and responds to it.

You mean, hopefully someone agrees with you that you said something important. This dim bulb responded:

"You could easily and reasonably argue that life itself was the significant, catastrophic event, and everything that followed was just a natural consequence of that singular event. Objectively, what makes relatively major transitions through forms any more significant than relatively minor ones?"

"You could also argue that there have been catastrophic events such as viral epidemics or large heavenly bodies striking the Earth which have at times accelerated the pace of transitions through forms and led to 'significant' or 'drastic and rapid' change."

Care to correct me, o enlightened one? You can do it here or in that other thread you abandoned after apparently conceding the argument.

 

[delphi_ote]

Should I now infer that mutation and selection is not 'slow'? What part of The Theory suggests otherwise? Obviously the fossils do.

Obviously you can infer whatever you damn well please if you're not interested a conversation about evolution. If you'd like to have an intellectually honest conversation, I challenged an assertion you made. The burden of proof is on you. If you want to talk about scientists that "don't allow drastic & rapid change," point one out to me. You can't start making inferences yet, because nobody knows what you're talking about.

 

[hammegk]

... You can't start making inferences yet, because nobody knows what you're talking about.

Of course I can, even though I agree with you that nobody here understands what I said.


How about tackling this one:

I notice no one yet cares to follow up linking, say, chaos & strange attractors to explosive cycles of mutation followed by stasis.

Or is that meaningless for y'all too?

 

[delphi_ote]

explosive cycles of mutation

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

 

[chipmunk stew]

Of course I can, even though I agree with you that nobody here understands what I said.

There are at least a couple possible answers to the question "Why doesn't anyone understand me?"

They include:
1. I'm smarter than everyone else.
2. I'm vague and incoherent.
eta: 3. I never answer clarifying questions...at least without generating more vagaries requiring further clarification.

Clearly, you believe the correct answer is "1" in your case. So, rather than smugly implying in every other post that we're just too stupid to appreciate the nuggets of wisdom that you keep dropping at our feet, try a different tactic, like spelling out WHAT THE FK YOU MEAN in language that can't readily be misinterpreted.

All your clever barbs with the winking smileys don't stick if no one knows WHAT THE FK YOU MEAN.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I notice no one yet cares to follow up linking, say, chaos & strange attractors to explosive cycles of mutation followed by stasis.

Yup, that would be meaningless to me. Now, if you'd mentioned quantum mechanics ...

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Er, that puctuated equilibrium stuff?

1. I'm smarter than everyone else.
2. I'm vague and incoherent.
eta: 3. I never answer clarifying questions...at least without generating more vagaries requiring further clarification.

You forgot 4. I have a different set of understandings (and mis-understandings) than someone else does.

I accept 2: for 3, try asking a real, non-rhetorical question.

1. Nope, and most likely below par in this bunch.

Yup, that would be meaningless to me.

Why? It seems straight-forward to me.

 

[chipmunk stew]

for 3, try asking a real, non-rhetorical question.

Okay:

"Objectively, what makes relatively major transitions through forms any more significant than relatively minor ones?"

(It wasn't rhetorical the first two times, either.)

 

[hammegk]

Not rhetorical, yet not a question I -- nor apparently anyone -- can answer (for someone else). It's the macro-ev = new species, micro-ev = same species problem, if I understood your question.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Why? It seems straight-forward to me.

I didn't realize that evolution has anything to do with dynamical systems that are attracted to particular states when trajectories get close enough.

~~ Paul

 

[chipmunk stew]

Not rhetorical, yet not a question I -- nor apparently anyone -- can answer (for someone else). It's the macro-ev = new species, micro-ev = same species problem, if I understood your question.

My question addresses this:

all significant events are catastrophic. The Theory unfortunately is tied to micro-ev with time being all that's needed.

from which I inferred that you consider relatively major ("macro-ev") biological changes "significant events", but not relatively minor ("micro-ev") ones. What makes one "significant" and the other not?

This is key because your assertion was that "all significant events are catastrophic", from which you concluded that "macro-ev", being a significant event, must have a "catastrophic" mechanism (correct me if I'm mistaken, please.)

So in addition to the question in bold above, here's another that's not rhetorical, but relies on an answer to the first: What qualifies as "catastrophic" when analyzing the mechanism behind a significant event?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Not rhetorical, yet not a question I -- nor apparently anyone -- can answer (for someone else). It's the macro-ev = new species, micro-ev = same species problem, if I understood your question.

HI. Remeber me? Remember how on every thread you posted on, I challenged you to define the boundary between micro-evolution and macro-evolution?

And you couldn't?

Well you still can't.

So why are you blabbering about concepts you admit you can't define?

We're going to have to split this thread for a third time, aren't we? Because hammy wants his gibberish to have centre stage. Again.

 

[chipmunk stew]

Because hammy wants his gibberish to have centre stage. Again.

I've got to give credit where it's due, though, Dr A. He's a right perfect foil. I've learned a lot reading these threads, and much of that was through refutations of hammy's posts.