"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

[truethat]

The awesome aspect of this thread is how much better my understanding of these concepts are with you guys trying to explain these concepts to him.
While he may be a brick wall of religious dogma, there are great benefits to others.

This is why I think it's good as well and I try to remind people to have the debate for the benefit of those confused lurkers.

I used to make the same arguments or similar to what randman is saying.

But here's some points for those confused. If you look at evolution as an "answer" rather than an observation of reality, you will make the same mistakes that randman is making.

One is saying "But why did it do that? It doesn't make any sense! It should have done X"

This shows he is treating evolution as an "End game" (to quote Paulhoff) rather than an observation of how it unfolded, he is looking at evolution as a decisive path.

It's chaos. It is not necessarily going to unfold with a predictable path, although sometimes it does do that, other times it doesn't.

The other thing is that he is confusing the way it is being explained to people with the way the science is done.

For example when explaining the "evolution of a whale" it doesn't mean that the ancestors of the whale are whales. What has happened is that because of the formation of a bone in the ears of whales, they were able to detect that certain fossils were relatives of the whale. When they explain how it happened, it does sometimes seem like they are speaking in terms that sound like "determinism" however this is only because we are "looking back on the ancestry of the whale" IOW we already know the end point from which we are looking back.

But this is not how evolution works. Evolution isn't "trying to get the animal to be a whale." The television show or news article or paper that is tracing the path of the whale is trying to get the animal to be a whale.

But that is a dramatic element used in the explanation of the story, the arc, the plot etc. It's not how evolution works at all.

 

[truethat]

I said unlikely, not likely.



No, the fact that niches that had been successfully occupied were suddenly emptied via methods that had nothing to do with any evolutionary mechanism created the opportunity for whales.

To return to my soda analogy, let's say that the demand for cola doesn't peter out and vanish due to market pressure. Instead, the PepsiCo and Coca-Cola factories are suddenly swallowed by a series of sinkholes and asteroid strikes.

Someone is going to start making and marketing colas to fill the empty market niche created by the disappearance of Coke and Pepsi.



The fossil and genomic evidence for the evolution of whales has already been shown to you. If you choose to plug your ears and close your eyes and shout "Nanananana! Not listening!", then that's your problem.

It's certainly not a problem with evolutionary theory.

This sure sounds like ID lingo to me. I'd step well and far away from it. Making sense of evolution is just our way of creating guidelines for learning from it. But it doesn't actually unravel the way we like to think it does.

 

[A'isha]

This sure sounds like ID lingo to me. I'd step well and far away from it. Making sense of evolution is just our way of creating guidelines for learning from it. But it doesn't actually unravel the way we like to think it does.

Not really. The difference is between a Designer choosing a specific someone to do something via a specific method, and an opportunity opening up for someone (anyone) to do something, without specifying who or how or when or why.

 

[randman]

This sure sounds like ID lingo to me. I'd step well and far away from it. Making sense of evolution is just our way of creating guidelines for learning from it. But it doesn't actually unravel the way we like to think it does.

I pointed that out; that he and others were unwittingly making an argument for ID awhile back. Glad you came to the table a little late. Of course, I disagree with you on ID, and also feel you are continually misrepresenting me, suggesting somehow I don't properly understand the debate, evolution, etc,.....but it's been shown on a number of points I have had a much greater grasp of it than you and many others (natural selection being a mechanism for decreasing genetic variation for example).

As far as looking for evolution as an answer, no, I am considering the proposed mechanisms to see if they work with the data, and of course, they do not, as any objective, rational person could see if they were not predisposed to accept the myth of Neodarwinism in advance. That's also why I continually try to focus the discussion on the use of data.

When you have a theory that continually leads people to constantly overstate their case and employ illogic, as evos do and have done for a very long time, you know there is a real problem and lack of understanding.

Just the idea you would use a form basically stablized over a billion years ago as evidence for evolution of major macroevolution of new forms should raise some eyebrows or howls of derision, but evos present it with a straight face with all the conviction of their faith without a hint of awareness of the absurdity of their use of data demonstrating a lack of macroevolution of new forms as evidence for it.

 

[truethat]

I haven't come to the "table late" as you may recall I told you I invented the term "evo" for reasons of distinction in cases like this.

What I have consistently said to you is that you are confusing the debates online with "Evos" with the actual science.

There may be one or two people in this thread who actually know what they are talking about, the rest of us are just debating IDEAS. You unfortunately are NOT one of the two people in this thread who actually know what you are talking about.

You know the ideas. You know the arguments and the theories. You know the debates, and the statistics. But the one thing you clearly do not know is the SCIENCE.

This is why your statements read as they do. The science of evolution has nothing to do with all of this yappery online.

So you can debate to the point of perspective on here. That's within reason. But you are taking it way further than that.

Basically what you are saying is that if a bunch of evos and IDers online have a debate for which a very small percentage have actually received any education, and they argue and can't make sense of a topic like "Why did whales evolve from land animals to ocean animals" then this undermines evolutionary theory.

This is sort of why people laugh a little at you. It's a ridiculous assertion.

 

[randman]

I haven't come to the "table late" as you may recall I told you I invented the term "evo" for reasons of distinction in cases like this.

And I told you how you didn't invent the term as many were using the term going back to at least the 90s if not earlier.

What I have consistently said to you is that you are confusing the debates online with "Evos" with the actual science.

And I have showed you where the actual science errs. Pierre Grasse pointed out the same thing.

There may be one or two people in this thread who actually know what they are talking about, the rest of us are just debating IDEAS. You unfortunately are NOT one of the two people in this thread who actually know what you are talking about.

So you try to claim but the evidence suggests otherwise.

The only people that laugh do so at Pierre Grasse, Davison, Denton, Behe, etc,.....and a whole host of scientists. The only reason they do so is because they cannot refute their arguments and so resort to derision in an attempt to silence dissent. It's the evo way and not indicative of real science.

 

[randman]

I told you I invented the term "evo" for reasons of distinction in cases like this.

yea, you said you invented the term a few years ago, but it's been widely used for a very long time which indicates you are likely new to the debate....here is a use of the term back in 2003, for example.

About half of these folks responding here are Evos (the last time I conversed with them).

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?control=msg&t=271

You didn't invent the term.

 

[truethat]

yea, you said you invented the term a few years ago, but it's been widely used for a very long time which indicates you are likely new to the debate....here is a use of the term back in 2003, for example.



http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?control=msg&t=271

You didn't invent the term.

Yeah I did. I used it way before that. I used around 2001 when 911 happened and I began debating people online in the first place about religion and evolution.

Sorry

And I notice you just cherry picked. You do need to admit that you are arguing online. I doubt seriously that you have any education on this topic outside of web sites. Just because you make the same ridiculous assertion for several years doesn't mean you have a stronger argument if you hear the same type of debunking of your statement.

It seems like you don't take people seriously when they tell you that you obviously don't understand evolution. You might think you have a tight argument because you've repeated it so many times. But it's not a good argument at all. You just sound uneducated and willfully ignorant.

 

[randman]

truethat, do you honestly believe you invented the term?

Also, you seem to have moved the time you invented the term back a few years. Kind of hard to access debates and forums from the 90s on the internet or earlier prior to the internet, but hey, if it makes you feel better.....

 

[truethat]

You said it was from a few years ago. Now you are moving the goal posts. LOL Par for the course.


I only brought it up again to remind you that I've argued with 'evos" before and I consider an "evo" someone who "worships" the theory of evolution.

People do that all the time. There are idiots online who argue in favor of evolution but also have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Like you, they source things they have read on websites, they "debate" creationism and ID as if it is the alternative to evolution. They get sarcastic, like you etc. But these people are NOT SCIENTISTS.

So when you give yourself a big high five for besting someone online, just realize what the debate will look like to a true scientist. It will look like two uneducated people debating something neither of whom have the slightest bit of knowledge about. It will look like two people arguing about things they read online. Both will be wrong. No matter who wins the debate.

And none of it will have anything to do with the scientific approach to evolution.

 

[randman]

Anything and everything I am arguing is based on actual science, not just internet debates. It's kind of sad you've been around so long and don't grasp that.

Guess we understand why it was so hard to get an acknowledgement that Haeckel's depictions were faked.

 

[truethat]

Anything and everything I am arguing is based on actual science, not just internet debates. It's kind of sad you've been around so long and don't grasp that.

Guess we understand why it was so hard to get an acknowledgement that Haeckel's depictions were faked.

Because the people you were discussing it with are not scientists. The ones that are knew right away. It's common knowledge.

Nothing that you are arguing is based on actual science. Everything you are arguing is about the interpretation of "selected" perspectives and ideas.

What kind of education do you have?

 

[randman]

Because the people you were discussing it with are not scientists. The ones that are knew right away. It's common knowledge.

Nothing that you are arguing is based on actual science. Everything you are arguing is about the interpretation of "selected" perspectives and ideas.

What kind of education do you have?

So if scientists knew in the 80s and 90s and earlier that haeckel was a fraud, why did they keep saying otherwise?

Richardson stated they only found out in 1997 but that his depictions had been debunked in the 1800s but people forgot.

The Brown University of Biology stated he used it in his textbooks as nearly every textbook did because they didn't know until 1997.

So are they not 2 scientists? They are not merely message board posters.

Of course, creationists and IDers had been loudly complaining about the depictions as false for 130 years.

Why didn't evos listen?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

So if scientists knew in the 80s and 90s and earlier that haeckel was a fraud, why did they ...blah blah blah balh

Your post indicates you are completely incapable of comprehension.

As has been pointed out, Haeckel's errors were recognized and corrected shortly after he published his work and the field of evolutionary embryology proceeded without interruption.

Get over it.

 

[randman]

This idea has been pushed back into the news recently by the news that Haeckel's drawings of embryonic similarities were not correct. British embryologist Michael Richardson and his colleages published an important paper in the August 1997 issue of Anatomy & Embryology showing that Haeckel had fudged his drawings to make the early stages of embryos appear more alike than they actually are! As it turns out, Haeckel's contemporaries had spotted the fraud during his lifetime, and got him to admit it. However, his drawings nonetheless became the source material for diagrams of comparative embryology in nearly every biology textbook, including ours!

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/embryos/Haeckel.html

How did a biology professor at an Ivy League university now know they were fakes?

Maybe because evos in the field didn't realize it?

From Richardson's 1997 paper.

One puzzling feature of the debate in this field is that
while many authors have written of a conserved embryonic
stage, no one has cited any comparative data in support
of the idea. It is almost as though the phylotypic
stage is regarded as a biological concept for which no
proof is needed.

Haeckel's drawings of the external morphology
of various vertebrates remain the most comprehensive
comparative data purporting to show a conserved stage.

 

[randman]

Your post indicates you are completely incapable of comprehension.

As has been pointed out, Haeckel's errors were recognized and corrected shortly after he published his work and the field of evolutionary embryology proceeded without interruption.

Get over it.

Richardson paper from 1997:

Haeckel's drawings of the external morphology
of various vertebrates remain the most comprehensive
comparative data purporting to show a conserved stage.

So if they knew the data was faked, why were evos in the field still relying on it in 1997?

Why did they continue to put the faked data into textbooks?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Haeckel's drawings of the external morphology
of various vertebrates remain the most comprehensive
comparative data purporting to show a conserved stage.

In a day and age where virtually all pregnancies are imaged via ultra sound you'd have to be a total moron to think this is an accurate and in context quote.

 

[randman]

More.....you guys don't get to rewrite history.

Using modern techniques, a British researcher has photographed embryos like those pictured in the famous, century-old drawings by Ernst Haeckel--proving that Haeckel's images were falsified. Haeckel once admitted to his peers that he doctored the drawings, but that confession was forgotten.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/277/5331/1435.1.short

 

[randman]

In a day and age where virtually all pregnancies are imaged via ultra sound you'd have to be a total moron to think this is an accurate and in context quote.

Have you read the paper? The whole paper was about blowing the lid on Haeckel and the claim of a phylotypic stage, which Richardson did.

Note his comment in the paper.

One puzzling feature of the debate in this field is that
while many authors have written of a conserved embryonic
stage, no one has cited any comparative data in support
of the idea. It is almost as though the phylotypic
stage is regarded as a biological concept for which no
proof is needed.

The thing is creationists and IDers had shown this for a very long time. Evos just wouldn't accept it until an evo came out and said, yep, they were fakes.

 

[Reality Check]

So if they knew the data was faked, why were evos in the field still relying on it in 1997?

Wrong: No evos in teh field have ever depended on it.
That is a creationist myth. Evolutionary theory has never included it.

Why did they continue to put the faked data into textbooks?

Bacause text book writers are lazy?
Bacuase they were in there as examples of fake data?