Evolution: the Facts.

There have been many, many "turns" here. To claim that I have brought "the Bible in AT EVERY TURN" is mendacious to say the least.

It is mendacious for at LEAST two reasons:

1. I have cited some interesting and I would contend incontestably correct proverbs or concepts which are consistent and compatible with the scientific method. I did so primarily for one reason - to generate the gnashing of as many Darwinists' teeth as possible. I know, I know, not one of you gnashed any of your teeth. Sure :::: wink, nudge ::::.
2. See below. One Simon pal after another brought "in the Bible" and not once, NOT ONCE did Simon say to ANY of them, "this is an irrelevant and confusing distraction".
Simon only FEIGNED "confusion" when in fact it was something very different. It was condescension and hypocrisy.
Must I explain EVERYTHING to you people? If so, it would certainly take a very long time, and I have neither the time nor the interest in doing so when people like Simon display such profound contempt, and condescension, and unfriendliness and disinterest in listening, really listening, and trying to respond honestly and fairly. It never happens in any discussion with Darwinists. Never.
What a black mark against all of you, who take your cues from Richard Dawkins, the Hater In Chief.

"The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist..." - Michael Ruse


Dude; you added me, loudly, to your ignore list 5 posts ago... Posting about me, while being shielded from my responses behind a wall of self-imposed blindness, just makes you seem pathetic and cowardly...
 
The approaches listed in those articles are not unique to just those exact replicators but to the general methods they represent.
You claimed chirality couldn't occur from basic chemistry. I demonstrated that your statement was false. You are welcome to amend your argument in light of the evidence, but note that the original point is not valid.

1. Chirality, in the context of human proteins and enzymes, exhibits a chirality not found in basic chemical equations. It is noteworthy that you did NOT quote me with respect to anything I said like "chirality couldn't occur from basic chemistry," whatever "basic chemistry" is supposed to mean.

2. You "demonstrated" nothing of the kind. Let me repeat, two smart guys, in a chemistry lab, can separate D from L amino acids, AFTER they prepared extremely sophisticated "replicators." Their "general methods" are little different.

3. You are welcome to consider skepticism of your beloved 150+ year old theory, which vastly predates modern biochemistry.

You are also welcome to consider these assertions I made:

Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your associates were unfamiliar with Darwinism, as used by Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse in his book by that title, and others whose reputation and credentials would never be questioned by anyone here who has so eagerly and arrogantly dismissed me.

Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your friends pretended, and claimed, that the terms microevolution and macroevolution were invented by "Creationists" when in fact they were the product of Dobzhansky.

Fact: Haeckel's fraud persisted from 1868 to 1997, in stark contradiction to the mantra of "self-correcting" science. How embarrassing it should be, but unfortunately IS NOT, that biologists continued to accept this FRAUD for well over 100 years, while parroting endlessly the "self-correcting" nature of science, which FAILED to critically examine itself.

Fact: Biochemical synthesis is not trivial, and yet it is endlessly trivialized because of its complexity, and the difficulty if not impossibility of addressing it through the mechanism of random mutation followed by selection.

Fact: Information theorists have published many papers describing the insuperable difficulty of accumulating useful information to produce a compact, coherent repository (DNA) complete with the means of interpreting it, reproducing it, all from hopeful hypotheticals. With all our sophistication, we cannot today begin to interpret the language of life, viz. what the various amino acid sequences mean. But somehow, somehow because bacteria can lose information and thereby gain resistance, this means that proteins and DNA all synthesized themselves by repeating this mechanism, and therefore microevolution means macroevolution?

Sorry, that does not follow.
 
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2. You "demonstrated" nothing of the kind. Let me repeat, two smart guys, in a chemistry lab, can separate D from L amino acids, AFTER they prepared extremely sophisticated "replicators." Their "general methods" are little different.
Calcite and certain clay minerals do this very, very well. No one's sure why the one that was chosen was chosen, but how they were separated is trivial at this point.

Of course, I'm on "ignore", so all I can do is hope someone quotes this so JTQ sees it.
 
Calcite and certain clay minerals do this very, very well. No one's sure why the one that was chosen was chosen, but how they were separated is trivial at this point.

Of course, I'm on "ignore", so all I can do is hope someone quotes this so JTQ sees it.

That and while in original pre-life biochemistry its actually considered very likely that D and L chiral molecules were formed in equal amounts, this has no bearing on current biology. Once a single proto lifeform formed it had a 50/50 chance of being formed to use either one.
Once such a lifeform starts consuming and interacting with the environment however it starts to influence the reaction leading quickly to the depletion of the chiral form not used in biology.
No biological molecule is totally stable and if life starts sequestering away one of the two forms and recycling it and later actively taking away the components needed in the non-life reaction the balance shifts.
So the fact that both forms can be made equally in prebiotic conditions does not in any way exclude evolution.

There is also the detail that most abiogenesis theories today no longer consider the first lifeforms to have used amino acids, but rather more likely a form of RNA.
 
Fact: Haeckel's fraud persisted from 1868 to 1997, in stark contradiction to the mantra of "self-correcting" science.
I must have somehow failed to hear the pillars of evolutionary biology falling in 1997.

Possibly that's because Haeckel's drawings typically were (and still are) used mainly as general illustrations, rather than as the irreplaceable foundations of any major theories.

As for the drawings still being used, personally, I never actually found a problem with being given simplified/exaggerated explanations in science which then get refined as one learns more.
In Chemistry, my world didn't collapse when I found out atoms weren't *really* like little balls connected with sticks, nor when I later found out that orbitals weren't really like classical orbits, etc.

I wouldn't have thought that many professional embryologists even long before 1997 would be likely to have believed Haeckel over the evidence of their own eyes when it came to actually doing their work, if there was any conflict.
Unless, of course, they were the kind of sheep who would prefer to willingly submit to tradition and give precedence to an Olde Book rather than thinking and looking for themselves.
 
Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your friends pretended, and claimed, that the terms microevolution and macroevolution were invented by "Creationists" when in fact they were the product of Dobzhansky.

Evidence? let me give you a hand. Here are all the references to 'micro/macro - evolution' that occurred in this thread. (Yes, I have too much time on my hands)

creationists refer to this as "microevolution"
... I had a thought for a new rebuttal to the common creationist objection that they accept microevolution...

But my question back to them would be: what differences are there between humans and cats, or cows and monkeys, that could not be explained by the microevolution that they already accept?...
... For example, they accept the idea of microevolution and macroevolution giving an example of a transition from one to the other. ...
...I would like to present that picture and then ask someone to draw the line between the microevolution events and the macroevolution event.
...Theodosius Dobzhansky coined the terms "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" as everyone here SHOULD know, but unfortunately does not.

Micro-evolution, such as that you cited, is not disputed....

Neither is macroevolution. Evidences for macroevolution.

.... It's predominantly Creationists that use the terms micro- and macro-evolution. (One exception I know of is the use of the term macroevolution to denote evolution above the species level, but I'm not a fan of that and it's fairly rare to hear it at any rate.)

Here you first make the assertion:
The claim that such terms are the creation of "Creationists" is a lie. ...

Once again, you mesh and blend microevolution with macroevolution....

Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your friends pretended, and claimed, that the terms microevolution and macroevolution were invented by "Creationists" when in fact they were the produce of Dobzhansky.


... But somehow, somehow because bacteria can lose information and thereby gain resistance, this means that proteins and DNA all synthesized themselves by repeating this mechanism. In other words, microevolution means macroevolution.

It does not follow.
So you agree that micro-evolution exists, now, do you think it is possible that in two separate populations of a species that enough traits could change through micro-evolution that they two populations could no longer breed (between members of the separate populations) ?

Still pending chromosomal fusions and the peacock's tail.
Funny, you did not answer the question about micro-evolution that was the next step in discussion.
1. I made reference to micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
2. One of your Darwinist friends claimed that such terms were the work of "creationists" and I think he claimed that they were not scientific in nature.
3. To illuminate him, and many others here, I cited the originator of these TWO (2) terms, again micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
4. So NATURALLY, YOU reply on "what THE ACTUAL, REAL, SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF THE TERM is".

Let me make it clear, since you missed the point several times:

micro-evolution and macro-evolution are two (2) terms, not one.
...

And here you do it again:
Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your friends pretended, and claimed, that the terms microevolution and macroevolution were invented by "Creationists" when in fact they were the product of Dobzhansky.
...
But somehow, somehow because bacteria can lose information and thereby gain resistance, this means that proteins and DNA all synthesized themselves by repeating this mechanism, and therefore microevolution means macroevolution?

Sorry, that does not follow.

So i don't see where anyone made the claim that creationists created the terms micro-evolution and macro-evolution in this thread. Do you know where someone made that claim?
 
1. Chirality, in the context of human proteins and enzymes, exhibits a chirality not found in basic chemical equations. It is noteworthy that you did NOT quote me with respect to anything I said like "chirality couldn't occur from basic chemistry," whatever "basic chemistry" is supposed to mean.
This statement doesn't make any sense. Please explain what you mean by "Not found in basic chemical equations"
I said Basic chemistry meaning simple chemical reactions. Not needing the full complement of cellular machinery.
2. You "demonstrated" nothing of the kind. Let me repeat, two smart guys, in a chemistry lab, can separate D from L amino acids, AFTER they prepared extremely sophisticated "replicators." Their "general methods" are little different.
This is a dishonest goal shift on your part. You are effectively allowing ALL laboratory experiments to be excluded on grounds that the experiment was designed. This is simply nonsense. Remember, the point of the work was to show chirality emerge from a nonliving chemical system.

3. You are welcome to consider skepticism of your beloved 150+ year old theory, which vastly predates modern biochemistry.

I do consider it. It is impressive to see it support evolutionary theory so completely.

Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your associates were unfamiliar with Darwinism, as used by Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse in his book by that title, and others whose reputation and credentials would never be questioned by anyone here who has so eagerly and arrogantly dismissed me.
not sure how this invalidates anything regarding evolution.

Fact: Despite claiming to know so very much about evolution, many of your friends pretended, and claimed, that the terms microevolution and macroevolution were invented by "Creationists" when in fact they were the product of Dobzhansky.
Again, I do not know how this invalidates evolution. Indeed, I do not like the terms as they are used in a hodgepodge fashion in the literature. Most researchers use it to describe evolution across eons.

Fact: Haeckel's fraud persisted from 1868 to 1997, in stark contradiction to the mantra of "self-correcting" science. How embarrassing it should be, but unfortunately IS NOT, that biologists continued to accept this FRAUD for well over 100 years, while parroting endlessly the "self-correcting" nature of science, which FAILED to critically examine itself.
Again, it is unfortunate that a fraudulent work would appear in textbooks at a later date. Of course, I do not know in what context the image was shown, so I withhold complete judgement. But again, I do not know how this Hoax, which was identified by other scientists, invalidates evolution.

Fact: Biochemical synthesis is not trivial, and yet it is endlessly trivialized because of its complexity, and the difficulty if not impossibility of addressing it through the mechanism of random mutation followed by selection.
Please explain more about what you mean here. Which mechanisms of mutation are you referring to? point mutation? insertion or deletion? Frame shift? I am curious to know what you are trying to say here, because the literature is quite adept at identifying numerous mutation errors that occur and have even used these to create new proteins. Look into the area of "DNA shuffling".

Fact: Information theorists have published many papers describing the insuperable difficulty of accumulating useful information to produce a compact, coherent repository (DNA) complete with the means of interpreting it, reproducing it, all from hopeful hypotheticals.
Please share some of this work you refer to.

With all our sophistication, we cannot today begin to interpret the language of life, viz. what the various amino acid sequences mean. But somehow, somehow because bacteria can lose information and thereby gain resistance, this means that proteins and DNA all synthesized themselves by repeating this mechanism, and therefore microevolution means macroevolution?
bacterial resistence emergence doesn't occur through lost information. It occurs through a complex variety of mechanisms. On of which is RAC3 gene up regulation which forces DNA mutations that permit some entities to become resistant. These resistence mechanisms come into play through enhanced efflux pump activity, mutations in drug action target site and making the antimicrobial less effective.
Sorry, that does not follow.
What doesn't follow?
 
Hang on. Why is this a problem? I don't know if you are referring to a specific case (if so, please elaborate), but why would the following be an impossible scenario:

Organism X lives in Southern Asia.

During a change in climate, conditions favourable to its northward spread occurs, and X happens to spread north until it is at the limits of where it could reproduce. This happens to be Mongolia.

Climate changes again, but more slowly, allowing the Mongolian populations to adapt to local conditions. Eventually, it is better adapted to the Mongolian conditions than to those of Southern Asia.

These conditions happen to be uniform over a large area, spreading from Ussuriland to Portugal, and X gradually comes to spread over this area. Populations in different parts of the range are variously isolated from each other, depending on geographical features and distance. Gradually, these populations adapt to local conditions.

Given sufficient time, the populations of the extreme edges of the range are sufficiently different for us to interpret this (whether morphologically, genetically, or by other methods) as a set of different, but closely related, species. Perhaps one in Southern France is named species X1, the one in Ussuriland and Mongolia X2 and the one in Southern Asia X3.

After having found fossils of all three, as well as other populations, deemed to be intermediate or otherwise related to the group, and analysing them genetically, we feel confident enough in our data to publish them, employing the scenario outlined above.

What part of that is actually impossible? We know that organisms are capable of extending their ranges. We know that organisms, given time, may spread over very large distances, and even, depending on their mode of migration, form disjunct ranges. We know that, again given time, organisms tend to adapt to their local environment (if necessary). We know that is it possible for two allopatric populations to become reproductively isolated from each other -- even for sympatric populations to become effectively reproductively isolated from each other. We know that when this happens, and the isolation is sufficiently complete, adaptations in one part of an organism's range will be independent of adaptations in another part, whether this part is disjunct or not. We know that the local environment of different parts of a given organism's range may be slightly or substantially different.

Where does the impossibility come in? I certainly cannot see it.



A former PhD student here at my department studied this and claimed that he could identify 37 distinct ones (this was about three years ago, I think), although many of them are extremely similar and perhaps better seen as variants of the same concept. Possibly, if these variants are lumped together, your number is more or less accurate.



Of course we do (1), as the concept of "species" is elusive, and we still haven't found a definition that fits all known organisms. Personally, I think de Queiroz is perhaps closest to getting a genuinely universal one but we're not there yet.

As a working biologist, I would rather have different species concepts for different groups of organisms, than trying to apply the same (by necessity arbitrary) standards equally to all groups of organisms. Doing so would create more problems than it solves, and switching between different species concepts is generally not a problem in biology, as long as you are clear about what concept you are applying to your group.

Naturally, even people working on the same group of organisms will have different ideas about where to draw the lines and what criteria to use and so on, but this is very rarely a real problem. I was in precisely one of these discussions the other day, when I proposed to synonymise two species because they are genetically identical but morphologically distinct. A colleague in New Zealand disagreed, and I simply outlined my reasoning for why I thought they should be the same, despite the considerable differences in morphology, and even though we still don't agree, it isn't a problem.

---
(1) I am a professional biologist, so I get to use "we" proudly. I might also have no problems being called a "Darwinist", provided the term is adequately explained first. As long as you don't call me an Eichlerist (if he wasn't already dead, I might have wished him to be so that his silliness would stop; but this is a digression).

I think you forgot to answer Kotatsu, Jonathan?
 
I think you forgot to answer Kotatsu, Jonathan?


You will have to wait for an answer...

Seriously, it is impressive that's three suspensions in as many weeks. By the time this suspension wears off, JQ will have spend more time in the 'suspended member' category than in the 'active member' one...

Is there an official policy stating at which point an user is considered not worth the troubles? Between his repeated infractions to the (rather lax) forum rules and his ever growing ignore list, it really seems to me that JQ has joined this forum to insult and berate rather than engage in actual honest discussion...
 
SumDood said:
So i don't see where anyone made the claim that creationists created the terms micro-evolution and macro-evolution in this thread. Do you know where someone made that claim?
Not only that, but it doesn't matter who coined the term. Words change meaning over time--as a good friend once said, when we say "stoic" most of us have no idea what the word actually means, we're going off the modern definition. Similarly, when someone says "macroevolution" most of us know what is meant by the word--and it's the Creationist meaning given to the word. Ignoring etymological history is hardly what one would call critical thinking. :rolleyes:

joobz said:
But again, I do not know how this Hoax, which was identified by other scientists, invalidates evolution.
I think this, more than anything else, is what I don't get about the anti-evolution movement: they aren't finding real flaws. It's been demonstrated that some information in the scientific literature in the past has been faulty or was outright fraud. However, the flaws and fraud were not, generally, discovered by people attempting to disprove evolution--they were found by scientists who believed it (as shown in Corrupted Sciece: Fraud, ideology and politics in science, by John Grant, 2007). We know that there have been problems in the past; it is therefore safe to assume there will be problems in the present and into the future. People mess up, machines mess up, and our publish-or-perish culture certainly contributes to the mess. Why are the anti-evolutionists taking pot-shots at theories they demonstrably know nothing about (geophysics, thermodynamics, biogeochemistry, stratigraphy, etc) instead of actually finding the flaws in the literature? How much of a feather in the cap of any anti-evolutionist would it be to have the scientific community bound by intellectual integrity to admit "Okay, yeah, you have a point"?

Yet none of them do it. It's weird.
 
Dude; you added me, loudly, to your ignore list 5 posts ago... Posting about me, while being shielded from my responses behind a wall of self-imposed blindness, just makes you seem pathetic and cowardly...
fixed that for you
 
"Origin of STOIC
Middle English, from Latin stoicus, from Greek stōïkos, literally, of the portico, from Stoa (Poikilē) the Painted Portico, portico at Athens where Zeno taught
First Known Use: 14th century"

Well I learned something today. Next time somebody stay they are Stoic, I'll ask them "how does it feel to be be a portico".
 

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