For scientists who accept evolution

[Taffer]

Because, Hammy, if evidence is found that contradicts the Theory of Evolution, the theory is reworked so it fits with the evidence.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Scientifically, why is it that data offer less support for 'baramin' than for, say, a taxonomic 'Family'?

I don't know. You tell us. It's time to tell us your "thinking".

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

Scientifically, why is it that data offer less support for 'baramin' than for, say, a taxonomic 'Family'?

In a sense, they don´t. What data support, is common ancestry. For a non-succinct, vitriolic and funny discussion on bacterial evolution, and "kinds", go here. Prime food!

Cheers,

The Rev.

 

[delphi_ote]

Scientifically, why is it that data offer less support for 'baramin' than for, say, a taxonomic 'Family'?

Back to making things up again, I see. No one ever said there wasn't support for either concept. The concepts just don't have precise distinctions.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

In a sense, they don´t. What data support, is common ancestry. For a non-succinct, vitriolic and funny discussion on bacterial evolution, and "kinds", go here. Prime food!

Cheers,

The Rev.

While not wishing to ignore the hook that Hammy is caught on, this is a tangent that I have found interesting for some time and have discussed here before.

The subject is what entrains rapidly mutating organisms to remain even approximately fixed as (roughly) identifiable species for any length of time.

As was pointed out in that link, becterial genomes are small and not very stable so any significant volume of that species can contain sufficient individuals to epxlore all of its one-step mutations and probably its two-step mutations as well as the variety of larger recombination products.

So, accepting evolution and natural selection, I find that the interesting question is not how do species evolve, but what are the forces that stop them wandering off in all directions? (Cf Haggunenon)

 

[Schneibster]

Conversely, how many evidential maybes does it require to certify a Theory 'scientifically certain' so that all future evidence may *only* be interpreted to support The Theory?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA230_1.html

 

[hammegk]

Pastor B.

On common descent, how many abiogenic events work best for you? One, two, four, a few more, many many more? Once one assumes it True, assigns guesses-extracted-from-rectum on mutation rates, and looks for similarities & differences in selected areas of the genome, viola: cladistics, sfaik.

On the fact that critters mutate -- remaining the same basic critter though --I like The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret. It is amazing how rapidly critters in stressed petri dishes mutate, and it's nice for them that at least some mutation points seem 'chosen' rather than random.

And, damn good thing that Ebola-Reston, although with airborne transmissability, is not a disease agent in homo sap, although it still is lethal in other primates.


Taffer: Yeah, the only thing more subject to re-work than The Theory is by definition fiction.

 

[Schneibster]

Once one assumes it True,

ibid.

assigns guesses-extracted-from-rectum on mutation rates,

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB100.html

On the fact that critters mutate -- remaining the same basic critter though(emphasis mine)

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

It is amazing how rapidly critters in stressed petri dishes mutate, and it's nice for them that at least some mutation points seem 'chosen' rather than random.(emphasis mine)

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101_1.html

Yeah, the only thing more subject to re-work than The Theory is by definition fiction.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB990.html

 

[Schneibster]

Why waste time? Hammy's not going to ever admit any possibility that there might be anything wrong with the book written by the neolithic shepherds.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Scientifically, why is it that data offer less support for 'baramin' than for, say, a taxonomic 'Family'?

I don't know. You tell us. It's time to tell us your "thinking".

Not letting you off the hook Hammy.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Why waste time? Hammy's not going to ever admit any possibility that there might be anything wrong with the book written by the neolithic shepherds.

No, but while we can discuss interesting stuff it's entertaining to keep tweaking Hammy to see whether he can be prompted to a display of integrity.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Having said all of the above, I gave some though to the idea of "baramins" some time ago and as with so many woo ideas, the greatest damage you can do it is to take it literally and destroy it by reductio ad absurdum

Here's what I wrote some time ago;


We still have no proper answer to the number of "kinds" on the Ark, but the subject is being explored as part of the new pseudoscience of ‘baraminology’ in which the term baramin has been invented to conceal the problematical concept of a "kind". So now the Ark contained a certain number of baramins instead.

Lets us take as a given for now the following estimate of the number of baramins;;

"How many holobaramins will there be- 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, or more? At this time the best very tentative answer is, "probably in the low thousands" "From the Creation Research Society.

Where "holobaramin" is the particular term for creatures connected by common ancestry. In other words, this is the maximum number of independent roots for all of the current branches of living creatures.

Today we have many millions of separate species. So there has been a radiation in diversity from "the low thousands" to many millions in the last 4500 years. This is a several thousand-fold increase in diversity! Evolutionary theory has no problem with increasing diversity by many-fold, because we have millions of years for it to occur. Creationists require that this happens in 4500 years.

1. This radiation has occurred during historically recorded times! Of this there is no evidence.

2. Creationists complain about the lack of "transitional forms". Never mind that this is a spurious argument when applied to evolution over millions of years, it is certainly a problem when if you have species in flux over thousands of years. There should be transitional forms everywhere. There are not.

3. What is the alternative? New species would have to spring fully formed in either one or a few steps over a handful of generations. The creationists have a big problem with any mutations, because they keep telling us that they "reduce information content", cannot imagine how they might be advantageous, and keep saying that evolution has a problem by requiring multiple synchronised mutations to occur when a new species forms. Now we have them either having some hugely rapid evolution or new forms springing forth with all their adaptive changes in place at one go, multiplying what they claim to be problems by many orders of magnitude!

So, the creationists require all the same things to happen as do rational scientists, but require that their "microevolution" achieves this from their base stock of Ark "kinds" in 4500 years. Of course it’s actually less time than that because reliable records now extend back several hundred years and none of the required processes have been reported in that time.

Seems to me that "microveolution" beats the Darwin’s evolution by a mile, well by a factor of several thousand! All we need now is the evidence, unless it turns out that the creationists have supplied their own reductio ad absurdum for us.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Come to think of it, that critique of baramins pretty well knocks into a cocked hat all of Hammy's arguments in one go whichever way he tries to play his self-defined "problem" of speciation.

 

[hammegk]

ibid.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB100.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101_1.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB990.html

Did you even bother to actually think about what I said versus the boilerplate you linked?



BTW, y'all keeping ignoring the question: How many abiogenic events do you find most likely?


And y'all de-bunking YEC crap doesn't add much, does it? I suppost it gives us, and OECs, a chance to laugh together, though.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

BTW, y'all keeping ignoring the question: How many abiogenic events do you find most likely?

1, 2, 10. Earth, Mars, Europa, Alpha Centauri. Take your pick. It's not terribly relevant to the current discussion.

It's a "nice try" at a diversion though. Hasn't worked.

And y'all de-bunking YEC crap doesn't add much, does it? I suppost it gives us, and OECs, a chance to laugh together, though.

Us? Which us is that? Others who share your "thinking"?

Since you use YEC arguments you'll get counted with them unless you want to reveal that "thinking" of yours.

 

[Schneibster]

Did you even bother to actually think about what I said versus the boilerplate you linked?

Oh, yes; it was unfortunately necessary in order to choose the correct answer to each question. I did, however, find occasion to wash my hands afterward.

BTW, y'all keeping ignoring the question: How many abiogenic events do you find most likely?

No, you keep ignoring the answer.

And y'all de-bunking YEC crap doesn't add much, does it? I suppost it gives us, and OECs, a chance to laugh together, though.

Well, BSM, foiled again; he still doesn't admit his agenda. Considering his signature, I have little doubt that at the end, one would find that evilooshun is a plot revealed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and we who argue on its behalf are all puppets of teh evul j00s. I would rate that as the highest probability, followed by teh Illuminati Conspiracy. What is your opinion on the taxonomy of the specimen?

 

[Mercutio]

BTW, y'all keeping ignoring the question: How many abiogenic events do you find most likely?

I believe I answered this for you in another thread, months ago.

If I am not mistaken, the genetic evidence suggests that all currently known life forms are the descendents of one common ancestor, and thus one event. But that does not at all mean that this was the only one, simply that it was the one that beat out any others, far enough back in time that there really is only an infinitessimal chance of there being evidence of these early competitors. In fact, there may well be other events happening all the time--it is a big planet, after all--, or perhaps the change in our atmosphere has put an end to such events which may have been much more frequent before oxygen became so plentiful, but our own line is pretty well established, so until one comes along that can out-compete us, our successful line is all we see.

So, how many do I find most likely? At least one. I have no upper limit on my estimate, because I have no realistic hope of definitive evidence.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Well, BSM, foiled again; he still doesn't admit his agenda. Considering his signature, I have little doubt that at the end, one would find that evilooshun is a plot revealed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and we who argue on its behalf are all puppets of teh evul j00s. I would rate that as the highest probability, followed by teh Illuminati Conspiracy. What is your opinion on the taxonomy of the specimen?

I think it saddest that he posseses an agenda that he can't admit to.

However, I think it's a toss-up between some particularly hare-brained creationism that involves him having secret knowledge, or he only knows what he doesn't like but has no properly formed idea at all.

In the end he walks like a YEC duck, quacks like one and is incapable of coherent logic like one.

He is also exiting my sphere of concern as I'm not playing his game any more unless he shows a little honesty. However, I am quite glad to have dug out that old baramin piece. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

If I am not mistaken, the genetic evidence suggests that all currently known life forms are the descendents of one common ancestor, and thus one event.

or maybe not

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/the_last_univer.html

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

And y'all de-bunking YEC crap doesn't add much, does it? I suppost it gives us, and OECs, a chance to laugh together, though.

If you´ll excuse an old, slow man...what was the crap you were peddling, again..?

As has been pointed out by several others, ID creationists (and I´m going to assume that you are one, or simply a troll, also I don´t expect you to come forward but please feel free to surprise us here!) have little else but debunked YEC crap to add to the discussion anyway. Furthermore, IDCreationists (unlike YECs) make no testable assumptions. At. All. And I´m not going to hold my breath waiting for you to make any, either. Oh, but please help yourself to some nice food while it´s hot.