Richard Dawkins Gets "Expelled" by Ben Stein!

by Perry 365 Replies latest watchtower scandals

  • Galileo
    Galileo

    Auldsoul - "What ERV do the hippo and the whale share in common?" I don't believe either genome has been sequenced yet. However, when they are, there is every reason to believe they will follow the same pattern of every other creature that has been sequenced, and will have several in common. I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that you concede that human and chimps share a common ancestor, but you absolutely draw the line at whales and hippos?

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul

    Galileo,

    I haven't studied out ERVs. You made me aware of their potential in marking common ancestry. I was mostly just kidding in that last post regarding the subject.

    However, my gut response would be to challenge how we know that similarity in genetic makup did not make both species susceptible to the very same ERV. This may have already been answered, but I haven't studied this line of evidence out yet. There is plenty of evidence for disease spreading between ape or monkey and human populations.

    Respectfully,
    AuldSoul

  • Galileo
    Galileo

    Auldsoul, I realize this is a fact you are unfamiliar with, so perhaps you missed this from my original post:

    The odds against two creatures having the same ERV insertion pattern just by chance is so high as to make it impossible: one in ten to the hundredth power.

    Even if two seperate species are susceptible to the same ERV, since the insertion points are random, and the mutations the ERVs go through are random, the odds against even one being identicle simply by chance is a higher number than the number of grains of sand on the Earth. The odds of multiple identicle insertion points, of identicle ERVs, with identicle mutations, simply occuring randomly, is a number so high that it is beyond human comprehension. No one would suggest such a random event based solely on the evidence.

  • Perry
    Perry
    No one would suggest such a random event based solely on the evidence.

    I thought atheist evolutionists were for random events, given enough time of course.

  • Galileo
    Galileo
    I thought atheist evolutionists were for random events, given enough time of course.

    I actually wasn't posting this for your benefit, as you are quite clearly an idiot, and I don't expect you to understand anything about the subjects I'm discussing. I was actually addressing the more rational creationists, the ones able to understand a coherent argument. However, I never said random events never occur, in fact they occur billions, if not trillions or more, times a day.

  • inrainbows
    inrainbows

    Ho ho, what a suprise.

    Not one ID or Creation supporter going anywhere near dolphins with vestigial rear limbs.

    Ignoring contrary evidence is essential to maintaining those opinions.

    NEITHER CAN EXPLAIN AVATISMS LIKE THIS.

    So they don't even try.

    Likewise, Madagascar, New Zealand and Australia are very stong 'testiments' to evolutionary theory.

    So Creationists and ID'ers don't want to talk about them, do they?

    Instead, it's all about 'slick gamesmanship', making what play they can with the amount of 'theoretical slack' that modern evolutionary thoery has without ever conceeding that none of this 'slack' actually falsifies the theory.

    At the same time they ignore the much larger levels of 'hypothetical slack' their own incomplete belief systems have.

    Auld Soul

    With Rapidly Declining Respect,

    Oh please. Your 'Respecfully' is nothing more than a conceit. You have already reacted to statements not even directed to you in a defensive fashion and not apologised for your error. Don't pretend to have respect you don't show, it's disingenuous.

    Now, will you give a clear example of what would prove speciation to you?

    Or is the idea of setting clear goal posts unattractive to you?

    Because if you set them and it's proved you have to change your opinion, or if you set unreasonable ones that could not be expected to be proved due to the evidential and chronological constraints of the theory your unreasonable level of required proof could be exemplified?

    Wadoma tribe has a high percentage of an aberrant 7th chromosome causing an apparent "ostrich" foot, yet they are human. Will their spotty fossil remains be pegged as a different species by later intelligent lifeforms perusing the remains of our planet?

    No, because there's a difference between structural abnormality and speciation, and any alien species would be able to discern the difference between the two, as indeed can we.

    Early images of H. neanderthalis were based on a diseased specimen. We now know the stooped ape-man image was inaccurate as we can tell the difference between normative H. neanderthalis and diseased ones.

    Kung Bushmen (with an average height of just four feet, ten inches) in Africa inhabit the same continent with extremely tall Maasai. Surely these were different species, right?

    We can already show from fossil remains that pygmatism is an environmental adaptation (as is gigantism) and does not necessarily indicate a speciation event (e.g. Shire Horses and Fabella's as an unnatural selection example, although that particular example would in the wild result in unstoppable gene drift between the two population as copulation is impossible without human assitence. Same is true with Toy Dogs and very large breeds). Any genetic analysis of remains would confirm this.

    H. neanderthalis and H. sapiens were both human too. They may well have interbred. But at SOME point in the line of decent the genetic drift would mean a g x the power of n grand sire would be infertile when crossed with it's descendents.

    The scientific names are just place holders of note, not the start of new chapters.

    As much as you try and make out speciation to be a black/white transition, no contemporary evolutionist would ever say anything so obviously wrong and unsupported by the evidence. This does not mean that speciation does not extend to the point where interbreeding is no longer possible or that it does not result in 'macroevoution'.

    Slick gamesmanship - and not very clever slick gamesmanship at that - will not answer the questions you have been asked that you avoid that show how inadequate your own hypotheses are.

    Stop making ridiculous examples. You still haven't conceded using an example of a 'separate gene pools breeding event' to compare to a 'same gene pool breeding event' was a bad example, but then not conceding your errors is just part of 'ID' (or whatever you'd be happy with as a descriptor) apologist technique, no matter how many 'Respectfully's you tag your posts with.

    Perry

    I thought atheist evolutionists were for random events, given enough time of course
    Perry, don't do this. The only persons who find this impressive are those who know as much or less about evolution than you.

    For a start, it's not a question of being FOR random events. They just ARE, whether you are for them or not. I'm not FOR bad weather. It still HAPPENS.

    For a second thing, you are just waving around tired old 'Creationist/ID misleading gambit #1', which is making it sound like evolution is a random process. It isn't. It might 'use' variation generated randomly as part of a process of natural selection, but that process is mind-buggeringly NON-random. The whole point of natural selection is that it is non-random.

    Oh, and are theistic evolutionists somehow different?

    Here’s an example of the ludicrous attitude of IDers and Creationists shifted into a different area of science. Hopefully it will show why people supporting such scientifically bankrupt hypotheses as ID and Creationism get the reaction they do from proper scientists;

    “Me, I think Continental Drift is a lie and a conspiracy. I've spent many long hours observing continents and I have never seen them move. Yes, I know they can prove that there is SOME movement between continents on a measurable basis, but that would never be enough to smash India into Asia and create the Himalayas. I know they can also show supposed ‘fault lines’ between ‘continental plates’, but I remain unconvinced that these can ever separate to the extent that these misguided scientists say they do.

    Likewise the 'flips' of magnetic poles that are meant to happen every now and then are just rubbish. No one can properly explain why they happen and even thought the evidence for this ties in with the evidence for continental drift I think this might be coincidental. Just as the shape of the East coast of South America, the West coat of Africa, and the similarity of the geology on these coastlines is coincidental.

    There is a massive conspiracy to suppress the opinions of any scientist who does not fall in line with the modern theory of contintal drift. There is no way that the continents could be the shape they are unless they were designed that way by some external agency, but I am afraid I have no proof of the existence of this external agency other than my say-so, and no theory of how it happened other than my assertion.”

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul
    Your 'Respecfully' is nothing more than a conceit.

    Au contraire.

    You still haven't conceded using an example of a 'separate gene pools breeding event' to compare to a 'same gene pool breeding event' was a bad example

    Why would I do so when you use similar examples to supposedly bolster your own argument? That is, after all, what ring species are. You use separate gene pool breeding to contrast to same gene pool breeding. I use it to compare. It wasn't a "bad example" just because you don't like it.

    Of course, your best case examples of same gene pool breeding wasn't really separate at all, except socially.

    . . . will not answer the questions you have been asked that you avoid that show how inadequate your own hypotheses are.

    You mean your insistence on "goal posts"? I don't need them, thanks anyway. If I set them I may make conclusions based on seemingly solid evidence that is actually riddled with gaping holes of illogic. And yes, by the by, Neanderthal were humans.

    But at SOME point in the line of decent the genetic drift would mean a g x the power of n grand sire would be infertile when crossed with it's descendents.

    What EMPIRICAL proof do you have of the truth of this claim? I'll happily set THAT as a goal post. Put up your best possible proof that this MUST happen. Talk about 'slick gamesmanship'!

    —AuldSoul

  • BurnTheShips
    BurnTheShips
    What EMPIRICAL proof do you have of the truth of this claim? I'll happily set THAT as a goal post. Put up your best possible proof that this MUST happen. Talk about 'slick gamesmanship'!

    As I have said before on this board, I have no issues with evolution per se, but I think a concrete empirical example of the process of speciation would settle a great deal in the minds of many. I brought up the fruit fly example earlier. If speciation could be replicated empirically and repeatably, I think it would lay the matter to rest for a great many doubters. In other words, divide species A into two populations B and C. Expose population B to environment X, and C to environment Y. After Z generations, test if they are still able to produce viable offspring. If not, we have different species and this was "macroevolution".

    Of course, some people still believe the Earth is flat, so there will always be those who refuse.

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul
    BurnTheShips: If speciation could be replicated empirically and repeatably, I think it would lay the matter to rest for a great many doubters. In other words, divide species A into two populations B and C. Expose population B to environment X, and C to environment Y. After Z generations, test if they are still able to produce viable offspring. If not, we have different species and this was "macroevolution".

    It seems you and I are comfortable with the exact same goalpost, although I must hasten to qualify that any effective empirical proof would have to rule out such silly social preferences as "length and cadence of song and coloration of plumage" as valid causes for speciation. One would think that such a task would be easily accomplished given how often mutations occur and how artificial environments can be manipulated to reinforce specific mutative traits.

    Do you mean this hasn't already been done? Why ever not?

    Respectfully,
    AuldSoul

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul
    But at SOME point in the line of decent the genetic drift would mean a g x the power of n grand sire would be infertile when crossed with it's descendents.

    For this context the discussion about the horse and ass come back into the mix. Asses have not become bred so far distant that they cannot produce offspring when bred with a horse, right? Both horses and asses have been bred to mules and produced offspring genetically trending toward whichever gentic traits were reinforced in the pairing, right?

    At WHAT point, empirically speaking, will a horse and an ass be no longer able to produce a foal, and why do you so say?

    What EMPIRICAL proof do you have that an ass bred to hyracotherium or to megahippus would be an infertile breeding?

    I suspect your claim has no empirical proof at all. I suspect your claim is pseudoscience; a gloss that is the ultimate underlying sophistry in the macro evolution argument. I leave open the possibility that my suspicion is incorrect, but I strongly suspect it is not incorrect.

    —AuldSoul

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