The Problem with Christians

[Ryantology]

According to him, the process of natural selection is completely random.

No, according to Darwin, it happens without purpose or guidance, but it happens because certain conditions exist. We don't necessarily understand how many of those conditions work or why, but we do have a firm grasp on how to control some of it. Your local produce section is full of examples.

[Esquilax]

From the Atheist in Chief Prof Richard Dawkins,

"All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind force of physics, albeit deplored in a special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all." http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm

According to him, the process of natural selection is completely random. The survival of any given organism may be benefited by certain mutations to the DNA but this is in no way responsible for improving the odds that the next mutation will be beneficial. You still have to have an absurd number of successful mutations to get anywhere.

Oh, for fuck's sake! I covered this in the last few days, when you last quoted this: "no purpose" is not the same thing as "completely random."! In fact, here, let me just quote myself verbatim from two days ago, when I put this shit to rest:

"Blind," does not equal random. While there isn't a pre-planned and guided foresight to evolution, there is an inherent filter built into the fabric of natural selection, which is that those organisms that survive it will be the ones with features that enabled them to do so. Those organisms without the ability to survive the environment they find themselves in... don't survive it.

By analogy, consider a computer program that spits out numbers. That's all it does, is display numbers, but those numbers cannot be even numbers, ever. Would you assert, then, that this computer program works by completely random chance where absolutely anything can happen?

No, of course not. You know, just based on what I've already told you, that the program won't produce a letter, nor will it produce an even number. While there's a randomized element, that element is bounded by restraints, just as natural selection is bounded by the fact that only those organisms it produces that won't die outright will survive. It's not anything more than a definitional part of what the system is- in the same way that you'll never get a married bachelor- but it does limit the output in such a way that the "wacky, totally random evolushuns!" strawman that creationists like to use doesn't apply.

Lacking in purpose and discernment does not mean that the results are entirely random. A dice roll is blind, yet the result is constrained by variables inherent in the makeup of the dice, in the same manner that natural selection isn't entirely random in that the results must be fit to survive within the constraints of any given environment. You need to drop this complete nonsense.

[AJW333]

@AJ, it seems you are very proud of your probability figures...

I'm sure you've taken into account the fact that those features don't just pop into existence in one go, right?
The eye... luckily, there are many living beings with light sensitive apparatuses.
Some are simple light sensitive cells on the outer covering of the animal letting it know if it's in the light or shade... that provides some survival advantage - better stay in the dark, for less chance of being eaten by something else. But, in a time when no more complex eye existed, that would not be the main concern. It would be availability of resources for breeding - perhaps light would bring with it warmer conditions that could provide for better nutrition.

It bears mentioning that I linked the guy to a literal diagram showing that progression. In his next post he claimed to have seen it, and then proceeded to continue the strawman of the features of the eye popping in in one go,

I've never said that the features of the eye occurred as a result of one go. What I have argued is the that the total number of beneficial mutations required to evolve, is too high to be possible, especially when the majority of mutations harm, not help. It makes no difference if you spread evolution out over millions of years, you would still have to have an impossibly high number of mutations to get anywhere.

"The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla."   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian

Given the cambrian period lasted 65 million years, that doesn't give much time at all to go from single cell organisms to most of the different animal phyla in existence. Even David Attenborough calls the explosion of life in this period a miracle. So what we have in the Cambrian explosion is positive mutation on a vast scale. How many different species magically popped up in this period, all from single cells? And how much genetic code was added to these single cells in order to achieve it? The answer is mind-numbing.

---

How do we know that the existence of Samotherium represents a species that evolved into the giraffe and wasn't simply a separate animal?

So, to be clear before we begin: when science can be spun to agree with the bible, you'll accept it, but when science doesn't agree with what you want to be true, you'll find any excuse possible to dismiss it without evidence? Because you didn't have this deep suspicion of the findings of scientists when you were braying about biblical prophecy, but now that someone's proved you wrong on something you're willing to dismiss those findings based on nothing at all. How convenient.  

That said, let's play.

So, first of all, it's an established fact that morphology tends to reflect genetics; that is, that physiological similarities correlate to genetic similarities, indicating that two morphologically similar animals are related. That's just an objective fact, it's so demonstrable that to reject it is to reject a cornerstone foundation of modern biology- not that that's ever stopped you- and would be an incredible double standard for you to lean so heavily on genetics to derive your long odds for strawman-evolution, yet to dismiss genetics when the findings would suggest something you don't like. So what we have here is a well established biological principle that, while not universal when thinking in simplistic, superficial similarities alone- something I've no doubt you'll race to attempt once you've read this in an effort to give yourself wriggle room to dismiss the science anyway, to which I'll remind you we're talking about morphology and not the short eyeballing of an untrained ideologue- establishes a good evidential basis for concluding that Samotherium is related to the modern Giraffe.

However, I can do better than that, because the Giraffe actually has a modern day relative in the Okapi, a short-necked Giraffid animal native to Central Africa. So what we have now are two related animals on branching evolutionary paths, which gives us a baseline idea of what a long-necked Giraffid's bone structure looks like, and what a short-necked Giraffid's bone structure looks like. When we examine Samotherium's bone structure, there's too many similarities there to simply dismiss it as a coincidence: not only is the neck length a perfect intermediary between the two, not only are the bones identical to both Giraffe and Okapi bones near the top of the neck while being a perfect blend of the two toward the bottom where the long-necked evolution would have happened, but even the angle of the way the bones are set in the neck perfectly match up with Giraffes and Okapis. The level of similarity is too perfect, and since we know that morphology at this resolution reflects genetic similarities consistent with related organisms, the conclusion rationally is that Samotherium represents a common ancestor of (though not the direct ancestor to) Giraffes and Okapis, and an intermediate species between short-necked and long-necked Giraffids.

Now, you can dismiss that if you want. You can take all these wonderful morphological similarities and reflections and you can say "nuh uh," you can chalk them all up to a series of freak coincidences (I thought you didn't like long odds?) and I can't stop you. But in doing so you'll be rejecting science, you'll be rejecting over a hundred years of observations and genetic research, and you'll be relinquishing any claim you might have had to having a rational position in this discussion. If you're willing to just throw away the findings of those actually trained in this area solely to keep your presupposition intact, with no evidence to support that at all, then I don't know what to say to you. Unlike you, though, I actually read the report on Samotherium before I came to my conclusion, so of the two of us, at least I have an informed basis with which to come to my conclusion. If you're happy not having that and just continuing to believe what you want to believe, heedless of evidence, then why didn't you just say that at the outset, instead of bullshitting us with all these pretensions of intellectual rigor, if you're going to abandon them at the first hurdle you can't simply bluster your way past?

You've made a reasonable argument that the giraffe and the Samotherium are related.

---

How do we know that the existence of Samotherium represents a species that evolved into the giraffe and wasn't simply a separate animal?

So, to be clear before we begin: when science can be spun to agree with the bible, you'll accept it, but when science doesn't agree with what you want to be true, you'll find any excuse possible to dismiss it without evidence? Because you didn't have this deep suspicion of the findings of scientists when you were braying about biblical prophecy, but now that someone's proved you wrong on something you're willing to dismiss those findings based on nothing at all. How convenient.  

That said, let's play.

So, first of all, it's an established fact that morphology tends to reflect genetics; that is, that physiological similarities correlate to genetic similarities, indicating that two morphologically similar animals are related. That's just an objective fact, it's so demonstrable that to reject it is to reject a cornerstone foundation of modern biology- not that that's ever stopped you- and would be an incredible double standard for you to lean so heavily on genetics to derive your long odds for strawman-evolution, yet to dismiss genetics when the findings would suggest something you don't like. So what we have here is a well established biological principle that, while not universal when thinking in simplistic, superficial similarities alone- something I've no doubt you'll race to attempt once you've read this in an effort to give yourself wriggle room to dismiss the science anyway, to which I'll remind you we're talking about morphology and not the short eyeballing of an untrained ideologue- establishes a good evidential basis for concluding that Samotherium is related to the modern Giraffe.

However, I can do better than that, because the Giraffe actually has a modern day relative in the Okapi, a short-necked Giraffid animal native to Central Africa. So what we have now are two related animals on branching evolutionary paths, which gives us a baseline idea of what a long-necked Giraffid's bone structure looks like, and what a short-necked Giraffid's bone structure looks like. When we examine Samotherium's bone structure, there's too many similarities there to simply dismiss it as a coincidence: not only is the neck length a perfect intermediary between the two, not only are the bones identical to both Giraffe and Okapi bones near the top of the neck while being a perfect blend of the two toward the bottom where the long-necked evolution would have happened, but even the angle of the way the bones are set in the neck perfectly match up with Giraffes and Okapis. The level of similarity is too perfect, and since we know that morphology at this resolution reflects genetic similarities consistent with related organisms, the conclusion rationally is that Samotherium represents a common ancestor of (though not the direct ancestor to) Giraffes and Okapis, and an intermediate species between short-necked and long-necked Giraffids.

Now, you can dismiss that if you want. You can take all these wonderful morphological similarities and reflections and you can say "nuh uh," you can chalk them all up to a series of freak coincidences (I thought you didn't like long odds?) and I can't stop you. But in doing so you'll be rejecting science, you'll be rejecting over a hundred years of observations and genetic research, and you'll be relinquishing any claim you might have had to having a rational position in this discussion. If you're willing to just throw away the findings of those actually trained in this area solely to keep your presupposition intact, with no evidence to support that at all, then I don't know what to say to you. Unlike you, though, I actually read the report on Samotherium before I came to my conclusion, so of the two of us, at least I have an informed basis with which to come to my conclusion. If you're happy not having that and just continuing to believe what you want to believe, heedless of evidence, then why didn't you just say that at the outset, instead of bullshitting us with all these pretensions of intellectual rigor, if you're going to abandon them at the first hurdle you can't simply bluster your way past?

You've made a reasonable argument that the giraffe and the Samotherium are related.

[AJW333]

So in the human eye, the optic nerve joins the retinal cells to the neurons in the back of the brain (in multiple separate nuclei). What function did each of these structures perform before they were all connected to each other?

You are aware that the evolution of the eye predates even the brain, yes? The optic nerve evolved from nerve fibers attached to a light sensitive patch of cells that had been present from an extremely early organism. The retina was the back of those same cells, at the point at which they had cupped to form a pinhole camera for better directional "vision." All this is firmly present in the link that you've sworn up and down you've read.

I don't see where the article talks about the function of the optic nerve in a single celled organism with a light patch and no brain. I would also like to know how the millions of neurons that are spread out in multiple nuclei in humans came to exist.

The definition of science,

"Science is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

The developments from light patch to fully formed eye are presented as fact and yet no one observed these changes when they are alleged to have happened, and unless I am mistaken, there are no tests proving that all of these developments happened as reported. There are still organisms alive today with light patches/eyespots so how do we know absolutely that these became the eye? Isn't it all just speculation?

I will respond to the rest of this post later.

[IATIA]

The developments from light patch to fully formed eye are presented as fact and yet no one observed these changes when they are alleged to have happened, and unless I am mistaken, there are no tests proving that all of these developments happened as reported. There are still organisms alive today with light patches/eyespots so how do we know absolutely that these became the eye? Isn't it all just speculation?

You refuse to accept evolution because you cannot watch it happen over millions of years, yet if we were able to show evolution in a lab, you would refuse to accept it because it was not natural. There is no way to satisfy you with anything but faery tales of non-existent gods.

[Silver]

No one can watch god, either.

[dyresand]

No one can watch god, either.

Maybe what if god isn't showing himself to exist because he is touching himself.

[Esquilax]

I've never said that the features of the eye occurred as a result of one go. What I have argued is the that the total number of beneficial mutations required to evolve, is too high to be possible, especially when the majority of mutations harm, not help. It makes no difference if you spread evolution out over millions of years, you would still have to have an impossibly high number of mutations to get anywhere.

First of all, you're either lying or just straight up wrong about most mutations being harmful: as I've already established days ago, with links, the human body comes prepackaged with about sixty unique mutations from birth, the majority of them neutral, and gains more as it develops. The majority of mutations are so small as to be neither good nor bad, just... there. Secondly, I don't know how to argue against such a bare assertion as "the number of mutations is too high to be possible," as you absolutely don't have the data set to be making that statement: you don't even know how many organisms, over how long a span of time, were involved. You cant possibly know that, and aside from recourse to proteins and probabilities (an argument roundly shown to be bunk) you have made no argument as to why that might actually be.

You've just... said it.

Given the cambrian period lasted 65 million years, that doesn't give much time at all to go from single cell organisms to most of the different animal phyla in existence. Even David Attenborough calls the explosion of life in this period a miracle. So what we have in the Cambrian explosion is positive mutation on a vast scale. How many different species magically popped up in this period, all from single cells? And how much genetic code was added to these single cells in order to achieve it? The answer is mind-numbing.

Already dealt with that, too: we aren't talking single-celled life forms in the Precambrian era. If you actually look, you'll see a fossil record from that time that, while not huge, contains good chunks of multicellular life: you can find Trilobites in Precambrian strata, for example, and the common ancestor between gastropods and arthropods. Not single cells at all.

Besides, your characterization is a little wrong too, since we're not talking about an explosion of positive mutations, but rather a diversification of physiological characteristics at a time when hard-bodied organisms became more common. As hard-bodied creatures lend themselves way better to fossilization than the alternative, this represents the first big opportunity for an effusive fossil record in history, but to say that this is one big "Pop!" moment from single celled amoebas to complex multicellular life betrays a massive lack of understanding of what the fossil record before and during that period: just pumping "Precambrian fossil" into google will show you a bunch of neat precambrian complex life.

You've made a reasonable argument that the giraffe and the Samotherium are related.

Props to you for being one of a select few theists on this board willing to concede a point. Seriously.

[Esquilax]

I don't see where the article talks about the function of the optic nerve in a single celled organism with a light patch and no brain. I would also like to know how the millions of neurons that are spread out in multiple nuclei in humans came to exist.

So you're just going to do that thing where you keep lobbing problems at me until you reach the one I can't answer easily, and then plug your god into the gap, is that it? At the point at which we're talking about light sensitive cells we aren't talking about the optic nerve, but about its ancestor structure, a nerve string that causes the organism to be able to react to input from the light sensitive cells. The point is that you've got an analogue of the optic nerve at that point which causes the "eye" to be functional which is simple enough to mutate in, yet has the potential for change and additional complexity. Ditto with neurons: they evolved from simpler analogues, in this case from electrical signalling cells from a function in single celled life forms.

The definition of science,

"Science is a systematic enterprise that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

The developments from light patch to fully formed eye are presented as fact and yet no one observed these changes when they are alleged to have happened, and unless I am mistaken, there are no tests proving that all of these developments happened as reported. There are still organisms alive today with light patches/eyespots so how do we know absolutely that these became the eye? Isn't it all just speculation?

I will respond to the rest of this post later.

Science is an inherently probabilistic field, but it's not fair to call its results speculation: yes, nobody directly observed these changes happening, but it'd be childish to demand only that sort of evidence and nothing more, not to mention massive special pleading. You ask about how we "absolutely" know something, which indicates a lack of understanding of the basic, probabilistic nature of science, because we don't absolutely know, nor are we required to. We infer that eyespots evolved into the eye in the same way we infer a relationship between Samotherium and modern Giraffes: through data and observation. Is it perfect? No, and nobody has ever claimed it was. Is it the best possible conclusion we can come to at the time, based on the evidence available to us? Yes. Yes it is. As I pointed out in my post on Samotherium, there's nothing stopping you from asserting a dissenting conclusion based solely on the possibility that the evidence-based conclusion could be wrong, but I don't know why you would ever do that.

You are aware, mind you, that at the core of the observations and tests involved in this issue is the well established observation that evolution happens, and that common ancestry tends to match what we observe in nature, yes? I mean, you do know that large swathes of modern biology are predicated on those two conclusions, and that many of the products of modern biology would not work as described unless evolution were a thing that happens, right? Science that begins from the position that evolution occurs works, and that wouldn't be the case unless the position were true. That's a nice little meta-observation right there.

[robvalue]