7 Animals that are Evolving Right Before Our Eyes

[Zen Badger]

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Yes they are synonomous, changes due to selection pressures lead eventually to "common descent"

Again you proudly parade your ignorance like a leper displays his deformaties.

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Talk about “parading ignorance”, you logically can’t use small changes to prove common descent. It’s affirming the consequent and is a form of invalid logic. You are just like the guy who says,
1. When I eat pizza I feel full.
2. I feel full.
3. Therefore I ate pizza.
So no matter how hard you try and prove you feel full, this in no logical way proves you ate pizza. No matter how many small changes you point to in animals, it in no way proves that common descent happened. I am sorry to rain on your illogical parade.

That has be be one of the lamest anologies I've ever heard, but you keep on plugging there champ.

[Napoléon]

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Yes they are synonomous, changes due to selection pressures lead eventually to "common descent"

Again you proudly parade your ignorance like a leper displays his deformaties.

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Talk about “parading ignorance”, you logically can’t use small changes to prove common descent. It’s affirming the consequent and is a form of invalid logic. You are just like the guy who says,
1. When I eat pizza I feel full.
2. I feel full.
3. Therefore I ate pizza.
So no matter how hard you try and prove you feel full, this in no logical way proves you ate pizza. No matter how many small changes you point to in animals, it in no way proves that common descent happened. I am sorry to rain on your illogical parade.

Is this serious?

[Doubting Thomas]

Again, equivocation. Point to a Creationist who does not agree with the fact that natural selection happens all the time.

But if they claim that natural selection isn't part of evolution, then they're being willfully stupid. Take the elephant example, for instance. Let's say that poachers eventually kill all the elephants with tusks and all the tuskless elephants remain. Poaching then stops because nobody wants a tuskless elephant. Elephants breed & thrive without tusks. That's evolution. Granted, it's not the only way evolution happens, but one of the most important. True, you still have an elephant, only sans tusks, but who knows what that elephant will become hundreds of thousands of years in the future?

[Statler Waldorf]

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That has be be one of the lamest anologies I've ever heard, but you keep on plugging there champ.

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Obviously you have never taken any formal logic courses. I used to pizza example for two reasons: it has the exact logical form as the common descent argument, and it was simple so you could follow it.

Here are some examples of affirming the consequent from Wiki, notice they have the exact same form.

1. If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then he is rich.
2. Bill Gates is rich.
3. Therefore, Bill Gates owns Fort Knox.

1. If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat.
2. I have a sore throat.
3. Therefore, I have the flu.

The structure of your evolution is as follows,

1. If common descent happened, we'd see small changes in animals via natural selection
2. We see small changes in animals via natural selection
3. Therefore, common descent happened.

This argument is just as logically invalid as the pizza, Bill Gates, and Flu arguments.

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Again, equivocation. Point to a Creationist who does not agree with the fact that natural selection happens all the time.

But if they claim that natural selection isn't part of evolution, then they're being willfully stupid. Take the elephant example, for instance. Let's say that poachers eventually kill all the elephants with tusks and all the tuskless elephants remain. Poaching then stops because nobody wants a tuskless elephant. Elephants breed & thrive without tusks. That's evolution. Granted, it's not the only way evolution happens, but one of the most important. True, you still have an elephant, only sans tusks, but who knows what that elephant will become hundreds of thousands of years in the future?

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You see you are not being specific enough. You say "you have evolution", but evolution is a vast theory and pointing to one part of it that happens to be valid does not make the whole theory valid. Sure you have natural selection taking place, which can give you tuskless elephants; this does not prove common descent though. It is a reduction in information (or at most a reshuffling), in order for all life on earth to arise from very simple single celled ancestors (what common descent claims) you would have to have information increasing examples of natural selection happening all the time. Do we observe that? No, we have a handful of heavily disputed examples. It is kind of like a person claiming a ball can reach the top of a mountain by itself, and then when asked to demonstrate this, the person points at the fact that the ball can roll down the mountain on its own. It's hardly a valid proof. Does that make sense at all?

[Doubting Thomas]

So you're comparing two flawed arguments with a valid argument, and calling it flawed, too. The trouble with your idea is that we also have other evidence, such as fossils, to support the idea. A valid scientific theory isn't supported by just one piece of evidence.

[Statler Waldorf]

So you're comparing two flawed arguments with a valid argument, and calling it flawed, too. The trouble with your idea is that we also have other evidence, such as fossils, to support the idea. A valid scientific theory isn't supported by just one piece of evidence.

It's formal logic. If your argument has the same form as the two invalid arguments (which I demonstrated it does) it is by definition invalid. Remember, it is the structure of the argument that makes it invalid, not the content. The fossil record argument is structured the exact same way, so adding up two invalid logical arguments doesn't somehow give you a valid argument.

[Napoléon]

Oh my days Statler, you are moron.

[Doubting Thomas]

OK, whatever, just go ahead and go through life being willfully stupid. Makes no matter to me. You're brainwashed beyond any hope.

[Statler Waldorf]

Oh my days Statler, you are moron.

Oh my days, is English your first language? I hope not.

Care to show how you are not indeed violating formal logic? I doubt you can.

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OK, whatever, just go ahead and go through life being willfully stupid. Makes no matter to me. You're brainwashed beyond any hope.

What!? I go through all that trouble showing you how you are violating formal logic and then you have the nerve to call me "willfully stupid" when you are the one who just ignored my argument? Good grief, just when I think I have seen it all on this board.

[Anomalocaris]

Oh my days Statler, you are moron.

Forgive him, for his god, whether existent or imaginary, made him this way.