How do you know God isn't dead?

[pocaracas]

Then what is it? God sprinkling dino bones just to mess with us?

No a record of catastrophic burial and death over a very short period of geologic time.

And how did you measure such short periods of time?

And yet, they are not wolves.

They can still breed with wolves though, they are all still canines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfdog... interesting... didn't know about that, thanks!

They are mere hundreds of years away from each other... far little time to produce a different species.

You’re not a believer in punctuated equilibrium? :-P

I guess it can happen, although I'd expect that the most common mechanism is phyletic gradualism.

But the bones uncovered are different from present-day apes and humans... that means that the apes at that time were different.

Yes I agree, apes and humans have changed over the years, but I do not believe that demonstrates they are relatives.

Not relatives, huh?
Abundant gene conversion between arms of palindromes in human and ape Y chromosomes
Dating of the human-ape splitting by a molecular clock of mitochondrial DNA

sciences sucks....

A snapshot of some features.... a different path on other features.

Ok, but what drove them to continue developing mentally? If they still live in the Stone Age shouldn’t they have Stone Age minds? I think this is strong evidence that supports the Creation model that holds that Humans have always possessed such mental cognitive abilities.

Define "stone-age minds".
Homo sapiens developed in the stone age, so called paleolithic.... well before the supposed split... you've acknowledged this... I don't see your problem with those developing minds... :-s

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that both evolution and creationism are two competing models... not really for the same event, but they have some overlaps.

Ok, Darwinism vs. Creationism

If the evolutionary model is correct, what can we expect to find?
- If there was some way of finding out how animals looked like in the past and dating them, we'd expect that, some time ago, there were animals that resemble present day animals, but are somewhat cruder versions of them.... we'd expect that, these version would get cruder and cruder as time goes back.... we'd expect to find some animals that failed to continue their lineage and became extinct.

Again though, this is assuming that the fossil “record” is a record of death and burial over long periods of time, creationists do not accept this assumption.

Well, if you find a fossil in the middle of rock that is dated as several hundreds of millions of years old and no mammals in such rock.... but you then find mammals at a few tens of millions of year old rock... and humans and apes on rock that is only a few millions of years old.

Now you proceed to tell that the dating methods are all faulty... go on.

- If the creation model is correct, we'd expect to find only the already existing animals... always the same... and, beyond some point, nothing.

Not quite, creationists believe in speciation through natural selection, in fact they require it. What you’d expect to see is natural selection producing a wide variety of species but never actually generating any new genetic information, but rather merely narrowing down the genetic information that was created in the original parent kinds of animals. I think that’s what we actually observe today.

I see....
It is a nice idea, but does not match with the geologic dating of fossils, nor the dna evidence.

Oh, and, of course, all this applies to plants as well!

Did you know that there are numerous plants found today that can be found in very early parts of the fossil “record”? Not only this, but the plants found there are identical to the ones we find today.

No shit?!
Did you know that some 200 million years ago, crocodiles were pretty much the same as they are today?!
They evolved all they had to. Millions of years of attempts at coming up with something new yielded nothing that much better.

Wait, are you suggesting fossils of plants are accurately dated?

There's a whole science field called paleontology... thousands of people dedicate them selves to it. Which of the two models support their findings?

Scientific facts are not established by majority opinion within the scientific community.

Indeed they are not... by repeatedly refuting findings with more research.
Don't you think paleontology is a legitimate science?

PS: I'd like to commend you for all those chained up quote tags without missing one. It seems to be on it's way to become a lost art.

[Statler Waldorf]

And how did you measure such short periods of time?

What do you mean?

I guess it can happen, although I'd expect that the most common mechanism is phyletic gradualism.

That’s a huge debate amongst Darwinists; Creationists align themselves with the punctuated equilibrium side.

Not relatives, huh?

Both of those articles you provided (thanks by the way, they were interesting) assume that homology between organisms demonstrates a common ancestor. That’s an assumption that has never been established and can just as easily point to a common creator as it can to a common ancestor. The actual similarities between Human and Chimp DNA has been reducing more and more the better we get at mapping genomes.

sciences sucks....

No, I love science; it’s what I chose to do for a living. Masking storytelling as science is what sucks in my opinion.

Define "stone-age minds".

A Stone Age mind would be a mind that can only comprehend that which is necessary to survive in a Stone Age culture.

Homo sapiens developed in the stone age, so called paleolithic.... well before the supposed split... you've acknowledged this... I don't see your problem with those developing minds... :-s

I have acknowledged this for the sake of argument. What would drive a Homo sapiens’ mind to develop the ability to do say advanced mathematics even though such analysis wouldn’t be developed until thousands of years later? In Evolution, traits are only developed and preserved when they provide a survival advantage. You’re asserting that early Humans possessed such mental abilities and yet there’d be no survival advantage to having the ability to do calculus prior to the invention of calculus.

Well, if you find a fossil in the middle of rock that is dated as several hundreds of millions of years old and no mammals in such rock.... but you then find mammals at a few tens of millions of year old rock... and humans and apes on rock that is only a few millions of years old.

How are you dating sedimentary rock?

Now you proceed to tell that the dating methods are all faulty... go on.

No, they’re not all faulty; I accept the ones that yield young ages.

I see....
It is a nice idea, but does not match with the geologic dating of fossils, nor the dna evidence.

I think it matches quite nicely with the DNA evidence, we do not observe hardly any cases where natural selection has increased the amount of semantic DNA information in the organism; it’s almost always a reduction in information. Natural selection is a downhill mechanism, and that’s completely consistent with the Creation model.

No shit?!
Did you know that some 200 million years ago, crocodiles were pretty much the same as they are today?!

Yes, I was aware of that.

They evolved all they had to. Millions of years of attempts at coming up with something new yielded nothing that much better.

How did they survive the catastrophic effects of genetic entropy?

Wait, are you suggesting fossils of plants are accurately dated?

Nope, just putting on your hat for the sake of argument.

Indeed they are not... by repeatedly refuting findings with more research.
Don't you think paleontology is a legitimate science?

It’s not an empirical science, no.

PS: I'd like to commend you for all those chained up quote tags without missing one. It seems to be on it's way to become a lost art.

Haha, I am a savvy vet when it comes to the quote function :-P

[pocaracas]

And how did you measure such short periods of time?

What do you mean?

I mean, if you only accept measurements of age that reveal short ages for the Earth's rocks and fossils, how are they measured?

I guess it can happen, although I'd expect that the most common mechanism is phyletic gradualism.

That’s a huge debate amongst Darwinists; Creationists align themselves with the punctuated equilibrium side.

And that is why creationists expect to find fossils which aren't there...

Not relatives, huh?

Both of those articles you provided (thanks by the way, they were interesting) assume that homology between organisms demonstrates a common ancestor. That’s an assumption that has never been established and can just as easily point to a common creator as it can to a common ancestor. The actual similarities between Human and Chimp DNA has been reducing more and more the better we get at mapping genomes.

common creator... yeah, we can't also exclude the possibility that we were created overnight, with all our memories already inbuilt, so as to make it indiscernible from having been born and raised the way we have.
Why do you discard the answer that is right in front of you, and replace it with the super assumption of a creator thing?

sciences sucks....

No, I love science; it’s what I chose to do for a living. Masking storytelling as science is what sucks in my opinion.

aye... have you heard of a storytelling book which some proponents claim to have science in it... what was it called?... arrgggg...

Define "stone-age minds".

A Stone Age mind would be a mind that can only comprehend that which is necessary to survive in a Stone Age culture.

Homo sapiens developed in the stone age, so called paleolithic.... well before the supposed split... you've acknowledged this... I don't see your problem with those developing minds... :-s

I have acknowledged this for the sake of argument. What would drive a Homo sapiens’ mind to develop the ability to do say advanced mathematics even though such analysis wouldn’t be developed until thousands of years later? In Evolution, traits are only developed and preserved when they provide a survival advantage. You’re asserting that early Humans possessed such mental abilities and yet there’d be no survival advantage to having the ability to do calculus prior to the invention of calculus.

The ability to solve practical problems, develop tools, develop a social structure is probably the same ability which allows us to solve mathematical problems, develop theories, develop new tools...
Wouldn't you agree?

Well, if you find a fossil in the middle of rock that is dated as several hundreds of millions of years old and no mammals in such rock.... but you then find mammals at a few tens of millions of year old rock... and humans and apes on rock that is only a few millions of years old.

How are you dating sedimentary rock?

I don't... it's not my field of study.
I leave that to those who do study it.
Here's two simple explanations of how they do it:
How do scientists determine the age of dinosaur bones?
Radiometric Dating

Now you proceed to tell that the dating methods are all faulty... go on.

No, they’re not all faulty; I accept the ones that yield young ages.

Why do you reject the methods that yield old ages?
Do they not function on the same principle?

I see....
It is a nice idea, but does not match with the geologic dating of fossils, nor the dna evidence.

I think it matches quite nicely with the DNA evidence, we do not observe hardly any cases where natural selection has increased the amount of semantic DNA information in the organism; it’s almost always a reduction in information. Natural selection is a downhill mechanism, and that’s completely consistent with the Creation model.

You know, there are humans who are born with an extra chromosome.
The result isn't too pretty, so it doesn't tend to lead anywhere, evolutionarily, but it does happen quite often.
Seeing as humans are among the species with the most DNA information, it seems quite easy to add new information.
Now imagine you take an organism that has only 2 or 3 chromosomes.... What would change if it was born with an extra one?

Is it not reasonable that such things could occur? not entirely one chromosome at a time, but a few DNA strands at a time... Some innocuous, some damaging, some improving.

No shit?!
Did you know that some 200 million years ago, crocodiles were pretty much the same as they are today?!

Yes, I was aware of that.

They evolved all they had to. Millions of years of attempts at coming up with something new yielded nothing that much better.

How did they survive the catastrophic effects of genetic entropy?

What is this thing you call "genetic entropy"?
And why would it yield "catastrophic effects"?

Wait, are you suggesting fossils of plants are accurately dated?

Nope, just putting on your hat for the sake of argument.

You need to warn people when you do that!

Indeed they are not... by repeatedly refuting findings with more research.
Don't you think paleontology is a legitimate science?

It’s not an empirical science, no.

AH, so... dating rock layers where fossils are found, cataloging these fossils, trying to piece them together and producing an educated guess at what they looked like when alive is not empirical?... then what is it?

[The Grand Nudger]

@Stat
Asking to have an extinct organism produced eh? Hopefully you won't live long enough to see that fortress of ignorance assaulted, eh? Trouble is, you probably will.

There's plenty of difference between the two populations (aborigines and europeans)- so far as difference goes between human beings anyway. It's roughly 40k since migrations, 13k of separation, Stat. We've been anatomically modern for 140k, behavioral for at least 50k. There is no convergent evolution in this scenario (because the pople who made that trip we're already "us") but there is divergent evolution between those populations. Just as expected, just as predicted, just as observed. At least try to get this shit right if you're going tell us what does or doesn't add up to you. As to what drove the adaptation (in truth the thing that drives adaptation is living long enough to have sex - nothing more or less) we pin all of this on, depends on who you ask. One camp says standing upright, another figures that language and communication would have done the trick. We seem to be learning more and more, that our primitive ancestors weren;t quite as primitive as we once thought in any case. Ultimately though, these are the things that would have whittled a population down along successful lines. The driving mechanism of these changes is mutation. Well attested, frequently occurring - and still ongoing...even in you.

We -are- talking about the unifying theory of biology Stat, so yeah, we're talking physical sciences. We're talking about geology and physics, so yeah - we're talking about physical science. Case in point....we're talking about the single-most well evidenced, well established, and thoroughly tested theory in -all- of the physical sciences.

Plenty of criteria to meet to be classified as an ape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape There you go bud. Educate thyself.

You'll have to forgive me, but a man who doesn't understand, or doesn't care to know what makes an ape an ape - or that biology and geology are physical sciences - isn't going to get much of a rise out of me with some intellectual laziness quip.

Natural selection is winnower, a reducer of things. Without natural selection you still have evolution. What's inconsistent (with the theory you clearly have -never- taken the time to look into) about human beings developing those big brains of ours before they needed to do algebra? Are you having difficulty comprehending the complete and utter lack of top down or goal oriented guidance in this process? Lets run a scenario through our minds. An organism lives in a glass box. We suck all of the air out of the box. What do you think is going to happen to the population if they have to develop anaerobic respiration as a response to this stimulus? If you guessed "they're likely going to die" you'd be right. This is the situation you're imaging with regards to our ability to count. You find it absurd because it is, you just don't understand -why- it's absurd.

While we understand the power of selective forces - those selective forces do not exert any influence over selectively neutral mutations (the vast majority of mutations expressed in living organisms). If you have a mutation that confers no advantage - and is not deleterious (you have a few-unique between you and I, btw) - then all you have to do is survive long enough to reproduce. If you're out competed - then it isn't based upon the metrics of that mutation but another - which amusingly, doesn't always work to our benefit. A shitty mutation, selectively neutral and non-deleterious, can be expressed in a population very widely for reasons entirely unrelated to that mutation.

It's not like this stuff is hidden away and out of view. It's middle school biology. If you wanted examples you have easy access to them. Constantly moaning about how I do not provide them does what? See that bit above about intellectual laziness?

Well, we could certainly entertain the notion that even though we're pretty good at this whole biology bit, and understand how all of those things come to pass - and even though the explanation we have fits our observations and makes successful predictions........we could be wrong. Perhaps that against all odds and reason - common descent is inaccurate in some way. Perhaps you'd like to suggest an explanation that's at least commensurate with the one we currently have?

You seem to think that I'm out to prove biology to you. You're mistaken. I'm trying to help you though your inaccurate concept of modern synthesis - a concept utterly divorced from the reality of modern synthesis in every conceivable way. Whether or not you would put your chips behind it is irrelevant, at the very least you'd have the opportunity to competently argue against it...if you understood what you were arguing against in the first place. This is often the trouble with cretinists. They argue -for- their own fantasies, by way of arguing -against- their own fantasies. You don't have an excuse, we've been here before.

As a minor point of clarification, with regards to a convo you're having with someone else

That’s a huge debate amongst Darwinists; Creationists align themselves with the punctuated equilibrium side.

Cretinists do no such thing. Puntcuated equilibrium is the realm of empirical observation and biology. Cretinism is the realm of spirits. I understand why one might want to associate their fairy tales with science, why they might worship at another's altar - so to speak- but it doesn't apply in this case. The very moment one invokes ghosts as a mechanism - they've left science right about the speed of light. There's no sense in pretending otherwise. If you're going to defer to magic, at least fucking own it. Is that too much to ask?

[littleendian]

Either God is dead or he's sleeping, considering all the god-awful crap that's been going on ever since he put this clay disc with a thin film of mold we call life on top of the turtle and under his desk lamp for His elementary school science project.

Or wait, was the turtle part of some other book? I get confused with all the conflicting but equally funny accounts.

[Tonus]

Hmmm... if Earth was a flat disc and there was a serpent introduced into Eden, wouldn't that mean that Genesis was the inspiration for Snakes on a Plane?

[Statler Waldorf]

I mean, if you only accept measurements of age that reveal short ages for the Earth's rocks and fossils, how are they measured?

There really isn’t a way to date sedimentary rock real accurately; you could date the fossils using known rates of soft tissue and DNA decay I suppose. You could still get ranges for their ages though based on how old we know the Earth is and when the flood took place.

And that is why creationists expect to find fossils which aren't there...

I do not think they expect to find any fossils that are not there, fossilization is a very rare process.

common creator... yeah, we can't also exclude the possibility that we were created overnight, with all our memories already inbuilt, so as to make it indiscernible from having been born and raised the way we have.

Descartes' malicious demon? Sure that’s a possibility but I think the nature of evidence and a lot of evidence itself points to Yahweh.

Why do you discard the answer that is right in front of you, and replace it with the super assumption of a creator thing?

I didn’t discard anything. We both agree animals share similar genetic coding and morphologic structures, I believe that’s because they have a common creator, you believe it’s because they have a common ancestor; both explanations could explain the evidence in question.

aye... have you heard of a storytelling book which some proponents claim to have science in it... what was it called?... arrgggg...

The Bible is a book that makes some scientific claims, it’s not a science book though, not unlike the Origin of Species

The ability to solve practical problems, develop tools, develop a social structure is probably the same ability which allows us to solve mathematical problems, develop theories, develop new tools...
Wouldn't you agree?

If you are suggesting Humans have always been as intelligent as they are today, then I agree. However, I do not believe that is something Darwinists believe to be the case.

I don't... it's not my field of study.
I leave that to those who do study it.
Here's two simple explanations of how they do it:
How do scientists determine the age of dinosaur bones?
Radiometric Dating

I knew they couldn’t date sedimentary rock with radiometric dating. It appears the entire system is built upon a dating method that has no empirically verifiable control; that just seems incredibly sloppy. How do you explain the fact that they dated moon rocks to be 4.5 billion years old but the moon would have been touching the Earth 1.37 billion years ago? That right there seems to disprove the method’s validity.

Why do you reject the methods that yield old ages?

For the same reasons you reject the ones that yield young ages I suppose.

You know, there are humans who are born with an extra chromosome.

Yes, and they’d never survive on their own.

Seeing as humans are among the species with the most DNA information, it seems quite easy to add new information.

That’s begging the question though, you’re using your assumption that Humans appeared later than most other animals to justify the belief that natural selection can create new genetic information. I am saying we never observe natural selection producing new genetic information (I can think of one possible exception), so it’s unreasonable to think that it did it trillions of times in the Earth’s past. However, if it didn’t do it trillions of times in the Earths’ past all life could not have originated from a single common ancestor.

Now imagine you take an organism that has only 2 or 3 chromosomes.... What would change if it was born with an extra one?

But how was it born with an extra one? You’ll have to be more specific.

What is this thing you call "genetic entropy"?
And why would it yield "catastrophic effects"?

Well without going into too much detail; the Human genome has been observed to degenerate 3-5% per generation due to harmful mutations within the code. That rate seems to be fairly consistent amongst the higher ordered animals. If the genome degenerates too much, it will eventually experience gene catastrophe, where the species will simply die off. So how can a species such as the crocodile survive for 200 million years (over 50 million generations) all the while experiencing 3-5% genetic degeneration per generation and remain unchanged and unharmed? It seems impossible.

You need to warn people when you do that!

Haha

AH, so... dating rock layers where fossils are found, cataloging these fossils, trying to piece them together and producing an educated guess at what they looked like when alive is not empirical?... then what is it?

It’s a historical science. I am enjoying our discussion as usual.

There's plenty of difference between the two populations (aborigines and europeans)- so far as difference goes between human beings anyway.

…so Sociologists that claim race is nothing more than a social construct are wrong? There are documented cases of Europeans being the best tissue matches with Aboriginals for organ transplants, the differences are trivial; so no divergent evolution, sorry.

As to what drove the adaptation (in truth the thing that drives adaptation is living long enough to have sex - nothing more or less)

No, it is living long enough to have sex and have kids that live long enough to have sex and have kids. Anything that prevents someone from living long enough to have sex and have healthy children is known as a selective pressure. You seem to be unable to postulate a selective pressure or group of selective pressures that would develop modern day human cognitive abilities in primitive man.

we pin all of this on, depends on who you ask. One camp says standing upright, another figures that language and communication would have done the trick.

Yup, more storytelling. They do not know how evolution did it but they have faith that it did it.

We seem to be learning more and more, that our primitive ancestors weren;t quite as primitive as we once thought in any case.

Which is what creationists have been claiming for decades.

The driving mechanism of these changes is mutation. Well attested, frequently occurring - and still ongoing...even in you.

Ah, the ever elusive but apparently rather frequent in the past but just not today beneficial mutation that increases genetic information. You’ve got a lot of faith in that which is unseen.

We -are- talking about the unifying theory of biology Stat, so yeah, we're talking physical sciences. We're talking about geology and physics, so yeah - we're talking about physical science. Case in point....we're talking about the single-most well evidenced, well established, and thoroughly tested theory in -all- of the physical sciences.

No we’re not; we’re talking about Neo-Darwinism, which is not even an empirical science.

Plenty of criteria to meet to be classified as an ape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape There you go bud. Educate thyself.

A user-generated site? Why is the number of chromosomes not relevant to the classification? Who determined this classification?

You'll have to forgive me, but a man who doesn't understand, or doesn't care to know what makes an ape an ape - or that biology and geology are physical sciences - isn't going to get much of a rise out of me with some intellectual laziness quip.

You only provided some arbitrary classification that places people in the order of Primates, as I pointed out earlier, simply calling Humans primates does not prove they are indeed primates. You need some actual evidence demonstrating they are related to the primates. Additionally, you never used the term Physical Science, you used the term Physics. Are you really so ignorant you do not know the difference between those two terms?

Natural selection is winnower, a reducer of things. Without natural selection you still have evolution.

Prove it, don’t just assert it. Give me a case of something evolving without the mechanism of Natural Selection being involved.

What's inconsistent (with the theory you clearly have -never- taken the time to look into) about human beings developing those big brains of ours before they needed to do algebra?

Simple, according to the theory animals do not develop traits they do not use in survival. Any organism that did so would be out competed by other organisms that were putting their energy to actually surviving. Chance and necessity; you have no necessity.

An organism lives in a glass box. We suck all of the air out of the box. What do you think is going to happen to the population if they have to develop anaerobic respiration as a response to this stimulus? If you guessed "they're likely going to die" you'd be right. This is the situation you're imaging with regards to our ability to count. You find it absurd because it is, you just don't understand -why- it's absurd.

That’s a faulty analogy, anaerobic respiration serves a purpose in animals, but having the ability to do mathematical analysis that was not developed until thousands of years later does not serve a purpose. Why did Humans develop that ability and yet no other animals did?

While we understand the power of selective forces - those selective forces do not exert any influence over selectively neutral mutations (the vast majority of mutations expressed in living organisms). If you have a mutation that confers no advantage - and is not deleterious (you have a few-unique between you and I, btw) - then all you have to do is survive long enough to reproduce. If you're out competed - then it isn't based upon the metrics of that mutation but another - which amusingly, doesn't always work to our benefit. A shitty mutation, selectively neutral and non-deleterious, can be expressed in a population very widely for reasons entirely unrelated to that mutation.

Unless you can give me a very specific explanation of how the neurological pathways necessary for the mental cognitive abilities to do calculus and advanced levels of thinking could arise as a simple neutral mutation this is nothing more than wishful thinking and “just-so” storytelling. You’re really becoming the “Evolution-did-it” guy aren’t you?

It's not like this stuff is hidden away and out of view. It's middle school biology. If you wanted examples you have easy access to them. Constantly moaning about how I do not provide them does what? See that bit above about intellectual laziness?

You’re the one defending the theory (rather poorly so), the onus is on you to defend it, not on the skeptic. If you want to tell stories about how all of this stuff happened then fine, but that does not demonstrate that any of it actually happened, and I have every right to reject such stories as just that, fantastic stories.

Well, we could certainly entertain the notion that even though we're pretty good at this whole biology bit, and understand how all of those things come to pass - and even though the explanation we have fits our observations and makes successful predictions........we could be wrong. Perhaps that against all odds and reason - common descent is inaccurate in some way. Perhaps you'd like to suggest an explanation that's at least commensurate with the one we currently have?

First I’ll challenge the absolute garbage you tossed out above your question. What successful prediction has been made that could only have been made if someone believed in Common Descent? What observations have been made that demonstrate Common Descent?

You seem to think that I'm out to prove biology to you.

Nope, Darwinism, the two are very different.

You're mistaken. I'm trying to help you though your inaccurate concept of modern synthesis - a concept utterly divorced from the reality of modern synthesis in every conceivable way. Whether or not you would put your chips behind it is irrelevant, at the very least you'd have the opportunity to competently argue against it...if you understood what you were arguing against in the first place. This is often the trouble with cretinists. They argue -for- their own fantasies, by way of arguing -against- their own fantasies. You don't have an excuse, we've been here before.

Yes, this discussion has definitely illuminated ignorance on the subject matter, but it certainly has not been mine. My favorite was your assertion that biologic evolution occurs devoid of natural selection, priceless. I’ll have to give you my old Advanced Evolutionary Biology professor’s email address (don’t worry he’s an atheist), I am sure he’d love to hear you try and defend that fantastic claim.

Cretinists do no such thing. Puntcuated equilibrium is the realm of empirical observation and biology. Cretinism is the realm of spirits. I understand why one might want to associate their fairy tales with science, why they might worship at another's altar - so to speak- but it doesn't apply in this case. The very moment one invokes ghosts as a mechanism - they've left science right about the speed of light. There's no sense in pretending otherwise. If you're going to defer to magic, at least fucking own it. Is that too much to ask?

In fact, Creationists support rapid speciation by Darwinistic means. How can you argue against a position you are so embarrassingly ignorant of? There’s also nothing in science that presupposes naturalism, it only requires trial uniformity. You’re amusing; I’ll grant you that Rhythm.

[The Grand Nudger]

---

…so Sociologists that claim race is nothing more than a social construct are wrong? There are documented cases of Europeans being the best tissue matches with Aboriginals for organ transplants, the differences are trivial; so no divergent evolution, sorry.

You have to be really committed to continue with this, but I'll play along. Why would a tissue match contradict anything that I've said? Have I not repeatedly stressed that no matter where the human is, it is one of us? Have I not taken the time to explain to you how long this has been the case? Race is a social construct with relation to human beings as a species - but it doesn't take a very bright person to see that a diverging evolutionary paths have been taken. MC1R, KITLG, ASIP, SLC245A5, SLC45A2, TYR, and OCA2. Evolution is not a matter of what you deem to be trivial, it is only a matter of change. The markers behind the color of a persons skin are very clearly mutations - that much is well demonstrated and well evidenced. Why a mutation for pigmentation would somehow make tissue more or less suitable for transplant- or why it would be a significant enough difference to incur speciation - is a mystery...and frankly, it's a mystery why you would wonder such things.

No, it is living long enough to have sex and have kids that live long enough to have sex and have kids. Anything that prevents someone from living long enough to have sex and have healthy children is known as a selective pressure. You seem to be unable to postulate a selective pressure or group of selective pressures that would develop modern day human cognitive abilities in primitive man.

You should probably find a way to word that first sentence in a way that makes it coherent. Anything that prevents a person from reproducing is a selective pressure, and? Does this have any power to modify my statement? No, it does not. You were given two candidates for the pressure you asked about. Two candidates which you are about to quote. I could give you a third, but it would be tied at the hip to the other two (sometimes). Between three candidates that are well evidenced, well established, and well demonstrated and one "because of fairies" - there's hardly a choice at all.

Yup, more storytelling. They do not know how evolution did it but they have faith that it did it.

We have a point where we find no evidence of behavioral modernity - then we have a point where we do. Certainly, there's room for another explanation - nevermind the observation that this all coincides with our evolutionary development regardless - care to suggest one?

Which is what creationists have been claiming for decades.

What cretinist claims? I keep hearing that they exist, but like the spirits they invoke they never seem to make an appearance.

Ah, the ever elusive but apparently rather frequent in the past but just not today beneficial mutation that increases genetic information. You’ve got a lot of faith in that which is unseen.

No faith is required. Nothing elusive about mutation - as I said, it happens all the time. Mutations do not need to be beneficial, nuetral, or deleterious for evolution to have occurred - it will have occurred in every case. The results will be different, but evolution is constant in this regard.

No we’re not; we’re talking about Neo-Darwinism, which is not even an empirical science.

Unifying theory of biology. Let that sink in.

A user-generated site? Why is the number of chromosomes not relevant to the classification? Who determined this classification?

You're going to have to do better than "a user generated site" or "who determined the classification". The number of chromosomes went largely unnoticed in classification for a fairly simple reason. The folks who devised the system had no idea what a chromosome was. Of course we do now, and genetics -has- given us reason to shuffle it around a bit. In fact, genetics finally gave us the power to complete the picture - to more accurately determine what was related to what, and how closely. Without genetics, evolutionary theory was incomplete. That's why our current theory is called "modern synthesis". Speaking of chromosomes, and since you'll be asking for predictions in a moment (albeit predictions for a different conjecture) I find it useful to mention that the distinction between ourselves and our nearest primate relatives along the lines of chromosomes was itself the subject of a prediction made in support of both modern synthesis and common descent. Guess what happened? It panned out, we found the distinction precisely where we expected to find it. Perhaps you should choose your metrics more wisely.

You only provided some arbitrary classification that places people in the order of Primates, as I pointed out earlier, simply calling Humans primates does not prove they are indeed primates.

You're the one that asked the question Statler, human beings are primates because we meet the definition of a primate. Why did we decide to pigeonhole our family tree into this particular group? Why not include racoons? I wouldn't know, but specificity is useful - so that's probably part of the "why".

You need some actual evidence demonstrating they are related to the primates.

You've been given ample evidence. I'm not sure why being a primate has you so ruffled up - it isn't as though you had choice in the matter. Your parents were primates.

Additionally, you never used the term Physical Science, you used the term Physics. Are you really so ignorant you do not know the difference between those two terms?

Because wear patterns on bone and their likely arrangement in any given organism is something that physics helps us to establish. Keep up.

Prove it, don’t just assert it. Give me a case of something evolving without the mechanism of Natural Selection being involved.

Science isn't a proving sort of thing. In any case, this has already been explained to you. Mutations occur. End of.

Simple, according to the theory animals do not develop traits they do not use in survival.

According to what theory? As I said, it's clear that you haven't taken the time to even -begin- to learn what modern synthesis is.

Any organism that did so would be out competed by other organisms that were putting their energy to actually surviving. Chance and necessity; you have no necessity.

You'd be discussing a deleterious mutation in this case, not a beneficial or neutral one.

That’s a faulty analogy, anaerobic respiration serves a purpose in animals, but having the ability to do mathematical analysis that was not developed until thousands of years later does not serve a purpose. Why did Humans develop that ability and yet no other animals did?

It's a perfect analogy. It doesn't "serve a purpose" in animals with access to air and aerobic respiratory systems. Not that this would matter, as the process we're discussing doesn't give a shit about purpose. Nevertheless, the ability to carry out complex mental tasks - to think ahead, to plan, to communicate, to abstract - this all served us very well, so suggesting that adaptations to the apparatus that makes this possible would serve no purpose is a -bit- shaky. Hilariously - none of this matters- sit back and enjoy while I explain why, again.

In essence, you're asking me why a trait would be expressed before whatever you imagine it's purpose to be has materialized. The answer is that it is unlikely that it would, evolution is not a matter of responding to the environment. Any organism left behind the ball is more likely to wind up in the "also ran" pile than an organism that already possesses the mutation, one that is in front of the ball - selectively neutral.

Unless you can give me a very specific explanation of how the neurological pathways necessary for the mental cognitive abilities to do calculus and advanced levels of thinking could arise as a simple neutral mutation this is nothing more than wishful thinking and “just-so” storytelling. You’re really becoming the “Evolution-did-it” guy aren’t you?

No one is saying that our cognitive apparatus was a selectively nuetral issue at the point where we became homo-sapiens. There had been a pronounced and decided bent towards precisely that for quite some time in our lineage.

You’re the one defending the theory (rather poorly so), the onus is on you to defend it, not on the skeptic. If you want to tell stories about how all of this stuff happened then fine, but that does not demonstrate that any of it actually happened, and I have every right to reject such stories as just that, fantastic stories.

The theory requires no defense from me Stat. Again, it's the unifying theory of biology. You're certainly free to reject any part of it that you like - but your rejection does not alter the reality of the situation.

First I’ll challenge the absolute garbage you tossed out above your question. What successful prediction has been made that could only have been made if someone believed in Common Descent? What observations have been made that demonstrate Common Descent?

Common descent was first proposed in 1740. Those who proposed common descent expected to find vast uniformity between all living creatures, uniformity that they themselves probably weren't all to justified in expecting (upon what basis would you propose uniformity between an octopus and a human being in 1740?). Then we (twice) discovered this little thing we call "genetics" - which validated their expectations in such a dramatic and thorough way, that it became one half of -the unifying theory of biology-. This is exceedingly simple. The genes we carry are a matter of inheritance. This much is in evidence. Two creatures with vast genetic uniformity (every living thing on this planet - you share roughly 15% of your DNA with mustard greens) got those genes from -somewhere-. The only somewhere we're aware of is mentioned above.

Nope, Darwinism, the two are very different.

Modern synthesis is the unifying theory of biology.

Yes, this discussion has definitely illuminated ignorance on the subject matter, but it certainly has not been mine. My favorite was your assertion that biologic evolution occurs devoid of natural selection, priceless. I’ll have to give you my old Advanced Evolutionary Biology professor’s email address (don’t worry he’s an atheist), I am sure he’d love to hear you try and defend that fantastic claim.

Evolution does occur without selective pressures. Selective pressures modify the outcome of evolution as measured by population genetics. The only fantastic claims in this thread have been the those claims that arose as you attempted to explain "how evolution works". Evolutionary theory doesn't give a shit if someone is an atheist or not, and regardless of a person religious affiliations the evidence is what it is.

In fact, Creationists support rapid speciation by Darwinistic means. How can you argue against a position you are so embarrassingly ignorant of? There’s also nothing in science that presupposes naturalism, it only requires trial uniformity. You’re amusing; I’ll grant you that Rhythm.

They support no such thing. They find it useful to include something that sounds sciencey - because apparently, even though they wish to propose magic, it makes them uneasy to have it stated so bluntly. No freebies Stat.

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TLDR Version. You appear to be entirely unaware of what modern synthesis is and what it entails, though you feel compelled to argue against it, and from this point of ignorance you;re stumbling trying to understand evolutionary theory. This is obviously in addition to the barrier presented by believing in djinn but not geology.

The key points
-Evolution is not a top down directive whereby an individual organism mutates in response to it's environment or any goal. For example, birds weren't jumping of cliffs trying to evolve wings-any more than human beings were doing trig, trying to evolve a bigger brain.

-All that is required for evolution to have occurred is mutation. Mutations can be deleterious, neutral, or beneficial. Only the latter two will express themselves in an existent population (though the former could also be said to express itself if only as an indicator o what didn't work at the time. Of those two - either will satisfy biological continuity and inheritance - until they don't (while deleterious mutations are obviously a non-starter neutral and beneficial mutations can become deleterious, as they can swap places with each other - regardless of whatever classification we may be justified in giving them at some point in the past)

-Modern synthesis is the unifying theory of biology.

[Minimalist]

In fact, Creationists support rapid speciation by Darwinistic means.

Creatards say lots of stupid shit. Does not mean that any one except other creatards takes them seriously.

[smax]

"It is an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by such means the interest of the church might be promoted."

Bishop Eusebius. (260-339 A.D.)

If you are going to live a lie, may as well be a liar.