Macro Evolution: The Evidence

[magellan004]

Pretty stupid to claim that the idea you parody above is not tested, right Mags? Were you claiming that it is not tested?

Would you like another small sermon from the Bible about bearing false witness? I believe God hates it.

I don't know whether it occurred to you, but your parody of ID gets the same test that you are about to reveal. So go for it.
Please state clearly the hypothesis, the test, and the pass/fail criteria. No need for a sermon - just a test.

By the way, if you can't come up with the test (relating to evolution) that has been used then you will agree there is no need for me to come up with any test if ID. Right?
Oh, and one more thing. The commandment about false witness is about people - not about bearing false witness against a theory.
Magellan

[magellan004]

For further clarification as I don't post very often, certainly not in this sub-forum: I hereby disclaim any agreement with any point made by Magelan004 or Jorge unless specifically stated otherwise.

I agree with you;
and I have to update the insult tally-
Phank 1,
Tiggy 1
Kristian Joense 1.

Magellan

[phank]

Phank,

"Common design can't be tested. It can be asserted, but that's not the same thing. To establish common design empirically, you must PRODUCE a designer, and a design process, and show them in action, and demonstrate that design is happening. You can't just use process of elimination."

Why? Isn't it sometimes the case the there are only two possibilities? The proposition "There are always more than two possible competing explanations or hypothesis" strikes me as both pretty radical and well frankly false.

Not in the real world, where not everything is known and probably can't be known. So we have to distinguish between "there are only two alternatives" and "I can only think of two alternatives".

As far as I can tell there would be nothing unscientific about an argument of approximately this form:

1. Either hypothesis X or hypothesis Y are true.
2. If hypothesis X is true we would make observation A.
3. We don't make observation A.
Conclusion therefore hypothesis Y is true.

Nope, not in science. You can say "If X is true, we should observe Y". If Y is not observed (under carefully controlled prespecified conditions,etc.) then you have additional support for the position that X is not true, or at least not all the time, and at least under the conditions specified. That's the best you can do.

Let's try an example:
1) Either Bill is home, or Bill went to the ballgame.
2) Bill is not nome.
3) Therefore, we know Bill is at the ballgame.

Is this OK with you? What if Bill is asleep or at the store or visiting his sick mother?

Why can that NEVER be the case in science? Can't two hypothesis be mutually exclusive and exhaustive at the same time?

Only if operationally defined very very narrowly. In the practical world, where useful explanations are the goal, mutually exhaustive is unattainable and mutually exclusive is very difficult to construct. Especially in biology.

I am proposing that the case with universal common descent and common design is something like this:

1. We observe certain similarities between all living organisms. (I should note that this observation is a prediction of both of the hypothesis, but it may count against other hypothesis such as some form of uncommon/multiple designer hypothesis)
2. These similarities can either be due to chance(What you call coincidence, accident, etc), universal common descent or common design.

Or perhaps non-universal common descent, or perhaps mostly common design, etc.

3. These similarities are not due to chance(That can be ruled out by statistical measures).

Or by more direct means also. For example, in criminal evidence DNA testing is not really a statistical process, it is considered absolutely dispositive.

Conclusion therefore these similarities are either due to common design or common descent.

You seem addicted to formal logic, but biology doesn't work by formal logic, but by trial and error. After all, these similarities might be due to BOTH common design and common descent, if common descent is the tool of the common designer. Right?

Why can't something like that be the case?

Because your premises do not map to the real world. And incidentally, design similarities between dolphins and sharks aren't chance, they are a result of shaping by a common environment. But these two species are not closely related at all.

"Common design can't be tested."

Why? So far you have just asserted this. Not shown it.

OK, produce a test. The Templeton foundation has a standing offer of lots of research money to anyone who can do so. So far, nobody can. You can be the very first. Your task is to produce the designer, specify the designer's methods, and show that these are what's actually happening. How would you go about it?

"To establish common design empirically, you must PRODUCE a designer, and a design process, and show them in action, and demonstrate that design is happening."

Why? I see no reason to accept that.

Nonetheless, that's how science works. To demonstrate something, you must demonstrate it. You can't just assume it as the default if you don't demonstrate something else. In science, the goal is to produce the actual mechanism, and test it, and replicate it, and demonstrate it, and dig deeper and deeper into the details of the mechanism. Whether you choose to accept it or not, that's how science works.

Also by that logic to establish [b]universal[b] common descent empirically you have to show universal common descent in action? How can you demonstrate that descent happened with all life?

So far, this is a proposed explanation based on all that is so far observed. And every organism so far observed can be organized into a single "tree of life". But this doesn't necessarily mean there couldn't have been two or even three initial types of life. And there is fruitful speculation that branching happened in important ways even before life as we know it evolved (that is, in the protolife "replicating molecule" stage). So exactly what "universal" means is a bit ambiguous at the very start. Beyond that, I suppose you could say it's a statistical process. There is (for example) no reason why DNA or RNA is a requirement for life, much less exactly in the form we find it in every single organism without exception.

" But would common design predict that dolphins and sharks, fairly similar in shape, would have vastly different genetics?"

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity doesn't make any predictions about this situation, should that count against it?

I don't understand ths comment at all. We are talking here about multiple competing biological theories. Plate tectonics is as irrelevant as quantum mechanics or general relativity. So what?

I should make it absolutely clear that I am only talking about universal common descent here. Not say common descent between domestic cats and tigers for examples. But the hypothesis that all of life shares a common ancestor.

And what sort of evidence would you find useful? Are you familiar with Linnaean taxonomy? I provided a link, did you look at it. This is important stuff, because it's a way of showing that felines are a branch of the tree, off the mammal branch, which is off the chordate branch, etc. etc.

Keep in mind that no party to this discussion is casting any doubt upon the process of descent with modification as such. There are plenty of undisputed examples of that. I should hope everyone here will agree with that. But it simply doesn't follow that all life is related by that means. Does it? If so how?

Descent with modification, starting with something very simple and continuing the same process for billions of years, would produce exactly what we see around us. Maybe some other process would do so as well, but based on human knowledge of biology, common descent is the simplest explanaton consistent with all relevant observations. If someone wishes to dispute this, they need some better explanation. Maybe there is one, but nobody has found one yet.

"This must be established, however. If you just assert it, you make no progress."

Well I am talking in principle here. But actually I my self doubt it. I tend to prefer the position that both universal common descent AND common design are untestable.

And this would certainly come as a surprise to those who observe the results of descent for a living. I'm guessing here that you are satisfied with at least SOME common descent, but as that descent becomes more and more common, and approaches universal (DNA, for example), you have some sort of difficulty accepting the ramifications. You can maybe see that humans and chimps had a common ancestor, and maybe that that common ancestor shared an ancestor with gibbons, but maybe THAT common ancestor's common ancestor with monkeys didn't exist, or something like that? You need to be more specific.

As far as I can tell that does not matter for practical purposes. I am not convinced that there is any application of science that uniquely depends on universal common descent(or common design for that matter) as opposed to just particular similarities between particular organism.

I suppose you're right about that. If there's enough similarities so that certain plants have medicinal value for humans, WHO CARES whether this was pure luck, or an illustration of what common descent would produce?

On a different note I am curious, what observation would according to you falsify the hypothesis of universal common descent?

For example, a life form not based on RNA and DNA. For another, a life form based on right-handed chirality. For another, a silicon-based rather than carbon-based form. For another, more genetic similarity between tigers and oak trees than between tigers and house cats. And as a matter of fact, this is a good question because the implications of common descent are impressively narrow and restrictive. Just about ANY observation outside of these very narrow constraints would seriously undermine common descent.

(It would also render the development of drugs and medicines useless, because testing them on rats, monkeys, guinea pigs, etc. would tells us nothing useful whatsoever. Those tests are ONLY possible because of common descent, and what that means biologically.)

[Tiggy]

I agree with you;
and I have to update the insult tally-
Phank 1,
Tiggy 1
Kristian Joense 1.

Magellan

You forgot the biggest category of all Clownshoes:

Insults to everyone's intelligence: Clownshoes magellan004 - 734,713

[rogue06]

I agree with you;
and I have to update the insult tally-
Phank 1,
Tiggy 1
Kristian Joense 1.

Magellan

It wasn't an insult per se but serves as evidence that your reputation precedes you

[wattsr1]

I don't know whether it occurred to you, but your parody of ID gets the same test that you are about to reveal. So go for it.

So what ID are you referring to such that you know it did not put that dust there?

By the way, if you can't come up with the test (relating to evolution) that has been used then you will agree there is no need for me to come up with any test if ID. Right?

Right. The observation of nested hierarchies and ERVs are classic tests for evolution, that have been used.

Oh, and one more thing. The commandment about false witness is about people ...
Magellan

So if I see a person I simply claim "False witness"?

Or you are not a person?

Or what Mags?

- not about bearing false witness against a theory.

You do understand that people bear false witness against other people when they misrepresent the ideas that other folk hold to?

You might object to a theory and think it a lie. But you can also completely misrepresent what other people think, say and do about the theory.

I would have thought that covers "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour".

Besides, are you insinuating that the above verse is the only verse in the Bible that talks about false witness?

By Bible has lots of verses in it speaking against false witness, lying etc. Mine is a KJV. What is yours, and how many pages have you ripped out of it?

[wattsr1]

Gidday Kristian Joense (KJ)


This is a long one, and I don’t know how much sense I will make and whether or not it addresses your points, either in part or in total. Hopefully it goes some of the way.*

Wattsr1, thanks for the example.

No problems.

I realize thinks change radically when we talk about specific organisms. But that has not been my issue in this thread. I may not have been clear enough before. But I am specifically talking about the common descent of all life.

By giving you that one example, I was attempting to make a very general point. The same kind of argument applies right across the whole spectrum of life.

We see nested hierarchies going back as far as we can, and as I point out, nested hierarchies are a powerful indicator that a process involving common descent with variation has been going on.

If we knew that common designers also necessarily made them, then my argument above would be undercut. There would be two processes we know of, which make nested hierarchies.

My one example regarding similarity is important because, in the construction of nested hierarchies, biologists, geneticists etc don’t rely on simple similarity (generally)**. They rely on those specific kinds of similarity that can only arise by common descent with modification ***.

Specifically the attitude I often see people having is that common design is *inconsistent* with the evidence and therefore people are under some epistemic duty to give up their belief in common design. But as far as I can tell there is nothing in biology or its cognate fields that compels me to give up that belief. Nor do I see any hindrance for say medical professionals that adopt such a belief.

The problem is that, in a scientific sense, we don’t know two things:-

1) That a common designer exists. We certainly know that nature and natural “laws” and processes exist.

2) Assuming that a common designer(s) does exist, the rules by which it operates such that we can point to some phenomenon X, and say “Yes, that is evidence of common design”. Take a classic example of the origin of our daily weather phenomena - frost, cloud, rain fall, drought. Creationists accommodate various Bible verses in the OT which state that God causes these phenomena directly by his command or action, with modern meteorological science. That is, they do not take those verses literally and reject meteorological science, regarding the origin of rainfall (as an example). They happily accept that rain falls because forces keeping rain drops aloft are overwhelmed by forces pulling the drops down, and so rain naturally falls, despite the fact that the Bible contradicts this by claiming that it falls when God commands it to. Creationists are under no compulsion to give up their belief in a common designer for rainfall and accept the natural explanation for rainfall.

So do you see my point? A common designer certainly can explain why rain falls. It does, when the designer tells it to, and natural processes have nothing to do with it.

But the problems with it are these:-

1) We know that nature exists and how it operates to some extent, hence we can explain how nature makes rain fall.

2) We don’t know, in a scientific sense, that the common designer who makes rain exist.

3) On the assumption that we do know of that designer, then we don’t know that the designer actually does make rain fall by commanding it. The Bible says so, but beyond that verse in the Bible, we have no evidence that the designer operates according to this rule. As far as I can tell, creationists don’t accept that the designer operates according to this rule. To explain why rain falls, they seem to accept the scientific explanations.

Similarity is an argument just like this.

And as I tried to explain, simple similarity is not a good indicator of common descent.

They can easily take the stance that drug testing on animals is relatively effective because animals and humans share some common characteristics due common design.

Well yes they can. But see my argument about rainfall above. The same thing applies.

There is always this implication that people who deny universal common descent are somehow stupid ignoramuses.

Well that is often the unfortunate case. However, I haunt these kind of forums a lot, and 99% of the creationists I meet are of the kind you mention and the end of your post. It does get extraordinarily frustrating.

Having said that, I've also met a handful of YECs who are genuine in their attempts to learn, who do actually want to engage in intelligent conversation etc, and who do attempt to explain to me the error of my ways without resorting to silliness.

But I think people who take such positions are mistaken because they conflate denying a theory used to explain some data with the actual data itself.

Well let’s come back to the data for nested hierarchies. It’s measurements of bones, their relationships to other bones, what they are made of, genes, their structures, how they relate to other genes and external regions. These are the data which are measurable.

They also form a natural pattern, first elucidated some 300 years ago by Linnaeus. He found that these measurements (excepting for genetic data) could be arranged into a binary system of classification from which we get our modern taxonomic classification system. It’s also called a nested hierarchy in that characteristics nest inside other characteristics which nest inside other characteristics and so on.

There are two processes we know that can explain such a patterning:-

1) common descent with modification, and
2) common designers.

We know that common descent with modification cannot help but create such patterns. It goes almost without saying. It’s why we can draw family trees.

Sure common designers can create nested hierarchies. But they don’t have to. They can do lots of other things. They could create ordinary hierarchies; they could create a jumble, without hierarchies, etc.

So unless you know that a common designer had the intention to arrange life like this, then the question is begged - is the observation of the nested hierarchy evidence for a common designer?

How do you know that your common designer decided to make life in the pattern of a nested hierarchy? Is the only evidence you have, the fact that such a hierarchy exists?

Go back to my rain fall example. There are two explanations for this:-

1) Natural processes - forces pulling rain down overwhelm forces keeping it aloft.

2) Common designer literally commanding rain to fall.

I’ll opt for 1) while recognizing that 2) could just be so. Maybe that really is the way it happens, most particularly if the designer is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

However, we come back to this problem. We certainly understand that nature and natural process exist and we can explain**** how it naturally causes rain to fall. But we don’t know that intelligent designers (other than humans) exist, not in the sense we know that nature exists. And if intelligent designers do exist, then how do we know that commanding rain to fall really is their chosen method, as opposed to natural processes?

As as I can tell there is really nothing stopping an adherent of common design from taking a instrumentalist approach to the thesis of universal common descent and saying it may not be true and but it can produce some useful results. Denying universal common descent to me doesn't seem to imply denying a single iota of evidence. Is any of this wrong? If so why?

In a scientific sense, one accepts or rejects propositions based on their utility as explanatory systems. No one can formally rule out a common designer. But then no one can formally rule such a designer in.

But we can rule nature in.

And just as we know how nature causes rainfall, so we know how nature causes nested hierarchies.

But we don’t know how common designers do these things, beyond what we see in nature.

It’s why I, as an atheist, have no real grumble against Theistic Evolutionists. I think their approach to the issue is sensible. They don’t deny evolution and nor do they deny a common designer. They see a common designer behind life and accept that it made nature to carry out that biological design. This is no different to creationists (YEC/ID) seeing a common designer behind our daily weather, and accept that it made nature to carry out that meteorological design.


In a sense, it could be that you are asking us to include the supernatural into the scientific framework. We could if we had good scientific evidence for it, and knew something of the rules by which it operates and operated.

But we know none of this, not in the same way that we know that nature exists and know to some degree how nature works.

So, in the absence of anything concrete about the (supernatural)common designer, it cannot be ruled out. But then it cannot be ruled in.

It’s why we leave faith outside of science. And so we get some scientists (Collins and Miller) saying that the marvels of the universe do point to a designer, but they make no such claim when they write science papers, and we get Dawkins and Gould saying that the marvels of the universe mean no such things, but they make no such claim about there being no God when they write science papers.

Note the fourth point I make at the end. It's a very important point. Common descent and genetic modification are processes we do know actually occur. We can explain an awful lot by them. We know what kinds of outcomes they produce. So we come back to the word you used - "utility". Given that we don't really know about supernatural common designers, other than what we believe by faith, then exactly where does the notion get us in a scientific sense, in a sense of being able to explain something mechanistically.

Perhaps more than anything, this is the point I am trying to make, in a very round-about way.


I hope this makes some kind of sense.


* This is one of those topics that can go on and on with lots of big essays. It touches on philosophy and theology as much as it does science. It touches on the question as to what science is, and what it should be.

** I say generally because sometimes it does appear that researchers do rely on simple similarity. In such cases I suspect its because they have seen a particular pattern associated with that one bit of simple similarity, so often, that when they see the simple similarity, they don’t bother to look any further.

*** Unless of course, we do know how the common designer(s) operate. If we knew that, then we could look at the similarity and say either common design or common descent with modification.

**** Explanation is crucial here. If you accept that a common designer did it, then where do you go from there, without any knowledge of the rules by which such a designer operates? We do, however, understand to a reasonable degree, the rules by which common descent with modification occurs. So it allows us to explain and to explore new ideas.

[magellan004]

It wasn't an insult per se but serves as evidence that your reputation precedes you

Ok. On your advice I'll withdraw that 'strike' and update the count.

Insult Tally
Phank 1.
Tiggy 2. .


Magellan.

[magellan004]

So what ID are you referring to such that you know it did not put that dust there?

Right. The observation of nested hierarchies and ERVs are classic tests for evolution, that have been used.

So if I see a person I simply claim "False witness"?

Or you are not a person?

Or what Mags?

You do understand that people bear false witness against other people when they misrepresent the ideas that other folk hold to?

You might object to a theory and think it a lie. But you can also completely misrepresent what other people think, say and do about the theory.

I would have thought that covers "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour".

Besides, are you insinuating that the above verse is the only verse in the Bible that talks about false witness?

By Bible has lots of verses in it speaking against false witness, lying etc. Mine is a KJV. What is yours, and how many pages have you ripped out of it?

Sorry. You left out the part where I asked you to actually deliver:
Post 31:

Please state clearly the hypothesis, the test, and the pass/fail criteria. No need for a sermon - just a test.

I agree with you. You didn't answer that part because there is no answer. There is no such test of Evolution.

Magellan

[wattsr1]

Sorry. You left out the part where I asked you to actually deliver:
Post 31:

I agree with you. You didn't answer that part because there is no answer. There is no such test of Evolution.

Magellan

I presumed that you knew what the hypothesis was, given all the time you have been here.

You mean, after all these years, you still don't know?

Hence, as I said, evidence for the hypothesis are the observations of nested hierarchies and ERVs.

A test is the continued observation of these hierarchies, the deeper we look into the nature of living organisms.*

Ditto with ERVs.

Sorry. You left out the part where I asked you to actually deliver:
Post 31:

Try post #36.

I agree with you. You didn't answer that part because there is no answer. There is no such test of Evolution.

Normally it would be reasonable to conclude that either I'm a bad teacher or you are a bad student, or it's a bit of both. However, given the number of people of all persuasions who have engaged you over this, I think it reasonable to say that you are a bad student.

I agree with you. You didn't answer that part because there is no answer.

But I made no such claim for you to agree with. Too many more claims like this and I will have to call you out for bearing false witness.

Perhaps there is an indication here that you are behind the 8-ball when it comes to reading comprehension? Or that you have a different Bible to the rest of us?

My KJV says something like "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour". Does yours have an exclusion written in - "unless you are Mags004"? If so then I'll bet you penciled it in, right Mags?



* Or were you wanting me to state the ID hypothesis and the various tests for it? That is unclear from your post.
If you were wanting me to state the hypothesis and the tests, then I'm not sure that you have ever produced these. If you have, can you link me to them? The only one I know of is that an unspecified designer (which in various posts that follow in a thread on the subject, turns out to be the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, invisible Christian God) made all big or complex things in the universe, anything from 6,000 years ago to 13 billion years ago, using anything from a mix of natural processes and miracles, to the basic of miracles, namely speaking things into existence. And the test for this is an undemonstrated calculation that things that look complex have CSI. How am I doing?

Many Christians don't buy that specific hypothesis and they think the test is bunk. One reason for this is that one should be able to take the CSI calculation and use it on the spec of dust on the top of my cupboard, to prove that the ID actually made (or did not make) it. I think the criticisms of those Christians is correct. And I think they are still Christians even though they think the specific ID hypothesis, as it is formulated, and associated test to be bunk. I accept that they believe in the existence of the ID based on faith and other personal experiences.

[Jorge]

Look at your father. Are you identical? If not, you are seeing evolution in action.
(IF your eyes are open, of course.)

You write the above yet dare to accuse me and others (and you have often done)
that it is I / we that "do not know what evolution is". Zowwwweeee!!!

A clue for a clueless phank : That there is variation is NOT "seeing evolution in action".
Most certainly NOT the 'Evolution' that you and your comrades believe in.
To wit : if 'variation' is what you mean by 'Evolution' then you agree 100.00% with Ken Ham,
Kent Hovind, Carl Wieland, Duanne Gish, with me and with countless other Biblical Creationists.
I doubt very much that this is the case.

(And sure enough, I predicted in the first sentence of my first post that there would be SOME clowns who "know" that evolution doesn't happen, and therefore the evidence can't be evidence, so it isn't evidence, so there!)

All you did in your first post was to provide an "escape hatch" that you knew you were going to need.

The question "What constitutes evidence?" is a critical question that you wish to dismiss.
For people like you, two 'similar' fossils that are allegedly separated by millions of years
constitutes "evidence" that macroevolution occurred. Clearly you people employ a
wishful, distorted version of what 'evidence' is. Why do you do this? Simple : because
it helps to promote your Sacred Beliefs - your worldview ... your paradigm ... your religion.

Jorge

[Jorge]

For further clarification as I don't post very often, certainly not in this sub-forum:
I hereby disclaim any agreement with any point made by Magelan004
or Jorge unless specifically stated otherwise.

********************************************************************

Huh? ... until today I had not made any posts in this thread so, what's your problem?

In any event, if you actually understood any point made by Jorge then you'd surely
be more inclined to agree but, alas, that is not meant to be.

Jorge

[wattsr1]

... then you'd surely
be more inclined to agree but, alas, that is not meant to be.

Jorge

There ya go Jorge, it appears that miracles don't happen after all.

[wattsr1]

That there is variation is NOT "seeing evolution in action".

...

Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Carl Wieland, Duanne Gish, ...

I don't know of any one who has claimed that seeing variation is seeing evolution. Are you sure you know what you are talking about Jorge? Variation is just that, variation. It's something we measure.

Nevertheless and oddly enough the creationists you mention look at a pattern in a rock that looks like a set of bones, and declare it to be the remains of an animal that was once alive, died, got burried under mud, which eventually turned into rock.

Yet seeing a pattern in a rock that looks like a set of bones, is NOT "seeing a living organism in the past, dying in the past, getting buried in mud in the past, which turned into mud in the past".

There are other, more spiritual explanations for those patterns in the rock. You know Jorge, same data, different interpretation.

Just because they look like bones, does not necessarily mean that they are the remains of animals that were alive in the past. You know, it's the old similarity argument again, but in a different form.

[Jorge]

I don't know of any one who has claimed that seeing variation is seeing evolution. Are you sure you know what you are talking about Jorge? Variation is just that, variation. It's something we measure.

Huh???

Your Atheist comrade, phank, said it just a few posts ago! I quote :

"Look at your father. Are you identical? If not, you are seeing
evolution in action. (IF your eyes are open, of course.)"

[sigh ...] ............. It's the same ol' Roland ... no wonder I stay away.

Jorge