Micro- vis-�-vis Macro-Evolution

[klaus54]

"Creationism doesn't make any predictions about homologies at all while common descent absolutely requires them."

So the presence of homologies is perfectly compatible with Creationism and hence can't be used to adjudicate between Creationism and Evolution or what? Can you use something that Creationists agree with to argue for Evolution?

The problem is ANYTHING is compatible with creationism since God can do ANYTHING HE WANTS.

Two big issues that creationists need to address:

1) It's impossible to do any kind of "historical" science with this view. Creationists have obviated scientific method when applied to the astronomical, geologic, and biological past. Why? Because there is no framework for testing hypotheses -- there is no consilience in the analysis of evidence.

And if creationists WERE to generate two "hypotheses" that contradicted other each, the would be no problem cuz "God done did it that way."

2) Creationists themselves don't agree on a lot of key points in Bible interpretation (I've been trying to get some creationist to give an unambiguous literal reading of the first Genesis story that means the same thing to our modern scientific culture as to the ANE.)

For example in the Flood story, creationists give wildly different answers to the location of the Flood boundary in the geologic column. If they can't even do that, how could one expect that to do stratigraphy? And you need stratigraphy to do paleontology.

K54

P.S. What's the creationist hypothesis to explain Dormaalocyon latouri?

That's right -- they don't have one AND don't need one.

Isn't that correct, Jorge?

[Kristian Joensen]

What reason would there be to think otherwise?

This evidence that has to be explained, and it supports the hypothesis of common (or close to common) ancestry.

Can you think of an alternate hypothesis?

Just a reminder that hypotheses are supported by not proved.

K54

Common design could be one option. Freak accidents could be another. But you don't have to have an explanation you could leave it unexplained.

HMS_Beagle, some times you see people pointing to things like homologies as if they do or should somehow count against Creationism or cause people to reject Creationism. I am questioning if that is a proper way to use such data. If homologies are compatible with Creationism, as you seem to accept, then how can they be used to argue against it?

[HMS_Beagle]

Common design could be one option. Freak accidents could be another. But you don't have to have an explanation you could leave it unexplained.

But we do have an explanation - one that's been confirmed many times over.

HMS_Beagle, some times you see people pointing to things like homologies as if they do or should somehow count against Creationism or cause people to reject Creationism. I am questioning if that is a proper way to use such data. If homologies are compatible with Creationism, as you seem to accept, then how can they be used to argue against it?

Homologies don't count against creationism because nothing can count against what an omnipotent Deity could do. They just don't count as positive evidence for creationism because creationism doesn't predict or require homologies. ToE does both. Combine the homologies with all the rest of the consilient evidence (genetics, radiometric dating, geologly, paleontology, etc.) and you get a pretty bulletproof case for common descent over deep time.

[klaus54]

Common design could be one option. Freak accidents could be another. But you don't have to have an explanation you could leave it unexplained.

HMS_Beagle, some times you see people pointing to things like homologies as if they do or should somehow count against Creationism or cause people to reject Creationism. I am questioning if that is a proper way to use such data. If homologies are compatible with Creationism, as you seem to accept, then how can they be used to argue against it?

Well, "Common Design" is not epistemologically different to "God did it". God just designed the taxonomy that way. It is because it is.

But I suppose this is consistent with the YEC/anti-evolutionist notion of "historical science" vis-a-vis "operational science" that's used as ruse to ignore paleontology, structural geology, radiometric dating, ...

Anti-evolutionists screech that evolution is "unfalsiable". Bunk. Complete projection. "Common Design" is COMPLETELY unfalsiable, because whatever is, is.

Since scientists are interested in falsifiable hypotheses to explain data and broader frameworks called "theories" -- you'd have to pardon us for "explanations" which are none of this.

K54

P.S. What's the difference between Common Design and stamp-collecting?

[klaus54]

...
Homologies don't count against creationism because nothing can count against what an omnipotent Deity could do. They just don't count as positive evidence for creationism because creationism doesn't predict or require homologies. ToE does both. Combine the homologies with all the rest of the consilient evidence (genetics, radiometric dating, geologly, paleontology, etc.) and you get a pretty bulletproof case for common descent over deep time.

Bingo!!!

Nothing can falsifying "God just done diddly did it that way."

Ergo, any and all data fit with creationism.

Natural science actually takes effort.

So people like Jorge can spend their days learning just enough about the theory of evolution to spin the data and find new ways to propagandize - and they always have goddidit as an exit strategy.

K54

[phank]

Anti-evolutionists screech that evolution is "unfalsiable". Bunk. Complete projection. "Common Design" is COMPLETELY unfalsiable, because whatever is, is.

There's a certain mindset that has real difficulties with provisional, tentative explanations subject to change at any time. These people struggle with uncertainty, and would much rather be wrong than uncertain. After all, certainty rules out any recognition of error, so it's a win-win. The problem with evolutionary theory is, it keeps getting expanded, modified, extended, and refined. Darwin would recognize relatively little of the theory today, but it is STILL called "evolution". So the screech that it's unfalsifiable reflects this continuity of terminology across fairly large changes. The argument goes, if massive new data were to show that the theory is somehow profoundly misguided and requires substantial repositioning, it would STILL be called the theory of evolution, which means it's not falsifiable!

Creationists are kind of fixed on words. God did not poof reality into existence, he SPOKE it into existence. In religionland, SAYING something is true MAKES it true. How else could it be when all relevant evidence is either absent or uncongenial?

[jordanriver]

There's a certain mindset that has real difficulties with provisional, tentative explanations subject to change at any time. These people struggle with uncertainty, and would much rather be wrong than uncertain. After all, certainty rules out any recognition of error, so it's a win-win. The problem with evolutionary theory is, it keeps getting expanded, modified, extended, and refined. Darwin would recognize relatively little of the theory today, but it is STILL called "evolution". So the screech that it's unfalsifiable reflects this continuity of terminology across fairly large changes. The argument goes, if massive new data were to show that the theory is somehow profoundly misguided and requires substantial repositioning, it would STILL be called the theory of evolution, which means it's not falsifiable

.yeah, it's like the Lernaean Hydra
cut off one head ...2 grow back

[Jorge]

The problem is ANYTHING is compatible with creationism since God can do ANYTHING HE WANTS.

Two big issues that creationists need to address:
blah
blah
blah.
.
.

One more time, you are W-R-O-N-G - a product of your atrocious theology.

God CANNOT do whatever He wants. E.g., God cannot lie. God cannot sin. God cannot do anything that causes Him to contradict Himself.

All of that, by the way, is what makes (real) science possible.
I do not expect - not even close - for you to understand much less accept any of this.

Jorge

[klaus54]

One more time, you are W-R-O-N-G - a product of your atrocious theology.

God CANNOT do whatever He wants. E.g., God cannot lie. God cannot sin. God cannot do anything that causes Him to contradict Himself.

All of that, by the way, is what makes (real) science possible.
I do not expect - not even close - for you to understand much less accept any of this.

Jorge

But "goddidit" can explain anything YEC can't explain about astrophysics, paleontology, geology... You know, them there "historical" sciences.

BTW, "real" sciences are evidently those with conclusions that support your YEC Bible reading, which BTW, I still can't get you to give.

"Moving the goalposts" makes kicking field goals much easier, dunnit?

K54

[klaus54]

.yeah, it's like the Lernaean Hydra
cut off one head ...2 grow back

Funny how that works. It's amazing what design can do, eh?

'Cept you can't have design and evolution together, right?

Shucks. That would make reality oh so much easier to understand.

K54

P.S. I believe the term you're looking for is "heuristic".

Your YEC "science" is anti-heuristic.

[Jorge]

But "goddidit" can explain anything YEC can't explain about astrophysics, paleontology, geology... You know, them there "historical" sciences.

BTW, "real" sciences are evidently those with conclusions that support your YEC Bible reading, which BTW, I still can't get you to give.

"Moving the goalposts" makes kicking field goals much easier, dunnit?

K54

Jorge

[klaus54]

Jorge

Source: Romans 11:8, AJKV

(according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

© Copyright Original Source

K54

[jordanriver]

Funny how that works. It's amazing what design can do, eh?

'Cept you can't have design and evolution together, right?

Shucks. That would make reality oh so much easier to understand.

K54.

?
what an odd reply to someone like me.
I am the one who sees evolution AS DESIGN.

I am the one who concludes that that mechanism AKA "evolution" is there ON PURPOSE to serve as a fail-safe in a *natural* world where bad things happen.

a fail-safe, which "...means not that failure is impossible/improbable, but rather that the system's design prevents or mitigates unsafe consequences of the system's failure. That is, if and when a "fail-safe" system "fails", it is "safe" or at least no less safe than when it is operating correctly" (wiki)

that means it doesn't always succeed, but it succeeds just enough for a *natural* world thats gonna be temporary anyway.


I.M.H.O., if there was a period of time where beginning life in the early *natural* world did not have that survival mechanism **STRESS-INDUCED** MUTAGENESIS and EPIGENETICS with DNA METHYLATION.....,

... it would have been impossible to survive.

...edited to add,
and oh yes, the improvisations would look "jury-rigged", just like my father-in-law's appliances and vehicles, they don't look like they did ages ago when they were created, but he "don't throw away nuthin" so coat hangar wire, band-aids , whatever, he adjusts them to adapt to new situations.

[jordanriver]

"Moving the goalposts" makes kicking field goals much easier, dunnit?
K54

are you projecting?

speaking of moving the goal posts, is there going to be an eventual time limit for the 'fishapod' crawling out of the water, or are you going to add another 20 more million years each time you find tetrapods that existed before your fishapods.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-walking-land/


oh, well, whats a million years in light of billions to work with, a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon we're talking real time.

and then there was the Nested Hierarchy goal post

Potential Falsification:
It would be very problematic if many species were found that combined characteristics of different nested groupings
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comd...sted_hierarchy

well it happened,

"gammaretrovirus-like groups (PtG1 and PtG2) occurred in chimpanzees but not in humans"
ok, not a problem.
But they also appeared in baboons, from the Old World Monkeys group.
Look, if they are in both baboons and chimps, then, the erv should have passed down from the common ancestor of Old World Monkeys and the Apes and Great Apes groups. But it missed us humans.
FALSIFICATION?
nope, just 'proof' of HGT, horizontal gene transfer (AKA LGT, lateral gene transfer)
"...This appears to be an example of horizontal transfer of retroviruses with occasional fixation in the germ line..."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1346942/

already posted this BTW, here

and like The Borg, Talk Origins adjusted and now have a nice new bush instead of Darwin's Tree and the cladistic tree
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macr...utionvines.jpg


ok, that's ok, but where is the goal post now?

How about the biochemical goal post, the FIVE MILLION YEAR LIMIT, for divergence modern humans and other apes.

THE FOSSIL TRAIL Ian Tattersall ISBN 0195061012
p 124-125
...What really upset the morphologists, however, was that Sarich and Wilson used the internal consistencies that they perceived in their data set to argue that the albumin molecule changed at a constant rate. Thus, they claimed, the "immunological distances" between species based on this molecule could be used to calculate the time that had lapsed since they had shared a common ancestor. This added insult to injury. Not only were the biochemists usurping the traditional function of the morphologists in determining relationships, but they were now moving in on the paleontologists, the guardians of the time element in evolution!
Still worse, at a time when the 14 myr old Ramapithecus had finally established ascendency as a human ancestor, Sarich and Wilson's time estimates were totally at variance with this prevailing wisdom. The "molecular clock" needs to be calibrated using one date taken from the fossil record, and the date chosen by Sarich and Wilson for this purpose was one that was palatable to most paleontologists of the day: 30 myr for the last common ancestor of the apes and the Old World monkeys. The date that this yielded for the last ancestor of humans and the African apes was not, however, palatable at all: about 5 myr.

BUT THEY COMPROMISED to the morphologists (the paleoanthropologists) and added a few more million years

continuing Tattersall's The Fossil Trail
In later publications Sarich and Wilson softened this divergence date a little, but they yielded nothing on principle. Indeed, in 1971 Sarich wrote, in one of the most breathtakingly provocative and undiplomatic statements in the history of human evolutionary studies, that "one no longer has the option of considering a fossil older than about eight million years as a hominid "no matter what it looks like."

five million to eight million, A SIXTY PERCENT INCREASE to accommodate the powerful paleoanthropologist lobby..

....and a good thing too, for them, otherwise you could forget about Sahelanthropus tchadensis @7mya and Orrorin tugenensis @6mya.

Powerful paleoanthropologist families like the Leakeys resisted Sarich and Wilson's molecular clock:
...oh, and this next source is also a reply to your earlier claim that creationists don't know about the hominid fossil record

klaus54 posted:
But if you want to exclude that humans have non-human ancestors, then you are still are stuck with the task of explaining the vast majority of the rock and fossil record. I.e., evolution spanning a time interval over 1,000 times longer than the (according to not just YOU, but all anti-evolutionists, non-existing) record of Hominid evolution.

were you projecting that time too.
I think some of us creationists have read a little about it
I KNOW there is quite a large collection of "hominid" fossils. I read about Donald Johanson's drawer after drawer of mostly Hadar fossils (in Cleveland), and an interesting account of Stephen Jay Gould's visit (Gould recovering from Cancer) to Richard Leakey's Nairobi "Hominid Vault" in Delta Willis's 'The Hominid Gang: Behind the Scenes in the Search for Human Origins':

'THE HOMINID GANG Behind the Scenes in The Search For Human Origins' Delta Willis (with an introduction by Stephen Jay Gould, ISBN 0670828084
P 127-128 (Leakey has been showing Gould specimens from various drawers, the 30 million year drawers, the 14 million years, and...
"...From fourteen million years ago, Leakey moves to eight million -- though the source remains the Samburu Hills; the fossil in question is from younger sediments. "This is probably one of the most enigmatic specimens in the room" Leakey begins. "It's a very odd animal. Whatever it is," he adds, "it's the closest thing we have to something brand new at the other end of the fossil gap." First, Leakey lays out the teeth, black as pearls. They're huge, with deep facets, like those of a pig. "If you found those alone," Leakey says, "you'd think it was a suid [pig]." Gould agrees: "Historically, there's always been this problem distinguishing pig teeth from hominid teeth -- like the famous Hesperopithecus," the Nebraska Man-cum-pig. Next, Leakey adds a jawbone, then a few fragments of cheekbones: "But if you view them together, its a primate." Leakey then suggests that it may be a hominid.

"But doesn't its age of eight million make it an impossibility, as a hominid, I mean -- with the biochemical dates suggesting the split around six?" Gould refers to the date of divergence suggested by the molecular clock.

"It's a fudge you can allow." Leakey doubts the biochemical dates. "It may well be one of the earliest hominids -- probably is."

But at least Richard Leakey did eventually concede and cited the original FIVE MILLION YEAR LIMIT:

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND' Richard Leakey 1994 ISBN 0465031358
p 7-8
"...In the late 1960s, two biochemists at the University fo California, Berkeley, Allan Wilson and Vincent Sarich, came to a very different conclusion about when the first human species evolved. Instead of working with fossils, they compared the structure of certain blood proteins from living humans and African apes. Their aim was to determine the degree of structural difference between human and ape proteins--a difference that should increase at a calculable rate with time, as a result of mutation. The longer humans and apes had been separate species, the greater number of mutations that would have accumulated. Wilson and Sarich calculated the mutation rate and were therefore able to use their blood-protein data as a molecular clock.

According to the clock, the first human species evolved only about 5 million years ago, a finding that was dramatically at variance with the 15 or 30 million years of prevailing anthropological theory...."

"...A mighty dispute erupted, with anthropologists and biochemists criticizing each other's professional techniques in the strongest language. Wilson and Sarich's conclusion was criticized on the ground, among others, that their molecular clock was erratic and therefore could not be relied upon to give an accurate time for past evolutionary events. Wilson and Sarich, for their part, argued that anthropologists placed too much interpretive weight on small, fragmentary anatomical features, and were thus led to invalid conclusions. I sided with the anthropological community at the time, believing Wilson and Sarich to be incorrect.

SO before you attempt to pull the mote out of our eyes, better first remove the beam from your own eyes.

[HMS_Beagle]

are you projecting?

speaking of moving the goal posts, is there going to be an eventual time limit for the 'fishapod' crawling out of the water, or are you going to add another 20 more million years each time you find tetrapods that existed before your fishapods.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-walking-land/


oh, well, whats a million years in light of billions to work with, a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon we're talking real time.

and then there was the Nested Hierarchy goal post


well it happened,

"gammaretrovirus-like groups (PtG1 and PtG2) occurred in chimpanzees but not in humans"
ok, not a problem.
But they also appeared in baboons, from the Old World Monkeys group.
Look, if they are in both baboons and chimps, then, the erv should have passed down from the common ancestor of Old World Monkeys and the Apes and Great Apes groups. But it missed us humans.
FALSIFICATION?
nope, just 'proof' of HGT, horizontal gene transfer (AKA LGT, lateral gene transfer)
"...This appears to be an example of horizontal transfer of retroviruses with occasional fixation in the germ line..."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1346942/

already posted this BTW, here

and like The Borg, Talk Origins adjusted and now have a nice new bush instead of Darwin's Tree and the cladistic tree
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macr...utionvines.jpg
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1684[/ATTACH]

ok, that's ok, but where is the goal post now?

How about the biochemical goal post, the FIVE MILLION YEAR LIMIT, for divergence modern humans and other apes.

BUT THEY COMPROMISED to the morphologists (the paleoanthropologists) and added a few more million years


five million to eight million, A SIXTY PERCENT INCREASE to accommodate the powerful paleoanthropologist lobby..

....and a good thing too, for them, otherwise you could forget about Sahelanthropus tchadensis @7mya and Orrorin tugenensis @6mya.

Powerful paleoanthropologist families like the Leakeys resisted Sarich and Wilson's molecular clock:
...oh, and this next source is also a reply to your earlier claim that creationists don't know about the hominid fossil record

were you projecting that time too.
I think some of us creationists have read a little about it
I KNOW there is quite a large collection of "hominid" fossils. I read about Donald Johanson's drawer after drawer of mostly Hadar fossils (in Cleveland), and an interesting account of Stephen Jay Gould's visit (Gould recovering from Cancer) to Richard Leakey's Nairobi "Hominid Vault" in Delta Willis's 'The Hominid Gang: Behind the Scenes in the Search for Human Origins':


But at least Richard Leakey did eventually concede and cited the original FIVE MILLION YEAR LIMIT:


SO before you attempt to pull the mote out of our eyes, better first remove the beam from your own eyes.

So-so attempt at a Gish Gallop. I give it a 5 out of 10.