Originally posted by CTD___

Apparently you think this is a game you win if you spam enough silly nonsense. Prepare to pat yourself on the back, and remain deluded. I have never for a moment doubted or questioned either your capacity to spam, or the silliness of your nonsense.

The following is a potential falsification of the hypothesis that my thumb drive is a killer whale:

Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale.

Oh my! I hope it doesn't starve to death. I have no fish to feed it.



Your continued attempts to mock proper scientific procedure do not detract from real science one bit.

LOL.

You do realize that, if your premise is correct, you HAVE falsified the thumb=killer whale hypothesis, right?

(BTW, I hope you're not arguing that the "my thumb is a killer whale" hypothesis is unfalsifiable... )

Originally posted by rogue06

*Sigh* You win. Your brillance is too much too bear.

I shall dare to bear. Although, I shall be careful, because bears can rip your head off.

Collins English Dictionary, Harper-Collins, Eighth Edition (2006), p1671

theory ('0ieri) n, pl -ries ...
5 a set of hypotheses related by logical or mathematical arguments to explain and predict a wide variety of connected phenomena in general terms: the theory of relativity

---

© source where applicable

Collins English Dictionary, Haprer-Collins, Eighth Edition (2006), p1445

science ('saiens) n 1 the systematic study of the nature and behaviour of the material and physical universe, based on observation, experiment, and measurement, and the formulation of laws to describe these facts in general terms 2 the knowledge so obtained or the practice of obtaining it 3 any particular branch of this knowledge: the pure and applied sciences ...
scientific method n a method of investigation in which a problem is identified and observations, experiments, or other relevant data are then used to construct or test hypotheses that purport to solve it

---

© source where applicable

Evolution is an observation. Evolutionary theory is an explanation of this observation.

Originally posted by CTD___

Originally posted by Tiggy

Psst...hey CTD...in your blustering you completely forgot to explain why the following isn't a "proper" hypothesis

hypothesis: all life on earth is related via common descent from one or a small number of universal common ancestors.

Please try again, with less FAIL this time.

Apparently you think this is a game you win if you spam enough silly nonsense. Prepare to pat yourself on the back, and remain deluded. I have never for a moment doubted or questioned either your capacity to spam, or the silliness of your nonsense.

The following is a potential falsification of the hypothesis that my thumb drive is a killer whale:

Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale.

Oh my! I hope it doesn't starve to death. I have no fish to feed it.



Your continued attempts to mock proper scientific procedure do not detract from real science one bit.

More bluster and FAIL, and you still forgot to explain why

hypothesis: all life on earth is related via common descent from one or a small number of universal common ancestors.

is not a "proper" hypothesis.

Put down your pacifier and try an honest answer this time.

- T

Originally posted by Faid

LOL.

You do realize that, if your premise is correct, you HAVE falsified the thumb=killer whale hypothesis, right?

(BTW, I hope you're not arguing that the "my thumb is a killer whale" hypothesis is unfalsifiable... )

LOL! I noticed that too, but thought it would be amusing to see how long it takes the moron to realize he just rebutted his own argument...again.

- T

Originally posted by Faid

LOL.

You do realize that, if your premise is correct, you HAVE falsified the thumb=killer whale hypothesis, right?

(BTW, I hope you're not arguing that the "my thumb is a killer whale" hypothesis is unfalsifiable... )

Not thumb - thumb drive. I have a 4GB Sandisk Cruzer in front of me, and it is black and white. By evoscience it is also a killer whale.

Your reasoning is further flawed, as my thumb could be black and white for all you know. Well, maybe not... Seeing as how evolutionism incorporates the premise that assuming things makes them so, I don't expect there's much point in arguing over that possibility.

Originally posted by CTD___

Not thumb - thumb drive. I have a 4GB Sandisk Cruzer in front of me, and it is black and white. By evoscience it is also a killer whale.

Your reasoning is further flawed, as my thumb could be black and white for all you know. Well, maybe not... Seeing as how evolutionism incorporates the premise that assuming things makes them so, I don't expect there's much point in arguing over that possibility.

Every day you hit the bottom of the stupidity pit, and every day you keep digging.

Pathetic and sad.

- T

Originally posted by Tiggy

Every day you hit the bottom of the stupidity pit, and every day you keep digging.

Pathetic and sad.

- T

Oh - this is getting really, really bad. And this is the intellectual giant that is going to prove to us the ToE is not a 'real scientific theory'.

Let me help CTD out. And let's see if our mental giant can follow one of the more basic aspects of logic.

Originally posted by CTD

The following is a potential falsification of the hypothesis that my thumb drive is a killer whale:

Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale.

followed up by:

Not thumb - thumb drive. I have a 4GB Sandisk Cruzer in front of me, and it is black and white. By evoscience it is also a killer whale.

(Fortunately, the gate logic in the drive he mentions is not based on CTD's grasp of logic)


So let's see if I can make this simple enough for CTD. In the first statement, CTD, you mock the idea that:

"Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale."

And yet the statement is correct as it stands. It is as if you don't understand that by your mockery. (and indeed, per the follow on, it is clear you do not)

This statement has a premise and a conclusion. If the premise is true, which discounting albino's and other rarities it is, then if your thumb drive were not black and white, we could indeed eliminate the possibility it is a Killer Whale by that fact alone.

So it is a simple statement that does function as usable falsification criteria if the premise is true. That is, I can with that statement eliminate all non-black and white objects from the set of possible killer whales. But I can't eliminate anything else. Therefore, if you created the hypothesis that your thumb drive was a killer whale, then if it was not black and white, you would falsify that hypothesis. Thus is is a falsification criteria. But it is not 'sufficient' to determine what IS a killer whale, only what is not.

In other words, you fail to understand the difference between a 'necessary' condition, and a 'sufficient' condition. Black and White is a necessary condition for something to be a killer whale, but it is nowhere near sufficient. A sufficient condition can be reversed. A necessary one can't, as we shall see.

What you do not understand is a most basic concept of logic, this statement being only a necessary condition is vastly different from its reverse which is:

If something is black and white, it is a killer whale.

Yet that is what you apply to conclude:

"...it is black and white. By evoscience it is also a killer whale."


No my dear friend, it is not, because black and white is not a sufficient condition to identify a killer whale, as such the statement and its reverse are not equivalent.

In simple terms, if a -> b we are not free to then conclude if b -> a. Nor can we conclude
if ~a -> ~b.

(I realize a translation may be necessary:

a->b becomes "an object that is not black and white is not a killer whale" => true
b->a becomes: "an object that is a not a killer whale is not black and white" => false
~a->~b becomes: "an object that is black and white is a killer whale" =>false
)

BTW, if you had a clue what the "Theory of Mathematics" was, you would have long ago encountered this concept doing simple proofs in Geometry. Indeed, these most basic concepts are also quite well understood by scientists who study and research evolution.


So, do you think that having totally and completely blown this most basic exercise in logic that it might perhaps just maybe be that you might possibly have also botched your evaluation of whether or not the ToE is indeed a valid theory? Surely you realize this is a distinct possibility - right?


Jim

Originally posted by CTD___

Not thumb - thumb drive. I have a 4GB Sandisk Cruzer in front of me, and it is black and white.

"Thumb drive"... Oh well, I stopped trying to remember US idioms long ago. Not that it changes anything, of course.

By evoscience it is also a killer whale.

Your reasoning is further flawed, as my thumb could be black and white for all you know. Well, maybe not... Seeing as how evolutionism incorporates the premise that assuming things makes them so, I don't expect there's much point in arguing over that possibility.

Le sigh.

Seriously, what is it with you YECs? Why do you always manage to make a mess, not only of the concept of falsifiability, but of plain Logic?


C, falsifiability is not the equivalent of verifiability. Far from it, in fact. Good Ol' Sir Popper clarified all that, decades ago, but the concept still seems to tie creationist neurons in a knot for some reason.

And of course, the basis for that distinction is logical. Let's see your example again:

Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale.

All's well so far. Essentially, we have a first conditional premise: If it is a kiler whale, it is black and white. There's also a second premise- My thumb drive is not black and white, and finally the conclusion: My thumb drive is not a killer whale.
This is a valid argument, C. The premises might not be true (say, albino whale), but if they are, then the conclusion has to be correct: Your flash drive will not be a killer whale.

But immediately after that, you say:

Oh my! I hope it doesn't starve to death. I have no fish to feed it.

Say what? The above argument demonstrates the falsity of the "killer-whale" property for your drive, it does not verify it! Do you think that, logically, you can simply turn it around and say "well then if it IS black and white, it IS a killer whale?

Apparently, you do. You take this perfectly valid form of argument (in which falsification itself is based):

If P, then Q.
*NOT* Q.
Therefore, *NOT* P.

And you turn it upside down, to claim that:

If P, then Q.
Q.
Therefore, P.

Which is a formal logical fallacy. Is it worthless, though? No- it forms the basis for inductive support for a theory. But it has nothing to do with falsifiability.


You get a D for at least trying, C. Give it another shot.




(Seriously, didn't we have the same discussion with Terry a few months ago?)

Originally posted by Faid

(Seriously, didn't we have the same discussion with Terry a few months ago?)

Don't know. If you did, you have no excuse for applying evologic.

I shouldn't like to hear the collection of excuses for taking my posts so obviously out-of-context. Beyond a certain point, the symptoms of evosickness are just ugly. We have more than a sufficient demonstration for any who understand tree-to-fruit relationships.

Originally posted by CTD___

Don't know. If you did, you have no excuse for applying evologic.

I shouldn't like to hear the collection of excuses for taking my posts so obviously out-of-context. Beyond a certain point, the symptoms of evosickness are just ugly. We have more than a sufficient demonstration for any who understand tree-to-fruit relationships.

I, on the other hand, would like to see the slightest attempt to try and engage my post, other than the ludicrous assertion that I misrepresented you. That, or an admission that you got schooled.

But I suspect neither is forthcoming.

Oh well, at least you got yet another well-deserved lesson in humility, even if you refuse to admit it. Perhaps it will become useful in the future.

Originally posted by Faid

I, on the other hand, would like to see the slightest attempt to try and engage my post, other than the ludicrous assertion that I misrepresented you. That, or an admission that you got schooled.

Hello Faid,

My apologies, but it's not ludicrous. The first line of his post included the statement, "[My thumb drive] is black and white." From there, he constructed a parody of the inductive method, making your critique of his deductive prowess irrelevant. A proper critique would need to flesh out the inductive process that's actually used by introducing further qualifications for what it means to be a killer whale — qualifications that are not satisfied by his thumb drive. For example, his thumb drive lacks genitalia. It is not the product of biological reproduction. It does not respire.

Additionally, note that his thumb drive does not eat or expel wastes. There is then an obvious riposte to ...

Originally posted by CTD___

I have no fish to feed it.

CTD, your thumb drive cannot be a killer whale, though it might be an evolutionist. Presented with your fish, your thumb drive won't swallow it, and also doesn't give a crap.

As ever, Jesse

Well, Faid, you're talking to a guy who tried to defend Ray Comfort's banana argument by saying:

CTD, "Do Bananas Prove or Disprove Evolution?", Post 5,Evolution Fairytale Forums

Emotional oneupmanship doesn't not always amount to good logic. Ray Comfort's logic may not be perfect, but his opposition fares even worse here.

---

© source where applicable

There aren't enough facepalms in the world.

—Sam

Originally posted by lao tzu

Hello Faid,

My apologies, but it's not ludicrous. The first line of his post included the statement, "[My thumb drive] is black and white." From there, he constructed a parody of the inductive method, making your critique of his deductive prowess irrelevant. A proper critique would need to flesh out the inductive process that's actually used by introducing further qualifications for what it means to be a killer whale — qualifications that are not satisfied by his thumb drive. For example, his thumb drive lacks genitalia. It is not the product of biological reproduction. It does not respire.

Additionally, note that his thumb drive does not eat or expel wastes. There is then an obvious riposte to ...



CTD, your thumb drive cannot be a killer whale, though it might be an evolutionist. Presented with your fish, your thumb drive won't swallow it, and also doesn't give a crap.

As ever, Jesse

Jesse, read my post, I did not misinterpret him, because, like I said, we were not talking about inductive support, but about falsification.


Those were his exact words:

The following is a potential falsification of the hypothesis that my thumb drive is a killer whale:

Killer whales are black and white, so if my thumb drive isn't black and white, it isn't a killer whale.

Oh my! I hope it doesn't starve to death. I have no fish to feed it.

Notice how, from his "parody", he goes from a valid modus tollens to claim that it also implies affirming the consequent, which would indeed be absurd- IF it did. It does not.
And later, he claims it yet again:

I have a 4GB Sandisk Cruzer in front of me, and it is black and white.

By evoscience it is also a killer whale.

He tries to make a parody of falsification, but in order to construct his reductio ad absurdum, he uses faulty logical forms. Like I said in my post, this would make sense in a discussion about the validity of induction, but it has no effect on the logical validity of falsification.

Originally posted by Faid

Jesse, read my post, I did not misinterpret him, because, like I said, we were not talking about inductive support, but about falsification.

Hello Faid,

I have to respectfully disagree. You may not have been talking about inductive support, but CTD was, as far as I can tell. Induction is the "evoscience" he was parodying. He did not speak of falsification, but of "potential" falsification, and how a potential falsification can be shown to fail by leaving an incorrect premise unscathed. In this case, the premise was that his thumb drive was a killer whale. The potential falsification was that killer whales must be black and white, yielding a test that could be applied to his thumb drive. This test was insufficient, hence unable to disprove the premise. Having passed this test, the premise can be said to have received inductive support.

We all understand that CTD is a troll. But frankly, I think his trolling here is high art, and I think this is missed by most of his respondents who are more accustomed to the direct contradictions of Jorge and his ilk.

Originally posted by Faid

Those were his exact words:

Notice how, from his "parody", he goes from a valid modus tollens to claim that it also implies affirming the consequent, which would indeed be absurd- IF it did. It does not.

Yes, that implication is being made, but he is not claiming this implication on his own behalf, but on behalf of "evoscience." He has done so via the construction of a parody, not of his own beliefs, but of the theory of evolution itself. It is a valid critique, as far as it goes. There may well be many premises accepted within the broader theory of evolution that are false, but have not been falsified due to insufficient falsification tests. Science is not in the business of discovering truth, but of discovering what may be true. This is what first struck me about his requirement that "can explain" be disallowed. He attacks the evident fact that we do not construct explanations, but rather, potential explanations. It's true. All of our explanations are tentative. This is a necessity for science, and anathema to adherents of revealed truth.

How then, as a scientist, would one go about testing the premise that his thumb drive is a killer whale? There are many criteria that would fail to falsify this premise. One was given. Others could be added:

Killer whales have mass. So do thumb drives.
Killer whales displace water. So do thumb drives.
Killer whales can't shake hands. Neither can thumb drives.

It is only when we happen upon a test that fails that we can say that thumb drive killer whales don't exist:

Killer whales eat fish. Thumb drives don't.

At last, the premise is falsified.

Until that time, we allow this tentative premise to be stated as fact in ordinary conversation. We do not usually bother to include phrases such as "pending further analysis" when speaking of common ancestors, for example. But this reflects a fault in our language. Every truth we state is tentative, but our language does not reflect this, and by this lack, we create living space under the bridge, where CTD has built his home.

And later, he claims it yet again:
He tries to make a parody of falsification, but in order to construct his reductio ad absurdum, he uses faulty logical forms. Like I said in my post, this would make sense in a discussion about the validity of induction, but it has no effect on the logical validity of falsification.

But it wasn't a reductio. It was a parody of induction built around insufficient falsification testing. A deductive attack on this parody only serves to emphasize his point, that induction does not create explanations, but only potential explanations. In the case of evolution, heavily supported explanations, but potential none the less.

Lastly, again, it was a parody that failed to consider the "fish eating" falsification criterion that was included in his own post, which opened the door to riposte.

As ever, Jesse

Originally posted by lao tzu

Hello Faid,

I have to respectfully disagree. You may not have been talking about inductive support, but CTD was, as far as I can tell. Induction is the "evoscience" he was parodying. He did not speak of falsification, but of "potential" falsification, and how a potential falsification can be shown to fail by leaving an incorrect premise unscathed. In this case, the premise was that his thumb drive was a killer whale. The potential falsification was that killer whales must be black and white, yielding a test that could be applied to his thumb drive. This test was insufficient, hence unable to disprove the premise. Having passed this test, the premise can be said to have received inductive support.

We all understand that CTD is a troll. But frankly, I think his trolling here is high art, and I think this is missed by most of his respondents who are more accustomed to the direct contradictions of Jorge and his ilk.



Yes, that implication is being made, but he is not claiming this implication on his own behalf, but on behalf of "evoscience." He has done so via the construction of a parody, not of his own beliefs, but of the theory of evolution itself. It is a valid critique, as far as it goes. There may well be many premises accepted within the broader theory of evolution that are false, but have not been falsified due to insufficient falsification tests. Science is not in the business of discovering truth, but of discovering what may be true. This is what first struck me about his requirement that "can explain" be disallowed. He attacks the evident fact that we do not construct explanations, but rather, potential explanations. It's true. All of our explanations are tentative. This is a necessity for science, and anathema to adherents of revealed truth.

How then, as a scientist, would one go about testing the premise that his thumb drive is a killer whale? There are many criteria that would fail to falsify this premise. One was given. Others could be added:

Killer whales have mass. So do thumb drives.
Killer whales displace water. So do thumb drives.
Killer whales can't shake hands. Neither can thumb drives.

It is only when we happen upon a test that fails that we can say that thumb drive killer whales don't exist:

Killer whales eat fish. Thumb drives don't.

At last, the premise is falsified.

Until that time, we allow this tentative premise to be stated as fact in ordinary conversation. We do not usually bother to include phrases such as "pending further analysis" when speaking of common ancestors, for example. But this reflects a fault in our language. Every truth we state is tentative, but our language does not reflect this, and by this lack, we create living space under the bridge, where CTD has built his home.



But it wasn't a reductio. It was a parody of induction built around insufficient falsification testing. A deductive attack on this parody only serves to emphasize his point, that induction does not create explanations, but only potential explanations. In the case of evolution, heavily supported explanations, but potential none the less.

Lastly, again, it was a parody that failed to consider the "fish eating" falsification criterion that was included in his own post, which opened the door to riposte.

As ever, Jesse

I had never considered this. An interesting thought.



Regards, Roland

Here's some more CTD stupidity from evolutionfairytale: Giraffe evolution. Seems CTD has been spouting off and challenging 'evos' to explain giraffe evolution. Here is how CTD thinks the argument should go':

Originally posted by CTD at EFT

Lamarckism is practically required to teach giraffe evolution. Let's try it using the selection goddess:

A: "The protogiraffes with genes which made them taller were able to survive"
Q: "So what? The genes, according to Mendelian genetics, would just mix in with the rest, and there would be giraffes of all different heights."
A: "Ah, but the food supply was up high, and out of reach, so the shorter giraffes were all selected by the goddess."
Q: "But the tall protogiraffes would still carry a mix of genes. Even if all the short giraffes got selected, the next generation would be mixed."
A:"The selection continued for enough generations that it eliminated all the short genes."
Q: "Then why didn't the protogiraffes go extinct altogether?"

You see, it obviously doesn't work. This question cannot be answered. There is no way to explain how tall giraffes, and only tall giraffes escaped selection. Well, unless you attribute a long-term goal to the goddess

.

As it turns out, there is a fairly good fossil record for giraffe ancestors showing the gradually increasing neck length over time:

Fossil Giraffes from the Miocene of Africa and a Revision of the Phylogeny of the Giraffoidea
W. R. Hamilton
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 9 May 1978 vol. 283 no. 996 165-229

Abstract: Specimens of Climacoceras africanus are described from Maboko, Kenya. The new species Climacoceras gentryi is established on the basis of ossicones, mandibles, and upper and lower dentitions from Fort Ternan and Baringo, Kenya. By interpretation of its lower canines Climacoceras is identified as a giraffoid and is placed in the new family Climacoceridae. Canthumeryx sirtensis is identified from Muruarot and Rusinga, Kenya. A dentition and associated partial skeleton of this species are described. The teeth agree closely with specimens of the same species from Gebel Zelten, Libya. Zarafa zelteni from Gebel Zelten is synonymized with Canthumeryx sirtensis. Again on the basis of its lower canines Canthumeryx is identified as a giraffoid and is placed in the new family Canthumerycidae. Specimens of Palaeotragus primaevus are described from Baringo, Kenya. This material includes a cranium with the ossicones, skull roof, occipital and basicranial regions preserved. Palaeotragus primaevus specimens from Fort Ternan are used in this description and some of these are redescribed. The relations of the giraffoids are assessed by methods of phylogenetic systematics. Palaeomeryx, Prolibytherium and Propalaeoryx are excluded from the Giraffoidea as their lower canines are not known. The Palaeotraginae is shown to be an invalid polyphyletic grouping and the genus Palaeotragus is also shown to be polyphyletic. Palaeotragus microdon is probably synonymous with Palaeotragus rouenii and the three species Palaeotragus rouenii (P. microdon), Palaeotragus coelophrys and Palaeotragus quadricornis are retained in the genus Palaeotragus. It is suggested that 'Palaeotragus' expectans and 'Palaeotragus' decipiens are closely related to Samotherium. Palaeotragus primaevus is probably synonymous with Palaeotragus tungurensis and this species is closely related to the giraffines. With slight changes the subfamilies Sivatheriinae and Giraffinae are valid monophyletic groups. Hydaspitherium is synonymized with Bramatherium and the Sivatheriinae includes the genera Giraffokeryx, Birgerbohlinia, Bramatherium and Sivatherium while the Giraffinae includes the genera Honanotherium, Bohlinia and Giraffa and the species 'Palaeotragus' tungurensis (P. primaevus). Okapia is identified as the sister-group of the other giraffids. Triceromeryx is the sister-group of the Giraffidae. Canthumeryx is the sister-group of Triceromeryx plus the Giraffidae while Climacoceras is the sister-group of the other giraffoids.

source

(drawing of Samotherium below)

There are two primary competing hypotheses for the gradual neck elongation. The first is the classic one originally proposed by Darwin, that evolving longer necks helped giraffes reach a new food source at the tops of trees. The second is that longer necks were evolved as a means of sexual display / sexual dominance among males, not unlike large antlers on male moose and elk.

Both hypotheses have been investigated, and guess what - the evidence shows that both sexual selection and access to new food sources played a role in the evolution of the longer neck

Sexual Selection in the Evolution of Giraffe
Robert E. Simmons and Lue Scheepers
American Naturalist, Vol 148 No.5, Nov 1996

Abstract: A classic example of extreme morphological adaptation to the environment is the neck of the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), a trait that most biologists since Darwin have attributed to competition with other mammalian browsers. However, in searching for present-day evidence for the maintenance of the long neck, we find that during the dry season (when feeding competition should be most intense) giraffe generally feed from low shrubs, not tall trees; females spend over 50% of their time feeding with their necks horizontal; both sexes feed faster and most often with their necks bent; and other sympatric browsers show little foraging height partitioning. Each result suggests that long necks did not evolve specifically for feeding at higher levels. Isometric scaling of neck-to-leg ratios from the okapi Okapia johnstoni indicates that giraffe neck length has increased proportionately more than leg length-an unexpected and physiologically costly method of gaining height. We thus find little critical support for the Darwinian feeding competition idea. We suggest a novel alternative: increased neck length has a sexually selected origin. Males fight for dominance and access to females in a unique way: by clubbing opponents with well-armored heads on long necks. Injury and death during intrasexual combat is not uncommon, and larger-necked males are dominant and gain the greatest access to estrous females. Males' necks and skulls are not only larger and more armored than those of females' (which do not fight), but they also continue growing with age. Larger males also exhibit positive allometry, a prediction of sexually selected characters, investing relatively more in massive necks than smaller males. Despite being larger, males also incur higher predation costs than females. We conclude that sexual selection has been overlooked as a possible explanation for the giraffe's long neck, and on present evidence it provides a better explanation than one of natural selection via feeding competition

source

.

Tall Giraffes Avoid Competing with Shorter Browsers
Elissa Z. Cameron1, Johan T. du Toit
Am Nat 2007. Vol. 169, pp. 130–135

Abstract: With their vertically elongated body form, giraffes generally feed above the level of other browsers within the savanna browsing guild, despite having access to foliage at lower levels. They ingest more leaf mass per bite when foraging high in the tree, perhaps because smaller, more selective browsers deplete shoots at lower levels or because trees differentially allocate resources to promote shoot growth in the upper canopy. We erected exclosures around individual Acacia nigrescens trees in the greater Kruger ecosystem, South Africa. After a complete growing season, we found no differences in leaf biomass per shoot across height zones in excluded trees but significant differences in control trees. We conclude that giraffes preferentially browse at high levels in the canopy to avoid competition with smaller browsers. Our findings are analogous with those from studies of grazing guilds and demonstrate that resource partitioning can be driven by competition when smaller foragers displace larger foragers from shared resources. This provides the first experimental support for the classic evolutionary hypothesis that vertical elongation of the giraffe body is an outcome of competition within the browsing ungulate guild.

source

Maybe the reason you're having such a hard time grasping this CTD is your woeful misunderstanding of how evolution actually works. Firstly, populations evolve, not individuals. Secondly, natural selection is statistical in nature. At any given time, the population has an average neck length that is a bell shaped curve around some central mean neck length. As the environment changed and selection pressure was applied (either competition for food, or mates, or both) , giraffes with the genes for a longer neck had a small but statistically significant advantage over those without. Not ever giraffe with a longer neck survived to breed, not every one with a shorter neck died before mating, but on average that is what happened. The population still maintained its bell shaped curve around the central mean, but the central mean neck length became longer than before. In other words, over time giraffe necks evolved to be longer.

Now I'm sure being the honest guy you are you will repeat this scientifically correct and supported with evidence explanation over at EFT, right?

- T

ETA: here is another good paper on giraffe elolution

On the origin, evolution and phylogeny of giraffes Giraffa camelopardalis :
G. Mitchell, J.D. Skinner
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, Vol 58, Issue 1 (2003)

ABSTRACT:The origin, phylogeny, and evolution of modern giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) is obscure. We review here the literature and conclude that the proximate ancestors of modern giraffes probably evolved in southern central Europe about 8 million years ago (Mya). These ancestors appear to have arisen from the gelocid ancestral assemblage of 20-25 Mya via the family Palaeomerycidae. From the palaeomerycids arose the Antilocaprinae (Pronghorns) via the subfamily Dromomerycinae, and two subfamilies of giraffids, the Climacoceratidae and Canthumerycidae. The terminal genus of the Climacoceratid line was the now extinct massive giraffid Sivatherium sp. The Canthumerycids gave rise to the okapi and giraffes via the intermediate forms of Giraffokeryx, Palaeotragus sp. (of which the okapi is the extant form), Samotherium sp. and Bohlinia sp. all of which are extinct. Stimulated by climate change, progeny of Bohlinia entered China and north India, evolved into typical Giraffa species and became extinct there about 4 Mya. Similarly, following their preferred habitat, African Giraffa entered Africa via Ethiopia about 7 Mya. Here, seemingly unaffected by the climate changes occurring to the east and causing extinction of its Asian counterparts, Giraffa radiated into several sequential and coeval species culminating with the evolution of G. camelopardalis in East Africa from where it dispersed to its modern range. Fossils of G. camelopardalis appear about 1 Mya in East Africa. The underlying stimulus for Giraffa evolution seems to have been the vegetation change that began about 8 Mya, from the prevalent forest (C3) biome to a savannah/woodland/shrub (C4) biome. Giraffa's success as a genus is attributed to its great height and unique coat markings. Its height is a consequence of elongation of all seven cervical vertebrae and of the lower more than the upper limb bones. Advantages conferred by its height include protection from predation, increased vigilance, and in males sexual dominance and access to nutrients. Its coat colourings are highly hereditable and provide protection from predation by camouflage, especially in the young. As giraffe are unable to sweat and pant, the patches may also act as thermal windows and may have an important thermoregulatory function.