"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

Zombrex

mickrock wrote: »

The onus is on Darwinists to prove the theory can explain what it claims to.

*ahem*

mickrock wrote: »

I accept that evolution happens but not by Darwinian means.

Zombrex wrote: »

You stated that evolution takes place.

Please explain the non-Darwinian process by which biological evolution takes place, including (if you have it to hand) the evidence supporting this process.

Please explain how "evolution" happens in a non-Darwinian fashion.

endacl

doctoremma wrote: »

I'm pretty sure your 6 year old granddaughter could have a pop at what a coccyx used to be as well.

I'm still wondering where cocs 1-5 went...?

And what were they for?!?

doctoremma

endacl wrote: »

I'm still wondering where cocs 1-5 went...?

And what were they for?!?

It's gap in the vertebral records. Therefore, your coccyx doesn't exist.

Bannasidhe

doctoremma wrote: »

I'm pretty sure your 6 year old granddaughter could have a pop at what a coccyx used to be as well.

I shall ask her on Friday. Although I have heard her refer to falling down and hurting her 'tail bone' so I reckon she already has a pretty good idea but may be unfamiliar with the word 'coccyx' - she's gonna love that word.

doctoremma

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I shall ask her on Friday. Although I have heard her refer to falling down and hurting her 'tail bone' so I reckon she already has a pretty good idea but may be unfamiliar with the word 'coccyx' - she's gonna love that word.

Yeah, I figured you might have to simplify "coccyx".

endacl

doctoremma wrote: »

It's gap in the vertebral records. Therefore, your coccyx doesn't exist.

Quick! Record that statement and upload it to Utoob. We can start a whole new debate!

Bannasidhe

doctoremma wrote: »

Yeah, I figured you might have to simplify "coccyx".

Don't think so - going by past experience I'll just have to tell her what it means, provide a visual aid to show exactly where it is, wait a few minutes and she will correctly use it in a sentence.

We never swear around her now - not since the C**t incident when she was 14 months old...:o

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

David Berlinski makes some good points here:

Mickrock -- I've asked you twice to justify the claim you made earlier today or withdraw it.

You will be carded for soapboaxing if your next post in this thread doesn't do either.

swampgas

Quoth oldrnwisr about mickrock:

oldrnwisr wrote: »

You seem to be unwilling or incapable to acknowledge this fact, however, since you have made no attempt to point out any flaws in any of the evidence presented. You just keep repeating the same soundbite over and over as if, somehow, people will eventually just accept it.

I suspect this is how people like mickrock convince themselves. They repeat the same thing to themselves again and again to drown out any gnawing doubts.

Perhaps this is like reciting prayers or chanting mantras?

mickrock

dlofnep wrote: »

Look - We might start taking you seriously when you can define what we mean when we use the term 'species'. Until then, you're not in a position to debate the topic of evolution, because it's absolutely essential to understand what a species is before you understand how evolution works.

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species? We would expect these intermediate forms to be plentiful if the theory is correct.

They can't all have died out.

doctoremma

mickrock wrote: »

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species? We would expect these intermediate forms to be plentiful if the theory is correct.

They can't all have died out.

May I suggest you Google "ring species"?

Although I'm not sure your second assertion has much basis, in a general sense. One of the key reasons a species changes is because there has been a selective pressure operating on a genetic change to force the predominance of the new variant over the old, within a population. The old variant is less fit under the new selective pressure and will therefore die out pretty sharpish.

oldrnwisr

mickrock wrote: »

David Berlinski makes some good points here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHeSaUq-Hl8

What an utter asshat.

How can anyone think that those are "good" points.

The man has clearly no understanding of what evolution is or what it predicts.

Just two examples to show this.

1. He conflates laws and theories by comparing evolution and gravity. He talks about Newton's Law of Gravitation and then asks why evolution hasn't come up with something similar. First of all, Newton's law, this one:



is just an approximation. It's not a very good approximation on smaller scales as we discovered from general relativity but it's ok for everyday life and teaching kids. Secondly, a law in science is descriptive it explains how something happens, like above how gravity works as a relationship between mass and distance. It doesn't however explain why things happen, why there is gravity and why it behaves as it does. That is what theories are for.
Oh and since we're on the subject, even if he hadn't made a category error, he is still dead wrong. There are laws in evolutionary biology such as Dollo's law of irreversibility.


2. He mentions towards the end of the video that dogs still remain dogs and bacteria still remain bacteria. Well of course. Evolution would fall apart if they didn't. This is a principle in biology known as Darwin's 2nd Law of Common Ancestry or more commonly monophyly. You can't outgrow your own ancestry. To do so would violate the most basic evolutionary principles. Yet this is what creationists constantly demand in order to "prove" evolution, a crocoduck.

Now if you want, I can guide you through all the mistakes that this creatard makes but I'm guessing you're happier with your delusion.

oldrnwisr

mickrock wrote: »

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species? We would expect these intermediate forms to be plentiful if the theory is correct.

They can't all have died out.

You mean like this:

Visual evolution: Snakes with legs

doctoremma

oldrnwisr wrote: »

You mean like this:

Visual evolution: Snakes with legs

That's exceptionally interesting. A "reactivation" of a vestigial structure? (I know little about snakes).

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species?

You've been carded for ignoring three direct mod instructions about soapboaxing and ignoring the rules of polite debate.

You will be banned temporarily if your next post doesn't either substantiate or withdraw the unsubstantiated claim you made earlier today.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species? We would expect these intermediate forms to be plentiful if the theory is correct.

They can't all have died out.

You see them everywhere. Look in a mirror, for example.

Ziphius

oldrnwisr wrote: »

You mean like this:

Visual evolution: Snakes with legs

Interesting!

There's also the vestigial limb bones found in certain snakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_skeleton#Vestigial_limbs.

Sycopat

mickrock wrote: »

If Darwinism is true why don't we see a lot of living transitional forms between the species? We would expect these intermediate forms to be plentiful if the theory is correct.

They can't all have died out.

I don't understand the question.

Every living thing is a transitional form between what it's lineage used to be and what it's lineage might become.

edit: I'm going to sneak this in here because I found it very interesting when I first encountered it as an example of the kind of genetic madness evolution has wrought upon species. It's a nature paper though so probably not freely available to anyone without a subscription/institutional access (Although iirc, nature subscriptions are cheaper than new scientist ones, they aren't exactly amateur friendly).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/full/nature06936.html

Platypus (Platypi? platypodes? Platypuses?) are pretty freaking cool.

oldrnwisr

doctoremma wrote: »

That's exceptionally interesting. A "reactivation" of a vestigial structure? (I know little about snakes).

It's a possibility. There is still a lot of debate concerning the origin of snakes. One hypothesis suggests that snakes evolved from burrowing lizards who discarded their legs to become more streamlined and become more efficient burrowers. Another hypothesis suggests that snakes evolved from mosasaurs, extinct marine reptiles. Although, personally I would go with the burrowing lizard theory, there is nowhere near a consensus on this in biology. Even the snake's place in the squamate cladogram is a touchy subject.

In any case, given the evidence we have from the fossil record and the position of those intermediate species in the squamate cladogram I would say that you're correct. Fossil species like Haasiophis had some form of hindlimb, so the more basal forms of extant species may have retained some structure on which to adapt legs again.

mickrock

robindch wrote: »

You will be banned temporarily if your next post doesn't either substantiate or withdraw the unsubstantiated claim you made earlier today.

I withdraw my claim. I think Darwinism is really fab.

Those snakes with legs are interesting. Why aren't there more of these type of inter-species forms around? The place should be full of them.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

IWhy aren't there more of these type of inter-species forms around? The place should be full of them.

Again. There are. There's one of them reading this right now. On your computer.

Sheeeesh! Wood for the trees kinda scenario.....

dlofnep

mickrock wrote: »

I withdraw my claim. I think Darwinism is really fab.

Those snakes with legs are interesting. Why aren't there more of these type of inter-species forms around? The place should be full of them.

You realise that every living thing on the planet is a transitional form, right? You are a transitional form between your prior members of the homo genus in the past, to a future member of the homo genus with unknown qualities.

endacl

dlofnep wrote: »

You realise that every living thing on the planet is a transitional form, right? You are a transitional form between your prior members of the homo genus in the past, to a future member of the homo genus with unknown qualities.

I'm not sure at this stage. We may be dealing with an evolutionary dead end here. The fossil records are full of them. Homo obstinatis? Maybe homo impenetrabilis?

mickrock

Sycopat wrote: »

Every living thing is a transitional form between what it's lineage used to be and what it's lineage might become.

Your answer reminds me of what Ringo Starr said when he was asked why he was the Beatle that got the most fan mail:

"Because more people write to me."

Sarky

oldrnwisr wrote: »

2. He mentions towards the end of the video that dogs still remain dogs and bacteria still remain bacteria. Well of course. Evolution would fall apart if they didn't. This is a principle in biology known as Darwin's 2nd Law of Common Ancestry or more commonly monophyly. You can't outgrow your own ancestry. To do so would violate the most basic evolutionary principles. Yet this is what creationists constantly demand in order to "prove" evolution, a crocoduck.

How do viruses fit in, do you know? Some of them mutate really rapidly to the point where "species" becomes an awfully fuzzy term for them.

Zombrex

mickrock wrote: »

I withdraw my claim. I think Darwinism is really fab.

You were actually asked to explain how evolution happens in a non-Darwinian fashion.

Are you now saying that evolution doesn't happen?

PopePalpatine

Sarky wrote: »

Technically inaccurate, depending on whether "fittest" means what you think it means, then.

J C used to equate it with Nazism. But, eh, he was a couple of basepairs short of a chromosome...

*facepalm* No wonder he's on my Ignore List.

oldrnwisr

Sarky wrote: »

How do viruses fit in, do you know? Some of them mutate really rapidly to the point where "species" becomes an awfully fuzzy term for them.

I've thought about it a bit before but I don't really know. I mean, we're still using the Linnaean classification system although one which we have heavily modified to cope with the massive amounts of information that we've learned about the natural world since the 1700s. The problem from my perspective is that we are essentially trying to attach a fixed system of nomenclature to a process which is in continual motion. The only reason we haven't noticed so much is that there are a lot of biologists who are concerned with lifeforms an awful lot bigger than bacteria. Ultimately though I think we're going to paint ourselves into a corner if we haven't already done so. Let's take H. sapiens for example. So far we're already pretty close to the bottom of the Linnaean system as a species. Now, eventually we could end up with two daughter groups splintering off from the parent group but then we have a breed or sub-species. The problem with that then becomes that we already have a working definition of breed. So eventually, further down the line, even if those daughter groups don't diverge themselves they may become isolated from each other to the point that they can no longer interbreed and so we would call them two different species, but then what does that make H. sapiens, being the parent clade of both groups. It's a bit of a noodle scratcher.

swampgas

Just read this by Brian Cox in the Radio Times, regarding discussing evolution with creationists:

"If you don't accept evidence, then there's no real point in having a discussion. Because what am I going to say? Well, first of all, you have to learn to accept evidence. "

pauldla