The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

bren.ryan

Danno wrote: »

Dear Mods and fellow Boards Members.

I wish to open this thread to discuss the Bible and Creationism, and to hear peoples opinions on what can be viewed as the most fundamental part of the origins of man, and also to tease out what prophecy has to offer in where we came from and where we are going.

I hope that with enough interest that this thread becomes a sticky.

I also wish to ask everyone who posts here not to personally attack any person contributing. I look forward to a good debate...

God created Man, God created woman, Man created booze, Women created temptaion, Man couldnt resist, therfore cider is to blame

marco_polo

CDfm wrote: »

Marco is this Neo - Darwin.

Not being that up on the issue if Darwin was wrong well what makes this theory so right.

How come those who accept the biblical accounts literally as historical narrative are so wrong.Maybe they dont agree with the theories but they are not the only ones.

Equally couldnt these be "building blocks" that all species share having a common creator and that would be a deist view -Anthony Flew the British academic and fpormer prominent atheist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flewis of this view and so too is Paul Davies the academic and physicist who has held lots of academic posts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davies

These are prominent academics and thinkers and also may have blue jumpers.

I have nothing whatsover against blue jumpers.

Darwin was wrong about a number of areas, not least in not having a viable mechanism of inheritance, the pieces of which were not fully put in place untill the rediscovery of Mendels work on genetics around 1900 and finally the identification of DNA as the actual physical source of this information in the 1950's.

What the article does not support in any way, despite wolfsbane attempted sleight of hand, is that there were multiple independent creations and that this has the support of any scientific evidence.

The deist view is completely unprovable one way or another, and it is certainly not an equally valid view by any stretch IMO. But from everything we have learnt thus far, there is certainly no need of a God who intervenes every so often to help things along. Like to suddenly appear to create nylon eating bacteria in the 20th century for example.

Morbert

CDfm wrote: »

Marco is this Neo - Darwin.

No. The history of the theory of evolution is not a tale of revolutions and massive paradigm shifts. It is a story of a gradual accumulation of evidence, and careful analysis of this evidence. The correct term is not "Neo-Darwin" (which makes it sound like a social movement) but rather the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology.

Not being that up on the issue if Darwin was wrong well what makes this theory so right

How come those who accept the biblical accounts literally as historical narrative are so wrong.Maybe they dont agree with the theories but they are not the only ones.

Firstly, there is nothing stopping anyone from believeing the biblical accounts are an accurate historical narrative, just as there is nothing stopping anyone from believing that we were created last thursday. But, to borrow Richard Dawkin's phrasing, evolution is true in the same sense that the claim that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere is true.

You also say that they don't agree with the theories but they are not the only ones. This is a vague statement, but it must be said that the scientific community accepts evolution, and that there is no controversy about its veracity.

Equally couldnt these be "building blocks" that all species share having a common creator and that would be a deist view -Anthony Flew the British academic and fpormer prominent atheist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flewis of this view and so too is Paul Davies the academic and physicist who has held lots of academic posts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davies

These are prominent academics and thinkers and also may have blue jumpers. The theories really are interpretations of data.

Scientific theories are not simply interpretations of data. Scientific theories are constrained by reputability, predictive power, and rigour. I.e. It is as much an interpretation as immunology, aerodynamics, or the practice of medicine is an interpretation. Evolution not only coherently explains what we find, but also predicts what we should find, and how we should expect life to be arranged. Creationism, on the other hand, merely accomodates the data, and is as interesting as the claim that wasps are really intelligent, but pretend to be dim.

bren.ryan

Morbert wrote: »

No. The history of the theory of evolution is not a tale of revolutions and massive paradigm shifts. It is a story of a gradual accumulation of evidence, and careful analysis of this evidence. The correct term is not "Neo-Darwin" (which makes it sound like a social movement) but rather the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology.



Firstly, there is nothing stopping anyone from believeing the biblical accounts are an accurate historical narrative, just as there is nothing stopping anyone from believing that we were created last thursday. But, to borrow Richard Dawkin's phrasing, evolution is true in the same sense that the claim that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere is true.

You also say that they don't agree with the theories but they are not the only ones. This is a vague statement, but it must be said that the scientific community accepts evolution, and that there is no controversy about its veracity.



Scientific theories are not simply interpretations of data. Scientific theories are constrained by reputability, predictive power, and rigour. I.e. It is as much an interpretation as immunology, aerodynamics, or the practice of medicine is an interpretation. Evolution not only coherently explains what we find, but also predicts what we should find, and how we should expect life to be arranged. Creationism, on the other hand, merely accomodates the data, and is as interesting as the claim that wasps are really intelligent, but pretend to be dim.

Scientific studys actually show the the orangutan shares 95% of the genetic make up of dna as humans

robindch

marco_polo wrote: »

Oh wolsfbane [...] Seriously had you actually read the article and not been distracted by just by the catchy title you would have have realised this. :rolleyes:

Creationists only read titles.

I admire your dogged perseverance, folks, but it's completely wasted -- in four years in and around this thread, I don't recall even one creationist being able either to understand or retain so much as a single fact. Which is an interesting result in itself, but rather sad.

marco_polo

robindch wrote: »

Creationists only read titles.

I admire your dogged perseverance, folks, but it's completely wasted -- in four years in and around this thread, I don't recall even one creationist being able either to understand or retain so much as a single fact. Which is an interesting result in itself, but rather sad.

ORLY? This thread had done wonders for my post count.

CDfm

Morbert wrote: »

No. The history of the theory of evolution is not a tale of revolutions and massive paradigm shifts. It is a story of a gradual accumulation of evidence, and careful analysis of this evidence. The correct term is not "Neo-Darwin" (which makes it sound like a social movement) but rather the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology.

Neos are radicals

Firstly, there is nothing stopping anyone from believeing the biblical accounts are an accurate historical narrative, just as there is nothing stopping anyone from believing that we were created last thursday. But, to borrow Richard Dawkin's phrasing, evolution is true in the same sense that the claim that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere is true.

But thats young age creationists

You also say that they don't agree with the theories but they are not the only ones. This is a vague statement, but it must be said that the scientific community accepts evolution, and that there is no controversy about it

Im saying that there is a wider argument the the atheist vs neo-darwinists that predomoninates here. Its the survival of the fittest argument between polar opposites.

Im not saying there is a controversy on the general theory but there is a bit of Piltdown Man about some of the science.

Creationism, on the other hand, merely accomodates the data, and is as interesting as the claim that wasps are really intelligent, but pretend to be dim.

Mainstream religion doesnt reject it but doesnt accept it as a creed.

CDfm

bren.ryan wrote: »

Scientific studys actually show the the orangutan shares 95% of the genetic make up of dna as humans

But if these type of cells/organisms are lifes building blocks whats the big surprise controversy that different species have them in common.

That doesnt make us orang utangs or chimps or whatever.

Its like saying cough syrup has 95% of the same ingredients of coca-cola.

marco_polo wrote: »

I have nothing whatsover against blue jumpers.

well this week you wouldnt after the Leinster win.

Darwin was wrong about a number of areas, not least in not having a viable mechanism of inheritance, the pieces of which were not fully put in place untill the rediscovery of Mendels work on genetics around 1900 and finally the identification of DNA as the actual physical source of this information in the 1950's.

What the article does not support in any way, despite wolfsbane attempted sleight of hand, is that there were multiple independent creations and that this has the support of any scientific evidence.

Really but does that also reject other independent sponstaneous happenings.

The deist view is completely unprovable one way or another, and it is certainly not an equally valid view by any stretch IMO. But from everything we have learnt thus far, there is certainly no need of a God who intervenes every so often to help things along. Like to suddenly appear to create nylon eating bacteria in the 20th century for example.

That a science theory neither proves nor disproves anything to do with the existence of God. Deists reject the proposition that there is no God. The nylon eating thing is a bit spurious.

THere is nothing there that says Deism and evolution are not compatable with one another. The philosophical argument on whether God exists is a philosopical one.

Zombrex

Given that all scientists are supposed to be pushing an atheist/Darwinian false agenda on the public it is not a bit weird that New Scientist (and others) would devote time and space during Darwin year to the things we have since learned that Darwin got wrong in the first versions of Darwinian theory?

This is like JC using one bit of evolutionary research to attack another bit without realising that if he accepted the thing he is using to attack he wouldn't be a Creationist in the first place.

Leaving aside that the article isn't waying what Wolfsbane seems to think it is saying, Wolfsbane cannot go on about how "evolutionists" are doggedly following an unquestioned doctrine stemming all the way back to the evil atheist Darwin and then go about presenting articles in mainstream science magazines that point out what Darwin got wrong in an effort to win an argument. If Wolfsbane accepts that scientists do question and test ideas of evolution all the time and that nothing is above this, then what argument does he have for his position that they don't?

It is almost as if scientists are not interested in following dogma and unquestioned doctrine, but are instead interested in following good ideas where they lead even if that means that the original idea is quested and challenged and changed when necessary.

Go figure :pac:

Morbert

CDfm wrote: »

Neos are radicals

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

But thats young age creationists

It holds true for any variety.

Im saying that there is a wider argument the the atheist vs neo-darwinists that predomoninates here. Its the survival of the fittest argument between polar opposites.

Again, there are no neo-darwinists. There are evolutionary biologists. Calling them neo-darwinists is calling Newton a "paleo-gravitationalist", or cosmologists "neo-relativists".

Im not saying there is a controversy on the general theory but there is a bit of Piltdown Man about some of the science.

There's disagreements, sure, but they are genuine disagreements, not hoaxes conspiracies. And the disagreements are not nearly as large as NewScientist implies.

CDfm

Morbert wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Ya do - Neo -Cons,

Neo-Nazis, Neo- Darwinists

It holds true for any variety.

So an evolutionary biologist who has an undefined deist belief on how the Cosmos/World began gets the billeted with the Young Age Creationists at summer camp.

Again, there are no neo-darwinists. There are evolutionary biologists. Calling them neo-darwinists is calling Newton a "paleo-gravitationalist", or cosmologists "neo-relativists".

Thats a bit too neo-atheist for comfort.

There's disagreements, sure, but they are genuine disagreements, not hoaxes conspiracies. And the disagreements are not nearly as large as NewScientist implies.

The good old Neo -Scientist a reactionary Neo-Dawkins publication.:rolleyes:

Really - but you have hype and pop-science crowd and evangelo-science crowd and pseudo-pop-science-anti-evangelo-science-atheism crowd etc too.

By that definition I wouldnt be able to ask AH for science explanations or Robin on what to read on memes/memetics(great tool for understanding the development of moral beliefs in society BTW) because I would have to slot in the Catholic belief box.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

OK, here's news of other scientists - also evolutionists - also disputing the concept:

Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

Seriously? I cited that article myself ages ago. More than once. I made a whole post about it as a way of illustrating how dissent against Darwin is permitted. In this case it is badly exaggerated. I've repeatedly referred to its core point several times including during my posts on the tree of life. It's an article about HGT. It is very much relevant to prokaryotes and very much not relevant to eukaryotes and the tree of life which exists for them. As others have pointed out, so many times, the headline is misleading. As is the article itself. This is from a publication once very much held in high regard but which has disappointed most scientists several times in the last couple of years. The Darwin Was Wrong fiasco was the final straw for most, but they also printed credulous pieces on what is essentially perpetual motion.

But I have referred to this before and to HGT so many times. For goodness sake, are you telling me that you've been refuting my posts without having read them closely enough to spot that I have made such references? Or that you have failed to understand so utterly that you did not realise how HGT fits into my arguments? I honestly don't know what to say. I genuinely thought your objections were in spite of close reading and comprehension, not because you couldn't be bothered to follow my arguments or read any of my references.

Read the article, not the headline. Please. Then read my posts on the tree of life. Understand them and refute them on that basis or for goodness sake just stop debating about evolution altogether. I'm really disappointed in this.

AtomicHorror

CDfm wrote: »

Marco is this Neo - Darwin.

Not being that up on the issue if Darwin was wrong well what makes this theory so right.

It explains the observed and makes predictions about the unobserved. We should find a species with traits X and Y no earlier than time Z in the fossil record. So far it has successfully predicted thousands of such examples. Can you point me to something predicted by creationism?

CDfm wrote: »

How come those who accept the biblical accounts literally as historical narrative are so wrong.Maybe they dont agree with the theories but they are not the only ones.

Not sure what your point is with this. There's no significant scientific debate about the veracity of evolution anymore. The debate has long since moved on to specifics. The configuration of the tree of life, the significance of HGT. Nobody, bar New Scientist, are actually saying that Darwin was wrong. And even they're only saying "Darwin was wrong about one specific thing that he suggested and only if you're just talking about bacteria". He was actually wrong about inheritance too, but that doesn't change the fact that he was right about variation and selection.

CDfm wrote: »

Equally couldnt these be "building blocks" that all species share having a common creator and that would be a deist view

That's not an issue addressed within the confines of evolution. The origin of life is a separate field of study in which we have no commonly accepted theories.

CDfm wrote: »

Anthony Flew the British academic and fpormer prominent atheist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flewis of this view and so too is Paul Davies the academic and physicist who has held lots of academic posts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davies

Is that an argument from authority? For shame CDfm.

CDfm wrote: »

These are prominent academics and thinkers and also may have blue jumpers. The theories really are interpretations of data.

I'll counter your argument from authority with an argument from majority. These are fringe views, held by fewer scientists than those who follow creationism. And that's only promoted by about 1000 "scientists" worldwide. 1000 out of 10 million, assuming we actually count those 1000 hacks as scientists. Hardly a debate on the verge of revolution.

AtomicHorror

CDfm wrote: »

Ya do - Neo -Cons,

Neo-Nazis, Neo- Darwinists

I think you see significant divisions where there are actually only a bunch of fringes and the Modern Synthesis.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Seriously? I cited that article myself ages ago. More than once. I made a whole post about it as a way of illustrating how dissent against Darwin is permitted. In this case it is badly exaggerated. I've repeatedly referred to its core point several times including during my posts on the tree of life. It's an article about HGT. It is very much relevant to prokaryotes and very much not relevant to eukaryotes and the tree of life which exists for them. As others have pointed out, so many times, the headline is misleading. As is the article itself. This is from a publication once very much held in high regard but which has disappointed most scientists several times in the last couple of years. The Darwin Was Wrong fiasco was the final straw for most, but they also printed credulous pieces on what is essentially perpetual motion.

But I have referred to this before and to HGT so many times. For goodness sake, are you telling me that you've been refuting my posts without having read them closely enough to spot that I have made such references? Or that you have failed to understand so utterly that you did not realise how HGT fits into my arguments? I honestly don't know what to say. I genuinely thought your objections were in spite of close reading and comprehension, not because you couldn't be bothered to follow my arguments or read any of my references.

Read the article, not the headline. Please. Then read my posts on the tree of life. Understand them and refute them on that basis or for goodness sake just stop debating about evolution altogether. I'm really disappointed in this.

I'm sorry to have disappointed you, but I plead my feeble scientific skill. Yes, I understood you thought the HGT fitted in the tree fine. But from what I take from the article, it didn't. If I'm mistaken, please point to the revelent passage in the article.

But you seem to accept the article does indeed dispute your concept of the tree, (using HGT as the basis of their argument?).

You might appreciate my difficulty in accepting your argument, when fellow evolutionists dispute it.

It seems if I went to the bother of getting qualified in the field, there would be no guarantee we would see eye to eye on it, leaving aside my theological objections.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

I gathered it was the universal tree of life concept. Seemed to suggest an alternative - a tangled bush of some sort, or, to use their word, a web.

But maybe you will enlighten us?

The tree is muddled, albeit somewhat discernible in prokaryotes. That's bacteria-like life. The article is about the transfer of genetic material between species, we call it horizontal gene transfer. HGT. I've mentioned it so many times now. It happens in eukaryotes also, but very, very rarely. So rarely that when we see evidence of HGT in two species we immediately know it must have occurred before they diverged. Because the likelihood of an HGT event happening in exactly the same way twice in a eukaryote is so low as to be practically impossible. When it works, it transfers perhaps one gene, or part of it. Mostly it just doesn't work at all. It doesn't have the power to transfer polygenetic traits either. So if you find a cat that has grown pine cones on its back, you cannot simply say HGT did it in order to preserve the tree. So in eukaryotes, the tree is really, really clear and breaking it would be evidence that evolution is wrong.

I've already mentioned all of this. I thought it was clear.

wolfsbane

CDfm said:

an evolutionary biologist who has an undefined deist belief on how the Cosmos/World began gets the billeted with the Young Age Creationists at summer camp.

Yeah, if you don't toe the materialist line at least as far as the Big Bang, you're a non-scientist. No matter your qualifications.

But you'll find we are kind to all who are seeking for the truth. Bottom or top bunk?

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

I'm sorry to have disappointed you, but I plead my feeble scientific skill.

No scientific skill is needed to understand my argument regarding the tree. It is very simple and could easily be refuted with the appropriate evidence.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Yes, I understood you thought the HGT fitted in the tree fine.

No. You misunderstood me. HGT is an exception to the tree. It makes a mess of the prokaryotes because it is common in them. Thus we cannot build a tree based on their traits without ignoring some traits, which is no good to us at all. The reason why it does not falsify the eukaryote tree is because HGT is rare in eukaryotes, easily identified and does not have the power to cause significant node collisions such as the pinecone cat I suggested. So we can still very much make a tree from the eukaryotes, albeit with some very rare and easy to identify collisions. Like a real tree that has perhaps three branches that fuse, the rest is clearly a tree and that is telling us something that we must be able to explain.

wolfsbane wrote: »

But from what I take from the article, it didn't. If I'm mistaken, please point to the revelent passage in the article.

They're correct in that HGT causes node fusions in the tree. However, since the mechanism behind that is known, so well that we can in fact replicate it ourselves at will, it hardly represents the falsification of evolution that you're looking for. It's also so rare in ekarya that it presents little obstacle to our tree building, as I've indicated.

wolfsbane wrote: »

But you seem to accept the article does indeed dispute your concept of the tree, (using HGT as the basis of their argument?).

What it essentially does is overstate the phenomenon of HGT and suggest that it is something more than it is. In actuality, nothing in the article is new to us. We've known about HGT so well for so long that it is now the basis of an entire new area of medicine. The eukryote tree is still intact despite us knowing about HGT for several decades. And now New Scientist have decided to spin it into an exciting story that will sell magazines. They've done it in typical tabloid "two sides to every story" fashion. They present us with the scientists who defend the tree and those who are attacking it. We are left to think that this is a grand war when in fact those who consider the tree incorrect for eukaryotes are in the minority.

All we get to see here are two scientists, Tal Dagan and William Martin who sort of dispute the tree in eukaryotes. But when you read between the lines, it actually looks more like they disputed the specific techniques used in a 2006 paper in support of the tree of life. They themselves seem to be researchers into prokaryote evolution and not interested in eukaryotes at all. We also get to see the New Scientist journalist claim that hybridisation is a form of HGT rather than being the by-product of our labelling system for species. It's a weak argument full of overstatement and spin.

In my model (and I'm sure it is not unique) the nodes are breeding populations- groups within which breeding is possible. So hybridisation represents nothing more than breeding within a node. Not HGT and not a tree violation.

wolfsbane wrote: »

You might appreciate my difficulty in accepting your argument, when fellow evolutionists dispute it.

Show me a species which violates the eukaryote tree without being an obvious case of HGT and you don't need anyone's opinion to validate your position. You'll have done it yourself. The HGT caveat is not a tough one, given the limited capacity that mechanism has.

wolfsbane wrote: »

It seems if I went to the bother of getting qualified in the field, there would be no guarantee we would see eye to eye on it, leaving aside my theological objections.

True, you might be in the minority that would disagree with the tree concept, but it's far more likely that you would not.

Morbert

Ya do - Neo -Cons,

Neo-Nazis, Neo- Darwinists

Then what is a neo-Darwinist?

So an evolutionary biologist who has an undefined deist belief on how the Cosmos/World began gets the billeted with the Young Age Creationists at summer camp.

The deist beliefs of an evolutionary biologists and the creationist beliefs of a 7th day adventist are both religious beliefs, and cannot be supported by science.

Yeah, if you don't toe the materialist line at least as far as the Big Bang, you're a non-scientist. No matter your qualifications.

Why do you say this? Ken Miller is a good counterexample.

CDfm

AtomicHorror wrote: »

It explains the observed and makes predictions about the unobserved. We should find a species with traits X and Y no earlier than time Z in the fossil record. So far it has successfully predicted thousands of such examples. Can you point me to something predicted by creationism?

ok with that bit

Not sure what your point is with this. There's no significant scientific debate about the veracity of evolution anymore.

Me being whimsical no doubt. When I look at the debate I see people being dogmatic and like the Greeks & Philo (of Alexandria but possibly of Thin Lizzy as well) I find myself asking if someone accepts that God created the world then they should read the bible within the context of the world/universe. That is the dichotamy.

That's not an issue addressed within the confines of evolution. The origin of life is a separate field of study in which we have no commonly accepted theories.

Well thanks for that.Finally, that would be an ecunimical matter gets translated into science jargon. AH put on the blue jumper and wear it with pride.

Is that an argument from authority? For shame CDfm.

It could be if I knew what that meant.

I'll counter your argument from authority with an argument from majority. These are fringe views, held by fewer scientists than those who follow creationism. And that's only promoted by about 1000 "scientists" worldwide. 1000 out of 10 million, assuming we actually count those 1000 hacks as scientists. Hardly a debate on the verge of revolution.

I guess it means that the fringe views get more column inches than mainstream views and that the issues on the Origan of Life are different.

I think you see significant divisions where there are actually only a bunch of fringes and the Modern Synthesis.

Now that you mention it that pic of the Davies bloke on Wickipedia did have a dodgy fringe.
- people with fringes are very suspect.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Wolfsbane cannot go on about how "evolutionists" are doggedly following an unquestioned doctrine stemming all the way back to the evil atheist Darwin and then go about presenting articles in mainstream science magazines that point out what Darwin got wrong in an effort to win an argument. If Wolfsbane accepts that scientists do question and test ideas of evolution all the time and that nothing is above this, then what argument does he have for his position that they don't?

As I've repeatedly said - don't you read my posts? - evolutionists may question various aspects of evolution, but they never question evolution. To quote Morbert/Dawkins, evolution is true in the same sense that the claim that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere is true.

If they did, they would be escorted to the door of scientific 'respectability' and thrown down the steps. Some dogmas are beyond questioning.

wolfsbane

Morbert said:

Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Yeah, if you don't toe the materialist line at least as far as the Big Bang, you're a non-scientist. No matter your qualifications.
Why do you say this? Ken Miller is a good counterexample.

Ken Miller holds to a non-materialist explanation of the universe/biosphere post-Big Bang?

CDfm

Morbert wrote: »

Then what is a neo-Darwinist?

Someone who uses Darwin as an authority to give credence to their own theories. (Mendel I suppose for the purist-as his theories did expand Darwins).Modern evolutionary theory now has its own pop stars AFAIK.

Dawkins claims to be but his fame is in areas Darwin did not theorise on.

The deist beliefs of an evolutionary biologists and the creationist beliefs of a 7th day adventist are both religious beliefs, and cannot be supported by science.

IN reply to borrow from Atomic Horror

That's not an issue addressed within the confines of evolution. The origin of life is a separate field of study in which we have no commonly accepted theories.

And from FR Jack -

that would be an ecunimical matter

Do I get to wear a blue jumper now.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror wrote: »

No. You misunderstood me. HGT is an exception to the tree. It makes a mess of the prokaryotes because it is common in them. Thus we cannot build a tree based on their traits without ignoring some traits, which is no good to us at all. The reason why it does not falsify the eukaryote tree is because HGT is rare in eukaryotes, easily identified and does not have the power to cause significant node collisions such as the pinecone cat I suggested. So we can still very much make a tree from the eukaryotes, albeit with some very rare and easy to identify collisions. Like a real tree that has perhaps three branches that fuse, the rest is clearly a tree and that is telling us something that we must be able to explain.

They're correct in that HGT causes node fusions in the tree. However, since the mechanism behind that is known, so well that we can in fact replicate it ourselves at will, it hardly represents the falsification of evolution that you're looking for. It's also so rare in ekarya that it presents little obstacle to our tree building, as I've indicated.

What it essentially does is overstate the phenomenon of HGT and suggest that it is something more than it is. In actuality, nothing in the article is new to us. We've known about HGT so well for so long that it is now the basis of an entire new area of medicine. The eukryote tree is still intact despite us knowing about HGT for several decades. And now New Scientist have decided to spin it into an exciting story that will sell magazines. They've done it in typical tabloid "two sides to every story" fashion. They present us with the scientists who defend the tree and those who are attacking it. We are left to think that this is a grand war when in fact those who consider the tree incorrect for eukaryotes are in the minority.

All we get to see here are two scientists, Tal Dagan and William Martin who sort of dispute the tree in eukaryotes. But when you read between the lines, it actually looks more like they disputed the specific techniques used in a 2006 paper in support of the tree of life. They themselves seem to be researchers into prokaryote evolution and not interested in eukaryotes at all. We also get to see the New Scientist journalist claim that hybridisation is a form of HGT rather than being the by-product of our labelling system for species. It's a weak argument full of overstatement and spin.

In my model (and I'm sure it is not unique) the nodes are breeding populations- groups within which breeding is possible. So hybridisation represents nothing more than breeding within a node. Not HGT and not a tree violation.

Show me a species which violates the eukaryote tree without being an obvious case of HGT and you don't need anyone's opinion to validate your position. You'll have done it yourself. The HGT caveat is not a tough one, given the limited capacity that mechanism has.

I'm really only able to point to the disagreements among scientists on your assertion that the tree is an established fact on which evolution stands or falls.

But let me offer again this objection, and apologies for not getting back to the poster who asked why I thought it was one:
And it is not just bacteria that present the problem to the universal tree - does not the debate about which group of mammals were most closely related to the whales indicate this? Whether one says the mesonychids or the artiodactyls, one is left with either the early whales evolving their artiodactyl-like heels independently from the artiodactyls, or the mesonychids evolving their whale-like teeth independently from the whales.

Either disrupts the nesting,

If these heels or teeth can independently arise, how can anything be certainly identified as a marker for what arose from what? If X can arise independently in another species, how can X or any other thing be the marker of a branch from which X-possessors arose? Is any tree not just a possible tree, one of many possibilities? And if we posit Creation, would not an orchard be another possible explanation?

This is just my non-technical attempt to understand the tree issue.

Morbert

wolfsbane wrote: »

Ken Miller holds to a non-materialist explanation of the universe/biosphere post-Big Bang?

yes. Ken Miller is not a materialist.

CDfm wrote:

Someone who uses Darwin as an authority to give credence to their own theories. (Mendel I suppose for the purist-as his theories did expand Darwins).

Dawkins claims to be but his fame is in areas Darwin did not theorise on.

Where did Dawkins claim to be a "neo-darwinist"? And who uses Darwin as an authority?

Do I get to wear a blue jumper now.

I don't understand. Do you accept that deism is not a scientific theory?

AtomicHorror

CDfm wrote: »

Well thanks for that.Finally, that would be an ecunimical matter gets translated into science jargon. AH put on the blue jumper and wear it with pride.

You reckon that the theory created to explain how life forms are connected by descent should also explain how life came into being? I'm not saying we shouldn't be investigating that question (we are) but that it's not part of "the origin of species", it's "the origin of life". Maybe someone will write that one some day, but right now we're still figuring abiogenesis out.

CDfm wrote: »

It could be if I knew what that meant.

Tah-dah:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

See? I don't just make stuff up, I steal it from Wikipedia.

CDfm wrote: »

I guess it means that the fringe views get more column inches than mainstream views and that the issues on the Origan of Life are different.

Yes. The fringe always gets more column inches. Hence the impression most people have that some actual scientists once thought MMR caused autism or that global cooling was happening. The fringe is sexier.

CDfm wrote: »

Now that you mention it that pic of the Davies bloke on Wickipedia did have a dodgy fringe.
- people with fringes are very suspect.

Suspect and media friendly. Real scientists don't have haircuts.

CDfm

Morbert wrote: »

Where did Dawkins claim to be a "neo-darwinist"? And who uses Darwin as an authority?

My mistake - it is Darwins Dog he is an authority on who I believe was a rothweiler and you might get his thougts on that mutt here "Darwin's Rottweiler" -- Richard Dawkins Speaks His Mind link

http://www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2005-09-09

I don't understand. Do you accept that deism is not a scientific theory?

Well I usually ask Atomic Horror the hard science questions as I am not a scientist.:D

Morbert

CDfm wrote: »

My mistake - it is Darwins Dog he is an authority on who I believe was a rothweiler and you might get his thougts on that mutt here "Darwin's Rottweiler" -- Richard Dawkins Speaks His Mind link

I can't decipher this. What does it have to do with so called 'neo-darwinists' (which I still doubt exist)?

Well I usually ask Atomic Horror the hard science questions as I am not a scientist.:D

Yes but do you accept that deism is not a scientific theory? And I still don't understand your 'blue jumper' references.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

I'm really only able to point to the disagreements among scientists on your assertion that the tree is an established fact on which evolution stands or falls.

But let me offer again this objection, and apologies for not getting back to the poster who asked why I thought it was one:
And it is not just bacteria that present the problem to the universal tree - does not the debate about which group of mammals were most closely related to the whales indicate this? Whether one says the mesonychids or the artiodactyls, one is left with either the early whales evolving their artiodactyl-like heels independently from the artiodactyls, or the mesonychids evolving their whale-like teeth independently from the whales.

Either disrupts the nesting,

Actually the problem here is that the author was not (I must assume) aware that artiodactyls are related by descent to mesonychids. The artiodactyls possessed both the mesonychids teeth and of course their own new heel features early in their emergence. One of the families that emerged from these early artiodactyls was the pakicetids, mammals with the heel and teeth features that also possessed an unusual ear structure not found in any other groups. That ear structure is today found only in whales.

wolfsbane wrote: »

If these heels or teeth can independently arise, how can anything be certainly identified as a marker for what arose from what?

Well in this case they did not, though the point is still worth discussing.

wolfsbane wrote: »

If X can arise independently in another species, how can X or any other thing be the marker of a branch from which X-possessors arose?

X cannot. Something that looks a lot like X, lets call it Y, can. But we can tell the difference by looking at how X and Y are formed during embryogenesis, or look at the genes which control the formation of X and Y. Or we can even examine their structure in detail and see if they show similarity to some common structure.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Is any tree not just a possible tree, one of many possibilities?

Not really. There are gaps and areas of ambiguity, but as I say we often fill the gaps but never break the tree in a manner that can't be put down to HGT events like viral gene transfer or endosymbioisis. Cameron's crocoduck is looking sadly unlikely.

wolfsbane wrote: »

And if we posit Creation, would not an orchard be another possible explanation?

That would require that there be no nested tree structure that joins any group larger than the admittedly rather poorly-defined kinds. Given that at the very least we can link all the eukaryotes together, that's just not going to work.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

Wicknight said:

As I've repeatedly said - don't you read my posts? - evolutionists may question various aspects of evolution, but they never question evolution.

That is as silly as the macro/micro argument. Questioning the various aspects of evolution is questioning evolution

If the various aspects of the theory cannot work then the theory itself cannot work. If the various aspects of the theory do work then the theory works. That is what a theory is. a collection of models and predictions.

It is like saying you tested every bit of your Honda but did you actually test the Honda itself? Such as statement is meaningless, testing that all the bits of a car work is testing the car.

I swear to Allah :mad: