Evolution, why us?

[ScimitarXEdge]

that's all I need to do, Mountain Goat is doing a great job of debunk every piece of nonsense you have let out so far, It's quite amusing to watch.

[Alchemist]

^ That is all you can do now. Sit on the side lines and cheer for your goat because you lack the understanding and the knowledge to just debate me one on one. You would rather have him go and quote mine and do the research and teach himself from an open source website like wikipedia. And still miserably fail.

This goat didn't even know what an invertebrate was until I taught him. For weeks on end he kept saying bacteria is an invertebrate but I am the one who speaks nonsense?

He says that

In fact there is no proof in science, only theories.

The entire point of the scientific method is to come up with a hypothesis, then come up with an experiment whose failure has the ability to disprove your hypothesis; at its core, that is what the method is all about. It doesn't give you the truth so much as it gets rid of everything that is wrong. Science cannot "prove" anything, but it can disprove things to the point where what is left is basically proven (but not absolutely so).

Is there a source that science never proves anything? For example, does the fact that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen remain unproven?
The elimination of error as part of scientific method was one of the contributions of Francis Bacon, Novum Organum. Heemphasized the role of observation and experiment to restrain hypothesis from taking wing, as he put it, and to ground theory solidly in experiment. This is why I have emphasized the role of experiment in our discussions on Evolution.

Then he says:

Thus, it is actually quite careless to use the term proof in science, instead it should be relegated solely to the realm of logic and mathematics.

Note that in the 19 century mathematical proof reached new levels of rigor. However with each new proof, there were counterexamples (see for example Ivan Niven & Herbert S. Zuckerman, Mathematics: A House Built on Sand?) meaning that the mathematicians were forced to continually revisit their proofs, much as a scientist engages in the 'epistemic loop' (see Brody, The philosophy behind physics).

Else where he said

"We cannot see DNA"



Rosalind Franklin proposed the double Helix structure of DNA based on this X-ray image...she just published third so the prize went to watson and crick.

Also he stated that he had never seen electricity or he couldn't be sure if his computer ran on electricity...so this was his logic in believing Evolution.

Yet I am the one who talks nonsense?

He says that the theory predicted that there would never be any fossils dating back to 600 million years ago and that this prediction makes his syllogism "scientific'.

However, for it to be considered scientific, the prediction had to be made before any fossils were found. Rather, he basis his "prediction" on data that is already present. We know that the fossils of complex life date that far back already, so it can't be said to be a "scientific experiment". It should be the other way ....the other way around was what Darwin said "We have found fossil records of intact and fully formed organisms, I predict that as we dig more we will find evidence of transitional forms, incomplete organisms" ...that prediction failed. And that was a valid prediction.


Actually I am not at all surprised by the level of immaturity that you display now. After reading your views on the theological section and the way you avoided serious questions pertaining to your absurd beliefs, it is only expected of you to ally your self with the likes of goat.

I don't expect much else from you anyway..except to jeer and hiss like an old woman or a child. And I don't expect much else from goat either, he will just simply repeat himself ad infinitum.

[Alchemist]

I was just sifting through the discussion pages (first time ever) of Wikipedia and am astounded by the level of openness and the number of times it keeps changing.
Yet this remains to be Scimitar's and Goat's primary source of information - a website edited by a bunch of no bodies...because anybody can go on

one person said this:

Over 90 articles and more than 30 other pages link here. That is one pretty important article. It is my opinion (and therefore it is philosophically defensible) that this constitutes the most important article in the entire wikipedia:

• All scientific matters are connected to it
• It's great choice for "what authoritative encyclopedia article would you take with you to a desert island ?"
• It played nursemaid to Quantum Mechanics, the most powerful theory every developed.
• It's all about the logic (and the limitations therein).
• more than any single thing proper scientific reasoning by wikipedians will free us all to write good text.

I would like this article to become authoritative, so that it would give aid and guidance to us wikipedians, concentrate the kooks for easier management, and become an inspiration for all cooperative endevour. Two16

It should be made authoritative but it won't be...
Just because you quote from wikipedia doesn't mean that you have found rock solid proof/evidence for your claims!

Not even high school teachers accept wikipedia as a source of information!

There are 20 pages of discussion on Scientific Method page

56 pages of discussion on Evolution.

That means that every single line on that page is being debated by countless numbers of members. Why not just go there and argue instead of on PF then? By quoting Wikipedia you are just asking me to go on Wikipedia, make an account and change the information... If I was motivated enough ...I would...but wikipedia is a place for laymen to go...In one of discussions it was even argued that big words shouldn't be used ...lol ...

And yet Scimitar says that I am posing to be a pro swimmer when he himself keeps going to the kiddie pool with goat so as to not drown ... yes ..amusing indeed.

[طالب]

I’m going to respond to all of your three posts in this.

You know that dating techniques are not an exact science...

And what is 100% exact science? Nothing, science is not 100% exact, it will always have an error margin.

the further back in time they go the more the error margin. So when are talking of hundreds of millions of years ago...the error margin is by 10s of millions of years.

Source for this claim? No, I will not take your word for it.

The source is important because first of all I need to know exactly which dating technique you’re talking about, they don’t all have the same error margin you know.

So basically you are saying that within a few millions years, which is a blink of an eye in the cosmological time scale, an invertebrates "evolved" into a vertebrate?

What nonsense.

This is an argument from incredulity.

Just because you can’t conceive that it happened, others might be able to find a natural explanation for it. Since nobody knows everything, it is unreasonable to conclude that something is impossible just because you do not know it.

In reality, and even by confession of evolutionists, vertebrates and invertebrates are found together. So it can't be said that one evolved from the other.

Why not? Even though vertebrates and invertebrates are found together, it does not rule out that they at an earlier point in Earth’s history were not found together.

This is clear from the fossil record, where invertebrates precede vertebrates, and no vertebrates are found dating back to the earliest invertebrates.

Also you keep talking about invertebrates and vertebrates and unicellular organisms, but there is also another class of organisms that evolution can't account for - insects!

Hahaha, all insects are invertebrates! What is an invertebrate?

Wouldn't it be more plausible for you to say that insects should predate invertebrates? Yet the oldest fossil of insects is 400 million years old! What does that mean?

1. Source?
2. That invertebrates existed alongside vertebrates later on? So what, it doesn’t counter the fact that invertebrates predated vertebrates, or that unicellular organisms predated both invertebrates and vertebrates by billions of years!

That invertebrate or vertebrates or unicellular organisms evolved into insects?

Yep.

What about plants?

When it comes to plants, evolutionists are completely dumbfounded!

What about them? We’re not finished talking about unicellular organisms, invertebrates and vertebrates and suddenly you want to start talking about plants?

Why change the subject? Are you starting to realize that you can’t counter my claims? If not, why do you complicate the matter by drawing in all kinds of different organisms?

The same plants that exist now, existed even back then. No sign of "evolution". Yet you keep saying "different species of plants came from different species of plants".

Well this is obviously a false claim. The earliest land plant, for example, originated at the earliest around 510 million years ago. (source: http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/conten...ppl_1/381.full )

Yet they didn’t exist billions of years ago when unicellular organisms did.

Thus they didn’t exist “back then”.

Even the palentologists who study plants have a difficult time classifying plants between before or after...yet you just do it.

1. No, I’m not going to start classifying plants because it has nothing to do with the FoE.
2. I’ve just given evidence that land plants didn’t exist before 510 million years ago, thus they must have evolved from earlier living organisms.

If we go by what you are saying, and not just look at vertebrates and invertebrates but all living organisms, your "theory" is busted. Your evidence is just a syllogism, a play on words.

Well we’ve just gone through three different examples that all substantiate the FoE:
1. Unicellular organisms before invertebrates
2. Invertebrates before vertebrates
3. Land plants didn’t exist before 510 million years ago, but other kinds of living organisms did.

I mean, how much evidence do you need? Wait, forget I asked. It will never be enough because according to your religious beliefs evolution didn’t happen. The problem is that you know science is very useful and therefore want science to be taught in school.

This is where the conflict erupts, because evolution is science and is therefore taught in school. But according to your religious beliefs evolution didn’t happen.

So the only way for you to have it both ways, i.e. not have evolution taught in school, is to deny that evolution is science.

Anything you can't explain you just ignore.

That’s not true, I’ve responded to every objection you’ve had in this thread.

Like the fact that evolution predicted transitional forms but never found any. You didn't even address that point.

I did. I stated that you were completely wrong in saying that the FoE predicts that we will find your kind of transitional forms. All it predicts is that we will find different kinds of organisms at different points in Earth’s history, e.g. we’ve found unicellular organisms dating back billions of years, then we’ve found invertebrates dating back approximately 600 million years and then vertebrates dating back approximately 500 million years.

That’s in perfect accord with the FoE and is by far good enough evidence to substantiate it. We know that living organisms come from living organisms, and we see different kinds of organisms coming into existence throughout Earth’s history, that’s really all we need in order to make a scientific case for it.

Now if all living organisms came into existence at the same time, we would expect to find all unicellular organisms, invertebrates and vertebrates fossils dating back to the same periods. But that’s not what we find.

The only other scientific explanations I’ve heard for the pattern of the fossil record is that the different kinds of life were brought to Earth by meteors or aliens.

But we don’t really have any evidence that, say, dinosaurs came flying through space on top of a meteor which crashed into Earth after which they crawled off the meteor and started breeding and eating each other and the plant life on Earth which…errr..was also brought to Earth on board a meteor and errr..never mind.

And aliens? Let’s not get into that.

(By the way you would disagree just as much with these theories)

You just go and try to match what I say against your bible, wikipedia, to see if I am wrong but everything else you ignore.

1. Wikipedia is sourced. If you have a problem with the sources then point out exactly which ones you have a problem with, why and put forward different ones…
2. If you feel I’ve ignored important points of yours, show me exactly which ones and I’ll respond to them.

And then whatever you can't explain you just deem it irrelevant because you are too ignorant or it is not covered in your bible, wikipedia and torah, talk origin, so it is irrelevant only to you.

This is not true. In every case I’ve explained to you why the point is irrelevant. E.g. you kept asking me to define the word “species”, but as I pointed out the word is not even needed to argue the case for the FoE, so why would I define it? It’s utterly irrelevant to the discussion we’re having. We both agree that invertebrates, unicellular organisms, vertebrates and land plants are different organisms. So what’s the point of using the word species? What’s the point of defining it?

Who cares?

But unicellular organisms can *poof* magically appear out of no where. In fact the Cambrian explosion shows that *poof* all classes of living organisms appeared at once during the same epoch - within 20 million years.

Sorry, not according to science. In science something can’t magically appear out of nowhere. You have a flawed perception of what science deals with. Science can only deal with the natural, observable world. It cannot deal with the supernatural. Therefore it must find a natural explanation for where those organisms came from during the Cambrian explosion.

Magic is not a natural explanation.

Remember the panspermia theory that I told you about?

Well guess what son? Microfossils are found in meteorites too:

Figure is a low magnification (1000X) Secondary Electron Detector (SED) FESEM image of freshly fractured fragment of the Orgueil CI1 meteorite that is densely populated with several different types of embedded filaments and electron transparent sheaths. Even though the field of view shown of this image is very small (~120 μm wide) a wide variety of diverse filamentous microstructures are present...."
This was just last month in the news.

1. Source please?
2. So what? Those microfossils sure don’t look like vertebrates to me. Even if meteors with microorganisms struck Earth, it doesn’t explain where vertebrates came from. In fact science would just say that those organisms proceeded to evolve on Earth (if they didn’t die on arrival or whatever).
So what’s you point? Unless you have evidence that dinosaurs (and every other vertebrate on Earth) travelled on meteors and landed on Earth (lol!) then you’re still faced with the problem of where vertebrates came from.

So when it comes to panspermia, the skepticism turns on...

one scientist said this:
"If you look at the microscope photos, they are certainly suggestive – looking like photos made of various terrestrial bacteria. But then again, while intriguing, that's hardly proof. If similarity in appearance were all it took to prove similarity in kind, then it would be pretty easy for me to demonstrate that there are big animals living in the sky, because I see clouds that look like them."
Scientists Dubious Over Claim of Alien Life Evidence in Meteorite | Meteorite Cyanobacteria Extraterrestrial Life | Space.com

Alchemist what on Earth are you on about? Again you’re trying to propagate a theory (panspermia) which acknowledges evolution:

If met with ideal conditions on a new planets' surfaces, the bacteria become active and the process of evolution begins.

Panspermia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So what is your point? How does this have any bearing on the FoE which simply states: “forms of animal and plant life (organisms, if you will) developed out of forms significantly different from them”

It seems to me that you are talking about completely unrelated subjects because…what?

For God’s sake man, at least try to stay on subject.

The prediction in evolution in regards to the fossil record has been of transitional forms.

No, this is wrong, transitional fossils are not needed to substantiate the FoE and I’ve already explained why above.

To say that vertebrates cannot be found before 1 billion years ago is irrelevant to the case of evolution.

No it isn’t because the FoE states that forms of animal and plant life (organisms, if you will) developed out of forms significantly different from them.

The fact that unicellular organisms existed billions of years ago, but vertebrates didn’t, is testament to this fact. Different kinds of organisms came to be throughout Earths history. The only plausible natural explanation of where these organisms came from is that they came from former, significantly different, organisms.

I asked you why the theory of evolution has not proved speciation in a laboratory setting. You say that it has been "observed" in the fossil record.

See this here is the problem.

I’ve explained to you around 20 times the difference between the FoE and the ToE, yet you still don’t get it, and keep bringing up issues related to the ToE. Issues that don’t matter in the case for the FoE. Speciation is about how the process of evolution came about.

Also, I’ve never stated that speciation has been observed in the fossil record. In fact I’ve consistently explained to you why speciation is a different discussion. What I’ve said is that the fossil record provides evidence for the FoE.

You just copied and pasted the section from under the heading of Scientific method>Experiment.

Of course, why wouldn’t I, we’re talking about science here.

However for an experiment to be considered "scientific" it requires a level of control, where in one variable is only manipulated and another variable is measured, and all else is kept equal. This gives a true test of the hypothesis

Nope. You are talking about a controlled experiment. Scientific experiments can take different forms, a controlled experiment is one of them. As stated:

Depending on the predictions, the experiments can have different shapes. It could be a classical experiment in a laboratory setting, a double-blind study or an archaeological excavation.

Please post exactly where it is stated that an experiment needs to be a controlled experiment in order to be scientific.

Even in the same section it was recommended that the section be merged with "Scientific control"..so that people like you don't get the wrong idea.

Eh, you don’t have any idea why the merger was proposed, it could be that editors felt the two sections complemented each other.

You’re going to have to substantiate your claim by digging through the discussion section and showing me exactly where people have argued that the two sections should be merged because an experiment needs to be a controlled experiment in order to be scientific.

In this case, you could control the environment of a species and manipulate "Nature" such that one organism would be selected over another, until a new species emerges. Scientists have tried this, but failed. This is why I asked you for direct evidence...of evidence of evolution as it occurs (which means direct).

Evidence of evolution as it occurs is not required for the theory to be scientific. “Rather what matters is that your theory organizes knowledge (all kinds of evidence) in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.”.

You have this flawed concept of science in which you think that the only way a theory is scientific, is if we witness it “as it occurs”. A theory is not declared scientific based on what type of evidence is used to substantiate it. It is scientific if it makes testable predictions and that those predictions match up with evidence, whatever type of evidence that might be.

If you truly believe this, then I want you to provide a source that states that a theory is only scientific, if we have observed it occur in front of us. Then we’ll take it from there.

Paleontology, the study of fossils, is an art and a history.

Paleontology is a historical science, but that doesn’t mean that the FoE isn’t scientific. As already stated the FoE makes predictions that can be tested, and an archaeological excavation can indeed be an experiment.

Is there a source that science never proves anything? For example, does the fact that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen remain unproven?

Well you said it yourself: “Science cannot "prove" anything, but it can disprove things to the point where what is left is basically proven (but not absolutely so).”

The fact that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen is not absolutely certain, because nothing can be proven beyond doubt in science.

It is so well substantiated though (99.999% certain) that science considers it fact.

Note that in the 19 century mathematical proof reached new levels of rigor. However with each new proof, there were counterexamples (see for example Ivan Niven & Herbert S. Zuckerman, Mathematics: A House Built on Sand?) meaning that the mathematicians were forced to continually revisit their proofs, much as a scientist engages in the 'epistemic loop' (see Brody, The philosophy behind physics).

What I said is correct. A mathematical proof is much more stringent than what is needed to substantiate a scientific theory. As stated on Wikipedia:

Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single exception.

Mathematical proof - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you disagree that this is different than substantiating a scientific theory? The fact that people find more simple mathematical proofs does not mean that the former are not true.

But anyway, this is a philosophical discussion on the nature of mathematics. The fact remains that there is no such thing as proof (in the sense of absolute certainty) in science, as you agree with.

Else where he said

"We cannot see DNA"

Rosalind Franklin proposed the double Helix structure of DNA based on this X-ray image

And I was right to say that. You’re showing an X-ray image. We can’t see DNA with the naked eye.

Also he stated that he had never seen electricity or he couldn't be sure if his computer ran on electricity...so this was his logic in believing Evolution.

I was pointing out the absurdity of your claim, that something is only science if we can see it occurring.

I know perfectly well that electricity runs through my computer, but since I can’t actually see the electricity itself run through the computer, according to you it isn’t scientific.

You’re right, it doesn’t make any sense. That’s what I’m saying. You don’t make sense.

He says that the theory predicted that there would never be any fossils dating back to 600 million years ago and that this prediction makes his syllogism "scientific'.

That’s not what I said, I said that the FoE predicts that the fossil record will show that different organisms came to be at different times, e.g. vertebrates after invertebrates.

I did not say that there would never be any fossil dating back to 600 million years ago, in fact I’ve repeatedly stated that fossils of unicellular organisms date back as far as billions of years ago.

The fact that the FoE organizes knowledge in testable predictions makes it scientific.

However, for it to be considered scientific, the prediction had to be made before any fossils were found. Rather, he basis his "prediction" on data that is already present.

Hahaha, that’s absurd. What is your source for this ludicrous claim that a prediction has to be made before any evidence is observed? How can you even make a prediction without first observing?

Newton observed objects falling and then decided to come up with a theory and made predictions based on it. How the hell would he have come up with theory if he didn’t first observe something?

Read this:

Theories are mostly constructed to explain, predict, and to master phenomena (e.g., inanimate things, events, or behavior of animals).

First you observe (e.g. fossils), then you create a hypothesis, then you predict, then you test (e.g. conduct more excavations) and in due time the hypothesis may become a theory.

We know that the fossils of complex life date that far back already, so it can't be said to be a "scientific experiment".

Yes, because every time we make an excavation we are in fact testing the FoE. If we suddenly found a vertebrate dating back before the earliest invertebrate, that would cast the FoE into doubt.

It should be the other way ....the other way around was what Darwin said "We have found fossil records of intact and fully formed organisms, I predict that as we dig more we will find evidence of transitional forms, incomplete organisms" ...that prediction failed. And that was a valid prediction.

So Darwin observed first (“we have found fossil records") and predicted later? ("I predict that as we dig")

That’s not the other way around, that’s exactly what I did!

1. Observe. (we have found fossil record of unicellular organisms billions of years ago and vertebrates only 523 million years ago, living organisms come from living organisms, living organisms are different from each other)
2. Hypothesis. (the vertebrates must have developed from the unicellular organisms somehow)
3. Predict. (I predict as we dig we will not find vertebrates before unicellular organisms)
4. Test. (excavations)

And I don't expect much else from goat either, he will just simply repeat himself ad infinitum.

I was just sifting through the discussion pages (first time ever)

lol, happy you’re catching up with the times!

of Wikipedia and am astounded by the level of openness and the number of times it keeps changing.

Kind of like science…

You seem genuinely frightened of change. I guess it fits your views.

Yet this remains to be Scimitar's and Goat's primary source of information - a website edited by a bunch of no bodies...because anybody can go on

one person said this:
It should be made authoritative but it won't be...
Just because you quote from wikipedia doesn't mean that you have found rock solid proof/evidence for your claims!

Most of what is written on Wikipedia is sourced. Again, if you have a problem with what is written on Wikipedia, check the source and point out where it is wrong. Then post your own source.

Not even high school teachers accept wikipedia as a source of information!

There are 20 pages of discussion on Scientific Method page
56 pages of discussion on Evolution.
That means that every single line on that page is being debated by countless numbers of members. Why not just go there and argue instead of on PF then?

You’re not going to get rid of me that easily!

By quoting Wikipedia you are just asking me to go on Wikipedia, make an account and change the information... If I was motivated enough ...I would...but wikipedia is a place for laymen to go...In one of discussions it was even argued that big words shouldn't be used ...lol ...

Try it, Wikipedia and I encourage you to. That’s what makes Wikipedia so great, anyone can edit it! But if you put in false information without sources the article will simply be reverted and your changes removed.

This might be quite a hindrance to you as you make false statements and have problems providing sources.

And yet Scimitar says that I am posing to be a pro swimmer

Any scientist would after hearing that you don’t believe life existed on Earth in the Precambrian era and you that you think radiometric dating doesn’t work.

[Alchemist]

I don't even need to read your post anymore because predictably it will be the same as this:

Proposition:
FoE; forms of animal and plant life (organisms, if you will) developed out of forms significantly different from them.

Evidence:
1. Living things come from living things. (never observed anything else)
2. Living things are different from each other (e.g. unicellular organisms are different from vertebrates)
3. Some kinds of living things existed on Earth before other kinds (e.g. unicellular organisms existed on Earth billions of years before vertebrates, see fossil record)

Conclusion:
Thus, scientifically, the "other kinds of living things" (e.g. vertebrates) must have come from the "former kinds living things" (e.g. unicellular organisms).

1. Irrelevant. Because even most mythologies that describe the origin of the universe base their stories on the same premise, that life could only come from life, hence a god must have brought life. If we jump into a time capsule and go back 200 hundred years to India, they will say to you that in beginning there was only water, and there was chaos (same as the story of evolution). Then a god came out of no where, and he split into two. Then this god morphed into a worm or a starfish and his wife changed too and they reproduced. Then they morphed into a fish, and then into a lizard, then into a bird and then into an insect and in this way produced each kind of organisms...then into a monkey ...then humans. Same story goes for all the mythologies, and all of them say that everything couldn't just appear magically out of no where. This is the basis of almost all pagan religions. All pantheistic religions. Evolution is also another form of pantheistic religion since the power to create is attribute to the FORCE of Nature. When in fact there is no such force observed. There is no criterion of selection. And there is no Selector. Rather scientists have a need to rigorously defend their theory as it is expected of them to do so which is why they dogmatically believe in this debunked theory. Show me one SCIENTIFIC theory that is NOT based on observation? This is my challenge to you!

2. Yes. They are distinctly different from each other. But different how? This is why you should define what you mean by "different". And to do that you would have to define what a "species" is! Since you won't define the term, we will never know what you mean by "different". A woodchuck and a wombat look exactly the same from the exterior. Their habits and ecological niches are the same. Their skeletal system is the same. Only their reproductive systems are different. Yet according to the evolutionist we humans are more related to woodchuck than the wombat is to the woodchuck, on the basis of what? evolution? Nonsense! You keep skirting and dodging the relevant questions and repeating the same mantra. But all you manage to show is that you are brainwashed, since you lack the necessary depth of understanding to debate me on the significant issues. You are slowly starting to realize that it is not as black and white as you use to think it was.

3. False and misleading.
The source that you quoted in regards to Plants does not state 510 million years ago. You have lost your mind in this debate and are subconsciously fooling your self. Please go read it again. And see for your self, it clearly says 350 million years to 400 million years ago were the first vascularized plants found. On biochemical basis they should have been found earlier, but they haven't been found. You contradicted your self several times in your argument. Now you have come to agree that the gap between invertebrates and vertebrates is actually 18 million years and hardly suffices as evidence. By admitting that panspermia is a bogus theory, we must come to the logical conclusion that microfossils are hardly proofs for the existence of unicellular organisms 2.7 or even 1 billion years ago! Rather the consensus in the scientific community is that prokaryotes and eukaryotes coexisted together thus there are no proto types to a common ancestor to link them together.
Also you posted a link to a website to show me that insects are also invertebrates. Our discussions until now covered the earliest fossils which happen to be sponges and other soft bodied marine invertebrates. You kept asserting that this was proof that vertebrates came form invertebrates. Which is why I specifically said "a CLASS of organisms". Go back to your link and check ..what does it say insects are? insects are a CLASS of organisms. The animal kingdom is divided into two groups, those groups are further divided into more groups. What makes insects unique is their ability to fly. So the question comes, what did insects evolve from? Surely insects are less complex from the animals with brains and spinal cord? So the fossil record shows us that. You don't want to talk about other organisms because in your simple mind two classes are too much to deal with already...you want to keep your numbers clear and tidy 2 billion then 1 billion then 500 million ...when in fact it is called cambrian EXPLOSION. Of course science should give an explanation, but when that explanation is just another mythology, why should we call it science then? If there is no such thing as proof, why the big charade then? Why call it a fact? Go even on the discussion page of evolution as fact on wikipedia, and see that it is not a fact as you take it to be. Previously you compared it to gravity...which is a fact. But now you are saying that evidence is not required, and that observation is not a criteria, then it is no more than religion...is it?


Here is your lesson for today:

Mendelian inheritance (or Mendelian genetics or Mendelism) is a set of primary tenets relating to the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their offspring; it underlies much of genetics. They were initially derived from the work of Gregor Johann Mendel published in 1865 and 1866 which was "re-discovered" in 1900, and were initially very controversial. When they were integrated with the chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1915, they became the core of classical genetics.

Law of Segregation (The "First Law")

The Law of Segregation states that when any individual produces gametes, the copies of a gene separate so that each gamete receives only one copy. A gamete will receive one allele or the other. The direct proof of this was later found following the observation of meiosis by two independent scientists, the German botanist, Oscar Hertwig in 1876, and the Belgian zoologist, Edouard Van Beneden in 1883. In meiosis, the paternal and maternal chromosomes get separated and the alleles with the traits of a character are segregated into two different gametes.

Hence no new information is passed down. You inherit genes from your parents, and you pass them down to your children. Half from you, half from your spouse. In this way the organisms have remained the same over million years of years. A cockroach is still a cockroach after 350 million years. This is why a turtle is still a turtle after 210 million years. If evolution was true, then this couldn't possibly be going on for so long!


Now, you said a lot of rubbish and nonsense. You even contradicted your self a few times in your posts...especially in relation to the fossil dates. Sometimes you say so what? Who cares? It's irrelevant! But that just because you are intellectually lazy. You asked me for sources on a few things... I assure you it is there on wikipedia. Just google it. "Radiometeric dating"...the margin of error is written there for you.


Another argument of yours is that evolution is taught at schools, is endorsed by the scientific community, on popular magazines like nature, and even television channels like discovery, and since the whole world believes it, why not me?
"Universal truth does not equate to mass appeal"

But repeating your self ad nauseum is ridiculous. I have shown the contradictions in your beliefs already but you persist to say the same thing over and over. Why?

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it" This was a US army officer's description of hitler.

You show signs of brainwashing since you can't even quote your own sources properly. You have turned so delusional and so dogmatic that you won't accept any doubt or skepticism...so much so that you would rather abandon science than "Fact of evolution". This is no more than a religious conviction for you now. And now it is just a matter of pride for you. Go ahead .. repeat your self. I will just copy and paste my old arguments from now on like you have.

[طالب]

You believe that the world is flat, Alchemist. There is no reasoning with you. You are crazy.

[Alchemist]

You believe that the world is flat, Alchemist. There is no reasoning with you. You are crazy.

you are excused.

[Midnight_Sun]

Aron-Ra, a very prolific youtube poster posted this about Hominid species, it's well worth watching:

[Alchemist]

^ This is the source of there information:

YouTube - The Simpsons - Homer Evolution

cartoons

fairy tales...



LOL

[طالب]

Very informative Midnight_Sun. I also suggest people to watch this lecture by Kenneth R. Miller. He's a Roman Catholic biologist who's been involved for many years in the whole Creation-evolution controversy in the US. In the lecture he covers pretty much everything about this controversy and how it played out in the US:

YouTube - Ken Miller on Intelligent Design

[Alchemist]

Very informative Midnight_Sun. I also suggest people to watch this lecture by Kenneth R. Miller. He's a Roman Catholic biologist who's been involved for many years in the whole Creation-evolution controversy in the US. In the lecture he covers pretty much everything about this controversy and how it played out in the US:

YouTube - Ken Miller on Intelligent Design

copy paste is an easy game...

you two are now just showing how brainwashed you are because you are just mining videos on youtube and wikipedia because you lack the necessary depth of understanding to actually debate on the scientific data. (lol @ "prolific youtube poster")

It is rather pathetic to get this lazy...

here is another catholic critiquing a pro-evolutionary catholic...
the irony ...that now the legitimacy of a theory should be affirmed from the mouth of a catholic priest for you.

Miller: The cardinal's second error was to enter American politics by supporting the "intelligent-design" movement. This movement seeks to short-circuit science by applying political pressure at state and local levels, and the cardinal's misrepresentation of evolution will only further a growing entanglement between church and state. He seems not to understand that the neo-creationists of "intelligent design," unlike Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, argue against evolution on every level, asserting that a "designer" has repeatedly intervened to subvert the laws of nature.

R. Sungenis: This is just more of Miller's attempt to win his case by demagoguery. He makes it appear that anyone who is asserting "intelligent design" is merely doing so for political reasons. The truth is that some creationists felt the need to lower their standards and take the "intelligent design" approach because no one, including Ken Miller, wanted to hear the word "God" in an anti-evolution position. So creationists decided to appeal to a person's common sense by means of "intelligent design" (e.g., a bombardier beetle can't evolve; it must be designed by an intelligent and systematic entity) just to get a foot in the door in the ongoing debate. Of course people like Miller have no sympathy. He is like evolutionist Richard Lewontin who says:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concept that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door" ("Billions and Billions of Demons," The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, pp. 28, 31).

The evolutionist conspiracy against "intelligent design" was no better confirmed than in the case of Richard von Sternberg. Richard holds not one, but two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology, and thus we could say he is better qualified than Ken Miller to comment on whether evolution has the answer. In 2000 Sternberg won a prestigious appointment as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. But Sternberg was vilified by his colleagues for suggesting "intelligent design." In an article in the Washington Post by Michael Powell on Friday, August 19, 2005, it reveals:

Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago. As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator. Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper. "They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," said Steinberg, 42 , who is a Smithsonian research associate. "I was basically run out of there." An independent agency has come to the same conclusion, accusing top scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History of retaliating against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a "creationist." The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which was established to protect federal employees from reprisals, examined e-mail traffic from these scientists and noted that "retaliation came in many forms . . . misinformation was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false." "The rumor mill became so infected," James McVay, the principal legal adviser in the Office of Special Counsel, wrote to Sternberg, "that one of your colleagues had to circulate [your résumé] simply to dispel the rumor that you were not a scientist." The Washington Post and two other media outlets obtained a copy of the still-private report. McVay, who is a political appointee of the Bush administration, acknowledged in the report that a fuller response from the Smithsonian might have tempered his conclusions. As Sternberg is not a Smithsonian employee -- the National Institutes of Health pays his salary -- the special counsel lacks the power to impose a legal remedy. A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution declined comment, noting that it has not received McVay's report.

This is the world of Kenneth Miller. A member of the thought-police who will brand his own peer-reviewed Ph.D. biological academicians as "enemies of science" merely because they suggest that the complexity and diversity of life on earth cannot be explained by the operation of random processes alone.

Miller: This view stands in sharp contradiction to a 2004 International Theological Commission document approved by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict. This document carries a ringing endorsement of the "widely accepted scientific account" of life's emergence and evolution; describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as "virtually certain," and echoes John Paul's observation of the "mounting support" for evolution from many fields of study.

R. Sungenis: Miller likes to support himself by taking a head count of those on his side. He thinks just because a bunch of atheistic scientists have generated a consensus that man came from apes, and just because he can find a group of liberal theologians who won't tolerate any creationists in their ranks, that such proves his case. This is the "evidence" Ken Miller brings to the table - the court of popular opinion.
Interestingly enough, two years after Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge admitted in 1980 that they couldn't find any evidence of intermediate fossils to support evolutionary theory and thus had to opt for "punctuated equilibrium," the Pontifical Academy of Science said that evidence for evolution was beyond dispute! This just shows you the lunacy behind the opinions of such groups. But Miller props it up as if it is the last word in the debate.
Speaking of debates, a few days ago I asked Ken Miller to debate me on the subject of evolution. His answer was: "Sorry, but I am much too busy with other duties to debate questions.that have long been settled scientifically. Even the most ardent opponents of evolution realize that 'creationism' is not compatible with scientific data."
When I took him to task in a return email for being bigoted and close-minded, Miller changed his tune and said that he debates on a "case-by-case" basis. But, of course, that's not what he stated in his original reply, which made it clear in no uncertain terms that Ken Miller is an avowed evolutionist and will no longer listen to anyone with an opposing viewpoint, based on his own "scientific data." As I noted above, it is not the "scientific data" that is the problem. We have plenty of that. The problem is the interpretation of the data.
Perhaps Dr. Miller can afford us the occasion to prove me wrong. Perhaps he can show us an indisputable scientific fact that convinces us that evolution is "virtually certain." Just one will do, Dr. Miller. Since he won't enter into a public debate, perhaps he'll feel more comfortable jotting down this "virtually certain" evidence for us and sending it to me in an email.

Miller: More important, the document makes a critical statement on how to interpret scientific studies of the complexity of life: "(W)hether the available data support inferences of design or chance ... cannot be settled by theology.

R. Sungenis: The truth is, it can't be settled by science, either. No one was there when it all began, and no one has seen evolution take place today. Die-hard evolutionist, Richard Lewontin, already admitted that fact to us, but he says he clings to evolution because he has no other option. Gould and Eldredge have already admitted they don't have any indisputable facts either. There was stunned silence in the auditorium when Gould asked his evolutionary colleagues in 1980 at the Chicago symposium whether anyone in the audience had found any evidence of transitional forms. No one raised a hand. If evolution were true, we would expect to see thousands of such specimens, but they can't even find one. Yet Miller thinks he has "virtually certain" evidence, nonetheless. Perhaps he can tell us what this evidence is that has escaped evolution's best scientists.
So what are we left with? We take the word of Genesis at face value until some scientist can prove to us that we can't. We're not going to change our reading of Genesis on the unproven and highly speculative theories of atheists, that's for sure.

Miller: But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency" - that is, dependence upon chance - "in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence." Right there, in plain view, is the essence of compatibility between evolution and Catholic theology. "Contingency in the created order," the very heart of evolution, is not at all incompatible with the will of God.

R. Sungenis: Miller is comparing apples and oranges. Just because God created a universe that allows what we understand as "chance" does not prove or even suggest that an evolutionary process took place in the universe. Scripture is clear that God has incorporated "chance" in the creation. As Eccl 9:11 says "time and chance happens to them all." As for "contingency," Catholic theology has always taught it. Aquinas even says that "God knows some things contingently" (De Veritate, Q. 2. A. 12c). But what does all that have to do with evolution? Nothing. This is nothing but Miller's abracadabra approach to science and theology. When Miller can show us how blind chance can produce higher and more complex specimens than the lower form, then he's got something. Unfortunately for him, the known laws of science don't allow such upward progression by chance. Anyone with common sense knows that when left to chance things deteriorate, not become more complex.

Miller: The church document re-emphasizes this point by stating that "even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God's providential plan for creation." And evolution, as scientist Stephen Jay Gould emphasized, is truly a contingent natural process.

R. Sungenis: I've got news for Ken Miller: Everything in creation "falls within God's providential plan," contingent or non-contingent. Can Kenneth name something that doesn't? If he could, then God wouldn't be God, because he wouldn't be infinite. As St. Thomas Aquinas: "The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency" (Summa Theologica, I, 22,4 ad 1). But how does this even begin to provide "virtually certain" evidence for evolution? It doesn't. It just allows Ken Miller to appear as if he is making a convincing argument to whoever will listen to his misdirected philosophizing.
As for Stephen Gould, it's amazing to me how comfortable Ken Miller feels next to an atheist like Stephen Gould. Be that as it may, Gould writes in his book "Rocks of Ages" that he long ago rejected God because God, according to Gould, took his daughter's life, and Gould could never forgave him for that. And thus Gould has been on a crusade to take God out of the picture because he has decided not to believe in him, and evolution is his chosen weapon.

Miller: The concerns of Pope Benedict, as expressed in his earlier writings, are not with evolution per se, but with how evolution is to be understood in our modern world. Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God's plan, while "evolutionist" philosophies that deny the divine do not.

R. Sungenis:: Miller says: "Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God's plan." Is that why everyone in the tradition of the Church denied that the world was the result of an evolutionary process? The Greeks were advocating evolution long before Charles Darwin came on the scene. Darwin only gave the full-blown version. But the Church Fathers, and the medievals, like St. Thomas Aquinas, denied them their theory. The only thing with which the Fathers and Aquinas struggled was whether God made the universe in six days or one day. It wasn't until Catholics became liberal in their theology in the late 1800s that they started to entertain unsupported scientific theories such as Darwin's. Funny that Darwin was the very person who said that, unless transitional forms could be found, his theory was false. Darwin would be appalled at the stances that evolutionists such as Ken Miller take today who, after 150 years of not finding any transitional forms, still cling to evolution as a "virtually certain" scientific fact.
As for "contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God's plan," that's always been the case, in every avenue of God's domain (1 Samuel 23:1-14), but how does that give "virtually certain" evidence of evolution? It doesn't. It's just another one of Miller's ploys. Creation in six days also had its contingent natural processes, too. When God created birds with wings on the fifth day, they flew by flapping those wings and thus they demonstrated the Bernoulli principle of air pressure. If the bird stopped flapping its wings it would either fall or come to rest on a branch. That's contingency. When God divided the waters on the second day, the water remaining on earth assumed the shape of its container, the ocean basin, which is the same "contingency" we know today about water and its flow. The sun gave light because its photons were sent out from its photosphere toward the earth, and those photons hit different places on the earth depending on the position of the globe. Even in the case of Adam contingency is true: if he obeyed God there would be no curse; if he disobeyed there would be a curse. Yes, real contingency at work in all these cases, and many more. But contingency says absolutely nothing about evolution. It is just Miller's scientific opportunism at work; making it appear as if it gives evolution a "virtually certain" status when in reality it gives it absolutely nothing. Evolution must produce its own convincing evidence, not ride on the bootstraps of theological contingencies that may or may not apply.

Miller: Three popes, beginning with Pius XII, have now made this clear. John Paul's 1996 letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences bore the magnificent title "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth." Writing in the tradition of Augustine and Aquinas, the late pope affirmed the church's twin commitments to scientific rationality and to an overarching spiritual view of the ultimate meaning and purpose of life.

R. Sungenis: Is that why Augustine and Aquinas were creationists, not evolutionists like the Greeks? And yes, John Paul II said that "truth cannot contradict truth." I say the same, as does anyone else with common sense. But how does that show "virtually certain" evidence for evolution? John Paul also said in his speech that a theory without proof is just a theory, and that leaves Ken Miller as just a theorist in John Paul II's eyes.

Miller: Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator's plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities - a continuing creation, in which the divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life. And the name of that design is evolution.

R. Sungenis: Unfortunately for Ken Miller, we're not interested in "evolutionary possibilities." If we had a dime for every "possibility" that science has proposed in the last 100 years we would have a lot of money in the bank. We're only interested in the cold, hard facts of science, and the truth of the matter is: science is Ken Miller's worst enemy, because the science of which we are certain won't allow blind chance to produce complex organisms. And if Miller wants to take the theistic evolutionist route and claim that God programmed an evolutionary process, then he is required to show us what evidence he has of that assertion, as well as showing us on what basis he can now switch from "science" to theology. Genesis certainly doesn't speak of such a process.
In the end, it is Ken Miller who is the "enemy of science," because he won't let real science show the flaws and fallacies of evolution. But I don't expect Ken Miller to see these things. He is an establishment man working at a prestigious Ivy League university who has bought into the whole politically-correct system for which he works. He'll maintain his crusade of calling those who advocate "intelligent design" as "enemies of science," and he will refuse to debate the issues on the basis that: "Sorry, but I am much too busy with other duties to debate questions.that have long been settled scientifically." Ken Miller doesn't know real science. He just pretends that he does.

[Midnight_Sun]

Can it Al-Racist,

You have already been proven the biggest fraud in the history of this forum. You can't back up any of your own claims and your alternative to taxonomy and phylogeny. You tried to say that major scientists do not believe in evolution and you looked even more stupid when you quoted other evolutionary biologists who believe in punctuated equilibria!. Go back to your flat Earth Mr. Irony!

[Midnight_Sun]

Very informative Midnight_Sun. I also suggest people to watch this lecture by Kenneth R. Miller. He's a Roman Catholic biologist who's been involved for many years in the whole Creation-evolution controversy in the US. In the lecture he covers pretty much everything about this controversy and how it played out in the US:

YouTube - Ken Miller on Intelligent Design

He's great! I liked his quote where he said, I believe in design, but I don't believe God is trying to fool us, when referring to how some religious nut jobs have tried to twist scientific evidence to fit their limited beliefs. I can't believe how deceptive some anti-science nut jobs can be. Great stuff.

[Midnight_Sun]

^ This is the source of there information:

YouTube - The Simpsons - Homer Evolution

cartoons

fairy tales...



LOL

Fairy tales? Wasn't it you in that video that wen't from Human to Rat?

[Alchemist]

Fairy tales? Wasn't it you in that video that wen't from Human to Rat?

That video literally describes exactly what you believe to be your own origin.
After 30 pages of debate on the matter...you should know that you have been arguing that it is you in that video where as I have been telling you that it's not.
So jokes on you cutie pie.


How many times have I exposed the absurdities of your claims so far?
I lost track. 8 or 9 times using your own arguments against you.

What is it's original state? If the original always changes due to environmental conditions. Although living organisms still retain the same amount of genetic material, that material, depending on it's arrangement can make it phenotypically and biologically different in every way. The only place on Earth that I know that the environment rarely ever changes in deep in the mantle, maybe in the deep sea. And even those creatures, at the genetic level still carry the ability to take some change and will change. Everything changes in time.

100 million year old bee




52 million year old fossil of a bat



YouTube - Bats Drive the Evolutionists Batty