Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Suppose They Gave a Theory and Nobody Argued?

Consider the Flowers

Why argue about evolution when we agree on so much? Everyone agrees on the scientific evidence. We agree on how the data were measured, the measurement error, and how to interpret the measurements. We also agree on the theory of evolution. Everyone agrees on what the theory states, what it predicts, and where those predictions have gone wrong. But anyone who attempts to test evolution against the empirical evidence soon finds out there is disagreement. Evolutionists believe their theory is a fact and beyond all reasonable doubt. And so with each problematic measurement and each falsified prediction, evolutionists adjust their theory to accommodate the new quandary. Now evolutionists have powerful reasons to believe in their theory. But are those reasons more powerful than so many empirical obstacles? Can we not take off the training wheels and allow the theory to stand or fall on its own? Or can we not at least acknowledge the falsifications and keep a tally? Evolutionists argue that any such move is merely an anti scientific ruse intended to smuggle in religious beliefs. Besides, just because evolution is a fact doesn’t mean it has all the answers and doesn’t need some refining. And so it goes, when new findings appear evolutionists automatically adjust the theory to fit, while skeptics see a theory that lacks explanatory power.

Consider, for example, new research out of Brazil showing that many flowers don’t fall into the expected common descent pattern. And as is often the case, what is more interesting than the uncooperative findings are the theoretical adjustments made to accommodate. In this case the research found that the different traits, both molecular and morphological, of the flowers do not fall into an evolutionary tree pattern. If two species of flowers are similar in one trait, for instance, they may be very different in another trait.

The response was simple and predictable. Some traits, it was concluded, simply are not appropriate for measuring evolutionary relatedness. Perhaps, for instance, those stubborn traits were subject to “episodic” (aka, rapid) evolution. As the evolutionists explained in one report:

Despite their striking differences in flower shape, Luetzelburgia, Sweetia, Vatairea, and Vataireopsis turned out to be close relatives. Moreover, the two genera with papilionate flowers were not each other’s closest relatives. According to Cardoso, “We showed that similarity in floral morphology does not predict phylogenetic relatedness. Indeed, genera with very different flower shapes are often very closely related (Luetzelburgia and Vatairea), and genera with highly similar flowers share such similarity via convergent evolution (Vatairea and Vataireopsis).” For these plants, other morphological characteristics may indicate relationships more reliably. “Floral traits are apparently more prone to rapid evolutionary changes in response to local ecological conditions,” Cardoso said, “whereas vegetative and fruiting traits are more conserved and not readily shaped by local conditions.”

These evidential problems and theoretical adjustments are not rare skirmishes. They are not the occasional tweak of an otherwise reliable hypothesis. Instead, evolutionists are constantly surprised by their next encounter with the data and evolution is constantly in combat with these hostile threats.

The problem for evolution here is not so much that there is no way out. In fact it always seems that some adjustment is possible. The problem is that the theory rapidly loses credibility. Not only is its track record full of failed expectations, but the very fact that it is so easy to fix and malleable is alarming. Its predictions, it turns out, never really were predictions. At least not the hard kind of predictions that philosophers like to see theories make. Instead those predictions were, upon failure, simply reversed with little more than the wave of a hand. “Oh, we didn’t mean that, we meant this,” seems to be the consistent message.

Maybe evolution is true, maybe it is false, or maybe it is somewhere in between. In any case, we need to remove our preconceptions and allow the empirical scientific data to speak for itself. It will only be then that we can agree.

200 comments:

  1. From the conclusion of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty trilogy (The Political Order of a Free People):
    "I believe men will look back on our age as an age of superstition, chiefly connected with the names of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. I believe people will discover that the most widely held ideas which dominated the twentieth century, those of a planned economy with a just distribution, a freeing ourselves from repression and conventional morals, of permissive education as a way to freedom, and the replacement of the market by a rational arrangement of a body with coercive powers, were all based on superstitions in the strict sense of the word. An age of superstition is a time when people imagine that they know more than they do. In this sense, the twentieth century was certainly an outstanding century of superstition, and the cause of this is an overestimation of what science has achieved…" (University of Chicago Press, 1979; pp. 175–176)
    Of course, Charles Darwin’s name should have appeared here as well. We may therefore supplement this quote with one from Hayek’s contemporary, Malcolm Muggeridge (from The End of Christendom):
    "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."
    http://designinference.com/quote-of-the-day-friedrich-hayek/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So you're quoting an economist and a journalist as authoritative critics of evolution?

      How about J K Galbraith:

      'The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.'

      which I suppose we could adapt to: 'The only function of intelligent design is to make creationism look respectable.'

      Delete
    2. Ian, how about one of the most current top ranked biologists in the world?

      "Genetic research, in particular, must be free to find new models to explain, and enhance, twenty-first-century scientific discovery. Today, Darwin’s theory of evolution is more a hindrance than a help, because it has become a quasi-theological creed that is preventing the benefits of improved research from being fully realized." - Didier Raoult

      Delete
    3. Or how about Fred Hoyle, one of the greatest astronomers of his day?

      "[The Big Bang] is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms … [nor] challenged by an appeal to observation."

      Delete
    4. Or how about oleg tchernyshyov:

      "Chromosomes. are. all. connected. It is one long polymer. Called the DNA."

      Delete
    5. How about this pearl of wisdom from the leading priestess of Darwinism?

      "If we are clever enough to be able to sequence a protein so that we know the exact order of amino acids and we know exactly what that protein does... then that protein is not doing something else. It's not our ignorance, it's the lack of willingness to admit that this is a non-functioning protein."

      - NCSE Director Eugenie Scott 1998

      http://kgov.com/Eugenie-Scott-debates-creation-evolution

      Delete
    6. Or how about Joke Gallien:

      "There isn't any such thing as one molecule of water."

      Delete
    7. There isn't. What's your point?

      How can you tell if one molecule of h2o is water, ice or steam?

      Delete
    8. Chubby Joke G

      "There isn't any such thing as one molecule of water."


      water molecule

      LOL! Idiot.

      Delete
    9. Chubby Joke G

      That isn't even a .edu site, moron.


      BIG LOL! I'll remember that the next time you link to the Discovery Institute or Creation Ministries for your ID-Creationism "evidence", especially for your "pyramid antennas were used to contact space aliens" claims.

      Anyone else want to back Chubs here who thinks a water molecule is "woo-woo"?

      Delete
    10. The authoritative book Physics of Ice (Oxford University Press, 2002) has Chapter 1.3, entitled "The water molecule." It begins thus:

      On the atomic scale ice is made from water molecules—H2O."

      I think this should settle that.

      Delete
    11. LoL! According to what your position sez, oleg, the water here came from ICE stored in comets and other space debris. IOW on the atomic scale water is made from ice molecules, H2O. Dumbass

      Answer the question oleg- if you dare:

      How can you tell if one molecule of h2o is water, ice or steam?

      Obviously thorton is still too much of a coward to do so. My bet is you are too.

      Delete
    12. To thorton- that's a big WHATEVER as you NEVER link to anything tat supports blind watchmaker evolution. ALL you ever do is equivocate like a coward.

      So stuff it already.

      How can you tell if one molecule of h2o is water, ice or steam?

      Anyone dare? Anyone?

      Delete
    13. Chubby Joke G

      How can you tell if one molecule of h2o is water, ice or steam


      LOL! One molecule of H2O is a water molecule by definition you moron.

      If you have lots of water molecules together they can be in the liquid, solid, or gaseous state depending on the temperature and pressure.

      Damn but you're a dumbass.

      Delete
    14. thorTARD:
      One molecule of H2O is a water molecule by definition you moron.

      No, it's just one molecule of H2O, you dipshit.

      And only English speaking people call it water, dumbass.

      Delete
    15. Joe, take your complaints to the physicists who study the physics of water. Like Victor Petrenko at Dartmouth, the author of the book quoted above. They refer to H2O as "water molecule," so this is how it's known. Whether you like it or not, that's the standard usage. You can rail against it, but no one is interested in your opinion on that.

      Delete
    16. joey slobbered:

      "No, it's just one molecule of H2O, you dipshit.

      And only English speaking people call it water, dumbass."

      Wow joey, your stupidity has no bounds.

      Delete
    17. How can one molecule of H2O be water when it does NOT have the properties of water?

      Delete
    18. Chubby Joke Gallien, dumbest Creationist of them all.

      Delete
    19. oleg:
      They refer to H2O as "water molecule," so this is how it's known.

      Water molecule, not just water. A water molecule is just that, one molecule of HOH, that may or may not resemble mickey.

      Delete
    20. How can you tell if one molecule of h2o is water, ice or steam?

      Kevin dumbass McCarthy sez we can measure its kinetic energy. Do you agree?

      Delete
    21. "There isn't any such thing as one molecule of water."

      Calling H2O the "water molecule" does not solve this dilemma.

      Delete
    22. LOL! Go on Chubs, tell us again how pyramid antennas for contacting space aliens has more scientific evidence than evolution.

      Delete
    23. My claim is, and has always been, that there is more evidence for pyramids being antennas then there is for evolutionism.

      That said I see that you are now engaged in your typical cowardly belligerence.

      Different day, same cowardice.

      Delete
  2. What are called predictions, for naturalistic UCA, are not predictions at all. They're expectations based on the teleological hunches of the researchers. The causal aspect of the ToE no more predicts UCA from any relevant precambrian initial conditions than a man in the moon. Indeed, it predicts precious little. Tree generation rules has no implications or indications whatsoever as to how or whether UCA could have occurred.

    So I have no idea what CH means by predictions or "powerful reasons." If by "powerful reasons" he means their religious arguments, those are not only impotent, but they prove entirely too much. They prove that science is not demarcatable. They prove that inference is not distinguishable from speculation. Because they imply that the very nutty, though logically possible, philosophical views the UCA'ists love to decry are all EQUALLY plausible with all other logically possible views.

    This is precisely what many philosophers have taken time to think through. They, unlike UCA'ists, aren't so intellectually lazy as the average UCA'ist even though they are, as even the UCA'ists suppose, nuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeff said: "Tree generation rules has no implications or indications whatsoever as to how or whether UCA could have occurred. "

      We were created to think thoughts in trees of ideas. Either something is a part of something bigger, or something is a kind of something more general.

      Evolutionist go wrong by thinking of a part of something somehow changed, thereby causing that something to become a new kind of something.

      Your mixing your kind of idea trees and it's coming back to haunt you.

      Delete
    2. Jeff:

      The causal aspect of the ToE no more predicts UCA from any relevant precambrian initial conditions than a man in the moon. Indeed, it predicts precious little. Tree generation rules has no implications or indications whatsoever as to how or whether UCA could have occurred.

      Are you correct in stating this, Jeff?

      I wonder.

      From the article:

      Despite their striking differences in flower shape, Luetzelburgia, Sweetia, Vatairea, and Vataireopsis turned out to be close relatives. Moreover, the two genera with papilionate flowers were not each other’s closest relatives. According to Cardoso, “We showed that similarity in floral morphology does not predict phylogenetic relatedness. Indeed, genera with very different flower shapes are often very closely related (Luetzelburgia and Vatairea), and genera with highly similar flowers share such similarity via convergent evolution (Vatairea and Vataireopsis).”

      Darwin wrote that species give rise to genera, and genera to families, etc. Bottom up.

      According to Darwin, then, things are more similar at the 'species' level, less-so at the 'genera', even less-so at the 'family' level, etc. But this isn't what we're seeing, is it?

      Yet this is what you would expect per Darwin, not expectations based on the teleological hunches of the researchers.

      What is being reported can, in contra-distinction to "convergent evolution", be described as resulting from a type of "front-loading"; that is, at the 'genus' level a 'program' of sorts is present which, in response to environmental stimuli, goes out in various, generally predetermined patterns such that, at the ensuing 'species' level, a greater similarity of phenotype exists between very different species.

      This, of course, requires 'information' for the 'pattern' to be already present at the 'genus' level, meaning that the adaptations at the 'species' level are not the result of NS, but simply the organism following an already pre-prescribed genetic program.

      This is a much more straightforward way of analyzing the data. However, it does not conform to Darwinian expectations, so biologists simply dance around it.

      And, so, here we have, once again, whole genome analysis demonstrates the falsity of
      Darwiinism. And once again, biologists refuse to see what is rather self-evident.

      Why? Because Darwinism blinds them.

      Being a liberal means never having to say you're wrong. So we're forced to live in the insane asylum erected by our liberal-minded power brokers. Alas.

      Delete
    3. Lino ,
      Being a liberal means never having to say you're wrong. So we're forced to live in the insane asylum erected by our liberal-minded power brokers. Alas


      Poor,poor conservatives. Victims of their tolerance of opposing views.

      Delete
  3. Is there a theory of evolution? Where is it? What peer-reviewed journal published it?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cornelius Goebbels

    Evolutionists believe their theory is a fact and beyond all reasonable doubt.


    Ah, Herr Goebbels back with his favorite lie, equivocating between the observed fact of evolution and the theory that explains the fact.

    The facts are facts, they don't change. The theory is of course subject to modification and expansion as more data becomes available, the same as all other scientific theories are. But that doesn't matter to Herr Goebbels or his mouth-breather Creationist groupies. If you attack ToE with any kind of lie the groupies will get a woodie and cheer, just like now,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What theory? Please reference it.

      What peer-reviewed journal published it? Who authored it? When?

      Delete
    2. It's inside of your fat ass Joke. You already have your head up there, so keep looking.

      Delete
    3. LoL! Tardo's cowardly daily meltdown is starting a tad early.


      ALL SCIENCE SO FER-

      Delete
    4. The above response from our demented, but avid evolutionary biologist, has now been posted here for about the 25th time.

      My guess is that it is some kind of direct quote from the "Works of the Ptolomeists".

      How did he get his hands on such an ancient manuscript?

      Delete
    5. Lino,

      Are you planning to respond at The Skeptical Zone or have you lost interest?

      Delete
    6. Hey PaV Lino, tell us again how there are no fossils over 1 billion years old.

      Tell us again how the Ediacaran biota were the Designer's "prototypes" to prep the planet for the original created Cambrian "kinds".

      ALL SCIENCE SO FAR! :D :D :D

      Delete
    7. So there isn't even a theory of evolution. Figures.

      When I google it I get darwin's theory. And evoTARDs are quick to tell us Darwin is of little relevance these days- he has been superseded. But by what?

      Delete
    8. Joe G is on a heroic quest to find theory of evolution. Chapter 1: Joe can't find his own ass.

      Delete
    9. And still no reference to any theory of evolution nor journal that published it.

      Delete
  5. We can actively observe the effects of gravity. It can be measured and predicted. An apple that weighs a specific amount will fall at a specific speed and hit the ground at a specific time that can be accurately predicted. It is testable and repeatable. Done.

    Continental plates are moving. Their speed can be measured and the distance it travels in a year can be predicted.

    Evolution can not be observed or predicted. Animal speciation has never been observed and can not be predicted. What is called evolution is really not. For example, the protein regulation that affects finch beak size has absolutely nothing to do with where finch beaks originated. It is like saying that the reason your brother has thicker hair that you is due to evolutionary mechanisms.


    ToE is a historical interpretation of the fossil record. It's a very soft science. Their flavor of historical interpretation is called a 'fact'. But, even here is fails... sudden appearance in the fossil record of dramatically different and highly specialized species. Species staying the same over eons. Many extinct. But not a good record of gradualism. Of course, ToE can be gradual or not gradual. ToE accommodates everything and predicts nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neal- it all depends on how you define "evolution". One can defone it so broadly- well it is defined so broadly- as to include all types of change.

      Delete
    2. Tedford the Slow

      We can actively observe the effects of gravity. It can be measured and predicted. An apple that weighs a specific amount will fall at a specific speed and hit the ground at a specific time that can be accurately predicted. It is testable and repeatable. Done.


      Sorry, that's only micro-gravity. No one has ever seen macro-gravity, our solar system making a whole orbit around the galactic center.

      Continental plates are moving. Their speed can be measured and the distance it travels in a year can be predicted.

      Sorry, that's micro-movement. No one's ever seen macro-movement, Africa touching South America.

      Yes Tedford, that's exactly how stupid your "we've never seen it in real time" argument is.

      Delete
    3. butt-lick:
      Sorry, that's only micro-gravity. No one has ever seen macro-gravity, our solar system making a whole orbit around the galactic center.

      Yes, you are sorry. Einstein gave us equations that have been verified. OTOH evolutionism still has nothing.

      And plate tectonics was first posited by a Creationist.

      Creationists correctly predicted the universe had a beginning and that there would be reproductive isolation.

      That is two more than your position has.

      Delete
    4. Joe G:

      Yes, you are sorry. Einstein gave us equations that have been verified. OTOH evolutionism still has nothing.

      But Joe, wait a second. We have been given equations. That's what neo-Darwinism is about.

      But, guess what? Those equations have been discredited by actual experimental data.

      Directional selection was said to be the guiding force behind 'evolution', while stabilizing selection was said to keep evolutionary 'gains' in place.

      However, those same equations tell us, and direct experience confirms, that stabilizing selection incurs a cost to the population. NS, after all, works through the death of organisms, and by no other mechanism.

      So this higher death rate within the population, called "genetic load" (or "mutational load") was thought to set a limit to the workings of stabilizing selection.

      When the first experiments were done on proteins via gel electrophoresis, it was found that there was a very high level of 'polymorphisms' within proteins, which meant, according to the central dogma of biology, that genetic diversity was quite high. In turn, this meant that unacceptable levels of 'genetic load' were required to keep evolution alive. This then led to Kimura's "Neutral Theory," a mathematical revolution required to save the notion of "evolution"---though not of neo-Darwinism.

      IOW, Kimura had to completely re-think his neo-Darinist position, and, basically, completely overturn it in order to match existing facts. For this he was skewered---as is the Darwinist's wont.

      In sum, then, the bottom line is that the "equations" of Darwinism don't work (i.e., they don't comport with actual data---unless we're talking about finch beak sizes). And every day now, in this WGA (whole genome analysis) era, we have evidences of experimental results which effectively contradict long-held neo-Darwinian expectations.

      But, if you're a "true believer," what's a little evidence matter? Why change your view?

      Liberals are never wrong. Just ask them.

      Delete
    5. Lino,
      IOW, Kimura had to completely re-think his neo-Darinist position, and, basically, completely overturn it in order to match existing facts. For this he was skewered---as is the Darwinist's wont


      Why did the powerful evolutionist cabal allow such a heretical study to be published? Has Kimura become a design advocate? What exactly does " basically" entail?

      Delete
    6. velikovskys:

      Kimura was too big a figure in population genetics for his book not to be published. It's that simple.

      But Kimura was essentially (basically) saying that neo-Darwinian mechanisms cannot be employed because of genetic load; i.e., too many organisms would be dying from being well below viable fitness levels for life to continue. So, he went with the flow and proposed that neutral genetic drift (notice he's referencing life at the DNA level, not necessarily at the phenotypic level and absent NS; thus, non-Darwinian) takes place over millions of years. But, of course, this too is problematic.

      What has happened is that Kimura, a believer in "evolution" had to find some way of explaining it without using neo-Darwinism, and was roundly criticized for it. And, as with all things Darwinian, the neutral theory is now considered compatible with Darwinism. What a great theory Darwinism is: nothing can put a stake through its heart.

      Delete
    7. pav lino upchucked:

      "Liberals are never wrong. Just ask them."

      Yeah, as though you god-pushing conservatards are so angelic:

      http://cl.ly/I22Z/o


      Delete
  6. Joe, yes, you are correct... the movement of the sun in the galaxy can be predicted accurately.

    ToE likes to make such comparisons but they fail. While the sun's movement can be predicted based on what we observe, this is not so for evolutionists. They try, but fail. The bird beaks don't keep getting bigger and changing. Their variation oscillates around a mean and never further. The island mice don't turn into moose and grow antlers. The history of life is one of sudden appearance of new species, variation at the species level, extinction or no extinction. That's the honest interpretation of the fossil record.

    There is a ton of room for interpretation given that millions of fossils are spread over the entire earth in multiple layers of rock and sediment. They can pretty much build any picture they want if contradictory evidence is not allowed to touch their "fact". If I have a badly damaged 5000 piece puzzle with many pieces missing, others faded and ripped and I'm determined to make a picture of the skyline of New York, I can do it with any number of various puzzles that weren't originally of New York. This is what evolutionists have done with the fossil record. For any theory, it is the contrary data that is most important with evaluating and testing results.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tedford the Slow

    Joe, yes, you are correct... the movement of the sun in the galaxy can be predicted accurately.


    Sorry, no one's ever seen the sun move around the galaxy, so saying its position both future and past can be predicted accurately is a lie.

    According to you, only processes we can witness to completion in real time should be considered true.

    Your argument is still just as stupid Tedford.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thorton, we HAVE witnessed population genetics within macroevolutionary timelines, namely in bacteria and fruit flies, and the evolution never showed up.

      Delete
    2. Lifepsy
      Thorton, we HAVE witnessed population genetics within macroevolutionary timelines, namely in bacteria and fruit flies, and the evolution never showed up.


      I assume you have some proof that population genetics predicts this? Would you mind linking to it, thanks.

      Delete
    3. velikovskys-

      You'll have to clarify. I didn't say "population genetics" predicts anything.

      What I said is that we've studied genetic change in fast reproducing species spanning macro-evolutionary timescales. (equating to millions of years of mammalian generations)
      And nothing that even remotely resembles progressive evolution towards increasingly complex information and function has occurred. Evolution doesn't happen anywhere on Earth except in the imagination.

      Delete
    4. Lifepsy,
      You'll have to clarify. I didn't say "population genetics" predicts anything.


      Sorry, "we HAVE witnessed population genetics within macroevolutionary timelines, namely in bacteria and fruit flies, and the evolution never showed up", threw me. How do you know what macro evolutionary timelines are for bacteria and fruit flies are, especially since the influence of natural selection is minimized?

      What I said is that we've studied genetic change in fast reproducing species spanning macro-evolutionary timescales. (equating to millions of years of mammalian generations)

      This seems a bit of a exaggeration, 60,000 generation x 20years is 1.2 millions yrs . I can find no long term experiment on fruit flies.

      And nothing that even remotely resembles progressive evolution towards increasingly complex information and function has occurred. Evolution doesn't happen anywhere on Earth except in the imagination.

      Perhaps,but to compare sixty thousand generations of asexual bacteria in a controlled environment to sexual organisms under environmental stresses of climate and disease and predators is an exercise in burning a strawman.

      Delete
    5. lifepsy said:

      "...we HAVE witnessed population genetics within macroevolutionary timelines..."

      Exactly how long is a macro-evolutionary timeline?

      And what makes you think that every life form MUST evolve at exactly the same rate?

      Delete
    6. TWT-

      I would say macro-evolutionary is somewhere between tens of thousands of years to millions. Darwinists are attributing major changes in species physiology to have taken place in roughly these timespans.

      velikovsky-

      There was a "long-term" study done on fruit flies. (Burke 2010) 600 generations of drosophila, so let's say roughly 10,000 years for a mammal. And a markedly beneficial trait (flies that developed 20% faster) was still unable to fixate in the population.

      asexual bacteria under strong selection pressure (eat this or starve) are some of the most favorable conditions you could get for fixation of new traits, and we still see nothing substantial happening in a timeframe equated to 1.2 my of mammalia like you say. Remember, a small "ungulate" turned into a fully aquatic whale in 5-10 million years. Do you not see how ridiculous this story is just on it's face?

      You're invoking some seriously supernatural genetic voodoo to explain common descent, and this kind of potential is simply not reflected in experiments.

      Delete
    7. lifepsy said:

      "I would say macro-evolutionary is somewhere between tens of thousands of years to millions."

      So you're saying that "we" have witnessed fruit flies and bacteria evolving for thousands to millions of years? And are you're saying that "macroevolutionary timelines" are always within tens of thousands to millions of years? If so, shouldn't you "witness" fruit flies and bacteria for tens of thousands to millions of years before deciding if they can or have evolved?

      Yes, I'm aware that some scientists say that evolution, on what you would call a "macroevolutionary" scale, takes tens of thousands to millions of years, but some don't, depending on which organism they're talking about.

      To me, it's usually a mistake to 'equate' or extrapolate evolutionary time frames of fruit flies or bacteria to humans and many other organisms. For example, a bacterial species in the human gut could evolve without humans evolving at the same rate, or vice versa.

      Actually, the whole micro/macro evolution argument is pretty stupid. For one thing, there are way too many ways to define micro/macro evolution, and where exactly is the dividing line? You god pushers just use that lame argument to try to distort what evolution really is and to confuse people in the hope that they will doubt or flat out reject that evolution occurs.

      You apparently reject any sort or evolution at all, at any rate of speed. If so, how do you explain the fossil record discovered so far? Did your chosen god kill off species and then create new ones from scratch from time to time, and especially after mass extinctions?

      Speaking of common descent, do you reject it because you can't stand the thought of being an ape, and because you believe that you are special, exceptional, and superior to all other life forms? Does your shit not stink?

      Delete
  8. lifepsy

    Thorton, we HAVE witnessed population genetics within macroevolutionary timelines, namely in bacteria and fruit flies, and the evolution never showed up.


    LOL! So Lenski's E coli didn't evolve a completely new way to get nourishment.

    These island lizards didn't evolve new external and internal morphology after being subjected to different selection pressures in their new environment.

    If you keep covering your ears and going LA LA LA the nasty evidence goes away, so Creationists tell me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thorton -

      I'm really getting tired of constantly correcting this evo myth.

      Changes in P.Sicula skull, dentition, and gut morphology are due to environment induced phenotypic plasticity, not any blind evolutionary mechanisms . The morphology was observed to revert within weeks of being returned to their original insect diet.

      "Specimens from the Pod Mrcaru population, which in na-
      ture eat substantial amounts of plant material, exhibited a reduction in digestive tract length and a totalloss of cecal valves after having been fed an exclusively arthropod diet for 15 wk. Although parts of their gastroinstestinal systems were still better developed than those of specimens feeding mainly on arthropods in the wild, it seems likely that a prolonged exposure to an animal-based diet would have erased even those differences."

      Anatomical and Physiological Changes Associated with a Recent Dietary Shift in the Lizard Podarcis sicula 2010

      Once again another biological system that reflects limited, non-random change, and has nothing to do with neo-darwinian mechanisms.

      Stop reading PZ Meyers religion blogs and actually look at the literature.

      Delete
    2. Thorton -

      Lenski's E.Coli has not evolved any novel genetic function. After 50,000+ generations (~1 million years in human generations) all the E.Coli did was duplicate a previously functional gene (citrate transporter protein) so it was placed closer to an aerobic promoter. Where's the evolution?

      This has to be the most pathetic example of "evolution" you could present, yet it seems to be the evolutionists' best example. This is evidence against evolution if anything.

      Thanks for showing two examples of non-evolution, Thorton.

      Delete
    3. LOL!

      If you keep covering your ears and going LA! LA! LA! the nasty evidence goes away, so Creationists tell me.

      Exactly as predicted.

      BTW, why did you cowardly cut and run from the other thread when I asked for your ID-Creationist explanation for the spatial and temporal distribution of different animals in the fossil record? Did the question really frighten you that badly?

      Delete
    4. lifepsy:

      Thorton: These island lizards didn't evolve new external and internal morphology after being subjected to different selection pressures in their new environment. If you keep covering your ears and going LA LA LA the nasty evidence goes away, so Creationists tell me.

      lifepsy: I'm really getting tired of constantly correcting this evo myth. Changes in P.Sicula skull, dentition, and gut morphology are due to environment induced phenotypic plasticity, not any blind evolutionary mechanisms. The morphology was observed to revert within weeks of being returned to their original insect diet. … Stop reading PZ Meyers religion blogs and actually look at the literature.


      Your mistake was in expecting a scientific discussion. For evolutionists, evolution is not a theory that, in principle, could be false. Their starting point is that it must be true. So they repeatedly twist the science to support their belief. You can point out their mischaracterizations, but to no avail.

      Delete
    5. Cornelius Goebbels

      Your mistake was in expecting a scientific discussion.


      By now no one who comes here expects any sort of scientific discussion from you or your Creationist groupies. The fun is in seeing what your next big over-the-top whopper will be, and how dumb the Creationists will make themselves look trying to defend it.

      Delete
    6. thorTARD coward:
      By now no one who comes here expects any sort of scientific discussion from you or your Creationist groupies.

      You don't even know what science is. So shut up already.

      Delete
    7. Lifepsy,
      Changes in P.Sicula skull, dentition, and gut morphology are due to environment induced phenotypic plasticity, not any blind evolutionary mechanisms . The morphology was observed to revert within weeks of being returned to their original insect die


      " enviroment induced phenotypic plasticity" ,is this the same as natural selection? Sounds like it, if the original diet never returned,would it be a new species?

      Delete
    8. DrHunter ,
      Your mistake was in expecting a scientific discussion


      Then please start. What is your theory on the flowers? What fits the observed facts better?

      Delete
    9. velikovskys -
      " enviroment induced phenotypic plasticity" ,is this the same as natural selection?"

      No. Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an individual genotype to express multiple phenotypes in direct response to fluctuating environments. It's an observable epigenetic stress-response system.

      What is Natural Selection? "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." It's a tautology that doesn't explain anything, which is why it fits so well with evolution.

      Delete
    10. I see the latest IDiot is back to the PRATT list regurgitation.

      How you coming with your ID-Creationist explanation for the spatial and temporal distribution of different animals in the fossil record?

      BTW, even most other IDiots accept some form of evolution, be it microevolution or what they call (without a shred of evidence) "guided" evolution.

      Why do you think they are wrong?

      Delete
    11. Haha, I didn't realize epigenetics was a PRATT now. Sounds like you and your fellow evos are making great strides in biology.

      Delete
    12. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    13. Lifepsy,
      No. Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an individual genotype to express multiple phenotypes in direct response to fluctuating environments. It's an observable epigenetic stress-response system


      Is that what has been observed in the case of the lizards? Are all members of a species equally proficient in this metamorphism?

      What is Natural Selection? "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." It's a tautology that doesn't explain anything, which is why it fits so well with evolution

      Perhaps easier to understand is living animals reproduce better than dead ones.

      Delete
    14. velikovskys-

      Yes, plasticity was observed in the P.Sicula lizards. Rapid morphological changes within weeks of changing from plant back to insect diet. Also there are several references in that paper I cited that describes plasticity observed in other lizard and bird species. Here's the URL.

      Anatomical and Physiological Changes Associated with a Recent Dietary Shift in the Lizard Podarcis sicula

      http://webhost.ua.ac.be/funmorph/publications/Vervust%20et%20al%202010%20Pysiol%20Biochem%20Zool.pdf

      There's actually tons of studies about phenotypic plasticity in the literature. It's just that evolutionists don't seem to like to talk about it because it is obviously non-darwinian. They will still tout the visible changes as "rapid evolution", though.

      Delete
    15. Could it be that the changes observed in the lizards were physiological changes of individual organisms and not evolutionary changes? I think that this would best explain how they changed back so fast when they reverted to their original diet.

      Delete
    16. Yes, it has nothing to do with darwinian mechanisms of random variations being selected for. These changes are induced directly by the environment. That's why they happen so quickly, and they are obviously very limited.

      Delete
    17. Lifepsy

      Changes in P.Sicula skull, dentition, and gut morphology are due to environment induced phenotypic plasticity, not any blind evolutionary mechanisms . The morphology was observed to revert within weeks of being returned to their original insect die


      Please cite the passage from the paper that says skull and dentition morphology reverted within weeks to some previous norm. All I can find in the paper is a suggestion that the gastrointestinal morphology may exhibit plasticity.

      A charitable person might assume you're just an idiot who didn't bother to actually read the paper. A less charitable one would think you're deliberately lying again.

      Delete
    18. lifepsy March 5, 2013 at 1:07 PM

      [...]

      No. Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of an individual genotype to express multiple phenotypes in direct response to fluctuating environments. It's an observable epigenetic stress-response system.


      The way you describe it makes it sound like we're all shape-shifters. But it's nothing like that extensive or dramatic, is it?

      Either way, there's nothing in phenotypic plasticity which rules out evolution. Could be it's just another facet of a very complex process.

      And where did it come from? Either it was designed into us at the beginning or - perish the thought - it's a useful evolved response to stress-filled environments.

      What is Natural Selection? "That which survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce." It's a tautology that doesn't explain anything, which is why it fits so well with evolution.

      No, it's an observation, one which raises the crucial question of why some individuals and species survive where others don't - or, at least, survive longer. Might there be some differences between individuals which account for why the survivors survive and the others don't? Might those differences be heritable? Sounds like there's the seed of an interesting theory there.

      Delete
    19. "Could be it's just another facet of a very complex process."

      And darwinists says that is ridiculous CH when he argument that complexity is a problem for evolution.
      "very complex process" is not a ridiculous explanation for complexity?

      Delete
    20. Ian,
      "Either way, there's nothing in phenotypic plasticity which rules out evolution."

      There are no biological processes or discoveries that could 'rule out evolution'. It is a completely non-falsifiable theory that predicts everything and nothing. It is "a fog settling over a constantly shifting landscape of data"

      Yes, of course to the evolutionist, plasticity must be just another process that evolved over millions of years. What is funny though is that the plastic effects were originally (and still are by many) chalked up to RM+NS Darwinian processes.

      Delete
    21. Thorton -

      "All I can find in the paper is a suggestion that the gastrointestinal morphology may exhibit plasticity."

      It's wasn't a 'suggestion'. The gut morphology was directly observed to revert within weeks. It had not reverted completely but the researchers had no reason to believe it wouldn't.

      Additionally there are several references in that paper of equally marked and rapid changes in reptiles and birds that are interpreted to be plastic. The evidence for "rapid darwinian evolution" is not on your side, Thorton. That is clear.

      So let me get this straight, Thorton. You accept that the gut morphology are the results of plasticity, but you believe the skull and dentition are the results of random mutations and natural selection? Do you think that makes sense? Care to cite one shred of evidence for this?

      Delete
    22. lifepsy

      It's wasn't a 'suggestion'. The gut morphology was directly observed to revert within weeks.


      But you claimed the skull and dentition reverted within weeks too.

      Like I said, either you're an idiot who didn't bother to read the actual paper or you were just lying.

      Which is it? I suppose it could be both.

      Delete
    23. lifepsy

      There are no biological processes or discoveries that could 'rule out evolution'. It is a completely non-falsifiable theory that predicts everything and nothing.


      Oh please, not this old PRATT again too. You Creationist clowns need a new writer.

      There are plenty of things that if found would have falsified the current theory of evolution. Having the phylogenetic tree formed from the fossil record be a gross mismatch with the one formed from genetic analysis of multi-celled animals and plants would do it. (aside: And before the IDiots all start screaming, that doesn't mean known examples of lateral gene transfer.) Finding groups of animals with entirely different, non-compatable forms of DNA would have done it too. But those finds weren't made.

      I agree it's almost impossible to think of a single finding that would falsify ToE today because of the huge amount of positive cross-correlating evidence it has amassed over the last 150 years. It would take something like discovering we're all living on some alien's giant holodeck.

      ToE has always been quite falsifiable. It's just never been falsified

      Delete
    24. Thorton, the data supports my claim that changing morphology in P.Sicula was due to plasticity.

      There are plenty more similar studies. Look, here's another one on plasticity in lizard morphology published only weeks ago.

      "Sexual dimorphisms in habitat-specific morphology and behavior in the green anole lizard" 2013

      "We found that while juveniles in the three habitats did not differ in limb or toe morphology, adult females using broader perches had relatively longer limbs than females using narrower perches. Females also differed in toe length across habitats, but not in relation to perch diameter. Males, in contrast, exhibited differing growth patterns (allometry) in these traits, and marginal differences in locomotor behavior. Together, these results suggest that sex-specific responses in morphology and behavior, consistent with experimental observations of phenotypic plasticity, provide a mechanism for refining local habitat use."

      http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12020/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

      These types of changes are clearly not darwinian. Deal with it.

      Let's not forget that you made the initial claim that P.Sicula morphology was due to selection pressures. ****WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE?**** You can be the first evo show evidence that ANY rapid morphological changes were due to neo-darwinian selection.

      You're turn Thorton, whenever you're ready...

      Delete
    25. lifepsy

      Thorton, the data supports my claim that changing morphology in P.Sicula was due to plasticity.


      Nowhere in that paper does it say skull size and dentition reverted reverted within weeks, or that the skull size and dentition were due to plasticity.

      I'll assume you're an idiot who didn't bother to read the actual paper AND you were lying.

      BTW idiot, no one is denying that phenotypic plasticity occurs, it's a well documented phenomenon. However, you made the stupid claim that evolution via genetic variation and selection NEVER occurs. You need to show such plasticity is present in and responsible for ALL species.

      Why don't you explain the mechanism by which all modern dog species came by their morphology. Genetics show all modern dogs descended from wolf ancestors some 20-30K years ago. Do you claim all modern dog morphologies are due to plasticity too?

      I notice you're still too much of a coward to give us your IDCreation explanation for the spatial and temporal distribution of animals in the fossil record.

      Delete
    26. "Why don't you explain the mechanism by which all modern dog species came by their morphology."

      Artificial selection.

      Delete
    27. Blas

      Artificial selection.


      And what are the underlying mechanisms that allow artificial selection to create vastly changed morphologies?

      Delete
    28. Still waiting Thorton...

      I've presented my evidence.

      Where's your evidence that P.Sicula or ANY rapid morphological changes are due to neo-darwinian mechanisms of random variation and natural selection??

      Any time you're ready to back up your claims, Thorton...


      Or is it possible you were just parroting claims you don't understand? Hmm... I wonder....

      Delete
    29. lifepsy

      I've presented my evidence.


      LOL! You mean you lied about a paper you didn't read and that didn't support your stupid claims.

      BYW I notice you're now trying to sneak the word "rapid" into your demands to see morphological changes instead of ANY evolutionary driven morphological changes.

      You ever going to grow a pair and explain what mechanisms caused the large morphological changes between wolves and domestic dogs over the last 20K years?

      If we change the diet of Chihuahuas will their "plasticity" cause them to revert back to wolves within a few weeks?

      Delete
    30. I didn't lie. The Pod Mcaru P.Sicula morphology was observed to revert within weeks and was inferred to be plastic. If the rest of those changes aren't plastic, then what are they, Thorton? Did the darwin fairies morph skull and dentition to rapidly align with the plastic gut structures that all specialize for a plant diet?

      I have also presented you with additional references to plastic lizard morphology. And I could send you many more links as well. My position is strongly supported by the data.

      Thorton, you continue to leave YOUR INITIAL CLAIM about P.Sicula unsupported. WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE that the morphological changes were due to neo-darwinian selection?
      WERE YOU JUST MAKING IT UP?

      Yep, I guess you were. Your silence is your concession.

      Next time think before you post, Thorton. Your welcome for the education.

      Delete
    31. lifepsy

      I didn't lie. The Pod Mcaru P.Sicula morphology was observed to revert within weeks and was inferred to be plastic.


      You lied. The skulls and dentition didn't revert. You lied.

      I have also presented you with additional references to plastic lizard morphology.

      Again, big fat hairy deal. Phenotypic plasticity is a well know phenomena. To support your ridiculous claim you need to show that ALL species are the result of your claimed plasticity.

      As expected, you chickened out and won't address the large morphological changes required to go from wolves to domestic dogs. Tell me how Chihuahuas will revert back to wolves if we change their diet. :D :D :D

      You're just another blustering ignoramus Creationist who got called on his BS and who folded like a house of cards.

      Delete
    32. Thorton - "Phenotypic plasticity is a well know phenomena."

      Oh thorton, how cute, pretending you didn't just learn about this. :)

      Actually Thorton, I didn't claim all features reverted. Not even the gut morphology fully reverted. However the researchers inferred the anatomical changes in P.Sicula were due to plasticity. And just using basic logic, it is obvious that's what is happening, as supported by reams of other data on plasticity in reptiles. Again, my position is fully supported by the literature. That's why I'm not afraid to keep talking about it like you are.

      I never said anything about plasticity in dogs, thorton. You are in FULL ON DESPERATION MODE now, to cover your blunder. :)

      C'mon Thorton, Your claim is above for all to see. YOU BROUGHT THE LIZARD SUBJECT UP. WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE that the lizards morphology was due to darwinian selection? DID YOU JUST MAKE IT UP? DESPERATELY TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT?

      Have you learned your lesson about parroting claims you know nothing about? Bet you won't try that one on this forum again. ;)

      Delete
    33. lifepsy

      Actually Thorton, I didn't claim all features reverted.


      You claimed the skull and dentition did. They didn't. You lied.

      However the researchers inferred the anatomical changes in P.Sicula were due to plasticity.

      That's how I know you never read the paper. The researchers said SOME of the morphological change, specifically the intestinal length, may be due to plasticity but the skull and dentition changed as a result of selection pressure. The researchers merely pointed out that the skull and dentition physical changes couldn't be 100% linked to dietary change but may also have been driven by other selection pressures like territorial battles.

      You lied, you didn't read the paper, now you look like an idiot. I'm guessing you're the sock of another YEC blustering idiot we had here a while back who went by the handle Eocene. If you're not him you're his twin brother.

      Now tell me what mechanisms caused the morphological changes required to go from wolves to domestic dogs. Tell me how Chihuahuas will revert back to wolves if we change their diet. :D :D :D



      Delete
    34. lifepsy

      And just using basic logic, it is obvious that's what is happening,


      LOL! With your identical 'basic logic" it is obvious that all Creationists are lying tax evading felons because Kent Hovind is a lying tax evading felon. Right?

      as supported by reams of other data on plasticity in reptiles.

      Where's your reams of other data on plasticity in canids?

      Delete
    35. Thorton,
      "but the skull and dentition changed as a result of selection pressure."

      Oops, Thorton, ****YOU LIED*** It doesn't say that anywhere in the paper. The researchers obviously had no way of knowing. However, they OBSERVED gut morphology reverting within weeks.

      And we know from even more current peer-reviewed data that LIZARD MORPHOLOGY HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED NUMEROUS TIMES TO BE PLASTIC.

      Do you see how, any way you spin it, you're up against a wall of empirical data? How does it feel to be in such a helpless situation, screaming about dogs that nobody brought up to change the subject? I can keep shoving it in your face all day long.

      Hey Thorton, still waiting on that evidence! :)

      Delete
    36. lifepsy

      Thorton: "but the skull and dentition changed as a result of selection pressure."

      Oops, Thorton, ****YOU LIED*** It doesn't say that anywhere in the paper.


      Yes assclown, it does. But you wouldn't know since you never read the paper.

      "Many of the morphological and physiological features of the population on Pod Mrcˇaru could be interpreted as adaptations to an herbivorous diet. Pod Mrcˇaru lizards are larger than Pod Kopisˇte lizards; animals with larger bodies have lower mass-specific rates of energy expenditure (Pough 1973; Alexander 1999) and are therefore better suited to subsist on plant tissue, which is typically low in digestible energy (Espinoza et al. 2004). Larger bodies can also carry more robust heads and more voluminous digestive tracts (Espinoza et al. 2004; our results). Pod Mrcˇaru lizards have more massive heads, even when correcting for body size; larger heads allow higher bite forces and thus aid in tearing up rough plant material (Herrel et al. 1998, 1999; Stayton 2006). Pod Mrcˇaru lizards have wider teeth, even when correcting for jaw length; broader, stronger teeth may possibly facilitate the tearing of rough plant materials.

      Although the populations considered have much of their evolutionary history and physical environment in common, they do differ in aspects that are not directly related to diet, and these may influence some of the characteristics mentioned. For instance, higher densities on Pod Mrcˇaru may have selected for higher competitive abilities (Vervust et al. 2009) and hence for larger body sizes, more robust heads, and higher bite forces. Clearly, data from other populations, with varying proportions of plant material in their natural diet, are required to test the idea of a causal relationship between diet and the morphological and physiological variables reported here."

      LIZARD MORPHOLOGY HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED NUMEROUS TIMES TO BE PLASTIC.

      Which has noting to do with your claim that there is NO evolution and that it's ALL plasticity.

      You have to be Eocene. Same woeful ignorance, same childish behavior, same screaming and ignoring of evidence, same cowardly avoidance of questions he can't answer.

      I'm sure you can keep being an assclown all day long. You've had lots of practice.

      Delete
    37. Oh no, Thorton! More empirical data! Better break out the allergy medicine, I know how you tend to have bad reactions to this stuff!

      (adding on to the two studies I've already cited..)


      An isolated population of Podarcis vaucheri 2010

      .....Molecular results suggest a North African origin to this population. However, according to MORPHOLOGICAL results, these individuals are closer to the Spanish morphotype than to the North African morphotypes of P. vaucheri. Taken together, these results suggest a human-mediated introduction as the origin of this population, with local adaptation or PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY responsible of phenotypic convergence.


      Expression of phenotypic plasticity in hatchlings of
      the lizard Calotes versicolor 2012

      In these hatchlings, HEAD and LIMB SIZES were significantly larger than that of the other two groups. The findings show: (1) a developmental PLASTICITY in the lizard, (2) that under low moist conditions larger body size is preferred, and (3) that the trade-off between somatic growth of embryos and future energy reserves (residual yolk) of hatchlings is influenced by the soil moisture in C. versicolor



      HEAD MORPHOLOGY and Degree of Variation in Lacerta bilineata, Podarcis muralis and Podarcis sicula 2009

      P. muralis shows the largest degree of phenotypic variation and heterogeneity along the morphological vectors... The PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY ACCOUNTS FOR THE OVERALL VARIATION. (i.e., the range of dispersion of the taxon within the multivariate space)....



      HABITAT DIFFERENCES IN BODY SIZE AND SHAPE of the Australian Agamid Lizard, Lophognathus temporalis 2012

      We made monthly measurements of invertebrate abundance and soil moisture during ONE YEAR to compare SEASONAL VARIATION in resource availability between habitats. We also collected all matter excreted by L. temporalis during their first four days in captivity as an index of food consumption in the field. We found that male L. temporalis were larger than females and that urban L. temporalis were larger than bush L. temporalis. Males had LONGER FRONT LIMBS, HIND LIMBS, AND TAILS than did females; and in urban populations, they also had LARGER HEADS.... ****We conclude that differences in resource abundance between habitats may be an important factor contributing to the morphological differences***** between urban and bush-dwelling L. temporalis.

      ^^^^^ SOUND FAMILIAR THORTON? Hmmm.. Like say.. Podarcis Sicula lizards put in a new environment and then undergoing rapid morphological changes?


      Thorton, you've been eviscerated by the data.

      /end thread

      Delete
    38. lifepsy

      Oh no, Thorton! More empirical data!


      LOL!

      See I knew you could keep being an assclown all day long.

      Like posting two papers which do nothing at all to support your claim that evolution never happens and that all changes in all species are really just phenotypic plasticity. Sorta like claiming that no human can ever grow more than 5' tall then posting a picture of a midget as your "proof".

      That's about as assclowish as you can get.

      It's almost as funny as you being too cowardly to tell me the mechanism by which wolves changed morphology into Chihuahuas.

      lifepsy/eocene. Different sock, same assclown.

      Delete
    39. If wolves changed morphology into chihuahuas, it happened by design- artificial selection of pre-existing genetic information.

      Delete
    40. dippy-do:
      So Lenski's E coli didn't evolve a completely new way to get nourishment.

      No. They used an existing way in a different environment- ie different from what it was normally used in.

      The citrate transport protein, normally suppressed in the presence of oxygen, was duplicated and expressed in the presence of oxygen.

      Delete
  9. thorton:
    BTW, why did you cowardly cut and run from the other thread when I asked for your ID-Creationist explanation for the spatial and temporal distribution of different animals in the fossil record?

    Yeah, the fossil record isn't perfect and until we have actual biological evidence to support the transformations, the fossil record can't help. Well it says these organisms were alive, died and were fossilized. That's it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 'Instead, evolutionists are constantly surprised by their next encounter with the data and evolution is constantly in combat with these hostile threats.' - Cornelius Hunter


    'Hostile threats'... ah, that ugly menace of truth. At least Pontius Pilate expressed a cursory interest in it, didn't he? 'What is truth?'

    ReplyDelete
  11. "convergent evolution"

    The magic voodoo words that save a cretinous fantasy from utter extinction. But this farce can only last for so long.

    Paul: "Who ordered that?"
    Mary: "Why, convergent evolution; what else?"
    Me: "ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thorton: "BTW, why did you cowardly cut and run from the other thread when I asked for your ID-Creationist explanation for the spatial and temporal distribution of different animals in the fossil record?"

      joey: "Yeah, the fossil record isn't perfect and until we have actual biological evidence to support the transformations, the fossil record can't help. Well it says these organisms were alive, died and were fossilized. That's it."

      Obviously, joey, you have never seen a fossil or read anything about them. If you actually believe that all that can be understood and explained by studying them is that "these organisms were alive, died and were fossilized. That's it.", then you're one of the dumbest morons on Earth. Oh wait, you've already demonstrated that you are, many, many times.

      Delete
    2. twitty coward:
      Obviously, joey, you have never seen a fossil or read anything about them.

      I have done both, loser. And if you actually believe they can tell us something beyond what I said, then you are just a gullible moron.

      Delete
    3. Hey joey, if scientists were to find (in situ) a fossilized human skeleton in sediments older than, say, the Oligocene, it wouldn't provide any evidence of anything more than 'this organism was alive, died and was fossilized. That's it.'?

      Lots of things can be and are determined by studying fossils, the sediments they're found in, their temporal and spatial relationships to each other, etc.

      You're dumber than a lugnut, joey.

      Delete
  12. Lino:

    What is being reported can, in contra-distinction to "convergent evolution", be described as resulting from a type of "front-loading"; that is, at the 'genus' level a 'program' of sorts is present which, in response to environmental stimuli, goes out in various, generally predetermined patterns such that, at the ensuing 'species' level, a greater similarity of phenotype exists between very different species.

    I, for one, believe that the convergent evolution hypothesis is chicken feather voodoo science in the 'not even wrong' category, in the same category as the flat earth hypothesis. However, there is no question in my mind that unexplained similarities (both morphological and genetic) between distant species are the result of direct genetic engineering using a common design principle called lateral inheritance. The existence of such similarities between distant species obliterates that silly claim of universal common descent into smithereens. LOL. Still, there is no need for front loading that I can see.

    ReplyDelete
  13. V: Then please start. What is your theory on the flowers? What fits the observed facts better?

    J: Better? There is no naturalistic theory (one that deduces effects in terms of event regularities and initial conditions) that accounts for the observations. There are only teleological explanations and incomplete sets of ad-hoc hypotheses. CH is under no obligation to do what the smartest biologists in the world haven't done merely to recognize that they can't yet do it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Evolutionists are the Taliban of biology. The only way they can win this battle is through the force of law and the threat of legal and police action. Yet, even with the help of a massive propaganda machinery based mainly on the indoctrination of children, they are on the verge of losing the war. But it's not over until it's over.

    Of course, there is a tree of life. But's it's not your granddaddy's tree of life. Guess who first mentioned the TOL? Nope, it was not Darwin. Yep, the cretin stole the idea from a much older source. LOL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Louis: Yet, even with the help of a massive propaganda machinery based mainly on the indoctrination of children, they are on the verge of losing the war.

      J: I disagree, Louis. Academe, courts and legislative branches at all levels are on their side. They already have won the political victory. What will happen in the future, IMO, is that they will become more ruthless in the extent to which they will go to suppress dissent. Because it's not a set of claims that predicts any future events that have any relevance to human progress. It's role in society is to intellectually fulfill atheists and create subsidies for metaphysical research programs.

      Delete
    2. Jeff:

      What will happen in the future, IMO, is that they will become more ruthless in the extent to which they will go to suppress dissent.

      Their goal is to replace traditional religions with a government-imposed religion, the state religion. But don't fret. Right when it looks hopeless, that's when Yahweh will intervene, just like he always did in the past, in the nick of time. He always sends someone to kick some ass (Moses, David, Elijah, Samson, etc.) when the heat gets too hot. He will not fail us this time around.

      Have a little faith. It's not over until it's over. One last prophet is prophesied to come, one who "will restore all things" and prepare a path for Yahweh's return. As I wrote elsewhere, he will be nobody's bitch and he will not turn the other cheek. On the contrary, he'll be an ass-kicking "mofo" on a global scale. LOL. That's how we will recognize him.

      Delete
    3. Is this the one that will have astronomically high levels of midiclorians and will bring balance to The Force? But won't he complete his journey to the Dark Side if he gives way to his anger?

      Delete
    4. Is this the one that will have astronomically high levels of midiclorians and will bring balance to The Force? But won't he complete his journey to the Dark Side if he gives way to his anger?

      Nope. He will just cause a major disruption in the Matrix for a little while and then he'll be gone. LOL.

      Delete
  15. LS: " But don't fret. Right when it looks hopeless, that's when Yahweh will intervene, just like he always did in the past, in the nick of time. He always sends someone to kick some ass (Moses, David, Elijah, Samson, etc.) when the heat gets too hot. He will not fail us this time around."

    Shouldn't this say distant past? I don't see any evidence of Yahweh intervening in the last couple of thousand of years. Certainly when it comes to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and genocides, he seems to be curiously uninterested and uninvolved.

    Your description of Yahweh sounds more like Arnold Schwarznegger in The Terminator. Perhaps you've been watching too many action movies and have let your imagination run wild.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Yeah, didn't yhwh-jesus-holy-spirit allegedly say something along the line of 'I'll be back' soon?

    Hmm, I wonder what's taking it so long?

    louis preached:

    "One last prophet is prophesied to come, one who "will restore all things" and prepare a path for Yahweh's return. As I wrote elsewhere, he will be nobody's bitch and he will not turn the other cheek. On the contrary, he'll be an ass-kicking "mofo" on a global scale. LOL. That's how we will recognize him."

    Dang, it sounds like Hitler was that "mofo".

    I'm curious louis, why does yhwh-jesus-holy-spirit have to send a "prophet" to "prepare a path"? Why doesn't your three headed sky daddy just get off its lazy ass and show its ugly faces to everyone? Is it ashamed to be seen?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

      And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

      2 Peter 3:4

      Delete
    2. “Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia — what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!" -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine”
      ― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

      Delete
    3. lifepsy / eocene

      Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

      And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

      2 Peter 3:4


      LOL! It never fails. What does a Fundy Creationist always do when his pitiful scientific ignorance and lies have been exposed and he's standing there with his pants around his ankles?

      Quote scripture!

      Delete
    4. What a dipshit you are thorTARD. Look at what he was responding to.

      And your position doesn't have any science to ignore.

      Delete
    5. Thorton is still a little sore from the beating he just took a few comments up.

      Delete
    6. lifepsy / eocene

      Thorton is still a little sore from the beating he just took a few comments up.


      Eocene, what were the mechanisms for the large morphological changes by which wolves gave rise to chihuahuas and great danes?

      Every time I asked you above you cowardly ran away.

      Even Chubby Joke managed to post his usual IDiot unsupported assertion, saying they evolved from pre-existing information but you just ran.

      And why are you using a sock? Too embarrassed about your past?

      Delete
    7. Thorton, thousands of years of artificial selection that has resulted in only genetically less fit, more disease prone dogs.

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

      "A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was shown to be in agony due to a condition known as syringomyelia, which occurs as a result of the skull being too small for the brain. Veterinary Neurologist Dr Claire Rusbridge described the brain as a "size 10 foot that's been shoved into a size 6 shoe" and estimated that up to 1/3 of the breed suffers from this problem. Another problem that plagues the breed is heart disease. Cardiologist Simon Swift explained that about half of all Cavaliers aged 5 would have heart murmurs and the rate increases, such that by age 10 to 11 almost all Cavaliers would have the condition.

      A 2004 paper authored by the Kennel Club's own geneticist Jeff Sampson mentioned that "Unfortunately, the restrictive breeding patterns that have been developed as part and parcel of the purebred dog scene have not been without collateral damage to all breeds..." and that "increasingly, inherited diseases are imposing a serious disease burden on many, if not all, breeds of dogs."


      Evolution in action!


      (and Thorton, go ahead and keep calling me by other names. It just adds to your comical clown-like character)

      Delete
    8. And thorton knows all about unsupported assertions, seeing that is all it ever posts...

      Delete
    9. lifepsy / eocene

      Thorton, thousands of years of artificial selection that has resulted in only genetically less fit, more disease prone dogs.


      You still didn't tell us the mechanism by which the changes occurred. That must mean you don't know.

      BTW, Joke claims the Designer front-loaded the design for all these different dog breeds. Why did the Designer go to all the trouble to create dogs then give the dogs such crappy features?

      You IDiots just can't help but directly contradict yourselves every time you make something up.

      Delete
    10. Well thorTARD, we know that you can't provide a mechanism- one that can actually be tested.

      And know the designer did NOT create all the different dog breeds- WE did, moron.

      All the designer needed to do is provide the genetic information for phenotypic plasticity.

      Delete
    11. So Joke, is it your contention that wolves of 20K years ago were one of the original created 'kinds'?

      What about the Hesperocyon that was the distant ancestor of those wolves? was it front-loaded with with all the "wolf information"? Where's your evidence?

      What about extant wolves? Why doesn't their genome or the genome of any canid for that matter show all this extra "information" you keep blindly asserting?

      You IDiots keep making it up as you go, that's why you stay IDiots.

      Delete
    12. dipshit:
      is it your contention that wolves of 20K years ago were one of the original created 'kinds'?

      I don't know if dogs evolved from wolves. All I know is that today's dogs are the result of artificial selection. And I also know that you are too much of a coward to posit a mechanism.

      Delete
    13. Chubby Joke G

      I don't know if dogs evolved from wolves.


      LOL! That's right Chubs, you and your dirt ignorant IDiot buddies don't know anything. You agree modern domestic dogs evolved from an earlier ancestor through "front loading" but you can't say what the original "loaded" creature was, or how long ago it was "loaded" (20K years? 2B years?), or how many of these "loaded" types there were. You can't provide a single speck of genetic evidence for this claimed "front loading" but you just know it happened. Right.

      All I know is that today's dogs are the result of artificial selection.

      Let me get this straight - the Designer didn't plan for modern dogs with lots of inbred weaknesses, that's all the fault of human artificial selection pressure? How then does the Designer control the external selection pressures to ensure getting the end product animals it does want? Did the Designer toss down the Chicxulub asteroid impact 65 MYA to guide the Designs? How did that work?

      You made up this stupid crap Chubs, now explain it.

      And I also know that you are too much of a coward to posit a mechanism.

      The mechanism is random WRT fitness genetic variations filtered by selection and that are carried forward as heritable traits. Same as always Chubs.

      Delete
    14. truthy:

      Dang, it sounds like Hitler was that "mofo".

      LOL. Except that this mofo will not wage war against people but against their leaders. The latter will waste no time and effort in trying to stop him from delivering his message. I'll be fun to watch. I'll have a bag of Cheetos in one hand, a beer in the other and a Cheshire cat grin on my face. ahahaha...

      I'm curious louis, why does yhwh-jesus-holy-spirit have to send a "prophet" to "prepare a path"? Why doesn't your three headed sky daddy just get off its lazy ass and show its ugly faces to everyone? Is it ashamed to be seen?

      LOL. Wow. I have always said that atheists are nothing but a bunch of crybabies and God haters. A bunch of pussies. First off, Yahweh does not have three heads. Where did you get that crap from, your butt-plug buddy, Thorton? ahahaha...

      Yahshua never said, "I and the father and this other person are one." In other words, Yahweh's brain is just like a human brain, with two hemispheres (the father and the son). Second, Yahweh does not live in the sky. In fact, Yahshua said exactly where he is, "Before Abraham was, I am."

      Pfffftttt...

      You know what that was? That's the sound made by that quote as it went above your cretinous little head while it fried the two neurons between your ears. LOL. So what does "before Abraham was, I am" means? Answer: If you don't get it, it wasn't meant for you, goddammit. LOL.

      ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

      Delete
  18. "I'm curious louis, why does yhwh-jesus-holy-spirit have to send a "prophet" to "prepare a path"? Why doesn't your three headed sky daddy just get off its lazy ass and show its ugly faces to everyone? Is it ashamed to be seen?"

    Is that theology?

    Well, although I'd say I do not completely share the eschatological vision of Louis...(I'm a SDA)

    "Ugly" face? Ugly is a very subjective concept. Even the most beautiful model can be seen by someone "ugly", especially if the picture shown is mischaracterized by someone interested in promoting a competitor.
    And that is, in a sense, the message the Bible presents. There is really someone interested in misrepresenting the character of God ("an enemy has done this" (Mat. 13:28)

    God has sent many messengers. What happened to them is seen in the parable of the wicked tenants Jesus told. "...he sent a slave to the tenants in order that they might give him his share of the produce of the vineyard; but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 Next he sent another slave; that one also they beat and insulted and sent away empty-handed. 12 And he sent still a third; this one also they wounded and threw out. 13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’Luke 20:10-13

    Well, we know the results...

    "He who sees me sees the Father" (John 14:9)

    And no, that's not for me an ugly face.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TWT
      "Why doesn't God show himself?"

      God has shown himself through his creation. (Romans 1:20) Look how obvious he's made it for us with biology, yet instead people have reverted back to ancient pagan naturalist mythology choosing to believe they transformed from dirt, fish, etc. as did believe the hindu, greeks, egyptians, etc. thousands of years ago. The nature of sin will carry you 180 degrees away from the Truth, no matter how clearly presented.

      God will not do parlor tricks to impress those who pride themselves in disbelief. He will give those over to their delusion. A disbeliever would simply resent a god that did tricks to earn their belief, or reconstruct the character of that god into some pagan deity, in order to give continued justification to their sin. The anti-christian atheist would simply become an anti-christian theist. Where is the profit?

      God wants us to come to him in humility and Faith in Christ on the Cross. He knows that is the avenue that will save us from our sinful nature. I think the Creator of the universe knows what's best for us, and he has made sure His Word, his instructions in the Bible, have been made freely available to us.

      Delete
    2. Good point, Lifepsy

      “A disbeliever would simply resent a god that did tricks to earn their belief,”

      Atheists would maybe like God to present a show in which He would levitate Mt. Everest, drink Pacific Ocean and smash couple of planets.

      After few of those shows they would get bored and demand juggling galaxy and a few black holes.

      He’s not an entertainer.

      (I must admit those would be really good shows)

      Delete
    3. Eugen: "Atheists would maybe like God to present a show in which He would levitate Mt. Everest, drink Pacific Ocean and smash couple of planets. "

      That would be a start...

      But no, we are not looking for entertainment or tricks, just some clear unambiguous evidence. What we have though is an invisible deity who last showed up on planet Earth over 2000 years ago long before there were any reliable recording mechanisms. The record of that is muddled, unclear and subject to mis-interpretation, and often bears the hallmarks of human myth-making. Instead then we are left with assessing people's personal testimonials; sure, no doubt people do have profound religious experiences, but these happen in many different contexts, so are not in themselves concrete proof of any particular deity.

      I think of all this talk of atheists wouldn't believe it anyway, is just utter rubbish and just rationalizing to try and explain the embarrassing lack of any solid evidence. I was a Christian for 15 years, and desperately tried to believe, until it become more than apparent that "god" was little more than an idea that lived in my head, and nowhere else.

      Delete
    4. Eugen,
      Atheists would maybe like God to present a show in which He would levitate Mt. Everest, drink Pacific Ocean and smash couple of planets.


      How about something useful, curing every child of cancer? Even if some atheists didn't believe it would beneficial.

      Lifepsy
      A disbeliever would simply resent a god that did tricks to earn their belief,


      It wouldn't be a trick,it would be a demonstration of His power.So is the logic unless everyone is convinced the it is not worth the non effort?


      or reconstruct the character of that god into some pagan deity, in order to give continued justification to their sin.

      Too late,it happens now,what could it hurt?


      The anti-christian atheist would simply become an anti-christian theist. Where is the profit

      That seems like a good first step. I doubt God needs to make a profit by His actions.

      yet instead people have reverted back to ancient pagan naturalist mythology choosing to believe they transformed from dirt, fish, etc.

      Are you saying God is limited in His ability to create? That He could not create the laws of nature to create that which He wished? After all,many theists accept ToE. Unless Catholics no longer count as Christians


      Delete
    5. Velikovsky,

      It doesn't matter how many so-called Christians believe in Evolution, it is still antithesis to Biblical Creation in almost every way.

      The heavens and earth, and all of life declare God's Glory. He has demonstrated to us his power through his creation, and through our very consciousness. Unbelievers have chosen absurdity over reason, myth over nature's evidence. They've chosen to believe that they transformed from fish over millions of years. Not because of empirical science, but because of the religious desire to remove God from their lives.

      Pride and petty demands will only be answered with silence and you will be turned back towards delusion.

      God will work miracles if you approach him with faith and humility. Many will testify to that. I was an atheist most of my life until surrendering it to Christ only a year or so ago and it has changed me in every way.

      When you finally accept what the Creator of the Universe has been freely offering you for your whole life, you can bet it's going to change your perspective on things.

      Delete
    6. lifepsy tried to move the goalposts by saying:

      "God will not do parlor tricks..."

      Where the hell did I say anything about parlor tricks?

      Delete
    7. TWT,

      You asked why God doesn't visually manifest Himself for all to see. That would be pandering to unbelievers, akin to doing parlor tricks to impress an otherwise uncaring audience.

      Delete
    8. God will work miracles if you approach him with faith and humility.

      In other words, you have to make the leap of faith FIRST.

      Because only then will you interpret fortunate coincidences, emotional experiences, and peculiar mysteries as evidence for God.

      If you haven't made the leap of faith first then you will be able to clearly see that they are no such thing.

      Delete
    9. You asked why God doesn't visually manifest Himself for all to see. That would be pandering to unbelievers, akin to doing parlor tricks to impress an otherwise uncaring audience.

      That answer makes no sense.

      Atheists are atheists because they don't believe in a God. If he actually gave us some real, concrete proof of his existence, they would not be atheists any more, would they?

      Moreover, you ignore the fact that God has done this very thing before, if the Bible is to be believed. 1 Kings tells us how Elijah faced down the priests of Baal by asking them to call on their God to light a bonfire. When they failed, Yahweh did exactly that at Elijah's command, even though his bonfire was soaking wet. This little, contained and pre-specified miracle was a demonstration of God's power. So why doesn't God do things like this any more, despite the fact that he used to?

      Delete
    10. Lifepsy,
      It doesn't matter how many so-called Christians believe in Evolution, it is still antithesis to Biblical Creation in almost every way.


      The largest group of followers of Christ differs with your opinion

      The heavens and earth, and all of life declare God's Glory. He has demonstrated to us his power through his creation, and through our very consciousness.

      Many believe this is some sense,even those icky Greeks and Hindus

      Unbelievers have chosen absurdity over reason, myth over nature's evidence.

      "Dramatic irony is a disparity of awareness between actor and observer: when words and actions possess significance that the listener or audience understands, but the speaker or character does not; "

      They've chosen to believe that they transformed from fish over millions of years.

      Matthew 19:26 - But Jesus beheld [them], and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

      Not because of empirical science, but because of the religious desire to remove God from their lives.

      Theistic evolutionists would seem to refute this belief.

      Pride and petty demands will only be answered with silence and you will be turned back towards delusion.
      God will work miracles if you approach him with faith and humility.


      This always sounded like a divine Catch 22, all credit for the good but man's fault for the bad.

      I was an atheist most of my life until surrendering it to Christ only a year or so ago and it has changed me in every way.

      Perhaps not everyone needs to have their life changed.

      When you finally accept what the Creator of the Universe has been freely offering you for your whole life, you can bet it's going to change your perspective on things.

      Yes,it is easier to believe you have all the answers.Of course you were wrong before.

      Delete
    11. lifepsy said:

      "You asked why God doesn't visually manifest Himself for all to see. That would be pandering to unbelievers, akin to doing parlor tricks to impress an otherwise uncaring audience."

      Excuses, excuses.

      Delete
  19. Cornelius Hunter: The response was simple and predictable. Some traits, it was concluded, simply are not appropriate for measuring evolutionary relatedness.

    Of course it was predictable. See Darwin 1871.

    "But with organic beings the points of resemblance must not consist of adaptations to similar habits of life: two animals may, for instance, have had their whole frames modified for living in the water, and yet they will not be brought any nearer to each other in the natural system. Hence we can see how it is that resemblances in several unimportant structures, in useless and rudimentary organs, or not now functionally active, or in an embryological condition, are by far the most serviceable for classification; for they can hardly be due to adaptations within a late period; and thus they reveal the old lines of descent or of true affinity."

    lifepsy: Lenski's E.Coli has not evolved any novel genetic function.

    Being able to ingest an entirely new food source is certainly a novel function.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It ingested a food source that it could ingest under anaerobic conditions. You are wrong, again.

      Delete
    2. And the E.Coli didn't even 'evolve' new function to do even that.

      It took one already functional gene and copied it over so it would be next to an already functional promoter. No new information.

      It is such a sad and failed example of 'evolution' when you look at what actually occurred. And this is the evo's claim to fame... 50,000+ generations... Oh how said.

      Delete
    3. lifepsy / eocene

      No new information.


      LOL! The board's new IDiot PRATT queen is at it again!

      How did you measure the "information" of the E coli to tell if there is anything new or not?

      Delete
    4. How do YOU measure information, with a dipstick?

      Delete
    5. Chubby Joke G

      How do YOU measure information, with a dipstick?


      I use Francis Crick's definition:

      “By information I mean the specification of the amino acid sequence in protein . . . Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or on amino acid residues in the protein”

      Crick, F. On Protein Synthesis. Symposium for the Society of Experimental Biology 12:138-163, 1958.

      Since the genomic sequence has changed to something it has never been before, that makes it new information by Crick's definition.

      How do you measure the "information" of the E coli to tell if there is anything new or not?

      Delete
    6. "How do you measure the "information" of the E coli to tell if there is anything new or not?"

      As wild E. Coli "eats" citrate in anoxic conditions and not in the presence of oxigen, something should exist in this bacteria that when detects presence of oxigen prevents the citrate eating. If the mutant "eats" citrate in any condition the best explanation until the data confirms or not is that the prevention or the detection disappeared. The mutant lacks something the wild has. Nothing new.

      Delete
    7. Blas

      The mutant lacks something the wild has. Nothing new.


      That's directly contradicted by the genomic analysis which shows entirely new genetic mutations not present in the original colony.

      Now tell us how you measure the information. Heck, for that matter give us your definition of "information" as it applies to this case. No other IDiot has the balls to.

      Delete
    8. "That's directly contradicted by the genomic analysis which shows entirely new genetic mutations not present in the original colony."

      But that mutations do not means something new, maybe the new mutations inactivate the old.

      Delete
    9. Blas

      But that mutations do not means something new, maybe the new mutations inactivate the old.


      You forgot to give us your definition of "information" as it applies to this case, and forgot to tell us how you measure it to tell if it increased or decreased.

      Delete
    10. Thorton, If you call copying Page 10 of a book and inserting it next to Page 50 "adding new information", then, sure, you can say E.Coli added new information. Just like setting the book on fire and throwing it in the mud would be "adding new information" because you'll be rearranging the page order that way, too.

      But when all is said and done, after 50,000+ generations (over a million years in higher taxa) the E.Coli are not using any functional genetic structures the wildtype didn't already have. (cit transporter, aerobic promoter)

      What an amazing example of evolution, Thorton.

      The kicker is, these mutations were probably non-random and targeted to specific regions of the genome in stressed cells. There's another nail in the coffin for the darwin religion.

      Delete
    11. "You forgot to give us your definition of "information" as it applies to this case, and forgot to tell us how you measure it to tell if it increased or decreased."

      No need of definition of "information" or "fit", extrapolation of this experiment shows that a bacteria cannot became a whale.

      Delete
    12. Blas

      No need of definition of "information" or "fit", extrapolation of this experiment shows that a bacteria cannot became a whale.


      LOL! So you guys claim natural evolutionary processes can never increase "information", but you can't define "information".

      Another fine demonstration of why the scientific community doesn't take you clowns seriously.

      Delete
    13. Where did I talk about information?

      Delete
    14. Blas

      Where did I talk about information?


      LOL! In the two posts directly above where you quoted my request for a definition of "information" as it applies to this case.

      Do you now wish to go on record as saying natural evolutionary processes can increase "information"?

      Delete
    15. Sorry Thorton I never mention "information".

      Delete
    16. Blas

      Sorry Thorton I never mention "information".


      Of course you did when you quoted me and responded to my question.

      Don't blame you though for trying to distance yourself from that particular bit of ID Creationist stupidity.

      Again I'll ask:

      Do you now wish to go on record as saying natural evolutionary processes can increase "information"?

      Delete
    17. Thorton you have to studie not only biochemistry but also text comprehension. The only quote of you with "information" in it was:
      "How do you measure the "information" of the E coli to tell if there is anything new or not?"

      And I do not answer how measure information but how I can tell that probably is nothing new.

      And about your question I do not know if what you call "evolutionary processes" can increase "information" whatever it is. What is evident is that there is no evidence that extrapolating the changes in the populations we can go from an hypothetical UCLA to a whale.

      Delete
    18. lifepsy / eocene

      Thorton, If you call copying Page 10 of a book and inserting it next to Page 50 "adding new information", then, sure, you can say E.Coli added new information.


      Copying a string of text and adding it to the original string does increase the information amount in the string by the definition of information used in Information Theory. Just like duplicating a segment of DNA and inserting it into the original genome increases the information of the genome by Crick's definition.

      It may or may not increase the meaning of the string, but that is an entirely different thing. "Information" and "meaning" aren't synonymous in the scientific world.

      Most IDiots like you are too ignorant to know the difference, which is why you keep making fools of yourselves with the "no new information" argument.

      Delete
    19. Blas

      And I do not answer how measure information but how I can tell that probably is nothing new.


      LOL! Nothing new of what? No new information? No new mutations? No new function?

      You keep refusing to define any terms so you can hide your inanity the verbal fog. I assure you the scientific community isn't impressed or swayed by such semantic game-playing.

      What is evident is that there is no evidence that extrapolating the changes in the populations we can go from an hypothetical UCLA to a whale.

      Maybe you should study evolutionary biology because to 99% of the scientific community there is indeed sufficient evidence. Arguments from your personal incredulity don't carry any weight in the scientific world either.

      Delete
    20. ThorTARD-

      YOU keep refusing to reference the alleged theory of evolution and you never define anything. All you do is equivocate and appeal to lame authorities.

      Delete
    21. Hey Chubs, you forgot to tell us how you define and measure information. I gave you my definition and how it's done by real scientists. I want to hear your IDiot version, except it seems you don't have one.

      Delete
    22. "Maybe you should study evolutionary biology because to 99% of the scientific community there is indeed sufficient evidence."

      Off course! it would be perverse to withold provisional consent. But if were true evidence 100% of the scientific community should agree.

      Maybe you the smart Thorton explain how extrapolating Lensky experiment make a bacteria become a whale. Please try to be as specific as you can.

      Delete
    23. Blas

      Off course! it would be perverse to withold provisional consent. But if were true evidence 100% of the scientific community should agree.


      Sadly, there are a small percentage who let their Fundamentalist religious beliefs blind them to the empirical evidence. You don't get a 100% agreement even on basics like heliocentricity.

      Maybe you the smart Thorton explain how extrapolating Lensky experiment make a bacteria become a whale. Please try to be as specific as you can.

      Maybe you can stop being an IDiot and show me where anyone claimed you should extrapolate Lenski's experiment into the evolution of bacteria becoming cetaceans. There's plenty of scientific work on the evolution of multicellularity, and the evolution of the vertebrates, and the evolution of early tetrapods, and the evolution of the synapsids, and the evolution of the mammals. So go do your homework or stay a willfully ignorant fool. Your choice.

      Delete
    24. Blas said:

      "But that mutations do not means something new, maybe the new mutations inactivate the old."

      Are you saying that a new, different configuration would have exactly the same "information" as the previous configuration? Do you determine "information" strictly by the number of mutations ('active' or otherwise) or by how the mutations affect the organism?

      When something, anything, changes in any way at all, is the "information" exactly the same as before the change?

      Delete
  20. "Being able to ingest an entirely new food source is certainly a novel function. "

    It is not an "entirely new food". E. Coli can "eat" citrate in anoxic conditions. So the change is doing the same, but in different conditions.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Blas: It is not an "entirely new food". E. Coli can "eat" citrate in anoxic conditions.

    Yes, we should have mentioned that it only confers the new function in oxic conditions.

    lifepsy: It took one already functional gene and copied it over so it would be next to an already functional promoter.

    Analysis indicated there were at least two potentiating mutations, and that the original function was weak, and evolved stronger function over time. Blount et al, Genomic Analysis of a Key Innovation in an Experimental E. coli Population, Nature 2012.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is NOT a new function- same function under different conditions. And still no evidence for the blind watchmaker.

      Delete
  22. What we actually observe mutations doing to the cell is what we would expect such a process to do to a highly complex system... change the fitness landscape a bit and then nothing more. Like an ant climbing unto a stone. Where to next? Mount McKinley? No, back down the stone and maybe up to the next or not.

    Tracked over time genetic variation within animals does not show an unbounded directional change. It's up and down a bit and around and around the mean.

    Lots of variety in dogs, but all the same species... still. Loss of function and devolution if anything to sqeeze out these breeds by intelligent selection. Put back into the wild, the weak would go extinct and the stronger , less mutatant breeds would soon go back to their original. No change. No evolution. Zip. Nadda. Buenas noches Senor Darwin.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Tedford the Slow

    Put back into the wild, the weak would go extinct and the stronger , less mutatant breeds would soon go back to their original.


    What was the "original"? The original dog "kind"?

    Why don't wild canids like foxes and hyenas and dholes and jackals all revert back to the original dog "kind"? Were they all separately created?

    Tedford the Slow never met a stupid Creationist claim he didn't like.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Neal Tedford: Like an ant climbing unto a stone. Where to next? Mount McKinley? No

    Ants do climb mountains.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Zachriel, yes, but they do so because they have intelligence, purpose and sensory organs that direct them. Mutations have none of these, right?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Tedford the Slow

    Zachriel, yes, but they do so because they have intelligence, purpose and sensory organs that direct them. Mutations have none of these, right?


    Mutations have the mechanism of natural selection which tends to weed out the detrimental ones while allowing the neutral and beneficial ones to accumulate.

    There are no known limits to how high up the evolutionary mountain the combined process of genetic variation filtered by selection can climb. That's true even if the trip is slow, one small step at a time, or even backwards sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LoL! Random/ chance mutations are part of natural selection. And detrimental & beneficial are relative.

      There are no known cases of random/ chance mutations accumulating in such a way as to give rise to novel protein machinery, let alone new body plans with new body parts.

      Delete
    2. joey said:

      "Random/ chance mutations are part of natural selection."

      No, NS filters random mutations.

      "And detrimental & beneficial are relative."

      Yes, and that's why NS works according to relative conditions.

      Delete
  27. Neal

    "Tracked over time genetic variation within animals does not show an unbounded directional change. It's up and down a bit and around and around the mean. "

    Yes, this pattern is so well observed and documented we may as well call it a law of biology. Organisms are essentially plastic. They can bend a little bit in multiple directions due to seasonal variations and fluctuating environments, but are definitely not progressing on any blind trajectory up the fitness landscape towards increasingly complex biological structures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lifepsy / eocene

      but are definitely not progressing on any blind trajectory up the fitness landscape towards increasingly complex biological structures.


      Oh look! Experimental evidence of the evolution of increasingly complex biological structures!

      Experimental evolution of multicellularity
      Ratcliff et al
      PNAS January 31, 2012 vol. 109 no. 5, 1595–1600

      "Abstract: Multicellularity was one of the most significant innovations in the history of life, but its initial evolution remains poorly understood. Using experimental evolution, we show that key steps in this transition could have occurred quickly. We subjected the unicellular yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to an environment in which we expected multicellularity to be adaptive. We observed the rapid evolution of clustering genotypes that display a novel multicellular life history characterized by reproduction via multicellular propagules, a juvenile phase, and determinate growth. The multicellular clusters are uniclonal, minimizing within-cluster genetic conflicts of interest. Simple among-cell division of labor rapidly evolved. Early multicellular strains were composed of physiologically similar cells, but these subsequently evolved higher rates of programmed cell death (apoptosis), an adaptation that increases propagule production. These results show that key aspects of multicellular complexity, a subject of central importance to biology, can readily evolve from unicellular eukaryotes."

      Gee, I wonder if evolving an entirely new multi-cellular life forms counts as new information?

      Delete
    2. Thorton, remember just hours ago when you were ranting about new features appearing in lizards and you were calling that "evolution" ? And remember how I showed you over and over again that those emerging features were plastic? (potential phenotypes already existing in the wildtype genome)

      But here you go again..
      "SOMETHING CHANGED... EVOLUTION!"

      Now, how much do you want to bet, the yeast is simply re-activating an ability for multi-cellularity that it already possessed?

      Thorton says "evolving"

      No equivocating, Thorton. Are you claiming the yeast in this study acquired multi-cellularity through random genetic mutations and selection?

      Delete
    3. Is the multi-cellular life that formed in this experiment a more complex biological structure than a single yeast cell?

      Does it have more "information"?

      A simple yes or no for each will do.

      Delete
    4. If the changes are epigenetic/plastic, then no. In that case the yeast is simply expressing traits that were already coded for in the genome.

      Thorton wants to claim victory without actually committing to a position.

      Answer, Thorton. Was the multicellularity due to neo-darwinian processes of random mutation + selection?

      Delete
    5. lifepsy

      If the changes are epigenetic/plastic, then no.


      LOL! So a multi-cellular life form is not more biologically complex that a single cell.

      Are you IDiots always this stupid?

      BTW, still waiting for your definition of 'information' and your way of measuring it that you cowardly ran from above.

      Have you figured out the difference between 'information' and 'meaning' yet?

      Delete
    6. Thorton: "Does it have more "information"?
      A simple yes or no for each will do."


      Me: No.

      Thorton: "LOL! So a multi-cellular life form is not more biologically complex that a single cell."

      Thorton, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?

      Do you understand the difference between a genotype and a phenotype? Different phenotypes of varying complexity can be expressed without altering any of the DNA information.

      You seem completely impervious to learning some of the most basic concepts of biology.

      Oh well, apparently you're too cowardly to even claim your linked study as evidence for evolution. You are terrified to commit on a position because you know you'll probably be proven wrong as usual.

      Delete
    7. lifepsy / eocene

      Thorton, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?


      LOL! Says the asshat who thinks wolves developed into chihuahuas merely through plasticity, and if you alter a chihuahua's diet it will revert back into a wolf.

      You're not even in the shed. You're in the garden at the bottom of the deepest Creationist pit of ignorance and stupidity. :D :D :D

      Delete
    8. Thorton "Says the asshat who thinks wolves developed into chihuahuas merely through plasticity, and if you alter a chihuahua's diet it will revert back into a wolf."



      You've accused me of this several times.

      Show me where I made either one of those claims.

      Oh Thorton, after all of your failed arguments, all you have left is lies and false accusations... you are a tragic clown. This whole comment section is one long tragedy for you.

      Delete
    9. lifepsy / eocene

      Thorton "Says the asshat who thinks wolves developed into chihuahuas merely through plasticity, and if you alter a chihuahua's diet it will revert back into a wolf."

      You've accused me of this several times.


      LOL You just spent a dozen posts arguing that plasticity is the real reason for phenotypic change in species, not evolution.

      So go ahead and correct me. What was the mechanism that allowed wolves to develop into chihuahuas if it wasn't evolution and it wasn't plasticity?

      Floor's yours asshat. Let's hear your scientific explanation.

      Delete
    10. Thorton, you don't even know what the word 'evolution' means. You're just throwing anything you can against the wall and hoping something sticks. It's comical.

      Why does everything need to be repeated to you?

      Me several comments ago:
      "Thousands of years of artificial selection that has resulted in only genetically less fit, more disease prone dogs."

      If you want to call that "evolution" than go right ahead.

      Delete
    11. lifepsy / eocene

      Me several comments ago:
      "Thousands of years of artificial selection that has resulted in only genetically less fit, more disease prone dogs."

      If you want to call that "evolution" than go right ahead.


      LOL! Look at the asshat squirm!

      I didn't ask you to repeat what I call it. I asked for your explanation of how the changes from wolf to chihuahua happened. You accused me of misrepresenting your views, so I want you to provide your mechanism so there will be no confusion.

      You don't have one of course. You're just another big mouthed ignorant Creationist stooge blindly lashing out against the science you don't understand.

      Run! Coward! Run!

      Delete
  28. Neal Tedford: they do so because they have intelligence, purpose and sensory organs that direct them.

    Actually, they do so essentially by diffusion. But it does contradict your analogy.

    Neal Tedford: Mutations have none of these, right?

    It depends how you define intelligence. Evolution is a problem-solving process.

    lifepsy: They can bend a little bit in multiple directions due to seasonal variations and fluctuating environments, but are definitely not progressing on any blind trajectory up the fitness landscape towards increasingly complex biological structures.

    Yes, deuterostomes are just variations on a tube with appendages for stuffing food in one end and whatnot out the other. Microevolution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zacherial
      "Yes, deuterostomes are just variations on a tube with appendages for stuffing food in one end and whatnot out the other. Microevolution. "

      Actually there's a bit more to organisms than the digestive system. But even among digestion physiology there are very distinct enzymatic differences, and micro-evolution can't offer an evolutionary pathway between any of them.

      Delete
    2. Zachriel said

      "Actually, they do so essentially by diffusion. But it does contradict your analogy. "

      Do you mean that ants moves like gas molecules?

      Delete
    3. Zachriel,

      "It depends how you define intelligence. Evolution is a problem-solving process."

      No, Zach, evolution is not a problem solving process. To make such a claim is akin to saying if housing is a problem, then throwing a box of nails on a pile of wood is a problem solving process.

      Problem solving requires intelligence, a property which evolution does not possess in any way, shape or form. In fact, to solve a problem one must be aware of that problem to begin with. As evolution has no awareness, how would it know there was a problem to be solved?

      Delete
    4. Zachriel,

      "It depends how you define intelligence. Evolution is a problem-solving process."

      No, Zach, evolution is not a problem solving process. To claim evolution is a problem solving process is akin to claiming, if housing is a problem, throwing a box of nails on a pile of wood
      is a problem solving process.

      Problem solving can only be carried out by intelligence, an attribute evolution does not possess in any way, shape or form. Also, in order to solve a problem, one must be aware there is, in fact, a problem. As evolution possesses no intelligence it cannot even be aware a problem exists, let alone work on solving it.

      Delete
  29. Zachriel, the obvious is right before you. The problem solving is very limited. On the fitness landscape it looks like it runs up a little hill at best. Running up the hill often makes it LESS fit to go in other directions! The opposite of what you say.

    ReplyDelete
  30. lifepsy: Actually there's a bit more to organisms than the digestive system.

    Gonads.

    Blas: Do you mean that ants moves like gas molecules?

    No, but they spread out over generations without a conscious intent.

    Neal Tedford: On the fitness landscape it looks like it runs up a little hill at best. Running up the hill often makes it LESS fit to go in other directions! The opposite of what you say.

    Recombination prevents becoming stuck on local fitness landscapes.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Zachriel said
    "No, but they spread out over generations without a conscious intent."

    Not "conscious intent" whatever you mean by that, but they have the goal to spread out and there is no materia that it.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Blas: Not "conscious intent" whatever you mean by that, but they have the goal to spread out and there is no materia that it.

    Not sure ants have the concept of a goal, much less a transgenerational goal. The queen simply flies! Like a child runs or laughs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A child that runs has a goal and a child that laugh has a motive.
      If you mean that a queen simply flies like the sun burns I do not agree, sun always burns. Queens fly in specific moments to selected places with a goal.

      Delete
  33. Blas: A child that runs has a goal and a child that laugh has a motive.

    Sometimes human children just run. And people will often lanugh just to laugh. You see, they think with their meat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And you answered this just to answer because you think with your meat.

      Delete