Why Evolutionary Theory Is Fundamentally Flawed

[Don McIntosh]

The explanatory logic of evolution, at least as it's commonly stated, fails because it assumes (wrongly) that what is true of the parts of a complex system may be validly inferred to hold for the whole as well. Thus my argument:

1. Evolution posits that the function of any complex biological system can be adequately explained as the accumulation of countless minor functional adaptations of its individual components.
2. To say that a characteristic of the whole system can be adequately explained in terms of a characteristic of its individual components is to say that a whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
3. To say that a whole is equal to the sum of its parts is to commit the fallacy of composition.
4. Evolution is a fallacy.

Note that I am not suggesting that all inferences from parts to whole fail to hold, but that the line of reasoning is fallacious on its face because in fact many such inferences do fail to hold. Given that specifiably complex biological systems are structurally heterogenous, there is no prima facie reason to think that what is true of the parts will be true of the whole. Evolution theorists therefore bear the burden of proof, namely, to explain why anyone should expect such an inference to hold in the case of specifiably complex systems.

Read the entire paper here:
https://www.academia.edu/38735629/Black ... lly_Flawed

Questions for debate: Is evolutionary theory a fallacy? If so, does that make it false?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 28 by EarthScienceguy]

Need I go on. I can but I believe I made my point.

No ... you've cherry picked some examples of punctuated equilibrium, or evidence of an incomplete fossil record (which is common knowledge ... fossilization is a rare event). I can just as easily find a list of transitional fossils:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... al_fossils

I asked you to refute this list in a prior post, but of course there was complete silence, changing the subject, etc. (ie. the usual).

This combined with Jeanson genetic paper describing all genetic changes happen in the last 5 to 10 thousand years and you also have proof of a young earth to boot. I thought I would throw that in for fun, to make the debate interesting.

Debate? The Jeanson "paper" (published only on a creationist website) has been debunked and is not proof of anything. But you attempt to defend it anyway (and have failed ... alexxcJRO has pointed out some of the errors in another thread) and pretend it is relevant because it supports a young earth which was his assumption going in (again, this lame analysis was published only on a creationist website, not in any legitimate science journal where it would be rejected). The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. This has been proven, so any arguments against this date are a waste of time, and demonstrably wrong. A 6,000 - 10,000 year old Earth cannot be supported against the scientific evidence showing an approximately 4.6 billion year old Earth.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 29 by DrNoGods]

Providing "proof" that a god exists is not simply stating that it exists because some ancient holy book says so. That's how nearly all gods are described, but does absolutely nothing to show that any of them actually exist. It is circular reasoning (ie. god exists because he (or his "word") says so).

Why do you do this to yourself? Ok, just know you asked for it.

So what are you saying.
Jesus did not exist?
Jesus did not claim to be God?
Jesus did not die on the cross?
Jesus did not raise from the dead?

All of the above.

But you don't understand basic science (as proven by your defense of Humphreys' nonsense) so it isn't surprising that you think "proof" that the god you believe in exists is reference to the holy book that presents the story in the first place. No one has even seen or heard this being, or any of its actions either directly or indirectly, so there is no reason to believe it exists.

It is a very straightforward simple set of equation that works for any created body.

M = Mc exp(-t/T)

Mc = is the magnetic field at creation.
t = is the time after creation in seconds.
T = decay time, the time it takes for the field to decrease to 36.8 percent of any given value

Mc is the magnetic field at creations calculated by

Mc = k(m/mw)µw

k = constant .25, .50, .75 or 1.
m = mass of planet
m(w) mass of water
u(w) magnetic moment of water.


T = (µ(o)σ RE2/π2) seconds,

u(o) = the magnetic permeability constant 4Ï€ E-7 henry per meter
σ = electrical conductivity
R = radius

This is what Humphreys predicted.

Using the mass from Table I and assuming that k = 0.25 gives Uranus’ magnetic moment at creation:Mc = 2.05 E25 J/T (theory).

The maximum value (for k = 1.0) according to this theory would be 8.18E25 J/T.

"One recent speculative model of Uranus has a dense core of about 8000 km radius surrounded by an icy mantle.48 If the core conductivity is similar to that of the inner planets, it would be of the order of 1E4 mhos/meter. In that case, according to equation (3), (4), and (30), the present dipole moment of Uranus would be of the order of 1E24 J/T."

Not only did Humphrey's correctly predict the correct magnetic field, but he also correctly predicted a metallic type core. Uranus and Neptune both could have a layer of an unique type of water called superionic, unknown until recently.

This prediction was made in 1983. And he made predictions 6 and all were correct.

So where in the calculations is a fudge factor to change the prediction?

Also, I didn't ask for proof that any god exists (that is your incorrect rephrasing of what I said). I commented that there is no evidence that gods exist, so no reason to believe that they do, and therefore no justification for using "god did it" as an explanation for anything. But of course you are happy to accept Humphreys' "god did it" assumptions as legitimate, which clearly shows that you don't understand how real science works and have been unable to support any of the points you've ever made from a real science perspective. All you do is resort to changing the subject when cornered, or referencing bible stories as if they were scientific evidence. Again, no science, all preaching.

What!!!!

You said there as no proof that any God exists. I disagree. If Jesus is God then God does exists. So if Jesus is proved to be God then God does exist. If Jesus died and rose from the dead like He said He would then, He would be God.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 31 by DrNoGods]

No ... you've cherry picked some examples of punctuated equilibrium, or evidence of an incomplete fossil record (which is common knowledge ... fossilization is a rare event). I can just as easily find a list of transitional fossils:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... al_fossils

Not before the cambrian explosion you can't

And Punctuated equilibrium states that there are not any transitional forms. That is why we have a theory of punctuated equilibrium.

Evolutions own theories state that there are no transitional forms. At times when mendel's laws would be broken. Like for example of transition form are to wing or whatever it is you al believe happen.

Debate? The Jeanson "paper" (published only on a creationist website) has been debunked and is not proof of anything. But you attempt to defend it anyway (and have failed ... alexxcJRO has pointed out some of the errors in another thread) and pretend it is relevant because it supports a young earth which was his assumption going in (again, this lame analysis was published only on a creationist website, not in any legitimate science journal where it would be rejected). The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. This has been proven, so any arguments against this date are a waste of time, and demonstrably wrong. A 6,000 - 10,000 year old Earth cannot be supported against the scientific evidence showing an approximately 4.6 billion year old Earth.

You might want to look at that thread again.

What assumption was that.

Fine, how many of the 63 do you think are?


Jeanson used 63 homogenic mutations. How many of those 63 are not actual mutations all? Maybe 2 do you think?

Ok, let's do the math on 2. 2/298 = 5.03E-3 take that number and divide by 25 for the number of generations. 2.01E-4 mutations per year. divide this by the number mutations 2 and you get about 10,000 years.

The number of mutations in not the problem it what these mutations are compared to is the issue. Jeanson compared the number of mutations to the number generations.

Genet compared mathematically massaged numbers of mutations to points in archeology that the phylogenetic tree is supposedly aligns to. Genet still could not use an actual number of mutations. He had to use the "Relation between Overall � Values and the Synonymous � Proportion" which came out to an asymptote at 0.4794.

You will love this!!!

Do you know why he still could not use the generation method and had to compare this masaged number of mutations? I know you are dying to know. Let's do the math.

0.4794/193 (his sample) = 2.48E-3 divide this by 25. = 9.94E-5 mutations/year.

Now we do need to take 0.4794 and multiply by 2 to so we have at least one mutations. = 0.9588/9.94E-5 = 9646 years!!!! That's right 10,000 years again!!!!!

Genetics tells us that man has not been around longer that 10,000 years.
And not just man but every animal that has been studied in this manner has shown the same thing.

Evolutionary theology doesn't use genetics at all to come up with there 9.6E-8 mutations per year. They simply use their sacred phylogenetic tree and archeology.

Genetics says 10000.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 30 by Divine Insight]

So please explain how this is supposed to fit in with the idea that there exists a purposeful intentional creator who "designs" life forms.

What happened? Did he suddenly realize that the designs he had created weren't so hot after all and needed to change them? That would imply that the creator is not a very good designer and is instead designing from trial and error.

You have an assumption in your question. The assumption is that rock layers were laid down over eons of time. I do not make that assumption. Most of the rock layers were laid down in a water environment. You through in there polystraight trees and no erosion between layers and there is no reason to believe that there are eons of time between them.

But regardless most of the phyla that we see today popped into existence during the cambrian explosion. The rest of the phyla popped into existence at the point where they were found in the geologic column without transition.

So even if you believe in eons of time God did not change anything He simply created at different times.

A literal reading of the fossil record indicates that the early Cambrian (c. 545 million years ago) and early Tertiary (c. 65 million years ago) were characterized by enormously accelerated periods of morphological evolution marking the appearance of the animal phyla, and modern bird and placental mammal orders, respectively
Alan Cooper and Richard Fortey, “Evolutionary Explosions and the Phylogenetic Fuse,� Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 13: 151-156 (April, 1998).

Your arguments against evolution are backfiring on you.

As is often pointed out in these types of Creationists arguments. Whining about evolution does nothing at all for your cause. If you don't have a better explanation to replace it then you have nothing.

And obviously you don't. So whining about evolution isn't getting you anywhere. There is so much wrong with the Yahweh and Jesus rumors. Those rumors cannot possibly be true.

So are you saying Jesus did not walk the Earth, die by crucifixion? If you don't believe that you would have to convince 99% of all the scholars that have studied this since the 1970's. 70% believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Since most scholars believe that Jesus died and rose again you are going to need some evidence to support your above claim.

In fact, I suggest that the very reason that Abrahamic theists turn to complaining about evolution is precisely because they know that they cannot defend their religious dogma. So to avoid that topic entirely they turn to trying to discredit evolution, like as if that would somehow make up for all the self-contradictions in their theology.

Which dogma are you referring to? If you mean evolution, you better get some help because so you have nothing.

Even if evolution could be proven to be wrong, that's not going to justify the Biblical stories. So you have nothing to offer to replace evolution in any case.

Are you serious? HA, HA,
Special creation. Just like the fossil record shows.

Your complaint that fully formed species suddenly disappeared doesn't help a case for a purposeful intelligent designer. No purposefully designed species should have ever become extinct. Especially not the early hominids.

So what's you explanation for why your proposed intentional designer had created so many failed species? Did he not know what he was doing?

He knew exactly what He was doing. The sin of man had reached a point where they only had violent thoughts. I can't even imagine how violent of a society that was. So He wiped man off the face of the Earth, causing mass extinctions.

Mass extinctions are common in the geologic column. Creationist just believe that all of the extinctions happen at the same time.

You'll need to make your complaints about evolution work for your proposed intelligent creator if you expect to make any progress at all.

We will see good luck.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 32 by EarthScienceguy]

Ok, just know you asked for it.

Again, you quoted in post 16 a comment I made to someone else where I said "god did it" is not a satisfactory explanation for anything because no gods have ever been shown to exist. It was you who morphed that into claiming I asked for proof of gods, then you proceeded to attempt to give some proof that a god exists (also post 16). Then I commented that your circular argument is not proof of anything, because it isn't. You can't claim proof that a god exists simply because a holy book says so.

So what are you saying.
Jesus did not exist?
Jesus did not claim to be God?
Jesus did not die on the cross?
Jesus did not raise from the dead?

All of the above.

I don't doubt that some hippie type guy calling himself Jesus was walking around the middle east some 2000 years ago, claiming to be god (that was pretty common at the time). I also don't doubt that the Romans crucified this character. But there is absolutely zero evidence that this person (or any other person in the history of human beings) was "raised from the dead." That is another myth, and without that all you have is a self-proclaimed messiah who upset the Romans and got himself crucified.

So where in the calculations is a fudge factor to change the prediction?

k for starters ... that is exactly a fudge factor. You said "assuming k = 0.25" ... why "assume" it is 0.25 if not to get the answer you want? Run those calculations for Venus and tell us how that compares to observations.

But the proof of your complete scientific illiteracy in this case is that you very obviously believe that it is perfectly OK for someone to make up the starting composition of a planet without any evidence or reasoning (ie. a ball of H2O), then claim that the starting magnetic field was initiated by god aligning all of the H atom nuclear spins!! He also wrongly assumed a 6000 year old planet and a single exponential decay, but ignore those demonstrably wrong assumptions. The fact that you are buying into this nonsense and thinking it is a valid predictive theory, given the first two assumptions, speaks for itself. You just are clueless as to how real science works, obviously. Incredible that you (or anyone) would buy into such utter nonsense and think that it is proper science. It is a joke.

You said there as no proof that any God exists. I disagree. If Jesus is God then God does exists. So if Jesus is proved to be God then God does exist. If Jesus died and rose from the dead like He said He would then, He would be God.

Meaningless circular argument. There is no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, which kills your entire argument.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 33 by EarthScienceguy]

Not before the cambrian explosion you can't.

When did the first animals with hard structures appear? What fraction of animals that have ever lived are represented in the fossil record at all? Of those, how does the volume of fossils found compare to the total number of organisms in the original population?

Evolutions own theories state that there are no transitional forms

No it doesn't ... that is your own made up claim.

You might want to look at that thread again.

No need to. His paper was only published on a creationist website, and therefore can be ignored because of their statement of faith. Why didn't he submit it to a legitimate science journal? Or did he and it was rejected? Do you think that if he had submitted his "paper" to AIG and it supported a billions of year old Earth that they would have published it? Of course they wouldn't, because it would violate their statement of faith.

The nonsense you are peddling here is not science, or anything remotely related. It is creationist propaganda devoid of any legitimate science methods.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 35 by DrNoGods]

I don't doubt that some hippie type guy calling himself Jesus was walking around the middle east some 2000 years ago, claiming to be god (that was pretty common at the time). I also don't doubt that the Romans crucified this character. But there is absolutely zero evidence that this person (or any other person in the history of human beings) was "raised from the dead." That is another myth, and without that all you have is a self-proclaimed messiah who upset the Romans and got himself crucified.

Quote:
So where in the calculations is a fudge factor to change the prediction?

k for starters ... that is exactly a fudge factor. You said "assuming k = 0.25" ... why "assume" it is 0.25 if not to get the answer you want? Run those calculations for Venus and tell us how that compares to observations.

Changing a constant from .25 to 1 is not going to make anytype of exponential change which is what would be needed to adjust magnetic field values.

The core of mars is unknown. We can use Humphrey's equation to assume that Venus does not have a metallic core.



But the proof of your complete scientific illiteracy in this case is that you very obviously believe that it is perfectly OK for someone to make up the starting composition of a planet without any evidence or reasoning (ie. a ball of H2O), then claim that the starting magnetic field was initiated by god aligning all of the H atom nuclear spins!! He also wrongly assumed a 6000 year old planet and a single exponential decay, but ignore those demonstrably wrong assumptions. The fact that you are buying into this nonsense and thinking it is a valid predictive theory, given the first two assumptions, speaks for itself. You just are clueless as to how real science works, obviously. Incredible that you (or anyone) would buy into such utter nonsense and think that it is proper science. It is a joke.

Quote:
You said there as no proof that any God exists. I disagree. If Jesus is God then God does exists. So if Jesus is proved to be God then God does exist. If Jesus died and rose from the dead like He said He would then, He would be God.


Meaningless circular argument. There is no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, which kills your entire argument.

[Divine Insight]

You have an assumption in your question. The assumption is that rock layers were laid down over eons of time. I do not make that assumption. Most of the rock layers were laid down in a water environment. You through in there polystraight trees and no erosion between layers and there is no reason to believe that there are eons of time between them.

You have nothing worthy of debate. Your claims are as absurd as the claims made by the flat-earth society.

Apparently you need for all of science to be wrong in order to support an ancient rumor that Jesus was the virgin born son of the jealous God named Yahweh. A mythology that has already proven itself to be clearly false and nothing more than very poorly made up man-made fables.

Good luck with that.

Let me know when you succeed in destroying all of known science.

[Don McIntosh]

... So again I wasn't too far out in left field to maintain that a structural whole is "more than," or as Govier says, "over and above," the sum of its parts... In the case of certain biological systems, a structurally dependent function (like vision) clearly gives it away that the sum is indeed greater than the parts.

Is it though? If one can explain each component of the vision system via evolution, have one not explained the whole visual system?

No, that's precisely the sort of thinking that is referenced by the fallacy of composition.

Imagine that someone asks how my house was constructed. I say, "Well, a concrete worker came out and laid the foundation, a carpenter came out and built the framing, a plumbing contractor came out and arranged the pipes, an electrician put in the wiring...." Etc. By listing out all the various contractors and the work they did, I would effectively explain how each of various subsystems (foundation, framing, plumbing, etc.) came to be. But that would not explain how my house came to be. If those subsystems aren't arranged together in a carefully pre-planned way, there is no house. What my explanation is missing, then, is an Architect and a set of plans.

In principle, natural selection can explain any number of enhanced structures and characteristics of a functionally complex biological system. But a mindless process of natural selection cannot explain the entire functionally complex biological system itself (the whole), any more than the individual contributions of so many subcontractors can explain the construction of my house.

Interesting. I wrote the article, and uniformitarianism was the furthest thing from my mind. No, what I was attacking was a form of explanatory logic that is clearly fallacious.

Okay, I got the wrong end of the stick here. I thought you meant if one has explained a whole bunch of animal via evolution, then we still cannot conclude that all organisms can be explained by evolution.

Ahh, I see what you meant now (and no, that wasn't my point). Thanks for clarifying.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 38 by Don McIntosh]

But a mindless process of natural selection cannot explain the entire functionally complex biological system itself (the whole), any more than the individual contributions of so many subcontractors can explain the construction of my house.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how natural selection works. It may be "mindless" in terms of not arising from the actions of a brain, but it isn't a series of purely random events that somehow build a complex biological system. Natural selection works based on the outcome of DNA changes (ie.their resultant impact on the survivability and reproductive capacity of the organism). This is very much NOT a random process. Here is a simple description of how complexity can arise in biological systems:

https://biologos.org/common-questions/h ... arth-today

You have to start with very simple components and see how those build themselves up over time, and eventually interface with other components built in the same incremental way to end up with the complex system (the "whole"). You seem to be starting with the complex end result and looking at the probability that this was built as a system from purely random, unrelated events that just happened to create this complex thing by accident. That is not how natural selection works, and it does explain "entire functionally complex biological systems." That is one reason it is accepted as being correct by the huge majority of the scientific community ... it explains observations.