For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
How about explaining why what I said isn't equivalent to what I compared it to.
Goat already did:
Goat wrote:
This is what is known as 'equivocator', and attempting to put religion and science equal. There are some huge differences. One is the matter of being able to be tested, and falsified, as well, as being able to make predictions, and to be able to explain the mechanism behind the predictions.
Thats the point, evolution can't be tested.
Wrong. Look at the story of Tiktaalik. On the basis of projecting what a "missing link" should look like and the age of the rock outcropping that it should be found in scientists found the Tiktaalik fossils.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
There is no "test" that you can conduct which will give you a reptile-bird type of transformation...and there isn't even a test at which you can lead you even in that direction. The fossil record is nonexistence, and you certainly don't have any observational evidence for macroevolution. The best you've got is the genetic trail but then again, you can't rule out intelligent design even with genetic trail.
You can't "rule out" anything; there's the old problem of logically not being able to prove a negative. You can't rule out leprechauns, or fairies, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, can you? So you apply the rule of
parsimony:
the principle in philosophy and science that assumptions introduced to explain a thing must not be multiplied beyond necessity, and hence, the simplest of several hypotheses is always the best in accounting for unexplained facts (also known as "Ockham's razor") and, voila, you have the TOE.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
So nothing has been "tested". But evolution can certainly be falsified.
Then please do so, I rather doubt that your logic will hold up on that issue any better than it has on any issue. Your problem is inherent in attempting to argue from presupposition.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
There is no fossil record, which is what one would expect if evolution is true
Of course there is a fossil record. It is the basic information on which most of the relationships between group of organisms were first discovered. It is supported, in detail, by now extensive genetic, genomic and immunological data.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
..and you still have the abiogenesis problem and the problem from the origin of consciousness.
Both of which are completely irrelevant. Lots of things are said to "evolve," (that is to say, change over time), stars evolve, canyons evolve, cell phones evolve, individuals' political views evolve, philosophies are said to "evolve" as are fighter aircraft and programming languages. None of this is an issue until you start to play semantic games, as you are doing. Your statement that: "you still have the abiogenesis problem and the problem from the origin of consciousness" makes no more sense than if you had said, "you still have the problem of where C++ came from and the issue of the origin of the fourth generation IPhone or the F-22."
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
So basically, we have more evidence that macroevolution is false than we have that it is true.
All you have done is spout nonsequiturs. You have not made a case for falsification of the process of macroevolution and by extension falsification of the TOE.
H.sapiens wrote:
As I said, you are entitled to believe even the most ridiculous things, if you so choose ... how about some evidence?
Kalam is complete and utter crap, It has been debunked on this Forum many times. See Don Barker's excellent refutation here:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/dan_ ... amity.html
You can not have both the Kalam horse puckey and make an Argument from Contingency, they are contradictory and weaken rather than strengthen each other ... please select one or the other and I'll be glad to tromp on it.
This shows more a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." Now you may be scratching your head wondering what this has to do with evolution. The confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.
However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?
The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws. (thanks to TalkOrigins). See also:
http://ncse.com/cej/2/2/creationist-mis ... use-second
I assume your lining up here behind Perry Marshall's misunderstanding of the TOE (a rather classic example of, "2 weeks ago I couldn't even spell 'engineer,' now I are one.") Here's a transcript of PZ Myers' all to gentle dismissal of Marshall's foolishness:
PZ Myers wrote:Well, he’s trying to put a new twist on it, but he’s getting it all wrong. You know for instance when he’s – what I thought was very telling, it’s also telling in the book – he’s a software person, he’s an electrical engineer, and he’s trying to impose his perspective on biology.
So he says ‘ok, biology doesn’t make any sense when I look at it as the way software works’.
Instead of saying well maybe my analogy is totally off base and wrong, he says what we’ve got here is a situation where the biology does not conform to his expectations of how it will work.
And yeah biology is far more fault-tolerant than electrical engineering. You can’t directly compare it to software or code or anything like that because it’s got a lot more complications going on with it.
But on top of that in his book what he tends to do is throw out science buzz words like ‘transposition’ and the transposition discussion is a good example of this. He throws them out, but he doesn’t really understand them.
He’s got McClintock totally wrong. McClintock’s work, which was marvelous work, and yeah it was not initially accepted because it was difficult stuff. If you read her papers, she’s got an amazing mind, it’s really complicated, really difficult things to understand, and that’s largely why it wasn’t immediately accepted.
But she was very convincing because she brought the data to bear. But all of her work was on something called genetic instability, ok? It’s not about cells engineering solutions.
For instance, the stuff on bridge break fusion that Perry mentions. That’s about random chance breakage of chromosomes that have exposed ends. They tend to re-fuse and then when mitosis and meiosis occurs they break. And they break in random places.
Not in designed, engineered, planned places. But in an entirely random way which means that the progeny of that cell will exhibit greater genetic variation than the parent.
There was absolutely nothing in McClintock’s work that argues against the importance of chance in this business.
This can be dismissed with ease, all that it takes is to argue the case for physicalism of the human mind; poof, Argument from Consciousness gone.
Another philosophically bankrupt construct that even it's originator (Anselm of Canterbury, 1033 - 1109) confessed was a specious semantic argument. Gaunilo of Marmoutier (first to respond to the ontological argument) wrote to Anselm positing that, "following Anselm's absurd logic, it is impossible to imagine an island of unrivaled beauty without such an island existing in reality." Gaunilo's writing forced Anselm to admit that his argument depended on the ambiguity of its terms.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
7. Argument based on the Historicity of the Resurrection
There is no historicity to the resurrection.
No need to, they are all bumph, and equally falsifiable. You seem to have just grabbed a list of possibilities without understanding any of them. Your version of a Gish Gallop (the fallacious debate tactic of trying to drown an opponent in small arguments so that they are hard to rebut, each and every one, in real time) may cow some of your interlocutors, but (as you can see) it does not work with me. Two hints:
1) A Gish Gallop is far more effective in a verbal debate than in a written one.
2) Make sure that you actually understand your claims so that you don't put contradictory claims in your list.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
Even if you grant that there is a tie that needs breaking, which I do not, you lose on the basis of parsimony.
?
Explained above. You really should come to understand it.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:Once again you are appealing (and abusing) our natural inclination to fair play and "reasonableness." But you are not reasonable, you are presuppositional.
?
Basically you are saying, "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up."
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
As for abiogenesis, that has nothing to do with Evolution and is an unknown at the moment. You make an argument from ignorance out of that, but that is just another logical fallacy.
Ok, so lets play the game then. At this point, science cannot explain how life could have originated from nonlife. Therefore, it is POSSIBLE for abiogenesis to be false. So, if abiogenesis is false, then how can evolution possibly be true?
That is a nonsequitur. You might as well be saying: "Science says that the moon is round, but the ocean is wet, how can evolution possibly be true?"
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
Remember, this is based on your premise that God doesn't exist. So I will ask again...IF abiogenesis is in fact false, then how can evolution possibly be true.
I never said that abiogenesis is, "in fact false," I said that, "we can not 'prove' it - yet!" Regardless, the obligate linkage of abiogenesis and the TOE has no realty, the linkage exists, only as a strawman, only in your head.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
That is a direct question and I expect a direct answer. If you cannot answer, then lets drop the whole "abiogensis has nothing to do with evolution" stuff. Because it has EVERYTHING to do with evolution.
Then you need to demonstrate the linkage with evidence.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
Abiogenesis and the TOE are unconnected.
Then you shouldn't have any problem answering the question I posed to you above.
No problem at all, it is all in your head, you are clumsily trying to put words in my mouth that I reject.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
Abiogenesis does not imply evolution, some even argue for a theistic kickstart in the form of a creation of life followed by common ancestor based Darwinian evolution.
Yeah, that is
theistic evolution, and those that hold this view is smart enough to realize that if evolution DID occur, there still had to be a divine orchestrater behind the project.
No, I'm referring to those (e.g., Francis Collins) who hold the TOE, common ancestry, etc., are all well proven and that their God's only role was in "breathing life" into the goo that became you.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
But we are not talking about theistic evolution...we are talking about evolution from a naturalist/atheist perspective. No God, no intelligent designer. Just...nature.
Fine by me.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
That is the what I argue against. Of course, if God exists, he certainly could use evolution as a method of creation. But we ain't talking about that. We are talking about evolution WITHOUT God.
That is my view.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
Atheists like to have it both ways; one on hand, they want to say that God doesn't exist and evolution is true.
I assume you fail to see the flaws in that syllogism?
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
Then, when they are backed in the corner (as you are about to be, with the
abiogenesis thing) then they want to posit theistic evolution.
No, I think theistic abiogenesis is a load of crap. I think theistic evolution is also a load of crap. But just because they are both loads of crap there is no reason to a priori demand a linkage between the two. I was simply demonstrating that abiogenesis and evolution are not the same processes and that a sizable number of theists out there are in complete agreement with the fact that they are not the same thing.
Err ... where was that corner? I seem to have missed it.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
But if theistic evolution is true, then that would defeat the atheistic position of naturalism, wouldn't it?
No one is discussing theistic evolution vs. naturalism, though you do seem to have trouble keeping focus, what with your confusion concerning abiogenesis and evolution. Let's try to stay focused now.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
I don't posit a theory for abiogenesis, I just say that we don't know - yet!
We don't know because it is impossible for inanimate matter to come to life.
No, we do not. We are both maintaining that it is possible, we are disagreeing over how. You require a God (and ultimately that will leave in the jaws of the recursive bear trap) and I say that there is no need to complicate the issue with a god who was made by a god, who ... ad infinitum ... popped into existence from nowhere. I cut to the chase and say that it is far simpiler (and thus far more likely) that under some unknow set of changing conditions inorganic chemicals formed organic chemicals and over a long period of time and many intermediates was the precursor to life as we know it. You, on the other hand, insist on a "creator being" whose origin is even more problimatical that abiogenic life. That is not "proof" for your side of the argument, that is evidence for mine.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
That would be similar to a warehouse that is full of items...and over the course of a few hundred million years, all of the items in the warehouse beginning to talk, think, see, hear, etc.
No, items in a warehouse are static and preserved. Abiogenesis does not rely on all the items changing, rather (to extend your rather poor metaphor) one item changes and then feeds on all the others to imperfectly replicate itself at a rate faster than the environment can support. That is where evolution kicks in.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
It is the same thing with abiogenesis and organisms. This is where you will say "no, its not the same!!" Then what is the difference? Before there was life, there was inanimate matter floating around. Then either suddenly/gradually, this matter "came to life".
How is that any different than the warehouse thing? It isn't.
H.sapiens wrote:
Sure it is, I just explained how.
I most assuredly can explain how life began to change forms, but others have already done that, far above my poor power to add or detract.
Oh, someone can explain how a reptile evolved into a bird? Do tell. This oughta be good.
Who ever told you that? You need to free yourself from the Aristotelian "ladder of life" view. Birds and reptiles shared a common ancestor, it is shown rather clearly here:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... vograms_06
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
But they have been, evolution has been detected in many species, you can deny it all you like, that does not change the facts.
Speciation is not macroevolution, it is microevolution. A dog, a wolf, and a coyote are all different species, but they are all obviously the same "kind" of animal.
If you insist on the layman's' term "kinds" please define it so that we may discuss it intelligently. The fact is that a dog, a wolf, and a coyote are all different species, are cursorial, pursuit hunting mammals whose osteology, genetics, close resemblance and close relationship evidences a recent common ancestor, so close that they are all interfertile. So I will easily accept the idea that they are all some sort of ill-defined "same kind." Does that "kind" include all canids or just some canids? If just some canids, which ones and on what basis do you make the distinctions?
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
I don't think I need to. Species differentiation, consciousness, language, and entropy are unrelated
If you can't have one without the other.
Of course you can, saying that you can't is quite indefensible. All are quite independent, there is (for example) no linkage between consciousness and entropy (at least at the level of this discussion, there is an interesting theoretical basis that entropy/enthalpy considerations require inevitably, within a "Goldilocks Zone," the evolution of consciousness ...but that's for another thread).
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
If you can't adequately explain how life originated from nonlife, how can you jump from the origins of life to the changes in life?
That's rather simple. We don't know and may never know, how life originated. But we have got a rather clear idea of how life diversified. The are two different processes each amenable to different methods of inquiry.
For_The_Kingdom wrote:
If your view on the
origins of life is questionable (at best), then so is your view on the
changes in life (evolution)
That's one of your famous nonsequiturs, your real complaint is that I easily see through your strawman approach to debate and reuse to honor it with anything but the back of my hand.