Do you understand those on the other side?

[Jose Fly]

As I've pointed out many times (probably too many times), I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. I was taught young-earth creationism from an early age, was told prayer and reading the Bible were the answer to most of life's problems and questions, and witnessed all sorts of "interesting" things such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, end times predictions, etc.

Yet despite being completely immersed in this culture, I can't recall a time in my life when I ever believed any of it. However, unlike some of my peers at the time I didn't really find it boring. In fact, I found a lot of it to be rather fascinating because.....very little of it made any sense to me. I just could not understand the people, their beliefs, their way of thinking, or much of anything that I saw and heard. When I saw them anointing with oil someone who had the flu and later saw the virus spread (of course), I could not understand what they were thinking. When I saw them make all sorts of failed predictions about the Soviet Union and the end times, yet never even acknowledge their errors while continuing to make more predictions, I was baffled. Speaking in tongues was of particular interest to me because it really made no sense to me.

In the years that I've been debating creationists it's the same thing. When I see them say "no transitional fossils" or "no new genetic information" only to ignore examples of those things when they're presented, I can't relate to that way of thinking at all. When I see them demand evidence for things only to ignore it after it's provided, I can't relate. When I see them quote mine a scientific paper and after someone points it out they completely ignore it, I can't relate.

Now to be clear, I think I "understand" some of what's behind these behaviors (i.e., the psychological factors), but what I don't understand is how the people engaging in them seem to be completely oblivious to it all. What goes on in their mind when they demand "show me the evidence", ignore everything that's provided in response, and then come back later and make the same demand all over again? Are they so blinded by the need to maintain their beliefs that they literally block out all memories of it? Again....I just don't get it.

So the point of discussion for this thread is....how about you? For the "evolutionists", can you relate to the creationists' way of thinking and behaviors? For the creationists, are there behaviors from the other side that baffle you, and you just don't understand? Do you look at folks like me and think to yourselves, "I just cannot relate to his way of thinking?"

Or is it just me?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #467]

You seem ever confident, very well, perhaps you'll fare better:

OK, I'll bite. Let's see ... you don't define "gap" well enough to formulate a response, and you only give three specific answers to choose from (95%, 75% or 1%). There is no option given to choose any other values between 0% and 100%.

So, given the poorly worded question, we have to make some assumptions on what you mean by "gap." Is this a period in time where there are no representative fossils? Is it a branch of an evolutionary tree with missing representatives? Or something else?

Fossilization is rare, and the total number of fossils that have been found to date is claimed to represent well under 1% of the total species that ever lived on Earth, eg. see:

https://headstuff.org/topical/science/g ... -record-2/

So of your three allowed percentage options you'd have to choose 1% if "gap" means all sections of the entire evolutionary tree from cyanobacteria to humans that is not represented with actual fossils. But as the article above notes, there is enough information from the fossil record to justify the theory, and most people recognize this which is why it is a formal scientific theory.

To use another number analogy, if you're given the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,11 would you argue against the missing numbers being 7, 8 and 9? What other rational interpretation would fit better? To assign a percentage to the probability that the "gap" is filled by the numbers 7, 8 and 9 you'd most likely pick 95% from the three options given ... certainly not 75% or 1%.

[Inquirer]

So far Jose, Diogenes, Clownboat and Dr. No Gods have all shied away from answering these key questions:

As I explained, you asked your question as I was already trying (unsuccessfully) to get you to answer my questions.

IOW, you were playing the stereotypical creationist game where you won't answer anyone else's questions, while demanding that we answer yours.

You have conceded that: 1) evolution generates new traits, abilities, genetic sequences, and species; 2) the fossil record does include cases of continuity, 3) preCambrian-Cambrian transitionals exist, and 4) the fossil record does include cases of Darwinian gradualism.

If we are done with those topics, I will gladly answer your questions.

I simply can't recall, but it matters not, falsely accuse me as much as you want, it matters not to me.

If you can't recall, you can't say the accusations are false.

I care not for your theatrics, very early on in this very thread in post #11 you said to me:

But again, not all interpretations are equally valid, are they? When a flat earther is shown a pic of a spherical earth, says "That's fake" or "That was taken with a fisheye lens", and then says "that's my interpretation" I don't see that as equally valid as the work of NASA scientists. Do you?

You once again attempted to imply that any interpretation that differs from your own must be false, must be as ridiculous as claiming the earth is flat, you had to characterize alternative interpretations as naïve or intellectually deficient, you do this often.

So I eventually decide to frame my position by asking you some questions about the data you claim to know so well, I did that to help you see another view point, to show you that it is reasonable to see things differently to you.

By refusing to answer these questions you prove the very thing I've been saying for months, that is the claims about the fossil record serving as evidence for evolution are false, it is the emperor's new clothes, smoke and mirrors.

[Diogenes]

Whenever I hear this old and ignorant blarney about "gaps" in the fossil record it reminds me of why it is pointless to use facts to debate the persistent creationist. When you give a great example of a transitional fossil, the inevitable response is, "Now there are TWO gaps." Except this sad drivel is offered up as if it is actually an argument instead of what it is, an embarrassing unintended disclosure of ignorance as well as a failure of logic.

100 transitional fossils will equal 101 gaps. So what is the point of providing evidence?

Nineteenth-century English social scientist Herbert Spencer made this prescient observation: "Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all." Well over a century later nothing has changed. When I debate creationists, they present not one fact in favor of creation and instead demand "just one transitional fossil" that proves evolution. When I do offer evidence (for example, Ambulocetus natans, a transitional fossil between ancient land mammals and modern whales), they respond that there are now two gaps in the fossil record.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... l-fallacy/


https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs ... mbulocetus

[Jose Fly]

I care not for your theatrics,

I'm stating the facts. If you have a problem with them, your issue is with reality, not me.

very early on in this very thread in post #11 you said to me:

But again, not all interpretations are equally valid, are they? When a flat earther is shown a pic of a spherical earth, says "That's fake" or "That was taken with a fisheye lens", and then says "that's my interpretation" I don't see that as equally valid as the work of NASA scientists. Do you?

You once again attempted to imply that any interpretation that differs from your own must be false, must be as ridiculous as claiming the earth is flat, you had to characterize alternative interpretations as naïve or intellectually deficient, you do this often.

I thought you didn't want to discuss things like that (behaviors)?

So I eventually decide to frame my position by asking you some questions about the data you claim to know so well, I did that to help you see another view point, to show you that it is reasonable to see things differently to you.

You've not offered any sort of alternative interpretation for the data you were provided, so I don't know what other view point you're referring to.

By refusing to answer these questions you prove the very thing I've been saying for months, that is the claims about the fossil record serving as evidence for evolution are false, it is the emperor's new clothes, smoke and mirrors.

Right, you've been saying those things. As I noted earlier today, anyone can go online and say anything, such as "the moon is made of cheese".

I hope you understand that saying things are so does not make them so, and empty assertions are not acceptable in a debate.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #467]

You seem ever confident, very well, perhaps you'll fare better:

OK, I'll bite. Let's see ... you don't define "gap" well enough to formulate a response, and you only give three specific answers to choose from (95%, 75% or 1%). There is no option given to choose any other values between 0% and 100%.

So, given the poorly worded question, we have to make some assumptions on what you mean by "gap." Is this a period in time where there are no representative fossils? Is it a branch of an evolutionary tree with missing representatives? Or something else?

Fossilization is rare, and the total number of fossils that have been found to date is claimed to represent well under 1% of the total species that ever lived on Earth, eg. see:

I never asked about rarity did I? You don't know what a "gap" is yet you'll readily accuse theists when it suits your rhetorical purposes, of making "god of the gaps" arguments, can you see a problem with your answer here? of course you know what a gap is.

So of your three allowed percentage options you'd have to choose 1% if "gap" means all sections of the entire evolutionary tree from cyanobacteria to humans that is not represented with actual fossils. But as the article above notes, there is enough information from the fossil record to justify the theory, and most people recognize this which is why it is a formal scientific theory.

Seriously? you really think I was restricting the answer to those three examples? come on, be serious.

To use another number analogy, if you're given the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,11 would you argue against the missing numbers being 7, 8 and 9? What other rational interpretation would fit better? To assign a percentage to the probability that the "gap" is filled by the numbers 7, 8 and 9 you'd most likely pick 95% from the three options given ... certainly not 75% or 1%.

I think 7, 8 and 9 are excellent suggestions.

So you cannot quantify the completeness of the fossil record, clearly it is going to be incomplete even if evolution were true, but you cannot quantify the degree of completeness, you cannot quantify the distinct number of gaps between some ancestor fossil and some descendent fossil, you cannot say if the gaps dominate or if the fossils dominate, you cannot say anything it seems.

Yet despite this inability to quantify these things you insist that they are evidence for continuity, that the observed discontinuity is only apparent, absolutely not real.

As I've been saying this is all a matter of interpretation and I cannot take such a huge absence of data and pretend to myself it doesn't matter, and I certainly can't berate others who see the entire thing as hand waving and make believe. I once saw it as you do, I interpreted it as you do, I reinforced it as you do by over stating the minor and dismissing the major.

[Inquirer]

Whenever I hear this old and ignorant blarney about "gaps" in the fossil record it reminds me of why it is pointless to use facts to debate the persistent creationist. When you give a great example of a transitional fossil, the inevitable response is, "Now there are TWO gaps." Except this sad drivel is offered up as if it is actually an argument instead of what it is, an embarrassing unintended disclosure of ignorance as well as a failure of logic.

100 transitional fossils will equal 101 gaps. So what is the point of providing evidence?

Nineteenth-century English social scientist Herbert Spencer made this prescient observation: "Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all." Well over a century later nothing has changed. When I debate creationists, they present not one fact in favor of creation and instead demand "just one transitional fossil" that proves evolution. When I do offer evidence (for example, Ambulocetus natans, a transitional fossil between ancient land mammals and modern whales), they respond that there are now two gaps in the fossil record.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... l-fallacy/


https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs ... mbulocetus

What is "ignorant" about asking if there are any gaps and how big they are and how many of them there are? Please, we are discussing science and there is no place for insults and emotion in polite discourse. And since when in science can one not question some claims unless they have some alternative? If you make a bogus far fetched claim, am I not able to say so unless I have a better claim? is that how you work?

[Inquirer]

I care not for your theatrics,

I'm stating the facts. If you have a problem with them, your issue is with reality, not me.

very early on in this very thread in post #11 you said to me:

But again, not all interpretations are equally valid, are they? When a flat earther is shown a pic of a spherical earth, says "That's fake" or "That was taken with a fisheye lens", and then says "that's my interpretation" I don't see that as equally valid as the work of NASA scientists. Do you?

You once again attempted to imply that any interpretation that differs from your own must be false, must be as ridiculous as claiming the earth is flat, you had to characterize alternative interpretations as naïve or intellectually deficient, you do this often.

I thought you didn't want to discuss things like that (behaviors)?

So I eventually decide to frame my position by asking you some questions about the data you claim to know so well, I did that to help you see another view point, to show you that it is reasonable to see things differently to you.

You've not offered any sort of alternative interpretation for the data you were provided, so I don't know what other view point you're referring to.

By refusing to answer these questions you prove the very thing I've been saying for months, that is the claims about the fossil record serving as evidence for evolution are false, it is the emperor's new clothes, smoke and mirrors.

Right, you've been saying those things. As I noted earlier today, anyone can go online and say anything, such as "the moon is made of cheese".

I hope you understand that saying things are so does not make them so, and empty assertions are not acceptable in a debate.

The "other" viewpoint is simply that the record could be evidence of true discontinuity, pay attention.

[Inquirer]

A discontinuous process for generating life would leave a discontinuous fossil record. But what do we find in reality? Oh lo and behold, a discontinuous fossil record!

This is called an interpretation of the fossil record.

[Jose Fly]

The "other" viewpoint is simply that the record could be evidence of true discontinuity, pay attention.

What do you mean by "true discontinuity"?

A discontinuous process for generating life...

What do you mean by that?

[Inquirer]

The "other" viewpoint is simply that the record could be evidence of true discontinuity, pay attention.

What do you mean by "true discontinuity"?

I mean not simply an apparent discontinuity, like the absence of expected fossils is real rather than an artifact of poor preservation, like things we think will have existed didn't actually ever exist.

A discontinuous process for generating life...

What do you mean by that?

A process where morphology changes but without the thousands of discrete intermediate steps we'd expect from evolution and without the great time periods.