How is there reality without God?

[EarthScienceguy]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #96]

Seriously? I just told you my view is that we don't know how life first arose, and you reply by lying about what I said?

You do not know. And the evidence says that this belief is nothing more than a pipe dream.

• UC Santa Cruz origin-of-life theorist David Deamer explains this in the journal Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews:
  
  This optimistic picture began to change in the late 1970s, when it became increasingly clear that the early atmosphere was probably volcanic in origin and composition, composed largely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than the mixture of reducing gases assumed by the Miller-Urey model. Carbon dioxide does not support the rich array of synthetic pathways leading to possible monomers…6

• Likewise, an article in the journal Science stated: “Miller and Urey relied on a ‘reducing’ atmosphere, a condition in which molecules are fat with hydrogen atoms. As Miller showed later, he could not make organics in an ‘oxidizing’ atmosphere.”7 The article put it bluntly: “the early atmosphere looked nothing like the Miller-Urey situation.”8 Consistent with this, geological studies have not uncovered evidence that a primordial soup once existed.9

• There are good reasons to understand why the Earth’s early atmosphere did not contain high concentrations of methane, ammonia, or other reducing gasses. The earth’s early atmosphere is thought to have been produced by outgassing from volcanoes, and the composition of those volcanic gasses is related to the chemical properties of the Earth’s inner mantle. Geochemical studies have found that the chemical properties of the Earth’s mantle would have been the same in the past as they are today.10 But today, volcanic gasses do not contain methane or ammonia, and are not reducing.

• [6.] David W. Deamer, “The First Living Systems: a Bioenergetic Perspective,” Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews, 61:239 (1997).
  [7.] Jon Cohen, “Novel Center Seeks to Add Spark to Origins of Life,” Science, 270: 1925-1926 (December 22, 1995).
  [8.] Ibid.
  [9.] Antonio C. Lasaga, H. D. Holland, and Michael J. Dwyer, “Primordial Oil Slick,” Science, 174: 53-55 (October 1, 1971).
  [10.] Kevin Zahnle, Laura Schaefer, and Bruce Fegley, “Earth’s Earliest Atmospheres,” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 2(10): a004895 (October, 2010) (“Geochemical evidence in Earth’s oldest igneous rocks indicates that the redox state of the Earth’s mantle has not changed over the past 3.8 Gyr”); Dante Canil, “Vanadian in peridotites, mantle redox and tectonic environments: Archean to present,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195:75-90 (2002).
  [11.] Dante Canil, “Vanadian in peridotites, mantle redox and tectonic environments: Archean to present,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195:75-90 (2002) (internal citations removed).

And yet again you lie about what I said. All I did was ask how you define and measure it and note that if you can't, that precludes you from making any quantitative claims about it.

So now you are saying that you believe in genetic information.

Wow! you do not believe in adaptations either.
And that's not what I said at all, so once again you are lying.

Ok so now you believe in adaptations also. Ok.

You're making multiple errors here, but given the above (persistent lying, fundamental errors that you refuse to correct) I see no point in trying to explain any of it to you.

I suppose your posts do serve as a good illustration of the inherent dishonesty behind creationism though. If you have to repeatedly lie, redefine words, and ignore your own errors to advocate it, your position is very likely wrong.

I hate to break this to you but because of the sudden appearance of species Darwin's tree is not a tree but a bush.

• New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life', where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers at Uppsala University have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree is actually more akin to a bush. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 153509.htm

• New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life", where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers at Uppsala University have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree is actually more akin to a bush. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-tree-life-bush.html

• The Evolution of Species is More Akin to a Bush-Like Network than a “Tree of Life”, New Research Suggests https://www.technology.org/2015/08/19/t ... -suggests/

Do I really need to keep going?

There is no such thing as Darwin's tree of life.

[Jose Fly]

You do not know.

Which is exactly what I've been saying all along, despite your dishonest attempts to say otherwise.

And the evidence says that this belief is nothing more than a pipe dream.

I'm content to let the relevant scientists do their own work.

I hate to break this to you but because of the sudden appearance of species Darwin's tree is not a tree but a bush.

So your point all along was that universal common ancestry is better represented by a bush than a tree? Um....okay.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #100]

The religious beliefs of scientists is irrelevant. Newton was religious, as was Plank, Maxwell and many others. This has no bearing on their scientific results. Do you somehow think that because Newton was religious his results in mathematics, physics, mechanics optics, etc. are more or less valid because of this? These are completely unrelated ... F=ma does not depend on anyone's religious beliefs. Newton was also a practicing alchemist, and those results failed because they were wrong ... his religious beliefs had nothing to do with that either.

You have been trying the make the case that starting with the presupposition that God exists and that the Bible is God's revealed truth would produce erroneous results. I would make the proposition that if you do not have these propositions about the universe you cannot have accurate results.
1. The scientist must believe in objective reality.
2. The scientist must believe in the consistency of the physical constants.
3. The scientist must believe that the state of affairs is conducive to science, or he would not venture into the scientific enterprise.
4. The scientist must believe that there is a world of things and processes that can be known and that he himself sustains a relationship to this world that allows him to know these objects and events.

• Years ago, David Hume noted that the scientists proceed on a scientifically unfounded, yet critically essential belief in the uniformity of observable nature. Yet, he pointed out, there is no reason (beyond psychological habit) for the naturalistic scientist to expect the sun to come up tomorrow. Science as an autonomous self-contained discipline has no honest answer to Hume. But if science, properly conceived, subordinates itself to God’s revelation, then it knows why the sun will come up for it knows that God providentially controls all the operations of his created universe in a regular and dependable fashion.

• The scientist must presuppose a regulated universe, and in so doing he presupposes an ordered creation. Every scientist makes certain basic assumptions about reality and knowledge, consciously or otherwise; and these thoughts are religiously motivated: “That which is known of God is plainly seen in them, for God has revealed it to them. For since the creation of the world His unseen attributes, not only His infinite power but also His divine nature, have been perceived, being understood by the things created” (Romans 1:19–20).

The track record I'm talking about is the huge number of problems science has correctly solved in virtually field of endeavor (mathematics, physics, biology, geology, chemistry, etc. etc.). Solutions to many problems are what eliminated god explanations. We know Helios is not pulling the sun across the sky in his chariot, and Zeus is not causing lightning and thunder, and some angel is not controlling the wind (as was just claimed in another S&R thread, believe it or not). The successful track record of science is enormous.

And they are all based on the 4 points above. Which do not have to be true. You believe that the observations you are making is actual reality and not random chemical reactions. But there is really no reason for that belief.

And you have no evidence of a god being doing anything (or even existing). So in that regard we're even, but some kind of abiogenesis event is much more likely that a god explanation because we do have molecules, heat, photons, lightning, etc. and we know chemistry proceeds when things like this interact. This is the evidence that makes it at least plausible and not completely pulled from thin air like gods.

Yes I do, God invaded the history of humanity. Again Jesus was a real person and there are 12 facts that all scholars believe.

Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.
He was buried, most likely in a private tomb.
Soon afterward, the disciples were discouraged, bereaved, and despondent, having lost hope.
Jesus’ tomb was found empty very soon after his interment.
The disciples had experiences that they believed were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.
Due to these experiences, the disciples’ lives were thoroughly transformed, even being willing to die for this belief.
The proclamation of the resurrection took place very early, at the beginning of church history.
The disciples’ public testimony and preaching of the resurrection took place in the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified and buried shortly before.
The Gospel message centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Sunday was the primary day for gathering and worshipping.
James, the brother of Jesus and former skeptic, was converted when, he believed, he saw the risen Jesus.
Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) became a Christian believer due to an experience that he believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.”

The disciples actually believed that Jesus rose from the dead. That would be multiple eyewitnesses that wrote down what they saw.

This is much more evidence that you have for your beliefs.

Abiogenesis is impossible for the following reasons.

UC Santa Cruz origin-of-life theorist David Deamer explains this in the journal Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews:

• This optimistic picture began to change in the late 1970s, when it became increasingly clear that the early atmosphere was probably volcanic in origin and composition, composed largely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than the mixture of reducing gases assumed by the Miller-Urey model. Carbon dioxide does not support the rich array of synthetic pathways leading to possible monomers…6

• Likewise, an article in the journal Science stated: “Miller and Urey relied on a ‘reducing’ atmosphere, a condition in which molecules are fat with hydrogen atoms. As Miller showed later, he could not make organics in an ‘oxidizing’ atmosphere.”7 The article put it bluntly: “the early atmosphere looked nothing like the Miller-Urey situation.”8 Consistent with this, geological studies have not uncovered evidence that a primordial soup once existed.9

• There are good reasons to understand why the Earth’s early atmosphere did not contain high concentrations of methane, ammonia, or other reducing gasses. The earth’s early atmosphere is thought to have been produced by outgassing from volcanoes, and the composition of those volcanic gasses is related to the chemical properties of the Earth’s inner mantle. Geochemical studies have found that the chemical properties of the Earth’s mantle would have been the same in the past as they are today.10 But today, volcanic gasses do not contain methane or ammonia, and are not reducing.

• [6.] David W. Deamer, “The First Living Systems: a Bioenergetic Perspective,” Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews, 61:239 (1997).
  [7.] Jon Cohen, “Novel Center Seeks to Add Spark to Origins of Life,” Science, 270: 1925-1926 (December 22, 1995).
  [8.] Ibid.
  [9.] Antonio C. Lasaga, H. D. Holland, and Michael J. Dwyer, “Primordial Oil Slick,” Science, 174: 53-55 (October 1, 1971).
  [10.] Kevin Zahnle, Laura Schaefer, and Bruce Fegley, “Earth’s Earliest Atmospheres,” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 2(10): a004895 (October, 2010) (“Geochemical evidence in Earth’s oldest igneous rocks indicates that the redox state of the Earth’s mantle has not changed over the past 3.8 Gyr”); Dante Canil, “Vanadian in peridotites, mantle redox and tectonic environments: Archean to present,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195:75-90 (2002).
  [11.] Dante Canil, “Vanadian in peridotites, mantle redox and tectonic environments: Archean to present,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195:75-90 (2002) (internal citations removed).

Your belief in a strictly materialistic universe is nothing more than a pipe dream.

[Diogenes]

I hate to break this to you but because of the sudden appearance of species Darwin's tree is not a tree but a bush.

• New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life', where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers at Uppsala University have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree is actually more akin to a bush. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 153509.htm

Do I really need to keep going?

There is no such thing as Darwin's tree of life.

It is refreshing to know you finally concede the truth of evolution. Good for you! It's nice to see someone finally admit his silly creationist ideas are wrong. But I am puzzled at your triumphant tone, as if the analogy of a bush rather than a tree somehow represents a personal triumph.

That evolution is an exceedingly complex process, that entails an element of chance and proceeds faster sometimes and slower at others, making the 'tree' more complex over billions of years, so that a 'bush' makes the better analogy is not a surprise to anyone who understands evolution. Darwin would hardly take exception to the 'bush' analogy.

From one of your own sources:

By using the jumping genes, or so-called retrotransposed elements, the Uppsala researchers have found that, for instance, a cuckoo can be more closely related to a hummingbird than a pigeon in a certain part of its genome, while the opposite holds true in another part. The study found numerous examples to corroborate the existence of the phenomenon.

This is one of the first cases in evolutionary research where researchers have been able to document and quantify incomplete lineage sorting far back in time. It is likely a far more common occurrence than previously thought.

'The more complex kinship patterns that result from this phenomenon mean that the Tree of Life should often be understood as a Bush of Life', Alexander Suh and Hans Ellegren say. 

After all, a tree is very much like a shrub (bush). The main difference between the two is that a shrub has several main stems growing from ground level, rather than one trunk. There is nothing new about this and Jose Fly, DrNoGods, and others supporting the fact of evolution are aware of this.
From an 2007 article:

Dr. Leakey challenged the prevailing view that the family tree had a more or less single trunk rising from ape roots to a pinnacle occupied by Homo sapiens. Yet here was evidence that the new species Kenyanthropus platyops co-existed with Lucy’s afarensis kin.

The family tree now looks more like a bush with many branches. “Just because there’s only one human species around now doesn’t mean it was always that way,” Dr. Grine said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26ance.html

[JoeyKnothead]

...
1. The scientist must believe in objective reality.

Where the theist must believe in a reality that, we'll, doesn't reflect it?

2. The scientist must believe in the consistency of the physical constants.

Where the theist is able to have physics bend to the will of a god that can't be shown to exist?

3. The scientist must believe that the state of affairs is conducive to science, or he would not venture into the scientific enterprise.

Where the theist must believe that the state of affairs is conducive to his or her particular theology, or they wouldn't accept the findings of science?

4. The scientist must believe that there is a world of things and processes that can be known and that he himself sustains a relationship to this world that allows him to know these objects and events.
...

Where the theist must believe their particular theology 'must be true' in spite of any data aligned against it?

I think we can define for others what they "must believe", but that doesn't quite settle the merits of a particular argument.

I don't hafta believe any of the "must believes of scientificity" (my term) above to know that evolution is a fact, that my beliefs have no bearing on that fact, or that even among theism, we can see an evolving of ideas and explanations for the god in question, or that god's thinking on the evils of data that contravenes one's theism.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Diogenes in post #104]

That evolution is an exceedingly complex process, that entails an element of chance and proceeds faster sometimes and slower at others, making the 'tree' more complex over billions of years, so that a 'bush' makes the better analogy is not a surprise to anyone who understands evolution. Darwin would hardly take exception to the 'bush' analogy.

It was a surprise to Jose Fly. But I do not think you are clearly understanding the implications of the bush analogy but I will help. That is why I am on this site to dissimulate truth.

After all, a tree is very much like a shrub (bush). The main difference between the two is that a shrub has several main stems growing from ground level, rather than one trunk. There is nothing new about this and Jose Fly, DrNoGods, and others supporting the fact of evolution are aware of this.

This is what caused the tree to become a bush.

• Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group.75

• Most of the animal groups that are represented in the fossil record first appear, ‘fully formed’ and identifiable as to their phylum, in the Cambrian, some 550 million years ago. These include such anatomically complex and distinctive types as trilobites, echinoderms, brachiopods, molluscs, and chordates. … The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla…76

• Evolutionary scientists acknowledge that they cannot explain this rapid appearance of diverse animal body plans by classical Darwinian processes, or other known material mechanisms. Robert Carroll, a paleontologist at McGill University, argues in Trends in Ecology and Evolution that “The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during this brief time period requires explanations that go beyond those proposed for the evolution of species within the modern biota.77”

• Another paper likewise maintains that “microevolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary burst of novelty during the Cambrian Explosion” and concludes “the major evolutionary transitions in animal evolution still remain to be causally explained.”78 Likewise a 2009 paper in BioEssays concedes that “elucidating the materialistic basis of the Cambrian explosion has become more elusive, not less, the more we know about the event itself.”79

• [75.] C.P. Hickman, L.S. Roberts, and F.M. Hickman, Integrated Principles of Zoology, p. 866 (Times Mirror/Moseby College Publishing, 1988, 8th ed).
  [76.] R.S.K. Barnes, P. Calow and P.J.W. Olive, The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, pp. 9-10 (3rd ed., Blackwell Sci. Publications, 2001).
  [77.] Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 15(1):27-32 (2000).
  [78.] Jaume Baguña and Jordi Garcia-Fernández, “Evo-Devo: the Long and Winding Road,” International Journal of Developmental Biology, 47:705-713 (2003) (internal citations removed).
  [79.] Kevin J. Peterson, Michael R. Dietrich and Mark A. McPeek, “MicroRNAs and metazoan macroevolution: insights into canalization, complexity, and the Cambrian explosion,” BioEssays, 31 (7):736-747 (2009).

It is considered a bush because organisms just appear with no apparent link to anything else. This violates the major assumption of evolution. The major feature of the theory is – the idea of universal common ancestry. A bush does not show universal common ancestry a bush shows instant specialization that is not linked to other species.

This makes it all the more significant that efforts to build a grand “tree of life” using DNA or other biological sequence data have not conformed to expectations. The basic problem is that one gene gives one version of the tree of life, while another gene gives a highly different, and conflicting, version of the tree. For example, as we’ll discuss further below, the standard mammalian tree places humans more closely related to rodents than to elephants. But studies of a certain type of DNA called microRNA genes have suggested the opposite — that humans were closer to elephants than rodents. Such conflicts between gene-based trees are extremely common.

The genetic data is thus not painting a consistent picture of common ancestry, showing the assumptions behind tree-building commonly fail.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #103]

You have been trying the make the case that starting with the presupposition that God exists and that the Bible is God's revealed truth would produce erroneous results.

What? I've never tried to make any such case. I pointed out that the religious beliefs of Newton and other scientists had nothing to do with their scientific results. Atheist and agnostic scientists have produced results, as have scientists of all religions. And none of those results show the existence of gods, or assume that gods do exist. You seem very confused about all of this to the point of making up statements like the one above which is not derived from anything I actually said.

But if science, properly conceived, subordinates itself to God’s revelation, then it knows why the sun will come up for it knows that God providentially controls all the operations of his created universe in a regular and dependable fashion.

No ... we know the sun will appear in the eastern sky each day because we know the Earth rotates on its axis once every ~24 hours, and the direction of rotation causes the sun to first appear in the east rather than the west. We have seasons because the Earth orbits the sun once per year and is tilted 23.4 degrees relative to the plane of the ecliptic, so the angle of a given point on the globe relative to the sun varies as the orbit proceeds. There is no need to introduce a god into the equation. The reason we know these specifics about the sun rising and seasons is because science investigated the situation without any reference to gods and deduced the mechanics of it all. Your description of sitting back and attributing it all to some god orchestrating regular and dependable behavior is the opposite of science and scientific endeavor, and is completely unnecessary.

You believe that the observations you are making is actual reality and not random chemical reactions. But there is really no reason for that belief.

Pick up a bowling ball and drop it on your big toe, and explain why F=ma isn't applicable. Try it a few times just to be sure it is reproducible.

Again Jesus was a real person and there are 12 facts that all scholars believe.

He might have been a real person, but in that case he could not have "risen from the dead" because real people who genuinely die stay that way. I'd put that fact against what "all scholars" believe any day.

This is much more evidence that you have for your beliefs.

Again, try that bowling ball experiment and get back to us with how the big toe is holding up.

Abiogenesis is impossible for the following reasons.

The Miller-Urey experiment was done 70 years ago. A Wipedia article on it also describes more recent experiments and theoretical models as people continue to investigate abiogenesis (and of course amino acids have been found in meteorites ... are you going to discard that because two guys 70 years ago made a wrong assumption?):

In 2008, a group of scientists examined 11 vials left over from Miller's experiments of the early 1950s. In addition to the classic experiment, reminiscent of Charles Darwin's envisioned "warm little pond", Miller had also performed more experiments, including one with conditions similar to those of volcanic eruptions. This experiment had a nozzle spraying a jet of steam at the spark discharge. By using high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, the group found more organic molecules than Miller had. They found that the volcano-like experiment had produced the most organic molecules, 22 amino acids, 5 amines and many hydroxylated molecules, which could have been formed by hydroxyl radicals produced by the electrified steam. The group suggested that volcanic island systems became rich in organic molecules in this way, and that the presence of carbonyl sulfide there could have helped these molecules form peptides.

The following paragraph of the article describes progress on peptide formation:

The main problem of theories based around amino acids is the difficulty in obtaining spontaneous formation of peptides. Since John Desmond Bernal's suggestion that clay surfaces could have played a role in abiogenesis,[39] scientific efforts have been dedicated to investigating clay-mediated peptide bond formation, with limited success. Peptides formed remained over-protected and shown no evidence of inheritance or metabolism. In December 2017 a theoretical model developed by Valentina Erastova and collaborators[40] suggested that peptides could form at the interlayers of layered double hydroxides such as green rust in early earth conditions. According to the model, drying of the intercalated layered material should provide energy and co-alignment required for peptide bond formation in a ribosome-like fashion, while re-wetting should allow mobilising the newly formed peptides and repopulate the interlayer with new amino acids. This mechanism is expected to lead to the formation of 12+ amino acid-long peptides within 15-20 washes. Researches also observed slightly different adsorption preferences for different amino acids, and postulated that, if coupled to a diluted solution of mixed amino acids, such preferences could lead to sequencing.

Abiogenesis is not impossible because a 70 year old experiment made a wrong assumption.

[JoeyKnothead]

...
But I do not think you are clearly understanding the implications of the bush analogy but I will help. That is why I am on this site to dissimulate truth.

Are you here to do the truth concealing, or do you think that's a goal of the site?

This is what caused the tree to become a bush.

Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form.

This can be expected where a more successful form outperforms its prior form. If this is your fuss, bring up how some new forms don't even supplant the prior form.

Moreover, most major groups...

By saying "most", it's implied some...

Regardless, the entire fossil record can be dismissed and evolution remains a fact.

• Evolutionary scientists acknowledge that they cannot explain this rapid appearance of diverse animal body plans by classical Darwinian processes...

As opposed to theists who can't explain it by goddiditian processes.

Another paper likewise maintains that “microevolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary burst of novelty during the Cambrian Explosion”
...

"Satisfactory" is quite the subjective term. Still, this hardly leads to gods as any more satisfactory an explanation.

It is considered a bush because organisms just appear with no apparent link to anything else. This violates the major assumption of evolution. The major feature of the theory is – the idea of universal common ancestry. A bush does not show universal common ancestry a bush shows instant specialization that is not linked to other species.

You seem to confuse the fact of evolution with real or perceived faults regarding the how of it.

This makes it all the more significant that efforts to build a grand “tree of life” using DNA or other biological sequence data have not conformed to expectations.

Theist expectations?

The basic problem is that one gene gives one version of the tree of life, while another gene gives a highly different, and conflicting, version of the tree.

Ain't gene expression a female dog.

For example, as we’ll discuss further below, the standard mammalian tree places humans more closely related to rodents than to elephants.

But studies of a certain type of DNA called microRNA genes have suggested the opposite — that humans were closer to elephants than rodents. Such conflicts between gene-based trees are extremely common.

But not closer to redwoods.

If you wanna fuss mammalian relationships, bring up the monotremes.

The genetic data is thus not painting a consistent picture of common ancestry, showing the assumptions behind tree-building commonly fail.

Cause the bible ain't it nothing but consistent!

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #106]

That is why I am on this site to dissimulate truth.

Great ... unfortunately you are not disseminating much of it which would be more useful. Oh the irony:

dissimulate
verb
transitive verb
: to hide under a false appearance

[Diogenes]

But I do not think you are clearly understanding the implications of the bush analogy but I will help. That is why I am on this site to dissimulate truth.

I am curious about why you so readily admit that you are on this site to disguise and conceal truth, but I agree with and applaud your candid confession that you are here "to dissimulate truth."

One of your central methods for your dissimulation is taking out of context quotes that misrepresent evolutionary biologists like Robert L. Carroll, a paleontologist who clearly believes in evolution.

Among Carroll's overall conclusions:

"Evolutionary forces that can be studied in modern populations are sufficiently powerful to account for the amount and rate of morphological change throughout the entire course of vertebrate history."
https://dannyreviews.com/h/Vertebrate_Evolution.html

Carroll, like other scientists who understand and believe in evolution are candid in saying they do not always understand the process fully in some cases, with statements like, "Transitions between environments governed by major differences in physical constraints do not necessarily require special evolutionary processes."
....
"Large-scale patterns of evolution cannot be fully explained by processes that are directly observable at the level of modern populations and species.
... the patterns, rates, and controlling forces of evolution are much more varied than had been conceived by either Darwin or Simpson."

Your confessed "dissimulation" consists of taking candid statements and using them to create false impressions.