Do patterns of phylogenesis show evolution?

[Difflugia]

Question for debate: Are the patterns seen in molecular phylogenies sufficient to show that biological evolution occurred?

For reference and easier Googling, the science of generating evolutionary trees is known as cladistics or phylogenetic systematics. Using DNA sequence data to generate the trees is molecular phylogeny.

The standard of evidence I'll be discussing is reasonable doubt. Even that's pretty broad, but if your argument hinges on "possible," you should be able to at least quantify that.

I've generated phylogenies using online tools previously and discussed them in this post. I tried to start a tutorial in this thread. If someone wants to discuss how to actually use the tools and data, feel free to ask questions in the tutorial thread and I'll pick it back up.

This debate question is a response to this comment.

[Clownboat]

I acknowledge that you failed to understand what I was talking about.
The religious beliefs that someone currently holds can demands that they don't learn about evolution because their salvations depends on them not knowing about it.

Um, that may be true for some religions beliefs, but not mines.

You were referring to me, and my Christian beliefs.

The statement you made is not true as it relates to me, and my mines.

So, acknowledge that.

I can't until you clarify what you meant when you said this:
"We are trying to get our names in the Lamb's book of Life, not in man-made scientific journals that don't mean a dang thang in this life, nor the next one."

You were pretty open about what motivates you (getting your name in the Lamb's book of Life), what changed?

I'm open to being shown a better mechanism than evolution because I don't have a motivation for it to be true. If it is shown false, I lose nothing. No eternal soul is on the line, so there is no reason for me to not know this new mechanism, therefore there is nothing to stop me from learning. Nothing depends on me not knowing this new thing. No soul or Lamb's Book that requires me to not know this new thing.

[Clownboat]

What mechanism do you propose that better explains all the animals we see not just now, but also in the fossil record?

Genesis 1

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature...

Let's grant for a moment that your religious promotional material is correct on this matter for the sake of debate.


Question for you. In regards to the nylon eating bacteria (nylon is man made and doesn't exist in nature). Do you believe that your preferred God created this bacteria, or that the earth brought it forth? Did all 400,000 species of beetle evolve from a single male and female that was on a boat just some thousands of years ago, or were the 399,999 created by your preferred way after the fact?

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Be well.

I assume bacteria is alive and not dead or inert. If so, then it's life originated with God, not some accidental unintelligent miracle of nature.

What if there was a God that created life and then the mechanism of evolution? That would mean that evolution is in fact intelligent and not accidental. Why are you willing to rule out the idea that gods did this? What is your reason for assuming that all powerful beings could not create life and the a process where it changes?

Now back to my questions if you would be so kind as to provide your thoughts:
- In regards to the nylon eating bacteria (nylon is man made and doesn't exist in nature). Do you believe that your preferred God created this bacteria, or that the earth brought it forth?
- Did all 400,000 species of beetle evolve from a single male and female that was on a boat just some thousands of years ago, or were the 399,999 created by your preferred way after the fact?

[benchwarmer]

Barbarian tried to go over fossils with you and you blew it all off.

Barbarian? Who is that? Oh, you mean that one poster who stepped up and got shut down, and hasn't been seen for days?

Whatever happened to the guy?

Some of us are happy to let our interlocutor show their hand for what it is and leave it at that. Just because someone doesn't keep engaging you doesn't mean you 'won' or 'shut them down'. It probably means they presented their case and are happy to let readers decide. Letting your interlocutor shoot themselves in the foot is often more powerful than trying to 'shoot them' yourself.

Your continued puffery and bravado about shutting anyone down is laughable. In this thread all we get from you is denial and obvious lack of desire to really learn anything. The fact that some keep engaging you is a testament to their patience and obvious desire to show your lack of an actual argument to any readers who happen to be following along.

That fact that you call biology beyond anything simplistic you might actually know "bio-babble" is really all anyone needs to know about your position. You clearly have no education in biology nor a desire to learn it (or worst case, you actually do know what the science is, but decide based on a need to hold a faith position to ignore/attack it).

While everyone is welcome to participate in this subforum, I suggest you read the guidelines for this one. Your 'arguments' are better suited for Holy Huddle or Random Ramblings where it doesn't matter what the science actually says. Here one is expected to at least read and/or provide actual scientific literature and/or data. So far you have done none of that and feel you have 'won'. Readers likely have a different perspective.

[Difflugia]

I reject the explanation, apparently.

Yes. That's what I said. That doesn't excuse you, though.

Just like you reject "Jesus is the Messiah" explanations, despite it being explained to you why he is.

Are you sure you're thinking of me? What "Jesus is the Messiah" explanations do I reject?

I reject the explanation because I find common designer more plausible.

I think you've got that backwards.

Um, no. As you were told before, the explanatory power is lacking...and I explained why.

That was because you didn't (and still don't?) know what "explanatory" means.

I simply don't find the evidence for your religion convincing.

If you don't know what it is, you can't find it convincing.

Plain and simple.

To a fault.

[Clownboat]

Tell me, why haven't we observed any kind of reptile-to-bird transformations in nature.

You have stated why many times now yourself.
Dogs produce dogs and cats produce cats.

Reptiles have in fact produced reptiles. As you have learned, birds are reptiles (Reptilia) and descended from a feathered theropod dinosaur (Reptilia). This Reptilia to Reptilia, or reptile to bird (still Reptilia) transformation has happened and pictures of some of the fossils were provided for you to observe.

We have observed what you claim we haven't. You just seem to want to see a crocodile give birth to a duck or some such thing, but as you have now learned with how languages evolve, that is not how it happens. Small changes over time in language lead to larger changes. Sometimes to the point where we might consider Old English (reptile) being its own language different from Modern English (birds). English still produced English though even though they seem very dissimilar and go by different names (Old/Modern).

Also, keep this in mind. Old English didn't get invented out of whole cloth. It also came from small changes over time from a previous English language. Go back far enough in the language (to the theropod) and you would probably notice something spoken that seems nothing like Old English. The theropod (language prior to Old English) to bird (Modern English) still happened via Reptilia's producing Reptilia though.

When I was still a Christian, noting how languages changed over time helped me to understand how evolution actually works. Dogs do produce dogs just like how English produced English and yet we can barely read Old English. It's almost as if Old English is some other language altogether, but as we learned, it is not. The further back you go in language the more changes that have taken place, but at no time did someone wake up in the morning speaking a new language. That would be like a croc giving birth to a horse which is not what evolution claims.

Hope this helps!

[Jose Fly]

When you can use phylogenetics as proof of God did not do it, then talk to me.

That's not the topic of the thread. This thread is about whether phylogenetics are evidence for evolution, not about whether they're "proof that God didn't do it".

No.

Then we're done, aren't we?

[Difflugia]

Unbelievers cannot disprove the Bible nor can they prove their alternate godless origins theories.

Even if we take your personal understanding of what the Bible means to be "the Bible," that's still the same argument. The Bible being true in any meaningful way and the existence of Santa Claus are both possible. In fact, they have exactly the same probability.

Many determined God-rejecters admit their willingness to believe the impossibility of secular theories rather than believe the Bible.

What secular theories to I believe are impossible so that I can reject a Fundamentalist Protestant view of the Bible?

[Attributing the origin of life to spontaneous generation.] However improbable we regard this event, it will almost certainly happen at least once.... The time... is of the order of two billion years.... Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.
George Wald

He's using "impossible" colloquially, meaning a very small probability on human timescales. If that's what "impossible" means, then creationism is impossible.

"I will not believe that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution."

George Wald was an American scientist and activist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit. Wikipedia
Born: November 18, 1906, New York, NY ...

Note that your quote was only five years after the structure of DNA was discovered. There's no way he could have known about modern research related to abiogenesis. So, he was wrong about spontaneous generation being impossible, even in a colloquial sense. He was right about God, though.

[SiNcE_1985]

Some of us are happy to let our interlocutor show their hand for what it is and leave it at that. Just because someone doesn't keep engaging you doesn't mean you 'won' or 'shut them down'. It probably means they presented their case and are happy to let readers decide. Letting your interlocutor shoot themselves in the foot is often more powerful than trying to 'shoot them' yourself.

See you when I see you, then.

Your continued puffery and bravado about shutting anyone down is laughable. In this thread all we get from you is denial and obvious lack of desire to really learn anything.

Learn something?

The fact that some keep engaging you is a testament to their patience and obvious desire to show your lack of an actual argument to any readers who happen to be following along.

It is also testament to my patience.

That fact that you call biology beyond anything simplistic you might actually know "bio-babble" is really all anyone needs to know about your position. You clearly have no education in biology nor a desire to learn it (or worst case, you actually do know what the science is, but decide based on a need to hold a faith position to ignore/attack it).

As I alluded to before...there are people who can take complex (concepts), and they are smart enough to make it simple.

And there are people who do the exact opposite; take simple concepts, and make them complex.

What we are discussing here is simple...it is you guys that are making it complex.

While everyone is welcome to participate in this subforum, I suggest you read the guidelines for this one. Your 'arguments' are better suited for Holy Huddle or Random Ramblings where it doesn't matter what the science actually says.

First of all, I'm not even sure that what you guys are talking about is even science.

Sure, you guys equate it with science, but is it actually science?

My answer is no...in other words, the science ain't saying what you are claiming...your presuppositions are making the claims, not the science itself.

So, why don't we move this thread (among others), to a more suitable sub forum), after we move my ramblings?

Now, how about that?

Here one is expected to at least read and/or provide actual scientific literature and/or data. So far you have done none of that and feel you have 'won'. Readers likely have a different perspective.

It's not science-fact, it is science-fiction

[SiNcE_1985]

When you can use phylogenetics as proof of God did not do it, then talk to me.

That's not the topic of the thread. This thread is about whether phylogenetics are evidence for evolution, not about whether they're "proof that God didn't do it".

Ok, and what was my answer? NO.

Then we're done, aren't we?

[Jose Fly]

This thread is about whether phylogenetics are evidence for evolution, not about whether they're "proof that God didn't do it".

Ok, and what was my answer? NO.

Are you saying you don't think phylogenies are evidence for evolution?