Denial of evolution III

I have an extremely limited scope of knowledge in biology my field is engineering. Yet my own understanding far exceeds zero so I'll assume you are making a relative statement. However in order to answer that I'd have to know what you were contradicting. I have no context for your perceived logical fallacy with exception of a quote excerpt from my post made in generalities, no context of a specific form, no context specific for superiority. You make assumptions on those means with no introduction, and no context...I could not begin to understand from where your perceptions draws.

But congratulations on inserting yourself into the conversion if that's what you wanted.

So from my position your statement is confusing. You say at "least a million genetic differences" but there are only 20,000-something genes in humans.
Since no mammal reproduces asexually I wonder if you knew we were speaking of complex life forms, (thus the word superior) River-wind just used a bacterial example to make a point.

Then you say "it surely will" in reference to a probability of superior life form when we have no direct observable facts to prove..."surely will".

Thus you should know of my quote... but the combination of billions of organic systems working in concert to create a superior form is against probability. ... was a general statement of the accumulation of traits from abiogenesis to homosapien (simple to complex) on the unlikely hood from beginning of the Earth to current and untraceable lineage of coincidences that are required to reach human complexity. Specifically not just the progression of evolution through advanced forms of life but the creation of these organic systems to work in concert. We may look at the combination of 500 million years of life as eventual human outcome but most of the complex forms of life appeared very suddenly with no ancestry. It's one thing to speak about adaption as an evolutionary process that can do remarkable work, it's another to jump to the snowball theory (which doesn't even work for the snowball). Many species exist for millions of years with no accumulation to extinction...accumulation is obviously not a given.

 

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wow,Dywyddyr, who the hell is this guy? he doesn't get seam to get basics of science, yet here he is debating evolution...wow.
he thinks we have no idea how life started...how about abiogenesis ?lol.
the transaction from inorganic matter to the first life is a complicated t best process. deep understanding of molecular biology and molecular interaction is needed to even begin to comprehend the vast complexity of what life is now. life needed millions of years to get that way, and just because it looks "to complicated" to arise by its own, it shows zero evidence of any creation hay_you. What seams unlikely is actually highly probable if you give it millions of years and a vast universe to run the chances. what are the chances for random molecules to mix until you get life? low, but the universe is 13 billion years old, and has billions upon billions of stars,likely billions of planets. when you run those chances, you see they increase by a large factor. now evolution steps in the moment the first basic life form appears, but evolution deals with the DEVELOPMENT of life, not its ORIGIN. whether or not (actually not) life was created is irrelevant, because evolution works ANYWAY, because of the ever changing environment and the ever changing genome. evidence for evolution is more abundant than most evidence for other theories. it is a irrefutable fact.

 

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saquist,
wow, just...wow

If humanity were the goal of evolution, then yes, forming a human from coincidental events would be highly unlikely. But, since evolution has no goal, a human being is not the inevitable result.

 

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George1, since you have made over 600+ posts here, I suggest you check whether someone has hacked your account. It appears that someone is making some stupid posts using your name.

To the author of this quoted post: When you are referring to some post made by someone you should use the quote feature of this forum. Dywyddyr hasn't posted in this thread for several months now, so you are referring to some old stuff. It would be nice to give some context.

From what I can see, Dywyddyr's posts in this thread are factually correct, but a bit on the abrasive side, with some rather snide remarks aimed at anti-evolution nuts. I haven't the foggiest idea what you are writing about.


Regarding the wall o' text: There are these interesting things in English called sentences and paragraphs. Sentences start with a capital letter, have a subject and predicate, and end with a period, question mark, or exclamation points. There are some finer details, but you can learn those later. Try working on just these basic concepts.

Paragraphs comprise one or more sentences that address a common idea. Note that I just changed the topic from sentences to paragraphs, so I started a new paragraph. I inserted a blank line to indicate the change in topics. This way readers know I changed topics on purpose. It also helps make the post more readable. It is very hard to read a wall of text.

 

yes, i realize that it was the first page. but i refer to it only at the beginning. the rest is to support evolution.

 

We're not talking about setting goals. We're measuring the results. Just as any flip of the coin.

 

So a theory that explains how it happened is probably a valuable and worthy insight, yes?

 

Is not improbable that a very simple system of one a few reactions came about and then through natural selection and mutation over millions of years a very complex system came into being gradually. It important to note here the only pure chance is needed to come up with the most simplest proto-living system, after that the system does not operate by pure chance and thus the argument of improbably you suggest becomes void.

Evolving computer programs have demonstrated this and have created very complex solutions to problems even when given very simple or non-existent baseline solutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle's_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming

 

This makes me think of a simple analogy.

The chances of you winning the lottery are *really, really* small. The chances of *someone* winning the lottery is 100%.

The chances of *you*existing are *really really* small. The chances of someone existing after your parents decided to have children is pretty high. You were the result.

If you think that humans are unlikely, that's because you have mistakenly assumed that humans are some sort of end-goal the universe has been shooting for since the big bang. Based on random mutation and natural selection, humans are very unlikely; nearly infinity unlikely.

However, if you don't assume humans as an end-goal, then the issue of unlikeliness becomes a moot point. If life, with genetic variation and reproduction, exists, then the genetic code will vary over time. With enough time, the genes will be different enough that the individuals can't mate any more. If intelligent life comes about as a part of this process (how, I can't effectively say), then intelligent life will ask "why do we look like this?" Because they do. No other reason.

Like the puddle who looks at the pothole in which is exists, and thinks "This hole fits me perfectly! It must have been made just for me!"

 

You know Hoyle clung to his assertions until he died and the truth is he might have made some mistakes of assumption but the truth is you can't have fallacy applied to theoretical unknown. The funny thing is...applying fallacy to Hoyle's assumption is a fallacy in of itself. To assume that Hoyle's assertion that the life from lifelessness is impossible is false is an argument from fallacy. If he got some of the conditions of abiogenesis wrong it does not exclude improbable. Even BillyT created an appeal to probability. He assumed because something can happen it will happen.

This isn't about setting a goal. This is about the probability of circumstance moving inert matter from lifelessness to life under the conditions we know support life to it's max complexity. River-wind you made the same appeal to probability that Billy T created. "With enough time", As I pointed out in a previous post there are many species that have gone millions of years without changing at all. We can't simply conclude that accumulation is a given. It is a proven fallacy that it is not.

 

The odds that your randomly picked number will be the lottery winner is about 1 in a million. The odds that someone will win the lottery is 1 in 1.

 

Not really. Abiogenesis is just going from organic non-life to organic life. Once there is life, and it can reproduce in about the same form, evolution takes over.

Agreed. It is not a given; some species fit very well within their niche, and have no need to evolve. Some species, through increased environmental pressures (climate change, natural disaster, predation, increased competition) must change or die off.

 

I wouldn't say everyone who's not an evolution fanboy wishes to challenge the concept of evolution itself but it can't be said that they can't have a bone to pick with Darwinian TOE, e.g. natural selection.

 

After noting that even non-sexual reproduction occasional makes, by coping errors, individual organisms that differ from their parent (and sexual reproduction ALWAYS makes the new individual that have a 50% difference (million of cites in the DNA) that differ from either parent, I gave that “given enough time / probability argument” below:

Now you are advancing the point that some organism have not, at least in external form, evolved as a counter to my argument, but that does not hold for organisms with an also unchanged environment. In fact that observation of “form stability” in these case is proof of evolution – the effectiveness of a multitude of (2a) improvements which as we now observer the “optimized for its environment” only reflects that there no longer is any (2a) difference possible. – I.e. shows that before the present time the less than optimal design ancestors of the current “optimized” form were able to evolve to become optimal for that stable environment. (Only other logical idea, with zero support, is that God designed many creatures to be optimal for their environment at the start. - no evolution occurs - not even as small adaptations, but you have rejected that.)

To illustrates with the Santa Catarina's Guinea Pig, SCGPs, evolving into new species called the preá in only 8000 years (See post at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2672082&postcount=845):

There was no significant change in the environment of the guinea pigs who lived on the large Santa Catarina Island. There population as far as can be told from skeletal remains was much like it is today, 8000 years ago. For them the lush main island provided abundant food and their population was in harmonic balance with their animals that preyed on them. No so for the approximately 20 SCGPs that got stranded on a tiny rocky out crop of the main island, which got cut off from the others as the melting ice age made that rocky land into a separated tiny island with extremely different and harsh conditions.

We don’t really know how many SCGPs were initially cut off by the rising sea but there was only grass between the rocks for about 20. Fortunately, there happen to be no predators on that football field sized 90% rocky island only 8Km from the main island. Via in breading new generations were born, but only the smaller individual’s avoided starvation. Now the preá are only half as large as the SCGPs they evolved from. Also their hind legs are relatively large and more rabbit like –presumably an advantage for hopping over rocks to seek grass on the other side, etc. They crawl between and under rocks too, so their facial whiskers now cover their entire face except for a tiny (finger nail sized) spot of bare pink skin from which their closer spaced eyes, nose and mouth can be seen in a nearly flat surface, like a human face is - i.e. the snout of the SCGPs was no longer useful and eliminated. Presumably having contact sensor all over your head avoid injury as you scamper thru narrow spaces between rocks, etc. looking for grass, especially in the dark.

SUMMARY the SCGPs were already near optimum design for the lush main Island but living 8000 years on the edge of starvation on the nearly barren tiny island is an extreme change in their environment. Thus they evolved to become a more optimal design for their new environment – mainly becoming smaller needing less food. The island support 40 or possibly 42 individual preá now. No one knows if they are now an optimal design for it or if they are still evolving via (2a) process.

So there you have it –support for evolution: Long term stable environment = no change in form. Rapid and extreme change in environment can in even only 8000 years produce a new species with very different form, via (2a) process repeated many times.

 

That is a statement in favor of decision of population.
That is still an appeal to probability, a formal logical fallacy.

 

So you are questioning the possibility of any higher life form coming about through evolution?

 

I'm questioning the myriad assumptions.
We can't simply assume traits accumulate. That is the assumption that we are pressed to believe in favor of macro-evolution. We know that there is no absolute assurance that traits accumulate. So these assertions are inherently flawed.

Everyone here in favor and supporting evolution to create sweeping changes has made this same formal fallacy repeatedly.

 

We don't need to assume, we have the evidence, we have even seen it. So the claim that we are making a fallacy by "assuming" trait accumulate isn't true.

 

Beneficial traits accumulate simply because they allow the life form to reproduce and thrive. Another word for it is heredity.

 

False, and demomstrated false by traits accumulating into a new species, called the preá, in only 8000 years.

See quick summary in post 914's illustration (2nd half of post) and several older posts collected together at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2672082&postcount=845
from an earlier version II of this evolution thread.