Denial of Evolution VII (2015)

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by davewhite04, Jan 5, 2015.

Page 5 of 54
  1. leopold

    leopold Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    17,455
    i found an issue of science that contained the article and i posted the link here on the forums before i downloaded it.
    the link no longer works but i did post a few excerpts from the issue. post 432
    www.sciforums.com/threads/does-evolution-exsist.106025/page-22#post-2716879
    the above post raised a shitstorm that rages to this day.

    remember, this was published in 1983 or so.

    the conclusion of this conference?
    that small changes do not accumulate.

    that's only the tip of the iceberg enmos.
    there is also the fraudulent horseshit in connection with ayala and what he said.
    the infamous alleged retraction.
    this "retraction" is posted on arrowsmiths website "noanswersin genesis".
    a number of people wrote to science concerning said article, none of them was ayala.
    science did not post any errata or corrections to said article.
     
    leopold, Jan 10, 2015
    #81

  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Randwolf

    Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,201
    Are you really gonna do this again leopold? This is about the 15th time now in the last 7-8 years. All that happens is fifty some people dig up references showing you that the quote was taken out of context, that it doesn't mean what you think it means and that it has been superseded in any event. However, you don't care. That ONE article is the be all end all for you and the subject of evolution.

    PS - Enmos, you don't remember the last couple go-rounds on this with leopold? (Have fun - I feel for ya

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Randwolf, Jan 10, 2015
    #82

  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Dywyddyr

    Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    Geez, I remember them, and they were ones I didn't get involved in.
     
    Dywyddyr, Jan 11, 2015
    #83

  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. leopold

    leopold Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    17,455
    do what?
    enmos asked for my source, i gave it to him.
     
    leopold, Jan 11, 2015
    #84
  8. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    I was actually taught evolution in high school. So I wasn't being lied to.

    Unless you have scientific evidence that part of the brain evolved from something else that does not clearly indicate that we shared a common ancestor with certain types of worms, from around 600 million years ago? Yes? No?

    I actually feel embarrassed for you. Because you will never be able to talk back this level of stupid.
     
    Bells, Jan 11, 2015
    #85
  9. Cris

    Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Leopold,

    So if humans were not the result of an evolutionary process, where did we come from? Can you show the data and proofs for your alternative to evolution?
     
    Cris, Jan 11, 2015
    #86
  10. Cris

    Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Dave,

    You say you believe in evolution, and by that I assume you believe that man evolved from lesser lifeforms. Your comment above seems to imply you do not agree with the process of mutations and how changes lead to other changes and so on.

    You appear to be arguing from a creationist perspective, that man one day simply appeared, but you say you agree with an evolutionary process. Your statements are contradictory.

    Can you explain more clearly your position on where man came from and any role a god might have played?
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2015
    Cris, Jan 11, 2015
    #87
  11. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Mostly, sure. So what?

    leopold, getting a fossil to fossilize is fucking hard. How many fossils appear in the woods? Most fall apart; even deer eat deer antlers. Not every series - do you appreciate just how many series there are out there? - is going to be complete. Hell, we've barely found even a few percent of all the forms that probably ever existed - but the message is clear. Things descend with modification. Exactly what kind and when is another question - widespread microevolutionary stages, saltation; who cares? Only assholes and the utterly myopic can possibly think it's all only of one kind or another. We do have transitionals in a number of series. Does that mean microevolution only happened in those cases specifically? No. It's a system that does occur, and probably occurs very often. Evolution takes a leap once in a while, but a lot of it is probably microevolution running quickly.

    The reason high schools in lots of places are hesitant is because of pressure from theists, who don't like having their articles contradicted. I didn't think it could possibly be so - and then I moved to an eastern state in the US. Let me tell you: it's fucking true. And these were educated, white-collar people. It. Was. Frightening. High school teachers, like most people, couldn't give two shits about their students. No, what they're scared of is pressure from the church groups. Those people control a lot of things in a community, man. You'd be amazed.

    Anyway: does saltation occur? Sure. Why the hell wouldn't it? It just seems more probable, given what we know about genetic architecture, that microevolution and quantitative state are more common.
     
    GeoffP, Jan 11, 2015
    #88
  12. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    What else could it be a result of?

    It is the case.

    The Grand Scientific Conspiracy to Tell Lies to Kids exists only in your mind, leopold.

    Half of US high school teachers don't believe in evolution (if high school teachers are representative of the general US population). And far less than half actually understand it. And only a fraction of them of have actually studied it.

    Some US high school teachers don't teach it because they think it conflicts with their religion. Some don't teach it because they are worried about backlash from parents and others who think that evolution conflicts with their religion. Some don't teach it because they just don't want the kind of heat that the subject seems to raise in religious America.

    Communism wants to create its own religion, in effect. Capitalism has its own kind of religion, too - a mythology about individual effort, the power of free markets yada yada yada. Ideologies are everywhere you look.

    That was not the conclusion of the conference. There was no doubt about the fact of evolution at the conference. There was merely a debate about gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium, which was a hot topic of debate in biology back in 1983 or whenever it was. That argument has largely been sorted by now. And trust me: conferences about evolutionary biology always conclude that evolution is real, leopold. Those conferences wouldn't be held if scientists didn't think evolution was real.

    This was not a "alleged" retraction.

    You only refuse to accept what Ayala himself wrote about his own prior words because it clashes with your religion. No other reason.

    Science and Science both moved on with their lives. Evolution is still as real today as it was 30 years ago.
     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #89
  13. leopold

    leopold Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    17,455
    i don't have an alternative.
    there are several possibilities though:
    1. there actually may be a god.
    2. we have misidentified, misaligned, or misinterpreted something.
    3. life may be intimately related to quantuum physics.

    the biggest problem i see is, how do sexes appear if species just "pop" into existence.

    OTOH, there is more to this story than just the article.
    specifically the matter of ayala and his alleged retraction.
    this retraction does not appear in science nor does it appear that ayala ever contact science about said retraction.
    but yet ayala allegedly contacts a personal website about it.
    uh huh, go tell it to the mountain.

    no, i do not have an answer for ANY of this cris.
     
    leopold, Jan 11, 2015
    #90
  14. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    Species don't just pop into existence.

    Sex evolved, just like everything else.
     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #91
  15. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    Reproducing a post from April, 2012, here:

     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #92
  16. leopold

    leopold Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    17,455
    that WAS the conclusion james, and you KNOW it was.
    oops, i forgot, your copy didn't come from jstor.
     
    leopold, Jan 11, 2015
    #93
  17. davewhite04

    davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,326
    Sure.

    I believe evolution explains quite elegantly the diversity of life on Earth. I also believe evolution can speed up dramatically. I cannot explain with any level of certainty the origin of man to be honest.

    I believe the Earth is at least 3.2billion years old, which is not what creationist believe, is it(genuine question)?
     
    davewhite04, Jan 11, 2015
    #94
  18. davewhite04

    davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,326
    Science doesn't sign a document and close a book, mass produce it and close the case on any scientific theory... there isn't, and never will be a scientific fact.

    That's an answer? I don't feel embarrassed for people like you, I feel nothing.
     
    davewhite04, Jan 11, 2015
    #95
  19. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    leopold's ongoing fixation with an article published in 1980 dates back at least to 2007 on sciforums.

    Here's a page about leopold's infamous Ayala quote:

    http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/another_creationist_out_of_context_quote.htm

    Here's the quote leopold relies on as "disproof" of evolution. This is from an article published in Science back in 1980, titled "Evolutionary theory under fire".
    Here's what Francisco Ayala said (in July 2001) about this quote from the article:


    So, if leopold trusts Francisco Ayala, then he should trust him when he says that "small (genetic) changes do accumulate".

    Enough said.
     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #96
  20. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    leopold:

    You know how this goes every time we do this dance, which you insist on replaying year after year (sometimes several times a year).

    You tell lies. I correct you, often referring to our previous discussions of the exact same issue. You insist that your lies are true, against all evidence. Eventually, everybody gets sick of you and you're banned from sciforums for a while (again).

    There's no reason to suppose that this time things will play out differently. After all, you've been doing this since 2007. It's a pity that instead of wasting your time on this, you didn't spend some of those 8 years learning something about science.

    Anyway, I've now dredged the record a bit - not thoroughly, because that's difficult to do since the forum software update - and I have now put the old information on record once again so it is easily accessible when you bring this bullshit up again next month or next year or whenever.
     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #97
  21. davewhite04

    davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,326
    Gotta love your tenacity James

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    davewhite04, Jan 11, 2015
    #98
  22. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    See also, here:

    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/denial-of-evolution-vi.134919/page-26#post-3082560

    Here's a quote from leopold's favorite Science article (the same one with the Ayala misquote):
    Eldredge was one of the scientists who proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium.

    It is worth noting once again that none of the biologists debating evolution at the conference reported in the article expressed any doubt that evolution is real, that evolution produces new species, and so on.
     
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #99
  23. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,421
    Here are few more-recent threads in which leopold was taken to task over the Science article and on his views in general about evolution. leopold's intellectual dishonesty is evident throughout.

    The most extensive recent discussion I can find is contained in the following mega-thread:

    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/denial-of-evolution-vi.134919/ (June 2013)

    My own posts on the matter seem to start about here, although many other members and moderators made contributions as good as or better than mine.

    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/denial-of-evolution-vi.134919/page-26#post-3082558

    Some other discussions of the same issue can be found here:

    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/leopolds-evolution-diversion.141691/ (May 2014)
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/scientific-theories-and-reality.142057/ (July 2014)
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/denial-of-evolution-v.112778/ (May 2012)
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/views-on-evolution.112963/ (April 2011)
    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/does-evolution-exsist.106025/ (January 2011)
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2015
    James R, Jan 11, 2015
    #100
Page 5 of 54

Share This Page