Evolution

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garbonzo

Registered Senior Member
Are we allowed to post threads on the denial of evolution outside of the mega thread where everyone is jumping over everyone else? It's just chaos in there, I want this to be more focused. Anyway, onwards:

I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified. Evolutionists are like... let's see... when we find a characteristic that exists in similar species, then that's evidence of a common ancestor, and when we find a characteristic that exists in completely dissimilar species that couldn't possibly share a common ancestor because past species didn't possess such characteristic, then that's evidence for convergent evolution.

A close look to the theory of evolution will show that it is riddled with such... explanatory tools. You find an instance of something, it is evidence for evolution. You find an instance of the opposite of that, it is evidence for evolution.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic. Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be. Evolution is assumed as true for the purpose of assessing the evidence, leading to a line of thought not of 'let us see if this evidence points us to evolution' but rather 'let us see how this evidence fits into evolutionary paradigm'.

Response?
 
garbonzo said:
I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified.
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So do scientists.
Fortunately evolution CAN be falsified.
Examples here.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic.
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Because you don't know what you're talking about?

Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be.
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Wrong.

Evolution is assumed as true for the purpose of assessing the evidence
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Evolution has been SHOWN to be true.

Response?
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Go away and learn something before spouting nonsense.
 
Garbonzo: Consider the fossil record for Eohippus to modern horse. It clearly shows a progression of related species.

If you want to refute or disagree with Darwinian evolution, you are obligated to provide a better explanation for that set of fossils.

The creationists & other religious types essentially explain it by saying or implying that God did it.
 
It's not enough to "disprove" evolution, you still have to prove creationism. It doesn't just win by default.
 
garbonzo said:
Are we allowed to post threads on the denial of evolution outside of the mega thread where everyone is jumping over everyone else? It's just chaos in there, I want this to be more focused. Anyway, onwards:

I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified. Evolutionists are like... let's see... when we find a characteristic that exists in similar species, then that's evidence of a common ancestor, and when we find a characteristic that exists in completely dissimilar species that couldn't possibly share a common ancestor because past species didn't possess such characteristic, then that's evidence for convergent evolution.

A close look to the theory of evolution will show that it is riddled with such... explanatory tools. You find an instance of something, it is evidence for evolution. You find an instance of the opposite of that, it is evidence for evolution.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic. Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be. Evolution is assumed as true for the purpose of assessing the evidence, leading to a line of thought not of 'let us see if this evidence points us to evolution' but rather 'let us see how this evidence fits into evolutionary paradigm'.

Response?
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That's not what they say at all. Common ancestry can be determined by DNA and morphological characteristics in bones, which are very specific. Convergent evolution is just the idea that species which inhabit similar environments and have similar challenges often solve the problems of living in similar ways. This isn't very controversial except that it includes the word "evolution" which is your kryptonite. Not everything is evidence for evolution, it could be falsified in a large number of ways, the most famous example would be the existence of a rabbit in Cambrian layers. Of course there were no rabbits then, I guess God didn't get around to it yet.
 
Creationism, from an objective scientific POV, is about an aspect of evolution, connected to modern human consciousness, which began about 6000 years ago. This transition time ushered in stable civilization and was due to the invention of writing. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was God". The bible tells us the starting point for its thesis; writing/word. It is simple, yet Atheism and Fundamentalism are not rational enough to see because each have an agenda and mislead with propaganda.

There is a saying that time heals all wounds. This is due to our memory forward integrating. The wisdom of age is connected to this forward integration, where the many details are integrate into the generalities of common sense and practical wisdom. The carpenter will adapt from his previous experiences without the need of a specific procedure for each unique situation.

Spoken language was around before the bible, based on the scientific data, with ideas, stories, songs, and inventions passed from mouth to mouth. These memories forward integrated and changed with time. The result is civilization does periodically spawn, but it also aborts as the original foundation of thinking begins to get fuzzy due to integration. The hows and why become procedural and not thoughtful and adaptive since the later generation lacks the real time memories; lacks foundation for adaptation.

With the invention of writing, although the brain will continue to forward integrate its memories, the original set of idea is now carved in stone, allowing the original to be refreshed. This external hard drive to allow memory refresh, created something both progressive and unnatural to the brain.

This refreshing of accurate memory will generate a lingering brain potential from which modern consciousness will appear. It is similar to a repression, where the person relives a memory each day, while it is fresh. But now this is done with a wide range of things.

The bible represents a written account of this new consciousness that appears, as it observes and records the world around itself. The recording of observations, itself sets a written foundation that is not forward integrating, so the observations appear more sequenced as change in time. This creates a sense of logic over random. If these observations had only been recorded with spoken language, the foundation would be moving to the future along with the future. This creates a different context that is less sequential over time. It is more like revisionist history of today, where history accommodates the present, so you can't learn from a line to the past.

Instead of thinking like the people of a certain time, such as civil war, many people assume civil war people also had cell phones and chat rooms and should know better. The separation in time is lost so one can't learn from the evolution of thought. Social media and much of the internet is less like written in stone and more like the flux of spoken, which is relative and changing/deception.

One cannot expect people from 6000 years ago, with the new human mind just starting to appear, to know the current events of today, anymore than Darwin should be expected to include DNA in his theory of evolution. There is a sequence of time in which knowledge grows and unfolds. The bible details the state of the human mind at its transition away from natural; paradise of forward integration, into various unnatural structuring leading to success, pitfalls and failures, relative to the natural way.

To me, this is the most exciting part of evolution, where selection changes into unnatural selection mixed with natural selection, with human selection the easiest to see. What changed were the personality firmware of the brain that define human nature, with several upgrades to the brain's operating system. It also allows one to see those who revise history through the chaos of forward integration via relative thinking where carved in stone is sanded away due to expectations of relative and random.
 
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garbonzo said:
I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified.
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If you really were skeptical, you would have found out that evolution is falsifiable before you decided that it isn't.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic.
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It's more like a web. Individual conclusions may be connected but no one conclusion depends on only one other conclusion.
 
garbonzo said:
I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified. Evolutionists are like... let's see... when we find a characteristic that exists in similar species, then that's evidence of a common ancestor, and when we find a characteristic that exists in completely dissimilar species that couldn't possibly share a common ancestor because past species didn't possess such characteristic, then that's evidence for convergent evolution.
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Do you exert the same stricture for God? For example, when faced with the problem of strange nonadaptive traits, the magnificence of nature or general suffering, do you take the view that they demonstrate God and God's will, or falsify it? I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot ever be wrong or falsified.

This is where evolution diverges from faith: it is possible to falsify evolution. But it is exceedingly unlikely. The huge volume of information we have to date supports both the mathematical fact of evolution and strongly supports the concept of descent with modification. (These are not the same thing, BTW.) It would be possible for you to counter it, but you'd need some properly powerful evidence, not the convictions of idle theism and a vague dislike for that body of knowledge.

A close look to the theory of evolution will show that it is riddled with such... explanatory tools. You find an instance of something, it is evidence for evolution. You find an instance of the opposite of that, it is evidence for evolution.
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Please illustrate with examples from the literature. Thanks.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic. Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be. Evolution is assumed as true for the purpose of assessing the evidence, leading to a line of thought not of 'let us see if this evidence points us to evolution' but rather 'let us see how this evidence fits into evolutionary paradigm'.

Response?
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Rather, new evidence is taken as new elements in the evolutionary paradigm. If they recur with more testing, they are incorporated. If not, not. I seem to recall someone bitching about the falsified generality of recapitulation of phylogeny in embryology - was that you? The concept has been dismissed. It was falsified using simple statistics because it was not perfectly explanatory. Thus evolution grows on basis of its evidence. Theism does not - unless you managed to find some support for God being involved instead of specious arguments against evolutionary science - and its stated goal is plain for all to see: prove the existence of God. Remove the plank in your eye and you will be able to see more clearly to remove the speck in mine.
 
garbonzo said:
I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified. Evolutionists are like... let's see... when we find a characteristic that exists in similar species, then that's evidence of a common ancestor, and when we find a characteristic that exists in completely dissimilar species that couldn't possibly share a common ancestor because past species didn't possess such characteristic, then that's evidence for convergent evolution.
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Since you have basically listed the definitions of those words, that is correct - but not very meaningful. It's like saying "if someone sees a capacitor they claim it's evidence for electrical fields, and that supports Maxwell's Equations - but when they see an inductor, they claim it's evidence for magnetic fields, and they claim that ALSO supports Maxwell's Equations!" Correct by definition.

A close look to the theory of evolution will show that it is riddled with such... explanatory tools. You find an instance of something, it is evidence for evolution. You find an instance of the opposite of that, it is evidence for evolution.
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You could find a great many things that would be evidence AGAINST evolution. For example, if you found a structure that could not be arrived at without proceeding through simpler intermediate forms, then you'd have a good argument that that structure did not evolve naturally. So if one day we find a creature with a propeller in front and a piston engine inside, and there was no possible useful intermediate form, that would be a good argument against evolution. (Which is why we don't find too many propellers or wheels in nature.)

However, such things have not been found. Periodically someone finds a structure (like a flagellum, or an eye, or mammalian blood clotting) and says "this could not have evolved by itself!" To use the popular term, it seems to be irreducibly complex. However, every time someone has made such a claim, biologists have researched the issue and discovered the simpler steps that gave rise to the more complex structure.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic. Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be.
Click to expand...

Well, it's more that no one can find evidence that disproves evolution, like irreducible complexity, or organisms with no ancestors. Again, if you could find, say, a breed of dog that does not use DNA - it uses some completely different means of 'design encoding' - then you would have good evidence that the dog did not evolve from any other terrestrial animal. But again, no one has ever found such a thing.
 
From my Post #3
Consider the fossil record for Eohippus to modern horse. It clearly shows a progression of related species.

If you want to refute or disagree with Darwinian evolution, you are obligated to provide a better explanation for that set of fossils.

The creationists & other religious types essentially explain it by saying or implying that God did it.
Click to expand...
So far, no evolution nay-sayer has offered a better explantion.
 
origin said:
Not really there is lots of evidence to support that conclusion.
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Let us look at this in light of interbreeding with neanderthals, denisovans, (and others?)

Without a complete understanding of exactly how the "new human mind" differs from that of our ancestors, haw can you specify a date for that transition?
 
origin said:
The "new human mind" appeared >100,000 years ago not 6000.
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As Origin pointed out, roughly, the human brain in its modern form and size originated roughly 150,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens came on the scene. However, there have been several junctures in our history when our psychology underwent profound changes.

The technology of controlled fire actually preceded the emergence of our species--probably more than a million years ago. Most of the predators were afraid of fire, so campfires allowed humans to sleep longer. REM sleep is when the things that we learn during the day are integrated with our other memories and are organized into ideas--longer periods of REM caused a quantum improvement in our lives, as people were suddenly able to do more clever things.

The self-domestication of dogs around 30KYA caused another quantum improvement in our thinking. With their keen night vision and sharp teeth, they were able to keep the predators at bay even more effectively than fire. At this point our 2-hour REM cycles probably became standardized, and we were actually able to experience two in the same night.

Somewhere between those two seminal events, probably around 70KYA, we invented the key technology of spoken language. Archeologists and anthropologists are fairly content with this estimate, because this is when we see evidence of new complex, coordinated group activities that could not possibly have been performed by people who were communicating with hand signals at the same time.

It was only a few thousand years later when the first successful migration out of Africa occurred.

Wellwisher is correct, that the technology of written language was invented around 4000BCE. Contrary to assumptions, the evidence we have of these early writings indicates that it was invented by merchants who needed to keep track of their inventory and their accounts... not by priests, scholars or kings. This is when recorded history begins. Prior to that moment, everything we know about the past is inferred by science. No humans left us their observations in their own words.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Wellwisher is correct, that the technology of written language was invented around 4000BCE. Contrary to assumptions, the evidence we have of these early writings indicates that it was invented by merchants who needed to keep track of their inventory and their accounts... not by priests, scholars or kings. This is when recorded history begins. Prior to that moment, everything we know about the past is inferred by science. No humans left us their observations in their own words.
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Merchants needed writing to create a hard copy of agreements, because spoken language, alone, allows many paths that can distort the reality of the original agreement. On the neutral side, the brain is forwarding integrating memory, such that the details of the original agreement, over time, can become altered in the minds of both merchant and customer. If either is having a hard time this is part of the integration that can lead to a false sense of past. He was happy at first in the light of hope but now unhappy due to reality and feels he was ripped off. This can lead to conflict since each may remember differently, with one or both forgetting the original.

Lying and spin can also be used to pretend the data was different. This is where you pretend innocent forward integration, but with an unspoken angle to deceive. Spoken language has more ways to distort original intent and falsify the data. This would be most obvious in business, first, where value is being traded. Written language set the record straight and prevented bad memory and lying.

Once the written language tool is applied to everything, other areas within culture where the memory can change and where deception can appear, also become cleaner. If we needed to built a new grain structure, a generation or two later, with language alone, a good confidence man might get the job. The majority is not sure how to do this, so all he has to do is convince the majority of talent, that may not exist. The soft spoken engineer, may not get the job since can't entertain the ignorant as well. Once a written record, like a blue print or procedure is writing, there is a better way to verify talent. Or if the con artist is still able to scam this can help the con artist get it closer to right.

Writing also allowed one to record observations, before they were lost. One may notice something important. If you don't write it down right away, it may forever be gone. The word being called God, may have come about because written word was closer to universal truth and reality, which was much higher than the subjectivity of spoken language. It created a more solid barometer that was more consistent like the sun god rising each day. To them this came from the Gods and not from man.

Trade agreements and contracts only last a finite time. While other forms of writing linger, with some all the way to the present; bible. This time scale difference is needed to maintain an accurate time line for thing in the context of witnesses. The merchant contract is finite, but contracts with universals last longer.

This is a difference in time scale. If a short term merchant contract was applied to a longer term universal contract with truth, they will need to use spoken language to use the present to define the data of the past, to suit the needs of the present. They need to destroy or discredit the written contacts with past witnesses or else their scams do not work as well. Revisionist history would be easier with only spoken language, which is why it is done to children and illiterate. The high illiteracy rate due to liberal education voids the written contract with the past. Even the illiterate can learn by word of mouth with this firm, at best, for a short time. But it is not even firm, since they can't read to verify the written contract data.

The civilization that emerged, in the ancient past, in strongest positions had the firmest contracts with their past, allowing the future to be extrapolated.
 
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