rareblackatheist
New Member
I was explaining how we share DNA with other great apes and how it shows common ancestry.
So i guess my question is where am i wrong?
So i guess my question is where am i wrong?
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Common DNA does not show relationships?
- Thread starter rareblackatheist
- Start date
he_who_is_nobody
Well-Known Member
rareblackatheist said:
You are not wrong. Whomever you are quoting does not understand the function of DNA. Just explain to them that DNA is inherited from parent to offspring, thus the same way one is able to test paternity in a court case is almost the same way scientist test relationships in the domain of life.
DepricatedZero
New Member
Maybe it's the NyQuil talking but I love you guys, for stuff like this.
rareblackatheist
New Member
he_who_is_nobody said:
I think he does but i also think he makes up definitions to suit him. For example...he called evolution just a theory.
You would be correct. Do you know what that word means?
A well tested and widely accepted view that the scientific community agree best explains certain observable facts.
Since we apparently agree on that, there isn't much to debate over.
The irony in that is, the definition I gave is right out of my earth science textbook ( he claims to have science background) then he posted a link to definition of theory which is the exact opposite of what he's trying to say it means.
http://www.definitions.net/definition/theory
This is a guy that claims to have a science background and has debated "some of the greatest minds in the world" but seems to be pretending he doesn't know what the word theory means in a scientific context and says DNA does not prove relationships. Weird.
Gila Guerilla
New Member
Does this guy say what theory does mean? The problem is that theory has several meanings - the one you have given, and more:-
Of course when we speak of the Theory of Evolution, we mean in the scientific sense, ie. it's a big 'T' Theory. Richard Dawkins has suggested that science should adopt a new word, to eliminate common misconception that evolution is a small 't' theory, ie. a not well grounded, speculative piece of theorising. He has suggested Theorum, (rhyming with decorum).
Of course it doesn't, it just proves that God created organisms with similar DNA. Duh.
Cuz' you know, he didn't bother to invent a totally different DNA, he felt like slightly modifying the shit he already had, cause it's like more efficient that way or I dunno lol.
Cuz' you know, he didn't bother to invent a totally different DNA, he felt like slightly modifying the shit he already had, cause it's like more efficient that way or I dunno lol.
If this fellow is a creationist, then I suspect (s)he will adhere to the threadbare "common genetics = common designer" propaganda-slogan that is widely touted to this day by prominent members of the US's Intelligent Design (ID) movement. Even though such a sentiment is not explicitly stated in their writing, I'm struggling to see what else it's supposed to imply. And their misunderstanding of the meaning the word "theory" carries in the scientific realm consolidates this for me.
And the reason why this argument fails obviously boils down to genetics e.g. there are some (rare) mutations that we can utilise as markers of descent (some of which are only carried by one sex). And it really doesn't matter if you're working at the level of species, genera, orders, or phylum, the underlying principle remains largely the same. And we can observe this in real time within a relatively small number of generations, by observing the aspects of specific gene-sequences that are transferred from one generation into the next, and theoretically (though somewhat unlikely) there would be cases where we could take that far back into history (we've done this with some early human ancestors already). If all the Earth's species were created individually, then the genetically compiled "Tree of Life" wouldn't be much of a tree, or even a tumble weed. The changes in the structure would be rather indecipherable and almost entirely random . . . I assume this is nothing that hasn't been said before, though.
It's also worth noting that even ignoring genetics, the argument is still heavily flawed, because if common attributes (of whatever sort) equate to common design rather than common ancestry, then one also has to extrapolate this principle to the differences we see in living structures in order for it to be logically consistent. Consider the physiological and anatomical differences between fish and sea-mammals. The former extracts O[sub]2[/sub] from the environment around it, whereas whales/dolphins/seals etc lack the apparatus to do this, and can still only extract their oxygen from the atmosphere directly, like we do (through their homologous cetacean nostrils.
These differences are explained with the most coherency and parsimony through biological evolution, simply because I can point to the simple fact that cetaceans and fish have distinct ancestries (though originally they must have shared an ancestor at some point). I.e. fish have remained in the sea almost since they evolved, more or less, whereas cetaceans are (originally) terrestrial carnivores in fish-clothing. This is not the case if you adhere to the ID argument. Different designs = different designers? If you took this argument to its logical conclusion, you would end up with a pantheon of different designers,all producing different systems to perform the same function, some of which turn out to be rather inefficient from a logical point of view. Again, it's easily explainable for me. Evolution is not obligated to be logical. You expect that an all-knowing and all-powerful designer would be. Etc...
And the reason why this argument fails obviously boils down to genetics e.g. there are some (rare) mutations that we can utilise as markers of descent (some of which are only carried by one sex). And it really doesn't matter if you're working at the level of species, genera, orders, or phylum, the underlying principle remains largely the same. And we can observe this in real time within a relatively small number of generations, by observing the aspects of specific gene-sequences that are transferred from one generation into the next, and theoretically (though somewhat unlikely) there would be cases where we could take that far back into history (we've done this with some early human ancestors already). If all the Earth's species were created individually, then the genetically compiled "Tree of Life" wouldn't be much of a tree, or even a tumble weed. The changes in the structure would be rather indecipherable and almost entirely random . . . I assume this is nothing that hasn't been said before, though.
It's also worth noting that even ignoring genetics, the argument is still heavily flawed, because if common attributes (of whatever sort) equate to common design rather than common ancestry, then one also has to extrapolate this principle to the differences we see in living structures in order for it to be logically consistent. Consider the physiological and anatomical differences between fish and sea-mammals. The former extracts O[sub]2[/sub] from the environment around it, whereas whales/dolphins/seals etc lack the apparatus to do this, and can still only extract their oxygen from the atmosphere directly, like we do (through their homologous cetacean nostrils.
These differences are explained with the most coherency and parsimony through biological evolution, simply because I can point to the simple fact that cetaceans and fish have distinct ancestries (though originally they must have shared an ancestor at some point). I.e. fish have remained in the sea almost since they evolved, more or less, whereas cetaceans are (originally) terrestrial carnivores in fish-clothing. This is not the case if you adhere to the ID argument. Different designs = different designers? If you took this argument to its logical conclusion, you would end up with a pantheon of different designers,all producing different systems to perform the same function, some of which turn out to be rather inefficient from a logical point of view. Again, it's easily explainable for me. Evolution is not obligated to be logical. You expect that an all-knowing and all-powerful designer would be. Etc...
Rumraket
Active Member
As I've also posted elsewhere, the evidence for common descent (in genetics) is the nested hierarcy found in comparative phylogenetics when sequencing genes from multiple species and comparing them. There is no expectation that this nested hierarchy should exist with design. I know creationists will often claim that "common design" can explain it, which is technically correct(it could have been what the designer wanted), but there is no expectation for the specific pattern of a nested hierarchy under a design paradigm, so evolution is simply the better explanation still.
Then there's a lot of evidence against design, at least, intelligent design, in the form of a lot of defective genes and useless junk(And yes, despite the recent claims of the ENCODE project, it's still considered junk). Again, you could postulate that this is what the designer wanted (with whatever ad-hoc rationalization you can conjure up), but there is no expectation that this is the case, but evolution actually explains why it would be there, so again evolution is the better explanation.
In this way, evolution consistently makes predictions about what we should find, that has the potential to falsify it, but doesn't, and it marvelously explains the data with mechanisms that tells us how and why we see the things we do. In contrast, design-inferences make no predictions that explain the data, it's all post-fact ad-hoc excuses erected to make it "compatible" with design. But since there are no explanatory mechanisms, no predictions and no observations that could falsify it(whatever we observe could be what the designer wanted), it can never be science and it will have no explanatory value.
Then there's a lot of evidence against design, at least, intelligent design, in the form of a lot of defective genes and useless junk(And yes, despite the recent claims of the ENCODE project, it's still considered junk). Again, you could postulate that this is what the designer wanted (with whatever ad-hoc rationalization you can conjure up), but there is no expectation that this is the case, but evolution actually explains why it would be there, so again evolution is the better explanation.
In this way, evolution consistently makes predictions about what we should find, that has the potential to falsify it, but doesn't, and it marvelously explains the data with mechanisms that tells us how and why we see the things we do. In contrast, design-inferences make no predictions that explain the data, it's all post-fact ad-hoc excuses erected to make it "compatible" with design. But since there are no explanatory mechanisms, no predictions and no observations that could falsify it(whatever we observe could be what the designer wanted), it can never be science and it will have no explanatory value.