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Explaining Macroevolution to a creationist

arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
How do molecules become man?

No, I am not blindly regurgitating creationist propaganda, and I expect you all to meet my continual demands to perform tricks on command, but meanwhile I'll put in fuck all effort.
It's not like we haven't all seen and debunked these talking points repeatedly and recognise each of them for their specific source. We could do for cretinist arguments what Köchel did for Mozart. Trivially.

Go on, John, tell us that laminin is in the shape of a crucifix, I dares ya.
 
arg-fallbackName="Greg the Grouper"/>
If you believe in Universal common ancestry then you believe that single cell organisms became all of these other life forms.
If you believe in universal common ancestry, then you believe that all organisms share a universal common ancestor. This doesn't imply any given kind becoming a fundamentally different kind. Our single-celled common ancestor didn't just become a deer, an owl, a panther, etc in a day. It brought forth extremely similar offspring.

As such, it is factually wrong to suggest that evolution dictates any kind bringing forth a fundamentally different kind. Our common ancestor didn't bring forth everything that exists right now, it brought forth its own direct offspring. To make your argument that [Single-Cell Ancestor] -> [Modern Biodiversity] is to skip several billion steps and completely ignore how it all happened.
 
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arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
No, I'm focussing on your error. However, since you've chosen to focus your entire response on that one thing, I'm highlighting the word 'kind' because it's meaningless.

While others might give you a sop and accept that a kind is something vaguely between species and genus (setting aside that this is fucking stupid, because reality isn't so discrete as to engender a space between genus and species, let alone room for another classification stratum), I will not. it's a meaningless term, and appears nowhere in the primary biological literature except the odd inclusion for completeness of the story, in much the same way we still talk about phlogiston in physics, despite it being an entirelyt made-up concept having no bearing on reality.

Proper classification requires rigour, and 'kind' doesn't cut it. The only motivation for hanging on this bullshit isa to keep your silly masturbation fantasy alive. Sorry, but I assassinate puerile fantasies.

Now that's out of the way, why did you fail to answer the thing I was actually focussing on, namely your ignorant rectally extracted caricature of what evolutionary theory actually predicts?

Here's the over-riding point you're missing in your hubristic presumption that the universe needs to be understandable to you: if evolutionary theory predicts it, it's been observed.

That's the bit that deniers never want to face up to. Evolution has been observed occurring at every level predicted by the theory. It's a fact. Your god is dead (actually, your god never existed, provably, but I'd hate to be accused of being too focussed on minutiae at the expense of missing the whole argument).
You talk like an angry spoilt child. I'm sorry I gave you the time of day.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
It's not like we haven't all seen and debunked these talking points repeatedly and recognise each of them for their specific source. We could do for cretinist arguments what Köchel did for Mozart. Trivially.

Go on, John, tell us that laminin is in the shape of a crucifix, I dares ya.
What's a laminin? What are you talking about? Am I the John that question is for ?
Why did all the replies just become garbage?
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
You talk like an angry spoilt child. I'm sorry I gave you the time of day.
You did no such thing. You latched onto something you thought you could object to and ignored everything else.

Typical creationist dishonesty. Why is it not possible to evince your position without lying?
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

My disbelief in universal common ancestry has nothing to do with religion , beliefs or religious texts of any kind.
I don't need EVERY detail. However, this is one I need. If there is no possible way to explain how the cells became true multicellular reproductive organisms, then it's pretty much a deal breaker, in my opinion
Apart from HWIN's link to the Wiki article, you could also read this one.

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
Greetings,
My disbelief in universal common ancestry has nothing to do with religion , beliefs or religious texts of any kind.
I don't need EVERY detail. However, this is one I need. If there is no possible way to explain how the cells became true multicellular reproductive organisms, then it's pretty much a deal breaker, in my opinion

Apart from HWIN's link to the Wiki article, you could also read this one.

Kindest regards,

James
I need to stop being so direct. The creationists always run away.

To go to bat for JohnHeintz, I feel the last few pages have been very uncharitable to him. I was never a creationists yet I would use the word “kind” to describe different animals. Honestly, what other word is there to use? That is probably why bararmin is translated into kind. What other word would one use if they are talking about two things that they think have no relation?

I have no doubt that JohnHeintz rejection of universal common descent is due to religious influence, but this goes against to meeting people where they are. That influence is probably so deep that JohnHeintz does not realize it. JohnHeintz lacks the proper vocabulary for Biology 201. That means we need to start with high school biology instead of just assuming bad intentions.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
What's a laminin? What are you talking about? Am I the John that question is for ?
Why did all the replies just become garbage?


I believe the expression is: garbage in, garbage out.

Let's think... what's the uniting factor of these 'garbage replies'?

Answer: they're all in response to YOUR posts.

Perhaps you might seek to engender better replies rather than blaming everyone else?
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
I have no doubt that JohnHeintz rejection of universal common descent is due to religious influence, but this goes against to meeting people where they are. That influence is probably so deep that JohnHeintz does not realize it. JohnHeintz lacks the proper vocabulary for Biology 201. That means we need to start with high school biology instead of just assuming bad intentions.
Can't really argue with that.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Dunno how I missed this, but there's a lot that's almost right, but ends up really quite wrong.
Cells become multicellular organisms by dividing and multiplying - this is an entirely natural process
Not everything in the biosphere behaves like slime moulds or stromatolites. All living cells divide and multiply, but not all cells are parts of a larger agglomeration, so multicellularity is more complicated than that. It isn't only the devil that's in the details.
Simple organisms evolve into more complex ones over time given the right environmental conditions
This is a horrible statement. It looks fine on the surface but, given the lack of separation between the clauses, it...

Well, let me unpack it, because this is a good example of something that happens a lot (I'm going to ignore the glaring problem of simplicity and complexity not residing on the same spectrum for the purpose of this exposé).

"Simple organisms evolve into more complex ones"

Anybody who grasps evolution to even a cursory degree should see the problem already. It looks fine once the qualifiers are added, but the qualifiers don't actually tell us anything at all. It's a very subtle thing, but the impact is huge.

Anything not excluded by the laws of physics will happen given the right conditions.

True statement?

Complex organisms evolve into simpler ones given the right environmental conditions.

True statement?

Of course it is, and it's documented in the literature. The problem with the statement is that it renders the opening like it's a prediction of evolutionary theory, when it's really a tiny part of a range of the predictions for any given set of circumstances. Organisms don't get more complicated (not complex) over time, populations adapt to their environment over generations. That might involve greater complicatedness, greater complexity (not the same thing, in case that isn't clear) and greater simplicity and fewer interactions.

Mars will crash into Sirius Alpha given the right conditions.

The qualifier, far from being a careful definition of the terms of the first clause, actually add impetus to the first clause, giving it greater force. This latter is, of course, a perceptual point, but a hugely well-grasped point in linguistics and oratory. Moreover, the qualifier is semantically null. Anything not excluded is inevitable in the right conditions.

It's actually a logical fallacy, though the precise designation escapes me. It's one of the bunco fallacies, a sort of reverse species of bait-and-switch.

Not sure if I've really exposed the point well enough here. It looks fine to me, but I've had wine and pot, so there's that. The point is that the statement is either trivial, semantically null, or simply incorrect.
So the first life form was single cell non self replicating bacteria from which all subsequent life evolved
Absolutely not. While we have real difficulty robustly defining life, we do know that life preceded the first cell by a long, long way (even the notion that there was such a thing as a 'first cell' is horrendously misleading).

It's always been a problem to define life rigorously. Many has been the effort, but we always end up excluding things we think of as life and including things we think of as not life, so there's some really fuzzy space in there. The first things that unequivocally fulfilled every criterion for our modern definitions of life were probably fairly simple (by our standards) polymers. They certainly weren't anything like as complex or complicated as a cell.
But evolution is not just a biological process but a physical one too and has been in existence ever since the Big Bang
This is a bad plan. This is creationist language. Evolution is change. However, to talk about anything other than biological evolution in this context without qualifiers is to give a seat at the table to Kent Hovind, and his guff is most definitely not welcome here (unless he deigns to dome present it himself and let me have some fun with him).

In the context of this sort of discussion, there's only one type of evolution on the table, unless otherwise specified.
When physics becomes sufficiently complex it becomes chemistry
Exqueeze me?

It becomes chemistry with only two moving parts (they're not really moving, but that's a complication for another discussion), and it's still physics.
When chemistry becomes sufficiently complex it becomes biology
No! Discontinuous thinking!

Why separate like this? There's value if you want to know where to look for specifics but, unless you're actually studying, this boxing is exactly the wrong way to think. Delineation is the hobgoblin of small minds, no consistency.

We want rigidly defined areas of doubt...
So that is the specific point at which biological evolution occurred
Again, discontinuity will trip yu up every time. There was no 'point'. There was a gradual shift in average, a continuum.
 
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arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
I need to stop being so direct. The creationists always run away.

To go to bat for JohnHeintz, I feel the last few pages have been very uncharitable to him. I was never a creationists yet I would use the word “kind” to describe different animals. Honestly, what other word is there to use? That is probably why bararmin is translated into kind. What other word would one use if they are talking about two things that they think have no relation?

I have no doubt that JohnHeintz rejection of universal common descent is due to religious influence, but this goes against to meeting people where they are. That influence is probably so deep that JohnHeintz does not realize it. JohnHeintz lacks the proper vocabulary for Biology 201. That means we need to start with high school biology instead of just assuming bad intentions.


The problem is though, I said exactly the same as you've just written there:

I said I don't think he's lying (i.e. bad intentions) about his reasons for rejecting evolution but rather that he's plausibly unaware that his religious beliefs are motivating him to reject it.

That got converted by John into me claiming he's lying and that I know him better than he does. *shrug*

It's at that point, coupled with the repeated evasion of previous questions I asked him in posts where I'd taken the time and effort to educate him about a topic he clearly is unequipped to deal with, that I stopped lending him the benefit of the doubt.

So while previously, had he used the word 'kind' I would have employed the principle of charity and read it as 'species', I'm no longer inclined to do so. If he wants to play silly buggers, I'll meet him there.
 
arg-fallbackName="Greg the Grouper"/>
The problem with the statement is that it renders the opening like it's a prediction of evolutionary theory, when it's really a tiny part of a range of the predictions for any given set of circumstances. Organisms don't get more complicated (not complex) over time, populations adapt to their environment over generations. That might involve greater complicatedness, greater complexity (not the same thing, in case that isn't clear) and greater simplicity and fewer interactions.
I don't quite understand this comment, and I'll be referring to a Richard Dawkins video concerning the evolution of the eye to try and work my way through it.



You say that it's possible to evolve greater simplicity, but from my understanding, this would be akin to climbing down into a valley of Mount Improbable. Is this just a simple matter of an organism finding itself in an environment where a given complex/complicated system isn't really beneficial, and as such, it can progressively lose functionality without negative repercussions? Am I just missing, or misunderstanding something?
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
I don't quite understand this comment, and I'll be referring to a Richard Dawkins video concerning the evolution of the eye to try and work my way through it.



You say that it's possible to evolve greater simplicity, but from my understanding, this would be akin to climbing down into a valley of Mount Improbable. Is this just a simple matter of an organism finding itself in an environment where a given complex/complicated system isn't really beneficial, and as such, it can progressively lose functionality without negative repercussions? Am I just missing, or misunderstanding something?

See, this sort of question, honestly asked, is worth the price of admission. Thank you. This is why I bother to write.

So, here's the thing:

The peaks and valleys on Mount Improbable are notional peaks, and the notion they represent is survivability. It's easy to see progress as entirely linear, bu that would be to factor out the environment.

In reality, even mountain ranges shift. If you look at the details of the Tibetan plateau, for example, and the studies over some decades, you'll see that the equations that govern its motions are analogues of the Navier-Stokes equations. They're fluid (properly, they're plastic).

The point here, hoping to fall short of stretching the analogy too far, is that what constitutes a peak or valley on Mount Improbable is the environment.

If you think of the peaks as 'better' and the valleys as 'worse' in anything like an absolute sense, you miss the power of Dawkins' metaphor (and you'll find fairly large record of me saying that Climbing Mount Improbable was easily his best work).

The environment is everything, and determines what constitutes a peak or a valley, and the landscape is as evolvable as the organisms living within it.

Edit: Sorry, I'm such a muppet. I should have provided an example. Got lost in my own thoughts.

Cave Fish Lose Eyes

I should add that there's a law of evolution, Dollo's Law, that suggests that evolution can't go backwards. I've seen this cited in arguments in some contexts, but it needs to be pointed out that Dollo's Law deals with the statistical probabilities of retracing mutation routes. It says nothing about evolving in the direction of simplicity.

Above all else, evolution by natural selection is governed by economy; access to resources, energy consumption, body-mass to brain-mass ratios... all these and a huge array of other variables are involved, but the guiding principle is ALWAYS economy. Every energetic process in the biosphere is energy finding its lowest state in the most economical way possible, and no process is immune to that..
 
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arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings.

I don't quite understand this comment, and I'll be referring to a Richard Dawkins video concerning the evolution of the eye to try and work my way through it.



You say that it's possible to evolve greater simplicity, but from my understanding, this would be akin to climbing down into a valley of Mount Improbable. Is this just a simple matter of an organism finding itself in an environment where a given complex/complicated system isn't really beneficial, and as such, it can progressively lose functionality without negative repercussions? Am I just missing, or misunderstanding something?

No, you're not.

Organisms tend to evolve their own energy storage system. If a given organism manages to hack into another's energy source - as in parasitism - then there's little point in having it's own. Over generations, the parasitic species loses its own energy system.

Hence why evolution can result in simpler biological systems.

Does this make sense?

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Greg the Grouper"/>
See, this sort of question, honestly asked, is worth the price of admission. Thank you. This is why I bother to write.

So, here's the thing:

The peaks and valleys on Mount Improbable are notional peaks, and the notion they represent is survivability. It's easy to see progress as entirely linear, bu that would be to factor out the environment.

In reality, even mountain ranges shift. If you look at the details of the Tibetan plateau, for example, and the studies over some decades, you'll see that the equations that govern its motions are analogues of the Navier-Stokes equations. They're fluid (properly, they're plastic).

The point here, hoping to fall short of stretching the analogy too far, is that what constitutes a peak or valley on Mount Improbable is the environment.

If you think of the peaks as 'better' and the valleys as 'worse' in anything like an absolute sense, you miss the power of Dawkins' metaphor (and you'll find fairly large record of me saying that Climbing Mount Improbable was easily his best work).

The environment is everything, and determines what constitutes a peak or a valley, and the landscape is as evolvable as the organisms living within it.

Edit: Sorry, I'm such a muppet. I should have provided an example. Got lost in my own thoughts.

Cave Fish Lose Eyes

I should add that there's a law of evolution, Dollo's Law, that suggests that evolution can't go backwards. I've seen this cited in arguments in some contexts, but it needs to be pointed out that Dollo's Law deals with the statistical probabilities of retracing mutation routes. It says nothing about evolving in the direction of simplicity.

Above all else, evolution by natural selection is governed by economy; access to resources, energy consumption, body-mass to brain-mass ratios... all these and a huge array of other variables are involved, but the guiding principle is ALWAYS economy. Every energetic process in the biosphere is energy finding its lowest state in the most economical way possible, and no process is immune to that..
Okay, so the environment itself dictates the topography of our Mount Improbable?

And this would mean that, as the environment changes, naturally the topography of our Mount Improbable would change. Hence, it becomes possible for peaks to become valleys, and for valleys to become peaks?

And this shifting topography could facilitate an organism evolving a simpler structure? To continue with the video's example, perhaps [X] event drastically increases ambient light in a given environment, and this facilitates the possibility for organisms in said environment to evolve such that the depression which houses the eye becomes progressively smaller? Or something like that...

I suppose environments are typically complex enough that the idea of a 'highest peak' on our Mount Improbable is just kind of ridiculous?

EDIT: 'Highest peak' here referring to a specific evolutionary pattern more suited to a given environment than any other evolutionary pattern.
 
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arg-fallbackName="surreptitious75"/>
The definition of life is indeed fuzzy though is generally given to be biological
But what is the absolute minimum requirement for life under this classification
Where is the dividing line between non life and life - is this even a legitimate question
 
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