Is evolution a fact?

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Don't forget that Bernie claimed to be a scientist. :lol:

A pseudo-scientist.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[DutchLiam84]

Greetings,

Don't forget that Bernie claimed to be a scientist. :lol:

A pseudo-scientist.

Kindest regards,

James

I don't think Bernie knows the difference.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Not to mention according to Bernie:

1.Telomeres don't fuse (except when they do. Consistency doesn't matter to him, it seems)

2.Hippo giving birth to a monkey is evolution (doesn't matter if evolution allows no such thing, he can't strawman if he doesn't believe it's true, therefore anything he says is a valid argument)

3.Saying "you didn't see it" is a total refutation of finding genes for legs in whales and seeing which regulatory genes mutated to get rid of them via forensic science

4.Forensic science apparently isn't real science (you didn't see the crime, so any evidence you bring is worthless)

1. Telomeres that deny their function to fuse is no longer a telomere. To explain not that it helps but I'll explain anyway... A broken telomere can fuse because a broken telomere will deny its function. But a telomere in the sense of the definition cannot fuse.
2. Hippo giving birth to a monkey is a hyperbolized example of what evolution does. If you would rather I ask for a hippo that gives birth to a 1/10 monkey 9/10ths hippo, then that 1/10th monkey 9/10ths hippo gives birth to a 2/10ths monkey 8/10 hippo... Then that would also count for evidence,
3 right I don't see legs on a whale. I suppose you do otherwise you wouldn't be bringing it up... I already said I'll believe it when I see a whale walk up on the beach and run into the woods. Ps don't push the whales back they are evolving.
4 forensic science deals with evidence they have then coming to a single logical conclusion. If more conclusions are possible then the evidence is not specific enough to convict. Evolution takes the 40% Lucy bones, claims it evolved add the 60% human part.. Display the imaginary thinking while simultanesly claiming they could be wrong. If in fact they could be wrong, in forensic science, the person would not be convicted. Stop equivocating between things you have no understanding, therefore if you want to claim evolution could be wrong then that specific evidence is not enough to claim evolution is a fact. Which then opens the door for other interpretations, which is done, therefore concluding evolution has no business in the 40 % of the fossil that exists but is all over the 60 % that is imaginary thinking, but this all ties nicely to the war cry of the ignorant : evolution is science. Here you are comparing evolution.... Never been observed... To forensic science which obtains evidence, tests the evidence to come to a single logical conclusion. Example semen\rape victim, victim claims rape... Semen is collected, DNA is examined, DNA is known to be unique, find DNA match, person convicted.

The presupposition in this case is all DNA is unique.

The fact you wish to claim evolution is forensic science... Based on what presupposition?

1. Broken telomeres can fuse, but you don't get to arbitrarily redefine whay a telomere is. Also, telomeres have unique dna sequence, so that's how we know the dna at the fusion site is remnants of telomeres.

2. And you still have no clue how evolution works.

3. I said dna for legs, not actual legs.

4. The funny thing is the way you lay out forensic science is exactly how evidence for evolution is gathered.

I base it on no presupposition, forensic science works by gathering evidence and analysing it so see what tale it tells. That's exactly how evidence for evolution is gathered, which you'd know if you read any of the actual scientific literature.

Also

Stop equivocating between things you have no understanding

That's just rich coming from you.

Goodbye Bernhard, you've grown stale.

 

[DutchLiam84]

But your argument... Evolution is forensic science...has no presuppositions?

Where the FUCK did itsdemtitans ever say evolution is forensic science?????

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Well ok then you base it on zero presuppositions...

2+ 2 = 4 has presuppositions

But your argument... Evolution is forensic science...has no presuppositions?

You base it on no presuppositions... Lol

So it's merely your assertion.

And somehow by your anecdotal " evolution is forensic science" is evidence evolution is science.

Good for you... .

That is pretty much the only way you can remain in evolution... Is to accept those kinds of arguments... Consider yourself blessed you weren't born a Muslim... You would be screaming allahu ackbar now. Quran is true. No presuppositions therefore Islam is true. Allahu ackbar!!!! That's you itsdemtitans. Well played.

Goodbye

Wow, not only is this one ignorant of what a presupposition is, he's racist too.

Like seriously, do you have any idea how much of a dick you sounded like just then? What's your problem?

Also, no, my claiming some aspects of evolution are learned of via the methodology of forensic science was never intended to be evidence of anything other than your ignorance of various aspects of the scientific method, showing once again you lied when you claimed to be a scientist. You seriously cannot be stupid enough to think I was trying to make explaining methodology into evidence for evolution. That's just you being incredibly dishonest. Again.

Can't say I'm suprised.

BTW bernie, you can't presuppose a method of investigation. Forensic science is a methodology

 

[Mr_Wilford]

But your argument... Evolution is forensic science...has no presuppositions?

Where the FUCK did itsdemtitans ever say evolution is forensic science?????

I've been comparing the gathering of its evidence to that of forensic science.

At least when dealing with things like chromosome 2, pseudogenes, fossils, etc.

Never said they were the same, just similar methodology, and I never said all of evolution is forensic science. That's Bernhard strawmanning me. Again.

 

[SpecialFrog]

Point was evolutionists don't know where archaeopteryx belongs.

So having lots of examples of transitional fossils covering the evolution of birds is the same as having none, according to you.

No not according to me. Feel free to quote me where I said that. Don't worry I won't expect you to answer... You have already presupposed the answer with no proof so how can your mind change when in fact you won't find evidence for your presupposition? Your stuck in a loop.

You claimed this article debunks archaeopteryx as a transitional. When asked where the article says this, you cited a bit that talks about how archaeopteryx now has an uncertain position among many fossils. Ergo you are claiming it doesn't count as a transitional because there are too many transitionals.

I am assuming that you don't count the other fossils cited in the article as transitional either. If I am wrong I withdraw my statement, though this would mean that you agree that transitional fossils exist.

You have already acknowledged that if you individuals are shown to be related a common ancestor must exist even if we don't know who it was or the precise relationship. Therefore the only evidence that matters is the evidence that establishes that archaeopteryx is related both to birds and to non-avian dinosaurs.

Ok thank you.... Now can you provide me with this evidence that matters?

So are you agreeing that evidence of relatedness is all that matters and your demand for "direct transitionals" is irrelevant?

If so I'll happily talk about the evidence for relatedness.

 

[Deleted member 619]

I've been comparing the gathering of its evidence to that of forensic science.

At least when dealing with things like chromosome 2, pseudogenes, fossils, etc.

Never said they were the same, just similar methodology, and I never said all of evolution is forensic science. That's Bernhard strawmanning me. Again.

In reality, the only difference between forensics and any other evidence is how it's used. The word 'forensics' comes from the Latin for 'before the forum', which tells us that it's to be used in a public setting. Remembering that, in the heyday of the Romans, a forum was a public place, much like a court of law, where matters of import were discussed and decided, we're led to the conclusion that the only distinction held by forensic science is that it's to be used in a public forum, i.e. a court of law.

The comparison to forensics is, then, perfectly appropriate.

HTH.

 

[Rhed]

Mother Nature, or naturalistic evolution, doesn't correct errors. Mother Nature does not conserve traits for just-in-case scenarios. Naturalistic evolution should create store-houses in the genome. It doesn't know why to evolve wings to fly, or flippers to swim, or eyes to see or ears to hear. These are all hallmarks of design; not random unguided mutations. Perhaps your imagined unguided random theory of evolution wears the emperor's new clothes.

How yeast doubled its genome—by mating between species

Nature disagrees with your belief.

Not sure what you mean? Yeast hybridized. This is good evidence actually for studying baraminology (study of "kinds"). The yeast hybridization has nothing to do with neo-darwinian evolution.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

1. Telomeres that deny their function to fuse is no longer a telomere. To explain not that it helps but I'll explain anyway... A broken telomere can fuse because a broken telomere will deny its function. But a telomere in the sense of the definition cannot fuse.

Around two months ago Bernhard.visscher did not know what a telomere was, today he is lecturing the person that first exposed him to the term on their function. The arrogance of a creationist is only matched by its ignorance.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

1. Telomeres that deny their function to fuse is no longer a telomere. To explain not that it helps but I'll explain anyway... A broken telomere can fuse because a broken telomere will deny its function. But a telomere in the sense of the definition cannot fuse.

Around two months ago Bernhard.visscher did not know what a telomere was, today he is lecturing the person that first exposed him to the term on their function. The arrogance of a creationist is only matched by its ignorance.

Not to mention I already knew this before I even started the discussion. Now he's just trying to redefine telomere to get around the telomeric remnants at the fusion site.

So, two months later and all he's done is deny and cite a creationist paper which both I and an actual scientist showed to only support a fusion event, since the "functional gene" (actually a pseudogene) belongs to a family of genes only ever found near telomeres. So Tompkins only supported a fusion

And he and Luskin lied about Ken Miller agreeing with them

 

[Deleted member 619]

The very best bit about the relevant chromosomes is that they express pretty much identically. What that means, and what demolishes all cretinist assertions regarding chromosome fusion, is that it accounts for exactly none of the morphological difference between humans and chimps.

 

[Rhed]

So would you accept that life could have started by intelligence?

Yes. Have any evidence?

Information in the cell.

 

[Rhed]

We are all slowly de-evolving due to genetic entropy.

Prove it.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193.abstract

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1190.abstract

Mother Nature, or naturalistic evolution, doesn't correct errors.

This is painfully wrong and at a trivial level. Any mutation that constitutes an error is in principle reversible. Meaning if it can mutate so as to create an error, it can mutate back again later.

You misunderstood. If an organism has a particular protein to code for, it is programmed to know if it suppose to be there regardless if the codon(s) is "beneficial" or "deleterious". If it's not suppose to be there, it gets rid of it. In other words, the proofreading mechanism recognizes a mismatched pair and repairs it. Why would something that is guided seem so unguided to you? :?:

In the first case, the deleterious mutation would be selected against most of the time, depending on how deleterious it is. In the latter case, the correction of the error would be selected for, depending on the degree to which it would be beneficial to change it back.

That's good programming.

Mother Nature does not conserve traits for just-in-case scenarios.

Correct.

Correct because that is a design feature, not a random unguided feature. Having a spare tire in the truck was a well thought out plan so you are not stranded somewhere. Mother Nature doesn't plan to the future.

Naturalistic evolution should create store-houses in the genome.

It should? Why?

That should have been "should NOT" create...

It doesn't know why to evolve wings to fly, or flippers to swim, or eyes to see or ears to hear.

Of course not, the end result are the byproducts of selection for something else that is beneficial in the interim period on the way to the final result.

Co-option, an unobserved event, or a rescuing device to save a theory in crisis; i.e, how to explain complex structures evolving gradually over eons of time.

For example, feathers which are used by all bird's wings, are very useful as insulators. The arms, which eventually became wings, did other things in the mean time. In this way natural selection does not have to "select for wings" when selection was for insulation, other forms of helping locomotion (such as jumping and gliding) instead.

It makes a great bedtime story. As Detective Sergeant Joseph "Joe" Friday use to say, "Just the facts ma'am.

These are all hallmarks of design; not random unguided mutations.

No, they are hallmarks of random unguided evolution. We can directly detect their evolutionary relationships using various phylogenetic and comparative methods.

You could map any particular gene and cherry-pick any one and find any relationship to any organism you want.

Perhaps your imagined unguided random theory of evolution wears the emperor's new clothes.

Funny. Here's my request for you: Demonstrate ANY amount of instant divine creation under properly controlled conditions.

I know creationists like to say they accept micro evolution but not macroevolution. Well, I can do even better than that, I will openly concede that macro-creation is possible if you can demonstrate micro-creation. So no new speciation, and you don't even have to create an extinct form of life with divine magical powers.

I want to see the divine and instantaneous creation of a single organism, from a species we know already exists and which can be seen with the naked eye. A single one. A fly, a worm, a typical house-cat. Something that already exists. If you can demonstrate the instant creation into thin air of such an organism under properly controlled laboratory conditions (I have to personally witness it though, I do not accept 2nd-hand accounts from anyone), I will believe in creationism. All of creationism, I will accept all of it. And you only have to demonstrate micro-creation of a small living thing, as long as it can be seen easily with the naked eye.

I'm not even asking for a herd of Mammoths here, or an entire continent full of biodiversity created in a single day. A single fucking plant or animal will do. Make a Fern, or a Rose appear. Plants will suffice, make them pop up out of nothing into thin air and I will instantly convert to creationism and I will be fully on board.

So go on then, time to demonstrate your hypocritical double-standard with respect to evidence.

Well, I can't prove that since I'm not God, and you can't provide "macro-evolution" or non-life to life because no one was here at the time, so I guess we both have to concede that we have a worldview and will interpret the SAME evidence according to our own.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

So would you accept that life could have started by intelligence?

Yes. Have any evidence?

Information in the cell.

[sarcasm]You are equivocating![/sarcasm]

Oh, sorry. I am getting ahead of myself. Please define information.

Who am I kidding. This will go ignored like most of what I have asked for this far.

 

[Rhed]

Oh, sorry. I am getting ahead of myself. Please define information.

Who am I kidding. This will go ignored like most of what I have asked for this far.

There are about 10 other posters I try to answer, not just yours. And you do realize that each poster doesn't just ask one question.

I purposely try to answer just a few questions in a given post. Why? Because it gets lost in discussion. I like to zero in on one or two points.

So what is information? It's pretty straight forward. The basic parts/elements/or whatever are: transmit, receive, and execute. And all of the parts need to understand the same "language".

Right now I'm typing this message to you. I'm the transmitter, you are the receiver. And we both understand the same language. If I told you to do something you do it.
If I wrote to you *-* **** * -** you wouldn't understand it so the information is useless. Now if I told you that those symbols are in Morse Code, you can look it up and then understand it. The codons in DNA are just material. Just like the words on your screen is just material. Information is something that is conveyed. It takes a mind to produce a code. This is what we observe. Take anything, like a book, or manual, and will be traced to an author.

 

[Deleted member 619]

So what is information? It's pretty straight forward. The basic parts/elements/or whatever are: transmit, receive, and execute. And all of the parts need to understand the same "language".

Right now I'm typing this message to you. I'm the transmitter, you are the receiver. And we both understand the same language. If I told you to do something you do it.
If I wrote to you *-* **** * -** you wouldn't understand it so the information is useless. Now if I told you that those symbols are in Morse Code, you can look it up and then understand it. The codons in DNA are just material. Just like the words on your screen is just material. Information is something that is conveyed. It takes a mind to produce a code. This is what we observe. Take anything, like a book, or manual, and will be traced to an author.

This is just plain, flat wrong.

Did somebody mention information?

Here, we require a definition of information that is robust. Now, there are two robust formulations of information theory, and both of them need to be considered. The first is that of Claude Shannon and, while this is the formulation that most of them will cite, largely due to apologist screeds erecting various claims about information having to contain some sort of message and therefore requiring somebody to formulate the message, it doesn't robustly apply to DNA, because it's the wrong treatment of information. Indeed, when dealing with complexity in information, you MUST use Kolmogorov, because that's the one that deals with complexity.

So just what is information? Well, in Shannon theory, information can be defined as 'reduction in uncertainty'. Shannon theory deals with fidelity in signal transmission and reception, since Shannon worked in communications. Now, given this, we have a maximum information content, defined as the lowest possible uncertainty. Now, if we have a signal, say a TV station, and your TV is perfectly tuned, and there is no noise added between transmission and reception of the TV signal, then you receive the channel cleanly and the information content is maximal. If, however, the TV is tuned slightly off the channel, or your reception is in some other respect less than brilliant, you get noise in the channel. The older ones of you will remember pre-digital television in which this was manifest in the form of 'bees' in the picture, and crackling and noise in the audio. Nowadays, you tend to get breaks in the audio, and pixelated blocks in the picture. They amount to the same thing, namely noise, or 'an increase in uncertainty'. It tells us that any deviation from the maximal information content, which is a fixed quantity, constitutes degradation of the information source, or 'Shannon entropy' (Shannon actually chose this term because the equation describing his 'information entropy' is almost identical to the Boltzmann equation for statistical entropy, as used in statistical mechanics.

This seems to gel well with the creationist claims, and is the source of all their nonsense about 'no new information in DNA'. Of course, there are several major failings in this treatment.

The first comes from Shannon himself, from the book that he wrote with Warren Weaver on the topic:

The semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering aspects

And

The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning. In fact, two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information.

So we see that Shannon himself doesn't actually agree with this treatment of information relied on so heavily by the creationists.

The second is that Shannon's is not the only rigorous formulation of information theory. The other comes from Andrey Kolmogorov, whose theory deals with information storage. The information content in Kolmogorov theory is a feature of complexity or, better still, can be defined as the amount of compression that can be applied to it. This latter can be formulated in terms of the shortest algorithm that can be written to represent the information.

Returning to our TV channel, we see a certain incongruence between the two formulations, because in Kolmogorov theory, the noise that you encounter when the TV is slightly off-station actually represents an increase in information, where in Shannon theory, it represents a decrease! How is this so? Well, it can be quite easily summed up, and the summation highlights the distinction between the two theories, both of which are perfectly robust and valid.

Let's take an example of a message, say a string of 100 1s. In it's basic form, that would look like this:

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Now, there are many ways we could compress this. The first has already been given above, namely 'a string of 100 1s'.

Now, if we make a change in that string,

1111111110111111111011111111101111111110111111111011111111101111111110111111111011111111101111111110

We now have a string of 9 1s followed by a zero, repeated 9 times. We now clearly have an increase in information content, even though the number of digits is exactly the same. However, there is a periodicity to it, so a simple compression algorithm can still be applied.

Let's try a different one:

1110011110001111110111110001111111111100110011001111000111111111110111110000111111000111111110011101

Now, clearly, we have something that approaches an entirely random pattern. The more random a pattern is, the longer the algorithm required to describe it, and the higher the information content.

Returning once again to our TV station, the further you get away from the station, the more random the pattern becomes, and the longer the algorithm required to reproduce it, until you reach a point in which the shortest representation of the signal is the thing itself. In other words, no compression can be applied.

This is actually how compression works when you compress images for storage in your computer using the algorithms that pertain to Jpeg, etc. The uncompressed bitmap is the uncompressed file, while the Jpeg compression algorithm, roughly, stores it as '100 pixels of x shade of blue followed by 300 pixels of black', etc. Thus, the more complicated an image is in terms of periodicity and pattern, the less it can be compressed and the larger the output file will be.

What the above does is comprehensively demolish any and all creationist claims concerning information.

Information?

Spoiler: 2

From sand dunes, we can learn about prevailing wind directions over time and, in many cases, the underlying terrain just from the shape and direction

Information?

Spoiler: 1

Dogshit. The dogshit can tell us what the dog ate, how much of it ate, how big the dogs anus is, how long ago the dog shat on your lawn, the digestive health of the dog, whether there are parasite eggs in the shit and contain traces of the dog's DNA we can sequence to identify the individual dog. Seems like a lot of information to me. It also seems like more than enough information is present to shoot your assertion down

Information?

Spoiler: 3

DNA is information in the sense that it informs us about the system, not that it contains a message. It is not a code, more something akin to a cipher, in which the chemical bases are treated as the letters of the language. There is nobody trying to tell us anything here, and yet we can be informed by it.

Information (actually, I just decided that this is my new favourite example, because it is so informative)?

Spoiler: 4

ABout 1% of the interference pattern on an off-channel television screen is caused by the cosmic microwave background.

Information?

Spoiler: 5

This is information in the sense that the squiggles represent more data than would be contained on a blank piece of paper, although even a blank piece of paper is information. In this example, information is defined as the number of bits it would take to represent it in a storage system. This is pure kolmogorov information.

Information?

Spoiler: 6

Of all the information sources in this post, this is the only one that actually contains a message, and is therefore the only one to which Shannon information theory can be applied, as it is the only one that could actually decrease in terms of signal intergity.

Which of the above are information?

Answer: All of them. They are just different kinds of information.

More here by the Blue Flutterby:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/viewtopic.php?p=1934111#p1934111

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Mother Nature, or naturalistic evolution, doesn't correct errors. Mother Nature does not conserve traits for just-in-case scenarios. Naturalistic evolution should create store-houses in the genome. It doesn't know why to evolve wings to fly, or flippers to swim, or eyes to see or ears to hear. These are all hallmarks of design; not random unguided mutations. Perhaps your imagined unguided random theory of evolution wears the emperor's new clothes.

How yeast doubled its genome—by mating between species

Nature disagrees with your belief.

Not sure what you mean? Yeast hybridized. This is good evidence actually for studying baraminology (study of "kinds"). The yeast hybridization has nothing to do with neo-darwinian evolution.

You've left out the part which I was addressing:

Not sure how using old building blocks debunks a designer. God in the Bible created life only once including the code in all life to reproduce and populate the earth naturally. We are all slowly de-evolving due to genetic entropy.

Mother Nature, or naturalistic evolution, doesn't correct errors. Mother Nature does not conserve traits for just-in-case scenarios. Naturalistic evolution should create store-houses in the genome. It doesn't know why to evolve wings to fly, or flippers to swim, or eyes to see or ears to hear. These are all hallmarks of design; not random unguided mutations. Perhaps your imagined unguided random theory of evolution wears the emperor's new clothes.

That's to what I was replying.

The fact that yeast doubled in size - and did so by interbreeding between species - clearly debunks your claim.

And in case you trot out the two ScienceMag articles in reply, you should perhaps read up on epistasis first - particularly the "Genetic and molecular causes" and "Evolutionary consequences" sections - lest you sink even deeper into the fallacy of hasty generalisation.

Something you shouldn't be doing, given that Rumraket - from there onward - is giving you a education in both epistasis and how to read a scientific paper.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Rumraket]

We are all slowly de-evolving due to genetic entropy.

Prove it.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193.abstract

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1190.abstract

You understood neither reference. In fact it looks to me like you read the title only, get baffled by the words "diminishing returns" and "negative epistasis" without knowing the context or even what it means.

In the first case, like in the other thread with viruses, you are operating under the mistaken belief that negative epistasis means a fitness below neutral.

In the second case, it merely means there is diminishing returns on the effect of beneficial mutations. This does not imply we (or anything) are DE-EVOLVING, it merely means fitness gains will slow down if the same population is set to evolve indefinitely in the same environment.

Notice how, in the long-term evolution experiment with E coli, when the experiment began the bacteria were moved to a synthetic environment that bacteria normally do not live in. In this new environment, the fitness gains due to mutations were enormous as they adapted to their new environment, but eventually the gains would become smaller and smaller over time. This doesn't mean the bacteria are now somehow DE-EVOLVING, it just means the rate of adaptation is slower than earlier, not that it is a negative value.

Why do you link papers you don't understand?

Mother Nature, or naturalistic evolution, doesn't correct errors.

This is painfully wrong and at a trivial level. Any mutation that constitutes an error is in principle reversible. Meaning if it can mutate so as to create an error, it can mutate back again later.

You misunderstood. If an organism has a particular protein to code for, it is programmed to know if it suppose to be there regardless if the codon(s) is "beneficial" or "deleterious".

Where the heck did you ever get the idea that an organism "is programmed to know if [a particular protein] is supposed to be there" ?

Supposed to by what? You? Your favorite brand of bronze-age god? Superman?

If it's not suppose to be there, it gets rid of it.

There is no "program" for that, anywhere, in any organism.

Rather, if it is energetically costly to carry it around, it is either lost due to accumulations of beneficial deletions. Though there can be confounding factors to this effect, such as selfish genetic elements that can replicate and insert themselves in new areas of the genome than random deletion od deactivating mutations can get rid of them (such as transposons, which is why a huge fraction of our genome is made of junk retrotransposon pseudogenes).

In other words, the proofreading mechanism recognizes a mismatched pair and repairs it.

If that was true, mutations simply should not happen at all. There is a proofreading mechanism, but it only detects point mutations, and it is not 100% efficient or accurate. That is why mutations still slip through.

Why would something that is guided seem so unguided to you? :?:

Because it isn't guided, you're making shit up.

In the first case, the deleterious mutation would be selected against most of the time, depending on how deleterious it is. In the latter case, the correction of the error would be selected for, depending on the degree to which it would be beneficial to change it back.

That's good programming.

Apparently your definition of programming is synonymous with natural selection. Congratulations, you're an evolutionist.

Correct.

Correct because that is a design feature

Yes, which is why organisms don't have such things. You're now actually arguing against the conclusion you are seeking to prove: That life was designed.

Having a spare tire in the truck was a well thought out plan so you are not stranded somewhere. Mother Nature doesn't plan to the future.

Which is why there are no spare tires in living organisms. Things aren't kept around "so that they can be used later". In so far as extra genetic material is carried around, it is either because natural selection has not yet got rid of it (deleting mutations have not accumulated in a sufficient amount), or because it is replicating itself and evolving, acting as a genetic parasite leeching on the energy budget of the host organism.

Naturalistic evolution should not create store-houses in the genome.

And it doesn't. So we are done.

Of course not, the end result are the byproducts of selection for something else that is beneficial in the interim period on the way to the final result.

Co-option, an unobserved event

False.
In the long-term evolution experiment with E coli, an aerobically active promoter was coopted to activate the citrate transporter duplicate, when the citrate transporter duplication was moved under it's control.

For example, feathers which are used by all bird's wings, are very useful as insulators. The arms, which eventually became wings, did other things in the mean time. In this way natural selection does not have to "select for wings" when selection was for insulation, other forms of helping locomotion (such as jumping and gliding) instead.

It makes a great bedtime story. As Detective Sergeant Joseph "Joe" Friday use to say, "Just the facts ma'am.

This is coming from the guy who believes that an invisible omnipotent mind supernaturally and divinely created fully functioning living organisms in an instant. Where have you observed this happening, pray tell?

No, they are hallmarks of random unguided evolution. We can directly detect their evolutionary relationships using various phylogenetic and comparative methods.

You could map any particular gene and cherry-pick any one and find any relationship to any organism you want.

Uhh no you can't. The genetic loci you use to construct phylogenies actually have to be present in multiple species, and show nesting hierarchical arrangements to a significant statistical degree. You should read Douglas Theobald's section on this in his 29 Evidences for macroevolution.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you are utterly out of your depth here.

Funny. Here's my request for you: Demonstrate ANY amount of instant divine creation under properly controlled conditions.

I know creationists like to say they accept micro evolution but not macroevolution. Well, I can do even better than that, I will openly concede that macro-creation is possible if you can demonstrate micro-creation. So no new speciation, and you don't even have to create an extinct form of life with divine magical powers.

I want to see the divine and instantaneous creation of a single organism, from a species we know already exists and which can be seen with the naked eye. A single one. A fly, a worm, a typical house-cat. Something that already exists. If you can demonstrate the instant creation into thin air of such an organism under properly controlled laboratory conditions (I have to personally witness it though, I do not accept 2nd-hand accounts from anyone), I will believe in creationism. All of creationism, I will accept all of it. And you only have to demonstrate micro-creation of a small living thing, as long as it can be seen easily with the naked eye.

I'm not even asking for a herd of Mammoths here, or an entire continent full of biodiversity created in a single day. A single fucking plant or animal will do. Make a Fern, or a Rose appear. Plants will suffice, make them pop up out of nothing into thin air and I will instantly convert to creationism and I will be fully on board.

So go on then, time to demonstrate your hypocritical double-standard with respect to evidence.

Well, I can't prove that since I'm not God

Yet you believe it, while simultaneously scolding evolutionists for believing in things they can't directly demonstrate before your very eyes.

Tell me, do you believe the General Sherman tree was once a sapling? That it came from a seed from another tree? Did you see it happen, did you see it grow from a seed? Perhaps we can have good reason to think that things take place without us having been present to directly witness them.

See, the problem isn't that some things happen without us being present to see them. We all understand that processes leave evidence behind and that we can have good reasons for thinking certain events took place before we were around. Surely you agree, because you believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected, without having been there to see it yourself.

So here's what I want you to do: Stop being a hypocrite. Stop whining about not being able to directly witness things yourself, and stop throwing accusations of gullibility and "bedtime stories" against people who believe in things they have not seen themselves, BECAUSE YOU DO IT YOURSELF.

and you can't provide "macro-evolution"

Macro-evolution is an observed fact.

You probably mean "you can't directly demonstrate before my eyes, a large-scale morphological transition such as the one from lobe-finned fish to amphibians, and from amphibians to terrestrial tetrapods".

That is true, I cannot directly demonstrate such a large transition for you, though for practical reasons (there's probably at best, only about 70 years left of my life), not because of some imagined theoretical impossibility.

But despite my inability to make this demonstration in mere human lifetimes, we can still have rationally justifying reasons for believing that such transitions do take place, and that they did so in the past too.

or non-life to life because no one was here at the time, so I guess we both have to concede that we have a worldview and will interpret the SAME evidence according to our own.

No, because you can have evidence that certain events transpired before we "was there at the time", which would rationally justify the belief that they did. In other words, we don't have to take it on faith, and we don't need to see it ourselves. We can test predictive theories by seeing what kinds of evidence events that took place in the past, should leave behind, against observations from the real world.

If X transpired N millions of years ago, we should expect to find A, B, a little of C, D and E, but never F.

If we then observe F, we have falsified X (because as I wrote, F should never happen on X). If we observe A, B, C, D and E (and never F) we have rational justification for believing X transpired N millions of years ago, even if we were not present to see it ourselves.

See how that works? That was today's lesson in "basic scientific epistemology". Thank you for your time.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Wow, not only is this one ignorant of what a presupposition is, he's racist too.

Like seriously, do you have any idea how much of a dick you sounded like just then? What's your problem?

Also, no, my claiming some aspects of evolution are learned of via the methodology of forensic science was never intended to be evidence of anything other than your ignorance of various aspects of the scientific method, showing once again you lied when you claimed to be a scientist. You seriously cannot be stupid enough to think I was trying to make explaining methodology into evidence for evolution. That's just you being incredibly dishonest. Again.

Can't say I'm suprised.

BTW bernie, you can't presuppose a method of investigation. Forensic science is a methodology

1) Islam is not a race. To compare you to an ideology is not racist.
No matter how many times it's said it will have to be said a million times: Islam is not a race. The comparison is you are operating like a Muslim in claiming your assertions have no presuppositions. Again not racist ... It's an ideology.. Simply apologize for your lack of understanding. Can you apologize?
2) to claim I sounded like a dick does not offer rebuttal to the point you compare evolution to forensic science.
Try to understand every step in forensic science has been observed. Not every step in evolution. And because it's all been observed the conclusion is valid. To compare evolution to forensic science is to fundamentally misunderstand forensics. The fact you claim no presuppositions is where your ignorance lies.
3) if it's never intended to be evidence then you agree when I say you do not offer evidence for evolution.
4) call me dishonest whatever... The fact remains the way you operate and make claims based on assertions.. It is welcoming you call me dishonest. You will not provide evidence why I am dishonest... You cannot quote what you cannot find... Therefore since, without evidence for calling me dishonest, you don't need evidence to believe what you believe... To claim you need evidence is humorous.

Thus the evolutionists patently avoid the question... Evidence for evolution?

1. Granted, racist isn't the right word. I admit that mistake. That doesn't change the fact that what you said is incredibly insulting.

2. First, my calling you a dick had to do with your comment about muslims. A+ reading comprehension there Bernhard.

Second, what the hell did I just read?

Of course every step in forensic science is observed. Forensic science is a methodology. And some aspects of studying evolution rely on that methodology. Some, not all.

But you've clearly missed the point, which I suspect is due to you simply skimming and trying to get the last word in rather than actually reading for comprehension. You say if you don't observe something it isn't scientific. But the whole point of forensic science is to figure out that which no one has observed!! It can convict a person, beyond reasonable doubt, of a crime nobody saw take place. That's what I've been trying to get across. That something does not always need to be directly observed to be considered scientific.

Really, you don't know it, but your posts only show you to misunderstand forensics. Not me.

And btw bernie, when talking about forensics, I'm referring to their conclusions (i.e. who the killer is) as unobserved. After all, no one saw the murderer kill the victim. Does that make it's conclusion based on the forensic evidence any less sound?

And again you're here with the presupposition bullshit. No, when making an analogy, I have no presuppositions. I read the relevant literature, see similar methods applied, and make the analogy. Where the hell does a presupposition even fit in there? That I have the ability to read? That I'm not a brain in a vat? Your cries of presuppositions is really, really pathetic.

3. No, that's you trying to twist me into saying something I'm not.

4. Evidence you're dishonest? The entire thread perhaps? OR...How about this little gem?
I said:

Whatever you say. I'd contest that we can prove evolutionary relationships with DNA analysis, but at this point I'll just agree to disagree.

and you tried to twist that into

Well the fact that you agree is a breakthrough.

Because yeah bernie, your opponent saying you'll never see eye to eye on the subject at hand means he's agreeing with your points.

And as an aside, your posts are getting more and more incoherent as time goes on. Might want to do something about that.