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Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
Even though I'm a militant atheist that has not evidence to believe in a god or gods, I really do feel warm and fuzzy that we can agree on something like this.Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
I'm glad. Hey, maybe we could get together to discuss this new found friendship. There's this group of people I meet with every Sunday and I would love for you to get to know them. And this book. You have to read this book. I recommend it to all my friends. Life changing this thing. Best part is you get to start in the middle! Yeah, really. The ending is a little M. Night Shamalaynish so you can avoid it if you like. For now. So, when do you want to come over?Even though I'm a militant atheist that has not evidence to believe in a god or gods, I really do feel warm and fuzzy that we can agree on something like this.Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
Where does science want to go?Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
I'd need to bring Tanner, Truckasaurus and Zartan with me.
Know everything there is to know.Where does science want to go?Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
Simple, elegant solutions are the antithesis to most "Intelligent Design" arguments. Which certainly seems backwards to me.Just one more step towards the proof of Intelligent Design.
Sorry, the one liner here is too easy.
I am not taking the argument literally that we have to find a rabbit in the precambrian strata. Rather, I think the analogy is about finding abrupt complex phyla from simple celled creatures in a very brief period of time. With that in mind Cambrian fits the bill:Pre cambrian explosion
During the Cambrian period the vast majority of the known animal phyla (over 95%) appeared within an exceedingly brief interval of time: Many estimate about 5-10 million years. Thereafter, apart from a few exceptions, new animal phyla stop appearing throughout the geological record. (Phyla constitute the major groups of animal forms) Phyla are distinguished by large differences in morphologies and body plans. What should be disturbing to TOE advocates is that how such a dynamic range of body plans appear so abruptly.To say that the fauna of the Cambrian period appeared in a geologically sudden manner also implies the absence of clear transitional intermediates connecting the complex Cambrian animals with those simpler living forms found in lower strata.
Evolution is like Intelligent design in that we look at the past and make evaluations on what happened and how. Evolution is like Geology or anthropology which makes it difficult to test and it also can not be used to predict future outcomes like the hard sciences: Chemistry, Physics... So if you are equating evolution to Chemistry as being able to test and verify you are dead wrong.If evolution is morphological changes accounted by mutation and natural selection than I can debate you. Evolution by this definition does occur on a limited scale but it is severely limited and does not account for the complexity of life as we know it. Would that constitute as proof?
Gould also made a career of overemphasising the importance of punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary biology.
We'll talk about the predictive value of evolutionary science next. First...You have said that the Cambrian explosion can falsify the predictions made by the theory of evolution.
Evolution has been and continues to be tested and verified almost every day. The same as Chemistry, it does so by assaying things not directly observable (atomic and molecular orbitals for chemistry, historical relationships among species for biology) using things that are directly observable (the properties of the products of chemical reactions for chemistry, fossil remains, comparative anatomy, and DNA sequence data for evolutionary biology).
I won't discuss any of your attempts to reframe the discussion or change the goal posts until you answer my two questions repeated about the Cambrian explosion. I can add this to the list if you like. It can be number three.
No disagreement here. It was more of a softball to golddigger to let him know where the conversation was headed.
You asked for a rabbit - its a rabbit. In other words, complexity suddenly appearing from non-complexity. BTW punctuated equilibrium states that evolution occurs so suddenly that the fossil record does not have time to record it: It is way to explain away the gaps in the fossil record. It is not the gradual increasing in complexity advocated by Darwin.
BTW, good luck with this.
You accused me of not addressing the topic and changing the subject. That is exactly what you just did.Let me ask it again:
DNA sequencing is very interesting and does prove common decent. It does not prove the mutation combined with natural selection were the causes. In fact natural selection taken by itself is ambivalent toward its cause. It does not prove or disprove evolution or ID.
It is a way to explain why species level gaps are to be expected in the fossil record. (and here I'm directly channeling Richard Dawkins) It's a perfectly Darwinian idea though. The evolutionary changes in punctuated equilibrium are still gradual - a compilation of minute changes over tens to hundreds of thousands of years resulting in morphological change large enough to be described as a new species. It's just that the changes are compressed into a relatively short period at the beginning of a species existence. Once the new species is born, it doesn't change much over its career as a species (unless it itself makes a daughter species).Darwin would have been completely comfortable with this. What Darwin was arguing against was saltationism, or the sudden appearance in a single generation of a new species. He probably would have regarded punctuated equilibrium vs. phyletic gradualism a minor debate within the umbrella of his own theory of gradualism.
Now we're getting somewhere!
We'll come back to this once we've dealt with your assertion that the Cambrian explosion falsifies evolution. Please, I can only have one conversation at a time with you. I appreciate your patience.
Well then you've taken with wind out of my sails, since common descent is the idea that's usually at issue in creationism/evolution debates. I get so roided up trying to force common descent down people's throats that I don't have the energy to argue the finer points like neutralism and whathaveyou.
That is a nice concept but do you have any fossil records verifying that hypothesis? IMO the whole purpose of the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis is the explain away the lack of fossil record: Everything happened to fast to record. This gets evolution off the hook of proving slow gradual changes that the fossil record does not show.
Sure. Punctuated equilibrium suggests that the fossil record will be rich with transitions at higher taxonomic levels (reptile-to-mammal; dinosaur-to-bird; monkey-to-man), but relatively sparse transitions at the species level (smaller tyranosaurid-to-larger tyranosaurid; three-spined stickleback to five-spined stick) unless we have a particularly rich fossil record covering large spatial distances for a given species-to-species transition (like we have for several large terrestrial species that lived relatively recently - I think they have a good grizzly-to-polar bear series of transition fossils). That pretty much describes the fossil record as it exists today.
Typical response from pickles.
Typical because it's accurate. You keep trotting out the same arguments that don't make sense and expose your lack of knowledge. There really is not point to any of this if you're not willing to discuss the topic in any rational way.
1) Complex life has many facets that are coordinated. For example and eye: It requires a brain, nervous system, blood flow and muscles in its simplest form. Ok lets take eye of the most common fossil in the Cambrian strata: Trilobites. In water things look closer and bigger than they are in real life. The trilobites didn’t have this problem. They have a double-lens that corrects for underwater vision. Explain how this eye evolved from simple sponges in less than 10 million years that accounts for Cambrian. Please show the transition forms of this eye in the fossil record.Now we're getting somewhere!
Can you answer two questions for me:
1) Define what are the characteristics that make a complex life form differ from a non-complex life form.
2) Would you say that one of your criteria that would falsify evolution is that: If there were no transitional fossils in the Cambrian, evolution would be falsified.
Just all up in his grill, face purple, spittle flying...
Obviously you havn't read my posts.
One of the many problems with fossils is they are not stamped with a date or a time. Because be find a fossils that appear to be linked and show transition it may or may not be accurate. Why, because we can find the less complex fossil higher in the strata than the more complex. Or we can find apparent transition forms in the same strata 1/2 way across the world: Canada and China for example.
You have been cool up to this point. Why the transition?
It's a self-effacing post (casting me as some screaming evolutionary wingnut), and self-effacement is always cool.
Sadly, I have.And I had to laugh that you were still citing the Discovery Institute at times. Really, dude?
Right, you have to be careful with your interpretations. After all, just because a series of mammal-like reptiles evolves, it doesn't necessarily mean that the primitive reptiles have gone extinct. So you can see primitive forms in rocks younger than derived forms. In the same way, we're currently inhabiting the world with chimps, who are less-derived than we are in the sense that they look like our common ancestor a lot more than we do. But just because humans evolved, it doesn't follow that the old way went extinct, hence living chimps.
And of misrepresenting the "gradualists" as if his ideas were new and substantially different from theirs.
cool
Your schtick is to marginalize your opponents. You stay in the background and snipe.
Very true.Thank you for this debate. You have been very informative and respectful. I very much appreciate it. You have gone up several rungs in my book.
This is the best news this week.Thank you jesus RWS for bringing golddigger back.Oh crap this is golddigger?
Sweeeet. I missed you man.
You spend your Sunday's reading a book?I'm glad. Hey, maybe we could get together to discuss this new found friendship. There's this group of people I meet with every Sunday and I would love for you to get to know them. And this book. You have to read this book. I recommend it to all my friends. Life changing this thing. Best part is you get to start in the middle! Yeah, really. The ending is a little M. Night Shamalaynish so you can avoid it if you like. For now. So, when do you want to come over?Even though I'm a militant atheist that has not evidence to believe in a god or gods, I really do feel warm and fuzzy that we can agree on something like this.Agreed. Even though I'm a wacko fundamentalist Christian who actually believes the bible it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the journey of discovery that is science. Far too many people see science as an attack on God or the tool needed to defeat God. To me, it's a great lesson on how He created all. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get to where science wants to go, but I think part of being is the journey and the discovery.
My notebook shows Golddigger=Master of Orion=KonotayThis is the best news this week.Thank you jesus RWS for bringing golddigger back.Oh crap this is golddigger?
Sweeeet. I missed you man.
wrongMy notebook shows Golddigger=Master of Orion=KonotayThis is the best news this week.Thank you jesus RWS for bringing golddigger back.Oh crap this is golddigger?
Sweeeet. I missed you man.
