How To Define "Evolution"?

[PoliticalChic]

Where did all those fossils of species of plants and animals that no longer exist come from?

Why are there no remains of modern animals and plants found trapped in the same geological places as these fossils of extinct animals and plants?

Why did GOD intelligently design these fossil records?

3. And that brings me to the problem of explaining Darwinian evolution.
Since new organs, or whole new body plans, requires the creation of entirely new information, Darwin himself was stymied by the explosion of all kinds of new organisms known as the "Cambrian Explosion."

a. " The Cambrian explosion... was the relatively rapid appearance, around 542 million years ago, of most major animal phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record. This was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms. Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today."
Cambrian explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4. It was not just the multitude of phyla, or a sea change in complexity.....it was the missing evidence of progressive changes leading to this complexity.
It was the missing ancestors in the Precambrian fossil record.

Get it? There is no record of successive, often unsuccessful attempts leading to the "Cambrian Explosion"!!!



Darwin got the point. Clear as a bell. The flaw that causes his theory to fail is the missing fossils.

Fossils that miss creation princess here doesn't believe exist:

The Precambrian Fossil Record

Another lie, you disgusting little worm.

Trilobites

Brachiopods.



You try to obfuscate with other than the above.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

OMG, really? Because we are talking about dropping friggin pencils in Earth's gravity field, not refracting the light of galaxies around other galaxies. We aren't talking about relativity here, pal (we are talking about Newtonian physics), but thanks for squirming so loudly at my answer that you woke up my neighbors even though you are somewhere else on the planet.

When the hell were we talking about dropping pencils in Earths gravity field? All you said is that dropping a pencil is evidence of gravity, I countered with the point that all it really provides is evidence of acceleration. For some reason this truth offended you, and you tried to use the wrong formula to prove that you know what you are talking about.

FYI, even if all we are talking about is dropping a pencil from 3 feet above the surface of the Earth while not moving relative to the surface of the Earth we are talking about relativity. Real scientists know that, which is why you play in the dirt.

Except that I am NOT on the space shuttle, or the ISS, or in orbit around your mother's vagina. I am sitting here on the surface of the Earth, a large rocky world with lots of mass that has an acceleration due to gravity of 9.776 m/s2 near the equator or at high elevation to 9.832 m/s2 at the poles. There is nothing unambiguous or make believe about these numbers. And here where I am sitting, due to the gravity that exists on THIS EARTH, the pencil falls towards and strikes the ground. Now, it may strike somewhere else in your make believe world, or whatever planet on which you live, but here on this planet, that's what it does.

You found a reference that gave you the right numbers, good for you.

FYI, you can now use the formula F=mg. The difference between this formula, and the one you were trying to use, F=mG, is that g is the acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Earth and G is the universal gravitational constant. You are making progress, and, hopefully, learned something.

Well, it is apparent from your lame attempt at obfuscation that you are 5 cans shy of a six pack. You have my sympathy.

Did I confuse you?

Yes, you are correct, the first equation should have included a large M for the mass of the Earth. The entire point of this exercise, which you are intentionally skirting, being that faith doesn't enter into it. Not even remotely. It is testable, observable, repeatable, falsifiable. You can use it to build bridges, sky scrapers, and launch rockets to Saturn if you want to. Has anyone ever done that by simply saying "god did it"? Of course not.

You don't have faith that plugging the same numbers into the equation will end up with the same result?

Faith enters into everything, you just don't want to use the word because you don't like it. That is not my problem.

Try it. The link works. The research was paid for by a grant from the National Science Foundation. And yes, I was one of the co-authors. I may be many things, but I am not known to be a liar.

CRINOIDS FROM THE MULDRAUGH MEMBER OF THE BORDEN FORMATION IN NORTH-CENTRAL KENTUCKY (ECHINODERMATA, LOWER MISSISSIPPIAN)

Everyone is known to be a liar because everyone lies. Not liking that does not make it less true.

Because you don't have any imagination? The point is that 150 years+ have elapsed since Darwin wrote his book. We know a lot of things that Darwin didn't know. We have mountains more data than he did. And yet, much of what he wrote (but not all) Is still valid today. Still, the theory has been much refined from those early days. Obfuscate all you care to, you are not going to squirm your way out of the fact that evolution is a valid scientific theory.

Yes, we know like that natural selection is a random process, and, as such, does not guide anything.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I didn't say that science is better than religion. I said that they were intrinsically different. But since you brought it up, when it comes to conducting empirical investigations, science trumps religion EVERY SINGLE TIME. And that is not a philosophical argument. It is a fact. Refute that, and you may have a convert (clue - don't hold your breath).

You didn't try to tell me that third person knowledge is fundamentally different than first person knowledge, and that first person revelation is inherently flawed because it becomes hearsay after the first person is dead?

Can you describe the flaws in the Catholic's church process when they verify a miracle? How does their insistence that there be medical proof that a person had a disease, and now doesn't, trump the scientific process when it investigates the same thing and finds that the person both was sick, and now isn't?

Your ignorance on how things works is not evidence that science is better than religion, it is just evidence of your ignorance.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

LOL. Argueing with creationists is a waste of time. No matter what evidence is presented, they believe that their religious beliefs are refutation of it.

Science and progress will move on, in spite of the ignorance of people like PC and Quantum.

Another dirt digger who thinks he understands real science.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Indeed. Though I do enjoy practicing my egg throwing.

You must have thrown it straight up, 'cause it's all over your face.



Wise up:
You were beaten to a pulp in this thread......

In your dreams, princess. Oh look, fossil -

Very good.

Want to tell me how the existence of that fossil proves you understand evolution? Or anything else?

Before you get up on a high horse, go back through the thread to find one single post where I got the science, or the math, wrong. Keep in mind that the fact that you think a randmo process is a guide that is akin to artificial selection is not me being wrong about science.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Where did all those fossils of species of plants and animals that no longer exist come from?

Why are there no remains of modern animals and plants found trapped in the same geological places as these fossils of extinct animals and plants?

Why did GOD intelligently design these fossil records?

Dead animals and plants. The OP does not make the claim that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, it just tries to make the point that evolution has some serious flaws. I wouldn't use the same arguments she did, but I am more of a numbers person than she is. You just assumed that the only people that believe that Darwinian evolution is not the be all and end all of the subject are religious nuts that think God created the fossils to confuse idiots.

 

[Mad Scientist]

You guise gettin this all sorted out?

Question for OldRocks' brother Orogenicman:

"You got any proof on how the first cell came into being"?

Or is all just "theory" and "faith"?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You guise gettin this all sorted out?

Question for OldRocks' brother Orogenicman:

"You got any proof on how the first cell came into being"?

Or is all just "theory" and "faith"?

He doesn't even have proof of the fundamental article of faith of evolution, that all life on Earth evolved from a single progenitor. But he still think this is more scientific than believing in another theory.

 

[midcan5]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

 

[PoliticalChic]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

1. "Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged."

Just when I believe that you've posted the most erroneous, uninformed post possible.....you top it with nonsense like this.


Untold numbers of scientists have challenged the Darwinian brand.


2. There are no laboratory demonstrations of speciation, millions of fruit flies coming and going while never once suggesting that they were destined to appear as anything other than fruit flies.

More than six thousand years of breeding and artificial selection, barnyard and backyard, have never induced a chicken to lay a square egg or persuade a pig to develop wheels on ball bearing.



3. "In a research survey published in 2001, the evolutionary biologist Joel Kingsolver reported that in sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. “Important issues about selection,” he remarked with some understatement, “remain unresolved.”




4. Of these important issues, I would mention prominently the question of whether natural selection exists at all. Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. . . . Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline “Computer ‘Life Form’ Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World.”

So, this is natural selection at work? Blakeslee observes, with solemn incomprehension, “the creatures mutated but showed only modest increases in complexity.” Which is to say, they showed nothing of interest at all. This is natural selection at work, but it is hardly work that has worked to intended effect.

What these computer experiments do reveal is a principle far more penetrating than any that Darwin ever offered:
There is a sucker born every minute."

The above from Berlinski's "Devil's Delusion," p. 189-190

 

[midcan5]

PC, people believe what they want regardless of fact, argument is wasted, believe whatever suits you. But stay away from mirrors nude, you may notice similarities that will surprise you.

Another insightful article, Leakey is interesting and recent finds in China confirm some of these issues.

Richard Leakey: Evolution Debate Soon Will Be History

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American

Lots more stuff below.

Evolutionary Theory
Frans Roes, "A Conversation With George C. Williams" 1998
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Adaptation-Natural-Selection-Christopher-Williams/dp/0691026157/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8]Adaptation and Natural Selection: George Christopher Williams: 9780691026152: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
The Third Culture - Chapter 1
'The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time' Jonathan Weiner
Do you know a chimp who's feeling doleful? Mid-life crisis, probably ? The Register

_

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

What, exactly, is a scientific fact? Are they different from non scientific facts like the fact that cows eat grass? What makes you think that no one has ever challenged it using science?

 

[Old Rocks]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

What, exactly, is a scientific fact? Are they different from non scientific facts like the fact that cows eat grass? What makes you think that no one has ever challenged it using science?

No one has ever challenged that cows eat grass? I wonder why?

 

[Old Rocks]

You must have thrown it straight up, 'cause it's all over your face.



Wise up:
You were beaten to a pulp in this thread......

In your dreams, princess. Oh look, fossil -

The post is another of your lies...as you admitted earlier that the precursor fossils of Cambrian organisms don't exist.


Lies mean that your position is indefensible.

Isn't that true?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtbXu78Ea4]Why the Ediacaran fossils are significant - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZcvbxlf9yk]Ediacaran Fauna Overview - YouTube[/ame]

Bilateral symmetry, kind of blows you flap yap out of the water, PC.

 

[orogenicman]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

What, exactly, is a scientific fact? Are they different from non scientific facts like the fact that cows eat grass? What makes you think that no one has ever challenged it using science?

No one has ever challenged that cows eat grass? I wonder why?

Creationists would if the Bible told them otherwise.

 

[orogenicman]

Hey PC, have you found that bunny rabbit in the Cambrian yet?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Evolution is scientific fact, it has never been scientifically challenged. When religion and politics enter the picture you leave science for speculation. Why some find it necessary to argue against fact is interesting. Today even religions acknowledge evolution, the Catholic church for instance. Billions of years of life is a hard concept for any of us to grasp, but since we all share in the same chemistries of life and are so closely related to all forms of life why the questions. Orogenicman has answered the skeptics but like all things people only see what fits into their worldview. Once people thought...believed...argued...

For the interested, George C. Williams is worth a read. "The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature' and 'Adaptation and Natural Selection'

"Quite possibly, this belief in our own opinion, regardless of the facts, may be what separates us from the nations of the world, what makes us unique in God’s eyes. The average German or Czech, though possibly no less ignorant than his American counterpart, will probably consider the possibility that someone who has spent his life studying something may have an opinion worth considering. Not the American. Although perfectly willing to recognize expertise in basketball, for example, or refrigerator repair, when it comes to the realm of ideas, all folks (and their opinions) are suddenly equal. Thus evolution is a damned lie, global warming a liberal hoax, and Republicans care about people like you." Mark Slouka

What, exactly, is a scientific fact? Are they different from non scientific facts like the fact that cows eat grass? What makes you think that no one has ever challenged it using science?

No one has ever challenged that cows eat grass? I wonder why?

Does that make it a scientific fact? I have seen cows eat molasses fortified with vitamins, does that prove that science is wrong?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Hey PC, have you found that bunny rabbit in the Cambrian yet?

I found a lying sack of offal.....that would be you.



A more honest appraisal follows.

Some experts do not believe that major changes and the appearance of new forms (i.e., macroevolution) can be explained as the products of an accumulation of tiny mutations through natural selection of individual organisms (microevolution). If classical Darwinism isn't the explanation for macroevolution, however, there is only speculation as to what sort of alternative mechanisms might have been responsible.

From "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism"
Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism. Johnson, Phillip

 

[Hollie]

Hey PC, have you found that bunny rabbit in the Cambrian yet?

I found a lying sack of offal.....that would be you.



A more honest appraisal follows.

Some experts do not believe that major changes and the appearance of new forms (i.e., macroevolution) can be explained as the products of an accumulation of tiny mutations through natural selection of individual organisms (microevolution). If classical Darwinism isn't the explanation for macroevolution, however, there is only speculation as to what sort of alternative mechanisms might have been responsible.

From "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism"
Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism. Johnson, Phillip

This is another case of creationist charlatans who critique science matters they are wholly unprepared for.

Critiques of Phillip Johnson


Yep. Another Disco'tute crank

Encyclopedia of American Loons: 194: Phillip Johnson

 

[Derideo_Te]

You must have thrown it straight up, 'cause it's all over your face.



Wise up:
You were beaten to a pulp in this thread......

In your dreams, princess. Oh look, fossil -

The post is another of your lies...as you admitted earlier that the precursor fossils of Cambrian organisms don't exist.


Lies mean that your position is indefensible.

Isn't that true?

Pre cambrian fossils do exist, dearest PC.

Precambrian Fossils

The problem is that while there was abundant sea life it was largely soft bodied which does not fossilize as readily as hard substances like bones. The need to for hard bones was an evolutionary development that occurred because the Cambrian environment was better suited to creatures that evolved boney structures than it was to those that remained soft bodied. This is fully within the guidelines of Darwin's Evolutionary model.

Attempting to claim that evolution is wrong simply because we weren't around to document every single step of the process is foolish. You are wasting your time trying to disprove evolution. You are better off sticking to myths and fables and questioning the origin of life since that it is still not fully resolved scientifically.

 

[PoliticalChic]

In your dreams, princess. Oh look, fossil -

The post is another of your lies...as you admitted earlier that the precursor fossils of Cambrian organisms don't exist.


Lies mean that your position is indefensible.

Isn't that true?

Pre cambrian fossils do exist, dearest PC.

Precambrian Fossils

The problem is that while there was abundant sea life it was largely soft bodied which does not fossilize as readily as hard substances like bones. The need to for hard bones was an evolutionary development that occurred because the Cambrian environment was better suited to creatures that evolved boney structures than it was to those that remained soft bodied. This is fully within the guidelines of Darwin's Evolutionary model.

Attempting to claim that evolution is wrong simply because we weren't around to document every single step of the process is foolish. You are wasting your time trying to disprove evolution. You are better off sticking to myths and fables and questioning the origin of life since that it is still not fully resolved scientifically.

Why must so very many of you be helped with reading and/or comprehension of what you read????

Wasn't the title of the thread a hint, at the very least???



I try to be precise in my language, and this invests the meaning.

Read again, more carefully:
3. And that brings me to the problem of explaining Darwinian evolution.
Since new organs, or whole new body plans, requires the creation of entirely new information, Darwin himself was stymied by the explosion of all kinds of new organisms known as the "Cambrian Explosion."

a. " The Cambrian explosion... was the relatively rapid appearance, around 542 million years ago, of most major animal phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record. This was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms. Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today."
Cambrian explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4. It was not just the multitude of phyla, or a sea change in complexity.....it was the missing evidence of progressive changes leading to this complexity.
It was the missing ancestors in the Precambrian fossil record.

Get it? There is no record of successive, often unsuccessful attempts leading to the "Cambrian Explosion"!!!



Darwin got the point. Clear as a bell. The flaw that causes his theory to fail is the missing fossils.


The fossils necessary to document the major organisms of the Cambrian Explosion, e.g., trilobites and brachiopods.....

....do not exist.

It is as though, like Topsy, these organism simply came to be, fully formed.
(Hey...are you literate enough to get the Topsy reference?)

Now....if you understand the meaning this time, you would probably like to change this:
"Pre cambrian fossils do exist, dearest PC.."

Not.


Once you and the coterie come to admit that....we can proceed to explaining same.
Although...the Johnson post, #97, might help....