wiredued said:
Choosing the analogy to fit your desired result does not make it a "better" one.
"God does not play dice with the universe" - a great quote from Albert Einstein, except he was talking about quantum mechanics and HE WAS WRONG!
Are there any Atheist cyclists out there?
- Thread starter IronDonut
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Choosing the analogy to fit your desired result does not make it a "better" one.
"God does not play dice with the universe" - a great quote from Albert Einstein, except he was talking about quantum mechanics and HE WAS WRONG!
I'd really like to see someone answer the question, or at least address it in a meaningful way.wiredued said:
I'd really like to see someone answer the question, or at least address it in a meaningful way.wiredued said:
Well, if this analogy were correct, we wouldn't be seeing increases in allele frequencies which are so common among observed and detected speciation. This shows not only that the genetic information available at one time period does not represent a limit to future evolution but also that the current allele count for humans could not be accounted for by only eight individuals a few thousand years ago.achtervolger said:
Well, if this analogy were correct, we wouldn't be seeing increases in allele frequencies which are so common among observed and detected speciation. This shows not only that the genetic information available at one time period does not represent a limit to future evolution but also that the current allele count for humans could not be accounted for by only eight individuals a few thousand years ago.achtervolger said:
I meant answer your question about the possible limiting factor. I don't see how the dice analogy is in any way relevant.Beastt said:
Nah, my post was totally unclear. I thought the whole previous thread would copy--new 'round these parts.Beastt said:Well then, sorry for the misunderstanding. While you're waiting for your answer you can occupy yourself by coloring me some realistic color. Right now red would be a good choice.
Well, your observation is certainly correct. It has nothing to do with atheism, though some creationists do tend to try to blend atheism and evolution together. That, of course, discredits the beliefs of theistic evolutionists. But I do find it interesting that you chose my post to quote. Did it appear to you that I was the first to bring evolution into the thread? If so, I believe a quick look previous to my post would reveal that evolution was brought into the discussion long before I made mention of it.dm69 said:How this has anything to do with atheism in cycling I do not know
I don't wish to make an overly large issue out of this but why is it that I keep asking what factor you propose as presenting the limitation between microevolution and macroevolution and no matter how many others echo the desire to hear a response, we keep not getting one? Do you have any ideas or is it simply that you can't bring yourself to believe that your ideas to this point in your life might have been wrong?wiredued said:
As for your assertion that speciation lies within the limits of "kind", I suppose that would depend on your particular definition of the word as it pertains to biology. In reality, there is no such biological classification as "kind" so one can stretch it to include or exclude whatever they desire and it does nothing to change the fact that speciation does occur and has been observed, speciation is evolution so evolution does occur and that you don't seem to be interested in presenting any views as to what might limit accumulations of microevolutionary events, which we know do lead to speciation, from continueing within species divided from their parent species, resulting in animals of considerably different physiology to the point where even the standard use of the word "kind" fails to support an argument against the theory of evolution.
Thousands of years of recorded history is the evidence that a limiting mechanism within dna exsists finding it would be nobel prize material. As far as "kind" goes I think there is a consensus on wolves and dogs being the same kind what are you expecting the dog kind to change into do you think the information for wings is in their gene code? Again you would be stepping outside the realm of science to believe that. Just adding more time can't explain it roll those dice a million times a day for a trillion years and you still can't roll 21 (sorry for the analogy again).
Beastt said:
Actually, the best Nobel prize material from your point of view would be any solid evidence which contradicts the Theory of Evolution. The problem would be that none is known to exist or the Theory of Evolution would not only cease to be an accepted theory, but could no longer be defined as a "theory".wiredued said:
As far as your thousands of years of recorded history go, what we as people have recorded in that time is observed evolution. That doesn't mean that we've seen a bird-like creature change into a reptile-like creature, (that I'm aware of). It means we've seen evolution in action and can trace many of the genetic changes leading from one form of an animal to another. But if we want to look at the principles of the Theory of Evolution and be realistic about the time scales, we have to look back not a few thousand years, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions of years. In conversing with a number of creationists, I often get the feeling that many of them have been told that the Theory of Evolution predicts that an animal will undergo drastic changes over a period of time as short as what would represent man's recorded history. That may be the creationist version of the Theory of Evolution, but it's certainly not the real, accepted Theory of Evolution. But that doesn't mean evolutionary history isn't recorded. It's just not recorded by men scribing words onto surfaces. Instead it is recorded in the geologic column as the fossil record and the genetic record carried by today's animals in their DNA.
Despite the broadly misinformed idea of the "missing link", there really is no missing link. In reality, there are hundreds of thousands of missing links. Fossilization is extremely rare. When organisms die, the vast majority of them simply decay and are are no longer available to examine. Each of those is a missing link. To demonstrate the myth of the missing link, please look at this sequence of numbers.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Did you see the missing link? I'm sure if you looked for it, you noticed that we jumped from 13 to 15. So the missing link would lie directly between them. So the next question is; does this mean we have invalidated the proposition that this string of numbers represents a progression from 1 to 24? Does the fact that the 14 is missing completely invalidate the rest of the progression? If we remove a link from a chain, do we end up with two chains showing high probability of having once been joined, or do we end up with no chain?
The point is, while we can't learn anything by looking at what we don't have, (because we can't see what we don't have), we can learn by looking at what we do have. And what we do have is a rich collection of transitional fossils. We do have the ability to find evidence of viruses which infected common ancestors and left their genetic code, spliced into the DNA of their decendants. We can then use these ERVs, (Endogenous Retro Viruses), in one species to trace the lineage from tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago, to multiple species thriving today. Man as well as most other primates carry the same ERV markers in their DNA.
Okay. So wolves and dogs are the same "kind". Does that establish a transferrable set of criteria for what constitutes a "kind"? Does it provide us with a concrete definition? Are dingos of the dog "kind"? What about basenjis? What about cheetahs? Are they of the dog "kind" or of the cat "kind"? They have a face like a cat and fur like a cat but they have the feet of a dog and several other physical attributes of a dog. So do they belong to the cat "kind" or the dog "kind"? Perhaps they're of the cheetah "kind"? But then why call them the "cheetah kind" when "cheetah" would mean the same thing? If you place cheetahs in the "cat kind", by what criteria do you eliminate them from the "dog kind"? If you put them in the "dog kind", how do you dismiss their cat-like physical attributes? So we're back to the question; what constitutes a "kind" in the biological sense?wiredued said:
Yes you would. And you'd be stepping outside of the realm of the particular accepted field of science which explains changes in allele frequency over time in animals which just happens to be the Theory of Evolution. Nowhere in the Theory of Evolution does it suggest that a dog will suddenly give birth to offspring with wings. If you were to see this happen it would serve as evidence against the Theory of Evolution. Again, I suspect this is based in the distorted creationist version of the Theory of Evolution and not the true Theory of Evolution so widely accepted by scientists.wiredued said:
You seem to be suggesting that DNA must always remain of a fixed length and content. Because if you add to the length of the DNA strand, you have added potential genetic information to the code in the string. And if you can't add to the genetic code, then you can't be infected by a virus, (because that's what happens when a virus invades a cell). Can you be infected by a virus? If you answered, "yes", then you can add to the potential genetic information contained in DNA, (or even RNA). More to the point, I would hope you realize that we have redundant genes that express fish like gills and a tail like protrusion during our embryonic development. Do you know anyone with gills and a tail? (On very rare occassions these physical traits do carry through at birth.) Even if you don't, the information for these physical traits exist in human DNA and the evidence can be seen during embryonic development.wiredued said:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#ontogeny_ex4
I hope you understand why the dice are a poor analogy. Dice don't reproduce. They don't contain viable genetic code so they have no mutation within reproduction which they also lack. Comparing the roll of dice to genetic mutations and evolution is, on many counts, less appropriate than comparing the growth patterns of a plastic plant to those of a living plant. Dice don't grow new dots or lose dots as they progress from generation to generation. They're not biological and the numbers which come up on dice, (good dice), are reasonably random. Evolution is not a random process, even though it starts with random mutation. If you were to pick through a stack of discarded and broken pasta, and throw away all the pieces that were under 4-inches in length and over 6-inches in length, would the remaining pieces be a random selection? Of course this analogy is only slightly more accurate than your dice analogy, but this is hinting at the function of natural selection in the evolutionary process.
Evolution does occur. We know that and we can demonstrate that. The Theory of Evolution complies with all available, empirical evidence. That is a requirement for all scientific theories. Many of the predictions facilitated by the Theory of Evolution have lead directly to new and promising medical discoveries. We even find a growing number of creationist who are willing to admit that the evolutionary process leads to "microevolution". But the term has been coined so that they can give a little to the Theory of Evolution, without losing their grip on creationism. Microevolution is simply a shorter segment isolated out of macroevolution. They are the same thing, observed at different levels.
As to the answer you provided for my question about the factor which prevents compounded microevolutionary events from resulting in a macroevolutionary change, I acknowledge and appreciate your reply. However, I find it clear that I was not specific enough when I posed the question. What I had hoped for was a specific factor which acts as a mechanism to limit evolutionary change to what has become termed, "microevolution". What you offered was the evidence which you believe suggests that only microevolution occurs. I hope I'm stating that well enough that the difference becomes clear. I'm not asking what evidence you see to support your proposed microevolutionary limitations. I'm asking what factor facilitates that limitation. What is it that keeps microevolutionary changes from compounding into a macroevolutionary change?
And finally, (about time, huh?), are the changes in average speeds among the Grand Tours now, compared with say; 100-years ago, due more to the equipment, the support squads or is it due to phylogenesis among the riders?
(Yes dm69, that was a joke. But I did, KINDA link this to cycling.)
wiredued said:
Of course the dice aren't living organisms with an adaptable genetic code, surrounded by environmental factors continuously working to reprogram this code in order to ensure the continued survival of the species. It's a ridiculous analogy. I understand what you're trying to say but there's no evidence to 100% prove or disprove the possibility that over hundreds of millions of years (if you really think its only thousands, you're absolutely cracked and there's no point discussing it) evolution couldn't result in a species outside of the original "kind".
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