Evolution or not?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Evolution does account for what we see and you have provided no valid points to demonstrate that it does not.

We both know David that in actual fact you are not the slightest bit interested in whether evolution can or cannot account for what we see, this is because you reached the point in your belief that evolution for you is now a fact, beyond dispute, absolutely, undeniably true.

So it is impossible for you to ever recognize a problem even if this stared you in the face, for you there simply cannot be any real problem with evolution, you know in advance that whatever anybody might ever show you cannot possibly be a true problem in evolution.

This is you're choice of course but it also indicates a closed mind, one that is no longer capable of learning.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

The truth of evolution is backed by scientific facts, not claims of anyone. You don't seem to understand how science actually works. Evolution has been scientifically verified, and you blissfully ignore that fact.

Incorrect David.

I'm very aware indeed of where observation is consistent with the expectations of evolution, I've said many time there are many areas where observation is very consistent with evolution theory.

I've also said though that people like you (devotees) are completely disinterested, in denial, about some areas where observation is emphatically not consistent with evolution.

But these are the areas that are vitally important because they could possibly amount to falsifications of the theory, but not for you.

When faced with anything like this your "scientific method" of dealing with it is to insist that evolution actually is undoubtedly true and there simply must be some other reason for any apparent inconsistency.

Here's my opinion of you based on everything you've said so far:

1. Evolution is true.
2. There are numerous observations that are exactly what we'd expect to see if evolution were true.
3. If we encounter an observation that's inconsistent with evolution then we know that this is only apparent, because we already know that evolution is true.

This really is how you think, and the reality therefore is that you have made evolution into something that - for you - cannot even in principle be falsified, because if there was a falsifying observation you reject it as an anomaly knowing that evolution is true.

This is what you do, I've seen it with so many atheists over the years, it is self deception, driven by the personal need for evolution to be true in your life, in your world view, you'll even masquerade this deception as being something based on "science" but it isn't David, it's just plain old belief nothing more.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

No, we understand the fossil record because how fossils form is a matter of well known geological processes and we have plenty of evidence for the rarity of the events. We also understand species to usually consist of a fairly large number of individuals over a long period of time, and we can count how many fossils we find. We also know that to get a fossil you need to have an unperturbed corpse for along period of time, which happens rarely in nature.

What evidence do you have for rarity other than the fact that you don't find them?

If they were rare why would we find an abundance of fossils for a large variety of trilobites?

Any serious research into this subject will show you that evolution is based on supporting evidence yet when justifiably expected evidence is never found that is invariably interpreted as poor preservation, scarcity, rarity.

If you can always claim that inconsistent observational data always has some other explanation yet to be found, then by definition you have closed the door to making evolution a falsifiable theory and that my friend is not good science.

The fossil is record is full of huge discontinuities and these discontinuities seem to be very selective if the animals actually did once exist. No fossil ancestry can be found anywhere for trilobites yet these ancestors must have spanned hundreds of thousands of generations and must have hard hard shelly parts present long before evolving into their well known trilobite morphology.

Triolobites are found in abundance all over the earth so were preserved well in many disparate parts of the earth, yet their ancestors (which must have also had some hard shelly parts) were not preserved anywhere in the world.

So this "rarity" you refer to is not credible because it requires selective preservation, just snapshots at certain points in time.

Imagine we had random cameras scattered all over the planet for many millions of years and these took random pictures at random times, tell me what is the probability they they'd all just happen to take pictures at about the same time all over the earth and all just happen to not take pictures at about the same time too? its close to zero, such behavior requires the cameras to be synchronized.

Just because you don't understand why we think something, doesn't mean it is ludicrous.

Do however go on flaunting how you ignore good evidence and have little real understanding or patience for the subject you are pretending to be an expert in, but you are willing to jump to conclusions based on stock arguments to evolutionary theory.

And so now we move on to the personally disparaging remarks so typical of this kind of discussion.

The one questioning the efficacy of evolution must always be portrayed as intellectually inferior to the one advocating evolution.

 

[watsup]

We both know David that in actual fact you are not the slightest bit interested in whether evolution can or cannot account for what we see, this is because you reached the point in your belief that evolution for you is now a fact, beyond dispute, absolutely, undeniably true.

So it is impossible for you to ever recognize a problem even if this stared you in the face, for you there simply cannot be any real problem with evolution, you know in advance that whatever anybody might ever show you cannot possibly be a true problem in evolution.

This is you're choice of course but it also indicates a closed mind, one that is no longer capable of learning.

Evolution is not a “belief”, it is a scientific fact, and using ad home like “closed mind” does not change that one iota.

 

[watsup]

What evidence do you have for rarity other than the fact that you don't find them?

If they were rare why would we find an abundance of fossils for a large variety of trilobites?

Any serious research into this subject will show you that evolution is based on supporting evidence yet when justifiably expected evidence is never found that is invariably interpreted as poor preservation, scarcity, rarity.

If you can always claim that inconsistent observational data always has some other explanation yet to be found, then by definition you have closed the door to making evolution a falsifiable theory and that my friend is not good science.

The fossil is record is full of huge discontinuities and these discontinuities seem to be very selective if the animals actually did once exist. No fossil ancestry can be found anywhere for trilobites yet these ancestors must have spanned hundreds of thousands of generations and must have hard hard shelly parts present long before evolving into their well known trilobite morphology.

Triolobites are found in abundance all over the earth so were preserved well in many disparate parts of the earth, yet their ancestors (which must have also had some hard shelly parts) were not preserved anywhere in the world.

So this "rarity" you refer to is not credible because it requires selective preservation, just snapshots at certain points in time.

Imagine we had random cameras scattered all over the planet for many millions of years and these took random pictures at random times, tell me what is the probability they they'd all just happen to take pictures at about the same time all over the earth and all just happen to not take pictures at about the same time too? its close to zero, such behavior requires the cameras to be synchronized.



And so now we move on to the personally disparaging remarks so typical of this kind of discussion.

The one questioning the efficacy of evolution must always be portrayed as intellectually inferior to the one advocating evolution.

And so now we move on to extremely poor analogies and theoretical, while also complaining about disparaging remarks after recently saying another chatter had a “closed mind”. Uh-huh.

 

[Daisy]

Evolution is not a “belief”, it is a scientific fact, and using ad home like “closed mind” does not change that one iota.

lol...sure it is, it certainly is not a fact but merely scientific dogma propaganda...you don't see anyone asking if you believe in the law of gravity, do you?

 

[watsup]

Incorrect David.

I'm very aware indeed of where observation is consistent with the expectations of evolution, I've said many time there are many areas where observation is very consistent with evolution theory.

I've also said though that people like you (devotees) are completely disinterested, in denial, about some areas where observation is emphatically not consistent with evolution.

But these are the areas that are vitally important because they could possibly amount to falsifications of the theory, but not for you.

When faced with anything like this your "scientific method" of dealing with it is to insist that evolution actually is undoubtedly true and there simply must be some other reason for any apparent inconsistency.

Here's my opinion of you based on everything you've said so far:

1. Evolution is true.
2. There are numerous observations that are exactly what we'd expect to see if evolution were true.
3. If we encounter an observation that's inconsistent with evolution then we know that this is only apparent, because we already know that evolution is true.

This really is how you think, and the reality therefore is that you have made evolution into something that - for you - cannot even in principle be falsified, because if there was a falsifying observation you reject it as an anomaly knowing that evolution is true.

This is what you do, I've seen it with so many atheists over the years, it is self deception, driven by the personal need for evolution to be true in your life, in your world view, you'll even masquerade this deception as being something based on "science" but it isn't David, it's just plain old belief nothing more.

Exactly what observations are inconsistent with evolution? Why won’t you tell us? And could essentially the same statements apply to you of the first one was “evolution is false”?

 

[watsup]

What evidence do you have for rarity other than the fact that you don't find them?

If they were rare why would we find an abundance of fossils for a large variety of trilobites?

Any serious research into this subject will show you that evolution is based on supporting evidence yet when justifiably expected evidence is never found that is invariably interpreted as poor preservation, scarcity, rarity.

If you can always claim that inconsistent observational data always has some other explanation yet to be found, then by definition you have closed the door to making evolution a falsifiable theory and that my friend is not good science.

The fossil is record is full of huge discontinuities and these discontinuities seem to be very selective if the animals actually did once exist. No fossil ancestry can be found anywhere for trilobites yet these ancestors must have spanned hundreds of thousands of generations and must have hard hard shelly parts present long before evolving into their well known trilobite morphology.

Triolobites are found in abundance all over the earth so were preserved well in many disparate parts of the earth, yet their ancestors (which must have also had some hard shelly parts) were not preserved anywhere in the world.

So this "rarity" you refer to is not credible because it requires selective preservation, just snapshots at certain points in time.

Imagine we had random cameras scattered all over the planet for many millions of years and these took random pictures at random times, tell me what is the probability they they'd all just happen to take pictures at about the same time all over the earth and all just happen to not take pictures at about the same time too? its close to zero, such behavior requires the cameras to be synchronized.



And so now we move on to the personally disparaging remarks so typical of this kind of discussion.

The one questioning the efficacy of evolution must always be portrayed as intellectually inferior to the one advocating evolution.

Umm....rarity IS when you don’t find them. That’s the definition,

 

[watsup]

lol...sure it is, it certainly is not a fact but merely scientific dogma propaganda...you don't see anyone asking if you believe in the law of gravity, do you?

So silly as to not even merit a reasoned reply.

 

[Daisy]

So silly as to not even merit a reasoned reply.

Correct...your replies always lack reason...

 

[Variant]

What evidence do you have for rarity other than the fact that you don't find them?

If they were rare why would we find an abundance of fossils for a large variety of trilobites?

Fossils are rare compared to the amount of creatures they represent because we have few overall fossils and many species that they represent that would have been composted of many millions of individuals.

Trilobites we find in environments conducive to fossilization , have big shells, and existed for a very long time.

Any serious research into this subject will show you that evolution is based on supporting evidence yet when justifiably expected evidence is never found that is invariably interpreted as poor preservation, scarcity, rarity.

If you can always claim that inconsistent observational data always has some other explanation yet to be found, then by definition you have closed the door to making evolution a falsifiable theory and that my friend is not good science.

Again, we've been having this discussion for over 100 years. We find plenty of fossil evidence for evolution and creationists always claim that there are gaps. Well, we know that. We also know why.

If you are actually interested in trilobite evolution it looks somethings like this according to biologists:

So, yeah, we find a lot of them, they were around for a unimaginably long time.

Trilobytes as a group would have evolved from smaller and less armored things in the Cambrian, which also leave many fewer fossils, and probably were much less successful comparatively.

So, sure you can say we don't have all the information here, but, obviously we don't have all the information here.

 

[watsup]

Fossils are rare compared to the amount of creatures they represent because we have few overall fossils and many species that they represent that would have been composted of many millions of individuals.

Trilobites we find in environments conducive to fossilization , have big shells, and existed for a very long time.



Again, we've been having this discussion for over 100 years. We find plenty of fossil evidence for evolution and creationists always claim that there are gaps. Well, we know that. We also know why.

If you are actually interested in trilobite evolution it looks somethings like this according to biologists:

Nice.

 

[Variant]

Umm....rarity IS when you don’t find them. That’s the definition,

Indeed.

 

[watsup]

Indeed.

S is ignoring me, so see if you can get him to reveal his recommended alternative to evolution. I still can’t figure out why he won’t do that. Surely he realizes that “finding holes” in evolution in no way undergirds an alternative, but rather that it must exist based on its own POSITIVE merits. What are they?

 

[devildavid]

We both know David that in actual fact you are not the slightest bit interested in whether evolution can or cannot account for what we see, this is because you reached the point in your belief that evolution for you is now a fact, beyond dispute, absolutely, undeniably true.

So it is impossible for you to ever recognize a problem even if this stared you in the face, for you there simply cannot be any real problem with evolution, you know in advance that whatever anybody might ever show you cannot possibly be a true problem in evolution.

This is you're choice of course but it also indicates a closed mind, one that is no longer capable of learning.

I know that your questioning of evolution has no scientific basis at all.

 

[Variant]

S is ignoring me, so see if you can get him to reveal his recommended alternative to evolution. I still can’t figure out why he won’t do that. Surely he realizes that “finding holes” in evolution in no way undergirds an alternative, but rather that it must exist based on its own POSITIVE merits. What are they?

Well you see, if you look at that chart I posted and you asked a biologist to explain where we think trilobites came from; they would say: Probably from something less successful (not lasting hundreds of millions of years) likely with smaller shells, were smaller creatures that we think preceded them in the early Cambrian and Precambrian, and we could look to those time periods and see what we DO find and see if that checks out.

I think the religious alternative goes something like this: A disembodied consciousness that controls all of realty decided that there would be trilobites right there, and then in a completely separate event since we don't have fossils to show the relationship either decided to create the pachopida for some reason so they could last until the devonian...

I mean, a better religious question about trilobites is why a disembodied consciousness that controls reality decided to create them at all but that's just me...

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Fossils are rare compared to the amount of creatures they represent because we have few overall fossils and many species that they represent that would have been composted of many millions of individuals.

Trilobites we find in environments conducive to fossilization , have big shells, and existed for a very long time.



Again, we've been having this discussion for over 100 years. We find plenty of fossil evidence for evolution and creationists always claim that there are gaps. Well, we know that. We also know why.

If you are actually interested in trilobite evolution it looks somethings like this according to biologists:

So, yeah, we find a lot of them, they were around for a unimaginably long time.

Trilobytes as a group would have evolved from smaller and less armored things in the Cambrian, which also leave many fewer fossils, and probably were much less successful comparatively.

So, sure you can say we don't have all the information here, but, obviously we don't have all the information here.

So fossils are rare when we don't find them and they are abundant when we do find them, truly groundbreaking.

We could talk about the significance of morphological similarities and whether they are or are not evidence of descent but I'll leave that for another time. However consider redlichiida, well if evolution is the process that gave rise to it then it will have had ancestors much as the picture shows that proetida had ancestors.

The ancestors of redlichiida must (certainly at the later stages, say 500 MYA and afterwards) have borne a recognizable resemblance to redlichiida including an exoskeleton which would have made them as well suited to fossilization as later trilobites.

So where are these fossils?

Of course trilobites are just a small component of the Cambrian explosion, the sudden and dramatic (these are terms used by paleontologists incidentally) appearance of fossils in which we find likewise - no trace of any hard bodied precursor fossils - for any of the many rather complex animals.

But back to the picture, it implies or one could assume, that the population sizes of each species increases as time progresses, so we find many more fossils around 450 MYA than we find at say 510 MYA, but is that the case?

It is not, in fact the most common trilobite (elrathia kingii) is not in the picture, it is considered to have lived around 510 MYA (Utah) and some 50,000 fossils are estimated to have been found in total.

Then we find Ellipsocephalus hoffi also dated at around the mid cambrian, the most common trilobite found in Europe.

Then consider rare trilobites, the rarest is perhaps Terataspis grandis - on example known - and dated from the Devonian period, and Metopolichas breviceps dated from the Silurian, also very rare.

Crudely speaking then, the evidence is that trilobites became rarer as time progressed, populations in the past appear to have been larger, so where are the expected ancestor fossils of these large populations? why do we find no trace of them? how could such large populations have evolved yet leave no trace of their ancestry?

The discontinuities are truly astonishing, even Darwin was very concerned about it and little has really changed since that time.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

I know that your questioning of evolution has no scientific basis at all.

How do you know that? You can see my presentations of data and evidence here in this and other threads, what is "not scientific" about this? what have I said that is so unreasonable other than you are closed minded?

 

[gboisjo]

How do you know that? You can see my presentations of data and evidence here in this and other threads, what is "not scientific" about this? what have I said that is so unreasonable other than you are closed minded?

Again, if I might ask, what is your position on creation. I'm talking about the process of bringing life into existence. Do you believe god created life some five or six thousand years ago?

 

[Valery]

I know that your questioning of evolution has no scientific basis at all.

But you do know that scientists question evolution, too? That doesn't necessarily mean they don't "believe" in it. It is simply part of scientific research to be sceptical and to insist on definite evidence rather than on vague hints.

 

[gboisjo]

This topic is not as complicated as some would make it out to be. Fossil remains have been found in rocks of all ages. Fossils of the simplest organisms are found in the oldest rocks, and fossils of more complex organisms in the newest rocks. This supports Darwin's theory of evolution, which states that simple life forms gradually evolved into more complex ones.

 

[gboisjo]

We can have this discussion here, however, a series of court decisions have prohibited the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in public schools for good reason.

 

[gboisjo]

But you do know that scientists question evolution, too? That doesn't necessarily mean they don't "believe" in it. It is simply part of scientific research to be sceptical and to insist on definite evidence rather than on vague hints.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that life evolved over time, and most Americans are aware that this is the case. Among scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 98% say they believe life evolved over time. Chances are the 2% that question evolution are somehow tied to religion not the facts ..the evidence is overwhelming.

 

[Valery]

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that life evolved over time, and most Americans are aware that this is the case. Among scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 98% say they believe life evolved over time. Chances are the 2% that question evolution are somehow tied to religion not the facts ..the evidence is overwhelming.

Which adds nothing to my comment..

 

[Valery]

Evolution is not a “belief”, it is a scientific fact, and using ad home like “closed mind” does not change that one iota.

It's a scientific theory. Ask any scientist.