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Talk:Counterexamples to Evolution/archive2 (view source)
Revision as of 19:11, May 23, 2011
, 19:11, May 23, 2011→Objection
:My answers to the above are posted in italics. All I have seen is hearsay talk here. Hearsay, the kind of statement that would be thrown out of the average courtroom. But I'll eat my words here provided I see a scientist go into the forest, grab hold of Mr. and Missus Big Bad Wolf, drag them to a lab (or kennel), and recreate the very first animal that we all could name Rover. After all, it's exactly what scientists '''SAID''' had happened. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 03:38, 23 May 2011 (EDT)
:My answers to the above are posted in italics. All I have seen is hearsay talk here. Hearsay, the kind of statement that would be thrown out of the average courtroom. But I'll eat my words here provided I see a scientist go into the forest, grab hold of Mr. and Missus Big Bad Wolf, drag them to a lab (or kennel), and recreate the very first animal that we all could name Rover. After all, it's exactly what scientists '''SAID''' had happened. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 03:38, 23 May 2011 (EDT)
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A4- Patently false, see the aforementioned CCR-5 receptor gene mutation.
And your proof rendering it false is..?
: A4 original stated that any beneficial mutation was coupled with lethal results. The CCR-5 receptor gene mutation is beneficial and has no known negative side effect.
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A7- Yes, there are. Mules are the infertile off-spring of a male donkey and a female horse. Donkeys and horses are both members of the Equidae family, both species having evolved from a common ancestor, the Hyracotherium, which lived during the early Eocene period. Horses and donkeys can no longer produce viable offspring and thus the process of separate lines of evolution have rendered these animals too genetically dissimilar to have viable offspring. This is the process of speciation.
No, there are no records of this happening. You did not see the horse evolve from Hyracotherium, nor from Pliohippus, nor from Mesohippus, nor from the Banana Splits. If this was the case, then you should be able to recreate the domestic dog from the wolf right now.
:The records are in the fossils.
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A8- Such egocentric behaviors benefit the INDIVIDUAL human life; lying and stealing gain more for the individual and increase the chances it will survive. Additionally, psychopathy is an aberration in psychological development, not a trait.
Lying and stealing is a benefit? What kind of nonsense is that?
:From a biological perspective, lying allows an organism to increase its standing in a social group and stealing means the organism can gather resources without expending great amounts of energy. It also means that it can acquire food when food is scarce. That increases its chances of survival.
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A9- The listed organisms haven’t changed greatly because they have had little to no evolutionary pressure to do so. They are well adapted to their environment and thus natural selection is not doing much to push the species. The process of speciation happens fastest in a high-stress environment where a species has to react or face extinction.
Then recreate a domestic dog in the lab directly from the wolf.
:What? That…makes absolutely no sense at all. That doesn’t even relate to the point I made
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B2- “Information” is not a scientific term nor is it defined on this website (in a scientific context).
So?
:It has no meaning.
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B5 and 6- This is entirely subjective and as such does not have a place in an objective theory or critique of a theory. Additionally, the theory of evolution does not have to nor does it purport to explain aesthetics. Evolution explains the diversity of life. This point demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding evolutionary theory.
So we all should accept the scientist's word that evolution is a fact, regardless of the lack of facts supporting the theory beyond the scientist's word?
: What? That…makes absolutely no sense at all. That doesn’t even relate to the point I made
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B7- This shows absolutely nothing. If it’s like clockwork, then why is it 13 years for some parts of the world and 17 for other parts?
No, it shows that there are two species of insect that lie dormant for nearly two decades doing absolutely nothing. What is the evolutionary explanation for that?
:Evolution does not explain why cicadas lay dormant. Evolution explains the diversity of life. Period.
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B12- Complete speculation, we have no way of determining if other animals lack consciousness. We infer this from our lack of ability to communicate, but we cannot objectively demonstrate that we are the only creatures with a consciousness.
If it's not speculation, then we would be observing animals doing the things that humans do, much like they would in a Far Side cartoon.
:You are assigning anthropomorphic qualities to animals without any basis for doing so. We have no indication animals are sentient.
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B13- Speculation again, additionally evolution does not predict nor explain the presence of higher intellectual functions in humans.
Evolution is speculation.
:And that is not an argument.
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B16- The temperature of the ambient water drops as you approach the poles, as such, a fish who gradually developed the genes for enduring in colder water could progress further north or south until they could withstand very cold temperatures. This process is well known and documented http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11181960
But did they see this evolving take place? No.
:We didn’t have to
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B18- In many cases, we can look to the natural world for causes. Darwin’s famous finches are an example, many different subspecies of the same parent species evolved when several populations were established on the islands by birds blown onto the island by storms.
And the proof of the evolving happening...?
:The proof is you have different species of finch on different islands with beak configurations that have evolved to take advantage of the island’s most abundant and accessible food source for the finches. These finches are too genetically different to breed with other finch species, thus we have speciation.
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C1- Evolution does not nor does it purport to explain the behavior of jellyfish.
Because it cannot.
:It isn’t supposed to
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C3- The subjective human idea of what is “good” and “bad” are not factors in evolution.
Then we would all behave like animals.
:We do behave like animals.
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C4- I cannot speak for Dawkins, but the occurrence of things like altruism in animals is fairly well understood. Altruistic behavior is a way for social groups to reinforce their bonds and improve the cohesion of the group itself. This behavior has been well documented among apes who will often give gifts to other apes in the same group for future favors. The behavior is never (to my knowledge) displayed in non-social species.
And the Australian bower bird?
:What aspect of the bird specifically are you focusing on?
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C5- A mutation is not necessarily bad. A person’s genome has something like 10,000 mutations in it before that person is even born and most of us do pretty well.
And still, we're not evolving; the X-Men are still relegated to the comics.
:Yes, we are still evolving. We have a library of hominid fossils that indicate that humans once looked quite different then than we do today.
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C6- Some of us do have an immunity (or nearly so) to the HIV due to our exposure to the Black Death in our genetic past. HIV is not virulent enough to clear large sections of our population who aren’t immune. With a disease like the Black Death, it left enough people with immunity alive to reproduce and successfully repopulate, creating a population that was resistant or immune to the disease that caused the Black Death. At least until it returned after mutating.
Or the rats could have died, leaving a large number of infected fleas with no where to go except in the bellies of various species of birds.
:Except there were no records of mass rat die-offs from the time of the Black Death. Additionally, the Y. pestis bacteria (other pathogens have been suggested as the cause of the Black Death but Y. pestis is still the prevailing theory) responsible for the Black Death would not have survived digestion. Even if it did, there is a very slim chance of transmission from the belly of a bird to a human being.
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C7- Traits are only selected out of a population if there is evolutionary pressure to do so. There has been little to no pressure on the human population to eradicate schizophrenia. If we were to start executing all schizophrenic people, then we’d see our instances of people developing the disorder drop after several dozen successive generations because the genes that make us susceptible to schizophrenia would not be passed on. And we do have a fairly good idea that genetics plays a big role in determining the manifesting of schizophrenia.
They tried that before and it didn't work; the place was Nazi Germany.
:They didn’t try it on a wide enough scale to be effective. To eradicate a particular gene from the human gene pool, ALL carriers of the gene need to be removed from the gene pool.
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D1- The human body has dozens of vestigial traits that have no current use. We do know what they are used for in other creatures and in apes and we don’t/cant use them in that way. The goosebump response is a prime example, goosebumps form on our skin when scared to make us look bigger, but no human has enough body hair to make this happen anymore. We also don’t have enough body hair for it to provide insulation. There are several muscles and muscle groups that serve no function in the human body, The human eye has something called the plica semilunaris, a musculature remnant of the nictitating membrane that many other creatures have (and we do not).
And of course all of our hair evolved away, with some scientist or two writing out convenient excuses as to why...without anything other than their word to back it up.
:I suggest you review the work (or better yet, link it) again and you’ll find ample backing. Additionally, you ignored several other important points.
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D2- Junk DNA is a well-documented phenomenon in the human genome and is detailed in even the most elementary book on the subject of genetics.
And it's the opposite of evolution's basic trend of "things getting better over time."
:Evolution is not “things getting better over time.” Evolution is “things adapting to their environment better over time.” Big difference.
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D3- This point demonstrates a lack of understanding about how evolution works. Evolution does not “design”. It merely allows natural selection to remove organisms that are less suited for their environment such that their genetic information is not passed on. The human spine and sinus system are not fatal in their current configuration and as such there is no evolutionary pressure to stop people from passing on the genes for the setup of these systems.
So the point is "hit or miss"? That leaves out natural selection entirely.
:Not hit or miss at all. If you have a population of animals, let’s take a gazelle. If you have a single animal born with the gene that gives him slightly stronger leg muscles, he will be better able to escape from predators and thus is more likely to survive and pass on his genes to successive generations. Being predated upon is the evolutionary pressure that kills off other gazelles that don’t run as fast and thus allows the faster gazelles to breed and populate.
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D4- Very often our teeth ARE over-crowded and often some must be manually removed.
And what is the evolutionary advantage to having teeth that must be manually-removed? And what is the evolutionary advantage of a mayfly to evolve with no way to eat, or of a woman to have a painful childbirth?
:Having teeth removed has nothing to do with evolution and neither does pain in child birth. And I am not aware of ANY organism that has evolved with no way to eat.
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D5- This point does not take into account the mountain of environmental factors that contribute towards this trend.
Mankind can live anywhere, regardless of the "mountain of environmental factors"...and just where is this mountain?
:Wide-scale consumption of artificial chemicals in our food, poor diet, decreasing social pressure to procreate, over-population. Just to name a few.
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D7- Drug-resistant pathogens are a perfect example of natural selection. In the case of MRSA, some of the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria have developed with a structure that renders them immune or resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics. The bacteria that are not resistant to the antibiotics die when antibiotics are introduced into their environment and there is suddenly a gap left that the resistant strain quickly multiplies to fill.
Some humans have gained immunity from snake venom over time, but we've never seen fangs on any of their kids.
:Immunity from snake venom does not mean a person will grow fangs, one has NOTHING to do with the other. And I am un-aware of any person being immune to snake venom. Both types of snake venom act on key components of human anatomy and thus are hard to negate.
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E1- Both toothed and baleen whales can trace their ancestral divergence to the Aetiocetus, the precursor to modern whales and dolphins. Interestingly enough, the Aetiocetus is an example of a transitional fossil.
Again, you're making a statement based on assumption. Where's the proof?
:The proof is in the fossil record
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E2- Incorrect, we can trace the lineage of horses back to the Family Palaeotheriidae, which gave rise to modern horses, tapirs, and rhinoceros. Additionally, simply because a specific fossil has not been found yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We have basal forms of horses and we have fossilized horse ancestors, so logically there IS an intermediary fossil.
Again, you're making a statement based on assumption. Where's the proof?
:The proof is in the fossil record
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E3- Literally thousands of transitional fossils have been found. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Did the scientist prove they are transitionals? Did the scientists see these transitionals change from one animal into another, or do we have to take their word that it happened?
:How exactly does one prove a transitional fossil?
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E4- The process is well documented http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28332/
Only if you're a cell.
:Well…yeah that was kinda the point. That’s what the original point in the article was talking about…
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E7- Right here http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/figures/25_EVOW_Art/01_EVOW_CH25.jpg
Not good enough. You have to quit assuming that evolution is true and demand that the scientist prove it. Saying Ardipithicus is an ancestor is far different that proving it.
:We can trace the line of fossils back to show ancestry
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G4- There are several examples of animals with wings that are also flightless but none the less are able to use their wings for other purposes.
Again, there is no provable example of this happening beyond the scientist's word that it happened.
:Be careful, I hear ostriches and penguins get upset when you insult them
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G5- This staple argument of irreducible complexity has been thoroughly demolished http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ7ubVIqo4
Ken Miller talks about the bacterial flagellum as if that's a good thing. Did he create a dog from a wolf, as his fellow scientists stated has happened? No. Miller's explanation did not demolish anything.
:No scientist has stated anyone created a dog from a wolf. Ken Miller has deconstructed the argument of irreducible complexity. If you’d watch the video, you’d see that
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H1- Citing yourself is very VERY poor form.
The page has links off-site; you never bothered to check.
:Then link them on THIS page, don’t bounce the reader through two or three other Conservapedia pages.
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H2- This is speculation and as such does not belong in an objective article.
How is it speculation?
:Because there is no indication whatsoever that there would be one ancestral language.
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H3- The link for this is extremely poor, no names are provided to check the source and the scientist who allegedly announced this is un-named. It is a poorly sourced statement and should be removed.
You have not provided sources for nearly everything you put here.
:The source I draw on is rudimentary knowledge of what I’m talking about, as should be obvious to anyone who has something similar.
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H4- Speculation again. We have no way of determining if other animals do or do not have religion.
That statement is a cop-out; we know what higher animals exist on the planet, and so far none have built schools, written books, or produced their genealogical heritage.
:Again, you are assigning anthropomorphic qualities to animals without any basis for doing so. It is speculation and speculation does not belong on an allegedly factual website.
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H5- “Kind” is not a scientific term
"Kind" is a Biblical term for species. What's the problem?
:If you’re going to attempt to refute a scientific theory, you need to use the accepted language so we have a common ground of understanding. “Kind” is also extremely poorly defined; are donkeys a different “kind” than horses or mules? If so, then creating a new species isn’t that hard because horses and mules seem to be able to do it no problem.
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H8- Advancing evolution does not require one to be anti-religious. The theory of evolution does not deal with religion whatsoever
It is anti-religious, because it throws out God. How many evolutionary scientists have no problem with teaching creation in our schools? None.
:There are plenty of scientists who subscribe to the theory of evolution who are devoutly religious. Evolution and religion are not incompatible unless you make them so.
== Picture of PZ Myers ==
== Picture of PZ Myers ==