Philosophical critique of Evolution

Faith & Science Conversation
121

But I can build a bridge from England to the France if I just take enough small steps. A car can’t drive underwater, so submarines don’t exist (too big a jump from car to sub). Your argument from analogy just doesn’t work.

They both breath, consume food, use ATP in the Krebs cycle. The differences would be in scale not fundamentals.

The first tetrapod, or at least a close cousin. Looks like a fish with limbs. Limbs that happen to match yours in number and locations of bones BTW.

Flippers work better in water than legs. And it isn’t devolution per se but adaptation of limbs back into a flipper shape. The bones aren’t the same as fish flippers.

Just because you were taught incorrectly doesn’t make the theory wrong.

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122

We are still going round in circles. I have answered all of these elsewhere.

It is the same arguments back and forth.

Perhaps this thread has run its course Moderators?

Although there hasn’t been a reaction to the optical illusion post.

Richard

123

You have your rut and I have mine. What do you expect? You dismiss the evidence and think an analogy is a valid way to argue against a scientific theory. We present the evidence and don’t accept your analogy. What are you expecting?

Not surprising since it is just another analogy.

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124

But not with toes like those of modern tetrapods.

Which, incidentally, is one of many reasons why claiming that stem tetrapods are actually cryptobranchids does a thorough job of discrediting the person claiming that (Tiktaalik has fish-like rays instead of toes, and later stem-tetrapods have more digits than any modern amphibian does; early tetrapods also have features like lateral lines and labyrinthodont dentition that no modern amphibian does).

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125

Never said I was an expert. I just act like one on the Internet. Plus I know anything I get wrong will almost always get corrected rather quickly.

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126

The arm bones have some similar characteristics to tetrapods (e.g. seems to have a wrist). Having a neck is another component like tetrapods but not fish.

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127

Based on what Steve @glipsnort just said on another of the many threads indulging Richard’s incredulity regarding evolution, perhaps this one should be renamed “Critique of Evolution by Analogy”.

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128

Or “Why reality must conform to my incredulity”, or “Why the territory must change itself to resemble the map”.

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129

I have never claimed you must do anything. You seem to think that I must agree with you though.
My intention is always to promote discussion but the result is usually personal and emphatic. I try and insert humour but it gets lost or misinterpreted. Sometimes I wonder why I bother at all.

Richard

130

You are claiming that if you think something is impossible that it can’t happen in reality. Therefore, if you decided that heavier than air flying craft were impossible then planes would start falling out of the sky. If you decided that it is impossible for photons to be either a wave or a particle then quantum mechanics must be false. If you decided that it is impossible for heat energy to spread out evenly within a system then thermodynamics is false.

Do you understand why your claims that such and such evolutionary pathway is impossible, because you say so, in no way impacts reality?

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131

I suffer from the same problem. :smiley: help. But even they get ignored.

132

Frankly,no. Because I am not claiming the same way you do. You will not even consider my ideas. Your only aim is to crush me. There is no discussion. There is no reasoning. In fact, there is little understanding. All you do is trot out your assertions in a way that I must agree with. You are the bully, not me.

But it doesn’t really matter. It is not you I am interested in.

Richard

133

I have considered all of your ideas. They are based on personal incredulity, a rejection of the scientific method, a basic misunderstanding of biological concepts, and a level of doubt so high that we are told we can’t trust what is right in front of our noses.

The question is whether you will consider the evidence that actually supports the theory of evolution. Thus far, it seems that you won’t.

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134

From a very biased and narrow perspective, maybe. ANd then rejected them out of hand

Are you sure that you have even read them, let alone understood them?

Again no. I am just suggesting that you look at things from a non-scientific perspective,

I know why you think as you do. i can follow your reasoning perfectly well. I very much doubt that you can say the same for me. And there is the problem. You reject without understanding. You aren’t interested in anything other than asserting your superiority over me.

Which proves my point. I understand the theory of Evolution, probably better than you do. And I do not reject it out of hand. Neither do I reject all of it. Neither do I claim that there is no justification for it,
Becasue I understand the principles involved. You have shown no such thing. You have shown no understanding beyond yur proofs and DNA comparisons.I will stop here before it degenerates into a slanging match.

Suffice it to say, we are talking a different language (understanding) Just as Britain and America are divided by a single language, so are we.
(and I will leave you to misunderstand that analogy as well.)

Richard

135

I haven’t seen any evidence to support your claims, so why should I accept them?

Yes, I am sure. As one example, you claim that endothermy can’t evolve from ectothermy, but you have yet to present any evidence for this claim. Another example is your claim that DNA has to be similar between species. From my own 25 years of experience in the biological sciences, I already know this is false. Just because I don’t accept your arguments does not mean I don’t understand them.

Again, yes. You claim evolution is false because it interprets data, makes inferences from data, uses mathematics, and tests hypotheses. You object the basic tools of the scientific method.

How do we define evidence within this perspective? How do we determine if something is true within this perspective? How reliable is this perspective when determining how reality actually works?

Then why do you not understand some of the most basic concepts, such as the nested hierarchy? Why do you not understand why DNA sequences do not have to be highly similar in order to have the same function? Why do you keep trying to claim that simple similarities are being used as evidence for the theory of evolution? You either don’t understand the theory, or you are purposefully misrepresenting the theory. I was assuming the former.

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136

There you go again. Just because I reject it does not mean I do not understand it.
(I seem to think you just said the same thing to me! So why does it apply to me and not to you!)

I suggest that we give up, now!.

Richard

137

Then why do you keep saying that we see similarities as evidence for evolution when we are actually saying that the nested hierarchy is evidence for evolution?

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138

I highlighted to confirm understanding.

The difference is basically syntax and I am quite impressed that you can see a difference in meaning.

You are claiming there is only one reason for their being similarities, be it nested or otherwise. The nested hierachy being a specific link.
I am saying that you are refusing to consider any other reason for similarities, nested or otherwise, and that the existence of any link nested or otherwise is not as conclusive as you claim. And that what you are seeing as hereditary may not be hereditary.

On that we agree. What we don’t agree on is why I claim that you should consider other explanations for what you see.

Richard

139

Care to actually provide such an explanation without the use of an analogy?

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140

No, I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that evolutionary mechanisms should produce a nested hierarchy. We observe a nested hierarchy. Therefore, the observed nested hierarchy is evidence for evolutionary mechanisms producing the biodiversity we see today.

If you think a nested hierarchy is the same as just sharing similarities then you don’t understand what a nested hierarchy is. If there was a species that had feathers like birds and three middle ear bones like mammals then this would seriously challenge the theory of evolution. There are many, many examples of shared similarities that would DISPROVE evolution if they existed.

You have yet to present an example of any other mechanism that would necessarily produce a nested hierarchy. I can’t consider what you have failed to present. Again, a nested hierarchy is the only pattern evolution can produce when there is vertical inheritance. A designer can produce any pattern of shared features, patterns that aren’t a nested hierarchy. So you would need to explain why we see a nested hierarchy and not some other pattern of both differences and similarities.

So why would your proposed explanation produce a nested hierarchy and not some other pattern of differences and shared similarities? Why would DNA sequence follow this same pattern?

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