Fallacies of Evolution

Discussion in 'Science' started by usfan, Jan 7, 2017.

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  1. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    In some respects I understand what Einstein was trying to explain and I can see why it would be misunderstood by those with a theist agenda.

    I am what is best referred to as a spiritual atheist. Einstein came close to this when he commended Spinoza for understanding that the "soul and body" are essentially the same thing. The referrence to a childlike wonder of the universe is what we term our sense of awe at the immensity that surrounds us. Yesterday evening I was looking up at the Milky Way and marvelling that we understand that it is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars and those stars are orbited by planets that probably contain life of some sort or other.

    With science we have measured this sense of spirituality and it is really just a mental state of meditation. Interestingly enough this same state of mind has been observed in other mammals so it is not unique to ourselves but simply an aspect that has evolved to enable us to deal with life.

    Our sense of awe and our ability to reach a meditative state have been hijacked by religions as "personal evidence" for the existence of their myriad anthropomorphic deities. However when science is applied it demonstrates that there is no connection to these imaginary deities at all. Instead it is "cosmic connection", for want of a better term, to the universe because we are a part of it given that we comprise 6 of the most common elements in the universe.

    In the words of the song we are stardust, quite literally.

    We are a life form, one amongst many here on this planet and who knows how many billions of others out there in the universe, that has reached a level of sentience to wonder about the universe and to study it to learn more.

    It is ridiculous to take the mythology, superstition and ignorance of the stone age and allege that explanations that were used to try and explain the universe back then are even remotely valid when it comes to the scientific knowledge that we have today.

    Less than 25 years ago, not even a blink in cosmic time, we did not know if there were planets orbiting other stars. Thousands of years ago we believed the earth was flat and the universe revolved around ourselves.

    We are not beholden to the ancient superstitions. We are capable of learning and understanding about the universe and our small insignificant place in it. It is way more humbling, as Einstein noted, to appreciate the sheer magnificence of the universe and to understand that we have evolved to the point where we can appreciate the splendor by comprehending the magnitude and the mechanisms by which it operates.
     
  2. usfan

    usfan Banned

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    Pick any of them. How does the reality of genetics conflict with any.. except, perhaps, the ToE? It is much more of a problem for it, than other 'theories' of origins.

    'similar genetics?' IN what way? in the basic way DNA is put together? WHY & HOW did we go from a circular, self replicating dna strand to a helix strand?

    I have said this before. There is a lot of confusion & misinformation about genetics floating around. Some people have a 'lego block' view of genetics.. like there is this big box of lego blocks. These are the genes, & they can be put together to make different objects. Juggle them around, & make something else. but this is not an accurate picture. Neither is the 'book/chapter/word/letter analogy, that i have used before. A single gene is specific to a particular organism. It is not a 'plug & play' part that can be unplugged from one, & plugged into another. The experiments of hybrids, of glowing cats, or other 'gene splicing' experiments rely on 'fooling' the host organism with 'similar' genes that have been spliced into a native gene. They have some similarities, but are not exact matches. but they are able to be genetically modified, to fool the host with some feature. But this takes intelligence, laboratory conditions, & repetition, to even make a viable hybrid.

    The arguments of similarity are fallacious. There is nothing that similar, & each singular species is distinctly different from others, with no ability to mate or mix their genes. There is no biological way to get the genetic information from one species to the next. If the ToE were true, i would not expect to see such sharp contrasts between species.. but there would be a lot more overlap, and ability of one distinct genetic structure to blend with a close relative.. if they were related. But we don't see that. We see ONLY compatibility within clearly singular species, such as canid, equids, felids, etc. they do not venture outside of their genetic structure, or mix with other 'close relatives' that are projected.

    Putting a percentage on some morphological appearance of DNA proves nothing. There is no evidence of descendancy, between the cat & human, or of a banana & a chimp. It is a pretense of science, to quantify with statistics something that has no evidence of direct relation, other than being alive. All molecules consist of protons, electrons, neutrons, etc.. but that does not prove that all matter is the same, or that it all generated itself.
     
  3. felonius

    felonius Active Member

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    I'm afraid I don't quite follow how its possible to be a spiritual atheist. And while I can vibe with your beliefs, it seems as though you've replaced a deity with the universe.

    Differing opinions, beliefs. All valid, can't be proven wrong or right either way.
     
  4. TrackerSam

    TrackerSam Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can believe in an afterlife or a spiritual life without the need for a God figure. Our spirit is immortal, not because of a God, but in spite of one.
     
  5. TrackerSam

    TrackerSam Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm a Lego blocker myself. I think there are a finite number of body part designs that are used across the animal kingdom. But, it's being claimed that birds evolved from dinosaurs. so a dinosaur or any lizard lays an egg and a bird hatches from that egg? Birds feed their young by regurgitating into the chick's mouth. A lizard would not be capable of caring for a chick and the chick would starve and birds would never be. By some miracle the bird survives and we're told that birds instinctively know how to fly. Well how can that be when there never was a bird before the initial one? I don't believe a single animal in transition has ever been found. They found some bacteria that they claim is 3.5 billion years old, but not a single animal in transition.
     
  6. Johnny Brady

    Johnny Brady New Member

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    This printed circuit board was obviously wired up by an electronics expert.
    Except that it's not a PC board, it's a retina..:)
    So what happened, did it just decide to create itself and wire itself up or what?

    [​IMG]
     
  7. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What is your point?
     
  8. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ......Uh......obviously, God did it.

    The white God, not them brown ones or the Bird headed ones.
     
  9. Johnny Brady

    Johnny Brady New Member

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    I just wondered what do PF members think the odds are of the retina creating itself?
    Same with this exquisite creature, did it just decide to create itself or what?

    [​IMG]
     
  10. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Both are the result of natural evolution over great time frames...though the later has been artificially enhanced through human induced changes.

    We can see the process that led to the human eye in todays living creatures.
    "The evolution of the eye has attracted significant study, with the eye distinctively exemplifying an analogous organ present in a wide variety of animal forms. ... Complex eyes appear to have first evolved within a few million years, in the rapid burst of evolution known as the Cambrian explosion."
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/evolution_of_the_eye.htm
     
  11. rahl

    rahl Banned

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    This is hand waiving and stating "nuh uh". You provided no evidence what so ever to rebut the citation that was given.

    Nuh uh isn't an argument.
     
  12. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    The formation of the retina is observable. We see it form in the womb of its mother. Although we have not observed every single retina ever formed we have observed enough to know that the formation of the eyes is the result of a natural process.

    Have you ever seen someone - natural or supernatural - form an eye?
     
  13. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    What terrible straw man fallacy. How the hell does something that does not exist, create itself? Of course, no biologist or even Darwin said that organisms create themselves. As for the "exquisite creature", she is only exquisite because your brain has evolved to find her exquisite.
     
  14. Prunepicker

    Prunepicker Well-Known Member

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    It's not MY definition.

    This is speculation. But thanks for trying.
     
  15. Prunepicker

    Prunepicker Well-Known Member

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    Not they aren't. There is only extrapolation and artistic renderings that connect one
    species to another. Where is the gradual change of a species TRANSITIONING
    into another species?

    I use science's definition.
    It's not my requirement. It's what evolutionists have created as a theory, which has yet to
    be fulfilled.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Charles Darwin for one. Surely you've read his book.
     
  16. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse


     
  17. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What you and USfan refer to as speculation....the rest of the world calls science.
     
  18. Johnny Brady

    Johnny Brady New Member

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    According to Dawkins a lump of jelly appeared "spontaneously" (i.e.-out of thin air) and decided to form itself into a lens. You couldn't make it up..:)-
    "It is not difficult then for rudimentary lens-like objects to come into existence spontaneously.
    Any old lump of halfway transparent jelly need only assume a curved shape" (Richard Dawkins: 'Climbing Mount Improbable', page146)
     
  19. Johnny Brady

    Johnny Brady New Member

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    Yes mate, but who or what caused it to form in the first place?
    A clue- God said to Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer 1:5)
     
  20. Johnny Brady

    Johnny Brady New Member

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  21. Dirty Rotten Imbecile

    Dirty Rotten Imbecile Well-Known Member

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    Well that's great for Jeremiah but we are discussing science here I thought. I'm not going to take the word of an ancient prophet seriously in a discussion about science. That's not because I disrespect Jeremiah or the bible it's just that neither are about science.

    The eye forms as a result of a natural process that we understand. We can observe it through out the development process in the womb of females from many species. There are also great documentaries that describe the evolution of eyes from just a few photoreceptors in simpler species to the complex eye including all the various parts we know of today.

    There's nothing I know of or can think of that shows a supernatural being influenced the process.

    As our esteemed Frank Apisa often points out you may "blindly guess" that there was some initiator of all causes that initiated a chain of events that lead to the eye. However based on the fact that so many other things that we have attributed to a supernatural being turned out not to be the result of a supernatural being I feel my belief that there is no supernatural cause is warranted.

    If there were a supernatural cause it's influence by definition would be unmeasurable since by definition it is from outside of nature. Science is concerned with observable nature and it is concerned with measuring things in order to understand them. The supernatural defies measurement and observation and has thus far proved irrelevant to scientific discussion and when it has been invoked as part of a discussion about science it has proven to be misleading.
     
  22. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

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    Talk about quote mining and taking things out of context.
    Which creationist site did you glean that one from?
     
  23. ecco

    ecco Well-Known Member

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    Nope. She is the result of her mother and her father having intercourse. Just as you god is the result of ʼIlu having intercourse with ʼAṯiratu.
     
  24. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Spirituality is a physical part of our brains. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any imaginary deity. It can be scientifically measured and examined and it exists in other mammalian species. Scientific evidence exists for spirituality whereas none exists for any of the thousands of imaginary deities that religions have invented out of thin air.

    Equally so the physical universe exists. It can be scientifically measured and it behaves in logical and predictable ways. The scientific process is a measured methodology for learning and teaching the knowledge of the universe around us. It works for everyone and requires no faith or belief to understand the results.

    Theists worship imaginary anthropomorphic deities and give them imaginary illogical "powers" like omnipotence and omniscience. These imaginary deities cannot be scientifically measured because they do not exist and have no powers. They are just like the Easter Bunny or fairies or flying dragons. There is no evidence for their existence either.

    Theists worship these imaginary deities because they have been indoctrinated into believing that they exist since they were small children. They are told that they are bad and that there is this imaginary spy in the sky who sees everything that they do and will punish them when they die. They are told that if they pray their prayers will be answered but there is no evidence of that ever happening.

    Having pointed out the vast differences between the physical universe that actually exists and that we inhabit on a daily basis and the bizarre illogical imaginary illusion that is religion and deities you are making an utterly false equivalence to allege that I have substituted one for the other.

    It is possible to scientifically prove that the universe exists. It is impossible to prove that any deity exists. The former can be proven to be right whereas the latter can't even to be proven to exist, let alone be right or wrong.

    So no, there is an immense difference between science and religion and opinion has nothing whatsoever to do with the facts.
     
  25. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    DNA supports and explains the ToE since it is part of the evolutionary process. Genes mutate from generation to generation and mutations that provide adaptability to improve survivability are the ones that are passed down whereas those that don't are not passed on.

    The single most obvious evidence of genetic evolution exists in our own reproduction. Human females produce eggs just as do other species like insects, reptiles, birds and mammals. The male produces sperm and that needs to fertilize the egg in order to start the genetic recombination process. FTR it takes a couple of days after conception before a new unique DNA is actually formed.

    Once there is a fertilized blastocyst it needs to find a source of nourishment. In egg laying species the nourishment is self contained. Some insects will lay their eggs inside of other creatures to provide the nourishment. Mammals have evolved to have an internal means of nourishing the egg inside of the females. However all of the eggs have to have some form of sustenance in order to survive.

    Once the process starts it is possible to observe the various stages of evolution. The cells divide and at that stage they are really not much different to algae in that they are just cells with a nucleus and DNA. Once the cells start to specialize the first signs of a spine form then a brain stem. At this stage it is impossible to distinguish if the end result will be a reptile, bird, fish, dog or human. They all look identical.

    http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evodevo_02

    The reason for this is because we evolved from those earlier forms to where we are today. The tails we once had, and some humans are still born with today, are no different in evolutionary terms than the tails of other species. We have a tail bone because at one time it was an evolutionary adaption of our DNA that worked in our environment and enabled us to survive.

    So yes, the DNA similarity between humans and other species with tails exists because we once had tails ourselves and still have the capacity to grow them again if the evolutionary adaption were needed for survival. We share similar genes with other species because we are descended from the same DNA gene pool that adapted to survive in different environments on this planet.
     
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