Why Darwinian Evolutionists Hate Mathematicians

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

She's saying regardless of which botanical analogy you employ you still have to account for pre-biotic origins.

jeez

[Chris_]

It goes without saying that science is never settled in an absolute sense. Settled science can always be overturned by a new discovery.

The theory of evolution is about as settled as anything can be in science. In a way, the theory of evolution is a more settled than the theory of gravitation, something which no one doubts.

You Know, TNO, upon reflection, I gave you credit for having more intelligence than to make a comment like this one..........although I consider you to be politically misguided, I've credited you as an articulate, reasonably smart person, with well above average research and communication skills.........however........

Back when I was a postdoc, teaching Physics classes to undergrads, the professors would categorize students making statements like this as "fuzzy thinkers".  In science, a "fuzzy thinker" is one who for whatever reason (religion, political ideology, or just plain stubbornness) arrives at a conclusion on as issue "first", based on how they "feel"  about it, and then proceeds to expend all of his/her energy rushing to the library to find the least bit of out-of context "evidence" in order to fight off challenges to what, in their mind, has become set in concrete.

Students striving to become well versed in scientific principles look at even the most established concept with a jaundiced eye........forever skeptical, a good scientist never allows his/her outside opinions color their consideration of a scientific issue/problem.  As I mentioned to you in a long-ago thread on another topic, many of my professors, when I was coming up in academia were outright Marxists, and many Athiests, but it was never allowed to influence their research, nor did they begin consideration of a theory with either their politics or religion (or lack thereof) as the remotest part of their work.  They were scientists, first and foremost, and their Atheism, Marxism, or any other influence was left out of the process.  I might hear about it over coffee at lunch at the Dean's house, but never in the lab or classroom.

You demonstrate this flaw in thinking here as well, as you frantically Google for the smallest tidbit if information to dispute a piece of a presented concept, rather than stepping back, and looking at the topic with a skeptical scientific approach, organizing your thoughts, and presenting the well thought-out, organized, and articulate argument that I know you are capable of........without letting your politics, or "religion" color your presentation or thought process.

If, after careful self-analysis, you can't arrive at such a place, perhaps PolySci or Philosophy is your thing, and threads involving science, religion, and related topics should be overlooked.  Just a suggestion......

I think that it is great that you have joined this discussion, as your positions have certainly created great interest from the membership, but you are capable of better.......let's see it.......

doc

[Carl]

You need to slow down. What I wrote is that the theory of evolution is a settled science. Abiogensis, which has to do with the origin of life, is not a settled science and I haven't suggested that it is.

You need to read better and think deeper.
You cannot say that evolution is "settled" even though we don`t know the process,we don`t know how life began or what triggered the first evolutionary step,why there are so many gaps and unanswered questions as to how it happened and still say you are honest.
The origin of life is the basis for an evolutionary system,to suggest otherwise is absurd as has already been pointed out.
It is intellectually lazy to proclaim otherwise.

If it also was somehow settled science then it couldn`t be referred to as a theory which you just did.
It is "settled" only to the extent that it is a means to deny the existence of God,as I said before...that is its purpose.
It is a religion in every sense requiring a tremendous amount of blind faith..you have already demonstrated that.

[The Night Owl]

You Know, TNO, upon reflection, I gave you credit for having more intelligence than to make a comment like this one..........although I consider you to be politically misguided, I've credited you as an articulate, reasonably smart person, with well above average research and communication skills.........however........

Back when I was a postdoc, teaching Physics classes to undergrads, the professors would categorize students making statements like this as "fuzzy thinkers".  In science, a "fuzzy thinker" is one who for whatever reason (religion, political ideology, or just plain stubbornness) arrives at a conclusion on as issue "first", based on how they "feel"  about it, and then proceeds to expend all of his/her energy rushing to the library to find the least bit of out-of context "evidence" in order to fight off challenges to what, in their mind, has become set in concrete.

Students striving to become well versed in scientific principles look at even the most established concept with a jaundiced eye........forever skeptical, a good scientist never allows his/her outside opinions color their consideration of a scientific issue/problem.  As I mentioned to you in a long-ago thread on another topic, many of my professors, when I was coming up in academia were outright Marxists, and many Athiests, but it was never allowed to influence their research, nor did they begin consideration of a theory with either their politics or religion (or lack thereof) as the remotest part of their work.  They were scientists, first and foremost, and their Atheism, Marxism, or any other influence was left out of the process.  I might hear about it over coffee at lunch at the Dean's house, but never in the lab or classroom.

You demonstrate this flaw in thinking here as well, as you frantically Google for the smallest tidbit if information to dispute a piece of a presented concept, rather than stepping back, and looking at the topic with a skeptical scientific approach, organizing your thoughts, and presenting the well thought-out, organized, and articulate argument that I know you are capable of........without letting your politics, or "religion" color your presentation or thought process.

If, after careful self-analysis, you can't arrive at such a place, perhaps PolySci or Philosophy is your thing, and threads involving science, religion, and related topics should be overlooked.  Just a suggestion......

I think that it is great that you have joined this discussion, as your positions have certainly created great interest from the membership, but you are capable of better.......let's see it.......

doc

You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.

[The Night Owl]

The origin of life is the basis for an evolutionary system,to suggest otherwise is absurd as has already been pointed out.
It is intellectually lazy to proclaim otherwise.

Uh, no. Natural selection is the basis for an evolutionary system.

If it also was somehow settled science then it couldn`t be referred to as a theory which you just did.

You have it backwards. The theory is the end result of the scientific process.

[The Village Idiot]

blah blah blah blah


no blah blah blah

you!! blah blah

um, I'm telling mama

I am so tired of this thead. heh.

[Carl]

You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.

No,he gave you the basis for a scientific process...you dismissed it because it didn`t fit into a belief system you have which declares science is what "scientists" say it is and as long as it agrees with what you want.

You just did exactly what Doc was describing.

[Carl]

Uh, no. Natural selection is the basis for an evolutionary system.

Which is once more an attempt to dodge the obvious by feigning obtuseness.
You cannot escape the fact that since you can`t even begin to imagine the origin of life then all else requires blind faith.

[Chris_]

You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.

No, I merely offered a mathematical problem for evolutionists to consider........that is all.  Nothing bogus about it, if you step back and look at the math it (evolution, as stated by Darwin) doesn't make sense.

I'm not now, nor have I ever said that species don't evolve, or perhaps adapt is a better word........I merely have presented a question that Darwin didn't answer, nor has science been able to satisfactorily answer as well.....yet.

The math is simply a way in which to illustrate that the concept of evolution of far from settled, and that something happened over the four billion years of earth's existence that is not, satisfactorily, explained by science.

I stated in my caveats that I'm not championing any particular answers to these questions, only that the questions exist, and the fact that they exist is inarguable........

doc

[The Night Owl]

blah blah blah blah


no blah blah blah

you!! blah blah

um, I'm telling mama

I am so tired of this thead. heh.

This is actually a really good thread even if just for the fact that it me made aware of Tiktaalik's demotion.  

[Carl]

This is actually a really good thread even if just for the fact that it me made aware of Tiktaalik's demotion.  

I would agree in that everyone has remained basically civil to one another.

[TheSarge]

You've been misled by creationist websites.

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html

No.  Sorry.  The Miller-Urey Experiment was disproven in the 1970"s by Geochemists who determined that the make up of the Earth's atmosphere at the time could not support life.

I've never been to a creationist website.  Wouldn't know where to look for one at.

I read books.

[TheSarge]

You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.

And if modern biology uses evolution as "fact" as a building block for science then it deserves to be dismissed.

It's based on a lie.

[TheSarge]

Uh, no. Natural selection is the basis for an evolutionary system.

You have it backwards. The theory is the end result of the scientific process.

The problem with the model you show where it's related to evolution is that the data is faulty...disproven or an outright fraud in some cases (Haeckel's drawings of vertibrate embryo's)...thre are no records to show that one species has evolved from another...and the sum total of the "insight" on the subject is pretty much guesses and wishful thinking by the so called "experts".

[MrsSmith]

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

OK, I'll say it very slowly.  The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods.  Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents.  There.  Was that slow enough?  Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article?   

[The Village Idiot]

OK, I'll say it very slowly.  The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods.  Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents.  There.  Was that slow enough?  Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article?   

where can I find some details on that?

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.

All you did was reinforce everything he just said.

It doesn't matter if the proposition is correct you're more worried about its threat to "modern biology" (which in due course will become ancient biology).

Alas, the scientificalist community suffers its ideological biases. It is a tautological doctrine that no scientist believes in creation or ID because anyone who believes in creation or ID is not considered a scientist. I'm not surprised that a "community" populated with the likes of Dawkins, Gould, Huxley, Russel et al would refuse to consider a thesis such as the one offered in the OP and then they would sneer--as have you--that such a paper has never passed "peer review".

I have the luxury of long ago having ceased to concern myself with origins. It's nonsensical thinking arrogantly pawned off in tones of self-satisfying elitism that chafe my cottontail.

[Chris_]

All you did was reinforce everything he just said.

It doesn't matter if the proposition is correct you're more worried about its threat to "modern biology" (which in due course will become ancient biology).

Alas, the scientificalist community suffers its ideological biases. It is a tautological doctrine that no scientist believes in creation or ID because anyone who believes in creation or ID is not considered a scientist. I'm not surprised that a "community" populated with the likes of Dawkins, Gould, Huxley, Russel et al would refuse to consider a thesis such as the one offered in the OP and then they would sneer--as have you--that such a paper has never passed "peer review".

I have the luxury of long ago having ceased to concern myself with origins. It's nonsensical thinking arrogantly pawned off in tones of self-satisfying elitism that chafe my cottontail.

Well said........

But scientificalist.........wanna give me a quick definition, that one went screaming over my head.......

doc

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Scientificalists are people who use shades of science to make themselves look smarterer.

Scientificalism is the gelatinous-spined crap peddled by the AGW crowd, tautologically minded evolutionists and those rubes who every third week shift eggs from the OK-to-eat to do-not-eat column or back again. You know, the researchers who drop a ton of statistics on a mayor's desk in order to make him outlaw sodium content of the city's restaurants.

THAT scientificalism.

[Chris_]

Scientificalists are people who use shades of science to make themselves look smarterer.

Scientificalism is the gelatinous-spined crap peddled by the AGW crowd, tautologically minded evolutionists and those rubes who every third week shift eggs from the OK-to-eat to do-not-eat column or back again. You know, the researchers who drop a ton of statistics on a mayor's desk in order to make him outlaw sodium content of the city's restaurants.

THAT scientificalism.

Roger that......I just call them "feather merchants", but I'm old school.......

doc

[MrsSmith]

where can I find some details on that?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100106/ap_on_sc/eu_sci_fossil_footprints

http://news.discovery.com/animals/tetrapod-tracks-poland.html

...Tracks left behind by the animals 397 million years ago...

>>>

Before the discovery of these tracks, it was thought certain fish evolved into four-limbed animals during the Givetian Period, 391 to 385 million years ago. Fossils seemed to neatly support this timing for the fin-to-limb gradual change, since some fish, known as elpistostegids, appeared to belong to a mid-point stage where the fish had tetrapod-like heads and bodies, but retained fish characteristics, such as paired fins.

>>>

In a separate commentary in Nature, they call the new finds a "stunning discovery." They write that the sea and lagoon location described by Ahlberg and his colleagues "is at odds with the long-held view that river deltas and lakes were the necessary environments for the transition from water to land during vertebrate evolution."

Given this difference, and the very early date of the tracks, Janvier and Clement believe the new findings "lob a grenade" into accepted theories of the fish-to-tetrapod transition.

 


In attempting to overcome various problems, they're thinking tetrapods may have evolved multiple times, in many areas.  If evolution used to be so extremely prolific, what stopped it?     Unless, of course, it's a case of "any idea is better than admitting God did it..."   

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/10/

However, these groups were also widely separated without any apparent environmental continuity between them at the time of their evolution. Late Devonian tetrapod species are "highly endemic" (Clack 2006, 184), meaning that they are "restricted to the locality or region where they have been collected" (Blieck et al. 2007, 229). The fossils come from sites many thousands of miles apart.

Thus, the phylogenetic series reconstructed in familiar evolutionary cladograms include taxa rarely found together as fossils. Cambridge University paleontologist Jennifer Clack, an expert on this evidence, notes that "taking the tetrapods sites worldwide, one thing is obvious: they lie scattered over the globe in places that were remote from each, on separate continents, even in the Devonian" (2002, 99). "These forms," note other paleontologists working on the puzzle (Zhu et al. 2002, 720), "seem to have achieved worldwide distribution and great taxonomic diversity within a relatively short time." This paleo-biogeographical puzzle raises significant evidential difficulties for monophyletic (single origin) scenarios.

[The Night Owl]

No.  Sorry.  The Miller-Urey Experiment was disproven in the 1970"s by Geochemists who determined that the make up of the Earth's atmosphere at the time could not support life.

Can you name the geochemists who supposedly overturned the Miller-Urey experiment or am I just supposed to take your word for it?

[The Night Owl]

In attempting to overcome various problems, they're thinking tetrapods may have evolved multiple times, in many areas.  If evolution used to be so extremely prolific, what stopped it?    Unless, of course, it's a case of "any idea is better than admitting God did it..."  

Evolution hasn't stopped. You're just too dogmatic to acknowledge widely accepted examples observed evolution.

[The Night Owl]

Scientificalists are people who use shades of science to make themselves look smarterer.

Scientificalism is the gelatinous-spined crap peddled by the AGW crowd, tautologically minded evolutionists and those rubes who every third week shift eggs from the OK-to-eat to do-not-eat column or back again. You know, the researchers who drop a ton of statistics on a mayor's desk in order to make him outlaw sodium content of the city's restaurants.

THAT scientificalism.

White noise.

[The Village Idiot]

Evolution hasn't stopped. You're just to dogmatic to acknowledge widely accepted examples observed evolution.

Observed Evolution?

We have "observed" an animal becoming a totally different animal?