The Theory of Evolution - perfect?

[thedoc]

A textbook example of evolution in action -- cockroaches evolving glucose aversion in the presence of bait traps -- isn't evolution, according to you!

The example is not from a textbook. Anyway it isn't evolution. It's not my opinion, it's Morgan's and I agree. Are we both wrong?

Anti-evolutionists will discount any evidence that supports evolution, even calling it Darwinism in order to discredit it.

BTW, there is no such thing as Darwinism, it's just a made up derogatory term by creationists trying to claim that believing in Darwin's theory is a religion.

FYI, your opinion counts fer very little since you are mostly wrong.

[PauloL]

Darwinism exists as much as creationism and anti-evolutionism. I am neither. Intelligent people can judge for you how much my contributions and yours count.

By the way, Darwinism was created by Evolutionauts that now deem it derogatory. No problem, just incongruence.

Anyway, you bypassed my question:

The example is not from a textbook. Anyway it isn't evolution. It's not my opinion, it's Morgan's and I agree. Are we both wrong?

Is that because you can't counter-argument?

[thedoc]

For the believer, no evidence is necessary, for the non-believer, no evidence is enough.

[PauloL]

You're unbeatable in parroting popular sayings, but not that expert discussing concrete arguments.

[davidm]

Evolution means jumping from one species to another one that didn't exist before.

No, evolution does not mean that. It means a change in gene frequencies over time -- which may eventually involve a speciation event, or not --such as the relative stability of certain species over time in a mostly stable environment, as discussed (and noted earlier by me) by Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker. Also as noted earlier, the transition from land mammal to whale took about 15 million years, and involved not making something entirely new, but incrementally modifying an extant form -- hence (as also noted earlier) evolution is also called "descent with modification."

Why do you obdurately persist in making such a fool of yourself?

[PauloL]

Great. That's jumping or small, perhaps imperceptible, changes, as it's more convenient on a case-by-case basis.

Pity that the fossil record jumps from unicellular forms to beings 1.000 or more cells.

Geology doesn't help, indeed. I'm sure Evolutionauts think those missing fossils will come, and this argument is scientifically irrefutable as usual.

[davidm]

You're unbeatable in parroting popular sayings, but not that expert discussing concrete arguments.

Pot, kettle, etc. ...

[davidm]

Great. That's jumping or small, perhaps imperceptible, changes, as it's more convenient on a case-by-case basis.

Pity that the fossil record jumps from unicellular forms to beings 1.000 or more cells.

Geology doesn't help, indeed. I'm sure Evolutionauts think those missing fossils will come, and this argument is scientifically irrefutable as usual.

As I gave you links earlier, there is a wealth of transitional fossils -- and every single one of them confirms descent with modification and common ancestry. This is what enables cladistics -- of which I am sure you are also wholly ignorant.

[davidm]

The fossil record "jumps" how, now, you blowhard? Be specific!

[Greta]

Greta, you're losing your purity. No one said God created anything. We're only discussing natural, or supernatural, selection.

The example on cockroaches is natural selection, it only selected out cockroaches that tasted glucose sweet. If a new species had arisen, then it would be supernatural selection.

My purity ...

What is actually your objection to the theory of evolution then? Everything changes. Sometimes animals or plants in a local area change so much that they can't fertilise or be fertilised by the populations from which they'd previously evolved. So they are classed as a different species. Where's the problem?

[davidm]

S.J. Gould:

The Darwinian principle of natural selection yields temporal change—"evolution" in the biological definition—by a twofold process of generating copious and undirected variation within a population, and then passing only a biased (selected) portion of this variation to the next generation. In this manner, the variation within a population at any moment can be converted into differences in mean values (such as average size or average braininess) among successive populations through time.

The biochemist Larry Moran has claimed that the only problem with the above is the parenthetical selected; for while natural selection is true, much and possibly most of evolutionary change is pure accident that does not involve natural selection,

[uwot]

If the bible is not about physics, why give any?

I think it is because the Bible is (mostly) in the form of a history and so it starts at the beginning.

Ok. So remind me; why two stories?

The 'imagine' in my post referred to the 'everybody'. I know there are lots of creation myths involving gods, what I am guessing is that everybody had one, which of course I cannot know for sure.

Diagoras of Melos is usually cited as the first atheist, I imagine there were earlier examples, and that Diagoras was not unique in his own time, but I cannot know for sure.

I am aware of the myths you mention, and also that the two in Genesis are not original. I take that as a further indication that they are not crucial to the Bible...

The thing about the bible is that the interpretation says more about the interpreter, than it does about the text. The people who interpret it most favourably, are the ones who wish that it were true.

...the Bible has simply re-told some existing stories but with a different gloss to reflect the distinctive take of their own religion, for example that there is only one god.

Well, that's your interpretation. Tho Old Testament does not say that there is only one god, it just insists that the Israelites only worship Yahweh.

Well, the difference between science and mythology is that mythology has to make sense.

I think mythology is an attempt to make sense of the parts science cannot reach. Science can give an impersonal account of the universe, mythology is about trying to make personal sense of it.

Right. That was noted by Xenophanes:

The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.

It was true then and it is true now. Right wing nuts say that their gods are racist psychopaths, while sandal wearers insist god is fluffy and gentle. Everybody who does so, creates a god in their own, personal image. It is the ultimate in narcissism.

I think the account of the Garden of Eden part of the Bible is a pretty subtle picture of the human condition; that having tasted of knowledge humans are not like the animals in that they are no longer comfortable in their own skins.

Again, that is your interpretation. Most churches interpret it as the source of original sin, the only escape from which just happens to be whatever that particular church says. The fact that there are so many denominations, is evidence that even the experts can't agree.

And also of the problem for God, in that he has created something that he wants to worship him, but do so by free will, which means that he may not do what God wants. (The same paradox you see in Sartre plays.)

You can see where the religious get their narcissism from.

Although these ancient people didn't know much physics, I think they were as capable of philosophy and subtle story telling as we are - perhaps more.

It doesn't follow from the range of interpretations that a story is subtle; rather, in my view, it demonstrates the vanity and eccentricity of the readers.

[PauloL]

Where's the problem?

No problem.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Where's the problem?

No problem.

you science-denying

[Edited by iMod]

[PauloL]

[...] much and possibly most of evolutionary change is pure accident that does not involve natural selection,

This is getting better. So, now natural selection isn't needed any longer. Just accidents.

Accidents are necessary. Natural selection is contingent (but helps, of course).

Great theories with such arguments as "accidents", "I think that will come", and so on.

What comes next? Maybe a thunderbolt explains everything and that's all.