Jeeze, Fred, a twofer-in-one? Are you bored or sumpin’?

As for evolution, it’s the best explanation for the available evidence. If you have a better one — based on the evidence — trot it out. Otherwise, do what the Fundies do, and intone stuff like “In the beginning, the earth was without form and void.” And, take it from there … smoke if you got ’em.

One thing to keep in mind about evolutionary changes that jes’ plain, golllll…darn cain’t happen jes’ lak dat, overnight … keep in mind that 4 billion years is a length of time of which the human mind can speak, but not truly comprehend.

As for Trump becoming Hillary … yep, how ’bout that? Stunned, I am not.

Oh, yeah …. FIRST!!

What we call life probably drifted here on the cosmic seas. Glad I could help.

I don’t know what to think of an article that claims that a guy who won’t even be sworn in for two more months is somehow reneging on positions by not taking action yet.

“Briefly, for those who have had better sense than to entangle themselves in such brambles, irreducible complexity is the observation–if it is an observation–that many things in biology consist of many parts such that if any one part is missing, the whole shebang fails to function.”

Mr. Cabbagehead, you need to stop looking into evolutionary matters. It’s like Sam Peckinpah studying pacifism. You just don’t have the knack for it.

I’m no expert on evolution, but it makes sense to me.

Also, Irreducible Complexity or IC, as you describe it, is fallacious and misconceived.
Why? Because every part or component of an organism can serve different functions.

Also, not all organs are of the same vitality. Take a human. If you remove the lungs, it can’t take in oxygen, so rest of him will die. If you remove the stomach, he can’t eat and will die of hunger. If you remove the heart, he will die immediately. If you remove the testes, he will live but won’t reproduce. But if you remove a finger, he will be able to do lots of stuff and survive. If you remove his tooth, he will live too… though he won’t chew as well.
Some organs are vital, some are not.

Also, similar organs serve different functions in different organisms. Cats and cows have stomachs. But cat stomach digests meat, and cow stomach digests grass.
So, every component has a wide range of functions. Eyes are better on some organisms than in others. Ears are sharper on others than in others.
Different races of humans have different skin color, and they work differently in different environments.

So, the way the carbon stuff works in molecules that make life has a range of options and possibilities. All humans have nearly same DNA but some have variations in DNA that make them digest cow milk. But others don’t have this variation and the lack makes them break wind like cows if they drink milk.

What people forget about evolution is that it calls for some degree of exclusion in order for it to be successful, at least in the way humans arose. Now, extreme exclusion isn’t good for evolution. A white-skinned cave fish with no eyes is the product of extreme exclusion in its cold dark environment in the cave. Who wants to be a cave fish?
But extreme inclusion doesn’t allow for the rise of creatures such as apes and dogs and pigs and humans.
Territorialism did wonders for evolutionary advancement because land animals could exclude themselves from the watery environment of the ocean.

Ocean is the most inclusive environment. It is the great equalizer. This is why even the smartest marine animals don’t have much advantage over the dumb ones. A seal is much more intelligent than a shark, but sharks routinely feed on sharks. Dolphins are much more intelligent than a great white shark or hammerheads, but dolphins often get eaten. Octopus is smarter than an eel, but an eel will often eat octopus. And a giant squid can sometimes kill a whale.

Unlike land animals who are safe from ocean animals, all animals in the ocean are part of an ‘inclusive’ environment. Also, because it’s difficult to move around in thick water, marine animals have fins than hands and feet. So, they are not able to use tools. Dolphins may be smart, but they can only do so much with fins. In contrast, a chimp can use tools and even hurl an orange at a leopard in Chimp Lives Matter protests.
Also, fire is impossible in water, so there is no technology of tool-making that allows smart marine animals to rise above the dumb ones like sharks, barracudas, sea snakes, lobsters, and jellyfish.
On land, because intelligent mammals don’t have to worry about sharks and barracudas, they are much safer. And with fire, they can build weapons to vanquish the dumber animals. And because it’s easier to move in air than in water, they can build walls and houses, and etc. Try building a pyramid or Great Wall of China under water. Besides, even if a wall was built underwater, the enemies could just swim over it. (This is why air force is such a frightening power of the modern world. No wall defend a nation from air force and missiles.)

Evolutionary advancement happened on land because evolution meant more effective exclusion of dangerous species. In the ocean, dolphins must co-exist with sharks. Wherever dolphins can go, sharks can go. The exceptions are the deep sea creatures, but they are rare and ugly as hell. And of course, some marine species can only in tropical climes while some live in cold climes. But more than on land, marine animals swim all around and migrate all over the places like birds.
Land animals have a better chance of seeking out exclusive communities that keep out invasive species through distance, land obstacles, ocean obstacles, or artificial defenses. If baboons fear leopards, they can spend much of their time up the tree. While leopards are good tree climbers, monkeys and baboons are better at it and can climb higher since they are lighter.

And we see the rise of different races due to exclusion. Imagine if there was no land, and imagine if all humans were marine creatures. Then, the Negrolphins would have swum to the lands of Eurolphins and Asialphins and other human-dolphines. Wild negrolphins would have messed up all the world. (It’s a good thing humans never developed wings like the flying monkeys in WIZARD OF OZ because flying Negroes would have messed up all five continents.)

Video Link
But because of land masses, it was difficult for blacks in Africa to venture into other land masses, especially as they weren’t very technological and brainy in creating means of transport. Their technology amounted to chucking spears at hippos and banging on bongo drums and women shaking their booties and men ogling them.
Also, the other races built much better technology to fend off invaders.

If all humans as dolphin-like creatures had to live underwater, they would be under threat from the stronger and more aggressive Negrolphins. And they would be defenseless since it is difficult to create weapons and defenses underwater. Also, visibility is poor underwater, and human dolphins would have to communicate through sonar, but that might favor Negroes cuz they got a better sense of beat and rhythm. They be sonaring one another like, ‘there be a pack of white dolphins there, and we’s gonna fishmob them and whup their ass’. It’s like how Negroes use twitter and facebook to organize urban mayhem.

We know land creatures will perish if the world was covered with water. They would all drown. But even if they didn’t drown, many would perish just the same. Suppose the world is filled with water, BUT every former-land creature is equipped with gills or blowholes(like whales got). So, all bears, tigers, humans, rats, cats, dogs, monkeys, apes, gophers, rabbits, horses, and etc. can live in water. But that wouldn’t be good enough.
They would lose the exclusionary advantage in the underwater inclusive environment. They would all be attacked by sharks and killer whales, and there would be nothing they could do about it.
Also, marine apes would have no means to run from marine leopards since the latter could swim to top of trees that are under water. And gated communities would be useless for marine whites because marine negroes will just swim over the fence. And forget about calling the police since technology won’t work under water. (We do have underwater technology but all were created on land.) The sea is the great equalizer. Shark is equal to the dolphin, the moral eel is equal to the sea lion.

Globalism is like turning the world into one giant ocean of PC, Pop Culture, and massive migration.

In the past, White Europe had no PC, no toxic Pop culture, and no mass migration into its lands. Whites were proud to be whites and happy to fend off Mongols, Muslims, and other invaders. And they looked upon Negroes as ‘savages’. And there was no Pop Culture telling white boys and girls to abandon their identity and pride in worship of holy homo anus and big Negro dong. And there was no EU ‘human rights’ rules that renders white nations defenseless against foreign invasion. Thanks to those crazy laws, EU must aid and abet the non-West in the invasion. So, if a bunch of Muslims trample into EU, Europeans must provide them with food, shelter, clothing, kisses, and even women. And if Africans come into European waters, EU must tug the boat to EU and let the Negroes run wild and free and hump every white women in sight who are infected with Jungle Fever thanks to Pop Culture that promotes rappers and black athletes. It’s like the entire world is submerged under the power, rules, and ‘values’ of the Glob Ocean. I mean even Japan has a black woman as beauty queen and black runners as Olympic athletes. Thanks to GLOB oceanism, the Negro sharkdom is taking over the world. When we consider the African population is projected to reach 5 billion in just several decades, that is a lot of Negro sharks and Negrolphins swimming and taking over everything. Thanks to cheap air travel and thanks to Negromania in so many parts of the world(and PC that forbids nations from saying NO to the NEGRO), the world can turn into Afrocean or NegrOcean.

Such will be bad for human evolution as we’ve known it so far. Human evolution along different races was made possible by exclusion that kept some races safe from other races. But the sheer invasiveness of the Glob Ocean reduces those defenses and subjects all races to the Negro sharks and Negroctupus. White evolution happened cuz whites could say NO to the Negro.

Of course, the elites don’t worry since they have an ark that keep them above water. We can just hope that their titanic hits the ice and sinks.

60+ days before he can take any actions.
Presidents-Elect do not have any authority to “take action.”
Were the current president to die this instant, Joe Biden would become president for the next 60+ days and Donald would still be the President Elect.
A neat system that, it has worked effectively since 1789.

Fred … sour grapes over the election. Not you, too! Please enjoy your life in Mexico with your Mexican family … and be pleased they let you immigrate.

But I do object to the insinuation that Hillary Clinton represents a more advanced life form than Donald Trump … the object of the Donald’s supposed evolution (and I thought evolution was all about the survival of the fittest … winning). Next, we’ll hear that Hillary is a deep thinker who has a life-long commitment to deep felt moral values. Unfortunately, Lena Dunham and her friends beat you to the punch on that one.

Thank you, Hillary, for bravely taking every shot and standing tall, for weathering assaults from every direction, for telling us that no, this wasn’t politics as we know it, and no, you were not going to let a chronic interrupter with a limited vocabulary of catchphrases stop you from speaking coherently about your dreams for this country. Thank you for 30 years of public service. Thank you for showing our daughters something beautiful to aspire to. Thank you for reminding us what we are capable of when we are focused and ferocious. Thank you for 30 years of that. Thank you for not abandoning us now.

http://www.lennyletter.com/politics/a608/dont-agonize-organize/

Hillary Clinton Is More Than a President. She is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself.

http://www.lennyletter.com/politics/a613/hillary-clinton-is-more-than-a-president/

Too often Sherlock Holmes’ foundational premise of modern science is forgotten, i.e.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Creation by a supernatural being is impossible. Therefore, the best alternative explanation we can come up with, no how how grotesquely, bizarrely implausible, must be believed. We’re stuck with that. We have no choice.

No action yet.

He isn’t President yet.

Any significantly advanced science is indistinguishable from The Supernatural ( and magic ).

But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a
slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as
an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An
event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible
because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in
a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one.
The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the
wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little
more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly
tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and
uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top
of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a
leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some
explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of
history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or
even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something
dilatory in the processes of things. There will be something to be said
upon particular examples elsewhere; the question here is the false
atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going
slow; the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman
travelling for the first time in a motor-car.

Evolution by natural selection is a good theory that explains quite a lot. That doesn’t justify the series of pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists with nothing better to do. For obvious reasons it doesn’t explain the origin of life, which requires a completely different theory. Until we know a lot more about the early Earth, such theorizing is neither very helpful nor very scientific. Remember the “primordial soup” nonsense?

Origin-of-life theories might actually be of some interest to micro-roboticists, though. Current memory technology is inferior to DNA in information density and durability afaik (though superior in retrieval speed). Also self-replication, etc. are of interest for obvious reasons. Any thoughts?

Look at a Swiss watch. Very complicated. Take out a tiny gear, and the whole thing might now work.

But it wasn’t so complicated to begin with.

Initially it had fewer and clunkier parts. And it was less accurate.
But it could work with just few basic parts.

As it evolved into a far more complicated machine, it became more intricate and delicate.
Each special part did less but it played a key role in the running of the whole.

I can make a simple chair with a few sticks and hammer.
It won’t be elegant and comfy, but it will be sturdy.

If I get some more tools, parts, and skills, I can craft it into a much finer chair. But, the relation among the various components will be more intricate, and the failure of one minor part may affect the whole since everything is tacked on with such care and precision.

“For obvious reasons it doesn’t explain the origin of life”

The problem is we tend to differentiate life and non-life.

Actually, all things are alive with energy and chemistry.

Life is merely a process of patternizing this energy and chemistry toward reproduction.

Just like, under certain conditions, fire is inevitable, life is inevitable under certain conditions.

Why? It’s just part of chemical law.

There is something inherent in carbon that catches fire if put under intense heat. Happens all the time. Friction causes heat and will light a match every time.

Likewise, there is something in carbon that turns it into proto-DNA if you strike it with electricity and rain. It’s just a part of the carbon chemistry.

So, if we just see ‘life’ as a chemical process of carbon, there is no secret to how and why it works the way it does.

Take carbon and electricity, and you got the goopy stuff that turns into ‘life’.

Watch the video. Even a Hindu can do it.

Video Link

Leaving aside whether these statements have anything to do with science:

Actually, all things are alive with energy and chemistry.

Life is merely a process of patternizing this energy and chemistry toward reproduction.

Just like, under certain conditions, fire is inevitable, life is inevitable under certain conditions.

they have nothing to do with Darwin, which was my point. I’m quite willing to stipulate for the purposes of this discussion that a recognized procedure exists (in 2020, say) by which living cells can be routinely produced.

My points are that a) this is not Darwinian evolution and b) without a more accurate knowledge of the conditions of the early Earth than we currently have, it is not evidence of the method by which life actually arose.

Making tar in a vat is easy.

Making a live cockroach, not so much.

Let the tar brew for awhile, and it will lead to the Bushes, Clinton, and Bushes… and roaches and rats.

Ban Priss Factor from the internet. No action yet.

Now totally Pro Abortion, including partial birth.

Unless a) NOW the organization is being referred to, or b) it’s 1999, the date of the linked video, I don’t get it.

Wow, there are a lot of Anons here- half the thread! I think about half of those are our old friend Priss, though.

RSDB

Any significantly advanced science is indistinguishable from The Supernatural ( and magic ).

Only to people who are less “advanced” scientifically.

Evolution by natural selection is a good theory that explains quite a lot. That doesn’t justify the series of pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists with nothing better to do. For obvious reasons it doesn’t explain the origin of life, which requires a completely different theory.

Darwinian evolutionary theory remains the best explanation based on the evidence we have. Not only is it the “best”, it is exceptionally good explanation — allowing remarkably detailed explanations of relatively minor evolutionary developments. That is its purpose, to describe the processes.

There are three statements here. With which do you disagree?

I assume you agree with

1. Evolution by natural selection is a good theory that explains quite a lot.

Okay, how about

2. That doesn’t justify the series of pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists with nothing better to do.

Ah. Are these what you mean by “detailed explanations of relatively minor evolutionary developments”? If one can produce twenty evolutionary explanations of the same adaptation, with no possibility of verifying any of them, one is writing fiction, not doing science. I don’t think this happens all or most of the time, but I’ve seen enough to make me heartily sick. So, I imagine, have you.

Maybe, though, it’s

3.For obvious reasons it doesn’t explain the origin of life, which requires a completely different theory.

I don’t see any reason to doubt this, though.

RSDB

That doesn’t justify the series of pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists with nothing better to do.

Ah. Are these what you mean by “detailed explanations of relatively minor evolutionary developments”

1. No. I have no idea what you meant by “pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists”.

2. It is not the purpose of evolutionary theory to explain the origin of life. It attempts to define and explain evolution. This is obvious.

The modern theory of evolution is an excellent but essentially mathematical theory (gambling equation) of how genes survive or don’t survive in a particular environment, and given a certain mutation rate. The starting point for evolution is not, however, necessarily part of the theory–how does a short-necked giraffe acquire all of the thousands of genetic changes to become a long necked giraffe when the changes individually have no value, or are more likely harmful? This sort of thing is why Stephen Jay Gould developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium….Of course, Gould had no theory as to the mechanics of how his theory could work. There just seem to be points where evolution, to use quantum mechanical terms, simply “tunnels” through barriers.

1. So if you didn’t disagree with anything I said, what was the point of quoting me?

2. This is exactly what I said. I’m glad you also perceive this, but it is puzzling that you need to point it out.

Are you making an argument? Are you asking me for examples of just-so stories? Did you merely quote me because you liked my phrasing? I don’t know. I’m sorry if I seem too pugnacious; I’m not trying to be.

Irreducible complexity assumes that in the case of an organism or a cell or whatever, that evolutionary changes occur in series, but in realty they occur in parallel. Thus Fred’s hypothesis of being able to work backwards and maintain a viable series of organisms is false. If one removes the latest modification, one does not get to the previous viable organism. Instead, one gets to what the rest of previous viable organism evolved into since the latest modification occurred. The same secenario applies to each evolutionary step. It is quite possible that the previous viable organism evolved into something nonviable since the latest modification.

how does a short-necked giraffe acquire all of the thousands of genetic changes to become a long necked giraffe when the changes individually have no value, or are more likely harmful?

How? Best explanation is that it takes a long, long, long, long time — pretty much a basic premise of evolution. If a genetic change does not contribute to reproductive success (i.e. “no value”), it remains in the genome, unless it acts directly to reduce reproductive success (i.e. “harmful”), in which case it extinguishes. At some later time, environmental factors may become such that a “dormant” gene acquires circumstances that improve reproductive success.

This is really, really, easy basic stuff. Read-up on evolution — it’s very well documented and has been conclusively demonstrated to be fact.

So if you didn’t disagree with anything I said, what was the point of quoting me?

This –> “pointless just-so stories produced by lazy biologists” <– is nonsensical. I quoted it because it makes no sense. Which is exactly what I wrote above. One does not "disagree" with nonsense; one simply notes that it is nonsense.

Why? I like his comments. Not all, but many I do.

Darwin, too, thought this quite likely.

“If one can produce twenty evolutionary explanations of the same adaptation, with no possibility of verifying any of them, one is writing fiction, not doing science. ”

Exactly. All those story tellers if they did not have evolution theory principle they would be employed by the Church making up stories that start form the God Is Good (GIG) principle like for example: Pumpkins do not grow on trees because God did not want other animals to be hurt by falling pumpkins. The room for creative story writing would be equally infinite as it is in the case of the theory of evolution.

Ford are having second thoughts about moving to Mexico, Strike 1 to Trump:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ford-motor-idUSKBN13D08J

A suggestion for part the first of this piece: Read the neglected classics On Growth and Form by D’Arcy Thompson, then Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead. If you survive that experience, pick up a copy of The Zen Teachings of Huang Po (short and sweet) translated by John Blofeld, read it carefully, then go outside and gaze into the middle distance, where such matters as natural selection and intelligent design dissolve into the sea of dancing photons.

DFS, you should apply for press secretary.

I confidently predict that Trump will take no concrete policy action until January 20, 2017, or thereabout.

Exactly! Even so, “Normalize relations with Russia. No action yet.” is false. Just exchanging mutual expressions of admiration between himself and Putin is the first step on a long road.

One begins to suspect that Fred’s antipathy to Trump stems from envy: the envy of a very intelligent man for an even more intelligent (and much more focused, and hence much more successful) man. Trump’s elevator is whisking Abe heavenward (note that Abe, a head of government, is traveling to see a private citizen at his residence) in anticipation of an audience with the Chosen One. Fred is pouring another Pinot Grigio with Violetta and blogging to his circle of fans.

Maybe there is something to be said for abstinence from alcohol.

Seems like the humanity is going back to basics

Anon is correct. Makes a very good point. Your argument that it is nonsensical is weak and a really copout.

Sartre would be a more direct route to the same end.

You are incorrect, and Anon is incorrect. You are nonsensical, and Anon was nonsensical.

One begins to suspect that Fred’s antipathy to Trump stems from envy

From here, seems more likely that you are the envious one.

Maybe there is something to be said for abstinence from alcohol.

Especially by the childish.

In fact, it is quite unlikely. Life originated on Earth. If you’re a religionist, that’s a given. If you’re an evolutionist, that’s what the evidence supports.

Essentially a hand-waving non-answer. Doesn’t address how life originated, just where, and in the most uselessly broad way: “Not here. Somewhere else.”

but in realty they occur in parallel

Without being able to describe a testable mechanism for why we should expect to see multiple simultaneous, complementary, helpful mutations (a statistical near-impossibility), that’s just another “Just So Story.”

Fred Reed

I understand that your predictions on Casino Trump morphing into Killery Clinton assumes that the commentators are intelligent (sufficiently evolved) enough to realize that you are predicting FUTURE political morphing into the approved Rothschild puppet mold (after Casino Trump is inaugurated). You are correct about Trump’s future political trajectory; however, your optimistic assumption on the ability of the commentators to understand humor (and plain English), is fallacious.

I have one major disagreement with Darwin, and have explained it to my students. I am certain that Monkeys, Apes, Orangutans, and Chimpanzees have descended from us (the InHuman Race), and not the other way around. No monkeys have started World Wars, used napalm on Vietnamese, ethnically cleansed Palestinians, murdered the Kennedys, or are responsible for the interminable reruns of the Lawrence Welk show.

Is this a great website, or what?

Sartre? Sartre! How so? I’m assuming you’ve read the cited works, but we seem to have drawn very different conclusions.

Not yet President, but he’s already “brought back” one factory:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-18/trump-says-ford-called-to-say-keeping-lincoln-plant-in-kentucky

but in realty they occur in parallel

Without being able to describe a testable mechanism for why we should expect to see multiple simultaneous, complementary, helpful mutations (a statistical near-impossibility), that’s just another “Just So Story.”

You misunderstand. That is, I hope that it’s simple ignorance, not deliberate.

Evolution is not a sequential process, where there would appear some sort of “cause/effect” as a sequence of cascading and dependent “steps”. Mutations can appear anywhere, in any bodily system and most are not adaptive. Furthermore, what may be adaptive in one environment may not be adaptive in another. A whale with an opposable thumb would not achieve more reproductive success than a whale with a huge mouth and baleen.

Pure existentialism presents a metaphysical platform that is functionally no different than a “sea of dancing photons”. Still, the existentialist decides for himself what is significant and what is not. Isn’t that what we want from philosophy?

This runs against orthodox Darwinery in which, to get from A to B, everything in between has to evolve bit by bit and has to produce a viable organism every step of the way.

Most species show punctuated change, not gradualism. For instance in one study, 63 percent of species remained in stasis before a quick phenotypic change. Species remain in stasis for a long period of time before a quick punctuated change.

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/10/20/punctuated-equilibria-steven-jay-goulds-theory-of-evolution/

Read some Richard Dawkins. Also read Stephen Jay Gould’s book “The Structure of Evolutionary Theory”. It’s really dense but you’ll have a much better understanding of evolution after reading it. (I can tell you’re not too well read on evolutionary theory.)

I am certain that Monkeys, Apes, Orangutans, and Chimpanzees have descended from us (the InHuman Race), and not the other way around

Are you trolling or serious? Citation needed.

No action yet.

Are you really that big a dumbass Fred? Trump doesn’t take office until late January. None of his policies are in effect yet. F’ing moron.

You probably think you have something better. You clearly do not.

Fred actually loves Trump. Just not as much as he loves pissing people off.

Hmm. The fact that the guy talked to Madam Park on the phone, and (according to her) said some words – I don’t think it qualifies as “reneges”…

Are you trolling or serious? Citation needed.

Oh, come ON, RR88. Durruti is #2 on my Ignore list. A total wacko.

“has to evolve bit by bit and has to produce a viable organism every step of the way.”

The kew word here is viable. There is no difference between “gradualism” and “punctuated change”. Every change is punctuated, i.e., it is discrete not continues where every step is viable. When environment remains static number of changes per unit of time is small and when the environmental pressure is strong the density of changes is higher. When the environment pressure is too strong the die off happens.

Fred; regarding your list of “no action yet”. Please publish your address, and I will ship you absolutely free, a document, called a “calendar”,in particular a 16 month version . On this calendar thingy you will find that we are in November of 2016. When you flip forward you will arrive at Jan 20. That is the day Trump becomes President and can take action. It is in the future.
I can offer you a selection of an American Legion calendar or NRA hunting dogs calendar. Please indicate in the post with your address which one you would like.

In fact, it is quite unlikely. Life originated on Earth. … If you’re an evolutionist, that’s what the evidence supports.

Ha! Epistemology made simple. Just state that whatever you happen believe is a fact, and there you are.

Or if not, just state that that’s what the evidence supports, without citing any evidence.

So simple.

Except that Darwin and most reasonable people since Darwin’s time are open to the idea that life may not have originated on Earth.

To quote myself:

Darwin made absolutely clear that the question of the origin of life remained to be resolved. Thus, he wrote in the third edition of The Origin:
It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence of origin of life (b).
And in a letter dated March 29, 1863 to Joseph Hooker he wrote:
“it is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life, one might as well think of origin of matter” (b).
Furthermore, as Darwin indicated in other correspondence*, he was open to the idea that life had reached the earth from elsewhere (b), via a meteorite, for example, a number of which are now known to contain what appear to be microfossils (c).

* Correspondence referenced here.

Unfortunately, Fred’s rants about evolution, which are about on the level of those who dismiss relativity because velocities are obviously additive, attracts some sadly ill-informed comment.

Perhaps Unz could find a correspondent who actually knows something about Darwinism, and about current research on the origins of life.

There is a irreducible and FACTUAL complexity AND the contextual complexity or sub-known knowledge/fact.

Complexity itself is irreducible to the simple levels if not this will lost their original/factually descriptive character.

When you “reduce” the complexity in the true you are “just” emphasizing the most important topics of it. It’s not reduce.
Or niet niet niet

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. As a Zen practitioner for fifty years now (I’m 70), I don’t want much from philosophy, heh heh. My memory of existentialism, Sartre in particular, retains no traces of its metaphysical platform; indeed, I found it devoid of metaphysics. As for modern philosophy, give me Whitehead any day!

If you’ve not read Huang Po, I believe you’d enjoy doing so. And as for the dancing sea of photons, you might enjoy this very recent lead article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/

Now let’s invite Fred and discuss all this over some Padre Kino red!

Every change is punctuated, i.e., it is discrete not continues where every step is viable. When environment remains static number of changes per unit of time is small and when the environmental pressure is strong the density of changes is higher. When the environment pressure is too strong the die off happens.

I know that every change isn’t punctuated, but the fossil record shows that a great majority of fossils show punctuated change. When the environment pressure is too strong, those less fit, ie those who don’t have the right genes, die out while those who don’t survive.

That doesn’t change that these changes in speciation occur after an extremely long time in stasis. When the environment doesn’t change, species remain in stasis. When the environment does change, quick change occurs, the punctuated change. This is why there are hardly any transitional fossils.

There is no difference between “gradualism” and “punctuated change”. Every change is punctuated, i.e., it is discrete not continues where every step is viable. When environment remains static number of changes per unit of time is small and when the environmental pressure is strong the density of changes is higher. When the environment pressure is too strong the die off happens.

LOL. You fail to make any valid point whatsoever. Yes, there is a difference between gradualism and punctuated change. You didn’t research that, did you? — you just made a reflexive twitch, dincha?

Then, there is your mistake: “When environment remains static number of changes per unit of time is small and when the environmental pressure is strong the density of changes is higher. ”

Wrong. Environmental pressure does not force mutation. That misconception is typical of the united religious anti-evolution front. Evolution ONLY takes place through mutation.

Get a new gig.

What occurs at the molecular level of genetics is an array of extraordinarily complex actions. You, sir, clearly have only a bare surface knowledge of evolution because you really have little understanding of how this process works. DNA doesn’t change through a human’s life or even in the development of daughter cells. It is the expression, or non-expression, of that DNA, the methylation, demethylation of DNA, acetylation or deacetylation of histones, plus a myriad of other events that occur at the molecular level that make for changes in people, even as they live their lives (PTSD, might be a good example).

The argument over nature versus nurture influence on one’s gene (DNA) expression has been pretty much put to rest, with the conclusion being that both nature and nurture drive gene expression, or non-expression, and thus evolutionary modifications. And these changes can occur rather quickly among humans and other mammals. One doesn’t need to find a “missing link” to explain how Neanderthals changed to Homo-Sapiens, if one can grasp the enormity of the molecular events that can occur at the level of gene expression.

You, Mr. Reed, are expressing your “feelings” about the subject of evolution because the more in-depth knowledge we acquire about how evolution and gene expression works, the more it apparently interferes with other beliefs (possibly religious?) you have. But you really should learn your subject matter to a greater depth than the meager, quite shallow level of scientific knowledge you now possess.

Who cares about single-celled organisms and frogs and apes?

What should worry white folks in the evolutionary struggle is that…

(1) White men want walls(of gated communities) to keep black criminals out, but they wanna invite black men to hump their white wives. “Don’t beat me up, but do my wife.”

(2) White men flee from black areas to avoid getting whupped by black thugs, but they celebrate the superior thuggery of black athletes who whup white guys and hump tons of white women in TV sports and rap culture. “Don’t beat up my children, but have my children worship your thug power that can whup their ass.”

(3) White men claim to be ‘more evolved’ by rising above atavistic animal drives(such as tribalism and male dominance), but they celebrate the rise of black tribal thuggery, black male machismo, and female skunk slut culture that reduce white daughters into horny animals.
“Women shouldn’t be chained to biological role of wives and mothers, but they should surrender to animal drives of whores and skanks.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/cuckold-fetish-sex-relationships-men-want-partners-cheat-new-high-a7423616.html

Ha! Epistemology made simple. Just state that whatever you happen believe is a fact, and there you are.

Principle of parsimony. You lose, unless you have some actual evidence that supports a theory like, oh … let’s imagine … um … a wandering space-pod created by ancient aliens landed on Earth 4 billion years ago and seeded the World Ocean with life. (Hushed emphasis on whispered “Life!”)

Except that Darwin and most reasonable people since Darwin’s time are open to the idea that life may not have originated on Earth.

So what? Evidence, my good man … produce it!

He’d do himself a favor by reading Eldredge and Gould 1972 as well as Gould’s book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

to the level of chemical elements in the ancient oceans

I don’t even think we know that much to be 100% sure that life originated above ground. In recent decades we have discovered that perhaps most of the biomass that exists on Earth is likely underground – deep underground.
“Due to the massive amount of habitable area, and the surprisingly high density in which these microbes live, it is now believed that subsurface microbes are responsible for over half of the biomass on the planet…Perhaps the most incredible thing about the microbes found in the deep subsurface, is that the majority of the populations can thrive indefinitely without any input from the earth’s surface. That being said, they are effectively 100% disconnected from the rest of life as we know it….Microorganisms living under these conditions have developed an extraordinary ability to limit their metabolism to a level that is best measured in geologic time. Most have the ability to remain viable at minuscule to negligible metabolic cost. It is because of this that the lines between life and death begin to blur. Some microbes remain metabolically dormant for such extended periods of time, that is impossible to tell whether a cell is dead or just dormant.”
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Deep_subsurface_microbes

“Biologists say that their deep discoveries have the broadest possible implications, stretching backward in time and outward into the distant reaches of space. If bacteria and archaea can survive today far below ground without any help from the surface, then it’s possible that life could have started there, says Pedersen. He notes that the surface was a particularly nasty place early in Earth’s history, subject to repeated assaults by giant meteorites and a high dose of ultraviolet rays from the sun. Deep rocks would have provided protection from the sterilizing temperatures and radiation.”
http://geoweb.princeton.edu/research/geomicrobio/scinews.html

We just honestly don’t know what is down there for sure. We also don’t know if there is life that significantly precedes the assumed timeline of life on earth from the surface fossil record. These microbes are relatively recent discoveries and may have very deep implications for many of our current assumptions about how adaptations occur and how long they take, etc.

“Thus, like the biotas of the deep-sea vents, these bacteria live on energy from the Earth’s interior, entirely independent of the photosynthetic, and ultimately solar, base of all conventional ecosystems…Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life’s history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined, even forest trees, once we include the subterranean populations as well.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1996/11/13/planet-of-the-bacteria/6fb60f1d-e6fe-471e-8a0f-4cfa9373772c/

“Furthermore, the study, published by PLoS Biology, says a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued….Based on current costs and requirements, the study suggests that describing all remaining species using traditional approaches could require up to 1,200 years of work by more than 300,000 taxonomists at an approximate cost of $US 364 billion. Fortunately, new techniques such as DNA barcoding are radically reducing the cost and time involved in new species identification.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm

The mystery gets deeper and deeper; thus, these theories do indeed seem to be well classified as theories.

Peace.

Go Fred. I’m enjoying every post.

Listen, you pompous ass! The difference between gradualism and punctuated change is only in the time scale. If you do local time compressions or expansions you can make one look like the other. If N(t) is number of changes per unit of time by transforming t—>t’, with some nonlinear function g(t’)=t one can make the function N(g(t’)) as smooth and as gradual function of t’ as one wants or as uneven with many local maxima and minima as one wants.

Topologically there is no difference between a circle and an ellipsis. One can be transformed to other by a continuous and smooth one-to-one mapping. By concentrating on the fact that ellipsis has two different axes of symmetry and overlooking the fact that topologically it is identical to a circle is a sure sign of narrow mindedness and inability to grasp a bigger picture.

“I know that every change isn’t punctuated, but the fossil record shows that a great majority of fossils show punctuated change. ”

Every change is “punctuated”.

“Well said, Subhuti.”

My memory of existentialism, Sartre in particular, retains no traces of its metaphysical platform; indeed, I found it devoid of metaphysics.

It should be — spozetabe, anyway. Personally, I find Sartre to be a bit off-putting, too concretely hard-edged. Give me a bit of imagery and imagination, human ideals and all that rot, any day. Camus does it right.

Now let’s invite Fred and discuss all this over some Padre Kino red!

Nah. I have a “No marines” rule at my house. And no engine room gang. No snipes. 😉

Every change is “punctuated”.

Wrong. If a mutation is neither adaptive nor nonadaptive, there is no “punctuation” effect. And it is not required that “punctuation” be evident if a mutation is adaptive.

One line of evidence suggesting an extra-terrestrial origin to life, is provided by study of the evolutionary doubling time of DNA complexity, a biological analog of Moore’s law, which by extrapolation, suggests that life began long before the Earth was formed and that that earliest terrestrial live was at a level of complexity comparable to that of the prokaryotes. What that means is that the earliest known terrestrial life already had the complex machinery of DNA replication, protein synthesis, plus the astoundingly complex ATP molecule.

The difference between gradualism and punctuated change is only in the time scale.

Of course. So what? Both “gradualism” and “punctuated change” are useful, meaningful terms that provide differentiation.

Just FYI, you win the pompous ass competition, hands down. I won’t even try to compete.

In recent decades we have discovered that perhaps most of the biomass that exists on Earth is likely underground – deep underground.

Indeed. Thanks for the links. And, as an aside, lemme see ’em demonstrate punctuated change in subterranean microbes. Heh, heh, heh.

Evidence, my good man … produce it!

“my good man”?

Who are you? Some English country squire in spats?

As for evidence, I provided it, with links. And since we are free, apparently, to use the imperative: read it.

Wrong. Environmental pressure does not force mutation.

Why not**

So natural selection is wrong*

Organism B is quite well fitted to the environment B.

So environment B becoming too instable. There is a variability of types among the organism B, natural variation caused by this spontaneous mutations, or partial mutations.

The type who are more fitted to the new environment will be more selected/ or will die less, of course generally in the long to very long term.

Or micro-organisms are very great ”to adapt” or they are very fragile and are forced ”to adapt” quickly, read: most of the individual micro-organisms die and the most fittest to the new environment became prevalent.

Quick ”capacity to adapt” OR less robust to fight back against environmental pressures*

That misconception is typical of the united religious anti-evolution front. Evolution ONLY takes place through mutation.

I don’t think he or she want to say ”evolution may happen without mutation”.

Yes, there is a difference between gradualism and punctuated change. You didn’t research that, did you? — you just made a reflexive twitch, dincha?

And this is not a refutation, what is the difference between gradualism and punctuated change**

Punctuated change tend to be the result of gradualism, when the environmental stability and or the robustness of the organism is great enough to produce gradual/slow changes, but punctuated change also can happen via dramatic events forcing the organisms ”to adapt” quick.

Gradualism is one of the process that can produce punctuated change. Also the level of complexity of the organism is a important factor because, in my possibly wrong view, too ‘simple’ organisms can be changed completely or significatively, depending the size of pressure, not exactly the same for more complex organisms, even because the time perception of micro-organisms is much more faster than with complex ones.

Punctuated change can be caused by gradualism/long term slow changes or abrupt-ism/short term quick changes*

The fossil record doesn’t show that all change is *punctuated*, just that most is. And this explains why there are hardly any transitional fossils.

A majority of species show punctuated change in the fossil record, directly against Darwins phyletic gradualism.

PE shows that species remain in stasis, then after an environmental change there is a swift phenotypic change so that organism can better survive in the environment.

“Environmental pressure does not force mutation.”

This. Natural selection selects organisms with the right phenotype to survive. When the environment changes, those who have the right phenotype survive, prosper and breed more. This is how changes sweep through environments. Natural selection can only select on whatever heritable variants are already present in that population.

Micro-evolution is a fact of nature, easily observable to anyone who has ever had a fishpond or vegetable garden.

On the other hand, macro-evolution is a fraud. There is zero evidence that single celled organisms evolved into amphibians, reptiles or anything else. The evolutionary provenance of humanity is a laughable hoax.

“Evolution”, in the sense of transformism, is not now, nor ever has been, an operative principle of nature.

White men claim to be ‘more evolved’ by rising above atavistic animal drives(such as tribalism and male dominance), etc., etc.

Anon, it’s obviously not what normal white men claim. It’s what the globalist Treason Party says white men say via its many mouthpieces — including the media, both the editorial and advertising content, and schools and universities — that seeks the destruction of the European peoples, who, as nations, comprise the greatest obstruction to globalist objectives.

Hillary was obviously correct when she identified Trump supporters as irredeemable racists, xenophobes, Islamophobes, etc. In other words, Trump won the support of white men who oppose European racial and cultural genocide actively promoted by the Clinton/Bush/Obama, etc. scum and their Blair/Cameron/May/Hollande/Merkel, etc., Euro counterparts, who have been elevated to positions of control by the globalist Money Power.

What is notable about the Clinton’s is their determination to make treason pay extremely well.

There is no inherent drive towards complexity. It is passive, not driven and there is just as much evidence showing that species get less complex.

Looking at the “full house” of variation, there is no general trend in “progress” for organisms or evolution as a whole. The example of the disappearance of 0.400 hitting is the perfect metaphor that shows there is a left and right wall of both minimum and maximum skill (complexity) and that the variation shrunk which is the cause for the disappearance of 0.400 hitting, not us getting “worse” at the game. This same metaphor of skill walls can be used for evolution as well, replacing skill walls with complexity walls. Bacteria inhabit the very left wall of complexity, that is, the least simple organism possible; no other organism can become more simple than bacteria. On the other side, you have the more complex organisms, those that arise at the very right tail end of the distribution, but arose there due to no inherent drive for “progress”, but due to the fact of moving towards the right tail of complexity was the only thing possible to do. Any organism that is in between the left and right walls of complexity can go in either direction, and the fossil record shows more organisms going left than right.

Quoting McShea (1994: 1762)

The minimal complexity of vertebral columns probably did not change (indeed, the actual minimum seems to have remained close to the theoretical minimum), ancestor-descendant comparisons in subclades of mammals reveals no branching bias, and the mean subclade skew was negative, all pointing to a passive system.

https://sites.duke.edu/mcshearesearch/files/2014/03/Mechanisms-HQ.pdf

Quoting Gould (1996: 207):

All the tests provide evidence for a passive trend and no drive to complexity. McShea found twenty-four cases of significant increases or decreases in comparing the range of modern descendants with an ancestor (out of a potential sample of ninety comparisons, or five groups of mammals, each with six variables measured in each of three ways; for the other comparison, average descendants did not differ significantly from ancestors). Interestingly, thirteen of these significant changes led to decreases in complexity, while only nine showed an increase. (The difference between thirteen and nine is not statistically significant, but I am wryly amused, given all traditional expectation in the other direction, that more comparisons show increasing rather than decreasing complexity.

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/11/12/complexity-walls-0-400-hitting-and-evolutionary-progress/

Nothing irks me more than this March of “progress” from man to ape. That’s not how it happened. We share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, we didn’t evolve from them. This *Scala naturae* paradigm needs to go as we can’t appreciate the beauty of evolution and the differences it makes between organisms.

Evolution isn’t progressive.

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/10/23/more-on-evolutionary-progress-and-more-evolved/

http://www.molecularecologist.com/2015/02/bigger-on-the-inside/

Wright thought that the random shifting of genetic variant frequencies in small populations — genetic drift — would be necessary to get across adaptive valleys. We now know that drift is a common, and likely important, source of evolutionary change. But in fact, an additional answer lay in Wright’s original formulation of the adaptive landscape as multidimensional. To build from my earlier sketch, consider that there’s more to a bird than its beak. Maybe birds that are sufficiently efficient fliers can seek out seeds to fit any beak size. If we add that new dimension to my original crude sketch, the valley between small beaks and big beaks turns out to be not an unbridgeable chasm, but more of a cirque, with a path from A to B that never loses altitude, provided flight efficiency (“another trait”) can adapt at the same time. […]
Rodriguez and Wagner then navigated along the network, moving away from the core E. coli genotype via one randomly-chosen allowable mutation at a time. They found 1,000 different genotypes containing a similar number of reactions, each 10,000 mutations steps away from E. coli. Each of these had a “robustness” similar to that of the original E. coli genotype — able to tolerate the loss of about 60 to 70% of their reactions without losing the ability to survive on glucose. Any two of the 1,000 randomly-found genotypes that could survive on glucose shared, on average, about a third of their essential reactions. And out of 1,420 reactions that were essential to at least one of the 1,000 randomly-found genotypes, only 103 were essential in all of the 1,000 genotypes.

That is, most of the time, a given metabolic reaction might be vital to the survival of a particular genotype, but somewhere out in the network there exist other genotypes that get along just fine without it. This is presumably because they include different sets of reactions that together achieve similar results. Wagner’s conclusion from these findings is that the tremendous range of possibility offered by a complex metabolism — or any other set of interacting organismal traits — gives evolution room to explore, to find new combinations of traits, and to innovate.

Since nobody knows, my take is “directed evolution” at this late stage. Basically, near-miss evolutionary experiments are stored in the epigenome. When some new requirement materializes the stress activates the epigenome to promptly alter some function or structure. Still Darwin, but Erasmus.

By way of example it seems that Darwin’s finches were recently transferred to another island where their beaks were no longer appropriate. Within two or three generations they “evolved” new beak configurations.

“On the other hand, macro-evolution is a fraud. There is zero evidence that single celled organisms evolved into amphibians, reptiles or anything else. The evolutionary provenance of humanity is a laughable hoax.”

Based on….?

Have you read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins? We can make inferences based on what we know already.

Are you a creationist?

As for evidence, I provided it, with links. And since we are free, apparently, to use the imperative: read it.

LOL. Evidence? That life originated elsewhere in the Universe? And floated here on transfinite photons of Love?

Ace, what you provided was evidence that Darwin and others entertained the notion that life originated outside Earth.

Please … puh-leeze … please to demonstrate that fanciful belief constitutes evidence. Maybe Darwin believed that Monica Bellucci is secretly pining away to be my kept woman. I’m easy — she won’t have to cook and clean.

“White men claim to be ‘more evolved’”

Anyone who uses this term, or says that evolution is progressive or that superiority and inferiority are viable definitions for species has no idea what they’re talking about and don’t understand basic evolutionary biology.

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/08/15/the-concept-of-more-evolved-reply-to-pumpkin-person/

That is, most of the time, a given metabolic reaction might be vital to the survival of a particular genotype, but somewhere out in the network there exist other genotypes that get along just fine without it.

Reminds me of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem I.

Since nobody knows, my take is “directed evolution” at this late stage. Basically, near-miss evolutionary experiments are stored in the epigenome. When some new requirement materializes the stress activates the epigenome to promptly alter some function or structure.

Yup, makes perfect sense. And the Epigenome Director is Mark Zuckerberg.

Well then I won’t offer salted coffee either. Actually, I drink it now and then, as it happens. Funny enough, my son is a marine engineer but had never heard of anyone drinking salted coffee. Want some imagery and imagination? I humble offer my brand new blog: http://subsidiarityinstitute.blogspot.com.ar/

Have a good weekend!

There is no inherent drive towards complexity. It is passive, not driven and there is just as much evidence showing that species get less complex.

I spoke of no drive, inherent or otherwise. Nevertheless, the evidence appears to be that the length of functional non-redundant DNA per genome counted by nucleotide base pairs (bp), has increased linearly with time (Sharov, 2012). That is to say, the complexity of the most complex genome has, over the last four billion years, increased over time. That is the statement of an observed phenomenon, not the assertion that evolution is directed.

shit, so I am wining my bet so far.

and that is why the election is a gigantic nation wide farce.

“By way of example it seems that Darwin’s finches were recently transferred to another island where their beaks were no longer appropriate. Within two or three generations they “evolved” new beak configurations”

Darwins finches show how evolution isn’t progressive.

A study of the DNA of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands (Petren et al. 1999) provides a good example of why the idea of progress makes no sense in evolution. The study’s findings suggest that the first finches to arrive on the islands were the Warbler finches (Certhidea olivacea), whose pointy beaks made them good insect eaters. A number of other finches evolved later from the Warbler finches. One of these is the Geospiza ground finch, whose broad beak is good for crushing seeds, and another is the Camarhynchus tree finch with its blunt beak which is well adapted for tearing vegetation.

Even though the seed-eating and vegetation-eating finches evolved from insect-eating finches, the former are not “more evolved” than the latter, or “higher” on some evolutionary ladder. Since finch evolution on the Galapagos Islands was driven primarily by diet, the ground finches simply became better adapted at making a living on seeds, the tree finches on vegetation, and the Warbler finches on insects.

If seeds were to become scarce on the Galapagos Islands, it’s conceivable that the seed-eating finches-which are a more recent species-could become extinct, while the insect-eating finches-which have been around much longer-would continue to thrive. The concepts of “higher” and “lower” do not apply to the Galapagos finches or anywhere else in evolution. It is fitness or adaptability relative to the environment that matters. Species cannot foretell the future in order to adapt themselves deliberately to environmental changes, and if the environment changes drastically, those adaptations that were once favorable may turn out to be unfavorable.

Even though biologists reject the Great Chain of Being or any similar ladder-of-progress explanation of evolution, the idea still persists in popular culture. A more accurate analogy would be that of a bush that branches in many directions. If we think of evolution over time in this way, we’re less likely to be confused by notions of progress because the branches of a bush can grow in various directions in three dimensions, and new branches can sprout off of older branches without implying that those farther from the trunk are better or more advanced than those closer to the trunk. A more recent branch that has split off from an earlier branch-like a species that has evolved from an ancestral species-does not indicate greater progress or advancement. Rather, it is simply a new and different growth on the bush, or more specifically, a new species that is sufficiently adapted to its environment to survive.

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/getting_the_monkey_off_darwins_back

“my take is “directed evolution””

Who’s directing it? Is evolution teleological?

Evolution isn’t progressive, nor is it teleological.

Another widespread erroneous view of natural selection must also be refuted: Selection is not teleological (goal-directed). Indeed, how could an elimination process be teleological? Selection does not have a long-term goal. It is a process repeated anew in every generation. The frequency of extinction of evolutionary lineages, as well as frequent changes in direction, is inconsistent with the mistaken claim that evolution is a teleological process. Also, there is no known genetic mechanism that could produce goal-directed evolutionary processes. Orthogenesis and other proposed teleological processes have been thoroughly refuted (see Chapter 4).

To say it in other words, evolution is not deterministic. The evolutionary process consists of a large number of interactions. Different genotypes within a single population may respond differently to the same change of the environment. These changes, in turn, are unpredictable, particularly when caused by the arrival at a locality of a new predator or competitor. Survival during a mass extinction may strongly be affected by chance. (Mayr, 1964: 121)

https://books.google.com/books?id=i8jx-ZyRRkkC&pg=PA121&dq=evolution+is+not+teleological&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV2KrnkpDQAhUJwYMKHfPbDxAQ6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=evolution%20is%20not%20teleological&f=false

Nothing irks me more than this March of “progress” from man to ape.

You needn’t worry about it.

Anyone who takes such a teleological view, as does Fred in his earlier nonsensical piece about evolution, clearly knows nothing of the subject and can therefore be dismissed as a bloviating amateur.

This. Natural selection selects organisms with the right phenotype to survive. When the environment changes, those who have the right phenotype survive, prosper and breed more. This is how changes sweep through environments. Natural selection can only select on whatever heritable variants are already present in that population.

Yes, I know.

Nothing contributes more to “blue in the face” argumentation than the creationists/wackies/dummies who just cannot get it through their heads that evolution is not a process of optimization. It is not “survival of the fittest”; it is “survival of the fit”. Reproductive success is the sole arbiter of evolutionary success.

There’s not 50 gabzillion mayflies every spring onaccounta mayflies being the crown of evolutionary perfection. It’s because 1 billion mayflies survive to deposit a googol of eggs every year.

Selection is not teleological (goal-directed)

Define goal-directed…

”Stubborness” drive evolutionary processes.

The biological reality of certain organism is the only one reality ”he” know. Even submerged from a subconscious level, the single organism still have a goal because ”it” have their biological guidelines, a blind goal, still a goal-directed.

No goal = inertia.

No life is in the inert state, because all of them are fighting to their conservation, subconsciously or not-so, but they are.

All life desire conserve itself and yes, no one ”think” change what is working…

Some special type of stubborness drive stupidity too…

Ace, what you provided was evidence that Darwin and others entertained the notion that life originated outside Earth.

Since you call me “Ace,” can I call you… Oh never mind.

I told you to read the evidence to which I linked. Clearly you have not. Too busy vacuously opinionating, I suppose.

from man to ape

It’d irk me, too …

“On the other hand, macro-evolution is a fraud. There is zero evidence that single celled organisms evolved into amphibians, reptiles or anything else.” That there is zero evidence it does not mean it is a fraud. What is irritating though that many adherents of the EoT act as if they did not know that there is no evidence.

“evolution is not deterministic” “These changes, in turn, are unpredictable” “extinction may strongly be affected by chance.”

Unpredictable does not mean it is not deterministic. As far as the meaning of chance I would not go there. There are no truly random processes in nature apart form the quantum physics domain where they are posited from a mathematical necessity. The concepts of chance and randomness are usually invoked only to camouflage out ignorance.

The concepts of “higher” and “lower” do not apply to the Galapagos finches

or anywhere else in evolution

First, there are cases and cases, there are cases of evolution, cases of devolution, cases of the similar or balanced changes between groups of the same species as with the finches in the Galapagos….

and this events ARE NOT FIXED, No one can guarantee that this apparent evolutionary balance of finches can radically change in the future.

AGAIN

deny that concepts of superior, avg and inferior are useless or wrong even among humans make entire ”hbd” science useless…

if the difference between a criminal black thug or a gypsy troublemaker and a peaceful, kind and smart university undergrad IS neutral, non-existent or ”subjective,

why WE believe the third is

superior

to the first and to the second**

deny this concepts is the same to deny the contrasts that make the reality itself.

Of course, a criminal black thug is superior in agressiveness, dominance and whatever other traits than the undergrad student, as well the gypsy troublemaker is superior in cleverness/street smartness and other aspects than the undergrad student…

And the undergrad student is smarter/ biologically healt also/ in other aspects…

is smarter = superior, in other aspects.

This is the ”multiple” perspectives and this don’t prove that superior and inferior are useless, this prove that superior and inferior are more especifically aplicable and not generally aplicable.

AGAIN

all living beings are very efficient in their own way to survive.

But all to almost of the living beings have some ”trait”/aspect that is more developed than in other organisms.

first finches to arrive on the islands were the Warbler finches (Certhidea olivacea), whose pointy beaks made them good insect eaters

Good = superior.

ponctually/specifically superior.

there are

CASES AND CASES

stop over-generalize this quite nuanced stuff.

deny the cognitive superiority of human beings to their primate distant cousins… and yes, to all other living being intelligence’s, seems not only stupid but insane.

Dear Fred Reed,
I’m sorry you wrote this column without doing background research. There is a large and fascinating literature by scientists who address the details of exactly the issues you raise. An organization called the Discovery Institute used to sponsor a discussion group for scientists working on these issues.

As of this time, global evolution or macro-evolution is a large set of unanswered questions.

I usually find your column insightful and entertaining.

All my best,
Jim Given

“Define goal-directed…”

Aimed towards a goal. What is the goal? A goal implies an end point, but there is no end point to evolution. Natural selection is local adaptation, not “progressive” nor is it teleological.

“the single organism still have a goal because ”it” have their biological guidelines, a blind goal, still a goal-directed.”

What’s the goal? And if there is a goal, what will be the ultimate organism that arises when top of the progressive mountain is reached? When full optimization is realized, will evolution stop because the ‘goal’ has been realized?

“Unpredictable does not mean it is not deterministic.”

Explain how evolution is teleological, deterministic.

“As far as the meaning of chance I would not go there”

Why? Is it wrong to say that species that survive a mass extinction is due to chance?

“The concepts of chance and randomness are usually invoked only to camouflage out ignorance.”

If we were to rewind the tape of life and start at the beginning, would humans arise billions of years later?

I’ll answer for you.

No.

The concepts of chance and randomness are usually invoked only to camouflage out ignorance.

Ignorance that may be invincible. For, as Richard Feynman stated:

“We must emphasize that classical physics is also indeterminate …”

This seems to be the fly in the ointment of the global warmers. The climate system, over any significant duration, may displays a degree of indeterminacy that entirely precludes useful long-range projections.

That “there is zero evidence that single celled organisms evolved into amphibians, reptiles or anything else.” That there is zero evidence it does not mean it is a fraud.

Lyn Margulis won the US National Medal of Science for the theory that eurkaryotes arose through symbiosis from prokaryotes, and presented some evidence for the theory in here original paper, which, unfortunately, is behind a paywall.

There’s a lot more about that theory and the circumstantial evidence for it in Nick Lane’s recent book on the origin of life.

In fact, it could be that if life is ubiquitous, the most interesting thing about terrestrial life is that it made the, perhaps rare, transition to multicellularity with large cells and large genomes.

Since you call me “Ace,” can I call you

Deuce? Can I then make sly remarks about the 2/1 bridge bidding convention?

Why do you bother attempting to insult me, Ace? Do you think of yourself as being really good at that? Go ahead and insult the dummies, but every time you waste lifespan with something you regard as a bon, but insulting, mot directed at me, you’re gonna get it back plus increment. Why bother?

Anyhoo, you provided no evidence. I am a veritable slave and devotee of evidence. Don’t give me links — excerpt and post the specifics. I’m not here to fetch for you.

“It is not “survival of the fittest”; it is “survival of the fit”. ”

The fit are the fittest. The ones that do not survive or have lower chance to survive are less fit. The ones that have the highest chance to survive are the fittest. OK? Nothing wrong with language.

I am beginning to get the picture of you. You concentrate on words rather than on the true meaning behind them because apparently you do not think through to get to the true meaning. If you did you would not attach that much importance to punctuated vs. gradual distinctions which are just quantitative not qualitative. Thus conceptually irrelevant. I think the reason for your shallowness is because you see yourself as a righteous warrior fighting those ignorant creationists that gives you some kick in terms of sense of superiority, etc. You just like to put them down. I would advise that if your interest in evolution is really genuine to come off that high horse and begin to behave and act as a thoughtful human being that hopefully you have a capacity to be.

Goal don’t mean definitely infinite end point.

Local adaptation can be progressive. You already say “progressive don’t mean exactly better improvement”. So, evolution can be progressive in the way progress=transformation, to the better or not, progressive anyway.

Goal of any life: Self conservation.

the single organism still have a goal because ”it” have their biological guidelines, a blind goal, still a goal-directed

You are confusing goal seeking behavior of organisms with goal seeking in the process of natural selection.

All organisms are feedback control mechanism, or rather, highly complex bundles of feedback control mechanisms, which give the organism the appearance of goal seeking, or purposefulness.

But evolutionary selection is not an active process (as distinct from artificial selection in human-directed breeding or extermination programs, including plans for the extermination of certain human races, etc.). It is merely the outcome of the interaction among goal-seeking organisms and their environments, as in the case of Leo Tolstoy’s fable about the lion and the frog. When the lion stepped on the frog, it constituted a selection event dictated by the behavior of the organisms concerned. But there was no external guiding force that justifies calling that selection event purposeful.

Don’t give me links

Look, OK, you know nothing about evolution and don’t wish to learn. That’s fine. But why do you keep making a point about it?

“Local adaptation can be progressive”

No it can’t. What is it progressing towards? Natural selection is local adaptation not progress. Simple enough to understand.

The process begins anew every generation. What ‘progress’ occurs?

Look at Homo floresiensis. Is that ‘progress’ in the way you’re defining it?

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/10/25/the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-for-more-evolved-and-progressive-evolution-1/

Proves my point. They evolve smaller stature and brains because of less caloric energy being available on Flores. Floresiensis is either an evolved habilis or erectus, is that any type of ‘progress’ to you?

“Goal of any life: Self conservation.”

Self-conservation of the vehicle (organism). Why? So the replicators (genes) can replicate. The replicators making copies of themselves is not “progress”, it’s just life.

“Nick Lane’s recent book on the origin of life.”

Have you read this? Do you recommend it? I’m currently read Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould and keep seeing Lane’s book at BnN. Care to give me a short summary if you’ve read it? Thanks.

Darwin (evolution) theory is Whiteman’s invention to belittle non-White folks. The great majority of believers in Darwin theory are atheists who hate all religions.

In 2013, ‘Scientific American’ magazine claimed in a Turkish children’s book that Charles Darwin was Jewish.

Communism, Nazism and Zionism are all based on Darwin’s race purity theory.

https://rehmat1.com/2015/04/06/mp-christians-are-mocked-and-belittled-in-canada/

All of this is just too much for this poor ol’ low level Friday afternoon drunk, so I’ll just toss out the following question: Did Fred evolve from Gustavo or was it the other way around?

I know, I’m not confusing because, seems, I already explained this difference. Evolution is not goal-oriented itself but the way of survive of the organism tend to drives the direction of your changes in the way a chicken can’t evolved to the dog. All life are goal-oriented, self conservation.

As I told above almost of living beings know only about their evolutionary guidelines/particular evolutionary reality. Life/organic dynamic without goal wil become inert, and yes, without any goal.

Please, I know no there any magical force inducting evolution or changes. But there is the result of this interactions: Selective pressures, generally strong, and organisms= “stubbornness”. And this stubbornness become even more evident when the organism fail to fit with new environmental requirements because he can’t reprogrammed itself, seems…

The inconvenient part of my comment you despised.

Progress is change itself

Progress of cancer
Progress of cure
Progress of mafia domination
Progress of white displacement etc etc

So evolution is progressive, to the better, to the worse, because it mean change.

Local can’t be general.

But local can be progressive, they are not antonym. Very simple to understand.

They progress to fit to their specific environment…

So smaller brain and stature is INFERIOR… Ok.

Life is progress to the non-life things.

It’s the progress of the self-movement.

Hey Rehmat,

I don’t know about Darwin (I wouldn’t put too much stock in a children’s book, but it sounds interesting), but what do you think about the theory that the Pathans are descended from Jews?

Race purity theory? What?

“that Charles Darwin was Jewish.”

Primary citation please.

“Communism, Nazism and Zionism are all based on Darwin’s race purity theory.”

You’re a funny guy. Purity doesn’t exist within human races.

No, I’m not a creationist, I’m an essentialist who recognizes that there is variation within phenotypes, but there is no saltation from one type to another; for example, dogs do not turn into seals because they live by the seashore, nor do stingrays turn into flying squirrels due to drought. Nature is not like that whatsoever.

Transformism is based upon the enlightenment- liberal myth of infinite linear progress. There is no empirical evidence for it whatsoever. A fruit fly remains a fruit fly despite enormous numbers of genetic mutations, just as a dog remains a dog after hundreds of generations of breeding.

Transformism is, in the simplest terms, the excuse that materialist reductionists proffer in order to eliminate formal and final causality from the causal order – something that may be tenable to those with a positivist world view, but totally unacceptable to those with a metaphysical grounding.

The great majority of believers in Darwin theory are atheists who hate all religions.

in other words, SMART PEOPLE, 😉

at least based on this perticularitet…

”Believers on Darwin theory”

Salaam Rehmat,

Even if he was, you know there’s nothing wrong with being born a Jew or from any other tribe/race:

On one occasion, the Prophet’s wife Hafsah scolded her co-wife Safiyyah (ra) [who was of the Jewish tribe of Bani Nadir] by calling her “the daughter of a Jew”. So she started to cry.

The Prophet (pbuh) then came in and asked her why she was crying. She said: “Hafsah called me the daughter of a Jew.”

To this the Prophet (pbuh) replied: “Verily, you are the daughter of a prophet*, your uncle was also a prophet, and you are the wife of a prophet, so what does she have over you to boast about?”

He then turned to Hafsah (ra) and said: “Fear Allah, O Hafsah.” [related in Tirmidhi]

Criticize any theory on its lack of merits, but there is no reason to dismiss one simply if it’s formulated by a Jew or other.

Peace.

*Meaning in lineage.

“Progress is change itself”

Now you’re redefining words.

Progress: Specifically, advancement to a higher or more developed state; development, growth; Movement or advancement through a series of events, or points in time; development through time.

Evolution is non-teleological and non-linear.

“But local can be progressive, they are not antonym. Very simple to understand.”

No it can’t. Organism B split from Ogranism A. B has no phenotypic changes that A doesn’t have due to its new environment. Then B moves to yet another environment and incurs new changes. What ‘progress’ do you see there?

“So smaller brain and stature is INFERIOR… Ok.”

Not OK. The point is, and what floresiensis shows, is that organisms adapt to their surroundings. The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk. Look up the phenomenon of island dwarfism and gigantism.

“Life is progress to the non-life things.”

Is an ant ‘better’ than a rock?

“It’s the progress of the self-movement.”

Evolution has no arrow.

I’m not just beginning to get a picture of you. I have more than sufficient data to classify you as a man convinced of his own opinion — evidence, logic and argument be damned. It is interesting, however, that you also attribute to words your interpretation of what they mean, despite all definition and fact to the contrary.

No, “survival of the fit” does not mean the same thing as “survival of the fittest”. Never has, never will.

I don’t see you as “shallow”, just “stubbornly stupid and incapable of admitting error”. And, speaking of coming down from a high horse….

You hit the nail on the head. A tautology is a tautology is a tautology; the sanctimonious reductionists just love to take refuge in their temple of almighty, materialist tautologies, whose high priests feebly attempt to exorcize or otherwise exclude the quite manifest formal and final causalities.

The world is no more the product of blind chance and the haphazard binding of matter and fortuitous conditions than is the fully grown oak the offspring of an ear of corn or a hen’s egg.

LOL, yeah Priss, even after 5 name changes, and now “anon”, you’re that transparent.

The point is, and what floresiensis shows, is that organisms adapt to their surroundings. The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk.

Incorrect. Organisms that are adapted to their environment can survive to reproduce. Environment does not produce adapted organisms –organisms require an environment to which they are adapted.

Habilis did not shrink. Smaller habilis survived to reproduce; larger habilis did not. That is, the environment selects for smaller habilis; it does not induce larger habilis to get smaller. The genes for smaller habilis survive; the genes for larger habilis do not.

Is it working yet, Ace? Did you win yet? Are you basking in the afterglow yet?

Stop jacking off to your own oboe solo, Ace.

The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores

Smaller habilis survived to reproduce; larger habilis did not.

Play spot-the-difference here.

Are you a semanticist? I recommend you study the field, you’d learn a lot.

Do you really think RR88 is postulating some sort of Lamarckian process?

“I don’t know” is vastly better, for example, than the panspermia distraction, since “I don’t know” is at least honest.

And now you know what the Wall of Text fallacy is.

The world is no more the product of blind chance and the haphazard binding of matter and fortuitous conditions than is the fully grown oak the offspring of an ear of corn or a hen’s egg.

Interesting phrasing. Does it occur to you that a world — a universe, a modality within which events may occur — must exist a priori in order for there to exist any kind of “blind chance”? All of your thoughts and conclusions are predicated upon existence as you experience it.

Once there exists “existence”, what happens is not so much a product of blind chance as it is a product of “The Rules” — Gravity, Energy, and Time.

Now you’re redefining words.

Progress: Specifically, advancement to a higher or more developed state; development, growth; Movement or advancement through a series of events, or points in time; development through time.

Progress no have only one concept or conceptual aplicability. Sometimes it can be used to describe bad things, for example, cancer size.

cancer… advancement to a higher or more developed state, development, growth…

Evolution is non-teleological and non-linear.

I ALREADY tell you that evolution is non-perfectly-linear BUT linear is not the same than progressive…

No it can’t. Organism B split from Ogranism A. B has no phenotypic changes that A doesn’t have due to its new environment. Then B moves to yet another environment and incurs new changes. What ‘progress’ do you see there?

Your entire sin here is to look to the concept of progress only in positive ways.

The rest is just the consequence of this initial mistake.

You’re playing all the time with the words, while you’re not seeing to the tangible stuff/big picture here.

Organisms have ”the same” ability to self preserve.

Some of this traits that are used to self preservation evolved more in virtually most of species.

Evolution based on the full aplicability of the concept of progress/movement/change, is always progressive.

and based on the usual or even, partial aplicability of this concept, evolution CAN BE progressive.

Not OK. The point is, and what floresiensis shows, is that organisms adapt to their surroundings. The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk. Look up the phenomenon of island dwarfism and gigantism.

You said

”where is the progress to evolve to smaller brain and stature”

So, again,

smaller brain and stature IS INFERIOR for you…

so INFERIOR (or superior) is that word you can’t say directly, but you can use similar words or expressions to say the same idea you deny in contraditory ways.

Almost of the biologists who argued against the previous conceptions about evolution

or

believe by heart in the human equality

or

are farsants, like Gould for example…

used science to promote their hidden zionist agenda, make white people believe that everyone is the same because

evolution is not progressive

none is superior or inferior, vaguely speaking of course…

The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk. Look up the phenomenon of island dwarfism and gigantism.

Again it’s not a direct evidence to your point of views. In the end of day, this adaptation is benign to this specific environment…

Is an ant ‘better’ than a rock?

Based on the CRITERIA life**

no doubt.

ant is a brilliant clever organism, specially via collective levels, while rock is part of the earth surface.

Evolution has no arrow.

So a dog can evolved to the chicken…

When certain path is reached, evolution may become more and more directed…

I did say: “The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk.”

Do we NOT need adequate kcal in order to achieve a bigger body mass? Yes or no.

The average human eats 2500 kcal per day. Let’s say two things occur. 1) An asteroid hits the earth blocking out the sun and 2) we consume around half of our daily kcal, hitting around 1100 to 1200 kcal per day. This continues for, let’s say, 5ky. Would we stay the same size? Would our brains shrink over time?

LOL. I have at least one degree in it. How about you?

RR suggests that smaller habilis adapted (active verb) to the environment. That is misleading. Smaller habilis are better adapted to the environment, and experience more reproductive success. Thus, the genes producing smaller habilis are preserved, while genes producing larger habilis retreat to their minimal expression (the genes for larger habilis are not lost; they recede).

RR makes it sound like larger habilis moved into the environment, saw the situation looked tough, and decided “We’re gonna get smaller.”

Incorrect.

I did say: “The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk.”

Do we NOT need adequate kcal in order to achieve a bigger body mass? Yes or no.

Of course. But a decrease in size as a product of reduced calories is not an evolutionary factor, i.e. a product of genetic mutation. With more food, they’ll get bigger. The true selected mutation will not.

And now you know what the Wall of Text fallacy is.

LOL, you callous, soulless monster.

Some of these guys … I wonder if they’ve got fingers left … gotta be stumps.

Still waiting for Fred to propose a theory more plausible than evolution. Apparently, scant evidence of a bearded deity high in the sky scratching his chin and deciding the fate of all living things on a whim or if they displease the self styled chosen people is much more believable.

Regarding Trump, he has no power until he takes office on January 20th but some things he’s done on the heels of the election do give me pause. For instance, on 60 Minutes he said the proposed wall may have to be a “fence in some places” but didn’t go into detail. The quick and quiet removal of the proposed Muslim ban from his website within 1-2 days after the election, with no explanation, was a pretty greasy move. Now it appears that there are no planned reductions from Muslim nations, only a registry in which their names will be added. Big deal. I’m sure a registry has would be Muslim terrorists quaking in their manjammies.

He did reiterate that deportations of the estimated three million criminal illegal aliens will commence immediately, but I’ll believe it when I see it. A federal judge who thinks he’s god may attempt to block even though he/she would have no legal grounds to do so.

Oh, the genetics and ‘evolution’ racketeers. Bogus money hustlers that haven’t shown or done anything. Welcome to epigenetics, meaning the conditions of life, necessita, change and choice made under pressure. Now we get results.

Take your religious cult and flame off with the other true religious whackos. The pack of you both paralyze honest science.

The point is, and what floresiensis shows, is that organisms adapt to their surroundings. The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores, combined with less energy available, this is why they shrunk.

Let’s analyze.

The point is, and what floresiensis shows

Goes to purpose of statement, irrelevant as to content.

organisms adapt to their surroundings

Where your problem is. “Organisms” here is, assuming RR88 is not a Lamarckian, the population as a whole, taken over time. You interpret it to mean “Living thing A adapts to its surroundings, as do living things, B,C, etc.” This is a valid interpretation grammatically, but a forced interpretation.

The active vs. passive voice is irrelevant. If you really have a degree in semantics (a linguistics degree?) you should know this. If you do not know this, I repeat my recommendation.

The smaller erectus or habilis were better able to survive on Flores

No disagreement, I assume.

combined with less energy available

Giving a reason for the smaller habiles being better able to survive.

this is why they shrunk

Please tell me you’re not going to pick on these five words.

All right, especially after reading RR88’s replies, I’ll admit he isn’t the clearest writer in the world. So what? There is no reason in the world to search through his posts until you find one thing you can plausibly interpret in a manner which represents it as Lamarckian.

You’re not really a Lamarckian, are you? Not that I really care, but it would help clarify the argument intra you and Kip if you each knew what the other meant.

RR makes it sound like larger habilis moved into the environment, saw the situation looked tough, and decided “We’re gonna get smaller.”

I meant nothing of the sort. My point was that less kcal being available on Flores contributed to decreased stature and brain size.

“Organisms” here

more accurately the set of all populations, since RR isn’t just referring to Flores habiles here.

“Of course. But a decrease in size as a product of reduced calories is not an evolutionary factor, i.e. a product of genetic mutation. With more food, they’ll get bigger. The true selected mutation will not.”

Decreased energy on Flores is one (huge, pun intended) reason WHY the smaller erectus or habilis got selected for. THAT was the main driver in the decrease in brain size and stature.

Great comment. Provoked by something upthread, I went and read the wikipedia article on Microevolution. The “Use in Creationism” section is hilarious. It features a discussion of creationism with the word “kind” kept in scare quotes throughout. Then, turning to a discussion of orthodox biology, we get the word “species” with nary a scare quote in sight.

Biologists have the most fascinating relationships with ontology and teleology. I mean, you can’t talk about the heart without mentioning that it’s for pumping blood. You can’t talk about cats without, like, noticing that they are different from amoebae. But their official ideology requires that they deny that hearts are for pumping blood or that cats are different from amoebae. Or, really that there is any such thing as cats, strictly speaking.

And the hysterics! “Hearts are for pumping blood” See, there, I said it! So, we can say it! nyah, nyah nyah. Of course we believe in cats! Look we made a taxonomy!!1!!! LOL.

I’m most definitely not a Lamarckian; the only thing ‘Lamarckian’ about humans is our culture.

I was on my phone earlier so I just keep replies short without editing, too much of a hassle.

Not at all. I wasn’t too clear because I didn’t care to edit for clarity since I was on my phone. The only thing ‘Lamarckian; about humans is our culture.

My point was that lower energy being available on Flores was why habilis or erectus shrank, meaning, the smaller ones were better able to survive as they (obviously) needed less energy.

Evolution would seem to denote change rather than initial start. The “direction” is previous experience as encoded in the epigenome. For instance, the stress of a famine might cause the epigenome to direct that females die sooner so that they are not consuming resources beyond their contribution to species survival. This example would be a temporary expedient though the epigenome response.

Of course stress could also generate random such changes. The successful changes then stored in the epigenome.

It’s interesting that sharks have attained long-term evolutionary stasis and aren’t troubled by genome instabilities such a cancer. Humans, not so much.

For instance, the stress of a famine might cause the epigenome to direct that females die sooner so that they are not consuming resources beyond their contribution to species survival.

Is this something that has been actually observed? If so I’d be very interested.

Another bunch of insults from you makes a change from hearing you whine about having been insulted because I asked if you were an English squire in gaiters.

The thing about an English squire, was, obviously, before you adopted your present line of coarse language and childish imprecations.

Incidentally, there’s a place in Japan called Gofuku. To quote a former US Vice President, I suggest you go there by yourself.

I meant nothing of the sort. My point was that less kcal being available on Flores contributed to decreased stature and brain size.

Of course. Poor nutrition has that effect. Just don’t confuse small stature caused by malnutrition with small stature produced by genetics.

Is this something that has been actually observed? If so I’d be very interested.

No. However, do keep in mind that Christians see angels where non-Christians see clouds.

Decreased energy on Flores is one reason WHY the smaller erectus or habilis got selected for. THAT was the main driver in the decrease in brain size and stature.

No shit? A decrease in size as a product of reduced calories is not an evolutionary factor, i.e. a product of genetic mutation. With more food, they’ll get bigger. The true evolution-selected mutation will not.

“the stress of a famine might [insert your favorite confabulation] survival.”

The statement in brackets is almost always pure confabulation that cannot be tested or verified. Actually there are many different confabulations that can be inserted in within the brackets and the ToE has no way of deciding which one of them is “the best”, whatever “the best” means. Just as well it can be a sentence that is the shortest one.

The confabulating goes on among biologists all the time. The reason they give themselves the license for free confabulation is their unshaken belief in the ToE. i.e., its tautological nature: “What survives survives”. If the same group of individuals lived in the Middle Ages and worked for the Church on the ToC they would be concocting equally creative confabulations but instead of being guided by the tautology: “What survives survives” they would be guided by the axiom “Whatever lives is manifestation of God’s goodness.” For instance they could explain why pumpkins do not grow trees with multitude of confabulations like e.g. God in his goodness did not want to hurt animals by the falling pumpkins.

We can safely disregard most of these confabulations whether they are concocted for ToE or ToC just for one simple reason: these confabulations cannot be verified and never will.

I do believe in the ToE (with some qualifications) but I do not like the idiots who work in the enterprise called the ToE. These people should stay away from any kind science for the sake of science! Most of them are idiots and most of their clientele for whom they concoct the confabulations are idiots as well. This fortuitous coupling of idiots with idiots guarantees the lasting power of the whole enterprise.

LOL. You are getting funnier, I’ll grant you that. You’re one of those people who can’t bear the thought of being wrong. It’s okay, man, I understand. There should be a “Handicap” emoji for you guys.

Trump evolves into Hillary after election! Puts in place Neocon/libs in cabinet!

The whole thing morphs into the movie: “Matrix”!

The main backers of Trump from the lower middle income masses, will be too dumb to understand how he will double f*k ’em again!

Well, if you believe Jacob had 15 sons instead of 12 – then my Padre was right in saying, “If one shake his/her family tree – he/she will find a Jew hiding behind the leafs.

It was a American Jewish woman journalist who discovered some old gravestone in a Pakhtoon village with Hebrew writings. as result, she claimed that Pathans were descendants of Jews who, according to Jewish historian Dr. Shlomo Sand were INVENTED on a century ago.

Last year India called upon 85,000 Jews belonging to India’s Cochin (untouchable tribe) living in Israel to return to their ancestral land….

https://rehmat1.com/2015/08/18/india-woos-its-85000-jews-in-israel/

Why the great majority of comedians in the US and Canada are Jewish?

Did you read the name of the source that claimed Charles Darwin was Jewish or you just jumped to conclusion in order to apologize for Islam?

Did you know the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had married two young Yahud widows?

Did you know it was a Yahud woman at Khyber who poisoned the Prophet Muhammad (pbhu)?

Do you know it was chief rabbi of Yasrib (Medinah) who advised the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to expel two Yahudi tribes from the area for their breaking a military pact with Muslims?

https://rehmat1.com/2011/03/14/untold-a-history-of-the-wives-of-prophet-muhammad/

What is your IQ dude?

Bro, you’re making my point for me. It’s the conduct that counts not what womb gives birth to you.

Pointing out Darwin was Jewish makes little difference – there were Jewish Sahabah. If you want to discount his assumptions do so – there’s plenty to criticize, but whether he was Jewish or not makes little difference to the discourse.

Wa Salaam.

Here’s the explanation Fred’s been looking for. “Alien intelligence inhabits every corner of the universe in the form of dark matter,” says Columbia University astrophysicist.

It explains everything. Every few million years this alien intelligence that encompasses the whole universe comes down to earth and plants a new bunch of fossils to suggest that organisms have undergone evolutionary change, all just to fool that dunderhead, Darwin.

A very perceptive comment, this:

“The problem is we tend to differentiate life and non-life.

Actually, all things are alive with energy and chemistry.”

In other words, The Infinite Universe is alive with energy, chemistry and biology,
without beginning or end, without any limits restraining the evolution of It’s
force field into all possible forms.

You’re one of those people who can’t bear the thought of being wrong.

I don’t acknowledge error in the face of fatuous arguments of now significance whatever. That’s true.

But if you had any idea of what you are talking about you would have noted that on several occasions on this site I have thanked others for a correction where I have been shown to be mistaken. Now that is something you might consider emulating.

What offensive poppycock!

Darwin’s family tradition was Unitarian, his baptism and boarding school were Church of England. He died an avowed agnostic.

Fred, evolution can /overshoot/ and then throw away some unnecessary stuff. Like the highest crown roofs on medieval cathedrals – did workers build those pieces of wall like an igloo? No, they used scaffolding, extra support, but when the roof was done the scaffolding wasn’t necessary anymore and was discarded. So with evolution – an organ might find a new use and some aspects are overkill for it, and the creature then loses the old-use aspects.

Hey KR,

Yeah, you gotta excuse Rehmat there. He seems to think there’s a Jewish conspiracy behind everything. Of course that does mean (like in roulette) he gets it right once in a while. I’ve tried to give him some advice on his approach – you know, just stick to and argue the point – but to no avail.

I don’t personally think Darwin was Jewish, but looking at how I phrased it, I can see how one can conclude that.

Peace.

You might consider not being an asshole. There’s all sorts of opportunity out there for you.

I don’t personally think Darwin was Jewish, but looking at how I phrased it, I can see how one can conclude that.

I assumed you didn’t. I should have noted Rehmat as the originator of that false trail — I’ve had him Ignored for a long time. There’s quite a bit of jew-fear in the American working classes. In some circumstances, it may even be justifiable, although I’m inclined to believe that evil tends to dwell wherever there’s a lot of money, irrespective of religion.

Reed is confused about evolution because he puts the cart in front of the horse.

There is no purpose or design in evolution. It is a process that works in a certain way.. and depending on environmental factors, the process stumbles into ways around it. That’s about it. In this mutations are the key, and they happen. They happen cuz they happen, period. It is possible because chemistry allows it. Law of Nature.

Problem with Reed is he looks at the finished product and wonders why the processes led to this. He is looking for purpose, design, meaning.
There is none.
It was all an ‘accident’. There is an elemental process to evolution via DNA and stuff. Its goal is to replicate and reproduce. Under normal conditions, the life form just multiplies and multiplies. But there may be changes in the environment. If the changes are hostile, the organism will die and go extinct. BUT, if a mutation happens in the DNA that allows the organism to weather the new environment, there you have change and evolution. Mutations are chemically possible, and that is the key to evolution. If hydrogen atoms can ‘evolve’ into more complex atoms, then DNA can mutate into new codes.

Imagine a population of men with penises hanging low. Suppose they have no problem going about their business and reproducing. But suppose an invasive species of gremlins arrive and start biting off the penises of the men. Now, the guys are in trouble. Many of them have their penises eaten by these nasty creatures. Most will not survive since they will be ‘dic*less’. And that will be the end of humanity. That will be that, end of story.

But suppose a mutation occurs in one guy whereupon his penis is not between his legs but near his belly button. Due to its elevation, it is more difficult for gremlins to bite it off. So, he still has his willy and impregnates a bunch of women, and some of the offsprings have penises near the belly button too.

So, over time, all the men have penises around the belly button. Their dongs are safe from the fangs of the gremlins. So, the gremlins begin to starve and die since they can no longer eat human puds. Their food supply is beyond reach. But then, suppose mutation happens among gremlins too. While most gremlins die of starvation, suppose a few gremlins are born with extra-jumping ability. So, they can jump high enough to bite off the penises near the belly button. And suppose these gremlins that gorge on the dongs multiply, and over time, most gremlins can jump high enough to gorge on penises.
Humanity is once again endangered as gremlins begin to feed on all these dongs. But then, another mutation happens among mankind where the penis is around the chest. And these humans survive and have lots of kids, and over time, the humanity grows in number because the chest-level penises cannot be eaten by the gremlins who can only jump to belly button level.
So, the gremlins are about to die of starvation once again, but a mutation happens among a few gremlins who can jump to chest level, and these can feed on the chest-level dongs.
Humanity is once again in trouble as these high-jumping gremlins multiply and start biting off the chest-level penises.
But then, suppose another mutation happens where the penis sprouts on the top of the head. While most humans are dying off due to their inability to reproduce after gremlins bite off their chest level dongs, the human with the dong-head can reproduce because no gremlin can jump high enough to reach for the penis on the top of his head.

This is how evolution works. But Reed is too much of a butthead to think like a dong-head which would supply him with the answers.

“Why the great majority of comedians in the US and Canada are Jewish?”

Higher average verbal IQ.

What does that have to do with my comment?

“evolution can /overshoot/”

??? Overshoot what?

I’m inclined to believe that evil tends to dwell wherever there’s a lot of money, irrespective of religion

Yup, that and power.

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
–Chapterhouse: Dune

Peace.

Up til now, we and rest of organisms had no clue how life and evolution worked.

Humans learned of the evolutionary process only recently in human history.

Until then, evolution was happening without us knowing.

Now comes the exciting and scary part as we figure out the code of the DNA. We can modify genes in so many ways.

Human organism will make the transition from the slow mutative model to the fast modificative model. What might have taken 1000s of yrs by mutation can happen instantly in a laboratory, and already stuff like this has been done to plants with GMO crops.

Francis Fukuyama wrote about End of History, but we are now facing End of Humanity, and its Panglossian prophet is the sci-fi Ayn-Randian Micho Kaku who ought to be called Much Cuckoo.

One can think of one connection between Charles Darwin and Jews. It is that Darwin family practiced endogamy which was also pretty common among Jews. One would have to do a research how this connects to the widely spread fantasies among some British protestant sects of being the descendants of the lost tribe of Hebrews. Whether the endogamy they practiced was tied to some eugenics beliefs or Old Testament ideas I do not know, but certainly this aspect of Darwin background could shed some light on whether his theory of evolution was borrowing templates from their beliefs about social cast system and the concepts of the survival of the fittest in society. These concepts preceded his theory of evolution and some were pretty common in England.

INCEST AND INFLUENCE: The Private Life of Bourgeois England.
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/all-in-the-family

“Persistent intermarriage between members of Darwin’s family and the Wedgwood clan effectively intertwined two bourgeois dynasties of the English Midlands. A plethora of biographical studies of the great evolutionist and the ongoing publication of his correspondence have revealed the particularities of this complex family network in great detail, with the result that more is perhaps known about Darwin’s extended family than that of any comparable figure (with the obvious exception of royalty). In Incest and Influence, an illuminating study of the significance of cousin marriages for the 19th-century English bourgeoisie, Adam Kuper therefore uses Darwin as an exemplar of a more general tendency.”

“In the Victorian upper middle classes, more than 1 marriage in 10 was between first or second cousins. A similar number of marriages were between brothers- and sisters-in-law, meaning that about 1 person in 5 married within the family circle. This emphasis on endogamy was an effective means for bourgeois families like the Darwin-Wedgwoods to sustain beneficial domestic connections and to safeguard the property and riches accrued from the nascent industrial economy. Great intermarried families therefore came to dominate trades such as ceramics (the Wedgwood family’s pottery was world famous) and banking (the largest bank in the world, the House of Rothschild, was a family firm, and many Quaker banking families, including the Barclays and the Gurneys, intermarried and eventually merged their banks).”

“Unlike other scions of such families, Darwin took a keen interest in the scientific aspects of interbreeding and heredity. Throughout his career he remained acutely concerned as to “whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man,” as he put it in the conclusion to the Descent of Man in 1871. Darwin thus plays a further part in Incest and Influence as one of the foremost proponents (along with his cousin Francis Galton) of a more empirical approach to questions of heredity.”

A decrease in size as a product of reduced calories is not an evolutionary factor, i.e. a product of genetic mutation

why not*

In the long term…

The true evolution-selected mutation will not.

By now it’s conjecture, it was already proved*

The reduction of brain and stature size look quite logic in the first view, but it’s a correlation and among populations without well developed self-awareness the environment will play a dominant factor.

Maybe many or even most of ”true evolution” start like that.

13

Specially for stupid people.

And ”’your” IQ**

Correcting the inbreeding-factor of course.

Christ you suffer from Paranoid Schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder Andrea/Anon/Priss Factory/Dominique Francon Society – seriously get psychiatric help why on earth would someone on a blog without lots of members post under multiple names.

keep in mind that 4 billion years is a length of time of which the human mind can speak, but not truly comprehend.

Really? You didn’t take math or statistics in school? Forgive me if I don’t take what you say seriously.

I can’t speak for the origins of various pols. James Carville claimed Dubya was a space alien, for instance — and it takes one to know one.

But if authentic science is about observation, then extending the brew time on sludge doesn’t really add any sort of organization to the sludge. My observation as a used-to-be farmer is that when lightning strikes the ground in the rice field, it kills everything in a ten-foot radius, sterilizing the soil for a year or so.

That’s one way of putting things, but I agree. The long schlong tribe could also learn to tie their penises around their torsos and only untie them when needed to do the deed. Tribe members too lazy to tie them or who tied them poorly would be mostly weeded out from the gene pool by the pesky gremlins. Or, certain tribe members with higher intelligence could develop special weapons and tactics to combat the gremlins, thus allowing the tribe to survive with minimal losses. But if that problem solving intelligence is not present then the tribe perishes.

Really? You didn’t take math or statistics in school? Forgive me if I don’t take what you say seriously.

Gaaah-lee, you undiscovered genius, you. How did you know I minored in Stat?

You do not have the faintest concept of how long 4 billion years is, Jake. You’ve been imprisoned in your defective mind for only what? 13 years? LOL. Cya.

One can think of one connection between Charles Darwin and Jews. It is that Darwin family practiced endogamy which was also pretty common among Jews.

Well, there you have it — proof positive. Although, I gotta admit, that’s one of the biggest “Huh? So what?” comments I’ve seen.

Why does it take you 300 words to say what an organized mind can express in 50?

The long schlong tribe could also learn to tie their penises around their torsos and only untie them when needed to do the deed. Tribe members too lazy to tie them or who tied them poorly would be mostly weeded out from the gene pool by the pesky gremlins.

Why, you incalculably ignorant doofuss, I oughta gift you with 2000 words of intensely relevant IQ research right here and now! In fact, consider it done! Look out below, because once I’m done googling the absolute hell out of “bogus IQ bullshit”, I and my millions of rilly, rilly, intelligent and loquacious big-vocab friends will bomb you right off the Internet!

Humans learned of the evolutionary process only recently in human history.
Until then, evolution was happening without us knowing.
Now comes the exciting and scary part as we figure out the code of the DNA. We can modify genes in so many ways.

Are you trying to contract a PBS special?

Nobody cares, Priss. The important, and scary, thing is that plain ordinary beer is $10 a six-pack.

just as a dog remains a dog after hundreds of generations of breeding.

Okay, but how about after 100 million generations? Will a dog remain a dog?

Okay, but how about after 100 million generations? Will a dog remain a dog?

Wittgenstein proved that a dog is always a dog. You’re up against the varsity on this one, Petey.

I went and read the wikipedia article on Microevolution. The “Use in Creationism” section is hilarious. It features a discussion of creationism with the word “kind” kept in scare quotes throughout. Then, turning to a discussion of orthodox biology, we get the word “species” with nary a scare quote in sight.

How is “kind” being defined here? It’s easier to facilitate scientific debates when the terminology being used is well-defined and agreed to by both sides. If you ask several creationists what a “kind” is, you’ll get several different responses, usually ranging from subspecies to class. For the purpose of biological classification, “kind” doesn’t strike me as being a particularly useful term. Of course, the term “species” isn’t without a few grey areas of its own, but it is at least more precise than “kind” is. Plus, most people already have a good grasp of how a species is defined, anyway.

Your gripe about biologists being ideologically driven seems quite unfounded, in my opinion.

Johnny boy? Is that you again? jeez… dude.

Once again, unless you’re autistic, it should be completely obvious what my point is. I take it for granted that the obvious can go unsaid, but perhaps that’s expecting too much with you?

Other retarded emotionally disturbed…

Thus, the genes producing smaller habilis are preserved, while genes producing larger habilis retreat to their minimal expression (the genes for larger habilis are not lost; they recede).

Oh god.. this is simply hilarious, dude! Thanks for the laugh, mate. Please, do tell me more about your expertise in genetics! I’d love to hear all about it!

Wittgenstein proved that a dog is always a dog

Without Witt ”prove” that a dog is always a dog you would believe the otherwise* 😉

Heresy, Fred. You gotta take these things on faith. What we call “scientism.”
You’re thinking, which they call “overthinking.”

A combination of Reed’s buffoonery and Kip Russell’s uncouth inanity, generating a conversation ending in total imbecility.

Hey utu,

Quite interesting – thanks! I knew Darwin married his cousin, but did not know this topic was one of his motivators for his research.

Peace.

You’re trying too hard, Can-Can. Ya gotta let it develop, like, naturally, ya know? Don’t act wounded — that’s unbecoming of the intellectualized “Renaissance Man” persona you affect.

Good lord, man, you certainly just did demonstrate your utter ignorance of evolutionary genetics. That was classic, pure as the driven snow Darwinian theory. You are ignorant beyond belief.

Quite interesting – thanks! I knew Darwin married his cousin, but did not know this topic was one of his motivators for his research.

It wasn’t. Don’t fall prey to silly stuff like that.

The book was rather confusing by my way of thinking, but the analogy that the reviewer used is brilliant.

Very good points. Orthodox biologists must make a huge leap of blind faith in some mysterious power of matter to organize itself in order to exclude teleological considerations from their study of organisms.

You’re suggesting specific genes/alleles can’t be lost?

Yeah whatever, mate. I’ll have to defer to your expertise on this one. lol

You haven’t read enough of Reed’s columns to understand the question he’s asking. What he’s asking is how this happened by accident. Are you familiar with his example of metamorphosis in insects? What are the intermediate steps that lead from a life cycle with no metamorphosis to a life cycle with one?

Walk him back through each and every step of how the processes he mentioned came into being, step by step.

If you’re unable to do so, that’s exactly the problem he is pointing out.

You’re suggesting specific genes/alleles can’t be lost?

Classic, pure, Darwinian evolutionary theory. To the letter.

Feel free to chase exceptions. The model remains the model, and you remain a kvetching sore loser.

Prez elect Trump,
*I will rebuild our military. It will be so strong, and so powerful, and so great. It will be so powerful and so great that we’ll never have to use it. Nobody’s going to mess with us, folks. Nobody.*

Ian Fleming’s law of probability predicted
as much !
Q.E.D.
hehehehe

“Mr. Cabbagehead . . .”

I think Mr Cruciferous Vegetablehead here as proven the Finite Monkey Theorem: leave one monkey alone with a typewriter and he’ll type a lengthy load of nonsense.

“I’m no expert on evolution . . .”

Now there’s a tease that’s going to entice me to read your War And Peace-length epic on evolution.

“. . . but it makes sense to me.”

You should have saved yourself some time and stopped right there, because it’s just as valuable as the rest of what you wrote.

“Also, not all organs are of the same vitality. . . . But if you remove a finger . . . If you remove his tooth . . . Some organs are vital, some are not.”

Absolutely correct! Not all organs are of the same vitality, especially when they’re not organs at all, but are constituent parts of organ systems.

You might want to sit down for this Mr Cruciferous Vegetablehead: not one single person has read, or will read, the entirety of what you posted here.

Why people tend to be so nasty with the mistakes (even partial mistakes) of others***

huh* GOD*

someone*

Whether anon is correct in his position or not, his meaning in citing “just-so stories” is clear. Perhaps you need to look up the term? Or read the original source for it (Kipling)? Perhaps you should look up “solipsism” while you’re at it.

If other people understand his point (valid or not), it’s hardly rational to insist that his language is “nonsensical,” simply because you fail to make sense of it.

“keep in mind that 4 billion years is a length of time of which the human mind can speak, but not truly comprehend”

When ever people try to disprove evolution and say its too complex i try to explain how long ONE BILLION YEARS IS. Humans have been around roughly 100000 years. We’ve been recording our antics for only 10000 years. So 1/10 of the time we have been here, we have developed all our nifty gadgets, gizmos and intellectual property (languages,mathematics,art). In less then 20 thousand years, we went from living in caves to living in space.

Now, this timeframe (20,000 years) is 1/50 of (only) one million years. We need to go another 999 million years just to hit a billion. That means humans have been making stuff for only 1/50000 of one billion years. And thats just 1 billion. Earth is a few billion years old.

Its like future generations in 1000 years saying we couldnt have gone from living in caves to living in space in such a tiny time frame.

It’s important to keep in mind that mechanical analogies to living organisms are limited in ways that aren’t always obvious. Functional self-assembly results in different constraints than those imposed by the process of designing, then assembling externally from interchangeable parts.

My God, man! Have I died and gone to heaven? Finally another essentialist on Unz.com, and somebody who understands what metaphysics actually means! Of course, I am also a creationist in the sense that I accept de fide the belief that God created the heavens and the earth, but apart from that my understanding is indistinguishable from Aristotle’s, as was St. Thomas’.

I am rather annoyed that there is not a broader understanding of the fact that the entire organism is irreducible. Cut a dog in half, and you do not end up with half a dog. You end up with a dead piece of meat. There is no such thing as a partial dog, a pre-dog, a post-dog, or an approximate dog. There are only dogs and non-dogs. The substantial form—which alone makes a dog what it is rather than an indeterminate mass of cytoplasm—is monadic. The issue here is not so much irreducible complexity as it is irreducible simplicity. Organs, organ systems, biochemical pathways and the like, are nothing in themselves. They only acquire significance insofar as they are related to a living creature, the essence of which is point-like and indivisible. Clearly these essences could not have arisen from anything else, nor do they transform into anything else. They are either eternal elements of the logos (i.e. logoi spermatikoi or rationes seminales) or they were created by the First Cause, i.e. God—and as far as the natural reason is concerned, it makes absolutely no difference which one is the case, as indeed the natural reason alone is incapable of distinguishing between the two alternatives or their effects. The doctrine of creation concerns only the revealed faith; the natural reason alone is sufficient to demonstrate that evolution is impossible.

The “just-so stories” are like haggadah which are confabulations that make you look good. Anon in #20 was correct pointing out to the unverifiable stories:

“If one can produce twenty evolutionary explanations of the same adaptation, with no possibility of verifying any of them, one is writing fiction, not doing science. ”

I tried to reemphasized his point in comments #29 and #156.

No offense, but what you wrote is poetic but meaningless bullshit.

Here’s some actual science (and math) for you: if a billion monkeys were each typing a billion random letters each second, it would take them
231, 080, 957, 811, 190, 927, 269, 310, 943, 118, 483, 284, 648, 496, 845, 439, 628, 381, 252, 911, 541, 331, 943, 555, 697, 329, 212, 210, 172, 013, 971, 626, 240, 946, 988, 971, 751, 394, 837, 672, 615, 850, 148, 618, 263, 638, 353, 131, 386, 962, 373, 575, 159, 518, 819, 874, 308, 635, 067, 341, 309, 329, 249, 874, 178, 479, 566, 038, 914, 832, 646, 621, 137, 284, 333, 772, 314, 459, 034, 100, 053, 876, 949, 811, 722, 656, 280, 844, 471, 657, 984, 507, 140, 868, 872, 074, 738, 112, 013, 547, 919, 968, 047, 188, 518, 048, 212, 155, 498, 448, 337, 702, 206, 623, 211, 349, 884, 261, 431, 354, 161, 075, 265, 369, 049, 027, 518, 481, 664, 577, 556, 287, 008, 022, 255, 053, 265, 819, 995, 218, 943, 355, 184, 256, 370, 011, 068, 489, 993, 534, 650, 940, 409, 745, 215, 489, 528, 869, 936, 090, 378, 648, 461, 557, 547, 077, 736, 292, 017, 771, 802, 770, 318, 030, 566, 982, 534, 902, 015, 286, 884, 472, 795, 623, 515, 605, 996, 077, 207, 721, 431, 280, 055, 630, 198, 353, 990, 182, 017, 679, 645, 429, 986, 030, 013, 148, 682, 207, 445, 163, 351, 921, 499, 429, 124, 224, 185, 006, 641, 656, 758, 677, 652, 698, 179, 988, 809, 209, 686, 517, 444, 424, 880, 054, 612, 799, 473, 038, 467, 120, 062, 007, 815, 493, 638, 731, 511, 812, 204, 051, 911, 734, 939, 635, 619, 819, 731, 536, 776, 664, 692, 115, 625, 779, 716, 066, 116, 319, 206, 027, 730, 172, 287, 179, 710, 101, 352, 758, 632, 767, 433, 392, 008, 077, 643, 576, 522, 823, 038, 576, 216, 540, 493, 295, 724, 633, 562, 125, 452, 060, 730, 617, 440, 037, 804, 773, 537, 634, 251, 871, 362, 846, 694, 661, 432, 149, 773, 842, 764, 716, 793, 907, 899, 391, 314, 769, 070, 299, 263, 895, 596, 583, 745, 191, 038, 819, 661, 941, 799, 184, 255, 640, 401, 833, 774, 092, 322, 217, 538, 015, 387, 700, 398, 351, 974, 145, 750, 662, 566, 607, 402, 357, 336, 196, 406, 331, 131, 875, 592, 094, 720, 957, 143, 334, 164, 596, 247, 907, 613, 120, 196, 441, 627, 640, 638, 776, 207, 236, 180, 763, 146, 044, 537, 248, 696, 477, 705, 988, 370, 607, 069, 992, 219, 317, 646, 857, 496, 689, 885, 277, 297, 436, 557, 695, 326, 253, 170, 896, 269, 952, 448, 600, 832, 436, 654, 193, 186, 284, 977, 634, 312, 993, 476, 115, 858, 779, 843, 654, 036, 208, 550, 074, 951, 717, 040, 273, 454, 543, 399, 309, 908, 968, 853, 154, 334, 539, 334, 281, 483, 310, 552, 513, 876, 212, 801, 637, 002, 548, 388, 159, 420, 176, 979, 845, 376, 566, 000
billion years to randomly generate your post.

How much more complex is an amoeba compared to your post?

Whether anon is correct in his position or not, his meaning in citing “just-so stories” is clear. Perhaps you need to look up the term? Or read the original source for it (Kipling)? Perhaps you should look up “solipsism” while you’re at it.

Anon is incorrect in his position. His position, in fact, is nonsensical. You are indulging in silly, reactive, solipsistic and ineffective false accusations.

The “just-so stories” are like haggadah which are confabulations that make you look good. Anon in #20 was correct pointing out to the unverifiable stories:

Next, you’ll be telling us the Just So stories are all true.

Anon’s comment was nonsensical. When nonsense is posted, those who thrive on nonsense begin to wax eloquent about how accurate and illuminating that particular nonsense is. The nonsense remains nonsense.

Complete nonsense, fideist religion format.

When ever people try to disprove evolution and say its too complex i try to explain how long ONE BILLION YEARS IS.

Oh, yes, per the usual. Humans have no concept of how stupendously long a billion years is, much less 4 billion. There’s no point whatsoever in attempting to convince a True Believer of evolution — or of anything, really, other than something hokey like “the glory of God”. They believe pure rot, Snail — what possibility is there of them coming to understand anything, anything at all, really?

Just say “Ah, this illustrates the Glory of God. Praised be His Name.” They dig that shit — makes ’em roll over like petting a boxer puppy.

Excellent summation!

The rank superstition of materialist reductionism must of necessity exclude the vertical causality so evident and manifest in biological organisms; it cannot exclude entirely talk of the formal and the final without sounding ridiculous, so it implies that the latter are fortuitous products of the merely efficient and material, which is a true absurdity and a total inversion of the causal order.

The rank superstition of materialist reductionism must of necessity exclude the vertical causality so evident and manifest in biological organisms; it cannot exclude entirely talk of the formal and the final without sounding ridiculous

Nonsense. Aristotelian causality (which is what you reference with “formal” and “final”) is only a system for analysis. There is no requirement that all four “causes” must be present. Nor has the Aristotelian approach to causality been proven to be infallible.

Mister Nonsense, 😉

Kick Russ

Bobagem é bobagem.

Evolutionists’ hagagdah that confabulates stories how adaptation A evolved from adaptation B is just haggadah, confabulation, just-so story. These stories cannot be verified but still they are told with a straight face by evolutionist story tellers.

Anon was correct to point this fact out. And you Kip by screaming nonsense, nonsense, nonsense are just having a childish tantrum. You have to grow up and face the world w/o the just-so stories. That’s what grownups do.

Laughing out loud, you pathetic religionist schmigockel.

Are you the fellow who used to post under “MCPO USN”? You sound alike.
If you were accurate then, I salute your service.
Nevertheless, you really ought to cut down on this sort of trolling. What does insulting your interlocutors gain you? Laughs? Seriously, pal, go plant a whoopee cushion if you need to get your kicks this way.
Why do you keep changing your name? Though I’ll admit “Kip Russell” is a good one.

-(Prefers to remain anonymous)

Just say “Ah, this illustrates the Glory of God. Praised be His Name.” They dig that shit — makes ‘em roll over like petting a boxer puppy.

Surely you know Mr. Reed well enough to understand that this is nonsense.

You’ve got a nice handle now, btw.

-(Prefers to remain anonymous)

Check (should be easily Googled) the Swedish famine of maybe 1836.

Did you want to tell me all about your handle?

Haven’t I?

Was complimenting you on your taste in literature, dude.

-(Prefers to remain anonymous)

You’re that boringly hyperactive guy** huuumm

Evolutionists’ hagagdah that confabulates stories how adaptation A evolved from adaptation B is just haggadah, confabulation, just-so story. These stories cannot be verified but still they are told with a straight face by evolutionist story tellers.

Develop your argumentation, by now it’s just personal opinions.

Why evolution cannot be VERIFIED**

Pumpkins don’t grow on trees because God’s mercy spares the creatures that would be hit by their fall?

So how do we explain coconuts, then? They kill several people every year, IIRC. On the other hand, coconuts have been extensively selected and transported by humans, so they’re at least partially a product of human selection (somewhat-intelligent design). On the other other hand, so are pumpkins.

Evolutionary change can’t be run backwards, I’m afraid, even theoretically.

Which part of evolution? Say you have a fossil A and fossil B then what kind of story are you going to tell linking fossil A with fossil B. You can tell many stories. Which one of them can you verify as being true? From the fact that you cannot verify any of this stories it does not follow that ToE is wrong. They are just confabulations, making up stories that have the same point of departure: ToE is right so it follows that B must have evolved from A. These stories do not reinforce ToE. They are just-so stories, ad hoc fallacies.

“In science and philosophy, a just-so story, also called an ad hoc fallacy, is an unverifiable and unfalsifiable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

Don’t ask me. Ask the hypothetical scientist of Theory of Creation who came up with the explanation for pumpkins. Perhaps he did not know about coconuts. This was an example of just-so story which I made to illustrate the fact that the Theory of Evolution is polluted with similar just-so stories that cannot be verified and which do not contribute anything to the ToE. They are just like Jewish haggadah, and also like a form of propaganda. They have no empirical nor theoretical value. They are made for “children” so they can go to sleep at ease knowing that everything is explained, our belief system is sound, everything is in order, we have no unsolved problems so we do not have to worry. Every culture and every belief system is full of jut-so stories. The Theory of Evolution is full of them. The just-so stories serve only cultural purpose but they do not contribute to the Theory of Evolution itself because most of the just-so stories are unverifiable so they cannot be proven right or wrong. Still they make evolutions very content.

“In science and philosophy, a just-so story, also called an ad hoc fallacy, is an unverifiable and unfalsifiable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

“religionist schmigockel” ??? – Are you on some anti-religion crusade? Any criticism of ToE is perceived as an attack form religious ignoramuses? Man, you have a temperament of old Bolshevik hack. You should stay away from science. It ain’t for you.

What happened to MCPO USN? Expired on Nov. 12 and you were born on Nov. 9. Was it election related?

Yes, with respect to anti-religion, but not at the “crusade” level.

I have no objection to well-supported theory/hypothesis that contradicts evolution as presented by scientists from Darwin to the present. Or, for that matter, evidence-based theory that does not contradict evolution. Present good evidence, present supported hypotheses, and I will give them a fair shake. I do not regard religious explanation, or “space seed” explanation, as valid.

I have no idea to what you refer in regard to Nov. 12 and Nov. 9.

A story

You have the fossil of a marine species on the top of a mountain. How that fossil or rather, how that sea creature got up there *

This does not just seem like a story to me.

I think you need prove your points, or will be other confabulations.

I do not know what you want me to tell you or what is your objections. And I suspect that you do not know either. Pls put more effort in writing your comments. Then I may respond.

Best explanation is that it takes a long, long, long, long time — pretty much a basic premise of evolution.

But what is a long long …. time? If a Giraffe lives for 50 years (just to give an easy dividable number) and has 1000 Million years to evolve than this species have 20 million generations. Not very much to build such a complicated system simply by coincidence and selection.

Apart from the fact that there are very very very…. few positive mutations where are all the bad ones? If you , for example, design a wrist watch with this concept than you may have a watch at the end. But there must be gigantic steelyards of wrong ones. Where they are in nature?

Personal opinions

I THINK EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS IS JUST A CONFABULATIONs…

Argumentations

BECAUSE…

Be happy because i no have any 0,00002% of will to improve my napolitanic english. You and many others here can use this excuse to avoid debate with me.

If a Giraffe lives for 50 years (just to give an easy dividable number) and has 1000 Million years to evolve than this species have 20 million generations.

Don’t take this as an insult, but there is a signal embedded in your post that you probably lack the background necessary.

What is that? While giraffes may live 50 years, they are sexually mature and can reproduce by age four. Thus, not 1 million generations, but 12 million, at least. Furthermore, what was the age of sexual maturity for each species of the giraffe ancestors that preceded the modern giraffe? Even less?

If you turn to the HBD “theorists” who seem to abound in the alt-right organizations, you’ll find proponents of a belief that human natural selection can take place in 8 generations, perhaps fewer. And that’s humans.

I don’t mind if you prefer to reject evolution; that’s your option. But your challenge should begin with a solid basis.

I used in my comments the word “confabulation” several times. I do not think I used the phrase

“I THINK EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS IS JUST A CONFABULATIONs…”

I did the search of this page and I did not find it. So what is your point? You think I stated this phrase or is it you who is stating it? If the former, you are wrong, if the latter, why should I care.

Are you joking with this article?

Whoever runs this website needs to make sure articles like this never again appear on its pages if you ever want it to be taken seriously.

I’m far from joking. If this website wants any actual credibility, it cannot host articles espousing creationism. It just can’t.

This article does not espouse creationism. But you on the other hand suffer from the dogmatic ossification of the brain.

So explain for us what do you think about evolution via objective ways.

Amphibians are another example of how evolution can happen. They have an aquatic phase, when they are born, and when they start to develop they will losing those characteristics, which become adapted to live on dry land.

There is plenty of evidence, I would not call evolution, necessarily, but continuity in the mental and physiological transformations of / among the life forms, links between all life forms.

For example, human fetuses in their early stages are very similar to the fetuses of many other species.

The theory of evolution is not based on weak evidence. And this is one of the reasons to be considered as one of the greatest discoveries of the human being.

But I’m not understanding your point here, if you’re clearer maybe I’ll understand.

I need to know who I’m talking to. Are you religious*

Thus, not 1 million generations, but 12 million, at least. Furthermore, what was the age of sexual maturity for each species of the giraffe ancestors that preceded the modern giraffe? Even less?

1 million or 12 million or 12 billion generations — there’s no difference, that is not enough for random drift to do its magic.

See my post above; if evolution is random, then there is not enough time or matter in a universe of universes to create even one giraffe.

Do the math, a simple highschool-level calculation with show you that you are off by trillions of orders of magnitude.

P.S. Darwinian evolution violates the Central Limit Theorem. Biologists really should learn some basic statistics.

1 million or 12 million or 12 billion generations — there’s no difference, that is not enough for random drift to do its magic.

Yes, it is. Sorry. Facts talk, bullshit walks.

Pick your preferred wacko, space-cadet, or jesus-worshipping alternative — it’s your life, and frankly, I just don’t give a damn about you tailless squirrels.

Oh, and while you’re at it, prove the central limit theorem, and all other probability theory.

”See my post above; if evolution is random, then there is not enough time or matter in a universe of universes to create even one giraffe.”

Evolution can’t be completely random if it is the continuity of physiological and psychological transformations among species…

What we can conclude, or not, is

Humans might or might not have ” appeared ”, but when the evolutionary path began to be traced in this direction, the human being became a reality, than just a possibility. The level of macro-randomness is high when a species is undergoing transformations toward speciation. My opinion.

Evolution always has a starting point, and this starting point determines, possibly, a good part of its trajectory of transformations.

”You need evolve… but evolve from what*”

The micro-randomness/mutability is higher or possibly higher all the time, specially in/for long-term instable environments.

Santoculto,

I haven’t read your whole comment, so I apologize if I misunderstand.

Surely, though

I need to know who I’m talking to. Are you religious*

is absurd? At most it introduces a red herring into the discussion.

Take it that I am a Buddhist (Theravada, naturally). How does this affect your argument?

On another note, what do the asterisks (one or two) at the end of your sentences mean? Is it a Portuguese orthographical convention?

RSDB

I don’t see any semantic issues with the phrase.

I should have realized -in fact I would usually be aware- that “just-so story” is a trigger phrase for some people. And “lazy” is unnecessarily pejorative, and “pointless” possibly so. Had I been thinking carefully about whom I might offend, I would have used different phrasing.

Nevertheless, what is once said cannot be unsaid, and I think the intended meaning of the phrase you quoted can be easily deciphered.

Gould (and Lewontin) agrees with me, see below:

https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

RSDB

Thanks for the support. I’m not sure I make a good point, that is, I certainly don’t in the sense of making an original one; I’m just repeating a common observation.

RSDB

Probably it s not original but it is a very good point and people should be made aware of its validity. The preponderance of the just-so stories concocted by evolutionist is overwhelming but most of them are unverifiable. We have similar situation in global warming. Every hurricane or dead polar bear is attributed to it. This is not science. It’s a propaganda. I believe in ToE and believe in global warming but I am offended by inflated and unwarranted stories being told just to propagandize the TOE or GW.

“I have no idea to what you refer in regard to Nov. 12 and Nov. 9.” You think we are stupid? On Now. 9 kip was born and Nov. 12 MCPO USN posted his last comment. Why do you change identities while you are unable change styles and personality?

Looks like the admin caught up with you.

I asked for Utu, not for you, sorry.

Are you Utu*

* = ?

So its scientific because you use commas? Monkeys randomly typing is a terrible analogy. They cant make Shakespeare, they cant write posts on unz.

Although, I do appreciate you saying my post was “poetic”.

Thanks Fred.
You done edumacated me on IC now.

It’s always good to see someone with brains stand up to the evolution commissars.
The authoritarian nature of the theory’s promotion is such a real deterrent to making converts: Whenever I see academics browbeat someone for disagreeing with them, I have a strong feeling their argument is lacking somewhere.

“Whenever I see academics browbeat someone for disagreeing with them, I have a strong feeling their argument is lacking somewhere.” – Bing Bang, Relativity, Global Warming

No, the “admin”, although busybodying to absolute hellandgone, did not catch up to me.

Put your real name up there, chump. Prove something. Otherwise, cram it.