Whale Evolution vs. The Fossil Record: The Video

_{Jonathan McLatchie

October 25, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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As well dmullenix, (I'm pretending you will be reasonable), quantum mechanics is only counter-intuitive for the atheist who refuses to admit the absurdity of his materialistic beliefs, and to see the Theistic foundation of reality!!!bornagain77_{November 4, 2011
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dmullenix, you act as if neo-Darwinism is not pseudo-science??? Great prove it to me with actual evidence instead of demeaning anyone who disagrees with your materialistic atheism!!!,,, And what is really incredible is that Boltzmann’s Brains flows out of your very own atheistic materialistic philosophy, and you without even a hint that you are aware of what you are doing, have the audacity (or sheer ignorance) to ask me to defend a postulation that arises from your atheism. It would be absolutely funny, save for the fact that I am sure you think you are being reasonable by asking me to defend the absurdity of your very own atheism. ,,, Truly I could not write a better comedy!!!bornagain77_{November 4, 2011
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Grand slam! I point out that the “Journal of Scientific Exploration” is a crank publication and you “rebut” that claim with citations to a Young Earth Creationist web site, a literature professor whose ignorance of science was just about complete and whose main strength as an amateur theologian was his complete ignorance of the previous 100 years of theological thought and Ellis Washington, mainstay of World Nut Daily and a man who praised Michael Savage so extravagantly that you’d almost think he was on Savage’s payroll – as he turned out to be. You would have been better off if you’d just stuck with The Journal. Ditto with references to your own threads. Alain Aspect, on the other hand, is correct. The problem with quantum mechanics is, as I’ve said here before, the fact that it’s so different from the macro world that we live in that we have no intuitive way of picturing it. This opens the door to all sorts of extravagant fantasies. Meanwhile, you continue to dodge my question. In 4.1, you quote Bruce Gordon talking about “Boltzmann’s Brains”. I ask again, do you believe that you and everybody else on earth is a Boltzmann Brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum? Can you explain why Gordon seems to think that the multiverse makes 6 billion such brains AND the universe more likely than the universe and six billion brains all produced by living organisms? I’d really like to know how you swing that one.dmullenix_{November 4, 2011
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That (UFOs, fake medicine and fake energy schemes) is a strange criticism coming from someone who dogmatically believes in the 'magic' of neo-Darwinism:
Is evolution pseudoscience? Excerpt:,,, Thus, of the ten characteristics of pseudoscience listed in the Skeptic’s Dictionary, evolution meets nine. Few other?pseudosciences — astrology, astral projection, alien abduction, crystal power, or whatever — would meet so many. http://creation.com/is-evolution-pseudoscience C.S. Lewis: creationist and anti-evolutionist Excerpt: "In 1951 C S Lewis wrote that evolution was “the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives” and modern civilization. Evolution, Lewis explained, is a picture of reality that has resulted from imagination and is “not the logical result of what is vaguely called ‘modern science’.” http://creation.com/c-s-lewis Darwin's diabolical delusions - Ellis Washington - September 2011 Excerpt: Tragically, for over 150 years since the publication of Darwin's diabolical, anti-scientific book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," nonpartisan science, truth, logic and deductive reasoning have been ruthlessly suppressed and replaced with state-funded Darwinist propaganda, groupthink, education atheism, liberal fascism and Machiavellian tactics as demonstrated in the Sewell case representing the ongoing battles between the Darwin Gestapo and Intelligent Design scientists. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=343445
dmullenix, perhaps you would care to justify your use of 'science', in the first place, from a materialistic viewpoint, before presuming, prior to investigation, that you have all the answers in your atheistic materialism???
It is very ironic that the ones who claim that belief in God is ‘anti-science’, (which is their code word for anyone not believing in their religious viewpoint of atheistic materialism), do not realize that ‘science’, which they believe they are the valiant defenders of, is not even possible without God!; https://uncommondescent.com/science/what-motivates-the-claim-that-the-united-states-is-anti-science/comment-page-1/#comment-407278
Further notes:
The main difficulty in popularizing quantum physics is that we do not really know how to make images of it in our world. In this sense it is really counterintuitive. Alain Aspect - Interview on the occasion of the CNRS Gold Medal Award Ceremony in December 2005. Quantum mind–body problem Parallels between quantum mechanics and mind/body dualism were first drawn by the founders of quantum mechanics including Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, and Eugene Wigner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind%E2%80%93body_problem "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays"; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963.
Here is the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries:
Eugene Wigner Excerpt: To express this basic experience in a more direct way: the world does not have a privileged center, there is no absolute rest, preferred direction, unique origin of calendar time, even left and right seem to be rather symmetric. The interference of electrons, photons, neutrons has indicated that the state of a particle can be described by a vector possessing a certain number of components. As the observer is replaced by another observer (working elsewhere, looking at a different direction, using another clock, perhaps being left-handed), the state of the very same particle is described by another vector, obtained from the previous vector by multiplying it with a matrix. This matrix transfers from one observer to another. http://www.reak.bme.hu/Wigner_Course/WignerBio/wb1.htm
i.e. In the experiment the 'world' (i.e. the universe) does not have a ‘privileged center’. Yet strangely, the conscious observer does exhibit a 'privileged center'. This is since the 'matrix', which determines which vector will be used to describe the particle in the experiment, is 'observer-centric' in its origination! Thus explaining Wigner’s dramatic statement, “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”bornagain77_{November 3, 2011
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Let's hear what Alain Aspect has to say about the mind and physics, not somebody writing in the "Journal of Scientific Exploration", a magazine that specializes in "... original research on consciousness, quantum and biophysics, unexplained aerial phenomena, alternative medicine, new energy, sociology, psychology, and much more." In other words, in a "scientific journal" that is not interested in UFOs, fake medicine and fake energy schemes. http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/dmullenix_{November 3, 2011
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dmullenix as to;
BA77?s “physics” has little to do with the universe outside his head.
Actually it is the person who refuses to accept God that ends up with that view of reality:
Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
bornagain77_{November 2, 2011
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BA77's "physics" has little to do with the universe outside his head.dmullenix_{November 2, 2011
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Nested hierarchies are based on traits/ characteristics. And seeing that with evolution there isn't any directeion- traits and characteristics can be lost or gained- no direction with evolution- that means no nested hierarchy. Venn diagrams overlap and nested hierarchies do not allow for overlapping. In order for there to be a nested hierarchy your "A" would have to consist of and contain all of its children. IOW you don't understand the concept. Common descent can't be the most parsimonious because you don't have any idea what is involved.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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OK I got it- I was very vague- my point is wjat makes a whale a whale isn't in the genome- the sperm and egg, especially the egg, contain more than their share of the genome. For example we cannot take a hippo genome, place it into a whale's egg and get a hippo.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph:
Common descent does not predict a nested hierarchy.
Yes, it does, absolutely. Think Venn diagrams. Sex muddies the waters, (but only slightly), so consider an asexual lineage of individuals. The parent is A. It has two daughters, A1 and A2. A1 has two daughters A11 and A12. A2 has two daughters A21 and A22. Now if you write down all the organisms, in set form, based on thiis known pattern of descent, you have {A{A1{A11 A12}A2{A21 A22}}}. That is a nested hierarchy, drawn by common descent. You can close up the nested brackets to make Venn diagram circles, and none of the circles overlaps. If we had labels at each node that were passed on only to descendants, we could recover the nested hierarchy from these labels, even if we did not know that that set was commonly descended. If you just grabbed 7 random organisms, they would not be expected to form a nested hierarchy. Now, if whole species descended in that branching 'parent-child' manner, and we could find multiple genetic labels not shared by all the species in the group, we could use them to see if they followed the pattern predicted by common descent, or some other pattern (the latter is much more likely, statistically). An excellent label is one of those SINE transposons, because they are just there or not. If you simply write down all the organisms in your study, and draw Venn diagrams around them on the basis of their possession of Label 1, Label 2, Label 3 etc, and the circles do not overlap (ie they only give concentric circles, not overlaps) then you have the clear signal of common descent.
Also ID is not anti-evolution, meaning it is an evolutionary process. Convergence refutes the claim that only common descent can explain something.
Only if you can SHOW it! Unless there is a reason to suspect convergence (better than some desperate need to remain in denial about common descent), then common descent is the most parsimonious explanation for a nested hierarchy of multiple character states, over highly unlikely convergence of every single one on the same apparent hierarchy.
You must be really ignorant to not understand that.
You just can't help it, can you? Yes Joseph, I am really, really ignorant.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph, I can't compete with you in the twisting and misrepresenting department. I am perfectly prepared to discuss in an adult manner, but you insist on throwing in fluff like "fool", "moron", "... are you too stupid to understand that", "are you ignorant of xxx too?" and so on. You think that elevates the debate? I've taken quite a bit of trouble to try and explain the biological perspective behind common-descent studies. You dismiss the whole thing out of hand, which is OK, but you seem to think that not just me, but everyone doing those studies, plus all reviewers, is biologically ignorant. And you aren't. I can only go on what you say. In 33.1.1, you said "it" [what makes a whale a whale] isn't in the genome", and immediately followed that with "it [what makes a whale a whale] would be some place else in the cell, ie egg and sperm.". I just don't really know how to read that. If we were talking of mitochondrial genes, or epigenetics, I might have understood "someplace else in the cell", but when you talk of sperm and eggs ...
You do realize that the egg and sperm contain more than 1/2 of the genome- right?
Again, not sure how to read that. I take the genome of a eukaryotic organism to consist of one set of 2n diploid chromosomes and one mitochondrial chromosome. That genome is repeated massively in development - but the developmental program, that ultimately results in an entity that is identifiably a whale, resides within that 2n+m genome. Epigenetic and developmental factors are specified by genetic ones.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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Common descent does not predict a nested hierarchy. Also ID is not anti-evolution, meaning it is an evolutionary process. Convergence refutes the claim that only common descent can explain something. You must be really ignorant to not understand that.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Exceot you don’t have any idea what pattern common descent would make. It would make patterns of nested hierarchy that would enable a robust phylogenetic tree to be constructed. Chas:As for “convergence”, what the heck do you mean? Joseph: Are you ignorant of convergence too? I know exactly what convergence means. I was enquiring what you mean. It is an evolutionary process, which seems an odd thing to invoke in support of evolution-denial.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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chas d:
You think sperm and eggs are ‘someplace else in the cell?’
Nope but thanks for proving that you can misrepresent and twist with the best of the evotards. You do realize that the egg and sperm contain more than 1/2 of the genome- right? Or are you also ignorant of all biology?Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph Nope- what makes a whale a whale isn’t in the genome. Chas: Really? Where is it then? Joseph: Really, it would be some place else in the cell, ie egg and sperm. Honestly? You think sperm and eggs are 'someplace else in the cell?'. And the genome someplace else again? OK, I will stop here, you have out-dumbed me. Like GinoB said ... I do hope it was a joke! Just hilarious. You are bringing ID into disrepute. Learn some biology ... please!Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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Nope- what makes a whale a whale isn’t in the genome.
Really? Where is it then?
Really, it would be some place else in the cell, ie egg and sperm. Ya see no one can say that an organism is the sum of its genome and we have data that suggests otherwise. And we are STILL waiting for positive evidence that changes in the genome can lead to the phyiological and anatomical changes required.
A designer could make changes in the genome.
And we are STILL waiting for positive evidence for your claims.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Chas D:
If they were designed in from the start, the designer WANTS us to see common descent, because that, among all the patterns they could have followed, is the pattern they follow.
Exceot you don't have any idea what pattern common descent would make. Blind, undirected processes wouldn't be expected to make any recognizeable pattern.
As for “convergence”, what the heck do you mean?
Are you ignorant of convergence too?
The fact is that they are there, and give the common-descent signal, even if they arose by a completely different means.
It is only a common descent signal to people who are already fooled. Occam's razor? Well it would favor ONE design over multiple just-so accidents. IOW only a fool who wants to see common descnet sees common descent.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Nope- what makes a whale a whale isn’t in the genome. Really? Where is it then? And we are STILL waiting for positive evidence that changes in the genome can lead to the phyiological and anatomical changes required. A designer could make changes in the genome. Care to provide any positive evidence for that?Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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Chas D:
‘Whale’ is a category that we humans apply to a particular set of living organisms, and to sundry fossil ones as well.
So what? That doesn't support your nonsense that a whale is a sum of its traits.
Do you think there is something isolatable in the genome of each whale species that ‘makes a whale a whale’, independently of our human notions?
Nope- what makes a whale a whale isn't in the genome. And we are STILL waiting for positive evidence that changes in the genome can lead to the phyiological and anatomical changes required.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph: There isn’t any reason for A) a mistake to become fixed in a population nor B) a mistake to hang around after millions of generations so it ccan be used as a genetic marker. Chas: The existence of these genetic markers rather contradicts your claim. Joseph: No, it does not. Ya see these alleged mistakes may not be mistakes at all and could have been designed in from the start OR convergence can account for them. Oh, for goodness' sake! As I have said, whether or not they are ‘mistakes’ is completely immaterial. And there is a hell of a lot of "could have" in that sentence - a leprechaun could have made them, or me in my time machine. What is that refrain about POSITIVE evidence that rings in my ears? If they were designed in from the start, the designer WANTS us to see common descent, because that, among all the patterns they could have followed, is the pattern they follow. But you are too clever by half to be fooled by this sneaky designer! As for "convergence", what the heck do you mean? Some kind of evolutionary process? Are you really invoking evolution to avoid a conclusion on evolution? The fact is that they are there, and give the common-descent signal, even if they arose by a completely different means. And again there isn’t any reason to expect any pattern from blind, undirected chemical processes. YOU say only common descent can cause his but you don;’t have anything to support that claim- it is unscientific. Oh, that repetitive bleat about what is and isn’t ‘scientific’. From someone who insists that an unknown and unspecified designer intervened at unknown and unspecified points in history to cause unknown and unspecified changes by an unknown and unspecified mechanism. The signal of ‘Common Descent’ is not a cause, but an effect. SOMETHING caused it. A group of organisms whose DNA arose through common descent would be expected to display particular patterns betraying that, and when we look to see IF that signal is present or not, we find it. This says NOTHING about how that signal arose – it doesn’t even prove that the DNA was copied - but simply that the signal is there, unambiguously. It is hard to escape the conclusion that it was copied, and so that is what scientists plump for. But equally, a designer may have implanted it to cover his tracks – but you know better, of course, you see right through his subterfuge to the even clearer signal of that designer, caught in the beam of your intellect. Or you argue for convergence – I don’t think you even know what you’re arguing for here, I think it’s just a word you heard Casey Luskin use once. You can’t look at a large set of data from two genomes and say “convergence!” for each and every gene. And why each and every gene should converge on a common signal of common descent … you heard of Occam’s Razor? Convergence breaks down particularly for the transposons, because we are looking simply at the digital signal of presence or absence – it doesn’t matter what they are or what they do, ‘mistake’ or otherwise. The “attractors” of convergence are binary: the “haves” and the “have-nots”. You don’t even begin to explain how deer, cows, sheep, hippos and whales converge on the “haves”, while every organism converges on “have-nots”, for a particular SINE transposon, or any other sets we could examine.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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Chas D:
What allows it is the fact that genomes from multiple species contain a sufficient degree of similarity as not to prevent it!
Spo all you have is a bald assertion, got it. Positive evidence that changes in the genomes can account for the physiological and anatomical changes required. To date all you can do is assume common ancestry and look for what looks like confirming evidence to you.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph And you still don’t know what makes a whale a whale and without that you don’t have any science. Chas What makes a whale a whale is a set of diagnostic features that enable its placement in the Cetacea, superfamily Cetartiodactyla. Joseph Good thing you aren’t a teacher as that is about the stupidest thing I have ever read. You evos will just say anything in order to sound like you know what you are talking about. A whale is the sum of its traits!? Thanks for the laugh. 'Whale' is a category that we humans apply to a particular set of living organisms, and to sundry fossil ones as well. Do you think there is something isolatable in the genome of each whale species that 'makes a whale a whale', independently of our human notions? Well I guess you probably do, in some vague Platonic God's-blueprint sort of way. I’d like to see some positive evidence of the location of such an essence, intra- or extragenomic.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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ChasD: But what would prevent us from extending this method [marker-targeted PCR] out, other than an a priori assumption that common descent does not happen? Joseph: What allows it? What allows it is the fact that genomes from multiple species contain a sufficient degree of similarity as not to prevent it! If genomes were totally unalike - as unalike as the books on a library shelf - you could not perform this kind of analysis on them. But they are much more like multiple editions of the same book, genetically. Again you sem to be ignorant of science in that YOU need POSITIVE evidence. POSITIVE evidence for what? The positive evidence that these analyses can be performed on different genomes is the fact that there are many thousands of papers published doing exactly that. That kind of suggests that it is 'allowed' by the materials we have available - even that is telling.Chas D_{October 31, 2011
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GinoB:
And moron, if the genetic info was already there but just not expressed then the tails are atavistic by definition.
That is not the definition- also primate tails have bones inside of them, yet no bones in these human tails which means they can't be atavistic. IOW Gino- you are ignorant and a liar.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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Joseph
The info was already there. Ya see tails are part of the developmental process.
Go ahead, explain why human fetuses have a tail in the development process. And moron, if the genetic info was already there but just not expressed then the tails are atavistic by definition. You just stuck your other foot in your mouth too.GinoB_{October 31, 2011
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GinoB, I told YOU the definition of an atavism. YOU choked on it. The studies said there was a tail. They did not say it was an atavism. Ya see unlike you scientists know humans did not evolve from a population of tailed organisms.
Then where did the ‘information’ to build a human tail complete with muscles, blood vessels, and nerves come from Joseph?
Is THAT your argument? Man you have to be one of the dumbest people ever. The info was already there. Ya see tails are part of the developmental process.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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JosephOctober 31, 2011 at 4:59 am
THAT is the DEFINITION of the word.
That's right moron, exactly as I've been telling you. You finally got something in evolutionarily biology correct.
How do you know it is an atavistic tail?
I just showed you several scientific studies on the subject. You want to demonstrate for us that the studies got it all wrong?
It could be just a tail- it does NOT have to be atavistic. Or are you that stupid that you cannot grasp that simple fact?
Then where did the 'information' to build a human tail complete with muscles, blood vessels, and nerves come from Joseph? Keep sticking that foot deeper and deeper into your mouth.GinoB_{October 31, 2011
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Physics is yet another scientific venue that provides evidence for ID...Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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There you go with your private physics again, complete with Bible verse and a video. Meanwhile, in this universe, which is run by the old fashioned type of physics which is independent of your beliefs, my question remains unanswered: Do you think you're a Boltzmann brain?dmullenix_{October 31, 2011
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ChasD:
But what would prevent us from extending this method out, other than an a priori assumption that common descent does not happen?
What allows it? Again you sem to be ignorant of science in that YOU need POSITIVE evidence. And you still don’t know what makes a whale a whale and without that you don’t have any science.
What makes a whale a whale is a set of diagnostic features that enable its placement in the Cetacea, superfamily Cetartiodactyla.
Good thing you aren't a teacher as that is about the stupidest thing I have ever read. You evos will just say anything in order to sound like you know what you are talking about. A whale is the sum of its traits!? Thanks for the laugh... There isn’t any reason for A) a mistake to become fixed in a population nor B) a mistake to hang around after millions of generations so it ccan be used as a genetic marker. ?
The existence of these genetic markers rather contradicts your claim.
No, it does not. Ya see these alleged mistakes may not be mistakes at all and could have been designed in from the start OR convergence can account for them. And again there isn't any reason to expect any pattern from blind, undirected chemical processes. YOU say only common descent can cause his but you don;'t have anything to support that claim- it is unscientific.Joseph_{October 31, 2011
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