The Problem With Evolution- Part 1, Ape to Man Ridiculousness

[Starise]

4 hours ago, teddyv said:

The use of "kind" as used by creationists like AiG is just as, if not more, squishy than the modern use of species. The bird kind will include an ostrich and a finch. 

Remember, the reason this is done is because the ark will not hold all the current species. So they create arbitrary groups of animals as sort of "master" kinds which then speciate in a couple thousand years to what we see today.

Examples of this squishyness please? 

I can certainly see there would have maybe been less species at the time of the flood according to your definition of it.

[teddyv]

3 minutes ago, Starise said:

Examples of this squishyness please? 

I can certainly see there would have maybe been less species at the time of the flood according to your definition of it.

I was responding to Tristen as he was making the comment that finches beget finches and applying the term "kind" to that level.

Tristen may have his own independent reasoning behind that and don't want to suggest he has to agree with other creationists, but, for example, AiG does not use "kind" at such a level. AiG have created kinds, generally on a family/genus level, like "dog", "cat", "bird" and "dinosaur" etc.. So in the bird kind, we have such creatures as ostriches and finches as part of that group. I think we can safely say that these are not going to interbreed, nor are they capable - due to geographical and physiological issues. They are clearly different species.

AiG has a progenitor, essentially a last common ancestor for the birds, from which all current species have derived. All current species must have arisen from this progenitor within the last couple of thousand years. Further, the Bible (Job) even mentions ostriches, so we know that ostriches were in their present form back then. That puts them as evolved from this original version only maybe about a 100o years from the Flood.

This hyper-speciation model of AiG seems a bit tenuous. I think speciation based on their model requires something like 40 new species per year. I don't see that happening.

[Starise]

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

But as you learned, slightly different from either parent.    And that's why we have things that look like pigs, that are genetically very close to pigs, but aren't pigs.   It's what Darwin predicted.   Lot's more of this.  Would you like to learn more?

Well sure, some animals look simiar to other animals and aren't in the same group. Like us and apes for instance.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Genesis 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.  25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

So it doesn't say what you said it says.

Then please explain how a passage so obvious says something else in your opinion. It says what it says, and what it say is obvious. Is this getting silly or what?

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

And what it doesn't say, is that animals reproduce according to kind.   That's man's revision of scripture.

This isn't making any logical sense at all.No revisions happened here.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

As you have seen, it is reality.

What you/they call survuival of the fittest is really preprogrammed swing in mechanisms to accomodate for potential changes in their environment. Didn't you read my previous comments? I covered this already. Lions eat gazelles. This is a planned event. Lions need food and numbers of gazelles would out grow the environment if this did happen. This is called balance, not survival of the fittest.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

In fact, God gave living things the means to change over time to adapt to new environments.   He didn't build limits into DNA, so it can change over time in any way that permits stepwise changes.    There is no barrier to such variation.    This is what concerns creationists, I think.  A God that powerful and wise is a bit too much for some of them.

Yes I agree, however this has limits within the kind. The concept gets taken way to far into areas where it simply doesn't happen. Inferring creationists are "concerned" is lost on me. Are you a creationist? 

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

That's the point; it doesn't "lock."   It continues to vary and over time, we see new species arise as a result.   As we discussed, even many YE creationists now admit speciation.   Since it's observed to happen there's really no point in denying it.

I am trying to further this discussion. In  repeatedly bringing up species as a way to explain kind to other kind evolution, you are jumping the tracks. "Lock" might have been too rigid, there is a flexibility of animals to change some extent. It does have limits.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

That's a testable belief.  Show us an organism that can't vary any further.   Show us the genetic limits you think exist.   What do you have?

Remember, Darwin predicted that it would be very hard to identify closely-related species because the process of evolution would produce all sorts of transitional forms.  If creationism were true, this would not be the case, and species could easily be defined.

The proof is in looking at animals over thousands of years from different climes. If you dig up a cat in an Egyptian tomb it's still a cat just like modern cats. Cats in Siberia will have thicker coats. Have you ever seen a cat with a horn? How about a cat with fins? Nope.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

I've cited the Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, and YE creationist Kurt Wise.   He admits that those transitional forms are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."  

And none of them are "evolutionists."

While I might reference other ideas on subjects, I never marry myself to any of them. We have brains and access to data, what make it more complicated. I want to arrive at the best conclusions aside from what anyone else believes or thinks.

And besides we are back to macro evolution again which hasn't shown itself pertenant to kind to other kind evolution. So some guy who is a part of AIG or CR, says, " Look! Cats in siberia have thick fur that adapted to conditions." You mean they just figured that out?

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Some point in our evolution, there was a chromosome fusion, so we have one less chromosome than other apes.   Which means we can't interbreed, even if we are genetically very close to chimpanzees.    Would you like to learn how we know about that fusion?

Nada. The only fusion I see going on here is confusion.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Spiritually.   Not physically.   We are like God in our minds and souls, not in our bodies.

How can you prove that? 

 

[Starise]

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Theories need evidence.   Specifically, to qualify as a theory, it must make testable predictions that are repeatedly verified by evidence.   For example, the huge number of transitional fossils predicted by Darwin, but contrary to creationist doctrine.

The observed action of natural selection.    The observed evolution of new species.   That kind of thing.  

Not necessarily. I could theorize most anything with no basis whatsoever and it would be a theory. Who approves these theories? Other theorists. Sounds about rock solid to me.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Sure.   H. erectus.   Pretty much human in almost every aspect but the skull.   And later H. erectus are just about impossible to differentiate from archaic H. sapiens.

Java Man (Homo erectus): Discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1891 in Indonesia. Originally named Pithecanthropus erectus. Piltdown Man: A set of bones found in 1912 thought to be the "missing link" between ape and man. Eventually revealed to be a hoax. 

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Actually, we are apes.   Humans and chimpanzees are more closely related to each other than either is related to other apes.

 I'm not an ape. I came from Adam the first man as did all other men.

Quote

All living things ultimately come from the Earth.   You're trying to read too much into an allegory and missing the whole point.   God gave a pair of humans an immortal soul and thus made us different from the other animals.

No I'm simply following the fact trail. If Adam was an allegory, then how do you explain Adam's family tree in chapter 5? This would make the rest of the OT an allegory.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

I'm wondering if you know what you meant.    If you are a Christian, then I'm here because God directly gave me an immortal soul.    My body is incidental, but it was produced naturally, as human bodies have always been produced.

Well "produced" is an interesting term term for how we get here. Production can be a lot of fun!

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

That's more like humans first appeared about then.   The first apes were earlier.   DNA evidence indicates that apes diverged from cercopithecoids about 20 to 25 million years ago. (Barbarian checks)...

A new fossil find has supported that prediction:

Oldest Fossils Reveal When Apes & Monkeys First Diverged

https://www.livescience.com/32029-oldest-monkey-fossil-found.html

Ape to monkey splits are still inside the kind. We are diverging from the subject by continually injecting inter kind species changes.

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

"Kinds" is a vague religious term without a scientific definition.  Within humans, for example there are anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one yet to be found kind.    Yet they are all the same species, H. sapiens.

So only religious people used the word kind? C'mon man ! What do you take me for?

1 hour ago, The Barbarian said:

Since "kind" can refer to different populations of H. sapiens, it doesn't seem like a useful term.    Give us a testable definition of "kind" and we'll use that.

Kind- a group of people or things having similar characteristics.

 

 

 

[The Barbarian]

14 minutes ago, Starise said:

Well sure, some animals look simiar to other animals and aren't in the same group. Like us and apes for instance.

Not just look similar.   That would be confusing analogy to homology.   Our bodies are homologous to bodies of other apes because we have a common ancestor.   But there's more than that.  Our genes show the same homologies.

16 minutes ago, Starise said:

Then please explain how a passage so obvious says something else in your opinion.

What it doesn't say, is that animals reproduce according to kind.   I've shown you this several times.   It doesn't say what you want it to day, but you keep telling me that it does.

17 minutes ago, Starise said:

This isn't making any logical sense at all.

Right.   It doesn't say that animals reproduce according to kind.

18 minutes ago, Starise said:

What you/they call survuival of the fittest is really preprogrammed swing in mechanisms to accomodate for potential changes in their environment.

If we take away the word salad, we get "Those with traits that favor survival tend to live to reproduce.  Those with traits that don't favor survival, don't.   Which is precisely what Darwin said.  There is no "programming."    He created nature to work this way

28 minutes ago, Starise said:

Yes I agree, however this has limits within the kind.

But you can't show us those supposed "limits."   Because they are religious beliefs, not observed facts. 

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

I am trying to further this discussion. In  repeatedly bringing up species as a way to explain kind to other kind evolution,

Not just another kind; an entirely different reproductively isolated species.   Modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans are kinds of H. sapiens.   Speciation is a step beyond kinds.

32 minutes ago, Starise said:

"Lock" might have been too rigid, there is a flexibility of animals to change some extent. It does have limits.

Show us the mechanisms for that "lock."

33 minutes ago, Starise said:

The proof is in looking at animals over thousands of years from different climes. If you dig up a cat in an Egyptian tomb it's still a cat just like modern cats.

So you reject the idea that all cats today evolved from a single "cat kind" on the Ark just a few thousand years ago?   Lions, cheetahs, Siamese, ocelots, etc.   Looks like a huge amount of evolution to me.   Assuming you believe the Ark flood was a real event.

35 minutes ago, Starise said:

I've cited the Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, and YE creationist Kurt Wise.   He admits that those transitional forms are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."  

And none of them are "evolutionists."

 

36 minutes ago, Starise said:

And besides we are back to macro evolution again which hasn't shown itself pertenant to kind to other kind evolution.

As you see, there were different kinds of H. sapiens.   We're talking about something that's farther than mere kinds.

Some point in our evolution, there was a chromosome fusion, so we have one less chromosome than other apes.   Which means we can't interbreed, even if we are genetically very close to chimpanzees.    Would you like to learn how we know about that fusion?

37 minutes ago, Starise said:

Nada. The only fusion I see going on here is confusion.

Maybe this will help clear it up:

Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in 2q13–2q14.1 and Paralogous Regions on Other Human Chromosomes

Genome Res. 2002 Nov; 12(11): 1651–1662.

Notice that the fused chromosome still has remains of the centromere that was lost in the fusion.   Pretty hard to ignore that kind of evidence.

We are like God in our minds and souls, not in our bodies.

43 minutes ago, Starise said:

How can you prove that? 

Jesus says that God is a spirit.  And he says a spirit has no body.   God says that when he breathed a soul into man, he became a living soul.

I believe God.  We all should.

 

[teddyv]

26 minutes ago, Starise said:

Not necessarily. I could theorize most anything with no basis whatsoever and it would be a theory. Who approves these theories? Other theorists. Sounds about rock solid to me.

Your are using theory in the colloquial sense here, not the stricter scientific sense. Just speculating about something and calling it a theory does not equate whatever that is to say Plate Tectonic theory.

[The Barbarian]

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

Not necessarily. I could theorize most anything with no basis whatsoever and it would be a theory.

No.   In science a theory is an idea or group of ideas that has been repreatedly verified by evidence.   I know that in common usage, laymen confuse it with "hypothesis."  A hypothesis is what a theory is before it's confirmed.

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

Java Man (Homo erectus): Discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1891 in Indonesia. Originally named Pithecanthropus erectus.

A human.   Just not our particular species.   But you didn't answer my question.   If Adam and Eve were humans of H. heidelbergensis, from which we descended, would that be a problem?   If so, why?

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

I'm not an ape.

Physically, that's what you are.   We all are.   Genetically, we and chimpanzees are closest relatives within the apes.

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

If Adam was an allegory, then how do you explain Adam's family tree in chapter 5?

Do you think it's impossible to have an allegory of a real person?   How so?

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

Well "produced" is an interesting term term for how we get here. Production can be a lot of fun!

Well, humans do enjoy sharing genes...

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

Ape to monkey splits are still inside the kind. We are diverging from the subject by continually injecting inter kind species changes.

So if all primates are a "kind", that would put humans in there with Tarsiers, lemurs, monkeys and other apes.

"Kinds" is a vague religious term without a scientific definition.  Within humans, for example there are anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one yet to be found kind.    Yet they are all the same species, H. sapiens.

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

So only religious people used the word kind?

Well, I know non-religious people and they use "kinds", albeit not in the religious context of creationism.

Since "kind" can refer to different populations of H. sapiens, it doesn't seem like a useful term.    Give us a testable definition of "kind" and we'll use that.

30 minutes ago, Starise said:

Kind- a group of people or things having similar characteristics.

So if two creatures have hearts, brains, teeth, and fur, they would be a kind, since they have similar characteristics?

What if one animal had lungs and the other didn't.   Would they then be different kinds?

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by The Barbarian

[Starise]

1 minute ago, teddyv said:

Your are using theory in the colloquial sense here, not the stricter scientific sense. Just speculating about something and calling it a theory does not equate whatever that is to say Plate Tectonic theory.

True. Both are theories, and I  understand theories in the scientific community would be peer reviewed.If anything, the fact thatit remains a theory after peer review says something.

[teddyv]

5 minutes ago, Starise said:

True. Both are theories, and I  understand theories in the scientific community would be peer reviewed.If anything, the fact thatit remains a theory after peer review says something.

Research papers are peer-reviewed.

Theories are designed to explain why things are the way they, or why thing happen based on the body of evidence available. As new evidence arises, the theory can be confirmed, modified, or even discarded.

Creationists who make statements like "If evolution is true, why don't we see a cat give birth to a dog?" seem to be unaware that such an instance would actually negate current evolutionary theory.

[Starise]

3 hours ago, teddyv said:

Theories are designed to explain why things are the way they, or why thing happen based on the body of evidence available. As new evidence arises, the theory can be confirmed, modified, or even discarded.

Creationists who make statements like "If evolution is true, why don't we see a cat give birth to a dog?" seem to be unaware that such an instance would actually negate current evolutionary theory.

So why place so much weight on a theory? Especially when it conflicts with the bible.

I would never make such a silly statement as the one you quoted.