Re: Darwin's doubts #4

[email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Aug 2026 02:40:34 -0700, Samuel Spade <[email protected]> wrote: 
...
> >Dog evolution is evolution.  Artificial selection, not
> >natural, and altho dogs & wolves are considered different
> >species, they can still interbreed.
> 
> That's man's classification. God has his own. 

God has yet to publish a guidebook to taxonomy.


> >> >Dogs have been selectively evolved into a cornucopia of
> >> >diverse breeds with very different morphologies, all in a
> >> >very short time.  Give em more time and you'll see new
> >> >species, families and classes.  Probably not new phyla.
> 
> You will NEVER see a new species evolved from a different species. 
> No human has ever seen that happen, and never will in nature.

Been done in the lab.
Been done in the wild.
New species are discovered every day, it's hard to tell which
ones are new and which are just yet-undiscovered.


> >It's only 25,000 years since they were wolves.  Yet look how
> >different dogs appear from each other, and from wolves.
> 
> Yes, it is programmed in that species by their Creator. But they are
> ALWAYS dogs that they evolved into.

Do you think you should be able to back-breed wiener dogs
back to grey wolves?  Good luck with that.


> But if you insist on a common source, all life on this planet comes
> from one common source, Jehovah God.

It's your religious prerogative to believe that.  But it's
not related to science.


> >> >>  And if they REALLY came from miacids,
> >> >> dogs and cats and weasels and bears all should be able interbreed with
> >> >> each other.
> >> >
> >> >I don't know where you get this idea from.  I've explained it
> >> >to you before but you seem to think repetition is persuasion.
> >> 
> >> Repetition of God's word is to walk on a righteous path.

So you still can't explain that notion.


> >Then you must be righteouser than a broken record.
> 
> We don't generally have records and record players anymore. Could say
> 'a corrupted music video'.

You'd be surprised.  Vinyl records have made a comeback with
the Gen Y/Zers.  I couldn't begin to tell you why.


> >Why do you expect that all animals have all their various
> >genes in the same place on the same chromasomes?  Do you know
> >what it means to evolve?  It means the DNA undergoes changes
> >which cause the organism to be different, for better or
> >worse.  Do you expect the Buick engine to fit in a 737 and
> >still work?
> 
> MOST mutations are NEGATIVE to the life form. That's like trying to go

Actually most mutations are neutral.  But you are answering
the wrong question.  WHy do you think all related animals
should be able to reproduce?

> to some particular place with 1 step forward, and two steps backward.
> That a trillion life forms turned into complex species, many with the
> same features such as eyes, ears, legs, head, hands of various kinds,
> brains mostly situated in the head.

Convergent evolution.  Everyone got to the same place
independently.  Happened a lot with eyes, for example.


> And for the  top prize, the human brain. It is about 3 lbs of 60% fat.
> Yet it has produced most the wonders of the world, like the pyramids
> of Egypt, and the 13,000 miles of the Great Wall of China.
> 
> And what to me is the most remarkable thing is that something
> mindless, brainless, with an IQ of ZERO, many people say did all that
> Creating.

A neuron is brainless, but if you have enough they are smart.
Ditto with ants, a colony has intelligence when they work
together.
AI comes from a machine, do you think it's dumb?
Even a human brain is just a machine, after all.

The process of evolution arrives at intelligent decisions in
its own way.  You can deny that it's intelligent, but that's
just semantics to me.

You are beating up a straw man.


> Try this. Set the latest android next to a human. Then I tell you they
> found the android out in the deep woods made by nature, and it took
> millions of years. And many would say, "Are you daffy? Of course
> someone smart built it."
> 
> Yet the MORE SOPHISTICATED BIOLOGICAL  MACHINE NEXT TO IT, they say
> mindless, brainless, zero IQ, force created it.

Again, the factor you ignore is that organisms reproduce.
Phones don't.  That's why living things evolve and phones
don't.

You are really against accepting that idea.  What's up with
that?


> AI says,
> 
> "Producing a functional human brain purely by random, mindless
> physical forces requires an unfathomable number of attempts—estimated

Irrelevant.  No one but anti-evolutionists is saying
evolution is a random or a mindless process.


> >> Why didn't Darwin find transitional species? Did they just suddenly
> >> appear in our day only? 
> >
> >1.  In 1850 there weren't a lot of fossils been collected,
> >and even fewer could be identified.
> >
> >2.  Transitional species are all around.  Darwin just didn't
> >know what to look for.  Pterodactyl, anyone?
> 
> How about evolution's finale fireworks: The PLATYPUS. 
> It took many of its different creations, threw them in a pot, and
> outcomes the platypus.

Who are you arguing with?

> 
> >3.  Darwin expected changes to be slow and gradual, not the
> >"punctuated equilibrium" that we see.
> 
> It is beyond amazing what they say random chance can produce. 
> 
> >
> >4.  We can see the progression in existing life forms, from
> >rodent to raccoon to lemur to monkeys, or something like
> >that.
> >
> 
> Don't forget your prize: chimpanzee to human or is it human to
> chimpanzee? Anything goes in a fantasy.

James, i'm afraid I have to call up the Strawman Liberation
Front and report you for wanton abuse of strawmen and
strawwomen everywhere.  They may be mindless and brainless
strawfolk, but they come at you with torches and pitchforks.


> >> >There's no such thing as a guarantee or "proof" in science.
> >> >All science is provisional.  Any belief that makes guarantees
> >> >or offers "proof" is not science.
> >> 
> >> Then you are saying that science never shows proof of things?
> >> Looks like we live on two different planets.
> >
> >Bingo!
> >
> >Nothing can be proven.
> >
> >If you disagree, prove something.  Anything.
> >
> >Nothing can be proven to absolute certitude.  Sometimes
> >things can be disproven.  Sometimes an observation seems to
> >always hold true, yet it can't be proven.  So we use it as
> >knowledge, provisionally, until it's disproven.  That's
> >called an axiom.  We can accept and work with axioms "beyond
> >reasonable doubt", with the caveats.
> >
> >Can you prove 2+2=4?  Try it.  Show your work.  That's why
> >it's an axiom.
> 
> That's evolution all the way. But calling it an axiom is giving it too
> much. It should be called a 'fantasy'.

Avoiding the question.  I'll take that as a no.


> >Science is a process, specifically this algorithm:
> >1. Observation
> >2. Hypothesis
> >3. Experimentation
> >4. Conclusion.
> >5. GOTO 1
> >
> >It's that simple.  And it works like a windshield wiper on a
> >duck's ass.
> 
> >
> >Science is about hypothesis and theory, trying something new,
> >disproving it, trying something else, and going with the
> >best-fit theory until something better comes along.
> 
> 1. Observation= the orderly universe, the complexity of various life
> forms. 

It's very messy and disorderly.

> 2. Hypothesis= This couldn't have happened by random chance. (see
> above the 1000 piece puzzle)

Hypothesis: straw men evolved from grass.

> 3. Experimentation= fruit fly experiment never produced a new species,
> just mutated fruit flies. And as more experiments took place,
> genetically it got rid of the mutations, and went back to regular
> fruit flies.

It did produce a new species, actually.  ANd the control
group was unchanged.


> Maybe if just one coupling would work it will roll back to the caveman
> days, and start all over again. 

Now you're being silly.

> My memory has been on a sabbatical for a while. I do not recall DNA,
> although it has been around before I was born. 
> If you recall, they went nuts on that with the O.J.Simpson trials.

So you never related to genetics, diversity, or evolution.

Can't go much farther than that.  Anyway, my 300 line limit
is nigh.