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Trinity1
Emperor of the World
Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 3123
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 Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:05 pm Post subject: Evidence that contradicts ToE? |
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I'm wondering, based on conventional theory, how ToE accommodates evidence that directly conflicts with its predictions?
What I mean by this, we consistently observe evidences, when view objectively, that directly contradict either portions or the whole of ToE. Gradualism often is cited as the hero to the plot for mutational changes within genomes leading to extant species. However, when the fossil record demonstrated otherwise, the theory changed its stripes to accommodate Punk-eek. As a whole, that is a dramatic shift and requires a complete re-interpretation of the entire fossil record... not just the portions that fit ones fancy. Now… we can have gradualism in the portions we think the record reflects and develop excuses for those in which the record contradicts.
On the other hand, we consistently get bits and pieces, like THIS article that fly directly in the face of the conventional wisdom... and yet... no one even cares enough to take note.
This is a direct quote from the article:
| Quote: | | It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn't possibly attack and eat a dinosaur because they were timid, chipmunk-sized creatures that scurried in the looming shadow of the giant reptiles. |
So, now we have the hunted becoming the hunter 50 million years before it was suppose to have happened. What are the implications???? "Oh nothing... it just happened sooner than what our theory predicted". ***HOGWASH*** Entire ecosystems would have been disrupted... for 50 million years! The silence is deafening.
Another case in point is THIS little article... and numerous others discussing this same issue. Conventional wisdom... ie. observational science.. up until this discovery asserted that un-fossilized tissue containing even fragments of DNA would have dissolved at a maximum of 10,000 years. But, here we have a 70 million year old tissue sample... and no one addresses the logical assumption that perhaps the tissue is not 70 million years old... but instead, they all gravitate towards some ideal that tissue and DNA can actually survive that long... DESPITE the evidence to the contrary.
So, when people start asking for evidence to falsify ToE, one needs not to even bother as it doesn't matter what evidence is provided... saving the phenomenon has become more important than what the phenomenon actually is... despite the evidence to the contrary.
_________________
Exodus 20:11 "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them..."
‘The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.’ Sir Arthur Keith |
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RevJP
Moderator
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 7005
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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Well said.
_________________
JP's Mind - my blog
Psa 118:8 It is better to trust and take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in man. |
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FFT
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 26 Mar 2005
Posts: 6337
Location: Memphis
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| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Trinity1 wrote: | | I'm wondering, based on conventional theory, how ToE accommodates evidence that directly conflicts with its predictions? |
Like any theory does: either the theory is changed or it is discarded.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | So, now we have the hunted becoming the hunter 50 million years before it was suppose to have happened. What are the implications???? "Oh nothing... it just happened sooner than what our theory predicted". ***HOGWASH*** Entire ecosystems would have been disrupted... for 50 million years! The silence is deafening. |
How would the presence of mammalian hunters disrupted ecosystems, exactly?
The conclusions of the theory of evolution are based on observations and predictions based on those observations. We can only observe what we've found, with new finds come new information. The reason we thought that mammals in the time of the dinosaurs were the size of chipmunks is because we hadn't found anything larger from that time period.
The size of animals during dinosaur times is not a prediction of the theory of evolution.
The length of time tissues can be preserved is not a prediction of the theory of evolution. |
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Trinity1
Emperor of the World
Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 3123
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| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| FFT wrote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | I'm wondering, based on conventional theory, how ToE accommodates evidence that directly conflicts with its predictions? |
Like any theory does: either the theory is changed or it is discarded. |
We found gradualism didn't work... so we go with Punk-eek... which explains nothing and is not observable... so now we need to... discard the theory?
| Quote: | | How would the presence of mammalian hunters disrupted ecosystems, exactly? |
You have more predators competing for a limit amount of resources... it would obviously disrupt ecosystems when you have more competing for less.
| Quote: | | The conclusions of the theory of evolution are based on observations and predictions based on those observations. We can only observe what we've found, with new finds come new information. The reason we thought that mammals in the time of the dinosaurs were the size of chipmunks is because we hadn't found anything larger from that time period. |
And I understand that... but how is the theory going to accommodate this information now.
| Quote: | | The length of time tissues can be preserved is not a prediction of the theory of evolution. |
Perhaps... but when the theory does predict/dogmatically teach that all dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago... it does predict that we shouldn't find this. Unless, of course, not all dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago... we know that is not true, so despite the evidence to the contrary... these tissues must have survived 70 million years.  That is not accommodating new evidence and adjusting the theory... that is adjusting/redefining evidence to conform to the theory. That is not science and the theory is just plain wrong.
_________________
Exodus 20:11 "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them..."
‘The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.’ Sir Arthur Keith |
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FFT
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 26 Mar 2005
Posts: 6337
Location: Memphis
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| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Trinity1 wrote: | | We found gradualism didn't work... so we go with Punk-eek... |
Some evolutionary biologists felt gradualism as stated wasn't a good enough explanation and postulated punk-eek as an alternative. As a whole (as I understand it) the majority of evolutionary biologists stick with gradualism. I think even Gould (who pioneered the idea of punk-eek) went back to gradualism eventually.
Punk-eek, in fact, is a form of gradualism, it simply the explanation that the gradual change has periods of different speeds.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | which explains nothing |
It's an explanation of why transitional fossils aren't smoother. How is it not an explanation?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | and is not observable... |
We can't observe how hot the inside of stars are directly either. We still figure it out.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | so now we need to... discard the theory? |
Because you don't think one sub-explanation works?
Hint: Punk-eek is pretty much discarded.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | You have more predators competing for a limit amount of resources... it would obviously disrupt ecosystems when you have more competing for less. |
Predator-prey systems are systems of balance, sure, but just because there are mammals in the mix doesn't make an ecosystem unbalanced. Scarcity of prey would control populations.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | And I understand that... but how is the theory going to accommodate this information now. |
Here's this cat-sized mammal predator that was around with the dinosaurs and hunted small ones.
All done.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | Perhaps... but when the theory does predict/dogmatically teach that all dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago... |
The theory of evolution does nothing of the sort. Paleobiology teaches that because it is the best explanation for the evidence. Evolution's only use for it is to explain why dinosaurs didn't keep evolving.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | it does predict that we shouldn't find this. |
The theory of evolution doesn't really have any stance at all on tissue decay, or is there some part of it I missed?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | That is not accommodating new evidence and adjusting the theory... that is adjusting/redefining evidence to conform to the theory. |
How, exactly, is it being redefined?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | That is not science and the theory is just plain wrong. |
You have the gall to assert what is not science? When the past has shown that you rarely do research? Like just recently when I informed you that it's perfectly possible to get lead from gold, and you challenged me for a cite? When all you had to do was throw "lead" and "gold" into Google and the first result is exactly what I was talking about? |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 8329
Location: Victoria, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 4:12 am Post subject: Re: Evidence that contradicts ToE? |
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| Trinity1 wrote: | I'm wondering, based on conventional theory, how ToE accommodates evidence that directly conflicts with its predictions?
What I mean by this, we consistently observe evidences, when view objectively, that directly contradict either portions or the whole of ToE. Gradualism often is cited as the hero to the plot for mutational changes within genomes leading to extant species. However, when the fossil record demonstrated otherwise, the theory changed its stripes to accommodate Punk-eek. As a whole, that is a dramatic shift and requires a complete re-interpretation of the entire fossil record... not just the portions that fit ones fancy. Now… we can have gradualism in the portions we think the record reflects and develop excuses for those in which the record contradicts.
On the other hand, we consistently get bits and pieces, like THIS article that fly directly in the face of the conventional wisdom... and yet... no one even cares enough to take note.
This is a direct quote from the article:
| Quote: | | It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn't possibly attack and eat a dinosaur because they were timid, chipmunk-sized creatures that scurried in the looming shadow of the giant reptiles. |
So, now we have the hunted becoming the hunter 50 million years before it was suppose to have happened. What are the implications???? "Oh nothing... it just happened sooner than what our theory predicted". ***HOGWASH*** Entire ecosystems would have been disrupted... for 50 million years! The silence is deafening.
Another case in point is THIS little article... and numerous others discussing this same issue. Conventional wisdom... ie. observational science.. up until this discovery asserted that un-fossilized tissue containing even fragments of DNA would have dissolved at a maximum of 10,000 years. But, here we have a 70 million year old tissue sample... and no one addresses the logical assumption that perhaps the tissue is not 70 million years old... but instead, they all gravitate towards some ideal that tissue and DNA can actually survive that long... DESPITE the evidence to the contrary.
So, when people start asking for evidence to falsify ToE, one needs not to even bother as it doesn't matter what evidence is provided... saving the phenomenon has become more important than what the phenomenon actually is... despite the evidence to the contrary. |
These are VERY weak objections. They conflict with tiny little details having to do with ToE, and NOT with Darwin's core ideas.
The fact that mammals could snatch and eat baby dinosaurs does NOT show a fundamental problem with the idea of descent with modification. All it does is show that the dude who jumped to the conclusion that mammals were meek little chipmunk-like creatures MIGHT have been wrong (I say 'might', because it really doesn't take serious guts to kill a baby.) And big deal; they discovered some bones of a mammal that was larger than previously believed; people discover new fossils ALL THE TIME.
As for the well-preserved organic specimens, that also has nothing to do with evolution. How does that challenge the idea of descent with modification? All it shows is that under the right conditions, organic material can last MUCH longer than was previously believed. How does this show that Darwin was wrong?
You can't just look at discoveries that make us question and tweak details of what we know and conclude that we were totally wrong about EVERYTHING this whole time!!!
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous. |
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Trinity1
Emperor of the World
Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 3123
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 5:24 am Post subject: |
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| FFT wrote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | We found gradualism didn't work... so we go with Punk-eek... |
Some evolutionary biologists felt gradualism as stated wasn't a good enough explanation and postulated punk-eek as an alternative. As a whole (as I understand it) the majority of evolutionary biologists stick with gradualism. I think even Gould (who pioneered the idea of punk-eek) went back to gradualism eventually.
Punk-eek, in fact, is a form of gradualism, it simply the explanation that the gradual change has periods of different speeds. |
No... I would disagree... pretty aggressively I might add. Punk-eek was meant to explain away what gradualism predicted (ToE) but what the fossil record didn't support. If neither is tenable, under your own admission here, how in the world is the theory not falsified?
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | which explains nothing |
It's an explanation of why transitional fossils aren't smoother. How is it not an explanation? |
An explanation would include climatic changes... climatic changes that can be observed through observations of other examples... ie. higher oxygen content, more rainfall, less rainfall, etc... but the only thing we have here are fossils that do not measure up to the gradualist paradigm... therefore, we suppose that these changes occurred rapidly... for no supportable reason.
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | so now we need to... discard the theory? |
Because you don't think one sub-explanation works?
Hint: Punk-eek is pretty much discarded. |
Yea... as a matter of fact, when a sub-explanation does not work... and other sub-explanations don't work... when all of the explanations do not work, when examined objectively... the whole things starts sounding like one big excuse. So yes Sir... discard and get a new theory.
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | You have more predators competing for a limit amount of resources... it would obviously disrupt ecosystems when you have more competing for less. |
Predator-prey systems are systems of balance, sure, but just because there are mammals in the mix doesn't make an ecosystem unbalanced. Scarcity of prey would control populations. |
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | And I understand that... but how is the theory going to accommodate this information now. |
Here's this cat-sized mammal predator that was around with the dinosaurs and hunted small ones.
All done. |
 OK... and... ah... oops, HERE is another mammal.... that lived before that... and oh yea... THIS was:
| Quote: | | It's about the size of a modern dog, a breathtaking 20 times larger than most mammals living in the early Cretaceous Period. |
and we thought THIS was extinct 300 million years ago... um... but it is not (ignore the man behind curtain controling the levers here) as it is still the same exact thing... despite the fact that we postulate everything else changes...
No FFT... I think we are far from done on this issue.
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | Perhaps... but when the theory does predict/dogmatically teach that all dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago... |
The theory of evolution does nothing of the sort. Paleobiology teaches that because it is the best explanation for the evidence. Evolution's only use for it is to explain why dinosaurs didn't keep evolving. |
 Ok... if you say so...  Paleobiology doesn't encroach at all into evolutionary philosophy...
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | it does predict that we shouldn't find this. |
The theory of evolution doesn't really have any stance at all on tissue decay, or is there some part of it I missed? |
Are we going to spend 80% of our time defining exactly which fields of science cover which samples? If that is the case... then you are just dead wrong... biology is a huge part of ToE... to say anything different here is only an attempt to shift the focus away from this cited examples of the theory not conforming to the evidence...
| Quote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | That is not science and the theory is just plain wrong. |
You have the gall to assert what is not science? |
Yes... as a matter of fact I do have the gall to assert that science is what we can test, observe and falsify... here we clearly have an example of what we can observe in this process and apply those observations against the prediction that we should not find 70 million year old blood tissue remnants with DNA intact and then point out that it does not fit the theory. You betcha I have the gall to do that. What is absolutely amazing is that you have the gall to tell me that this is science... 
_________________
Exodus 20:11 "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them..."
‘The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.’ Sir Arthur Keith |
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FFT
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 26 Mar 2005
Posts: 6337
Location: Memphis
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Trinity1 wrote: | | No... I would disagree... pretty aggressively I might add. |
K.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | Punk-eek was meant to explain away what gradualism predicted (ToE) but what the fossil record didn't support. |
It's a form of gradualism, stating simply that the rate of change was variable.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | If neither is tenable, under your own admission here |
Excuse me?
I said some evolutionary biologists felt gradualism as stated wasn't a good enough explanation. Further, that punk-eek isn't even distinct from gradualism, it's a subordinate explanation. Where, exactly, did I "admit" that neither is a tenable explanation?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | how in the world is the theory not falsified? |
Because both are tenable.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | An explanation would include climatic changes... climatic changes that can be observed through observations of other examples... ie. higher oxygen content, more rainfall, less rainfall, etc... but the only thing we have here are fossils that do not measure up to the gradualist paradigm... therefore, we suppose that these changes occurred rapidly... for no supportable reason. |
Explanations have to fit the evidence. Is this shocking?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | Yea... as a matter of fact, when a sub-explanation does not work... and other sub-explanations don't work... |
Both work.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | when all of the explanations do not work, when examined objectively... |
That you and other creationists do not agree does not permit you to claim that you are looking at things objectively.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | OK... and... ah... oops, HERE is another mammal.... that lived before that... |
Okay?
| Trinity1 wrote: | and oh yea... THIS was:
| Quote: | | It's about the size of a modern dog, a breathtaking 20 times larger than most mammals living in the early Cretaceous Period. |
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You've yet to explain just how the existence of heretofore-unknown mammals makes the theory of evolution fundamentally wrong.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | and we thought THIS was extinct 300 million years ago... um... but it is not (ignore the man behind curtain controling the levers here) as it is still the same exact thing... despite the fact that we postulate everything else changes... |
The theory of evolution postulates that changes accumulate over time, it does not postulate that all things change equally or even at all necessarily.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | No FFT... I think we are far from done on this issue. |
Then you're going to have to come up with an actual argument. 
| Trinity1 wrote: | | FFT wrote: | | Trinity1 wrote: | | Perhaps... but when the theory does predict/dogmatically teach that all dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago... |
The theory of evolution does nothing of the sort. Paleobiology teaches that because it is the best explanation for the evidence. Evolution's only use for it is to explain why dinosaurs didn't keep evolving. |
Ok... if you say so... Paleobiology doesn't encroach at all into evolutionary philosophy... |
Do be a dear and explain how what I said was incorrect rather than expressing incredulity as if it proved anything.
| Trinity1 wrote: | | Are we going to spend 80% of our time defining exactly which fields of science cover which samples? |
Apparently we're going to have to.
What part of "changes accumulate over time" says "tissues last X amount of time," exactly?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | If that is the case... then you are just dead wrong... biology is a huge part of ToE... |
Organic chemistry is biology?
| Trinity1 wrote: | | to say anything different here is only an attempt to shift the focus away from this cited examples of the theory not conforming to the evidence... |
It IS the evidence! Predictions were based on other evidence!
| Trinity1 wrote: | | here we clearly have an example of what we can observe in this process and apply those observations against the prediction that we should not find 70 million year old blood tissue remnants with DNA intact and then point out that it does not fit the theory. |
What theory?
Seriously, where the freaking hell does the theory of evolution say any god damned thing about how long dead tissues can survive? Where? |
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