Posted on 06/17/2003 7:05:07 PM PDT by Pharmboy
Every time evolutionists are asked for proof they give the very same
Because it is quite simply the best single article on the subject intended for laymen available on the internet, and it contains dozens of citations to further information.
I could instead provide pointers to several thousand technical articles which firmly support evolution and common descent, but I doubt that most readers of these threads have either the time or the background to fully benefit from such a large volume of material. So instead, we provide a pointer to the above article, which gives a birds-eye overview of the multiple lines of evidence which strongly support evolution. Readers who wish to investigate further can then follow the provided links and citations.
But if you're tired of the fact that you have no proper refutation for that link and would like something new to chew on, check this out: The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation" . It focuses on only *one* line of evidence (the fossil record) instead of 29+, and on only one major example from the fossil record, but it does so thoroughly and devastatingly. Have fun.
unscientific article
You clearly don't understand the words you're using here. The article is quite scientific. If you feel that it isn't, you're strongly invited to point out what, exactly, you feel is unscientific about it -- or retract your unsupported accusation.
which has been thoroughly debunked in A Critique of 29 Evidences for Macroevolution as well as on several threads right here on FreeRepublic.
Oh, puh-leaze... "Frantically denounced" is not the same thing as "thoroughly debunked". Let's take a look at your link, shall we?
Ashby Camp attempts to "debunk" item "4.2 DNA Coding Redundancy", but he screws it up royally. First, he attempts to summarize the argument as:
The alleged prediction and fulfillment are:This COMPLETELY misses the point of the DNA Coding Redundancy argument. In fact, it practically *reverses* the actual argument entirely. It's a downright laughable attempt at summarizing the actual argument, and grossly misrepresents the original point being made.1. If universal common ancestry is true, then ubiquitous genes will have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species.
2. Ubiquitous genes have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species.
Ashby Camp can hardly "debunk" an argument if he doesn't even understand it to start with.
Instead, the actual argument which Camp is misrepresenting goes like this: If modern life arose through common descent, then the redundancy in the DNA coding (which allows *many* different DNA sequences to produce *identical* protein results) should result in very similar DNA sequences between recently-related species (for the same protein), less similar DNA sequences for less-recently-related species, and very less similar DNA sequences for distantly-related species. For *all* species relationships and *all* coding sequences.
That's *quite* a bit different than Camp's ridiculously oversimplified version, which grossly distorts the above into "some sequences will be found to be similar, somewhere". The *actual* prediction is *far* more specific, and *vastly* less likely to occur by chance or some other method which does not involve common descent. The actual prediction makes testable, narrow predictions about *every* ubiquitous gene sequence in *every* species. It's extremely specific, and leaves no wiggle-room for observations which might violate the prediction.
Camp then uses his own skewed version of the argument to say, "It is not a prediction of the hypothesis of universal common ancestry or the more specific hypothesis of Neo-Darwinism that ubiquitous genes will have the same or a similar codon sequence in two or more species." That's true enough for Camp's distorted version, but *NOT* for the original.
Camp further claims: "If the codon sequence in such a gene was not the same or “similar” in two or more species, evolutionists simply would vary the time of divergence and/or the mutation rate, which is claimed to vary for different genes, to account for the differences." No, absolutely not. What Camp is missing is that this line of evidence applies not to absolute amounts of differences, but *relative* amounts of differences. Yes, the neutral mutation rate for some genes is larger than others. But that's irrelevant to this line of evidence, because whatever the mutation rate for a given gene, what's being compared is larger differences versus smaller differences when examining multiple pairs of species. "Larger" is distinguishable from "smaller" no matter what the absolute sizes might be.
Camp reveals his further misunderstandings when he writes: "Once again, the real argument being made is theological, not scientific. The claim is that, since God could make a gene for a protein with many different codon sequences, he would not have used an identical or similar series of codons in the cytochrome c gene of separately created species." No, Camp blows it again. There is, in fact, absolutely no argument of any sort in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution about what God might or might not choose to do. That's Camp's own hallucination. What's worse, he obviously entirely misunderstands the *evidenciary* arguments being made in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. What makes this even more unforgiveable is that the points that Camp misses are spelled out explicitly in one of the "29+ Evidences" pages (this one).
What Camp entirely misses is that the 29+ lines of evidence for macroevolution are *not* given as "proofs". Nowhere is the argument made that there could be no other possible explanation for a particular type of observation, or that any given observation might not match the predictions of some other theory as well. That's *always* a "given" in science, because there's *always* some other theor(ies) which could likewise explain the evidence (if nothing else, some sort of unrecognized variation on the current theory, or even something radically different that no one's thought of).
What Camp misses entirely, because he's not a scientist (he's a lawyer) is that you don't "prove" a given theory by allegedly presenting something which can't be explained any *other* way (because this is almost always impossible to do even in principle), instead you *support* a theory by working out as many of its implications (i.e. predictions) as you can, and then check to see (via examination of known evidence, and experiment, and other methods) whether all observations you can manage to do actually "fit" the theory (and more importantly, whether any are found which *don't*).
The more evidence which falls into line to match the expectations of the theory, the more the theory is strengthened. Any evidence which appears to be a blatant violation of the expectations of the theory weighs *very* heavily against it. Furthermore, a theory is very much strengthened if the evidence which matches its predictions are from not just one type of prediction or line of argument, but from many. In the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution page, there are over *29* independent lines of evidence, all of which beautifully match the predictions of the theories of common descent and macroevolution. And each line of evidence is supported by *thousands*, and in some cases *millions*, of individual pieces of evidence.
In short, evolution has an enormous amount of evidence supporting it.
I strongly invite readers to ignore Gore3000's "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" attempt, and actually go *read* 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution for yourself (yes, all several pages). It'll take a couple hours, but it's well worth the time. After you read it, you'll understand why creationists are being hugely dishonest when they claim that there is "no" evidence supporting evolution, or that evolution is not a "scientific" or "predictive" theory. The pages at that link show in great detail how empty those claims are, even if you choose argue with a few particular points or disagree with its conclusion. There's an enormous amount of meticulous, well-researched evidence for evolution, and that page gives a large taste. Don't let anyone tell you there's not. And I trust any reader with an open mind will see for themselves how strong the evolutionary foundation truly is, contrary to hte "house of cards" declarations by its opponents. Again, even if you disagree with the conclusion, at least be honest enough to admit there's a lot of good evidence behind it -- if you take the time to look.
Camp blusters in several sections about how "well, maybe God chose to make things the way that the evidence indicates". Fine, maybe he did. Feel free to go off and develop a "scientific theory of creationism". But note that you can't just say (as Camp does), "maybe God wanted to do it in a way that only *appears* to match the expected results of evolution, we don't know why", because that's *not* a *scientific* prediction, because it doesn't let you predict *ahead* of your observations what you think you're going to find and why. As soon as you develop a "scientific theory of creationism" which *does* claim to grasp enough of God's processes and reasons to be able to predict (repeat: *predict*) enough of the details of His works that you'll be able to test your theory against the evidence (and also honestly deal with it if your predictions are falsified), *then* you'll have something that can truly be called "scientific". So far, no one has offered such a theory. "God could make it any way at all if he wanted to for His own mysterious reasons" does *not* qualify, because it is neither predictive nor falsifiable. It is, in fact, a declaration of *lack* of knowledge rather than a contribution to science (which is the *accumulation* of what we know and can confidently count on and predict about the world).
Camp even unwittingly admits this when he writes, "But even if there were no unknown design constraints on the gene for cytochrome c, how could one be sure that God would not conserve codon sequences when creating cytochrome c gene in separate species?" Yes, exactly. If one "can't be sure" -- if there's no way to test the unknowability of God's whims or predict what they will be in a given case -- then it's a philosophical issue, but it's not a scientific theory.
Camp's concluding paragraph for this section of his "debunking" only further reveals his misunderstandings:
Thus, the similarity of codon sequences in the cytochrome c gene of humans and chimps does not “make it look exactly like we are genealogically related.”This quote appears nowhere in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Camp is either summarizing, or was working off an older version of the web page. In any case, he misunderstands it. The meaning is that the gene similarities and differences between man/chimp are exactly the type we would expect to see if we were genealogically related, and closely so. It's not a claim that the gene sequences by themselves are some sort of irrefutable proof that we are.
That conclusion only follows if one ignores the possibility of unknown design constraints, insists that God introduce novelty for novelty’s sake, and denies that there could be other divine purposes, such as sending a biotic message, for the pattern of similarity.See above. Camp repeatedly misunderstands the argument(s) which are actually being made in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, and thus his "debunking" misses the mark entirely.
Similar major flaws are present in the rest of his alleged "debunking" article. And you have "forgotten" to mention that talk.origins itself posts a lengthy rebuttal to Camp's sloppy 'critique'. In it, they describe his attempts to critique their material (and quite fairly, in my opinion), as:
Mr. Camp's critique is error-ridden in various ways, and is primarily characterized by:...and then they go on to very thoroughly document those errors in Camp's critique.
- Straw man arguments
- Red herrings
- Self-contradictions
- Equivocation
- Two wrongs make a right
- Fallacies of accident and converse accident
- Ignoratio elenchi
- Naive theological assumptions
- Insufficient knowledge of basic biology, molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics
- Misunderstanding of the scientific method
- Forwarding of untestable competing "hypotheses"
- Mischaracterization of evolutionary theory
- Misleading mis-quotes
- Fallacies of accent
- Distortion of scientific controversies
- Arguments from authority
- False analogies
The repeated use of these errors and others in Camp's "Critique" will be abundantly clear in the following rebuttal.
There is tons of Evidence Disproving Evolution which evolutionists constantly ignore
Yeah. Right. Sure.
Name one piece of evidence which you think evolutionists "constantly ignore" and I'll show you were they've dealt squarely with it, so that you can retract your false accusation. Go for it.
and which unlike their articles, is based on solid scientific facts.
You have yet to support your claim that the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution article is *not* "based on solid scientific facts". Do so now, or retract it.
Furthermore, the link you supplied is a scattershot mish-mash of links, many of which (contrary to the title "Evidence Disproving Evolution"), actually *supports* evolution (such as this one, which that page misleadingly includes under the heading "Biology Disproving Evolution "), and/or are simple biological primers which in no way "disprove evolution" (such as this one, a simple introduction to the platypus, which that web page misleadingly includes under the heading "Species Disproving Evolution"). That page is dishonestly attempting to impress readers with the sheer volume of links in the hopes that the reader will mistakenly think that all of the links actually "disprove evolution", when they most certainly do not. The few that *do* attempt to do so are shoddy and error-ridden. I again make the challenge that you have dodged before: Point out the *one* argument linked from that page which you feel is one of the *best* examples of "evidence disproving evolution", and we'll see just how good it actually is. Go for it. If you dare.
Hey thug, why don't you refute what was said.
Gladly. I'm not going to waste my time with all of that insulting, dishonestly distorted pap, but I'll dismantle one of them to show you just how disingenuous it is. If you'd like to see any other *one* "definition" taken off at the knees, let me know which one (I'm not going to waste my time on all of them, so be sure to take your "best shot", son).
From that pack of creationist lies:
EVOLUTIONFirst lie: No one claims that the theory of evolution (or any *other* scientific theory) is "perfect". Scientific theories are always open to correction and refinement as needed.A truly perfect scientific theory which explaims in detail how everything in the universe came into being -- slowly. The theory of evolutions is so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phemomena or opinions that it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it. (see Law).
Second lie: The passage "so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phemomena or opinions" is obviously a facetious way to imply that it's defined in a weasely way so that anything whatsoever could be claimed to fit. This is wildly false, as anyone who has passed Biology 101 would recognize. It's also a wildly disingenuous way to try to explain away the fact that evolution *does* "explain virtually all" biological observations which it pertains to. "Oh," says the creationist, "yeah, evolution really does fit the biological record really well, but that's only because, um, it's so loose it'd fit anything, yeah, that's the ticket, just ask my wife, Morgan Fairchild."
Third lie: "it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it". Utter and complete bilge. Not only are there obvious ways to falsify evolution (if indeed it were false), and constant discussions in the science community about what would or would not constitute potential falsification of evolution, THERE ARE A LIST OF SEVERAL DOZEN SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF SUCH ON A WEBSITE THAT I KNOW YOU'VE BEEN REFERRED TO COUNTLESS TIMES NOW. Here's just one sample from that site, WHICH YOU ARE VERY FAMILIAR WITH:
Potential Falsification:Lie much?It would make no sense, macroevolutionarily, if certain other mammals (e.g. dogs, cows, platypi, etc.), had these same retrogenes in the exact same chromosomal locations. For instance, it would be incredibly unlikely for dogs to also carry the three HERV-K insertions that are unique to humans, as shown in the upper right of Figure 4.4.1, since none of the other primates have these retroviral sequences.
That whine is just sour grapes from the creationists, who have tried and *failed* to falsify evolution countless times now. "Gosh," they say, "it can't be that our attacks are flawed, it *must* be that evolution just refuses to be falsified, yeah, I feel better already, right Morgan?"
It is not mindless.
Well, that was the kind assumption. The alternative is that it is knowingly dishonest and intentionally bears false witness.
It is a list of examples that show evolution to be complete garbage.
No, it is a list of false accusations which show the author -- and those who willingly promulgate it -- to be bearers of false witness.
Insulting the poster does not refute what was said.
No, but the description of the list was entirely accurate.
Even S.J. Gould noticed the problem posed by the lack of transition forms in the record--which is precisely why he invoked his "hopeful monster" theory."
The only people who confuse punctuated equilibrium and Richard Goldschmidt's never-widely-accepted "hopeful monster" idea from the 1940s are creationists. Really, they're the only ones. Isn't that odd?
An intro to current mainstream teachings: Tempo and Mode of Speciation (slide show). When announcing that what someone said is wrong, know what they said!
You really wanted me to read it eh!
Problem with your source is that its main argument:
The facts have been pointed out repeatedly to Wells;
is a lie. Wells knew the arguments when he wrote the book. He dealt with the Majerus statement DIRECTLY. For the author of the article you quoted to say Wells has not done so is as dishonest as the actions of Kettlewell in faking the evidence. From Icons of Evolution pp 154-155:
In 1998 University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne wrote a review in Nature of Michael Majerus's book, Melanism: Evolution in Action. As we have seen, Majerus defends the classical story, but he also acknowledged the problems with it. And the problems were enough to convince Coyne that the story is in serious trouble. "From time to time," Coyne wrote, "evolutionists re-examine a classic experimental study and find, to their horror, that it is flawed and downright wrong." According to Coyne, the fact that peppered moths do not rest on tree trunks "alone invalidates Kettlewell's release-and-recapture experiments, as moths were releaseddby placing them directly onto tree trunks."
Further, another evolutionist who defends Kettlewell, Bruce Grant admits "we still do not know the natural hiding places of peppered moths".
So shame on all evolutionists for defending a fraud and adding to the shame by using lies.
NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.
You are not only abusing the posters by your personal attacks but you are also abusing your host's site by breaking its rules.
When you have something to say in a civil manner, then speak. If you cannot speak in a civil manner then go elsewhere. People are trying to have a civil discussion here and your heckling is disruptive.
It certainly does. When a so called scientist willfully, with malice and intent distorts the evidence and commits fraud it certainly discredits his entire work. People do not commit fraud without reason, and that reason is to deceive others. That evolutionists look on fraud and dishonesty as if it was nothing and argue and even insult those who dare to point it out shows quite well the low morals of the followers of evolution. They are following the dictum learned from Darwin - that the end justifies the means.
The article was written by a total nobody for a site which is totally biased towards evolution. Let me take a few "predictions" myself to show how wrong they are:
6. Some of the more renowned evidences for evolution are the explanations it provides for nonfunctional or rudimentary vestigial characters, both anatomical and molecular.
Now the above is of course an example of what evolutionists love to use to attack opponents with: an argument from ignorance. Evolutionist claims that the tonsils, the appendix and junk DNA were vestigial proofs of evolution have been thoroughly shown to be false by science.
It is interesting that you make the following admission:
What Camp entirely misses is that the 29+ lines of evidence for macroevolution are *not* given as "proofs". Nowhere is the argument made that there could be no other possible explanation for a particular type of observation, or that any given observation might not match the predictions of some other theory as well.
Seems to me that if one is supposedly giving evidence for a specific theory then the evidence should be pretty specific to that theory and not liable to interpretation in some other way. Else what is it but a bestiary?
5.1 - Extremely extensive genetic change has been observed, both in the lab and in the wild. We have seen genomes irreversibly and heritably altered by numerous phenomena, including gene flow, random genetic drift, natural selection, and mutation. Observed mutations have occurred by mobile introns, gene duplications, recombination, transpositions, retroviral insertions (horizontal gene transfer), base substitutions, base deletions, base insertions, and chromosomal rearrangements. Chromosomal rearrangements include genome duplication (e.g. polyploidy), unequal crossing over, inversions, translocations, fissions, fusions, chromosome duplications and chromosome deletions (Futuyma 1998, pp. 267-271, 283-294).
Of course he does not give any examples. True, there are many examples of mutations and many examples of mutations occurring according to many diverse reasons. What there is not though, and the reason he does not cite examples is that these mutations are extremely harmful and deadly. Killing organisms is not evidence of evolutionary descent but the opposite. It is evidence of DEvolution, not evolution. In this context it is interesting to point out the example of Hiroshima. While numerous mutations were found, many of which were passed on to children, no cases are cited of any beneficial mutations.
As to speciation, he gives the following example:
One of the most striking instances of partial or incomplete speciation are the numerous "ring species." Ring species, such as the salamander Ensatina, form a chain of interbreeding populations which loop around some geographical feature; where the populations meet on the other side, they behave as completely different species. In the case of Ensatina, the subspecies form a ring around the Central Valley of California - the subspecies freely interbreed and hybridize on the east, west, and north sides of the valley, but where they coexist on the south side they are incapable of hybridizing and act as separate species (Moritz et al. 1982; Futuyma 1998, pp. 455-456).
The study on these salamanders has been used as evidence on these threads many times by a certain evolutionist whose name shall remain unmentioned. The interesting thing about this study is that in spite of the claim about the biological species concept supporting the examples, the so called 'scientists' who did this study (and wasted enormous amounts of your money and mine) did not bother themselves to test if the ends of the ring could actually interbreed. They just declared them to be separate species.
The above should be sufficient to show that the article is extremely biased and not at all accurate. One would think that with the tremendous number of scientific papers available on the internet alone, evolutionists would be able to point to actual discoveries, actual scientific findings, actual scholarly articles (it is after all they who constantly claim that if it has not been peer-reviewed it is not science).
A truly perfect scientific theory which explaims in detail how everything in the universe came into being -- slowly. The theory of evolutions is so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phemomena or opinions that it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it. (see Law). -quote being disputed-
First lie: No one claims that the theory of evolution (or any *other* scientific theory) is "perfect". Scientific theories are always open to correction and refinement as needed.
Really? Please list the admitted (by evolutionists) imperfections of the theory.
Second lie: The passage "so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phemomena or opinions" is obviously a facetious way to imply that it's defined in a weasely way so that anything whatsoever could be claimed to fit.
Okay, so tell us exactly what evolution claims is not in its purview regarding species and their descent.
Third lie: "it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it".
Actually there is a very good example of why the above is correct in The Case of the Pseudogenes . The article details the misadventures of Ken Miller who long claimed that pseudogenes being useless proved descent when it was found that one of them is indeed useful (Makorin1-p1). So what do evolutionists do? They claim pseudogenes to be useful to evolution!
This is the reason why evolution is not falsifiable - in spite of numerous requests (AND THIS IS ANOTHER ONE) evolutionists always fail to state what THE theory of evolution actually states. The reason is shown above, they always want to be able to dance their way out of trouble by claiming the theory never did say what has just been refuted (a la 1984).
It should be noted that in this 'refutation' you have failed to do the one thing which would have made your point: state the theory of evolution and show how the points you dispute do not fit the stated theory. However you failed to do that and thus your refutation is just more rhetoric and the statement made in the quote stands as correct.
Gould was a commie lover as I showed clearly from his own writings. The truth is never libelous, so it is you who is lying, not me.
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