Posted on 02/20/2003 2:30:45 PM PST by Junior
You have an interesting notion of where the burden of proof should rest in the first place. Abbott has an explanation of what has occurred here, and he presents evidence to support his explanation. But now the notion being advanced is that, not only must Abbott show evidence for his explanation, he must simultaneously disprove all other explanations before his can be considered valid. Needless to say, that's simply not possible - all alternate explanations cannot possibly be disproven. Instead, you have some alternate explanation, such as that this is not a new species at all, but merely one that has been overlooked. But now, you have the burden of showing some evidence for your alternate thesis. Then we'll put them side by side, and see which one appears to better explain the phenomenon in light of the evidence.
That's why your theories are, to this point, exactly equivalent to "seed from Mars" theories, no matter how "reasonable" you might find them - there's nothing supporting them other than an assertion that this is "reasonable". Reasonable it may be, but if you have an alternate explanation, you must support it yourself, rather than requiring everyone else to disprove it. After all, in the absence of any support for your contention that this is a dormant seed, why should anyone believe it in the first place?
When you get close to reasonable standards, I will believe you, but not until then. (I thought scientists enjoyed skepticsm, by the way.)
Reasonable standards are the issue at hand - it is not reasonable to expect "proof". It is not reasonable to demand that all competing explanations be disproven before accepting one or the other explanation.
And as for skepticism...if you have some basis for the skepticism, such as evidence for a better explanation, then fire away. Otherwise, it's simply skepticism for its own sake, in which case you will find it difficult to avoid assuming the Humean position that we really don't "know" much of anything...
Again, the problem is not with the emergence of a new species, but its relevance to RMNS of Darwinian evolution. It is a new species apparently not due to any advantage of a particular mutation but quite possibly is just a close-ended reformation of a genome.
| Senecio squalidus | Asteraceae | Oxford Ragwort |
The oxford ragwort is so-called because it originated as an escape from the Botanic garden at Oxford where it was in cultivation from at least as early as 1690. Its spread in Northern Ireland dates from after about 1964 (the date of the earliest Northern Ireland record) and it rapidly became very abundant after about 1980 on motorway verges in north Belfast. At present it is a very common member of the weed flora of waste ground and road verges in the Belfast district. It is also spreading into other parts of Northern Ireland. The plant was introduced into Oxford Botanic Garden (and from there into the rest of the British Isles) from Mount Etna in Sicily. Recent investigations have proved that Oxford ragwort is not a true species but is actually a hybrid which occurs naturally on the Etna slopes and which is derived from two other Senecio species which grow there. The plants, with their masses of attractive bright yellow daisy-heads, can form large very conspicuous patches on waste ground and roadsides, |
Whoa, let's make sure we get causes and effects straight, in terms of mutations. Nobody I know suggests that species arise because mutations are advantageous - the first thing mutations do is either kill you, or not - but that species are adaptive based on whether mutations are advantageous. If mutation were the cause, then it would be a new species by virtue of the fact that the mutation exists, not because it is somehow advantageous. If it is advantageous, that will then influence the relative success of the plant in a competitive environment, and help determine whether it survives and flourishes better than its competitors.
For speciation to occur, that only requires that mutations happen. For natural selection to occur, that requires that some mutations are more advantageous than others. Whether this plant has some advantage in its genes remains to be seen. And, of course, I know of no requirement of evolution via natural selection that says that only mutation can produce speciation, even if I decide not to quibble over whether or not "reformation of a genome" is just mutation writ large.
Well, you seem to have misunderstood my point. I am not defining species. I am trying to use species as defined by others. I understand that mutations in and of themselves do not result in new species. What I am saying is that this particular species was not produced by a mutational chain of trolley cars involving RMNS. I rather suspect that this new species is nothing but a rearrangement of a genome of a particular group of related plants. The continual shuffling and reshuffling has produced a subgroup that does not successfully breed with another particular subset of this group(its parents). However, that does not preclude it from having success with all other subgroups of this group. That is the reason I pointed out that one of the parents of this new species is not itself a species. It is a hybrid that is fertile and breeds "true".
Beep. Circle takes the square. The theory is called "evolution." Survival of the fittest is only part of one possible mechanism by which organisms change over time. Since you have yet to understand even this simple concept any discussions with you will probably be fruitless.
This is the garbage excuses we get all the time from evolutionists - 'prove yourself to be wrong'. Even though they say evolution is science. Even though they CLAIM that they believe in evolution because it is a scientific 'fact', they can never give us the facts that prove it or the facts that disprove other interpretations of how life came about. Here are some facts for you:
1. natural selection only destroys, it does not create anything.
2. the Cambrian explosion shows that Darwinism is bunk - gradual evolution did not occur when the next to highest kinds of animals arose suddenly.
3. the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex.
4. the platypus has no possible evolutionary ancestors.
5. the 'descent of man' keeps getting pushed back further and further back as we learn more.
6. there has never been an experiment where a mutation created anything more complex than there was.
7. no species has ever been seen to transform into another more complex species.
8. the laws of genetics show evolution to be impossible.
9. science has shown that life from inert matter is impossible.
10. evolution has been discredited by every single major biological discovery in the last 150 years.
Hey Vade, cut the rhetorical nonsense, and just refute his statements instead of attacking him with blather.
I'm not fan of Martin Luther, so that dog won't hunt.
Evidently, you can't expose the illogic in ad hominem until you find somebody of whom Poser is a fan and attack that person with ad hominem. Let's try again, then, with a new example.
Dr. Peter Ruckman has been divorced twice, in one case to eventually marry the wife of a student. In light of this, the King James Bible is not, as Ruckman claims, the inerrant word of God.So how's that for valid logic, Poser? (And of course, I barely skim the surface of what is out there about Ruckman.)
You have an interesting notion of where the burden of proof should rest in the first place.
Farmer is correct. It is up to someone who calls himself a scientist to support a new claim. The article is absolutely vague on this. First of all, they are joining a lower jaw to a skull from a totally unrelated find. Seems to me that that alone entails a very thorough explanation and there is no such explanation here. In fact, like in most evolutionist writings it is just taken as granted that it is okay to mix and match bones from different finds when it suits the purpose of evolution. Well guess what, that is not science, that's garbage.
His answer to my previous post does nothing but repeat points refuted my post, the one to which he seeks the appearance of answering. It is hardly rhetorical nonsense to mention this.
Nice of you to admit that the evidence from paleontology is totally miniscule and that all determinations of it are subjective extrapolations.
As to the plant, it's a hybrid. It took genetic information each parent. Nothing new has arisen, nothing has been created. Evolution requires creation in order to get from bacteria to man. Therefore, this does not prove evolution.
Ah, okay. It would be a rather curious result if this new plant were incapable of breeding with the Oxford ragwort, but capable of breeding with the Italian varieties of ragwort from which the Oxford is derived, but it certainly deserves investigation in any case.
Then how do you get from bacteria to humans? Whatever happened to natural selection? You throwing that away too? Your theory has been disproven and now you are just blathering that anything is possible so evolution must be true. Exactly how did we get from bacteria to humans then? Miracles??????????????
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