Fallacies of Evolution

"Missing link" is a non-scientific obsolete expression abandoned by all but journalists and those ignorant of modern evolutionary theory,
(not that the two are mutually exclusive)

 

Lets say that we have 3 small things evolve per 100 years. Over 100,000,000 years that will be 3,000,000 small changes if the same rate continues which together is a big change. One drawback to this reasoning is that the rate of evolution isn't known to be constant and seems to be much higher with environmental changes. Also, a lot of small changes may just be small changes in different areas and may not together build up a big change. Another problem is that a lot of small changes doesn't guarantee speciation.

However, a massive number of changes to a species will make it very different and eventually multiple changes will hit the same area combining to a larger change. Consider also that every person has about 100 mutations so over massive time periods a species will change massively. But we should have fossil evidence showing the change in fossils over long time periods or else this is just an educated guess.

Why should we expect a domain to evolve in just a few decades if evolution is true?

And you admitted that seeing this massive evolution of a whole domain would convince you basically 0% anyway. So for you even seeing isn't believing. You just don't want to believe no matter how much observation or evidence is presented. This is likely due to a religious creationist upbringing.

 

Science: Speculation is good. Research follows speculation.
Religion: Gaps are filled by GodDidIt. Dogma follows.

 

That's your only 'rebuttal'? Nit picking on a term that is commonly used in the evolutionary debate? I used it because so many of the sources i read were using it, & it communicates what the evolutionary propagandists want it to communicate.

From National Geographic:
Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestor Found
Jamie Shreeve
Science editor, National Geographic magazine
October 1, 2009
Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

So for you to criticize me for using a term that is used frequently by evolutionists seems very bizarre.. hypocritical, but bizarre.

Obsolete? Hardly. Abandoned? Not at all. What is the point of this 'rebuttal' other than to deflect from the accuracy of my post? Is this not just another logical fallacy, to illustrate the points of the OP?

 

Then by this definition, evolution is a religion. Gaps are filled with an imaginary sky fairy, named 'Evolution!'

You have no science. There is no mechanism. You only have faith that this is what happened. It cannot be tested, repeated, or observed, yet you believe it is the Great Cause of all life. Your priests demand unquestioning devotion to this religion. No skepticism is allowed for any of the tenets of the faith. Any who dare question the Mighty God of Evolution will be shunned. The only 'evidence' is logical fallacies.

Yep. You called it. Evolution is a religion. The Dogma is strong in this one. It follows, leads, & is there, every step of the way.

 

Ok, how about we look at some pretty graphics?

Everyone remember ones like this?




How many of us were raised with this little evolutionary progression chart? The neanderthal was in that sequence. But now, even the proponents of evolution are changing their minds. They won't change the cute little evolutionary sequence, since that is canonized into the major tenets of the Religion of Evolution, but they now realize the neanderthals were probably just humans.. no fanfare.. no major announcements.. just sheepishly admitting that the facts do not support their fantasy.

..for a long time paleoanthropologists have viewed Neanderthals as too dull and too clumsy to use efficient tools, never mind organize a hunt and divvy up the game. Fact is, this site, along with others across Europe and in Asia, is helping overturn the familiar conception of Neanderthals as dumb brutes. Recent studies suggest they were imaginative enough to carve artful objects and perhaps clever enough to invent a language.

Neanderthals, traditionally designated Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, were not only “human” but also, it turns out, more “modern” than scientists previously allowed. “In the minds of the European anthropologists who first studied them, Neanderthals were the embodiment of primitive humans, subhumans if you will,” says Fred H. Smith, a physical anthropologist at LoyolaUniversity in Chicago who has been studying Neanderthal DNA. “They were believed to be scavengers who made primitive tools and were incapable of language or symbolic thought.”Now, he says, researchers believe that Neanderthals “were highly intelligent, able to adapt to a wide variety of ecologicalzones, and capable of developing highly functional tools to help them do so. They were quite accomplished.” source

Neanderthals were human. They buried their dead, used tools, had a complex social structure, employed language, and played musical instruments. Neanderthal anatomy differences are extremely minor and can be for the most part explained as a result of a genetically isolated people that lived a rigorous life in a harsh, cold climate. source

Since drawing about 60% of neanderthal dna, a lot has been discovered about them.

• They interbred with homo sapien. ~ 2 Billion people have neanderthal genes in them.. mostly european & asian. What does this tell us? They were the same species. Separate species cannot interbreed. They were merely a 'tribe' of humans that had unique physical features.. like many tribes today. Their genetic 'line' can be traced. They did not evolve separately, nor were they a distinct hominid species. They just 'looked different' than whatever normal 'homo sapiens' looked like.

This was a problem for those in the evolution field.
“We were suspicious of the result,” Reich says. “We found signals of mixture and then worked very hard to make them go away.”
He tried for a year, to no avail. Finally, Reich and his colleagues had no choice but to conclude that Neanderthals had mated with humans. They estimated that the DNA of living Asians and Europeans was (on average) 2.5 percent Neanderthal. source

So, if the 'experts' were mistaken about neanderthals, & they were merely humans like pygmies or aborigines, why do they continue to try to prove evolution with shaky data? Why do they start at the conclusion, looking for data to prop up their flimsy arguments? Why not admit we don't know, & let the data speak for itself?

But in many of the 'science' forums, sites, nature programs, & other evolutionary indoctrination centers, Neanderthal is STILL pitched as an 'ancestor' of modern human beings.





Almost every time i 'debate' the ToE, neanderthals are thrust at me as 'proof of evolution!' So the facts have not caught up, yet, with the beliefs, or perhaps the beliefs have not caught up with the facts. Much of what is still taught as 'evidence' for the ToE is refuted, yet it still hangs on like it means something. The desperation is great for SOMETHING to base this belief upon. We have no evidence that man has 'evolved' from a common ancestor, or that species have evolved from simple organisms to the complex varieties we see today. ALL of that is conjecture & fantasy, with no supporting evidence from science.

I was spoon fed the ToE from infancy. It is the defacto standard for origins in every public arena, media, & mainstream science source. It was not until i began to examine the claims with more skepticism that i began to doubt the pop science of our modern culture. Just like the status quo used to think the world was flat, & that leeches took out 'bad blood', or that neanderthals were stupid, subhuman brutes, i began to doubt the 'experts' & their confident assertions. Using common sense, logic, & just the facts, i came to the conclusion that the ToE is flawed in many ways. It is a valid belief system, which i acknowledge. It might even be true. I just do not see any logical or scientific facts that compel that conclusion. It is a flimsy theory at best, & a deceptive hoax at worst. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the holes in the theory, just be a rational, skeptical person with average reasoning skills.

 

BTW, this scan from a textbook...



..relies completely on the argument of 'looks like!' morphology. There is no empirical evidence of any of these speculations, just 'it could have happened!' beliefs, & plausible fantasies based on artist's renditions. These are illustrations of fallacies # 4, 6, & 10 from the OP. The 'time' appeal is inserted by the unevidenced claims of 'millions of years' which presumably makes it seem more plausible.

 

yryryryr
Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of
its descendants are referred to as transitional forms.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/lines_03

Ancestral = former
New = new

I've answered your question, again. Now it's your turn to produce solid evidence of evolution.

 

I'm saying that there are no transitional species, by definition. They are ALL species of their
own.

Easy. There should be an abundance of fossils slowly changing from one species to the next.
If they are changing there should be a record.

 

Of course they are their own species....that is a given and the reason they are a species. As for your definition of transitional.....hows this:
"Hippos likely evolved from a group of anthracotheres about 15 million years ago, the first whales evolved over 50 million years ago, and the ancestor of both these groups was terrestrial. These first whales, such as Pakicetus, were typical land animals. They had long skulls and large carnivorous teeth."
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03
[video=youtube;SAF5VjaYMdE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAF5VjaYMdE[/video]

 

But a transitional species by definition are their own species. What is your definition of a transitional?

But according to your requirement above they can't be of their own species. So what species would they belong to exactly?

 

Right a highly educated pseudo scientist. Except you could not hang with him in a serious debate, about facts. Because he would take the assumptions you say are facts and stuff em up your dogmatic arse. But some serious biologists understand him, and being scientists are not closed minded as your dogma has created in your own mind. Unlike you, he has actually contributed to the field. . But this is what you see when anyone questions materialism as the end all truth of reality. We all know it is the arrogance of atheism that drives it.

Your kind of thinking would have insured we were still trying to understand the atom using classical physics. You would have called anyone who was delving into the subject a pseudo scientist. Because it looked too much like woo woo. So we are lucky your mindset did not win the day.

 

Evolution may be considered a religion under the metaphorical definition of something pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
This, however, could also apply to stamp collecting, watering plants, or practically any other activity.
Calling evolution a religion makes religion effectively meaningless.

 

Sheldrake thinks that the fact that animals such as dogs and pigeons can find their way home is evidence for God.
His Big Theory is that organisms have “morphic resonance,” a kind of inherited species memory (think Jung) that helps shape their bodies and behaviors.
When others have tried to repeat his experiments demonstrating “morphic resonance,” they’ve also failed.
Sheldrake is a pseudoscientist with scientific credentials.

 

Pretty eye-rolling that now you're trying to buttress the argument you just said evolutionists don't make.

Non sequitur, since there's no reason to exclude the possibility of reversion.

Wrong question. Here's the right question: why should we expect nature to respect barriers imposed by the human mind after the fact?

No, I didn't.

Yeah, I'm a regular doubting Thomas.

"lessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

This is called grasping at straws.

 

i used to be a militant atheist who relied on toe to support my atheist religion. The truth is we dont know. There is not enough evidence to prove anything, let alone a theory that massive. I believe there is some truth to it. I also believe its got serious gaps. But if you go further back, to the big bang, the universe is in motion. Can a soccer ball kick itself? Can all this randomly start? Did the recquisite matter needed for the singularity to form, explode, form a tiny planet with all the needs for life and kickstart TOE just....perpetually exist? . . . . . . . . . . . Did the soccer ball kick itself?

 

The source for your image is purifiedbyfaith.com/CreationEvolution/Genesis2/Images/WBApeSeries.gif
It is not, as you claimed, from a scholastic textbook.

I went there and it sure looks like a Fundy Creationist site. Here is an actual image from their site...



Here are quotes from their site:

Are you finally coming out of the closet? Are you finally admitting that you are a Creationist? Are you finally admitting that you get your ideas about evolution from Creationist sites instead of actual textbooks?

Show this picture from a scholastic textbook and then show where it says (or even implies): Evolution is proved because the sixth image looks like the seventh image.

Your post is just more evidence for fallacy of your OP.

 

Talk about desperation.
I found this on a google search, & posted it because it was an OBVIOUS scan from a textbook.. you know, a school book that anyone who went to school looked at? And, it had the graphic that i have seen in EVERY text book that pitched evolution. I was not concerned about the source, as you seem to be.

Are you claiming that this is a scan from a creationist textbook?

No, you are just continuing with your deflections & adding more fallacies, attempting to poison the well by discrediting what you consider an invalid 'source'. Seriously? You think the graphic i presented is somehow a creo contrived lie?

This one is from Britannica.



You think you found some kind of 'gotcha!' angle with these graphics? I am amazed at the length you will go to find ANY argument for your lame belief system. You have no empirical evidence, so you stoop to this kind of deflection?

I did another quick search, & found this one, alleged to be the grandfather of all the 'march of progress' evolution charts. It is from 1965, & is the classic that all the others came from.. allegedly. It is also a scan, from the chart itself, presumably.



I've said you must live in an ecco chamber, but perhaps it is just a bubble, if you've never see this walking chart before. So you think it was creationists who devised this... very bizarre. Why would creationists make a chart that illustrates the opposite of what they believe?

I seriously doubt you believe this.. i'm sure you just think you found a 'gotcha!' angle with the graphic i posted. Of course, it has nothing to do with any of my points, or the content of the graphic, or the actual source.. but it seems to please you in some way, so i'm happy that such a tiny little glimmer of hope is enough to keep your faith alive.

Still, your hope seems to be based completely on fallacies, as i continually point out. 'Poison the well' seems to be a favorite of yours. Instead of replying to the arguments, or points of reason, you diligently attack the source, attempting to discredit it, as though that will render the points of reason invalid.

I don't obsess over the source.. i look for valid arguments, accurate science, & sound reasoning. I tend to avoid any pro-creation sites, as they whip some evolutionists up into a blind rage, & they won't even consider the points being made. It is pathetic, i know, but i do it out of consideration for their dainty thinking processes. Those hysterical breakdowns are not pretty.

But i mostly quote from scientific studies, if i am rebutting any science presented (a very rare thing, here!). The graphic you are obsessing over was chosen because it looked like an older scan from a textbook.. something i thought would rebut the phony narrative that 'no textbooks have fallacies in them!' that has been presented here by you & others.

'Fundy' site? Is that worse than a 'creo' site? How do you keep track of them, or do you have a system for reviling them, based on certain parameters?

And, thanks again for illustrating the OP. You make it pretty easy to present a premise & defend it. And, even though i did not have 'poison the well' in the list of fallacies, i will be sure to update it, as it is an obvious fallacy that evolutionists love to use.

Hopefully not lost in this hysterical deflection, is the use of neanderthal as a 'distinct species' in the march of evolution graphic. Some of them even label Neanderthal clearly, presenting him/her as a descendant. But the whole point of the last post i made was to show that even evolutionists are beginning to see neanderthal as just another human variant. He is no different than a pigmy or aborigine, & has records in the current DNA to prove it. Far from being some lower rung on the descendancy chart, neanderthal was a tribe of human beings, with all the genetics of any human being. The slight morphological differences only provide artistic license, not anything empirical to put them in another category or phylogenetic tier.

 

They are one and the same. You have to have a Fundamentalist Religious belief in your holy scripture to be a Creationist. But you know that.
Come out of the closet and admit your beliefs about evolution are based on the fact that you are a Religious Fundamentalist and a Creationist.



Let's cut to the chase...

In your previous post you asserted...

I asked you to...

You did not do that.

You have not been able to show any scholastic textbook that shows graphics of that kind and then states or implies...
10. Correlation proves Causation.


Isn't it about time you did. I and others have repeatedly asked. All you have done is tap dance and deflect. It's time to show evidence for your OP.

 

Good post! Thanks for the illustration.

In your quote, i appreciated the insertion of 'likely', since that is an accurate statement of belief. They have no empirical proof of these things, so believing them as 'likely' is a good disclaimer. But they leave that train right away, & go back to assertion with the rest of the quote.

And, of course, the 'evolution of whales animation', is clearly empirical science. You think somebody's imagined animation somehow 'proves evolution!'..?
But i like berkeley.edu for an evolution source, as it illustrates on almost every page the points in the OP. Here are a few from this page, from your link above:

hippos are the closest living relatives of whales, but they are not the ancestors of whales. In fact, none of the individual animals on the evogram is the direct ancestor of any other, as far as we know. That's why each of them gets its own branch on the family tree.

Ok, this is good. Why be dogmatically assertive about something that has no evidence? As far as we KNOW, none of the animals in the chart are descended from each other. This is a logical, evidenced, scientific conclusion. Oh, & here is the graphic, for those who want to refer to it here.


The rest of the article rests entirely on assertions that 'this is what happened'. It is based COMPLETELY on a 'looks like', or 'it could have happened' assertion that it DID happen. Is there any evidence that it did happen? Or is there any mechanism presented to show it even COULD happen? No. It is asserted & repeated as if it is common knowledge.

This is not science. This is science fiction. It is religious belief, masquerading behind scientific sounding terminology.

Note this graphic, labeled 'skeletons of 2 early whales'.


How? Why? There is no science presented, just assertions & an implied, 'these look similar, so they are descended.' The bones are different. The nostrils are different. NO mechanism or evidence is presented as to HOW the legs went to fins, or vice versa. That is just asserted, with nothing to base it on, other than, 'it looks like that could have happened!'

These first whales, such as Pakicetus, were typical land animals. They had long skulls and large carnivorous teeth. From the outside, they don't look much like whales at all. However, their skulls — particularly in the ear region, which is surrounded by a bony wall — strongly resemble those of living whales and are unlike those of any other mammal. Often, seemingly minor features provide critical evidence to link animals that are highly specialized for their lifestyles (such as whales) with their less extreme-looking relatives.

This entire argument is based on a 'looks like!' morphology, with striking conflicts. They start out saying, 'they don't look like whales much at all', but then transition to the skulls, which shows 'strong resemblance'. So even though they don't 'look' like a whale, since their skulls 'look' similar, that 'proves descendancy!'

The 'relative' line is assumed throughout, with NO evidence. It is all assumed, smugly, as if it is common knowledge.. 'everybody already knows this' is the implied assumption.

This 'looks like!' morphology is one of the central arguments for the ToE. It is, in essence, a 'correlation implies causation' argument, as they are saying that since it 'looks similar!', descendancy is implied. the 'cause' is implied by the visual correlation of similarity.

What other evidence is there? Is there any genetic or fossil evidence to indicate such ancestry? And HOW did these alleged changes take place? What mechanism affected the changes in the genome, to produce such drastically different functions in the anatomy? All of these things are merely asserted & assumed, WITHOUT evidence. It is merely a belief.. a speculative theory of what 'might have happened', that has been asserted & repeated (like all good propaganda) until people believe it. That is the ONLY 'evidence' for the ToE. It is asserted, dogmatically declared propaganda, with no empirical basis.

 

While browsing through the berkely.edu site, looking for any evidence for the 'whale/hippo' assumption. I found this one interesting:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/24_hippos.shtml

"The problem with hippos is, if you look at the general shape of the animal it could be related to horses, as the ancient Greeks thought, or pigs, as modern scientists thought, while molecular phylogeny shows a close relationship with whales," said Boisserie. "But cetaceans – whales, porpoises and dolphins – don't look anything like hippos. There is a 40-million-year gap between fossils of early cetaceans and early hippos."

Now, even the assumed scientific evidence of 'molecular phylogeny', in the above quote, is just another 'looks like!' visual, just at the molecular level. Do they have anything real, like DNA to base this on? No. Most DNA is gone by the time fossilization completes. So the ONLY 'evidence' there is, is a morphological based belief. It is completely a 'looks like!' opinion. And, like beauty or art, it is in the eye of the beholder. An objective observer is not compelled to 'see?' the art or beauty that others see.

it seems that even berkely.edu disagrees with your assertion.
UC Berkeley, French scientists find missing link between the whale and its closest relative, the hippo
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 24 January 2005
BERKELEY – A group of four-footed mammals that flourished worldwide for 40 million years and then died out in the ice ages is the missing link between the whale and its not-so-obvious nearest relative, the hippopotamus.
Now, I might agree with your assessment of 'ignorant', but i would extend that to science in general, not just to the ToE. It seems the only arguments FOR the ToE rely completely on ignorance in those being indoctrinated. All the assertions in this article have no scientific basis, but are all just assumed & believed, as if that proves something.

 

Your objections prove you don’t know as much as you think you do about evolutionary science.

 

do you have something of substance to say? Hush, adults are talking.

 

Birds evolved from dinosaurs over millions of years.

http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2010/09/28/brush-your-beak-10-amazing-birds-with-teeth/

 

That disqualifies you from ever having been an atheist.

The laws of physics support the concept of an eternal universe that endlessly recycles itself which means that there is no need for anything to be "kickstarted". The universe has always existed and will always exist. Life happens because life is made up of 6 of the most common elements in the universe.

As far as the singularity goes that is straightforward enough. What happens to anything that is compressed? Compression causes heat and ultimately the heat at the center of the singularity exceeded the gravitational forces holding it together.