When it comes to religious beliefs, atheists do require evidence.
Is God 98% chimp? Is “sea” a physical attribute or gene? Which animals are made from dust?
A nested hierarchy is groups within groups based on shared features.
For each feature, all species up the tree from that point have that feature. The same pattern is seen with genetic comparisons across entire genomes.
If species were separately created then God could mix and match features however he wants. For example, a group of species could have feathers and mammary glands which would break a nested hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason why separate creation will necessarily a nested hierarchy. However, it is the only pattern evolution can produce.
I’d like to say that we can be both special and random acts of chance. It does not seem to me that how we came to exist is at all relevant when pondering questions such as the value or purpose of human existence.
Where did you get that tree? Not only are lungs incorrectly placed (should be on the same branch with jaws), but the pigeon ought to be with the lizard, not the mammals. Urk.
I was trying to explain that there is truth that science cannot explain.
If you insist, I may have to make a drawing of the Bible’s nested hierarchy. I think it’s quite obvious if you know the Bible. But I’m busy with kids now.
(from Perelman P, Johnson WE, Roos C, Seuánez HN, Horvath JE, Moreira MAM, et al. (2011) A Molecular Phylogeny of Living Primates. PLoS Genet 7(3): e1001342. A Molecular Phylogeny of Living Primates)
Sanford’s argument is because there are these mutations, there is not enough time for evolution to be true.
@Rumraket explained why those mutations do not require that much time, and therefore do not preclude evolution being true.
You replied
But the evolutionary model isn’t in any way, shape, or form being presumed or begged there, nor is it even concluded. If Sanford’s premise is messed, all that really means is that his argument has no bearing on anything one way or another, and is just a waste.
There is no failure to grasp the argument. It is perfectly understood and found to be wrong.
And as you move further back in time to the left on the graph, the base of the pyramid gets wider and wider. This is not a tree. It is a sideways pyramid which says we are all ultimately related by DNA, not some common ancestor.
This is a pyramid of common traits shared among animalia, not a tree of common ancestry. Proof of the pyramid form is that all seven organisms are vertebrates, creating the wide base of the pyramid, which then narrows as it approaches the top.
No idea what that’s supposed to mean. What in that figure do you interpret as “the base”?
I don’t think you have any clue about nested hierarchies or phylogenetic trees, which are isomorphic.
But that’s not a pyramid. You might represent it as a pile of blocks, with the bottom block being the widest, and subsequent levels being split into more and more blocks. But a pyramid narrows toward the top, while that representation wouldn’t change width. An easier representation would be a set of nested boxes, which is another way to represent a nested hierarchy. Whatever graphic you choose, it’s best explained by common descent with branching.
Beginning with the same genetic template, God would have merely accelerated the molecular clock in the human and chimpanzee genomes, rapidly multiplying mutations, and thus began the creation of the human and chimpanzee kinds. He would have done this in a matter of moments, or seconds. What emerged were two very distinct kinds.
~6000 years later, when you arrived at the knowledge necessary to uncover each of the genomes, you mistakenly assumed their relatedness.
That’s the point IMHO. You can call it a tree, or a pyramid, or nesting boxes, or whatever. But @r_speir seems closer than the average creationist to understanding what is actually being demonstrated here. And common ancestry is the only feasible explanation.
