Granted. By “vernacular”, I was only trying to show how Bechly is in essence claiming that all plants are one species (or, as our YEC foils would state, one created kind). That’s where his response logically leads. Hopefully one can see that, by slipping in a term most of us are familiar with, I am not claiming that Bechly is a YEC.
2 Likes
As far as Bechly goes, the relevant term would be something like “saltation-group”, a set of species descended from a particular saltation event. How you distinguish saltation from ordinary evolution is by no means clear, but I don’t think the former necessarily requires a new body plan. Of course, “body plan” is undefined, so useless.
For that matter, how would you distinguish between “divinely facilitated saltation” and Progressive Creation?
in my opinion, “saltation-group” is about as vacuous and meaningless a term as is “created kind”.
I forget where, but I recall that Bechly uses at least three rather different definitions of “body plan”, and bounces around between these as needed to rescue his failed challenge.
2 Likes
That much is easy. Progressive creation would not be expected to produce a nested hierarchy in data.
Not at all. Just think of it as a clade diagnosed by some kind of massive synapomorphy.
True. One of them is a new organ, another is a new gene or three. I forget what else. But I do recall that whales have none of them.
Standard creationist tactic:
- Ask a question
- Ignore all the answers received
- Wait three weeks
- Ask the same question again
Some creationists are even dumb enough to ask the question again in the same thread, making their dishonesty obvious to anyone who can use a scrollbar
Stage 5 is, of course, to complain about being treated with well-deserved contempt.
3 Likes
I’m not a creationist
I’m not ignoring the answers. I’m not convinced by them, that’s all.
Before insulting me, you should first try to figure out what a conversation is.
I leave it to the readers here to judge whether my contribution to this thread deserves such contempt.
Usually, repetitions have pedagogical value
So let me try one and see if it works: I’m not a creationist.
Matters of science are not matters of tribal culture. Avoiding the label will do nothing to fix the merits of the ideas you put out, or the arguments you defend them with. Calling you a creationist, whether accurately or not, is likewise not a means of addressing anything you say (that’s been done in other messages). Of all the messages composed in reply to you between this one and your last, you chose to focus on the one that accused you of employing the tactics typical of a particular camp of this debate.
Now, I’m not saying Roy’s message was a great or even worthwhile contribution to the actual debate at hand (sorry, Roy), but could I be blamed for questioning your investment into its actual topic, when of all the things you could have addressed, you prioritized the one that’s all drama?
Is it entirely unfair of Roy to point out how creationists, too, choose to ignore most or all of the discussion, only to soon after complain about how unfairly they think they’re treated? Is it unfair to imply that, whether the label applies to you or not, this is rather like what you are doing also?
3 Likes
You are as ignorant as a creationist.
You use the same fallacies as creationists.
You cite creationist websites.
You misuse numbers like a creationist.
You use quote-mines, just like creationists.
You cite sources you haven’t read, just like creationists.
You compare the history of life to the book of Genesis, just like creationists.
You cite decades-dead scientists without mentioning that their ideas are not current because they died decades ago. So do creationists.
You hold a view that is indistinguishable from both Progressive creation and a well-known definition of special creation:
Finally, you talk like a creationist:
“I believe that humans are the pinnacle and reason of creation.”
That’s just from this thread, and isn’t even all the available examples of your creationist attitude, views and behaviour.
So when you deny being a creationist, as so many of your fellow ID advocates do, there’s no reason to believe you and many reasons not to.
You could make it clear whether or not you are a creationist by stating what you believe happened during life’s history, rather than merely sniping at evolution (as creationists do) while concealing the details of your own views (as ID creationists do), but I suspect you don’t do that because it would become immediately obvious that you are, in fact, a progressive creationist.
When you repeat the same question without mentioning answers already given, you are indeed ignoring the answers.
An excellent plan. I recommend readers start with these two ‘contributions’:
“What are the evidence that the dinosaurs were wipe out by a giant asteroid ? Seems a rather unsubstantiated claim to me.”
“…the transitional fossils you imagine exist are in fact mainly elusive, as the quote below from Gould shows”
7 Likes
Oh well. I’ll try to do better.
Should I employ more or less withering sarcasm?
1 Like
It wasn’t a jab at you or your message. I’m just saying that the illustration of creationist tactics wasn’t on-topic. Neither was my comment, for that matter. Not that there is anything wrong with either in an Argument Clinic type thread.
My point was, as seems to be one of yours, that Gilbert comfortably sails right by any substantive, topical points, only to focus on something like this instead. Much like a creationist in a corner, with nothing to reply to said points with, would. There’s a chance, I reckon, that if you hadn’t posted what you did, Gilbert would have waited for someone else to, before coming back to the thread to reply to it over any of the substantive arguments made before then.
1 Like
So looking at the domestication of crops and animals and the amount of change we have seen happen there in mere centuries to millenia, what is it that convinces you change can’t continue over longer timescales? Or why does that fail to convince you that it can? If dogs can have changed that much from their wolf ancestors in such a short time, why can’t other species have changed more over million-year intervals?
We can also go over something like Archaeopteryx again as a transitional form. You seem to have given arguments for why you think it isn’t a transitional form, or alternatively (and confusingly) by appealing to Feduccia who thinks that it is a transitional form not between birds and dinosaurs but between birds and archosaurs.
That leaves me wondering, if you don’t think it qualifies as a transitional form, what would a transitional form have to look like to convince you it is one?
6 Likes
Does it matter if you fail to qualify as a “creationist”, under some (quite probably tendentious) definition of that word, if you embody all the reasons (e.g. crankery, dishonesty and incompetence) why people here hold that category in complete contempt?
Likewise does it matter whether you are convinced or not, if the basis for your skepticism is incompetent and/or dishonest ID crankery?
I’m fairly sure that regurgitating long-since-debunked ID (and other creationist) drivel does not qualify as “conversation”. It is talking at somebody, not discussing things with them.
What exactly have you contributed, beyond quotemines, bald assertions and dodgy sources, that your “contribution” shouldn’t be viewed with contempt?
Only if the contents are factual – otherwise it’s just another worthless argumentum ad nauseam, with no more value than another Willy Dembski Fart Video.
So you say – but we have no more reason to take you seriously than to take Humpty Dumpty:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
Even the “scornful tone” would seem similar. 
2 Likes
That’s potentially distinguishable from special creation, depending on the nature of that abrupt appearance. Perhaps @Giltil will clarify (or perhaps he’s a stealth creationist who won’t). @giltil: where do you think birds came from? Were they fiat creations or did they have ancestors?How far down does common descent stretch? Are birds related to all other dinosaurs? To all other amniotes? To all other vertebrates? To all other eukaryotes? To all other life?
And of course they don’t appear fully formed. Archaeopteryx may have flight feathers indistinguishable from those of modern birds, but in most other respects it’s more like a typical theropod than like a modern bird. And, contra Feduccia, there are feather precursors on fossils that nobody thinks are flightless birds, notably Sinosauropteryx. No, not collagen fibers.
Yes, they do, though it would be polite to distinguish contempt for your ideas from contempt for you personally. Still, word to the wise, you are behaving badly.
6 Likes
Artificial selection is about directional/purposeful changes that harness the phenotypic plasticity of some species. But this plasticity only occurs within the limit of a species body plan. Because artificial selection doesn’t create new body plans, new complex functional systems, it cannot be used to argue that macro evolution (creative evolution) is simply micro evolution plus deep time.
You can have macro evolution without new body plans or complex functional systems. Pretty much everybody would consider the difference between canines and felines go past the bounds of micro evolution, yet the body plans are not fundamentally different, and hyenas look like a blend. It is more the rule than the exception that macro evolution not involve a great deal of complex novelty when it comes to more recent branches.
If someone makes the argument that micro evolution cannot accumulate to macro evolution, it falls on them to offer a rigorous definition of micro vs macro, and why the limits of change are in effect. Otherwise, it becomes a rather arbitrary assertion.
2 Likes
Artifical selection can be unconscious of it’s long-term effects. It doesn’t change the underlying genetics what the selector desires to happen, either the change is possible or it is not. If you are right and the degree of change isn’t possible then no amount of “purposful” or “direction” provided by the breeders is going to produce changes that aren’t possible. So that entire line of argument is completely irrelevant.
These are just assertions, in effect assuming what you are trying to prove. You have not provided us(or yourself) any reason to think change cannot continue, you have just declared one as if you’ve been granted some sort of knowledge you don’t actually possess.
Even if there is such a thing as a limit to the “plasticity within limit of a species body plan”, you really have no idea what that limit is.
It’s still not clear what a new body plan is, nor that (for example) a cetacean has a new one from it’s terrestrial ancestors, nor have you given us any reason to think artificial selection if allowed to continue over greater spans of time, cannot help to contribute to that level of change.
All you have is just declarations and assumptions based apparently on nothing factual.
I invoke again the experimental evolution of macroscopic multicellularity from single-celled ancestors. If that doesn’t qualify as a new body plan, then I dare submit whatever you mean by it is nonsensical.
5 Likes
No, phenotypic plasticity is something else. Artificial selection harnesses the genetic variation in whatever species is being selected. It’s really a form of natural selection, in which humans are the selective environment.
7 Likes