I would have to disagree. Most tree diagrams these days make strong assumptions about how evolution works because they incorporate explicit models of evolutionary processes, such as using the general time-reversible model, with a parameter for invariant sites and another for the distribution of evolutionary rates among sites. Further, any method (with negligible exceptions) assumes that a tree exists.
The more important point is that these assumptions can in fact be tested by the data.
Most important indeed.
Arenât they adjusted by the data though? The time for instance?
I donât know what you mean by that, so I canât respond.
I probably had the wrong thing in mind. Got a handy website that shows these tree diagrams in detail such that a layperson would understand? I would like to know how we know tree doesnât get adjusted to data.
There probably is, but I donât know about it. Maybe someone else does. My advice is a book: Tree Thinking. Now that I think of it, there may be a Tree Thinking web site.
You canât do that with two species. You need at least one outgroup too. The primate tree I cited recently has lots of taxa and the arrow of time is pretty clear.
You might check out the data from the primate phylogeny paper Iâve mentioned several times. When, for example, a gorilla and a chimp have A at a site but humans have G, the simplest explanation is a change from A to G in the human lineage.
Here is another handy reference with real data. In this case, when a gorilla and an orangutan both have A and a human and chimp both have G, the simplest explanation is a change from A to G in the human-chimp lineage.
Not correct. If you canât distinguish assumption from inference based on data, you have no business discussing science. Your use of the word âproofâ also demonstrates your ignorance. There are none so blindâŚ
All I have to do is assume that God created these two different creatures exactly as their DNA sequences suggest. Then I make the assumption that you have been sucked into a sort of illusion where you think parallel lineages converge and diverge.
That doesnât explain the nested hierarchy into which the âdifferent creaturesâ fit. Your two assumptions are not supported by the data; you have done what you wrongly accused me of doing. My assumptions have been tested against the data and are found to fit it very well. Yours, not. Theyâre the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody as loud as you can so you canât hear my arguments. Thunder and lightning, very very frightening. Galileo Galileo Galileo Figaro.
My assumptions fit the data just great. First, is the data which says God created the creatures which moved along the ground:
âGod made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.â Gen 1
After that, he created Man as a separate kind:
âThen God said, âLet us make mankind in our image, in our likenessâ Gen 1
When he did that, he apparently used the same fundamental genetic material on which to build both creatures and nuanced each with varying DNA sequences that gave the illusion of substitutions, insertions/deletions, [oh, and so-called ânested hierarchiesâ], etc.
That would make you the one who is under an illusion, âsticking fingers in your earsâ and shouting loudly to drown out the Creation data plainly written in the Bible.
Sorry, but Genesis is not âthe dataâ. We have a basic epistemological conflict. You think your interpretation of Genesis is all the relevant data, while I think the actual world: genomes, fossils, etc. are.
Why would God create illusions in the genomes of species? Is he trying to fool us?
Yes, it is.
Not my problem.
There is no other interpretation of what I quoted. First, the animals which moved along the ground, then, Man as a separate kind. What other interpretation did you have in mind?
God can create using any means and methods he desires. That those means and methods somehow create a natural illusion is not his problem, neither is it his problem that people are so easily fooled because he gave clear data of his means and methods in written form and people continually ignore it.
In a weird way, I appreciate your honesty in openly acknowledging the anti-scientific bias of creationism. Most of your fellow creationists feel compelled to convince others (any maybe even themselves) that their beliefs have even a modicum of scientific value.
In other words, âGod said it, I believe it, that settles it.â But why, then, do you persist in trying to talk about science when itâs entirely irrelevant to your views?
Creationism created the science. So I have no idea what you talking about. That you are able to run DNA sequencing at all and find similarities between created kinds is due to Godâs creative means and methods. Your only fault is in first, trying to leave him out of the picture, then second, misinterpreting the evidence.
Egyptian creation data says Atum made the world and the creatures in it. Why is your data any better than that of ancient Egypt?
Yes, that is the paradox. I am completely open to the idea that a proper understanding of the Bible will conclude that its authors were convinced the earth was 6000 years old and every organism was magically created in its current form by a god. It doesnât matter, because I also believe those stories to be nothing but myths.
Creationists, OTOH, lack the power of conviction and keep trying to insist that science supports their view, even as they also insist it is irrelevant to their understanding of the truth of the Bible.
Weird.
Can you explain why a god would deliberately create a biosphere that exhibits a nested hierarchy, other than to deceive us and make you creationists look silly?