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Well, nobody disputes that animals make offspring that are similar to the parents. Why would anyone dispute that? The heritability of traits is one of the cornerstones of evolutionary theory.

And abiogenesis? Yes, you can take the view that “until someone produces life in a lab from chemicals, I will personally stomp my feet, holler, and refuse to believe that life can have originated naturally.” But this is silly, for reasons which are as obvious to you as to anyone else.

I do get the schtick here. Holler and demand “empirical evidence,” which is a phrase you’ve learned but of which you don’t seem to understand the meaning. But the schtick doesn’t work, for one simple reason. You’re the one on the outside, attempting to discredit a tremendously well-evidenced and well understood (albeit not by you) scientific theory. As such, you need to do two things.

First, you need to understand that theory. Your posts here show that you do not, and that you have, instead, studied creationist literature which has led you, as you concede, to an understanding only of the “fake” version of the theory, not the actual theory.

Second, you need to come up with an empirically evidenced explanation which better explains the various bodies of evidence at issue: the evidence for common descent, the evidence of the mechanisms of speciation, et cetera. Of course, you can’t even begin to do that without first understanding the actual theory, rather than the “fake” theory of which you have spoken.

Now, people have been very patient and kind to you, and they have attempted to help you out. You’re clearly at the very beginning of a journey; you have not studied this subject in any meaningful way and have instead filled your head with a great deal of creationist detritus which needs clearing before you can learn. But you should not mistake people’s patience for some sort of need on their part to convince you. Nobody needs to convince you. The scientific enterprise will sail on with or without your assent. Your choice is whether to learn, or not learn.

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And all of that is totally in harmony with evolutionary processes. How could you have studied as extensively as you claim without grasping such basic concepts?

Incredibly, even anti-evolutionists like Ken Ham admit that cheetahs, lions, tigers, pumas, and their kin ALL were produced from “cat-family ancestors” which were very different. (Indeed, this has confused some anti-evolutionist visitors to The Ark Encounter when they see the strange-looking proto-kind fluffies and stuffies in cages.) Ham and the major anti-evolution ministries admit that there are changes over the generations that leads to new species. They advocate what is actually a HYPER-SPEED evolution that is far more rapid than anything supported by scientists—but they simply refuse to use the appropriate term. Indeed, I’ve lived long enough to observe the evolution-denying YEC world gradually being overwhelmed by the evidence for evolutionary changes beyond the species and then genera level to where now virtually all of the YEC ministry leaders allow for evolution to at least the family taxons and, incredibly, even to entire orders, classes, and beyond. (“Even after the changes, it is still a bacteria—so that is not evolution!” is their admission that evolution occurs even to the extent and diversity of a kingdom.)

You never addressed my language evolution scenario. Do you doubt that a population/region of Latin speakers evolved into a French-speaking population over many generations? No Latin-speaking family was ever confused by their French-speaking child being unable to communicate with them. It is impossible to state precisely when Latin-speaking ended and French-speaking began because the changes in pronunciation, grammar, and semantics changed very slowly over time—just as biological evolution involves small generation-by-generation changes that take time to accumulate in order to become obvious major changes. Yet, nobody claims that “French evolving from Latin is impossible because Latin-speakers only raise Latin-speaking children.” This is not a difficult concept to grasp. But somehow you manage. As I read your endless rehash of the same meaningless maxims, I increasingly wonder if you are pranking us. (Are you for real or are you a Poe-player?)

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You know, shouting doesn’t make your blather more convincing. Calm down, try to engage with the arguments people are making in response, and you may feel better.

The main evidence for common descent comes from nested hierarchy in the various sorts of data, these days largely DNA and protein sequences. The biotic succession in the fossil record is more evidence, independent of yet consonant with the nested hierarchy. That should do for a start. And we could discuss specific cases if you liked.

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So life must be infinitely old is what you’re saying? The history of past cell divisions must go infinitely back into the past. If cells can only come from cells, then there could have been no first cell that didn’t come from another cell.

Multicelluarity has been experimentally evolved.

But that’s your proposal. That a mythical being magically made life appear. So where is your demonstration? That’s right, nowhere.

Hypocrite.

Once again with this “if you haven’t seen it you can’t infer it happened” idiocy.

Actually what we see is that no child is identical to it’s parent. Small changes build up over time. So even though it might superficially appear to be similar to a cat for a long period of time, any rational person can understand that if enough generations happen the changes will increase in scale.

Things happen slowly =/= they don’t happen at all. Another idiotic point of yours. Children can see through this stupid “were you there?” crap.

Oh gee if I didn’t see it then we can’t know anything. Everyone knows that is false, and stupid. And everyone would feel stupid for even suggesting such a thing if they weren’t so invested in the topic.

You were the only one who had my wallet at the time and now some of my cash is missing. “OH NO WE CAN’T KNOW ANYTHING BECAUSE NOBODY SAW IT ITS A MYSTERY AAAH THE MONEY MIGHT AS WELL HAVE MAGICALLY DISAPPERED ALL BY ITSELF OR A BURGLAR WHO CAN WALK THROUGH WALLS AND MAGICALLY WISH THE CASH INTO HIS OWN HANDS IS JUST AS GOOD AN EXPLANATION.” ← That’s basically how dumb you sound.

No wonder people are leaving creationism in droves.

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You are attempting to water the fact down. It isn’t just that our children are similar, or have traits that favor either parents. But, they also have traits that favor both parents.

That would be those traits that distinguish our children as human.

All of the different kinds of lifeforms have secondary traits passed along from both parents AND EXPRESSED UNIQUELY IN THE OFFSPRING.
But, there are primary traits that are passed along that identify those resulting offspring AS THE KIND OF LIFEFORM, OR ORGANISM THE OFFSPRING ARE GOING TO BE IDENTIFIED AS.

All you are doing is trying to water down what I have submitted.
As much as you’d like to not admit it as evidence, what I have said, is empirically observed in every one of the different kinds of lifeforms present today, and they can be see eve in the fossil record.

Help me out? I don’t need any helping out. I presented evidence that disputes what you believe about common ancestry.
And if you think I am not qualified or worthy to dispute with what I have submitted, there are thousands of other scientists who have chosen to reject common descent evolution. And you will find among them many who had accepted common descent evolution themselves, but upon actually looking for, that evidence and finding nothing that is scientifically sound they have either accepted Intelligent design or the Creator as the Intelligent Designer.

Now, if you are ot able to discuss this, step aside and allow others who are more willing to do so, to do so.

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No, you’re missing the point entirely, and you’re not doing a very good job even of expressing your confusion.

Traits are heritable. That’s one piece of the puzzle. But if traits were heritable and immutable (e.g., if there were a fixed and final, unchanging, set of things that “distinguish our children as human”) then all that would happen from generation to generation would be reassortment within a fixed library of traits.

But that, of course, is where mutation comes in. Mutation results in the library of traits NOT being fixed and unchanging.

You do, and you didn’t. All you’ve been doing is posting creationist quote-mines of the literature, creationist videos, and other useless and non-empirical matter, together with endless repetitions of the commonplace observation that animals tend to produce offspring that are similar to themselves. Heritability of traits isn’t contrary to evolution; it is foundational to evolution.

I think it’s sort of funny that you demand empirical evidence on the one hand, but then appeal to a really, REALLY bad argumentum ad populum. There are of course a handful – not thousands – of practicing scientists who reject common descent. People try to boost the numbers via such things as the DI’s weird “dissent from Darwin” document, but when you look at the credentials of the signers it’s pretty disappointing stuff. Meanwhile, Project Steve shows that actual scientists named “Steve” who accept evolution vastly outnumber them.

Why? You’re not able to discuss this, and yet here you are. I am able to discuss this, but you’re not listening.

What you may find, though, is that after a few rounds of this, nobody will bother responding to you. If you’d like to learn, there are many here who can help teach you. It doesn’t appear that you’d like to learn, and you plainly have nothing to offer on the subject, so you should probably just figure that you’ve shot your bolt and raised your blood pressure, and need to stop.

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And that is exactly what we see. Not only are the expressed as primary and secondary traits, but inside that library, are limits on how those primary and secondary traits are to be expressed.

This is why even though both apes and humans have similar anatomies, those genes that express the anatomies of both, are only allowed to express the one as what it would normally be for the ape anatomy, and the other expresses what would normally be for the human anatomy.

You are not the one listening. You have become so in on yourself, that you think there is nothing more for your to learn, and think yourself superior to others who do not think as you think.

I’ve submitted my evidence. Dispute it. And stop trying make yourself fee more important than you are.

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You’re going to have to back up that claim.

Sorry, which of your many claims do you consider evidence? That part isn’t clear, and you will have to be quite specific.

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Except when it’s not. Here’s where reading some actual biology, instead of the “fake” theory you have boasted of being well versed in, would help. Why read the fake stuff?

“Both apes and humans” is a bit of a silly expression. It’s like “both fish and salmon.” Other than that, all that you seem to be saying is that gene expression in different species is different. Nobody disputes that. Changes in gene expression as we descended from our ancestors are an important part of evolution, so again, what you’re citing is the evidence FOR evolution. It may be that it is evidence against the “fake” version which you claim to have studied, but, again, that’s why you should study and discuss the real rather than the fake.

I suspect that your ability to evaluate others is on a level with your ability to evaluate evidence generally. Agreed? I come here to learn from the scientists who post here, and it’s a very nice place to do that learning. You don’t appear to be interested in learning.

But you haven’t. You’ve just been pointing out that offspring resemble parents – an observation without which evolution wouldn’t work. It’s literally one of the core premises of evolution. You have only studied the “fake” version, as you yourself concede, and apparently, whatever “fake” version you’re referring to, this commonplace observation contradicts it. Again: learn the REAL theory of evolution, and then you’ll understand. Until you do you will just be lost.

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Just a reminder, I don’t believe you have yet answered this:

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Or this:

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Even though this thread passed the Byers’ Point™ about a hundred miles ago, I’m still left in Gaper’s Block awe with “arguments” like this:

Wow. Just. Wow.

In the sobbing words of Herbert Morrison: “Oh the humanity!”

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I think the other apes will equally lament sharing a Family with someone who would write something like that. (“Oh, the hominidae!”)

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6 posts were split to a new topic: RTMCDGE and Dissent from Darwin

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How many papers from the primary evolutionary biology literature have you read in your claimed study of many years?

It would have to be quite a lot; otherwise your statement is a blatant case of bearing false witness. You’re literally claiming to have witnessed their production directly, when it is obvious that your position is based entirely on hearsay.

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At the risk of offering an opinion as welcome as a fart in a lift… would it be worth focussing on one thing at a time and in depth and with fewer people contributing? Seems to be jumping all over the show and allowing easy bypassing of proper discussion of a point
Yes… I am aware of my hypocrisy here

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No, you really haven’t.

Anyway, I’m not going to get involved as life is too short. As you like videos, try this one.

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Not a bad idea. I’ll start with Dissent from Darwin, then look for the next big chunk.

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Perhaps I should post a website with an equally silly petition entitled:

“A Scientific Dissent from Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation”

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation to account for the complexity of the universe. Careful examination of the evidence for Newtonian physics should be encouraged.

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Wait, you again make a denial, and a claim, and then fail to enlighten.
If it isn’t about universal common descent, DARWINISM, then what is it all about?

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Just because you recognize the flaws in the speculation, doesn’t mean that the flaws just disappear.
The evolutionists have never demonstrated that universal common descent actually was caused by any of the mechanisms that supposedly caused universal common descent to occur.

The fact is, whenever we look at life being produced, or being reproduced the resulting descendant offspring are always classified as being the same kinds of lifeforms as the two kinds of lifeforms that mated them into existence.

Your denials do not change the fact that there are scientists from all disciplines who question what others say is the evidence for evolution.

And you claim you accept the questioning. But, you do not realize that the questions, call the whole speculative speculation into question, and demands that it be reregulated to being speculative at best. Error at the most.