The Lowly Fruit Fly Befuddles the Evolutionists

[Mageth]

You insist that 'complexity' is a problem for evolutionists, without ever actually showing that complexity is a problem for evolutionists.

Researchers saying 'this is whoo-dang complexical' are not befuddled researchers.

This shouldn't be in a 'Religion Vs. Science' forum. It should be in a 'just preaching' forum.

Are you aware of any evolution research that has demonstrated that biological processes can produce increasingly complex organisms? The creationists look for such things and they have not found any.

Oh, so you're here on this thread to make an ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE. How novel of you, rhutchin!

Of course, it was the evolutionists who perfected the art of arguing from ignorance.

The only thing lamer than an argument from ignorance is a Tu Quoque, esp. one that's not actually supported.

My arguments regarding the complexity of living organisms is being shown in research.

Living organisms are complex! Who'd a thunk it? Science can't explain it! Therefore, the only explanation for that complexity must be a vastly more complex creator!

Sheesh. What nonsense!

I have cited a couple cases in separate threads and will cite more when I find them. You, of course, are encouraged to bring our attention to studies that support evolution.

Again, evolution is a fact. Get your facts straight or you'll continue to look like an uninformed crank.

Studies that support evolution? Google Scholar, search for "evolution", @4.3 million results. Narrow it to "biological evolution", still @3.1 million results.

You and your creotard friends have cherry picked, in your own words, a "couple cases" that you think teach against "evolution" because "OMG, things are complex!" and "They can't 'splain complex fruit flies!" and so on.

Surely this is all a joke, rhutchin. I'm just laughing at your lame assertions and efforts here. It's comical.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That makes your answer, No. If you or anyone else knew anything, you would have cited it. So, I think I can be adamant at this point: search the literature and you will not find research that supports the idea that evolutionary processes increase complexity in living organisms.

You can be adamant that you're arguing from ignorance, yes.
It just doesn't mean anything to anyone else.

No preaching needed here. The scientific literature is lacking on this much to the dismay of evolutionists.

No dismay, no befuddlement, and fuck-all for evidence that supports your claim, then.

 

[Mageth]

You insist that 'complexity' is a problem for evolutionists, without ever actually showing that complexity is a problem for evolutionists.

Researchers saying 'this is whoo-dang complexical' are not befuddled researchers.

This shouldn't be in a 'Religion Vs. Science' forum. It should be in a 'just preaching' forum.

Are you aware of any evolution research that has demonstrated that biological processes can produce increasingly complex organisms?

Once more, you're making the positive claim that it cannot.
Back it up, if you can. Otherwise, it's just preaching.

That makes your answer, No. If you or anyone else knew anything, you would have cited it. So, I think I can be adamant at this point: search the literature and you will not find research that supports the idea that evolutionary processes increase complexity in living organisms. Research has to start with a complex organism - fruit fly or a mouse - and then it tries to sort out what happens under changing conditions which it then describes. Most research is observational seeking to work through the complexity living organisms. Where research seeks to induce change to organisms, nothing productive is found other than you end up worse off than before. All one need do to see this is read Science or Nature magazine for any length of time. If otherwise, people would have their citations all lined up. They don't. Thus, your answer comes out, No.

No preaching needed here. The scientific literature is lacking on this much to the dismay of evolutionists.

So what you're saying here is that all you have is just another Argument From Ignorance.

No. I am arguing from complexity. Evolution argues from ignorance.

Tu Quoque fail. Try something else.

The issue may be that science can't explain it yet but the "it" that science cannot explain gets more complex each day. The problem of explaining how evolution could take some original living organism and evolve to the life we observe today is getting more difficult and will get even more difficult.

That was, is, and remains an argument from ignorance.

 

[Mageth]

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact.

How many times do we have to repeat these basic things before they get through to you, rhutchin?

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact and is shown in the example of the animals that came off the ark.

As you know, the difficult part is getting life to evolve from a universal common ancestor - and this is the weakness of evolutionary speculations.

What I know is that your above argument was, is, and remains comically absurd.

 

[abaddon]

rhutchin,

A reasonable understanding of "explained" will mean we have enough details to work out the model that fits the evidence best. It does not mean "all complexity has been explored in all details".

You don't have better answers. You're a liar if you say (out loud or silently to yourself) that you do.

You're on the attack and your attack needs to do more than simply requiring people explain science to you. That information is freely available on the Net, in books and in college/universities.

So say what explanation is better than evolution. Then expand some on the explanation. Give a demonstration in support of it. (Bashing evolution doesn't substitute for this.)

I've searched for the explanation for the intelligent designer/creator, both on the Net and in a few books. And, unlike the theory of evolution, there's a severe lack of research and explaining regarding this being. It strikes me that creationists can't explain much of anything about the designer/creator (at least not in a way that doesn't come across as extremely ill-founded) and so need to attack evolution instead. The assumption is that if science fails then religion's the right place to turn, so if "atheistic" evolution is shot full of holes then people will naturally gravitate towards theistic creationism as the one most obvious alternative. That doesn't logically follow. And maybe it's not really intended to logically follow but is just a rhetorical, political game where, if creationists can make more people doubt science, then they'll attach to some intellectually lame but emotionally satisfying superstitions instead.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

You confuse me, rhutchin.

I read your original article segment and wondered what you were seeing there that supported your statement. Then I realised that any mention of the word "complex" triggers a specific response in you.

I just want to tell you that because something is too complex for you to understand doesn't mean it's too complex to be understood.

Go and do enough biology to have a good understanding of the workings of a single cell, and then hit the books again and study the development of a foetus.

Then contemplate, for about a year, the implications and ramifications of the phrase "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and then come back to me and tell me, from an educated perspective, that there are no observations that would lead anyone to believe that evolution is the best explanation of the known facts.

I'm not joking or being snide. This would be a good way to earn the right to have an opinion on this subject.

 

[rhutchin]

You confuse me, rhutchin.

I read your original article segment and wondered what you were seeing there that supported your statement. Then I realised that any mention of the word "complex" triggers a specific response in you.

I just want to tell you that because something is too complex for you to understand doesn't mean it's too complex to be understood.

Go and do enough biology to have a good understanding of the workings of a single cell, and then hit the books again and study the development of a foetus.

Then contemplate, for about a year, the implications and ramifications of the phrase "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and then come back to me and tell me, from an educated perspective, that there are no observations that would lead anyone to believe that evolution is the best explanation of the known facts.

I'm not joking or being snide. This would be a good way to earn the right to have an opinion on this subject.

Everyone cannot do everything. That is why we have people like you to study biology and explain to others. So, start explaining, unless you are not the one who has done the biology and cannot.

 

[rhutchin]

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact.

How many times do we have to repeat these basic things before they get through to you, rhutchin?

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact and is shown in the example of the animals that came off the ark.

As you know, the difficult part is getting life to evolve from a universal common ancestor - and this is the weakness of evolutionary speculations.

What I know is that your above argument was, is, and remains comically absurd.

Nonetheless, it is still true that the difficult part is getting all life to evolve from a universal common ancestor - and this is the weakness of evolutionary speculations - evolution cannot show that such is even possible.

 

[rhutchin]

You're on the attack and your attack needs to do more than simply requiring people explain science to you. That information is freely available on the Net, in books and in college/universities.

No, what we are looking for is the science research that demonstrates that the claims of evolutionists are even possible. There are plenty of explanations incorporating many speculations. Now, we need the research to sort out what works.

...if creationists can make more people doubt science, then they'll attach to some intellectually lame but emotionally satisfying superstitions instead.

Creationists don't want people to doubt science. Creationists want people to doubt the claims made by people who do not have support from the science.

 

[rhutchin]

Living organisms are complex! Who'd a thunk it? Science can't explain it! Therefore, the only explanation for that complexity must be a vastly more complex creator!

OK. Let's use the example creationists use. If you are taking a walk and see a watch lying on the ground, you don't think that the watch was created through natural processes over a long period of time. You conclude that someone made the watch - that it had a designer.

So, you see a living cell - much more complex than a watch - and you conclude that it just popped into existence and no one made it. Why do you do that?

 

[Sheshbazzar]

scientific literature is lacking.....

Is not any positive evidence for the fallacious religious premise; '...therefor God(s)'.

a living cell - much more complex than a watch -

The level of complexity arising out of billions of years of evolution and mutations is not any positive evidence for the idiotic and fallacious religious premise; '...therefore God...' ( aka the zombie Jeezuz) made every living thing just as it is, about 6000 years ago", or at any time or stage of the distant past.

Imaginative claims of inventions and machinations having been performed by god(s), zombies, jinn, angels, dragons, pixies, gnomes or other prehistoric ET's and all other such religious superstition and mythology based "therefore" assertions do not even rise to the level of being logical arguments.

Biblegod is simply a primitive human created religious mythology, not an answer of any explanatory value in exploring and unraveling the complexities of the universe or the rise and evolution of life.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

So, you see a living cell - much more complex than a watch - and you conclude that it just popped into existence and no one made it. Why do you do that?

Funny rhutchin, Now care to cite any science document, formal presentation on Evolutionary Theory, or Evolutionary Scientist, or any non-theist person on these Forums that has ever anywhere stated cells "just popped into existence"?
That 'popping into existence' of cells (and of living creatures fully formed in one single day _per Genesis 1) is a fundamental claim of the CREATIONIST camp, not of Evolution.

The false claim that you are making about what evolutionary theory, or we 'conclude' about how cells came into being is not supported.
You are very badly misrepresenting evolutionary science and our views. Why do YOU do that?

 

[Petrel]

OK. Let's use the example creationists use. If you are taking a walk and see a watch lying on the ground, you don't think that the watch was created through natural processes over a long period of time. You conclude that someone made the watch - that it had a designer.

That's my favourite creationist flub.
If you - that is, an adult human from an advanced, probably urban, civilization
take a walk in the woods - Look around. Trees, leaves, brambles, pine-cones, mushrooms, moss, loam
see a watch on the ground - in the path, not growing on a tree or underneath a stream
You don't think the watch was created through natural process - Well, duh! It doesn't look like anything in its surroundings; is not attached to or related to anything there; it's made of entirely different materials. It doesn't bleed, shit, bleat, flutter or shed. It's not sticky, lumpy, smelly or edible.
And, you are familiar with man-made devices, which are entirely unlike organic structures.

So, you see a living cell - much more complex than a watch - and you conclude that it just popped into existence and no one made it. Why do you do that?

Why popped? Watches don't pop into existence, either; they're made with long, painstaking effort.
Gods pop and poof. Nature grows. Slowly. We know this already, long before we've seen a cell or a watch.

When we encounter a new thing, we don't leap to instant conclusions about its origin. We touch it, sniff it, consider its location, its relation to other things, its probable function, the context of its discovery, the component materials and their provenance. Then we begin to study it. Five, thirty, a hundred years later, we begin to draw tentative conclusions about its origin and likely development.

 

[James Brown]

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact and is shown in the example of the animals that came off the ark.

Sorry, what ark?

 

[Sheshbazzar]

By the same 'logic' that a cell is too complex to be natual, mankind can not have invented or created the watch as it is obviously much too complex and dependent upon too many intricate interacting parts to not have came into existence at once fully formed and functioning.

 

[Underseer]

By the same 'logic' that a cell is too complex to be natual, mankind can not have invented or created the watch as it is obviously much too complex and dependent upon too many intricate interacting parts to not have came into existence at once fully formed and functioning.

Snowflakes are "too complex to be natural" by their arguments.

 

[James Brown]

From George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God:

"Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature, as we have seen, provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning. (p. 268)"



 

[rhutchin]

From George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God:

"Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature, as we have seen, provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning. (p. 268)"



So, if you are taking a walk and happen to see a watch lying on the ground, would you think the watch to be a product of nature or a product of design?

Consider the program that allows this forum to work. Is it a product of nature or a product of design?

In each case, how would you demonstrate that your conclusion is right.

 

[rhutchin]

By the same 'logic' that a cell is too complex to be natual, mankind can not have invented or created the watch as it is obviously much too complex and dependent upon too many intricate interacting parts to not have came into existence at once fully formed and functioning.

Snowflakes are "too complex to be natural" by their arguments.

The snowflake is formed consistent with natural laws and smart guys can actually work out the math on this - so I am told.

Evolution speculates that life came about by natural law and have been able to demonstrate that speciation works - start with animal, A, and you can get many different species from A. However, no evolutionist has shown that nature has a process that can start with animal A and produce animal B that is not a species derived from animal A

 

[rhutchin]

By the same 'logic' that a cell is too complex to be natual, mankind can not have invented or created the watch as it is obviously much too complex and dependent upon too many intricate interacting parts to not have came into existence at once fully formed and functioning.

All you need do is demonstrate that a process exists whereby a cell can form naturally in an environment where no cell previously existed. Can you do that?

- - - Updated - - -

evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor, and is a fact and is shown in the example of the animals that came off the ark.

Sorry, what ark?

That described in Genesis.