Evolutions' fatal flaw.

Originally posted by jaywill
Old Earth Creationism and Young Earth Creationism are two classes of [b]Creationism.

Pre Biotic Evolution and (ie. Post Biotic) Evolution are two classes of Evolution.

It is as simple as that. Penguin and twhitehead are trying to negate this.[/b]

Are you saying that Pre Biotic Evolution and (ie. Post Biotic) Evolution are two separate contradictory theories?
Also don't confuse "evolution" with "The Theory of Evolution".

Originally posted by jaywill
I think your objections and those of whitehead prove exactly my point. Of latter times Evolutionists like to distance themselves from extending the scope of the theory over the problem of the origin of life.

And Hoyle said if it cannot include this initial set up of life the theory lacks a proper foundation.

I think we have always distanced ourselves from extending the scope of the theory over the problem of the origin of life (the first self-replicators). So the initial challenge still stands.

I think I need to see the full context of that Hoyle quote (was he a biologist?). You could use it to discredit most of science: "gravitational theories lack a proper foundation because we don't know what causes mass". In the end, everything we know is based on the assumption that the universe came into existance and, since we don't know exactly how that happened, we should throw out all of science. Does that sound like a good idea?

Originally posted by jaywill
Old Earth Creationism and Young Earth Creationism are two classes of [b]Creationism.

Pre Biotic Evolution and (ie. Post Biotic) Evolution are two classes of Evolution.

It is as simple as that. Penguin and twhitehead are trying to negate this.[/b]

I don't think we are trying to refute that.

Actually, maybe we are trying to refute that pre and post biotic evolution are different. They are both Evolution by Natural Selection. To say that they are different would be a bit like saying Pre-Mammalian and Post-Mammalian evolution are different.

Once the first self replicators appeared, natural selection would have worked on them and Evolution by Natural selection would have occured (and is still occuring to this day).

Before the first self replicators appeared, Evolution by Natural Selection could not have occured and therefore can not be responsible for their first appearance. That has to be covered by another mechanism. Hey, maybe GodDunnit?

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by Penguin
Actually, maybe we are trying to refute that pre and post biotic evolution are different.

In fact, the Theory of Evolution even when talking about the situation today includes non-life. Virus's evolve just as readily as most life forms. Virus's would probably be called 'biotic' but they are generally not considered 'life'.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The theory of evolution combined with the fossil record implies that there was single cellular life on earth sometime in the distant past.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The fossil record tells us only one thing for certain:

There use to be on earth a lot of animals which apparently no longer exist.
...[text shortened]... posed to explain why the fossil record is not more supportive around a century latter.[/b]

Punctuated equilibria is part of orthodox Darwinism. Gould just couldn't see it.

The maximum possible resolution you'll get from a fossil record is about 10 - 100 thousand years. It's been calculated that that a mouse, increasing in mass by only 0.5% per generation could reach elephant size inside of one of those strata - how are we supposed to "see" every fine gradation? That's all Gould missed out on - there is no need for a saltationary event when normal evolutionary divergence will do just as well.

In short, PE is a defunct hypothesis, which had little real evidentiary backing when it was published, and has subsequently been demolished by Dawkins et al.

Originally posted by jaywill
There use to be on earth a lot of animals which apparently no longer exist.

Like fossil whales with legs. Maybe that was God trying to trick us again, I mean, what's he thinking putting a phenomenon predicted by the theory of evolution in the ground, just to trick us. Or maybe he was burying it, so as NOT to trick us......


har har har

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]"Evolution depends on four factors -reproduction, competition, variation, and natural selection. All four factors existed in some form in the pre-biotic universe. All four started their twisting long before life began."

- Howard Bloom [/b]

He's right, but you are taking him out of context. Selection can only exist when there is something to select between. A replicator, however, simple must have existed before selection between replicators could occur. That stands by very definition.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]"Ever since Darwin, critics have objected that evolution could only explain minor change within species, but not major transformations. One difficulty is that applying gene frequency methods to model large changes has always resulted in paradoxes. These occur because the methods rely on highly evolved attributes, such as separate populations, chromosomes, ...[text shortened]... in control and information theory, and has published two previous books on evolution. "[/b]

All he's saying is that current models can't hack rapid divergence. I don't know where he gets this idea from - they can.

Originally posted by jaywill
The following quote laments that evolution theory is incomplete because of the origin of life problem not being solvable by the evidence for the theory. I take "incomplete" foundation to mean that the theory should also account for the origin of life in order to have a proper foundation:

[b]"The problem for biology is to reach a simple beginning. Going b ...[text shortened]... d Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, 1981, p. 8]

My emphasis.[/b]

Life is complex. We only accept in fossils what we can demonstrate to be life. We ignore anything which isn't complex.

Their argument then boils away like liquid nitrogen over a bunsen.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]"Lamarck was the first to formulate the scientific theory of the natural ORIGIN of all organisms, including man, and at the same time to draw the ULTIMATE inferences from this theory: firstly, the doctrine of the ORIGIN of the most ancient organisms through SPONTANEOUS GENERATION; and secondly, the descent of Man from the Mammal most closely resemblin Man ...[text shortened]... -- the Ape,"

[ - Ernst Haeckel, Evolution of Man, 1903, Vol I, p. 85]

My emphasis[/b]

And your point is?

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]"Yet none of these could have pre-existed when early molecules first competed in a pre-biotic soup. This makes it hard to model how life started or how these latter attributes evolved.

Starting from this underlying paradox, the book explains not only how early competition began on a far simpler basis. It suggests that paradoxes for all the transformat ...[text shortened]... culty in doing so is the underlying problem. That he is going to show us how, is the promise.

Yes, he's going to show how any problems (although I really don't know what problems he's invented (sounds like a Michael "if I'm too stupid to understand it, it can't have happened" Behe problem) to solve) can be resolved, using competition (natural selection, anyone) to do so.

Originally posted by jaywill
And if there is further doubt "SPANTANEOUS GENERATION" is spelled out for you.

Badly.

Anyway, spontaneous generation in this context only means spontaneous generation of a self-replicating chemical in a reducing environment. Heck, I can do that in a chem lab in an afternoon. The planet had a 100,000 years, and a planet sized test-tube.

Originally posted by jaywill
I think your objections and those of whitehead prove exactly my point. Of latter times Evolutionists like to distance themselves from extending the scope of the theory over the problem of the origin of life.

And Hoyle said if it cannot include this initial set up of life the theory lacks a proper foundation.

Hoyle was an idiot though. Ask Stephen Hawkins.


As for "evolutionists distancing themselves recently, well, this is patently false. Darwin did it, in "Origin". Since them we've came a long way. Dawkins discusses numerous hypotheses, all under investigation, in his books.

You should read them.

Originally posted by jaywill
I think your objections and those of whitehead prove exactly my point. Of latter times Evolutionists like to distance themselves from extending the scope of the theory over the problem of the origin of life.

And Hoyle said if it cannot include this initial set up of life the theory lacks a proper foundation.

Just thought I'd bump this since we've now had a page of me, Scottishinnz and TWhitehead agreeing with each other and Jaywill seems to have gone silent (we all have to live lives outside these battlegrounds).

So is Jaywill willing to accept that being unable to explain the origins of the first self replicators does not invalidate the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection?

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you saying that Pre Biotic Evolution and (ie. Post Biotic) Evolution are two separate contradictory theories?
Also don't confuse "evolution" with "The Theory of Evolution".

No. I am saying that both areas of inquiry come under the overall umbrella of Evolution.

There are those apologists who are careful to restrict Evolution to only biological matters.

There are those Evolutionists who are more general to include pre-biotic and biotic aspects as all wrapped up in a idea into which they place much hope - Evolution.

Then there is much of the unscientifically trained public who have been inundated with ideas that both pre-biotic and biotic areas are both Evolution.

Read again Dawson's comment written around 1890:

"Evolution sometimes professes to explain the origin of things; but of this it knows absolutely nothing ... This is ADMITTED in terms by Darwin and his followers, BUT CONSTANTLY OVERLOOKED IN THEIR REASONING, IN WHICH EVOLUTION IS SPOKEN OF AS IF IT WERE, OR COULD BE AN EFFICIENT CAUSE."

My Emphasis.