Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Morny
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Morny »

Kurieuo wrote:[...] nested heirarchies depend upon "species" being clearly defined [...]
False. The common descent hypothesis only distinguishes groups according to the production of viable offspring (i.e., the bifurcating descent assumption). The "What is a species?" question is irrelevant here.

But if you want to argue minutia, fine. Let's treat coyotes, wolves, and dogs as separate groups/species/whatever. Using the panoply of objective biological traits, _any_ grouping of coyotes, wolves, and dogs produces the same overall objective nested hierarchy, except for some kind of sub-grouping arrangement under what I informally called Canis lupus.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

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Morny wrote:
thatkidakayounguy wrote:There can still be a designer in all this.
Of course - as I've said many times.
I didn't see it. My bad.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

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Evolution from simple to complex, is a proven fact. I started out as two-celled, at conception. Now I'm a 37.2 trillion celled genius!
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Kurieuo »

RickD wrote:Evolution from simple to complex, is a proven fact. I started out as two-celled, at conception. Now I'm a 37.2 trillion celled genius!
One just needs to look at the caterpillar which gets turned into a gooey soup before transitioning into a butterfly.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Kurieuo »

Morny wrote:
Kurieuo wrote:Creatures are often nested together based upon similar phenotypical patterns we observe and conclusions being drawn which may/may not be correct in actuality.
According to whom? The nested hierarchy picture I posted is the scientific consensus based on the panoply of objective traits of living organisms.
Aren't you saying the same thing I am, but only in different words?
Morny wrote:So again - where do you disagree with the scientific consensus on this grouping? E.g., do hog-nosed bats group with blue whales, instead of robins, or not?
You're trying to lead here with questioning I don't really understand or get the purpose of. I detect your frills are up, but I'm not quite sure what you are reacting to.
Morny wrote:The implications are enormous, because the observed one objective nested hierarchy, by itself, is strong evidence that living organisms share a common ancestor.
A foremost geneticist (Craig Venter) disagrees with the idea that we have a common ancestor, and the tree of life which he considers to be an artefact of early scientific studies that are no longer holding up with knowledge we've gained from deep sequencing of organisms.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXrYhINutuI
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Morny wrote:
Kurieuo wrote:[...] nested heirarchies depend upon "species" being clearly defined [...]
False. The common descent hypothesis only distinguishes groups according to the production of viable offspring (i.e., the bifurcating descent assumption). The "What is a species?" question is irrelevant here.

But if you want to argue minutia, fine. Let's treat coyotes, wolves, and dogs as separate groups/species/whatever. Using the panoply of objective biological traits, _any_ grouping of coyotes, wolves, and dogs produces the same overall objective nested hierarchy, except for some kind of sub-grouping arrangement under what I informally called Canis lupus.
Yes it is exactly like what I already explained earlier the nested heirarchies are based on the already held belief evolution is true built on biological traits or cladistics,which is a joke. Did you know that we get different common ancestors depending on which physical characeristics we focus on?And who chooses?
They do.For instance if metabolism is used,birds and mammals are close cousins to birds and crocodiles.If skull and heart structure is used birds and crocodiles are close cousins and mammals are not related. This is how Pakicetus a wolf-like mammal that had sharp teeth that lived millions of years ago is a common ancestor of whales.You can google Pakicetus and it is based on ear structure that they claim they were common ancestors to whales of today.It is all based on believing life evolves while having no credibile mechanism for how life evolves.They don't even know if life evolves and admit it,yet build everything based on evolution imagination just like the nested heirarchies.

Evolution has always been sold on you buying into and assuming without evidence that small changes such as normal variation amongst the populations can lead to big changes if given enough time,Darwin did in "Origin of the species" and they still are today.But let's not just assume like they want us to.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

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https://dennisdjones.files.wordpress.co ... /phylo.gif
Image
Kurieuo wrote:Aren't you saying the same thing I am, but only in different words?
Hard to say. For example, your earlier comment about "[drawing phenotypical conclusions] which may/may not be correct in actuality" is vacuous. "Is Jesus divine?" "Maybe, maybe not."
Kurieuo wrote:You're trying to lead here with questioning I don't really understand or get the purpose of.
I was waiting for you to address any of my questions about your views against common descent. For example, how is your question about "what is a species?" relevant to the nested hierarchy evidence for common descent? Do you agree that any reasonable sub-grouping of dogs, coyotes, and wolves doesn't affect any other grouping in the nested hierarchy?
Kurieuo wrote:A foremost geneticist (Craig Venter) disagrees with the idea that we have a common ancestor, and the tree of life which he considers to be an artefact of early scientific studies that are no longer holding up with knowledge we've gained from deep sequencing of organisms.
Venter supports common ancestry for almost all the organisms on that nested hierarchy ("tree of life") picture, e.g., that we share a common ancestor with fish and worms.

Venter's video argument is actually about whether, 2 billion years ago or so, the "tree of life" was actually "bush-like". That long ago, no plants and animal existed - not even one celled organisms with a nucleus. What did exist were one celled organisms that routinely laterally transfered genetic material to each other, instead of through cell division. Hence Venter's use of the term "bush-like".

Venter also pointed to mycoplasmas (one celled bacteria without a cell wall), which for a while didn't seem to fit genetically under the "bacteria" sub-group in the nested hierarchy. But with ever improving genetic research, even mycoplasmas now appear to be hierarchically related to other bacteria types, i.e., mycoplasmas do not need to be specially or independently created. And with more new evidence, support for Venter's outlier views on these details against common descent is diminishing even more.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Kurieuo »

Morny wrote:https://dennisdjones.files.wordpress.co ... /phylo.gif
Image
Kurieuo wrote:Aren't you saying the same thing I am, but only in different words?
Hard to say. For example, your earlier comment about "[drawing phenotypical conclusions] which may/may not be correct in actuality" is vacuous. "Is Jesus divine?" "Maybe, maybe not."
I think you've ripped matters out of context. From past discussions, you've seen "nested hierarchies" as evidence for natural evolution and common descent. Perhaps if you flesh out exactly why this is so. I'm not saying it's not, but neither as you should know if you recall some of our exchanges, do I think it conclusive like you seem to.
Morny wrote:
Kurieuo wrote:You're trying to lead here with questioning I don't really understand or get the purpose of.
I was waiting for you to address any of my questions about your views against common descent.
Which questions?
Morny wrote:For example, how is your question about "what is a species?" relevant to the nested hierarchy evidence for common descent? Do you agree that any reasonable sub-grouping of dogs, coyotes, and wolves doesn't affect any other grouping in the nested hierarchy?
Ok, now you've given questions. How are "species" relevant to nested hierachies? If we're talking about all extant species, all sharing a common ancestor, then it makes sense we should be able to trace them back via direct lines. The picture however, isn't nearly that neat. Rather, more like bushes, and then not even that, more like nodes on a web.

This does rule out natural evolution, but it does to me seem unlikely that all life shared a common ancestor. Common building blocks, of course, noone questions that. But, I don't see any reason why everything must be related at some point going back, rather than there being multiple origins. In both instances, I think these "nested heirachies", which you believe prove common descent, would be diagramable under both scenarios.
Morny wrote:
Kurieuo wrote:A foremost geneticist (Craig Venter) disagrees with the idea that we have a common ancestor, and the tree of life which he considers to be an artefact of early scientific studies that are no longer holding up with knowledge we've gained from deep sequencing of organisms.
Venter supports common ancestry for almost all the organisms on that nested hierarchy ("tree of life") picture, e.g., that we share a common ancestor with fish and worms.

Venter's video argument is actually about whether, 2 billion years ago or so, the "tree of life" was actually "bush-like". That long ago, no plants and animal existed - not even one celled organisms with a nucleus. What did exist were one celled organisms that routinely laterally transfered genetic material to each other, instead of through cell division. Hence Venter's use of the term "bush-like".

Venter also pointed to mycoplasmas (one celled bacteria without a cell wall), which for a while didn't seem to fit genetically under the "bacteria" sub-group in the nested hierarchy. But with ever improving genetic research, even mycoplasmas now appear to be hierarchically related to other bacteria types, i.e., mycoplasmas do not need to be specially or independently created. And with more new evidence, support for Venter's outlier views on these details against common descent is diminishing even more.
You may/may not ;) be right. Venter doesn't deny evolution, but from listening to that talk and other discussions from him, I get the impression (and have been misled even by reading into his own words) that Venter actually doesn't believe in a traditional evolution tree of life scenario. The fact Venter says that the tree of life doesn't really hold up. When heat is applied, he then concedes that "there may be a bush of life..." offering some relief to those participating on the panel. Getting some traction, he then diverts the topic in that direction to discuss different domains that are DNA-based. We'll find the same molecules and base systems wherever we look, the implication of Venter's words being that doesn't mean all life is "related".

Dawkins also picks up on this, questioning why Venter calls the tree of life "a fiction" (so I'm not alone in reading into Venter's words). And, then nervously questions Venter along the lines that our sharing all the same DNA and base does prove a tree of life, doesn't it? To which Venter stops and just laughs with the audience avoiding a response.

Now I don't know enough about Venter's views, I think he holds those cards rather close to himself, so you may be right. Certainly, he believes evolution happened, but I'm quite sure he doesn't believe all extant life as we know it is related. He targets the deeper "domain" level, nonetheless, I so feel (and Dawkins is rightly concerned) Venter was challenging the tree of life in general before backing off.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by abelcainsbrother »

Morny wrote:https://dennisdjones.files.wordpress.co ... /phylo.gif
Image
Kurieuo wrote:Aren't you saying the same thing I am, but only in different words?
Hard to say. For example, your earlier comment about "[drawing phenotypical conclusions] which may/may not be correct in actuality" is vacuous. "Is Jesus divine?" "Maybe, maybe not."
Kurieuo wrote:You're trying to lead here with questioning I don't really understand or get the purpose of.
I was waiting for you to address any of my questions about your views against common descent. For example, how is your question about "what is a species?" relevant to the nested hierarchy evidence for common descent? Do you agree that any reasonable sub-grouping of dogs, coyotes, and wolves doesn't affect any other grouping in the nested hierarchy?
Kurieuo wrote:A foremost geneticist (Craig Venter) disagrees with the idea that we have a common ancestor, and the tree of life which he considers to be an artefact of early scientific studies that are no longer holding up with knowledge we've gained from deep sequencing of organisms.
Venter supports common ancestry for almost all the organisms on that nested hierarchy ("tree of life") picture, e.g., that we share a common ancestor with fish and worms.

Venter's video argument is actually about whether, 2 billion years ago or so, the "tree of life" was actually "bush-like". That long ago, no plants and animal existed - not even one celled organisms with a nucleus. What did exist were one celled organisms that routinely laterally transfered genetic material to each other, instead of through cell division. Hence Venter's use of the term "bush-like".

Venter also pointed to mycoplasmas (one celled bacteria without a cell wall), which for a while didn't seem to fit genetically under the "bacteria" sub-group in the nested hierarchy. But with ever improving genetic research, even mycoplasmas now appear to be hierarchically related to other bacteria types, i.e., mycoplasmas do not need to be specially or independently created. And with more new evidence, support for Venter's outlier views on these details against common descent is diminishing even more.

I would like to ask you how can you believe people so much when they are using evolution imagination to build these nested hierarchies? How do you even believe them when they claim all life is related because of DNA? If they are making it up as they go along then why are they not when they claim all life is related? They don't even know if life evolves and yet have built all these things around evolution.They are dishonest people who cannot be so trusted.But even if all life is related that does not prove common descent or this nested hierarchy is right.The evidence is being looked at all wrong anyway.It is being looked at from an evolution perspective and this distorts the truth about what the evidence is telling us.

There was a pre-historic age prior to man,lasting billions of years,during which the earth was inhabited by now extinct creatures such as dinosaurs - as evidenced by the fossil record. Much or all of the flora and fauna of that pre-historic world were destroyed in one or more of catastrophic mass extinctions,leaving the earth in an empty and formless state like in Genesis 1:2,it was possibly the result of the same meteorite bombardment that destroyed the surface of the moon and planets.These extinct pre-historic organisms belong to a separate,previous divine creation and were not ancestors of the flora and fauna of our present age,making the evolutionary tree of life a myth. The record of that pre-historic world is written primarily in the fossil record and rock strata of the paleozoic and Mesozoic eras,with the Genesis transition to our present age taking place somewhere in the Cenozoic era,probably as marked out by the recently discovered K-T boundary.Most rock strata,mineral beds,coal and oil deposits were formed in the pre-historic age and none of the life in it is related to the life in our age. This is just as believable and just as much as convincing as looking at everything from an evolution perspective and is based on the same evidence.
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Morny
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Morny »

abelcainsbrother wrote:I would like to ask you how can you believe people so much when they are using evolution imagination to build these nested hierarchies?
Fortunately, belief is neither involved nor required.

To borrow from "Chronicals of Riddick":
... Belief is not the science-monger way.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Morny »

Kurieuo wrote:From past discussions, you've seen "nested hierarchies" as evidence for natural evolution and common descent. Perhaps if you flesh out exactly why this is so. I'm not saying it's not, but neither as you should know if you recall some of our exchanges, do I think it conclusive like you seem to.
Almost every subject-relevant scientist since Darwin has seen the one objective nested hierarchy (the evidence from the panoply of biological traits) as unequivocal support for common descent (the hypothesis). But unlike general relativity and quantum mechanics, any curious high school student can understand the evidence and reasoning.

Are you curious? If so, I would be happy to try to answer more specific questions.
Kurieuo wrote:But, I don't see any reason why everything must be related at some point going back, rather than there being multiple origins.
As a starting freshman in high school biology, I also didn't see the reason. But I also could not wait to understand why scientists were so confident.
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Re: Evolving from Simple to Complex?

Post by Morny »

Kurieuo wrote:[... discussion of Venter's "tree vs. bush" concerns ...]
I answered/explained what Venter meant in the video - you can believe what you want.

Venter maintains that a few very special cases, e.g., one-celled no-nucleus mycoplasmas, do not fit into the nested hierarchy. But ironically, Venter's own techniques helped provide independent DNA evidence to spectacularly corroborate the basic unique nested hierarchy (see previous picture) that biologists from Darwin to the end of the 20th century had already established from non-DNA evidence.

Coincidence?
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