Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Law of Compensation (Addendum)

Evolutionists make religious and metaphysical claims that mandate the truth of evolution. Fundamental predictions of their theory turn out to be false. And evolutionists use fallacious reasoning to argue for their theory. These are facts.

Consider, for example, Darwin's circular reasoning in his "Compensation and Economy of Growth" section in Chapter 5 of Origins. In my previous post I explained that Darwin begged the question. Darwin argued that natural selection could bring about change which he presupposed had evolved. Here is his argument broken out into the four points Darwin made:

1. when a cirripede is parasitic within another cirripede and is thus protected, it loses more or less completely its own shell or carapace. This is the case with the male Ibla, and in a truly extraordinary manner with the Proteolepas: for the carapace in all other cirripedes consists of the three highly-important anterior segments of the head enormously developed, and furnished with great nerves and muscles; but in the parasitic and protected Proteolepas, the whole anterior part of the head is reduced to the merest rudiment attached to the bases of the prehensile antennae.

2. Now the saving of a large and complex structure, when rendered superfluous, would be a decided advantage to each successive individual of the species; for in the struggle for life to which every animal is exposed, each would have a better chance of supporting itself, by less nutriment being wasted.

3. Thus, I believe, natural selection will tend in the long run to reduce any part of the organisation, as soon as it becomes, through changed habits, superfluous, without by any means causing some other part to be largely developed in a corresponding degree.

4. And, conversely, that natural selection may perfectly well succeed in largely developing an organ without requiring as a necessary compensation the reduction of some adjoining part.

Or, simply put:

1. Many species have undergone significant loss of components.

2. Such loss can be advantageous, and so increase fitness.

3. Therefore natural selection will select such loss.

4. In the same way, natural selection develops new components. That is, natural selection can add components as well as remove components.

Notice that in Step 1, Darwin takes as his premise that the male Ibla and Proteolepas have undergone evolutionary change. That is, he assumes that they have lost their carapace. His conclusion, that natural selection brings about such change, is presupposed in his premise.

Furthermore, notice that in Step 4, Darwin equates loss of components with addition of components. But there is no basis for this assumption.

This reasoning is fallacious, and therefore not scientific (science requires logical reasoning). Yet every time evolutionists are presented with their own fallacies, they deny there is any such problem.

31 comments:

  1. Cornelius Hunter:

    " 4. In the same way, natural selection develops new components. That is, natural selection can add components as well as remove components."

    " . . . notice that in Step 4, Darwin equates loss of components with addition of components. But there is no basis for this assumption.
    =======================

    What would life do if that magical woodland nymph named Tinker Bell and her magic wand weren't around in the beginning to kick start that pre-biotic soup ???
    ________________________

    Cornelius Hunter:

    "Given this track record it should not be surprising that, when presented with these facts, evolutionists go into denial."

    "Yet every time evolutionists are presented with their own fallacies, they deny there is any such problem."
    =====================

    Yes, I can see the benefits of your own blog having a COMMENTS section for evaluating the prevailing intellectual spin out there directly from the Horse's mouth source itself.

    Good job BTW.

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  2. These people fail to appreciate the non scientific mandate for evolution. This is not about evaluating data and analyzing evidence. This is not about rational thought. Evolution is a paradigm that is driven by cultural, historical, philosophical, metaphysical, and religious beliefs, leaving evolutionists in denial of reality.

    Wow, I had no idea I was being such a dupe! All along I've believed that there was more than sufficient evidence to support the evolutionary hypothesis. You know, things like the fossil record, biogeography, genetic similarities among species, observed natural selection in the field, etc. But now I realize I've been a greedy meta-physician. This so-called evidence is merely a collection of disparate facts. Only a religious person would attempt to connect these unrelated facts within an over-arching explanatory framework. Now I understand that the role of science is not to explain things. Pure science should only be about facts and nothing more. I feel so much better now...

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  3. Dr Hunter accuses Darwin of fallacy, and quotes him:

    1. “when a cirripede is parasitic within another cirripede and is thus protected, it loses more or less completely its own shell or carapace. This is the case with the male Ibla, and in a truly extraordinary manner with the Proteolepas: for the carapace in all other cirripedes consists of the three highly-important anterior segments of the head enormously developed, and furnished with great nerves and muscles; but in the parasitic and protected Proteolepas, the whole anterior part of the head is reduced to the merest rudiment attached to the bases of the prehensile antennae.”

    Dr Hunter then comments:

    Notice that in Step 1, Darwin takes as his premise that Ibla andProteolepas have undergone evolutionary change. That is, he assumes that they have lost their carapace.

    Darwin doesn’t arbitrarily take evolutionary change as his premise; he clearly points out that “the carapace in all other cirripedes consists of the three highly-important anterior segments of the head enormously developed, and furnished with great nerves and muscles…” Darwin provides a reasoned argument, perfectly consistent with scientific practice.

    Dr Hunter doesn’t like Darwin’s argument, so he misrepresents it.

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  4. Dr Hunter proceeds:

    Furthermore, notice that in Step 4, Darwin equates loss of components with addition of components. But there is no basis for this assumption.

    Here is what Darwin actually said:

    4. “And, conversely, that natural selection may perfectly well succeed in largely developing an organ without requiring as a necessary compensation the reduction of some adjoining part.”

    How Darwin’s words can be construed as equating loss of a component with the addition of a component is beyond my reckoning.

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  5. Norm Olsen:

    ===
    Wow, I had no idea I was being such a dupe! All along I've believed that there was more than sufficient evidence to support the evolutionary hypothesis. You know, things like the fossil record, biogeography, genetic similarities among species, observed natural selection in the field, etc.
    ===

    How is it that evidence against evolution becomes sufficient to support the evolutionary hypothesis?

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  7. Cornelius Hunter said...

    How is it that evidence against evolution becomes sufficient to support the evolutionary hypothesis?


    How is it that "I personally don't believe it" becomes evidence against evolution?

    Fact is, there hasn't been any evidence against evolution presented on this blog. There have been numerous disjointed and rambling misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the actual science involved, like in this OP, but those are not evidence against evolution.

    It is somewhat humorous to see the new and different ways the IDCers present the tired old 'God of the gaps' argument though, in a sadly pitiful way.

    I'll also point out no one could give us a science methodology that explains how to test for and include the supernatural. Oh well....

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  8. Dr. Hunter wrote:

    >>By the nineteenth century it was obvious to breeders that while substantial variation could be obtained, there also were limits to their efforts. And furthermore, there was a price to be paid. A particular characteristic could be exaggerated, but at the cost of some undesirable consequence.

    [...]

    >>This doctrine was a problem for Darwin, for it held that species were anchored to their design—they could drift about a bit, but they could not continue to evolve.

    The 19th-century "law of compensation" theory doesn't deny natural selection. It just asserts, wrongly, that all advantageous variations are necessarily accompanied by disadvantageous variations. Aside from it being prima facie nonsense, there's nothing about populations being "anchored to their design" in the theory. Accordingly, Darwin's argument against it isn't out to prove the existence of natural selection in the first place, just that natural selection doesn't necessarily work by "compensating" advantages with disadvantages.

    But if Dr. Hunter doesn't accept Darwin's argument against compensation in natural selection, does that mean he believes that all genetic variation to the advantage of an animal comes "at the cost of some undesirable consequence"? I would ask Dr. Hunter how some gene sequences are supposed to remain "anchored" while others are able to "drift"? Is there a special class of exceptionally stubborn nucleotides that scientists are willfully concealing from the public?

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  9. Chris Martin:

    ===
    But if Dr. Hunter doesn't accept Darwin's argument against compensation in natural selection, does that mean he believes that all genetic variation to the advantage of an animal comes "at the cost of some undesirable consequence"?
    ===

    You are making leaps of logic and avoiding the point. The fact that Darwin's reasoning was fallacious does not imply his conclusion is necessarily false, and I made no such claim.

    My point, in this case, was merely that in order to advance his silly ideas, Darwin resorted to fallacious reasoning.

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  10. Cornelius Hunter: My point, in this case, was merely that in order to advance his silly ideas, Darwin resorted to fallacious reasoning.

    Darwin was not saying "parasitic barnacles, therefore evolution." As everyone else has noted above, evolution had been well enough proven to Darwin by this time. He is using common descent as a premise, and learning from the cirripedes how natural selection works to produce efficient species.

    Once again, you are attacking each tiny fact of nature as if it were the whole of the edifice supporting evolution.

    Calling such a well-supported scientific theory "silly" without justification implies that it must be very damaging to your worldview and betrays that your critique is not really scientific in nature.

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  11. Cornelius wrote: My point, in this case, was merely that in order to advance his silly ideas, Darwin resorted to fallacious reasoning.

    Oh, come on, Cornelius! If Darwin's ideas were silly, you wouldn't be here, 150 years later, trying to prove him wrong. As others pointed out, conservative Christians feel threatened by evolution and that's what motivates him to go all out against Darwin.

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  12. >>You are making leaps of logic and avoiding the point. The fact that Darwin's reasoning was fallacious does not imply his conclusion is necessarily false, and I made no such claim.

    >>My point, in this case, was merely that in order to advance his silly ideas, Darwin resorted to fallacious reasoning.

    First of all, I wasn't assuming you believed in this ambiguous "law of compensation" theory, I was asking you the question of whether you did or not. You seem to present 19th-century breeders' observation of limits to gene variation as an accepted fact, and I'm not understanding how you use the assumption that all variation is compensated by an undesirable consequence to imply that all variation is anchored to a transcendent design. I don't agree with either claim, but assuming both to be true for the moment, I don't see how one follows from the other.

    Second, Darwin's reasoning here is not circular. It would only be begging the question for him to presuppose natural selection if the law of compensation denied the existence of natural selection. As I said before, it doesn't: Goethe assumes that variation is possible, since he sees it happening in captive settings. The dispute is over the extent of that variation through time. And in order to make the claim that gene variation does have divine or natural limits beyond the artificial limits of captive breeding, you have to supply some kind of divine or natural mechanism by which gene variation is limited. You have to present the "How?" to support your "anchored by design" hypothesis. I'm willing to accept the possibility of intelligent design--as a matter of a priori reason, I won't rule out either ID or evolution, nor the third possibility of theistic evolution--but I won't accept any of these possibilities as fact until they've been supported by material evidence and explained theoretically by some causal mechanism with predictive value. If it's true that genes can drift but that this drift is limited, then how do genes keep themselves from drifting too far? Can we distinguish the nucleotide base-pairs that can be freely rearranged from the ones that are immutable? And why are the drift genes even there if the anchor genes provide a perfect design? I'm asking these questions and the ones I asked before because I'd like to discuss the substance of your beliefs, and their reasoning. Please don't reply unless you're prepared to elaborate further on the "drift"/"anchor" hypothesis and its underlying causal mechanism, natural or divine.

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  13. Chris Martin:

    ===
    First of all, I wasn't assuming you believed in this ambiguous "law of compensation" theory, I was asking you the question of whether you did or not.
    ===

    Well I think it is clear that biology is far more complicated than Goethe or Darwin even imagined. But regaring the law of compensation, it is not controversial that there are many examples of breeding that have introduced weaknesses. Furthermore large-scale change has not been demonstrated, and the most serious attempt to do so (the theory of evolution) has not fared well. So there are some reasonable supports for the law of compensation. Do I believe it therefore is true? No, I'm not claiming that.


    ===
    You seem to present 19th-century breeders' observation of limits to gene variation as an accepted fact, and I'm not understanding how you use the assumption that all variation is compensated by an undesirable consequence to imply that all variation is anchored to a transcendent design. I don't agree with either claim, but assuming both to be true for the moment, I don't see how one follows from the other.
    ===

    Simply because accumulated undesirable consequences eventually lead to a non competitive or non viable species.


    ===
    Second, Darwin's reasoning here is not circular. It would only be begging the question for him to presuppose natural selection if the law of compensation denied the existence of natural selection.
    ===

    Darwin concludes against the law of compensation and his argument presupposes that it is false. His argument is prima facie circular. But evolutionists are in denial of such problems.


    ===
    I won't rule out either ID or evolution, nor the third possibility of theistic evolution--
    ===

    Your categories are not very meaningul.


    ===
    If it's true that genes can drift but that this drift is limited, then how do genes keep themselves from drifting too far?
    ===

    I don't know about limitations to drift, but there certainly are various and substantial DNA repair mechanisms that evolution has no explanation for aside from vague speculation.


    ===
    I'm asking these questions and the ones I asked before because I'd like to discuss the substance of your beliefs, and their reasoning.
    ===

    Evolution is mandated as a fact according to several related religious and philosophical traditions. The science, however, does not bode well for evolution. So what do I believe?

    Unlike evolutionists I don't have strong religious beliefs that mandate a particular type of origins answer. I am a Christian and unlike so many other beliefs, this allows wide flexibility. So not being wedded to evolution, I'm able to follow the science and conclude it is unlikely.

    Of course this doesn't mean I have the answers. And I'm certainly not keen on dogmatically asserting the truth of undertermined hypotheses as evolutionists do. The origins question is, I think, simply far too complicated for such confidence. Sure I can hypothesize as much as the next guy, but the bottom line is I am not close to knowing how the species arose. And those who say they are, are simply spewing out falsehoods. But they sure do have a strong following.

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  14. Cornelisu wrote: Well I think it is clear that biology is far more complicated than Goethe or Darwin even imagined.

    Creationists seem to think that this stupid meme is a point against Darwin. It's not.

    Quantum physics, too, is far more complicated than Newton or Maxwell even imagined. That does not mean that Newton and Maxwell's contributions to science are somehow invalidated. Both Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism remain as robust as they were.

    But maybe you have a point here, Cornelius. Care to actually make it?

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  15. thornton: Fact is, there hasn't been any evidence against evolution presented on this blog.

    I totally agree. There is nothing that can falsify Darwinian evolution by RMNS. There is not ANY evidence conceivable that can shake the faith of you guys in your godlike Father from the 19th century.

    There have been numerous disjointed and rambling misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the actual science involved, like in this OP, but those are not evidence against evolution.

    If you guys really have a science, there would surely be libraries of books detailing all of the physical evidence for every microstep of the selection mechanisms for the evolution of the bat echolocation apparatus. And how the flight ability co-evolved. Including the discrimination mechanism that arose to select an individual's echoes from hundreds of other interfering sonic emissions from other individuals. And the "software" that not only can generate echo time-of-arrival resolution to a fraction of a microsecond, but can build 3-D pictures and velocity profiles for the individual, for finding insect meals. We could consult this library and it would make total sense how the millions of intermediate stages where not all of the parts and "software" were quite ready, but their presence helped the bat survive anyway, even though maybe it couldn't fly yet. Or maybe didn't have the macro processing power to make sense of the echoes. We would have a complete mapping of all of these millions of intermediate stages, backed up by the physical evidence.

    If such a library is not available, surely it will be in the not so distant future, as surely much of this physical evidence has been documented, or has it?

    Problem is, the "science" that has "practitioners" so adamant that all of those millions of intermediate stages existed, is characterised by ZERO physical evidence for the existence of any of those intemediate stages. Such a "science" is the definition of faith.

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  17. oleg: Creationists seem to think that this stupid meme is a point against Darwin. It's not.

    Quantum physics, too, is far more complicated than Newton or Maxwell even imagined. That does not mean that Newton and Maxwell's contributions to science are somehow invalidated. Both Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism remain as robust as they were.

    But maybe you have a point here, Cornelius. Care to actually make it?

    An analogy that isn't, really, by any stretch. I don't seem to have any recall that Newton and Maxwell were postulating a fantastic creative principle that in itself just happened to be at once fantastic, meaningless and stupid. And pointless too, speaking of points.

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  18. MSEE said...

    thornton: Fact is, there hasn't been any evidence against evolution presented on this blog.

    I totally agree. There is nothing that can falsify Darwinian evolution by RMNS. There is not ANY evidence conceivable that can shake the faith of you guys in your godlike Father from the 19th century


    Of course there are ways ToE could be falsified. TalkOrigins lists dozens of ways. A few are: finding multiple incomparable versions of the genetic code. Or having the fossil nested hierarchical tree not match the genetic one.

    You seem to be another clueless IDCer who confuses not falsifiable with not falsified.

    If you guys really have a science, there would surely be libraries of books detailing all of the physical evidence for every microstep of the selection mechanisms for the evolution of the bat echolocation apparatus.

    What a stupid thing to say. Why do you suppose science will be able to recreate every last little detail of processes that happened hundreds of millions of years ago? That's as stupid as saying if historians can't account for the personal details of every last soldier who fought in the American Civil War, then the war never happened.

    You claim to be an EE - how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?

    Problem is, the "science" that has "practitioners" so adamant that all of those millions of intermediate stages existed, is characterised by ZERO physical evidence for the existence of any of those intemediate stages. Such a "science" is the definition of faith.

    Another exceptionally stupid thing to say. There is ample physical evidence to reconstruct evolutionary pathways with a high degree of confidence. You can see the evidence at any college biology or genetics department, or natural history museum. You can find literally hundreds of thousands of technical papers available online through Google Scholar. If you think there's ZERO evidence, it's because you've been too lazy to look.

    It's quite obvious that you still don't understand this science stuff at all.

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  19. Ok, now you're actually making a circular argument:

    >>CHRIS: I'm not understanding how you use the assumption that all variation is compensated by an undesirable consequence to imply that all variation is anchored to a transcendent design

    >>CORNELIUS: Simply because accumulated undesirable consequences eventually lead to a non competitive or non viable species.

    So compensation implies design because "accumulated undesirable consequences eventually lead to a non competitive or non viable species." You've just presupposed the possibility of large-scale change! If variation can accumulate to the point where a species goes extinct, how is it in any sense "anchored by design"? And how on earth is a species supposed to survive in the first place if every minor adaptation is met by some new fault or weakness? You're begging the question of how variation in the form of advantages with undesirable consequences is anchored to a predetermined design. These limits on evolution that you were standing by before make no sense, and have no basis in fact. The example Goethe uses of cabbages with either robust seeds or robust leaves is just an example of how you couldn't maximize all the traits of a cabbage that are desirable to a cabbage breeder at once--but there were no intrinsic limits in the nature of genetics that required this limit, because today we routinely breed all sorts of maximally desirable produce for all sorts of traits that aren't possible through selective breeding alone.

    Fortunately, if your conclusions in the most recent post are any indication, you've walked away from that ridiculous "compensatory anchor" claim and assumed a position of skepticism. I still have no idea what you're talking about when you say "the gene myth" has been disproven by science, or that "evolutionism" can only survive through deception and denialism. How can science both vindicate your dismissal of evolutionary theory and be controlled by delusional evolutionists propagating myths at the same time?

    We've come a long way from you defending the proposal that there limits on evolution; now you're trying to say that evolution itself is not bourne out by the facts. So now my question becomes, how do you explain the variations seen in selective breeding by botanists and other breeders? And how do you explain the differences between humans and chimpanzees, if "the gene myth" is all damned lies?

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  21. thornton:

    Of course there are ways ToE could be falsified. TalkOrigins lists dozens of ways. A few are: finding multiple incomparable versions of the genetic code. Or having the fossil nested hierarchical tree not match the genetic one.

    You seem to be another clueless IDCer who confuses not falsifiable with not falsified.


    May I let you in on a couple of clues? If you don't mind?

    1. Debaters like yourself cannot resist pejorative argumentation. Spewing pejoratives like "clueless" seems to be your absolute best shot, you just cannot resist. You don't seem to have an awareness of how this makes your rhetoric appear and the behavior seems to indicate an anger and/or maturity problem. I would be embarrassed by such a lack of awareness.

    2. Suppose someone uncovered evidence for multiple incomparable versions of the genetic code. You would come back and say that there is some comparability there, or that the "multiple" is not multitudinous enough. There is too much at stake for you guys to EVER concede. This is very much the reason why my point on this is ever so valid, your "science" is UNFALSIFIABLE. Here is a paper that states outright that the Darwinian paradigm will not work for any forward progress in the relevant problem: http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.1/BIO-C.2010.1
    But you know what? This will not phase you guys. Like I said NO EVIDENCE OR FINDING WILL EVER SUFFICE to move you out of your religion.

    What a stupid thing to say. Why do you suppose science will be able to recreate every last little detail of processes that happened hundreds of millions of years ago? That's as stupid as saying if historians can't account for the personal details of every last soldier who fought in the American Civil War, then the war never happened.

    Oh yeah really stupid. Speaking of stupid, why would anyone care about personal details of EVERY soldier. Plenty of personal details are known of significant numbers of soldiers anyway. Its just NOT AN ISSUE. You want to know a real issue? Its when neo-Darwinists are frequently bringing up intermediate forms. I'm just proposing questions about intermediate forms, just playing the game, you see. How about this. How about I just ask you to provide the evidence for ONE intermediate form of a bat-like creature, living with a partial echolocation apparatus, in other words, one that does not function at all. Is this a "stupid" thing? I'll bet you would maintain that such a creature existed, your belief system depends on it. So therefore I feel like its not "stupid" to ask more about this intermediate form, not "stupid" huh? We could even have a little more fun with this one, since flight and echolation are probably critically interdependent. I could ask you if such an intermediate form could be shown to have existed where the wings were not quite flightworthy too, and then we could have a discussion about how all of these non-functioning structures helped survival of such individual.

    You claim to be an EE - how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?

    There is not a mathematical definition of the condition you propose. You might try to argue this one and maybe even invoke an investigator, the well known Mr. H. N. Why don't you answer this little game yourself in your reply and then I will tell you why no correct answer exists, unless you tell me such. That is if you're interested in a little science.

    BTW I don't believe you answered me on a previous thread why it is that you cannot resist posting on the blog, arguing with all the "stupid" people. Seems like a huge investment of time, actually, is it just that you can't resist the bait?

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  22. MSEE said: How about I just ask you to provide the evidence for ONE intermediate form of a bat-like creature, living with a partial echolocation apparatus, in other words, one that does not function at all.

    All mammals have the apparati that do not produce functional echolocation but have a very similar function: a larynx and ears. The bat system is just a modified version of these structures. The fossil record of tiny arboreal forest dwellers that lived 50 million years ago is extremely sparse. The poor fossil record is due to geology and taphonomy and no indictment of evolution. Nevertheless, Onychonycteris finneyi fits the bill as a protobat that was capable of flight (though not as strongly adapted as modern forms) and likely capable of producing a range of sounds useful in echolocation (based on morphology of bones in the throat), but that did not have all the adaptations in the ear for superior reception of echolocating shrieks.

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  23. MSEE said...

    thornton: "You seem to be another clueless IDCer who confuses not falsifiable with not falsified."

    1. Debaters like yourself cannot resist pejorative argumentation. Spewing pejoratives like "clueless" seems to be your absolute best shot, you just cannot resist. You don't seem to have an awareness of how this makes your rhetoric appear and the behavior seems to indicate an anger and/or maturity problem. I would be embarrassed by such a lack of awareness.


    Sorry MSEE, but when you make idiotic statements like "ToE can't be falsified" and "there is ZERO evidence for evolution", clueless is an accurate description of you.

    2. Suppose someone uncovered evidence for multiple incomparable versions of the genetic code. You would come back and say that there is some comparability there, or that the "multiple" is not multitudinous enough. There is too much at stake for you guys to EVER concede

    Find that evidence first and then come back and brag. Right now you're just whining sour grapes.

    How about this. How about I just ask you to provide the evidence for ONE intermediate form of a bat-like creature, living with a partial echolocation apparatus

    Easy.

    Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation
    Simmons et al
    Nature, 451, 818-821 (14 February 2008)

    Abstract: Bats (Chiroptera) represent one of the largest and most diverse radiations of mammals, accounting for one-fifth of extant species1. Although recent studies unambiguously support bat monophyly and consensus is rapidly emerging about evolutionary relationships among extant lineages, the fossil record of bats extends over 50 million years, and early evolution of the group remains poorly understood. Here we describe a new bat from the Early Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, USA, with features that are more primitive than seen in any previously known bat. The evolutionary pathways that led to flapping flight and echolocation in bats have been in dispute and until now fossils have been of limited use in documenting transitions involved in this marked change in lifestyle. Phylogenetically informed comparisons of the new taxon with other bats and non-flying mammals reveal that critical morphological and functional changes evolved incrementally. Forelimb anatomy indicates that the new bat was capable of powered flight like other Eocene bats, but ear morphology suggests that it lacked their echolocation abilities, supporting a ‘flight first’ hypothesis for chiropteran evolution. The shape of the wings suggests that an undulating gliding–fluttering flight style may be primitive for bats, and the presence of a long calcar indicates that a broad tail membrane evolved early in Chiroptera, probably functioning as an additional airfoil rather than as a prey-capture device. Limb proportions and retention of claws on all digits indicate that the new bat may have been an agile climber that employed quadrupedal locomotion and under-branch hanging behaviour.


    Like I said, you don't understand the subject at all.

    T: "You claim to be an EE - how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?"

    There is not a mathematical definition of the condition you propose.


    LOL! In other words you don't have any understanding of sampling theory or Nyquist frequency either. I guess you never read that big statistics book you were crowing about.

    BTW I don't believe you answered me on a previous thread why it is that you cannot resist posting on the blog, arguing with all the "stupid" people.

    I'm a big fan of scientific literacy, and correcting blustering blowhards like you is a public service to the lurkers.

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  24. Chris Martin:

    ===
    Ok, now you're actually making a circular argument:

    >>CHRIS: I'm not understanding how you use the assumption that all variation is compensated by an undesirable consequence to imply that all variation is anchored to a transcendent design

    >>CORNELIUS: Simply because accumulated undesirable consequences eventually lead to a non competitive or non viable species.

    So compensation implies design because "accumulated undesirable consequences eventually lead to a non competitive or non viable species." You've just presupposed the possibility of large-scale change!
    ===

    Well I certainly do presuppose the possibility of large-scale evolutionary change, but you're making leaps again. You asked me about the law of compensation, I answered, and then you decided I was arguing for design.


    ===
    If variation can accumulate to the point where a species goes extinct, how is it in any sense "anchored by design"? And how on earth is a species supposed to survive in the first place if every minor adaptation is met by some new fault or weakness? You're begging the question of how variation in the form of advantages with undesirable consequences is anchored to a predetermined design.
    ===

    Again, I was merely answering your question. Later you asked about my position, and I answered. That is where you should go if you want to criticize my position.

    ===
    These limits on evolution that you were standing by before make no sense,
    ===

    You seem to be reading too much into a discussion of Goethe.


    ===
    Fortunately, if your conclusions in the most recent post are any indication, you've walked away from that ridiculous "compensatory anchor" claim and assumed a position of skepticism.
    ===

    But of course I made no such claim. You seem to be searching for problems to the point of contriving things.


    ===
    We've come a long way from you defending the proposal that there limits on evolution;
    ===

    There you go again.

    ===
    now you're trying to say that evolution itself is not bourne out by the facts.
    ===

    But that has always been my position. How is it that you find this to be new?


    ===
    So now my question becomes, how do you explain the variations seen in selective breeding by botanists and other breeders? And how do you explain the differences between humans and chimpanzees, if "the gene myth" is all damned lies?
    ===

    You seem to be wedded to a false dichotomy. Evolution's erroneous expectations don't mean variations become impossible.

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  25. thornton quotes: and early evolution of the group remains poorly understood. Here we describe a new bat from the Early Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, USA, with features that are more primitive than seen in any previously known bat. The evolutionary pathways that led to flapping flight and echolocation in bats have been in dispute and until now fossils have been of limited use in documenting transitions involved in this...

    Thanks for making my point for me. You guys have nothing to show for giving me a sequence of many incremental steps in a sequence that shows RMNS at work in these species, and identifying how all of the structures function at each stage to benefit survivability. Thank you very much!

    LOL! In other words you don't have any understanding of sampling theory or Nyquist frequency either. I guess you never read that big statistics book you were crowing about.

    Well now I was ready to offer you kudos for offering up a trick question in the earlier post for me to trip all over. But I will offer you anti-kudos for falling down on this one after a really sophomoric question that went like this: "...how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?" And my answer to you should have been a OBVIOUS clue to you-- and that is there is no mathematical definition of "enough fidelity to be understandable" LOL, I couldn't have come up with a better caution than what I said: There is not a mathematical definition of the condition you propose. You can significantly undersample an analog voice signal and it will have more and more unpleasant screeching distortion from aliasing, that is, overlaping of the spectral image aliases into audio range. But THERE IS NO MATHEMATICAL DETERMINATION OF HOW MUCH UNDERSAMPLING CAN BE TOLERATED BY HUMAN HEARING before understanding of language is impacted.

    And speaking of the Nyquist-Shannon theorem applied to voice spectra, are such spectra characterised by positive, or negative components (frequencies) or both? If you know the answer, what is the significance of the answer to this for analysis incorporating transcendental functions?

    Sorry friend, I don't think you have demonstrated mathematical saavy here as of yet, but I'll reserve judgement, but for some reason you think the Nyquist criterion would be covered in a statistics book.

    But you do have great propensity and demonstrated ability to spew your pejoratives and engage in name calling. You behave just as others before you have throughout history when faced with a collapsing paradigm around which you have built your life outlook. The New York Times published a piece on this kind of behavior titled "Unnatural Science" which is surely what you guys engage in, see it here:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01FOB-medium-t.html?_r=4

    We'll be watching for and reading any further literary offerings with interest. Hopefully you will learn about namecalling. Peace.

    BTW in the previous post when I suggested that you might happen to "invoke an investigator, the well known Mr. H. N." , I was referring to Dr. Harry Nyquist. Again, Peace

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  26. MSEE said...

    thornton quotes: and early evolution of the group remains poorly understood. Here we describe a new bat from the Early Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, USA, with features that are more primitive than seen in any previously known bat. The evolutionary pathways that led to flapping flight and echolocation in bats have been in dispute and until now fossils have been of limited use in documenting transitions involved in this...

    Thanks for making my point for me. You guys have nothing to show for giving me a sequence of many incremental steps in a sequence that shows RMNS at work in these species, and identifying how all of the structures function at each stage to benefit survivability. Thank you very much!


    You're the guy who claimed there was ZERO evidence for evolution, remember? You asked for an example of an evolutionary precursor to the modern bat, thinking you scored some cheap rhetorical point. Surprise, I gave you one. I can cite more papers on the topic too. Now you're breaking out the rocket powered goalposts to hide your ignorance.

    "...how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?" And my answer to you should have been a OBVIOUS clue to you-- and that is there is no mathematical definition of "enough fidelity to be understandable" LOL, I couldn't have come up with a better caution than what I said: There is not a mathematical definition of the condition you propose

    I didn't ask you for a mathematical definition. I asked about the practical limits of the digitization rate to reproduce human voice just to see if you understood the issues with digital sampling of analog signals. It's obvious you don't.

    Tell me Mr. Big Statistic Book On My Table, how is it that polling groups like Gallup can get accurate representative samples of 300 million people by polling just a few thousand?

    Then tell everybody why science would need to see every last individual step to determine a general evolutionary pathway.

    Here's you big chance to discuss science. Don't screw it up again.

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  27. T: "You claim to be an EE - how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable?"

    To explain for the lurkers:

    Any time you want to digitize an analog signal for reconstruction later, the greater the digital sampling rate (i.e. number of samples/time), the better fidelity you can get in the reconstruction. Normal human voice is in the range of 400-3400 Hz. Opera singers can push that somewhat higher, over 14,000 Hz (14KHz).

    High quality DVDs use a 24-bit A/D and run at a sampling rate of 192KHz. When a recording is made and played back with the matching 24 bit D/A (and a good amp and speakers), the results are virtually indistinguishable from a live singer. Lots of samples = better fidelity.

    At the other extreme are satellite telephony systems. Satellite bandwidth is very expensive, so service providers are always looking for the minimum requirements to digitize and transmit voice. With the use of proprietary CODECs (voice COder/DECoder), voice can be digitized as low as a 4KHz rate. The voice sounds flat and tinny, but is still understandable at the other end.

    The point of this exercise is to show you don’t have to have huge amounts of samples to reconstruct an analog signal with enough fidelity to be recognizable. When paleontologists collect fossils, they are basically finding digital samples of the millions-of-years-long analog ancestral lineage of species, and trying to reconstruct those lineages.

    Scientists don’t need to see a fossil from every last generation to recognize and reconstruct evolutionary transitional sequences in the fossil record. Geneticists don’t need to see every last mutation to recognize and identify evolutionary relationships from DNA samples.

    Sure, it would be nice to have unlimited numbers of fossil and genetic samples from every last generation. It would be nice if I won the lottery and Jessica Alba had a crush on me too. But it's not necessary.

    To make such demands as MSEE and other IDCers keep doing is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the topic.

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  28. Thornton: I didn't ask you for a mathematical definition. I asked about the practical limits of the digitization rate to reproduce human voice just to see if you understood the issues with digital sampling of analog signals. It's obvious you don't.

    Oh yeah, really obvious. The reason why Thornton is now saying that they "asked about the practical limits of the digitization rate to reproduce human voice" when this is obviously not the wording of the ORIGINAL challenge question, is because Thornton is a mathematical pre-neophyte. When someone asks a highly-trained engineer or scientist as question like the ORIGINAL "how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable" how is such a trained person to answer such a question which is impacted by a mathematical theorem, in NON-MATHEMATICAL fashion? This is why Thornton is a pre-neophyte when it comes to analysis. I gave the correct response to their sophomoric question. All you have to do is listen to the commmercial for the Aviva blood glucose analyser, hear the sound of the measurment instrument's voice output, to hear a very unpleasant sounding voice reconstruction because of improper design. This voice though, is very "understandable" to use Thornton's non-scientific criterion.

    And I repeat my challenge to Thornton, slightly reworded: A question applied to voice spectra, are such spectra characterised by positive, or negative components (frequencies) or both? If you know the answer, what is the significance of the answer to this for analysis incorporating transcendental functions? I can add to this by using Thornton's example: "Normal human voice is in the range of 400-3400 Hz." Why not -3400 Hz to -400 Hz? Please explain.

    High quality DVDs use a 24-bit A/D and run at a sampling rate of 192KHz. When a recording is made and played back with the matching 24 bit D/A (and a good amp and speakers), the results are virtually indistinguishable from a live singer. Lots of samples = better fidelity.

    A strictly layman's attempt at a scientific exposition. Since DVD's are video their sample rates are much higher than 192 Ksps. Note the units I use, NOT KHz, but Ksps. Perhaps Thornton is referring to compact disc. NEITHER disk has an A/D converter. A disk is a disk. And I might add that a CD player also does not need an A/D converter. The Thornton exposition is full of embarrassments, as you can see. At any rate, the sample rate on CD's is 44.1 Ksps. Since the information content of the CD cannot be impacted positively by a player playing it back at a much higher sample rate than 44.1 Ksps, what, dear Thornton, is the mechanism, in mathematical or engineering terms, that would account for a better performance in a player operating at such higher sample rate, and what parameter of such playback is impacted?

    Oh BTW friend, normal human voice spectra extend way beyond 3400 Hz. The consonent sounds can be seen to have a modest resemblance distribution functions, like the Dirac and Heaviside. And this does have some application to echolocation as it turns out.

    Thornton so far not attempting to answer any challenge from me indicates definite lack of mathematical, and physical science ability, or at least the reluctance to demonstrate such. This would seem to limit their ability to comprehend some of the statistical challenges to the cherished RMNS process, which would seem to fall into the category of stochastic processes.

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  29. MSEE said...

    Thornton: "I didn't ask you for a mathematical definition. I asked about the practical limits of the digitization rate to reproduce human voice just to see if you understood the issues with digital sampling of analog signals. It's obvious you don't."

    Oh yeah, really obvious. The reason why Thornton is now saying that they "asked about the practical limits of the digitization rate to reproduce human voice" when this is obviously not the wording of the ORIGINAL challenge question, is because Thornton is a mathematical pre-neophyte. When someone asks a highly-trained engineer or scientist as question like the ORIGINAL "how often do you need to sample an analog voice signal to recreate it with enough fidelity to be understandable" how is such a trained person to answer such a question which is impacted by a mathematical theorem, in NON-MATHEMATICAL fashion?


    LOL! Yes MSEE it's really that obvious. You fancy yourself a "highly trained engineer", but you're too dense to understand the most basic things about sampling theory.

    You may have gotten a college degree by memorizing and parroting back formulas on your exams, but you don't have the slightest comprehension of how the concepts apply to the real world. You especially suck at evolutionary biology, where your bloated ego makes you think your engineering degree somehow makes you competent to bloviate on any subject.

    I notice you cowardly ignored the question about how the Gallup poll can get accurate statistics by sampling just a few tenths of a percent of the whole population. I guess that big statistics book on your table is beyond you after all.

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