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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 7/16/2008 10:59:42 AM
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Bettawrekonize
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More evidence of the unfalsifiable nature of this alleged hierarchy.
quote:
According to Popper, the falsifiability of a hypothesis represents a necessary precondition for its corroborability. It is shown that cladograms, independent of ‘‘strict’’, ‘‘methodological’’ or ‘‘sophisticated’’ falsification, are not falsifiable in principle. No present observation is prohibited by any tree hypothesis and, thus, no Popperian test of cladograms exists.
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However, Popper’s falsificationism has been criticized and questioned by many philosophers before and it seems to be about time that phylogeneticists develop their own philosophy of phylogenetics that meets their specific requirements of a historical science that is not seeking for universal laws and regularities, but instead reconstructing particular historical events.
The unfalsifiability of cladograms and its consequences
So basically they are saying that (at least this aspect of) UCD is unfalsifiable, so lets just throw out falsification as a criterion altogether. Sounds like (according to them) UCD is more and more of a philosophy (and less and less of a science) as we speak.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 7/16/2008 12:36:07 PM
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gluadys
Posts: 1000
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Jhud
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Here are the people:
B1 (Brother 1) : Has hair, but not backbone.
B2 (Brother 2) : Has a backbone, but no hair.
C1 (Cousin 1) : Has both a backbone, and hair.
Any one of the following must be true before the nested hierarchy is violated:
* No ancestor of B1 has hair.
* No ancestor of B2 has a backbone.
* No ancestor of C1 has hair.
* No ancestor of C1 has a backbone.
The fact that B1 and B2 are more closely related, yet C1 shares traits they don't share with each other DOES NOT VIOLATE THE NESTED HIERARCHY.
If you knew what a nested hierarchy WAS, you would know this. You don't.
Sorry to interject here, but doesn't evolution assume that at some point that our ancestors at didn't have either backbones or hair?
Ah, a resurrected thread.
Yes, at some point our ancestors didn't have either backbones or hair, but that would not be the last common ancestor in the scenario described.
It would have been clearer to specify that "no ancestor" means no ancestor within the clade to which the brothers and the cousin mutually belong. Of course, things are also complicated when dealing with the ancestry of individuals, because they have two parents and two sets of grandparents each. Only one set of grandparents are common ancestors to both brothers and the cousin. But either common grandparent could bequeath a trait, and the trait could also coincidentally come from sets of non-shared grandparents.
Sibling and cousin species, on the other hand have only one common ancestor species. So any synapomorphy found in both groups must have appeared in the last common ancestor even if it was not present in a more remote ancestor.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 7/16/2008 12:49:32 PM
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hellohellohi
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Yes, let's throw out "falsification." It was a mistake on Popper's part, I say, rooted in his desire to make up for the apparent weakness of inductive logic: he failed to do so. Really, he shouldn't have been so abashed of science. It's strength is its weakness.
Science ought to be understood as the process of asking questions abotu the observable universe. The questions need not be strictly falsifiable, I say.
For instance, take the classic example about the black swans of Australia. Suppose some scientist had said "some swans are black" prior to their discovery. Falsification of this would require observation of all instances of swan. Confirmation of this only required exploration of a certain continent.
Now, I understand why Popper wanted to emphasize falsification. It is because science often likes asking general questions (about all cases) rather than specific ones (such whether SOME instances possess a certain property.) Thus, he favored statements that require observation of specific instances that would falsify any general statement, such as "No swans are black," which was quickly falsified by the observation that SOME swans are black. But given that it is a matter of indifference whether we phrase a question "positively" or as its complement -- which is the same thing as saying its negation -- then there is nothing special about falsifiability.
Popper was ashamed, I would say, at the fact that science seems to believe that it can gain inference about the general by looking at a large number of specific cases. This, it is said, is inferior to deductive logic. Rather, they are apples and oranges, and one should not be ashamed that they do not compare if one has a career that is based on one rather than the other (though of course deduction is also useful in science.)
Rather, I say, the task of expressing what science is was underserved by Popper. I say we should call it like it is: asking questions of teh observable universe. It is a trivial property of any particular PHRASING of a question that it should be negative, general, specific, or positive, since asking about its complement is the same as asking of it in the first place -- that is, they are mutually exclusive and imply something abotu the other, namely that the other is not the case.
So, science is asking testable questions. Does the ToE ask testable questions?
< Message edited by hellohellohi -- 7/18/2008 9:10:30 AM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 7/20/2008 5:14:32 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
For instance, take the classic example about the black swans of Australia. Suppose some scientist had said "some swans are black" prior to their discovery. Falsification of this would require observation of all instances of swan. Confirmation of this only required exploration of a certain continent.
The problem is that it's not practical to know that we have observed all instances of swan, so the claim that some swan are black is unfalsifiable. That is, for all practical purposes, we can't know whether or not we have observed all instances of swan. Somewhere there might be a swan that we haven't observed. The claim that all swan are black is falsifiable. One observable instance to the contrary would falsify this claim, there is no need to know whether or not we have observed all instances of swan (which we can't practically know).
If something is unfalsifiable, then there is no way to know whether or not it's false and hence we can assume it false, from a scientific perspective, on the basis that it is unfalsifiable.
If I were to say that undetectable magic fairy dust causes the Earth to rotate, such a statement is unfalsifiable. If they're undetectable, then there is no way for us to test for its existence and prove it false (if it doesn't exist). Hence, from a scientific perspective, we can assume it false and belief in magic undetectable fairy dust is faith based.
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 7/20/2008 8:24:02 PM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 7/28/2008 10:13:24 AM
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BVZ
Posts: 368
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
For instance, take the classic example about the black swans of Australia. Suppose some scientist had said "some swans are black" prior to their discovery. Falsification of this would require observation of all instances of swan. Confirmation of this only required exploration of a certain continent.
The problem is that it's not practical to know that we have observed all instances of swan, so the claim that some swan are black is unfalsifiable. That is, for all practical purposes, we can't know whether or not we have observed all instances of swan. Somewhere there might be a swan that we haven't observed. The claim that all swan are black is falsifiable. One observable instance to the contrary would falsify this claim, there is no need to know whether or not we have observed all instances of swan (which we can't practically know).
If something is unfalsifiable, then there is no way to know whether or not it's false and hence we can assume it false, from a scientific perspective, on the basis that it is unfalsifiable.
If I were to say that undetectable magic fairy dust causes the Earth to rotate, such a statement is unfalsifiable. If they're undetectable, then there is no way for us to test for its existence and prove it false (if it doesn't exist). Hence, from a scientific perspective, we can assume it false and belief in magic undetectable fairy dust is faith based.
So... you understand all this... but you still argue against evolution, and FOR ID?
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/23/2008 10:16:24 AM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
There is only one type of hierarchy you CAN get if evolution is true, and that is a nested one. Hence, the ToE predicts a nested hierarchy.
There is no reason to believe this. Just because you proclaim it to be the case does not make it so.
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The mistake you are making is that you assume that eye color is determined by a single trait. This is not the case. Eye color is determined by more than one trait. If you examine these traits and how they are inherited by children from thier parents, you will find... you've guessed it... a nested hierarchy.
Not true. If you pick any trait that is not fixed within an entire population, it will not fall into a nested hierarchy. You are only saying that traits that are already fixed into the population fall into your alleged hierarchy, but there is no reason for evolution to predict that they should fall into your alleged hierarchy to begin with. You are assuming evolution to be true, alleging that there is a hierarchy among fixed traits, and then claiming, based on your evolutionary assumption, that evolution should predict such an alleged hierarchy. However, there is really no reason for evolution to produce any such alleged hierarchy among fixed traits. Among non - fixed traits, there are hierarchy violations all over the place and those violations don't just disappear when the organisms speciate. They remain, and if evolution were true we would expect those violations to be everywhere. Nice try though.
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Heres a tip: Don't oversimplify
Here is a tip. Don't make things up.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 1:56:01 AM
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BVZ
Posts: 368
Joined: 11/2/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
There is only one type of hierarchy you CAN get if evolution is true, and that is a nested one. Hence, the ToE predicts a nested hierarchy.
There is no reason to believe this. Just because you proclaim it to be the case does not make it so.
Look, it's really simple. If evolution is true, then genetic material must come from parents where horizontal transfer is impossible. That means the only way you can get genetic material is from your parents, and from mutations.
Do you not see how this implies a nested hierarchy?
quote:
quote:
The mistake you are making is that you assume that eye color is determined by a single trait. This is not the case. Eye color is determined by more than one trait. If you examine these traits and how they are inherited by children from thier parents, you will find... you've guessed it... a nested hierarchy.
Not true. If you pick any trait that is not fixed within an entire population, it will not fall into a nested hierarchy.
Example please.
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You are only saying that traits that are already fixed into the population fall into your alleged hierarchy, but there is no reason for evolution to predict that they should fall into your alleged hierarchy to begin with.
I did not limit what I said to traits that are fixed. ALL traits will fall into a nested hierarchy where HGT is impossible.
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You are assuming evolution to be true, alleging that there is a hierarchy among fixed traits, and then claiming, based on your evolutionary assumption, that evolution should predict such an alleged hierarchy.
You are not paying attention. Focus please. What I am doing is saying that IF evolution is true, THEN we should expect a nested hierarchy. If you do not agree with this, then you don't understand the theory of evolution, and neither do you know how science works.
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However, there is really no reason for evolution to produce any such alleged hierarchy among fixed traits. Among non - fixed traits, there are hierarchy violations all over the place and those violations don't just disappear when the organisms speciate.
Examples please.
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They remain, and if evolution were true we would expect those violations to be everywhere. Nice try though.
If evolution is true, we would NOT expect violations to the nested hierarchy. Pay attention.
quote:
quote:
Heres a tip: Don't oversimplify
Here is a tip. Don't make things up.
You accuse me of making things up. Example please. Also, don't oversimplyfy. You chuck all the traits all resulting in eye color into a single trait, and then you are surprised when it gives you strange results. Eye color is not that simple. If you pick any one of the traits that have an influence on eye color, you will find that that trait will fit into the nested hierarchy.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 9:37:00 AM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
Look, it's really simple. If evolution is true, then genetic material must come from parents where horizontal transfer is impossible. That means the only way you can get genetic material is from your parents, and from mutations.
Do you not see how this implies a nested hierarchy?
Again, there are violations all over the place. IE: violations in eye color, hair color, etc... There is no reason for it to produce this alleged nested hierarchy. It's completely possible for two brothers not to share a specific non fixed gene/trait that two cousins share, a violation of the alleged nested hierarchy.
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Example please.
Again, it's completely possible for two brothers not to share a gene that two cousins share. Of course, you can give the word, "trait" an ambiguous definition, but if you don't deal with fixed genes inside a population, you see violations everywhere. Those violations don't just go away when the organisms speciate.
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I did not limit what I said to traits that are fixed. ALL traits will fall into a nested hierarchy where HGT is impossible.
No, they will not. In the case of the human population, violations exist everywhere.
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You are not paying attention. Focus please. What I am doing is saying that IF evolution is true, THEN we should expect a nested hierarchy. If you do not agree with this, then you don't understand the theory of evolution, and neither do you know how science works.
You are merely proclaiming this to be the case, you are not substantiating.
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Examples please.
Non - fixed genes in a population do not produce such an alleged hierarchy. It's possible for two brothers not to have a gene that two cousins share.
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If evolution is true, we would NOT expect violations to the nested hierarchy. Pay attention.
Proof by proclamation. Excellent science.
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You accuse me of making things up. Example please.
The proclamation that traits will fall into some alleged hierarchy is something you made up.
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Also, don't oversimplyfy. You chuck all the traits all resulting in eye color into a single trait, and then you are surprised when it gives you strange results. Eye color is not that simple. If you pick any one of the traits that have an influence on eye color, you will find that that trait will fit into the nested hierarchy.
Pick any non - fixed gene/trait inside the population. It will not.
I am not oversimplifying, the fact is that it does not fall into any sort of alleged hierarchy. It's entirely possible for two brothers to not share a non fixed gene/trait that two cousins share.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 9:59:03 AM
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iluvatar
Posts: 1944
Joined: 4/12/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
Look, it's really simple. If evolution is true, then genetic material must come from parents where horizontal transfer is impossible. That means the only way you can get genetic material is from your parents, and from mutations.
Do you not see how this implies a nested hierarchy?
Again, there are violations all over the place. IE: violations in eye color, hair color, etc... There is no reason for it to produce this alleged nested hierarchy. It's completely possible for two brothers not to share a specific non fixed gene/trait that two cousins share, a violation of the alleged nested hierarchy.
I can't speak to hair color, but it's already been mentioned that eye color is not the product of one gene. It's the product of a combination of genes. Also, dominant genes can essentially "overpower" recessive genes - you may carry two different competing genes (e.g. brown hair & blonde hair), but only be able to "see" the expression of one of them (brown hair).
Sharing a gene with a cousin but not a brother doesn't violate a nested hierarchy. If you go back and examine the lineage, you'll find that one of your parents, your aunt/uncle, and the common grandparent all had that gene. If your cousin's parents didn't have the gene, then neither would he, unless it was the result of some mutation in his or his parents' germ line cells.
If your brother does not have this gene and neither does his future wife, then none of his kids will either, unless it's a result of the aforementioned mutation.
If you trace out the path of this gene, you'll find that it gives you a tree structure, or in other words, a nested hierarchy.
I don't understand why you keep arguing that evolution doesn't predict a nested hierarchy. There's something fundamentally wrong with either your understanding of genetics, your understanding of evolution, or your understanding of what a nested hierarchy is. Could you explain for us how genes show up in a person, i.e. where they come from; what does evolution predict will be found?; and can you also explain for us what you believe a nested hierarchy to be? Can you also give some examples of nested hierarchy violations (beyond the brother/cousin example I've already shown to be wrong)?
-Dan.
< Message edited by iluvatar -- 8/25/2008 10:06:21 AM >
_____________________________
Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 10:55:54 AM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
Sharing a gene with a cousin but not a brother doesn't violate a nested hierarchy.
Yes it does.
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If you go back and examine the lineage, you'll find that one of your parents, your aunt/uncle, and the common grandparent all had that gene.
Saying that the gene came from somewhere does not mean that it produces a nested hierarchy.
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If you trace out the path of this gene, you'll find that it gives you a tree structure, or in other words, a nested hierarchy.
First of all, we don't have the genetic code of each of our great great great ancestors to do so.
Secondly (if you read from the beginning of this thread for example) the claim is that there should be no organisms of an alleged closer relationship not sharing traits that organisms of an alleged further relationship do share.
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"Nested hierarchy" refers to the way taxonomic groups fit neatly and completely inside other taxonomic groups. For instance, all bats (order Chiroptera) are mammals. All mammals are vertebrates. Likewise, all whales (order Cetacea) are also mammals, and thus also vertebrates.
...
Taxonomic groups are defined by traits and it should be possible to mix traits from multiple defined groups. An example from classical mythology is the Pegasus, a creature with features defined as both mammal (produces milk like a horse) and bird (has feathers). Mammals and birds are both orders, so, if Pegasus existed, it would be a violation of the nested hierarchy, a creature that belonged to two separate groups. Likewise for satyrs (human torso, goats legs), jackalopes (rabbit body with an antelope head) and crocoducks (crocodile head, body of a duck).
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Nested_Hierarchy
Basically, the arguments here is that all bats are mammals and mammals are defined by certain characteristics. Bats also have those characteristics. At the same time, all mammals are vertebrates and vertebrates are defined by certain characteristics. Allegedly, mammals have a closer relationship to other mammals than they do to birds. They are claiming that mammals should not share characteristics with birds that they don't share with other mammals. So, they are arguing that if a creature with the features of a mammal had features of a bird, features that mammals don't have, it would violate the alleged hierarchy. So basically, they are arguing that if we find a creature with a closer relationship to another creature (ie: two mammals) not sharing characteristics with each other that one of the organisms shares with an organism with a further relationship (ie: a bat with feathers), it would violate this alleged hierarchy. I am merely pointing out that if evolution is true, we should expect no such alleged hierarchy. Violations exist everywhere within the human population and when the organisms speciate, those violations don't just disappear. They remain.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 9:18:08 PM
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iluvatar
Posts: 1944
Joined: 4/12/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
Sharing a gene with a cousin but not a brother doesn't violate a nested hierarchy.
Yes it does.
How? Genes don't have to be passed on. Your brother not having the gene essentially kills his branch of the tree (for that gene, and ignoring his wife's contribution), but that doesn't mean that you can't still advance your parents' branch, that your cousin can't still advance your aunt/uncle's brach, or that you both can't advances your grandparents' branch. If genes skipped generations or just randomly popped up in various places, then you'd have a point. But aside from the odd mutation, they don't.
quote:
quote:
If you go back and examine the lineage, you'll find that one of your parents, your aunt/uncle, and the common grandparent all had that gene.
Saying that the gene came from somewhere does not mean that it produces a nested hierarchy.
Correct, saying that it comes from "somewhere" doesn't. But analyzing the way that genetic traits are inherited DOES produce a nested hierarchy. This is basic high-school level biology that's been around for over 100 years.
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quote:
If you trace out the path of this gene, you'll find that it gives you a tree structure, or in other words, a nested hierarchy.
First of all, we don't have the genetic code of each of our great great great ancestors to do so.
Then take lab mice. Bacteria. Mendel used pea plants. Pick something.
Secondly (if you read from the beginning of this thread for example) the claim is that there should be no organisms of an alleged closer relationship not sharing traits that organisms of an alleged further relationship do share.
quote:
Basically, the arguments here is that all bats are mammals and mammals are defined by certain characteristics. Bats also have those characteristics. At the same time, all mammals are vertebrates and vertebrates are defined by certain characteristics. Allegedly, mammals have a closer relationship to other mammals than they do to birds. They are claiming that mammals should not share characteristics with birds that they don't share with other mammals. So, they are arguing that if a creature with the features of a mammal had features of a bird, features that mammals don't have, it would violate the alleged hierarchy. So basically, they are arguing that if we find a creature with a closer relationship to another creature (ie: two mammals) not sharing characteristics with each other that one of the organisms shares with an organism with a further relationship (ie: a bat with feathers), it would violate this alleged hierarchy.
I'm with you so far. In my limited understanding, that seems like a fairly accurate assessment of the argument.
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I am merely pointing out that if evolution is true, we should expect no such alleged hierarchy.
This is what I don't get. What makes you think that evolution would not predict this hierarchy? What about "inheritable genetic traits get passed along to descendants" doesn't predict a nested hierarchy?
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Violations exist everywhere within the human population and when the organisms speciate, those violations don't just disappear. They remain.
Again, what violations?
-Dan.
_____________________________
Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 9:39:02 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
quote:
Basically, the arguments here is that all bats are mammals and mammals are defined by certain characteristics. Bats also have those characteristics. At the same time, all mammals are vertebrates and vertebrates are defined by certain characteristics. Allegedly, mammals have a closer relationship to other mammals than they do to birds. They are claiming that mammals should not share characteristics with birds that they don't share with other mammals. So, they are arguing that if a creature with the features of a mammal had features of a bird, features that mammals don't have, it would violate the alleged hierarchy. So basically, they are arguing that if we find a creature with a closer relationship to another creature (ie: two mammals) not sharing characteristics with each other that one of the organisms shares with an organism with a further relationship (ie: a bat with feathers), it would violate this alleged hierarchy.
I'm with you so far. In my limited understanding, that seems like a fairly accurate assessment of the argument.
quote:
I am merely pointing out that if evolution is true, we should expect no such alleged hierarchy.
This is what I don't get. What makes you think that evolution would not predict this hierarchy? What about "inheritable genetic traits get passed along to descendants" doesn't predict a nested hierarchy?
...
Again, what violations?
The fact that it's entirely possible for organisms of a further relationship to share characteristics that organisms of a closer relationship don't share. A bat with feathers is allegedly a violation of this alleged hierarchy because bats allegedly have a further relationship to birds than they do to mammals. Yet, in the human population, organisms with a further relationship often share characteristics that organisms with a closer relationship don't share. These are violations similar to the bat with feathers example. These violations exist within the human population and when the organisms speciate, these violations don't just disappear. They remain. That is, it's entirely plausible for, say, two separate brothers that don't share a characteristic with each other to start two separate linages that don't share that characteristic yet have a cousin that shares a characteristic with only one of the brothers start a separate linage that does share the characteristic with the lineage of that one brother. Such violations exist all over the place (not just within this specific example) within the human population and they don't just disappear when the organisms speciate. Evolution does not predict that we can group organisms alive today within a nested hierarchy that in any way resembles their relationship. We can't get all of the people with blue eyes and brown hair in a room and then get all the people with brown hair and no blue eyes in that same room and say that everyone with blue eyes and brown hair share a closer relationship to each other than those with brown hair and no blue eyes (and I'm not just talking about hair or eye color, you can drill this down to any specific non - fixed gene within the population). Yes, we might be able to artificially create some subjective hierarchy with such cladograms (ie: group people with brown hair together in one group, people with black hair in another group; group people with brown hair and blue eyes in one group, people with brown hair and green eyes in another group; group tall people with blue eyes and brown hair in one group, group short people with blue eyes and brown hair in another, etc... and keep grouping them until it falls into some hierarchy where the main group is hair color, a subgroup is eye color, and a subgroup within the subgroup is height) but that's not to say such a hierarchy represents their relationships or that evolution predicts any such hierarchy. Evolution should not predict that organisms with an allegedly further relationship should not share characteristics that organisms with an allegedly closer relationship don't share and hence a bat with feathers should not be a problem for evolution. We should predict violations all over the place, just like they exist all over the place within the human population.
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 8/25/2008 9:53:11 PM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 10:19:48 PM
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iluvatar
Posts: 1944
Joined: 4/12/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
quote:
Basically, the arguments here is that all bats are mammals and mammals are defined by certain characteristics. Bats also have those characteristics. At the same time, all mammals are vertebrates and vertebrates are defined by certain characteristics. Allegedly, mammals have a closer relationship to other mammals than they do to birds. They are claiming that mammals should not share characteristics with birds that they don't share with other mammals. So, they are arguing that if a creature with the features of a mammal had features of a bird, features that mammals don't have, it would violate the alleged hierarchy. So basically, they are arguing that if we find a creature with a closer relationship to another creature (ie: two mammals) not sharing characteristics with each other that one of the organisms shares with an organism with a further relationship (ie: a bat with feathers), it would violate this alleged hierarchy.
I'm with you so far. In my limited understanding, that seems like a fairly accurate assessment of the argument.
quote:
I am merely pointing out that if evolution is true, we should expect no such alleged hierarchy.
This is what I don't get. What makes you think that evolution would not predict this hierarchy? What about "inheritable genetic traits get passed along to descendants" doesn't predict a nested hierarchy?
...
Again, what violations?
The fact that it's entirely possible for organisms of a further relationship to share characteristics that organisms of a closer relationship don't share. A bat with feathers is allegedly a violation of this alleged hierarchy because bats allegedly have a further relationship to birds than they do to mammals. Yet, in the human population, organisms with a further relationship often share characteristics that organisms with a closer relationship don't share. These are violations similar to the bat with feathers example. These violations exist within the human population and when the organisms speciate, these violations don't just disappear. They remain. That is, it's entirely plausible for, say, two separate brothers that don't share a characteristic with each other to start two separate linages that don't share that characteristic yet have a cousin that shares a characteristic with only one of the brothers start a separate linage that does share the characteristic with the lineage of that one brother. Such violations exist all over the place (not just within this specific example) within the human population and they don't just disappear when the organisms speciate. Evolution does not predict that we can group organisms alive today within a nested hierarchy that in any way resembles their relationship. We can't get all of the people with blue eyes and brown hair in a room and then get all the people with brown hair and no blue eyes in that same room and say that everyone with blue eyes and brown hair share a closer relationship to each other than those with brown hair and no blue eyes (and I'm not just talking about hair or eye color, you can drill this down to any specific non - fixed gene within the population). Yes, we might be able to artificially create some subjective hierarchy with such cladograms (ie: group people with brown hair together in one group, people with black hair in another group; group people with brown hair and blue eyes in one group, people with brown hair and green eyes in another group; group tall people with blue eyes and brown hair in one group, group short people with blue eyes and brown hair in another, etc... and keep grouping them until it falls into some hierarchy where the main group is hair color, a subgroup is eye color, and a subgroup within the subgroup is height) but that's not to say such a hierarchy represents their relationships or that evolution predicts any such hierarchy. Evolution should not predict that organisms with an allegedly further relationship should not share characteristics that organisms with an allegedly closer relationship don't share and hence a bat with feathers should not be a problem for evolution. We should predict violations all over the place, just like they exist all over the place within the human population.
I think I'm starting to understand the issue. Sharing a trait with your cousin, but not your brother does not violate a nested hierarchy. When analyzing one particular trait, you have to follow the lineage of that trait. If you do, you'll see that while your brother may not have the trait, your father, uncle, and grandfather all did. That's a nested hierarchy. Now, if you start looking at ALL of the traits, you'll see that because you're closer genetically to your brother, you share more traits with your brother than you do with your cousin.
How that applies to violations is where new traits emerge and where they show up in the tree. If two separate branches share traits that were not possessed by an ancestor, there is a violation. But if that trait was possessed by an ancestor, there is no violation.
Let's pretend that your nephew spontaneously grows a third arm - and for the first half of this example, let's say that nobody in your family has previously had the gene for that 3rd arm. Your nephew could pass that on to all of his descendants and still not violate the nested hierarchy. What would violate the nested hierarchy is if your grandson grew that same exact 3rd arm. Two separate branches with the same exact trait, BUT NO ANCESTRAL SOURCE of that trait violates the nested hierarchy. If however, your grandfather had a 3rd arm and was the original source of the trait, there is no violation.
Feathers on a mammal poses problems for evolution because evolution posits that feathers developed in birds long after mammals and birds diverged from their common ancestor. Only if the common ancestor had feathers would there be no problem for evolution. Other features (e.g. two eyes, bony endoskeleton, etc) previously possessed by the common ancestor and now possessed by both branches do not pose a problem for evolution.
-Dan.
_____________________________
Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/25/2008 10:54:21 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
How that applies to violations is where new traits emerge and where they show up in the tree. If two separate branches share traits that were not possessed by an ancestor, there is a violation. But if that trait was possessed by an ancestor, there is no violation.
Then, if bats have feathers, we can say that bats got their feathers from a common ancestor of birds and reconstruct a new subjective hierarchy.
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Feathers on a mammal poses problems for evolution because evolution posits that feathers developed in birds long after mammals and birds diverged from their common ancestor.
No, as in the examples pointed to you above, the alleged divergent point is based on which animals contain which characteristics. These alleged hierarchies are constructed based on which animals have which characteristics. If a bat had feathers, we can simply push the divergent point up (and I already gave an example of that).
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Sharing a trait with your cousin, but not your brother does not violate a nested hierarchy.
Yes it does. It means we can't group organisms in a hierarchy based on characteristics / genes and expect that group to represent their relationships.
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Only if the common ancestor had feathers would there be no problem for evolution
Again, the alleged divergent point is based on which animals have which features. If bats had feathers, one can simply say that they both share a common ancestor with feathers. If they don't, one can say that they do not. Either way, a bat with feathers does not violate evolution.
Again, notice what's being claimed here
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Taxonomic groups are defined by traits and it should be possible to mix traits from multiple defined groups. An example from classical mythology is the Pegasus, a creature with features defined as both mammal (produces milk like a horse) and bird (has feathers). Mammals and birds are both orders, so, if Pegasus existed, it would be a violation of the nested hierarchy, a creature that belonged to two separate groups.
[emphasis added]
Google version of above link
Again, they claim that the violation here occurs because an organism that has characteristics of one larger group also shares characteristics of another group that are not shared among other organisms within its own group. Allegedly, organisms within one group share a closer relationship with other organisms within the same group than they do with organisms of another group. Yet, there is no reason for all characteristics within a group that are shared with a more distant group to also be shared with a group of an alleged closer relationship. If evolution is true, we should expect violations to occur all over the place because they exist everywhere within the human population and those violations don't just disappear when the organism speciates.
If evolution were true, we should not see an alleged hierarchy. There should be characteristics that are shared among organisms of a further relationship not being shared among organisms with a closer relationship. Evolution should not predict any sort of unified pattern (ie: a nested hierarchy) whatsoever and we should not find any such pattern since such a pattern is not required for survival and hence there is no reason for natural selection to create or maintain such a pattern.
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The most obvious and simplest explanation for the observed nested hierarchy of taxonomic categories is evolution.
(From the link above)
It's amazing how evolution tries to substantiate it's claims with unsupported proclamations. It's very easy for that website to proclaim that there is an alleged hierarchy and then proclaim that evolution allegedly predicts such a hierarchy, but they don't even bother substantiating such a claim.
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ORIGINAL: iluvatar
This is basic high-school level biology that's been around for over 100 years.
Just because you proclaim that something must be true because it's taught in high school biology does not make it so. Once again, another example of evolution trying to substantiate its claims by method of proclamation.
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 8/25/2008 11:41:56 PM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 7:35:38 AM
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iluvatar
Posts: 1944
Joined: 4/12/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
Yes it does. It means we can't group organisms in a hierarchy based on characteristics / genes and expect that group to represent their relationships.
It means that you can't base your groupings off one single trait. You'll still likely share more traits with your brother than with your cousin.
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If evolution were true, we should not see an alleged hierarchy. There should be characteristics that are shared among organisms of a further relationship not being shared among organisms with a closer relationship. Evolution should not predict any sort of unified pattern (ie: a nested hierarchy) whatsoever and we should not find any such pattern since such a pattern is not required for survival and hence there is no reason for natural selection to create or maintain such a pattern.
Is the whole basis for your argument the fact that one branch of a tree can lose a trait? That's still a nested hierarchy.
-Dan.
_____________________________
Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones.
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 10:21:51 AM
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essentialsaltes
Posts: 1083
Joined: 10/14/2007
From: Inglewood, CA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
Again, the alleged divergent point is based on which animals have which features. If bats had feathers, one can simply say that they both share a common ancestor with feathers. If they don't, one can say that they do not. Either way, a bat with feathers does not violate evolution.
But the palaeontological record gives us a good idea of what and when the last common ancestor of bats and birds was. We can trace these lineages. The mammals came from therapsids which came from synapsids, which diverged from the diapsids (including birds) in the Carboniferous, more than 300 million years ago. Nothing had feathers back then. At best, if bats had feathers, we would have to suppose a common ancestor with feathers that we haven't discovered, existing almost 100 million years before the earliest maybe-feathers we have discovered.
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"My object in all arguments is not to make any preconceived opinion of mine seem right, but merely to discover and establish the truth, whatever the truth may be."
-- HP Lovecraft, letter to Robert E. Howard 7/27-28/34
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 10:30:37 AM
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BVZ
Posts: 368
Joined: 11/2/2006
Status: offline
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A violation of the nested hierarchy must fulfill ALL of the following:
1) It must be a trait.
2) At least two members must share the SAME trait.
3) You should be able to choose two organisms with the trait, where they dont share ANY ancestors with that trait.
If these three conditions are not met, then it is not a violation.
Lets take wings on a bat:
It is a trait.
Both doves (for example) and the winged bats share the trait.
There is no ancestors of both bats and birds that have the trait.
So, it is a violation.
You use eye color as an example. This has been explained to you before, so I am not sure why you are still using it... but I will explain it again, for the lurkers at least.
Your mistake is to assume that eye color is a single trait. It is not. The color of your eyes is the result of MANY traits, working together. You can have two COMPLETELY different sets of traits, that result in EXACTLY the same eye color. In other words, just because the color of two person's eyes are identical, does not make it the same trait.
If you take each individual trait that has an effect on eye color, and you build a tree, it will not violate the nested hierarchy. Do you understand now?
(edited for unwelcome counsel)
< Message edited by Consecrated2God -- 8/26/2008 10:48:26 AM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 3:19:31 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
It means that you can't base your groupings off one single trait.
But violations still exist everywhere, not just with that one single trait.
quote:
You'll still likely share more traits with your brother than with your cousin.
Even so, we would still expect to find violations all over the place because we see them everywhere within the human population. It's possible for two third cousins to share a single gene that two brothers don't share. Two people with a very far relationship may have a gene for black hair that are not shared with two brothers. Violations exist everywhere and they don't just disappear when the organisms speciate.
I also think you'll find this interesting.
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The elephant shark's genome is so similar to ours that we wind up having more in common with it, genetically speaking, than with other species, such as teleost (bony skeleton) fishes, which are nearer to us on the evolutionary tree.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1937469.htm
http://forums.christianity.com/m_2387149/mpage_5/key_/tm.htm
quote:
ORIGINAL: iluvatar
Is the whole basis for your argument the fact that one branch of a tree can lose a trait? That's still a nested hierarchy.
The basis is that when you group humans together in one of these subjective hierarchies, the hierarchy does not give you information about their relationships because violations exist everywhere.
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 8/26/2008 4:03:26 PM >
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 3:23:16 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes
But the palaeontological record gives us a good idea of what and when the last common ancestor of bats and birds was.
No. They base their alleged divergent point on this subjective hierarchy and that's what they consider a "record." How they classify the organism determines where they place the divergent point and if there was a bat with feathers, they could just as easily move up the divergent point and re - classify the subjective hierarchy as they always have done in the past (ie: in the case of bats, horses, and cows. They found a violation in the last subjective hierarchy so they just move the divergent point around and re - arrange the subjective hierarchy to produce another subjective hierarchy with a different divergent point).
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RE: Mosaic disprove Common ancestry? - 8/26/2008 3:40:04 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1365
Joined: 4/17/2005
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
1) It must be a trait.
If it's a trait that's not fixed in the population, violations do exist. Those violations do not just disappear when the organism speciates.
quote:
2) At least two members must share the SAME trait.
Many members of the human population share non - fixed traits.
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3) You should be able to choose two organisms with the trait, where they dont share ANY ancestors with that trait.
If a bat grew feathers and it did not acquire that trait from its ancestors, this would be evidence for evolution, for it would show conclusively that evolution can plausibly produce original feathers (and then evolutionists can claim that the same or similar evolutionary processes that produced these feathers produced the feathers of a bird). The fact that no bats have feathers resists evolution, for it suggests that evolution does not produce original feathers. What you are asking for is an example of evolution originating something (bird feathers) that we claim evolution does not originate. So basically, if a bat grew feathers, that's evidence for evolution, for evolutionists would claim that evolution originated those feathers and that this demonstrates that evolution can plausibly originate bird feathers. If a bat does not grow feathers, that's also evidence for evolution, for it would not violate some subjective hierarchy invented by evolutionists. Either way, evolution is unfalsifiable.
The burden is not on me to show that evolution can plausibly originate bird feathers or the DNA for them (for I am claiming that it can't plausibly do so), the burden is on you to do so. If you want to claim that evolution can plausibly originate bird feathers or the DNA for them, don't ask me to substantiate such a silly claim. If evolution did not originate bird feathers (and if it can't plausibly originate bird feathers) and if a bat did have bird feathers, I would expect it to have ancestors with feathers (unless an intelligent agent put those feathers there). For, if a bat with feathers does not have ancestors with feathers, that would suggest that evolution originated those feathers and that would be evidence for evolution.
You are not understanding the nested hierarchy argument. I already presented it to you.
First of all, we can't possibly track each ancestor of an organism and determine which traits it had.
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