toldailytopic "Evolutionary theory isn't about the origin of life"

[Stuu]

It is reasonable in a conversation where both sides agree to treat that theory as a fact. It is not reasonable to assert evolution as a fact in a conversation where the other side is challenging the theory.

I think it is reasonable to use the word fact regarding evolution by natural selection because that is the overwhelming scientific consensus, and that is how science describes evolution: it is a factual account of history and prehistory. You are welcome to dispute it, or disprove it of course. I think it is important to remember the almost universal respect science has as an epistemological method. Even creationists need to pretend they are doing science!

It is also not reasonable to grant equal status to the theory of evolution and the fact of electricity.

Not sure what you mean by status. And the expression fact of electricity, again is a stretching of the word fact beyond what it can stand. Unless you narrow the field by putting it in the context of which fact about electricity you mean, it might not be automatically assumed that you mean to say it is a fact that electricity involves movement of charge. Is that the 'fact of electricity' you mean to invoke here?

We work to falsify evolution. If creationists want to propose a scientific theory, we work to falsify that.

The one thing I concede to creationism is that creationists do quite often make testable claims, which means that evolution by natural selection and creationism often share falsifiability in common. And it would also be fair to say that any scientist, working in pretty much any field has a day job that involves proving themselves wrong about their latest idea, almost all the time. So there are many disproved hypotheses within the theory of evolution by natural selection, although the mainstream of ideas in that theory is by very unlikely to be ever changed by any new evidence. On the other hand, I can't remember ever reading a significant creationist claim that wasn't wrong. It's possible to agree with creationist statements like 'cells are vastly more complex than most people appreciate', but that vastly understates the mind-blowing reality of the complexity of the structures in the cell. But complexity is no problem for a complexity-generating mechanism like spontaneous mutation with natural selection. The problem is there is no theory of creation, and there is no alternative explanation for speciation that is actually an explanation.

The assumption of a Creator — presumably one of the "many more" you refer to — is a philosophical discussion.

I'm sure it can be. But I don't understand why it cannot be a scientific question. You could make observations that lead you to infer some hypotheses about the alleged creator, which might let you form a testable theory of how a creator works. Ultimately, Occam's razor does tend to slice away rather viciously at that kind of endeavour, and Occam's razor is one of the reasons science is held in high regard.

The Poms played out of their skins and never let us in the game. If anything, they should have won by a lot more to nothing.

Yes, they're talking up the contest but I can't see SA getting much of a look in this weekend. But RWC finals are usually dull stodgy affairs, although I remember 2015 certainly wasn't.

I like Scott, but I think Foster will get it.

There was some punditry on Radio Sport about Foster representing the same kind of thinking that they've had for so many years now and that maybe that thinking was starting to run into trouble. If they disagree with that view then you'd think Foster would be next in line to the throne.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

Stuu: So is it a doctrine that Jesus was born of only one human parent, but not history?

That is a historical event. The doctrine is simply believing that historical event.

So you are saying that it is reasonable to claim that Jesus was really born of one human parent, and also the doctrine says you must believe it happened, but others who do not adhere to the doctrine should believe it because it is an historical fact?
Stuu: Does the writing explicitly claim to be an eyewitness account of Jesus?

Does it need to? And, if yes, why does it need to?

If none of the authors actually claim to be eyewitnesses, then you could be reading a novel. If they do claim to be eyewitnesses then you have a good reason to investigate whether it is reliable when calibrated against other historical sources. Given the amount of scholarship in this field, can I take it you agree there is value in studying the claims of scripture in their historical contexts?

John was also an eyewitness and he definitely says so.

1Jn 1:1-4 KJV That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

I agree the verse does suggest a claim that more than one person is claiming to be an eyewitness to something. But what makes you say that it is written by someone called John, and whether or not the anonymous author of the Epistles of John really met Jesus, why do you say up front that John was an eyewitness?

Corrupting that information is not advantageous and does not lead to highly complex interdependent systems, like the human body.

What, because you say so?

That species can arise is not the question. The theory of evolution claims that all life on earth (and many that are extinct) all descended from a single universal common ancestor. Science shows time and again that that did not happen. Many originally designed kinds that all life has descended from is what the evidence indicates.

No, that's exactly what the evidence does not show. The DNA code itself contains the exact evidence you would expect if all species are related according to an evolutionary tree of life model. Since it has been possible to compare genomes, the same gene in different species has been compared for its base sequence spelling. Humans and chimpanzees have fewer differences than humans and gorillas; humans and orangutans have more differences again, and rats and humans have many more differences. Then, if you look at the tree of life you get from fossils, and the tree you get from DNA differences, and the tree of life you can make from where you find different endogenous retrovirus's DNA, you find those trees match pretty much perfectly. If common ancestry was wrong, you would expect the three techniques to give random or very poorly matching results. But the way they line up is proof beyond any doubt.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

I equated the adjective, 'unable', with the verb, 'can't'??

Yes.

You've just demonstrated that you think that to contrast two words against each other is to, somehow, equate them, one with the other--whatever it is you imagine such equation involves.

You repeated a phrase with can't, but with a substitution of unable for can't. Mathematically you would call that equating them. Line them up, cancel out all the words the two phrases have in common, what you are left with is 'can't' directly equated to 'unable'.

And, the fact that the two words cannot grammatically be substituted one for the other prohibits the two words from being synonymous, one with the other.

No, it prohibits them from being synonyms. It does not prohibit them from being synonymous.

Fill in the blank to indicate to what word or phrase you were referring by your pronoun, "which":

I've blanked everything out, the only response I could defend ethically.

The fact that they are not synonyms of one another is the fact that they are not synonymous with one another.

I have to disagree there. For example, compare these three phrases:
- John the christian was swallowed by the lion
-John the christian was eaten by the lion
-John the christian was consumed by the lion

In this case, swallowed is synonymous with both eaten and consumed, but swallowed is too precise an action to be a synonym of the more general terms eaten and consumed.

Here are two mutually-synonymous synonyms--two substantive phrases synonymous one with the other:
• "the fact that they are not synonyms of one another"
• "the fact that they are not synonymous with one another"
It's astonishing that you can, in all seriousness, claim that something can be synonymous without being a synonym.

Is it unduly insulting to call someone easily astonished?

To say what I said--"Whatever word is synonymous is a synonym"--is not, in any way, shape, or form, to say that the adjective, 'synonymous', is a synonym of the noun, 'synonym'.

Well I'm glad we've cleared that up.

So, then, when you say that the word, 'unable', is synonymous, you also acknowledge that it is a synonym?

You mean a synonym of can't? No, it's only synonymous, not a synonym.

And, when you say that the word, 'can't', is synonymous, you also acknowledge that it is a synonym?

You mean synonymous with unable? No, it's not a synonym, it's only synonymous.

You are saying that a word or a phrase that is synonymous can, somehow, fail to be a synonym.

Yes.

I wonder, would you be willing to say that which is equally stupid to say, with what you just said: "Hence, _____ and _____ are synonyms, but not synonymous"????

No, unfortunately for your argument, not all things that eat grass are cows.

Are you feeling alright? I've just noticed those four question marks, and am quite concerned that you are prepared to forgo the conventions of punctuation as an expression of exasperation.

Are you saying that your adjective, "sticky", and your verb? noun?, "stick", are not synonyms?

I think the adjective sticky is more synonymous with the verb stick than with the noun stick.
More synonymous still are 'sticky' and 'likely to stick'
Alarmingly, Google's dictionary gives this as an example of a synonym:
"the Victorian age is a synonym for sexual puritanism"

In which case, unable is definitely a synonym for can't.

Another fun question for you, before I end this post:

Is the noun, 'synonym', synonymous with the noun, 'synonyms'?
Is the noun, 'synonym', a synonym of the noun, 'synonyms'?

I think it might depend on the 'hood in which you grew up.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

By whom, exactly, are you saying random mutations are being chosen?

JudgeRightly does the choosing.

Meantime, big deleterious mutations are chosen out of the gene pool by instant death, small deleterious ones are stopped by the presence of a 'normal' allele on the homologous chromosome, and small changes that make your eyes twinkle slightly more than the average start on a journey of possibly being locked in permanently through your success at producing members of the next generation.

So,not withstanding the choosing done by the partner with whom you might have children, it's survival and reproductive fitness in general that does the choosing.

Stuart

 

[Stripe]

I think it is reasonable to use the word fact regarding evolution by natural selection because that is the overwhelming scientific consensus, and that is how science describes evolution: it is a factual account of history and prehistory.

It's not reasonable if you want to be part of a sensible conversation. Science doesn't work by "consensus." It doesn't matter how you think "scientists" describe it; what matters is whether you are capable of engaging sensibly.

This ain't.

We challenge the idea that all life is descended by means of random mutations and natural selection. There are two sensible options open to you: Ignore us, or engage us according to what we believe. Insisting on a "consensus" is spam.

You are welcome to dispute it, or disprove it of course.

How would you ever know if we had? :idunno:

Not sure what you mean by status.

Evolution's status: Theory
Electricity's status: Fact.

And the expression fact of electricity, again is a stretching of the word fact beyond what it can stand. Unless you narrow the field by putting it in the context of which fact about electricity you mean, it might not be automatically assumed that you mean to say it is a fact that electricity involves movement of charge. Is that the 'fact of electricity' you mean to invoke here?

I laid this out clearly:
Fact. Something is powering the lights.
That "something" is what we call the fact of electricity.

I can't remember ever reading a significant creationist claim that wasn't wrong.

Perhaps your memory isn't what it once was. :idunno:

It's possible to agree with creationist statements like 'cells are vastly more complex than most people appreciate', but that vastly understates the mind-blowing reality of the complexity of the structures in the cell.

This just sounds petty.

But complexity is no problem for a complexity-generating mechanism like spontaneous mutation with natural selection. The problem is there is no theory of creation, and there is no alternative explanation for speciation that is actually an explanation.

Of course there is.

I'm sure it can be. But I don't understand why it cannot be a scientific question.

You can approach the question in any manner you please, as long as you remain consistent. I think there is more to life than science, so to discuss God I would not rely on the scientific method. However, if you want to limit the discussion to Popper's ideals of science, I could contribute.

Occam's razor is one of the reasons science is held in high regard.

Have at it. We have a universe of unbelievable design. Occam says the only sensible answer is that there is a Creator.

I can't see SA getting much of a look in this weekend.

It'll be within seven points.

RWC finals are usually dull stodgy affairs, although I remember 2015 certainly wasn't.

I like to count up the tries scored in the finals:
1987: 4
1991: 1
1995: 0
1999: Who cares? (OK, two)
2003: 2
2007: 0
2011: 2
2015: 5
2019: Probably three.

So NZ have scored seven in four games (1.75 per game), Australia 6/4 (1.5), France 2/3, England 1/2 and South Africa 0/2.

I think Hansen was on a long-term campaign to win pretty at RWCs. He kinds succeeded in 2015. But for Bender getting binned, we would have won by 40. However, history and reality were against him, as has become painfully obvious. What does that mean for the future of rugby? Probably not a lot. We can still win a lot playing champagne footy, but just need to grind it out in semis and finals.

There was some punditry on Radio Sport about Foster representing the same kind of thinking that they've had for so many years now and that maybe that thinking was starting to run into trouble. If they disagree with that view then you'd think Foster would be next in line to the throne.

Yeah, I don't know any more than the next bloke, but I'm betting they'll stick with what they know after the sea change that was Henry's reappointment after 2007.

 

[Stuu]

It's not reasonable if you want to be part of a sensible conversation. Science doesn't work by "consensus." It doesn't matter how you think "scientists" describe it; what matters is whether you are capable of engaging sensibly.

I'd rather be part of a rational conversation, in which case the accurate situation is that science would call evolution by natural selection a fact by dint of it being the only explanation we have, with no other radically different rival in sight. I think it is important to remember that consensus is not the same thing as personal opinion or preference. I am sure there are many scientists who would prefer the mechanism wasn't natural selection, not because of any religious prejudice, but because natural selection is vicious and a bit unsettling, to say it mildly.

We challenge the idea that all life is descended by means of random mutations and natural selection. There are two sensible options open to you: Ignore us, or engage us according to what we believe. Insisting on a "consensus" is spam.

Well if you want to make any progress on the question of what has actually been going on, you need a consensus so you can agree what the best current model is. Otherwise, what are you actually trying to disprove? There are two consensuses, I suppose: the agreement about what is meant by evolution by natural selection, and the agreement that, whether or not evolution by natural selection is right or not, no one has a better explanation currently.
You might disagree with the latter. If so then it is incumbent on you to provide the evidence that unambiguously disproves part or all of the current best explanation. If you can't, them I'm afraid the ignoring option kicks in. That's not my preference, that's the scientific concensus.

How would you ever know if we had?

Bunny rabbit fossils in Cambrian rock.

Fact. Something is powering the lights.
That "something" is what we call the fact of electricity.

Fact. Something is causing speciation. That 'something' is what we call the fact of evolution by natural selection, otherwise referred to as the theory (explanation provided by) evolution by natural selection.

Fact: something is powering the lights. That something is what we call electricity, otherwise known as a phenomenon explained by the movement of charges in a conducting wire.

Perhaps your memory isn't what it once was.

Perhaps. But I think any example I had come across would have been particularly memorable.

This just sounds petty.

I think the problem is highlighted by the most plausible attempt at creationism in the past 30 years or so, that of so-called Intelligent Design. On the surface of it, you can say that there are tiny machines running on the surfaces of cells, which are such an intricate combination of moving parts that it's just not believable that even two of the matching parts arose at the same time by separate mutations, which is the essential version of their claim of irreducible complexity. So, as you might expect, when exactly that claim was made for the bacterial flagellum, literally a motor made of one protein rotating inside another to make a motor that drives a bacteria's propeller, microbiologists got to work to investigate.

The claim is this: the flagellum motor has always existed in this form, intelligently designed to perform this function. The chances of all the codes for all the protein parts (tens of them) mutating at the same time to give this efficient structure are zero. But what was discovered? Actually the several parts of the motor attached to the cell wall had already existed, and had been performing a different function, that of protein excretion. The probability that this is an entirely different structure is essentially zero: it's the motor without it's rotor: the two parts became a motor by a sequence of separate mutation events. The specific claim of irreducible complexity is once again disproved.

The part that really shouldn't astonish me but does is that no matter where you look, or what you look at, you find that Darwin's mechanism is happening everywhere in biology. It is the central organising principle of biology and it is present in absolutely any biological situation you can imagine.

Of course there is.

No, I'm afraid there isn't. Creationism isn't an explanation for the diversity of species because it doesn't explain how a variety of species is made, and it doesn't explain the appearance of the fossil record or patterns in DNA differences. And it certainly doesn't explain patterns of occurrence in endogenous retroviruses. A proper explanation has to cover all of that evidence. Far from explaining it, creationist models are generally disproved by it.

Occam says the only sensible answer is that there is a Creator.

Occam says that the best explanation is the one that accounts for all the evidence while making the fewest assumptions. You have to assume the existence of a creator and its mechanisms, so any explanation that can eliminate the assumption (not necessarily eliminate the creator) is going to be a more parsimonious explanation. However, explanations that include an invisible god will always lose out to explanations that have no need of that assumption, according to Occam.

I like to count up the tries ever scored:
1987: 4
1991: 1
1995: 0
1999: Who cares? (OK, two)
2003: 2
2007: 0
2011: 2
2015: 5
2019: Probably three.

So NZ have scored seven in four games (1.75 per game), Australia 6/4 (1.5), France 2/3, England 1/2 and South Africa 0/2.

Yes that makes the point elegantly. So two of the three that were won by the ABs were not dire wars of attrition. That really does show their class.

Yeah, I don't know any more than the next bloke, but I'm betting they'll stick with what they know after the sea change that was Henry's reappointment after 2007.

There was other punditry that said they had missed Wayne Smith's strategic cunning. That's probably been part of the story since 2017, although his last game was a loss to Australia.

Stuart

 

[JudgeRightly]

Bunny rabbit fossils in Cambrian rock.

How about anything at all that puts a squeeze on the timeline of evolution?

https://kgov.com/squeeze

 

[Right Divider]

So you are saying that it is reasonable to claim that Jesus was really born of one human parent, and also the doctrine says you must believe it happened, but others who do not adhere to the doctrine should believe it because it is an historical fact?

If you would stop looking at everything through your materialists glasses, you might be able to see.

If none of the authors actually claim to be eyewitnesses, then you could be reading a novel.

As you were clearly shown, John claimed to be an eyewitness.

If they do claim to be eyewitnesses then you have a good reason to investigate whether it is reliable when calibrated against other historical sources. Given the amount of scholarship in this field, can I take it you agree there is value in studying the claims of scripture in their historical contexts?

It's been done and confirms the Biblical accounts.

I agree the verse does suggest a claim that more than one person is claiming to be an eyewitness to something. But what makes you say that it is written by someone called John, and whether or not the anonymous author of the Epistles of John really met Jesus, why do you say up front that John was an eyewitness?

Your extreme bias well never let you out of your box.

What, because you say so?

Nope.

No, that's exactly what the evidence does not show. The DNA code itself contains the exact evidence you would expect if all species are related according to an evolutionary tree of life model. Since it has been possible to compare genomes, the same gene in different species has been compared for its base sequence spelling. Humans and chimpanzees have fewer differences than humans and gorillas; humans and orangutans have more differences again, and rats and humans have many more differences. Then, if you look at the tree of life you get from fossils, and the tree you get from DNA differences, and the tree of life you can make from where you find different endogenous retrovirus's DNA, you find those trees match pretty much perfectly. If common ancestry was wrong, you would expect the three techniques to give random or very poorly matching results. But the way they line up is proof beyond any doubt.

Stuart

There are a million different ways to "compare the genomes". Genomes are not flat text files.

And even then, similarities do NOT ipso facto indicate a relationship via descent (i.e., ancestry). They are just as easily explained by a common designer.

 

[Stripe]

I'd rather be part of a rational conversation.

You can't be in a rational discussion on science matters that bases what is to be accepted on what the consensus is.

The accurate situation is that science would call evolution by natural selection a fact by dint of it being the only explanation we have, with no other radically different rival in sight.

Sounds like your mind is made up. There is no point for you to enter this discussion.

Consensus is not the same thing as personal opinion or preference.

Uh, yes. :AMR:

It's practically the opposite.

If you want to make any progress on the question of what has actually been going on, you need a consensus so you can agree what the best current model is.

Or we could just ignore consensus and discuss the evidence. :thumb:

Otherwise, what are you actually trying to disprove?

I'm not trying to disprove anything. :idunno: OP says "Evolutionary theory isn't about the origin of life." I agree.

You might disagree with the latter. If so then it is incumbent on you to provide the evidence that unambiguously disproves part or all of the current best explanation.

Nope. I am justified in what I hold to in science as long as it has not been shown impossible. There is no obligation upon me to overthrow other ideas to allow space for mine.

If you can't, them I'm afraid the ignoring option kicks in. That's not my preference, that's the scientific concensus.

There's no such thing.

Bunny rabbit fossils in Cambrian rock.

:chuckle:

Sounds like that's the only thing that would ever convince you.

Fact. Something is causing speciation. That 'something' is what we call the fact of evolution by natural selection, otherwise referred to as the theory (explanation provided by) evolution by natural selection.

And random mutations. The "something" is a theory. I can appreciate that you would call speciation a fact. I can deal with that, even though I would never use the word "speciation."

Fact: something is powering the lights.

Yep.

That something is what we call electricity, otherwise known as a phenomenon explained by the movement of charges in a conducting wire.

Nope. That's just the theory. It's open to improvement.

Explanations that include an invisible god will always lose out to explanations that have no need of that assumption, according to Occam.

You just made that up.

There was other punditry that said they had missed Wayne Smith's strategic cunning. That's probably been part of the story since 2017, although his last game was a loss to Australia.

Smith was cool.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Actually, it doesn't matter to Darwinists, because they have no respect for the word theory and want everyone to bow to their religion at any cost.

True.

Here is the complete definition of the word theory before Darwinists rewrote the definition to protect their religion.

Theory THE'ORY, noun [Latin theoria; Gr. to see or contemplate.] 1. Speculation; a doctrine or scheme of things, which terminates in speculation or contemplation, without a view to practice. It is here taken in an unfavorable sense, as implying something visionary. 2. An exposition of the general principles of any science; as the theory of music. 3. The science distinguished from the art; as the theory and practice of medicine. 4. The philosophical explanation of phenomena, either physical or moral; as Lavoisier's theory of combustion; Smith's theory of moral sentiments. Theory is distinguished from hypothesis thus; a theory is founded on inferences drawn from principles which have been established on independent evidence; a hypothesis is a proposition assumed to account for certain phenomena, and has no other evidence of its truth, than that it affords a satisfactory explanation of those phenomena.

​

 

[7djengo7]

Stuu's continuance in his irrationality concerning synonyms and synonymousness

Stuu's continuance in his irrationality concerning synonyms and synonymousness

Yes.

Oh, OK. In other words, when you say that two words have been "equated" one with the other, you simply mean that those two words have been contrasted, one against the other.

You repeated a phrase with can't, but with a substitution of unable for can't.

Yeah. So what? It was for the purpose of displaying that the one word worked grammatically with the rest of the phrase, resulting in a sentence, while the other word failed grammatically in the same context, thus failing to result in a sentence.

Mathematically you would call that equating them.

In the first place, I wouldn't call contrasting a verb against an adjective mathematics, as you've just done. So of course I wouldn't call the contrasting of a verb against an adjective, "equating them".

Line them up, cancel out all the words the two phrases have in common, what you are left with is 'can't' directly equated to 'unable'.

Before, you said I did, already, "equate" the verb, 'can't', with the adjective, 'unable', whereas now, you are saying I would have needed to "line them up" (whatever that's supposed to mean!), and to "cancel out all the words the two phrases have in common" (whatever that's supposed to mean!) in order to have "directly equated" the verb, 'can't' to the adjective 'unable'. Why can't you get your story straight?

It does not prohibit them from being synonymous.

False. You're wrong, yet again. Every word/phrase that is synonymous with another word/phrase is, ipso facto, a synonym of that other word/phrase. Every word/phrase that is a synonym of another phrase is, ipso facto, synonymous with that other word/phrase.

I've blanked everything out, the only response I could defend ethically.

At least you admit that you have to stonewall against the question I asked you, by your refusal to fill in the blank I provided. Wise choice, for you to stonewall--so long as you're trying to save face against your ignorance by trying to not reveal any more of it than you already have.

I have to disagree there.

I wouldn't say that you have to, because, by saying so, I'd be saying that you have to continue in your commitment to your irrationality.

For example, compare [highlight]these three[/highlight]phrases:
- John the christian was swallowed by the lion
-John the christian was eaten by the lion
-John the christian was consumed by the lion

OK. Also, you've just revealed that your irrationality even extends to your bloodlust for Christians.

In this case, swallowed is synonymous with both eaten and consumed, but swallowed is too precise an action to be a synonym of the more general terms eaten and consumed.

Wait, why did you say you were going to "compare these three phrases", yet, then, instead of comparing the three phrases you had said you were going to compare, you immediately started comparing three, past-tense verbs: 'swallowed', 'eaten', and 'consumed'?

So, go for it: compare the three phrases you said you were going to compare, yet have not, so far, compared.

• Are the three phrases you said you were going to compare all mutually synonymous? Yes or No?
• Are the three phrases you said you were going to compare all synonyms of one another? Yes or No?

swallowed is too precise an action to be a synonym of...

This is more nonsense from you. Are you referring to your past-tense verb, "swallowed", here? Your past-tense verb, "swallowed", is not an action; rather, it's a verb--a word used to signify action. Are you really unable to distinguish between an action, on the one hand, and a word used to signify it, on the other hand?

So, did you actually mean to say that "the verb, "swallowed", is too precise a verb to be a synonym of..."?

Well I'm glad we've cleared that up.

What, that you've a poor attention span? That you are intensely averse to trying to think analytically about the things you say, and about the things others say? You've already cleared up those questions for me, oh so many posts ago.

...not all things that eat grass are cows.

How does talking about cows, and about other things that eat grass, have anything to do with talking about the nature of synonyms and of synonymousness? That's right: the former has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the latter. If you feel like you need to talk about the word--the noun--'cows', and about the phrase, 'all things that eat grass', or the phrase, 'things that eat grass', or any other word or phrase, in order to try to deal with the topic at hand, be my guest. But talking about cows and any other things that eat grass is wholly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I've just noticed those four question marks, and am quite concerned thatyou are prepared to forgo the conventions of punctuation as an expression of exasperation.

Whose conventions of punctuation? You're a hypocrite who refuses to put quotation marks ("" or '') around words/phrases in order to signify that you're trying to refer to words/phrases, and not to things for which your words/phrases are meant to denote, as you do, here, for example:

I think the adjective sticky is more synonymous with the verb stick than with the noun stick.

Your phrase, here, is not even meaningful; it's not even a sentence. What is an "adjective sticky"? I've heard of pogo sticks and walking sticks, but what is a "verb stick", and what is a "noun stick"?

Why do you not agree that the following is correct, and that what you wrote is incorrect?

I think the adjective, "sticky", is more synonymous with the verb, "stick", than with the noun, "stick".

Your failure in this not-always-trivial area of punctuation is why I, earlier, had made this request to you--

Fill in the blank to indicate to what word or phrase you were referring by your pronoun, "which":

The word/phrase, "____________________", is synonymous with the phrase, "comparing them as synonyms".

--in response to your having written:

which is synonymous with comparing them as synonyms.

I assumed that your phrase, "comparing them as synonyms", was that to which you were referring when you said, "comparing them as synonyms"--realizing (from my observation of your posts) that you're such a crappy writer that you're in the habit of refusing to use quotation marks where they are needed for disambiguation. I assumed that, perhaps, you meant

which is synonymous with [the phrase], "comparing them as synonyms".

And, I was wondering exactly to what word or phrase you were referring by your pronoun, "which", when you said that it (?) "is synonymous with comparing them as synonyms". That's why I asked the question, asking you to fill in the blank--against which fill-in-the-blank question you have demonstrated pride in your being forced to stonewall.

More synonymous still are 'sticky' and 'likely to stick'

Ha! Here, you actually, for a nice change, used quotation marks where failure to use them would have been a grammatical error. Way to go!

Either two words are synonymous, one with the other, or they are not. But, since you are addicted to your irrationality and your nonsense, I suppose you're perfectly satisfied with saying things like, "some words are synonymous, but some words are more synonymous than others", and "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Alarmingly, Google's dictionary gives this as an example of a synonym:
"the Victorian age is a synonym for sexual puritanism"

Is Google saying that the Victorian age is a synonym for sexual puritanism, or is Google saying that the phrase, "the Victorian age", is a synonym for the phrase, "sexual puritanism"? If the former, then only a fool, bereft of the ability to think analytically about what Google has said, could agree with Google. If the latter, then what's your problem with what Google said?

In which case, unable is definitely a synonym for can't.

In no case, whatsoever, is the adjective, 'unable', a synonym for the verb, 'can't', just as in no case, whatsoever, is the adjective, 'unable', synonymous with the verb, 'can't.

 

[Yorzhik]

We can discuss that, bearing in mind that it is a consequence of the theory of evolution, and not the theory itself.

Aren't the consequences of a theory the only thing that matters to a theory? And when you say "consequences" you mean the logical conclusion of the claims of a theory, right?

 

[Stuu]

How about anything at all that puts a squeeze on the timeline of evolution?

https://kgov.com/squeeze

No doubt you will have heard of the phenomenon known as the Gish Gallop, in which creationists list a torrent of claims but leave no room for considering any one properly, with the aim of leaving the impression that there is no good response to any. I'm sorry to say that the page to which you link is a spectacular example of the Gish Gallop. But at least you have the decency to write 'anything at all', which is to negate the dishonesty somewhat. So, fair enough then, which ONE claim from that page would you choose first?

'the river carved the canyon', 14c everywhere it shouldn't be, dinosaur soft tissue, solar system formation problems, evidence against the big bang, evidence for the global flood, genomes that just don't fit. insects adapted to eat from flowers before flowers evolved birds appeared before birds evolved Butterflies existed 10 million years before they were thought to have evolved. - Cephalopod fossils (squids, cuttlefish, etc.) appear 35 million years before they were able to propagate. - Turtle shells 40 million years before turtle shells began evolving - Dinosaurs ate rice before it evolved. - Insect proboscis (tongue) in moths and butterflies 70 million years before previously believed - Mammalian hair allegedly 100-million-years-old show that, "the morphology of hair cuticula may have remained unchanged throughout most of mammalian evolution" - Shocking organic molecules in "200 million-years-old leaves" from ginkgoes and conifers - Jellyfish fossils (Medusoid Problematica 200 million years earlier than expected; - The acanthodii fish had color vision 300 million years ago, but then, and wait, Cheiracanthus fish allegedly 388 million years ago already had color vision. - 400-million-year-old Murrindalaspis placoderm fish "eye muscle attachment - Lower-Middle Cambrian... primitive fish displays unambiguous vertebrate features: - Fast-growing juvenile bone tissue - Trilobites "advanced" (not the predicted primitive) digestion - a "530 million year old" fish, "50 million years before the current estimate of when fish evolved" - Mycobacterium tuberculosis 100,000 yr-old MRCA (most recent common ancestor) \ - Fungus long claimed to originate 500M years ago, now found at allegedly 950 Mya \ - A rock contained pollen a billion years before plants evolved\ - 2.5 billion year old cyanobacteria fossils (made of organic material found in a stromatolite) appear about "200 million years before the [supposed] Great Oxidation Event". - 2.7 billion year old eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus) existed (allegedly) 1 billion years before expected - And even older cyanobacteria! - The universe and life itself (in 2019 with the universe dated a billion, now, no, wait, two billion!, years younger - Mantis shrimp, with its rudimentary color but advanced UV vision, is allegedly ancient. - Hadrosaur teeth, all 1400 of them, - Trace fossils "exquisitely preserved" of mobile organisms (motility) dated at 2.1 billion years ago - Various multicellular organisms allegedly 2.1 billion years old, show multicellularity 1.5 billion years sooner - Pre-sauropod 26,000-pound dinosaur "shows us that even as far back as 200 million years ago, - Extinct Siberian one-horned rhinos coexisted with mankind. - Whale "evolution" from hippos * arthropod social structures have been around longer than anyone ever imagined. Traces of very similar bacteria (to bubonic plague) were found on [an allegedly] 20-million-year-old flea trapped in amber - find two teeth and rewrite human history with allegedly 9.7 million-year-old teeth found in northern Europe - date blue eyes, when humans first sported them, to as recently as 6,000 years ago - get mummy DNA and rewrite human history with a thousand years of ancient Egyptian mummy DNA contradicting Out-of-Africa - find a few footprints and rewrite human history with allegedly 5.7 million-year-old human footprints in Crete - re-date an old skull and rewrite human history with a very human skull dated at 325,000 years old - date the oldest language in India, Dravidian, with 80 derivatives spoken by 214 million people, which appeared on the subcontinent only about 4,500 years ago, - sequence a baby's genome and rewrite human history with a 6-week old girl buried in Alaska allegedly 11,500 years ago - 180,000-year-old jawbone from Israel which "may rewrite the early migration story of our species" by about 100,000 years - re-date a primate and lose yet another "missing link" between "Lucy" and humans, as Homo naledi sheds a couple million years off its age - re-analysis of the "best candidate" for the most recent ancestor to human beings, Australopithecus sediba, turns out to be a juvenile Lucy-like ape - find skulls in Morocco and "rewrite human history humans mastered the art of training and controlling dogs thousands of years earlier than previously thought." - Evolution happens so slowly that we can't see it, yet - Evolution happens so fast that millions of mutations get fixed in a blink of geologic time - Observing a million species annually should show us a million years of evolution, but it doesn't, yet - Evolution happens so fast that the billions of "intermediary" fossils are missing - Waiting for helpful random mutations to show up explains the slowness of evolution, yet - Adaption to changing environments is often immediate, as with Darwin's finches - Fossils of modern organisms are found "earlier" and "earlier" in the geologic column - The "oldest" organisms are increasingly found to have anatomical, cellular, and genetic sophistication and similarity to "modern" organisms - Small populations are in danger of extinction (yet they're needed to fix mutations) - Large populations make it impossible for a mutation to become standard - Mutations that express changes too late in an organism's development can't effect its fundamental body plan - Mutations expressed too early in an organism's development are fatal [hence among the Enyart Sayings, "Like evolving a vital organ, most major hurdles for evolutionary theory are extinction-level events."] - To evolve flight, you'd get bad legs - Long before you'd get good wings - Most major evolutionary hurdles appear to be extinction-level events - Yet somehow even *vital* organs evolve (for many species, that includes reproductive organs, skin, brain, heart, circulatory system, kidney, liver, pancreas, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, lungs -- which are only a part of the complex respiration system) - Frequent appeal to "convergent" evolution (repeatedly arising vision, echolocation, warm-bloodedness, etc.) undermines anatomical classification based on trivialities like odd or even-toed ungulates, etc. AND (as in the New Scientist cover story, "Darwin Was Wrong about the tree of life", etc.): - DNA sequences have contradicted anatomy-based ancestry claims - Fossil-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by RNA claims - DNA-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by anatomy claims - Protein-based ancestry claims have been contradicted by fossil claims. - The multiplied things that evolved multiple times - Etc. The methodology used to create the family tree edifice to show evolutionary relationships classifies the descent of organisms based on such attributes as odd-toed and even-toed ungulates. * Rampant Convergence: Ubiquitous appeals to "convergent" evolution * Astronomy's Big Evolution Squeeze: * a few billion years ago the Sun would have been far more unstable and cooler. * Zircons Freeze in Molten Eon Squeezing Earth's Evolution * Life to Evolve with Super Radioactivity * The impossibility of the "big bang" explanation of the uniformity of the uranium ratio * Remarkable Sponges? genes for an entire network of many specialized cells evolved and laid the basis for the core gene logic of organisms that no longer functioned as single cells There [are] great chunks of the human genome… sitting right there in the kangaroo genome. scientists will discover a genetic pattern resulting from not three but four sons of Noah's wife. Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham … And all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years. Y-chromosome haplotype differences confirm a distinct paternal genealogy for Jewish priests. Mitochondrial Eve a mere 6000 years old Y-Chromosomal Adam (Really, Noah): Further, scientists found the genetic evidence that the human race descended from a single man. - Stickleback fish rapidly adapted to survive in colder water but now they die more quickly, showing the survival "cost" of adaptation. - A Darwinist professor asks, if we can't get moas right, that is, if we so misunderstand these extinct bird species from only 650 years ago, how can we get hominids right? - Beetle larvae have eight regular eyes and four eyes with simultaneous bifocal vision to see close-up prey. - Infants can't digest 20% of mom's milk, which sugary portion was designed by God as bait for germs. * If Chimps are 95% Human, Sponges are 70% * 20,500 Human Genes; 18,000 Sponge Genes * Genes Evolved Hundreds of Millions of Years Before Explosion of Life

[Apologies to all for the wear on your scroll wheels]
By the way, you should tell 6days about this one:

the astounding lack of genetic diversity in humans, plants, and animals, so much so that it could all be accounted for in just about 200 generations!

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

If you would stop looking at everything through your materialists glasses, you might be able to see.

To see what? That it is possible for a man to have only one parent?

Stuu: Given the amount of scholarship in this field, can I take it you agree there is value in studying the claims of scripture in their historical contexts?

It's been done and confirms the Biblical accounts.

Well, it depends which scholar you ask, doesn't it. The events of the Census of Quirinius and the slaughter of the innocents cannot align in the way described in the gospels. That is definitely not confirmed in history, but rather negated.

Your extreme bias well never let you out of your box.

I think it is extreme bias to just assert that 'John' (whomever he was) was an eyewitness.

There are a million different ways to "compare the genomes". Genomes are not flat text files. And even then, similarities do NOT ipso facto indicate a relationship via descent (i.e., ancestry). They are just as easily explained by a common designer.

I don't think that is an answer to my point about there being three techniques that independently agree on the same tree of life. But since you mention a common designer, can I ask you this: because of common design, would you expect the same function to be performed in the same way in different species?

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

To see what? That it is possible for a man to have only one parent?

Yes. Your world view does not allow it. That does not mean that it didn't happen.

Stuu: Given the amount of scholarship in this field, can I take it you agree there is value in studying the claims of scripture in their historical contexts?

Well, it depends which scholar you ask, doesn't it. The events of the Census of Quirinius and the slaughter of the innocents cannot align in the way described in the gospels. That is definitely not confirmed in history, but rather negated.

I think it is extreme bias to just assert that 'John' (whomever he was) was an eyewitness.

Once again, you've decided that you won't believe it no matter what the evidence indicates.

I don't think that is an answer to my point about there being three techniques that independently agree on the same tree of life. But since you mention a common designer, can I ask you this: because of common design, would you expect the same function to be performed in the same way in different species?

Stuart

No necessarily.

 

[Stuu]

You can't be in a rational discussion on science matters that bases what is to be accepted on what the consensus is.

I'm not necessarily requiring you to accept the view of the consensus, but if we are going to use science as the tool, then the starting point really should be an established theory, if there is one. There is no falsifiable theory of creation, so that can't be the starting point in a scientific discussion about the origins of variety of species of life. This is a problem for creationists, I think, that they wish to claim they are doing science, for whatever reasons they have, but don't feel comfortable engaging with the conventions of science, which include the rudeness of put up or shut up. It's not a place for those of a nervous disposition.

Stuu: The accurate situation is that science would call evolution by natural selection a fact by dint of it being the only explanation we have, with no other radically different rival in sight.

Sounds like your mind is made up. There is no point for you to enter this discussion.

Maybe it does sound like that. But it is true that there is no alternative explanation for the variety of life on Earth that reasonably accounts for all the evidence. You may consider a creationist view an account for the evidence, but it is not an explanation because it has no mechanisms in it.

Or we could just ignore consensus and discuss the evidence.

Of course, always discuss evidence. But there is no ultimate point in that if you don't try to model the evidence and use it to generate further testable hypotheses. Otherwise Rutherford really is right, the only real science is physics and all else is stamp collecting.

OP says "Evolutionary theory isn't about the origin of life." I agree.

Yes, your customary insistence on the OP. Widely abused on TOL! Maybe the OP is the point where the idea of consensus is most important, because there is no consensus on how the first population of something living got started, whereas there is almost universal consensus on how that first population began to evolve and diversify. So at least we know what model exists that can be tested, and where there isn't yet a model fit for falsification.

I am justified in what I hold to in science as long as it has not been shown impossible. There is no obligation upon me to overthrow other ideas to allow space for mine.

Indeed there is no such obligation, but you may wish to consider the load of cognitive dissonance you place on yourself by that. Something being shown to be impossible is a very high standard to set, and lies dangerously close to the impossibility of proving that Russell's Teapot doesn't exist and isn't orbiting the sun somewhere out there. A more workable justification for most people I think is to reject beliefs that have a very low probability. It's not impossible that geology involves hydroplates, but hydroplates don't explain the appearance of the Himalayas, and so the probability of hydroplates being the best explanation is very low.

Stuu: Bunny rabbit fossils in Cambrian rock.

Sounds like that's the only thing that would ever convince you.

Possibly! Or, even just one clear human ERV sequence that appeared in a fish but not in a gorilla.

Nope. That's just the theory. It's open to improvement.

Or, it's the theory, the best explanation we have, and is open to being disproved but hasn't been. People will keep trying to disprove it, but it until it is disproved, it has the full and proper status of a scientific theory.

You just made that up.

Well it's more a matter of worldview I think. I claimed earlier that Occam's Razor is a major reason for the respect in which science is held. If that's right, then I believe one can hold a more 'respectable' world view by eliminating untestable assumptions. Compared with a christian, I think I have quite a short list of untestable assumptions:

Stuu's assumptions:
1. Stuu exists (I have to assume that because I can't independently demonstrate it)
2. The universe I observe is not an illusion

A. Christian's assumptions:
1. A. Christian exists
2. The observed universe is not an illusion
3. A creator with a will exists
4. The creator actively carries out its will, including occasional suspension of 2.

Feel free to criticise my list if you wish. I am sure it does not possess the robustness of the work of proper philosophers, who apparently are still confused about the sound of one hand clapping, or something.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

I'm not necessarily requiring you to accept the view of the consensus, but if we are going to use science as the tool, then the starting point really should be an established theory, if there is one. There is no falsifiable theory of creation, so that can't be the starting point in a scientific discussion about the origins of variety of species of life. This is a problem for creationists, I think, that they wish to claim they are doing science, for whatever reasons they have, but don't feel comfortable engaging with the conventions of science, which include the rudeness of put up or shut up. It's not a place for those of a nervous disposition.

Neither creation nor evolution are falsifiable scientific theories. Nor can they be. They are both philosophies about the origin of life.

Stuu: The accurate situation is that science would call evolution by natural selection a fact by dint of it being the only explanation we have, with no other radically different rival in sight.

Maybe it does sound like that. But it is true that there is no alternative explanation for the variety of life on Earth that reasonably accounts for all the evidence. You may consider a creationist view an account for the evidence, but it is not an explanation because it has no mechanisms in it.

Baloney. Both creation and evolution have the same evidence to use to explain their understanding of that evidence.

And, while creationists are willing to deal directly with the evidence, evolutionists tell fanciful stories that go WELL BEYOND what the evidence can actually say.

That the originally created kinds have "changed" and diverged is NOT a problem for creationists. Though evolutionists will repeat, ad nauseam, that somehow it is.

 

[Stuu]

Oh, OK. In other words, when you say that two words have been "equated" one with the other, you simply mean that those two words have been contrasted, one against the other.

Well sure, but wouldn't you stop for a nice cup of tea at compared before storming off into the maddening rush hour of contrasted?

I would have needed to "line them up"

You did that not just figuratively, but indeed literally.

Why can't you get your story straight?

Sometimes straightening your story involves a robust discussion with the person who continues to bend it while you're not looking.

Every word/phrase that is synonymous with another word/phrase is, ipso facto, a synonym of that other word/phrase.

No. Sheep also eat grass.

Every word/phrase that is a synonym of another phrase is, ipso facto, synonymous with that other word/phrase.

Yes.

At least you admit that you have to stonewall against the question I asked you, by your refusal to fill in the blank I provided.

I think what you mean to write is: "your deleting of a section of my post indicates something, but I haven't got enough evidence to draw a valid cause-and-effect conclusion".

OK. Also, you've just revealed that your irrationality even extends to your bloodlust for Christians.

I don't think either is irrational. But I don't imagine the lions determined which humans they preferred on theological grounds, it was more the Romans doing the choosing for them, a matter of taste on which it would be irrational for me to pass commentary while expecting no retribution from a mod.

Wait, why did you say you were going to "compare these three phrases", yet, then, instead of comparing the three phrases you had said you were going to compare, you immediately started comparing three, past-tense verbs: 'swallowed', 'eaten', and 'consumed'?

I was just following your technique.

Are you referring to your past-tense verb, "swallowed", here? Your past-tense verb, "swallowed", is not an action; rather, it's a verb--a word used to signify action. Are you really unable to distinguish between an action, on the one hand, and a word used to signify it, on the other hand?

I see you are a fan of Magritte.

What, that you've a poor attention span?

Hey, I'm a cricket fan. I can do marathon attention.

How does talking about cows, and about other things that eat grass, have anything to do with talking about the nature of synonyms and of synonymousness? That's right: the former has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the latter. If you feel like you need to talk about the word--the noun--'cows', and about the phrase, 'all things that eat grass', or the phrase, 'things that eat grass', or any other word or phrase, in order to try to deal with the topic at hand, be my guest. But talking about cows and any other things that eat grass is wholly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

They are synonym cows eating synonymous grass.

Whose conventions of punctuation?

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? You can't allow each person to have their own convention of punctuation, because then it's not really a convention.

You're a hypocrite who refuses to put quotation marks ("" or '') around words/phrases in order to signify that you're trying to refer to words/phrases, and not to things for which your words/phrases are meant to denote,

How do you conclude that I refuse thus? It might be done as a brilliant literary device.

Why do you not agree that the following is correct, and that what you wrote is incorrect?
I think the adjective, "sticky", is more synonymous with the verb, "stick", than with the noun, "stick".

As you will have appreciated from my claim regarding my attention span, I live in one of the colonies that did not foolishly give up cricket, and thus the British convention applies, which would be 'sticky' and not the North American "sticky".

If I have failed to use any such punctuation, it is either because I believe passionately that one should have one's own conventions of punctuation, or else it's apathy. I can't really be bothered to work out which one it was on this particular occasion.

I suppose you're perfectly satisfied with saying things like, "some words are synonymous, but some words are more synonymous than others", and "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

I don't think those situations are analogous. I would replace it with ' (or not ', but certainly not ") some words are synonyms, and some synonymous terms are more synonymous than others'.

Is Google saying that the Victorian age is a synonym for sexual puritanism, or is Google saying that the phrase, "the Victorian age", is a synonym for the phrase, "sexual puritanism"? If the former, then only a fool, bereft of the ability to think analytically about what Google has said, could agree with Google. If the latter, then what's your problem with what Google said?

All good questions. Google is a synonym for Hitler, with no danger of contradiction from them.

In no case, whatsoever, is the adjective, 'unable', a synonym for the verb, 'can't',

Correct.

just as in no case, whatsoever, is the adjective, 'unable', synonymous with the verb, 'can't.

Cats sometimes eat grass too.

Stuart

 

[7djengo7]

No. Sheep also eat grass.

Sad. You can't tell the difference between sheep, on the one hand, and the word, 'sheep', on the other.

They are synonym cows eating synonymous grass.

You can't tell the difference between a cow, on the one hand, and the synonym, 'cow', on the other.
You can't tell the difference between grass, on the one hand, and the synonymous word, 'grass', on the other.

Why, then--in light of your being pridefully steeped in such elementary error--would you expect anybody to take you even the least bit seriously in your ravings about synonyms and synonymousness, let alone, in your ravings about less elementary things?

or else it's apathy.

Oh, well if you're apathetic, then, by all means, feel free to quit begging for my attention.

I can't really be bothered

Then, again, feel free to quit begging me for attention.

Cats sometimes eat grass too.

Since you've demonstrated that you can't tell the difference between a cat and the word, 'cat', and the difference between sheep and the word, 'sheep'--and since, in your current state of mind, you will invariably fail in regards to other such elementary differences--then pardon me for having to write you off as non compos mentis, and as wholly incapable of having a meaningful conversation with rationally-thinking persons such as myself, and many others.

I will pray for you.

 

[Stuu]

Sad. You can't tell the difference between sheep, on the one hand, and the word, 'sheep', on the other.

Just to be clear, let me give you the code I typically use:

When I write 'sheep', that is the series of letters that I use to represent the word sheep. When I wish to represent an actual sheep, I will instead write 'sheep'.

If you were willing, for my edification, you might let me know your own technique for distinguishing the two.

You can't tell the difference between a cow, on the one hand, and the synonym, 'cow', on the other. You can't tell the difference between grass, on the one hand, and the synonymous word, 'grass', on the other.

In the case of the metaphor to which this collection of animals is attached, cow is a synonym for sheep, and sheep is a synonym for cat, and with the symmetries thus set up, cat becomes inexorably a synonym for cow.

Why, then--in light of your being pridefully steeped in such elementary error--would you expect anybody to take you even the least bit seriously in your ravings about synonyms and synonymousness, let alone, in your ravings about less elementary things?

It's a fine line here between the raving of a lunatic and genius.

I will pray for you.

I am sure you mean well, but if it is all the same then I would prefer you not do that. For I have intentionally blasphemed without repenting for the purpose of avoiding ending up in the Judeo-christian heaven, which I am told involves an eternity, a fate I am very keen to avoid. Of course I don't believe there really is such a state, and you may think me unlikely to qualify in any case, but I want to make sure I avoid it and so if you would refrain from accidentally succeeding in revoking my intentional unpardonable sin I would be most grateful.

Stuart