Evolution? How?

...And how your rebuttal has such little logic to reason with...

One of these days my dream for you will be real, Joliet.

People are not real or have false intentions..

How dare you compare the exalted Easter Bunny to some lame-ass god!

Oh, stuff yer Easter Bunny.


Now, The Tooth Fairy, well, that's something else altogether.

I did not mean RL when I mentioned "real"... I mean (secular) people are not genuine to themselves but they are trying to prove some arbitrary philosophy.

I am well aware that evolutionists claim that it takes place in small incremental steps over many generations.

If a fish 'evolves' into a 'non-fish' over , say , 100,000 generations then still at some point along the line , one of these critters no longer fits the definition of 'fish' and fits the definition of 'non-fish', no?

You may claim that it happened in generation 97,994 but you are still claiming it happened.

At some point a 'fish' produces a 'non-fish', no?

His descendants are all then 'non-fish'.

Of course this is exactly what evolution claims. It's funny to see that you are either running from it, or don't understand what is necessary to the theory.

If all of fish's descendants are fish, then no evolution to 'non-fish' takes place.

If these fish all have the same DNA, then apparently that hasn't happened.

you miss the pointRL. When a fish reproduces, there are usually a number of variants of offspring that contain some "non-fish" traits that are mere expressions of a species diversity. If one of these traits shows some advntage, it may (or may not ) get translated to subequent generations. Each variant "piles ontop" of a previous variant;s form. While the root fish may still survive, their "budded" offspring are showing some "non fish" traits through time.(These are clearly seen in the fossil record) If the fossil record shows us nothing else, it shows the gradualistic divergence from a parent species to those of another species or genus or family.

You want your "case" to be made by having evolution appear as a simplistic strait line derivation, when its almost always not. Its often difficult when we call something one order when its got intermediate traits, sorta like archeopteryx. It has about 20 major features that it shares with both birds and dinosaurs, and as we learn more about dinosurs, we find that many early forms actually carry bird features , like feathers.
We live with the great apes. We derive from a common ancestor yet here we all are sharing the planet.

Unlike real animals which have a very detailed definition (as defined by their DNA), words are very crude. The word "fish" covers a myriad of types of fish, and the word "dog" covers a huge range of breeds.

Unlike the DNA which is specific, the words we use to describe things are somewhat arbitrary.

Each time a fish reproduces, the offspring is slightly different than it's parent, even though it's still close enough to be called a fish. Over many generations the changes accumulate, especially with natural selection honing them to new environments. Eventually, when we look back in hind sight, we see that one of those generations of fish no longer resembles the ORIGINAL fish, even though it closely resembles its PARENT.

You are trying to apply the arbitrary generalization of words to the specific world of reality.

You can not box evolution out of the game simply by claiming that it doesn't fit an arbitrary structure which we humans use to categorize things (for convenience).

If you really want to be specific, then each individual is completely unique and deserves a unique name (this is exactly what DNA does). There is no thing which is uniquely "fish", or uniquely "dog".

Do you suppose that is the problem with creationist, they want something simple so they can understand it. If it's not simple it's not right.

I think this is one of the problems (besides simple denial).

I always like when someone similar to RL says, with supposed great authority that "This is what evolution theory says", when we all know that such a statement is a word for word clip from some other source.

I dont know why the Creation/IDers dont just pick up some books or journals and read. Its not like theres a "missing batch of technical papers out there".

And it's not like being buried in technical papers either.

The idea that technical papers contain the sum total of human wisdom is a subjective conceit employed by those who seek to dominate society by their technical expertise much as those who were fluent in Latin did when they used it to dominate society.

A battle between old priests and new ones.

A sign of it is the nearer and nearer approximation of certain TV sets,the News for instance, to rituals on the high altar and the hushed and reverent tones employed in many scientific documentaries accompanied often with pieces of soaring musical styles originating in composers who were inspired by religious belief.

So you subscribe to the "lets not read anything at all" rule?

Another Einstein

No rl, there not would be, could not be expected to be, "some point a 'fish' produces a 'non-fish' ... ", as your sort so disingenuously are wont to assert. Over many, many generations, succeeding offspring in which the morphologic change is being evidenced will very, very gradually, effectively imperceptably, "fade" from critter "A" into critter "B", as might chrominance fade from one hue to another over an extended period of time. Were you to sit watching a color fade from yellow into green over say a few dozen decades or so, you would be hard-pressed to determine just at which point what you were looking at effected the change, as there would be no such sharply defined, discernable point - it would be a smooth, blended, stream of imperceptable change, a process gradual enough to go unnoticed other than through colorimetrically comparing one day's sample from a given month to another sample taken some other day, months apart from the first sample, and even at that, measurement precision would place a limit on the degree of change which could be detected with any certainty. Clearly, what once was entirely yellow at some point would have to begin to exhibit a greenish tint, and eventually there would be nothing but green, as more and more blue comes into the mix, but the yellow is still there, just overlain by the blue.

Now, imagine "Yellow" to be "Fishness" and green to be "Otherness-than-fish". Imagine the change, the increase in blue tint, to be equivalent to the genetic and consequent morphologic change. One would expect to find something, at some point along the change curve, that would more or less equate to a critter something along the lines of something which would for example share traits both of "fish" and of "other than fish", while being yet clearly, unarguably, a fish, "Yellow", but with a "hint" of "Green". Guess what? That precisely is what the fossil record reveals.

Now, much simpler to understand, easilly obeserved over the course of a couple months, is the transormation of an amphibian's fertilized egg through development into a tadpole and subsequent progression into being a frog. Think of that change taking place not over a few weeks, in a single individual, but rather over several centuries, with thousands of generations intervening, giving rise to millions of individuals throughout the population over time. Same thing.

Now think about DNA itself, or, better yet, RNA - essentially, its all the same stuff, the same chemicals, just arranged differently as one goes up the ladder of life, from the simplest single-celled critter all the way up to the very most complex forms of life. It has evolved, adapted, changed, expressing differently into different environmental niches, some expressions thriving and continuing to develop and expand into other niches, some coexisting even competively within same or similar niches, some becoming prevalent, some becoming dominant, others even some which once had been dominant, fading out. For all of that, its still the same basic chemistry, differing only in arrangement. Among the accomplishments of genome tracing has been absolute confirmation of the necessity of there having been a common ancestor to all life on this planet; the evidence is there, so plainly observable only an ID-iot might doubt it.

You're addressing someone who cannot swallow the pill. It's a bitter pill and although he might know if would educate him, he's still afraid of it. It has to be "the work of the devil." He has to continually proclaim how logical and reasonable he is because nobody else will. He's still trying to convince himself, not others, that poofism is valid. When he's dished out some of his own medicine, he's chagrined that anyone would not take him seriously. Again, I suggest the local park and a soap box. His commentary smacks of that sort of sermonizing. Certainly nothing I've ever heard from the pulpit.

Et tu, Lightwiz?

If fish always and only produce fish, then no evolution has occurred.

Is there any evolutionist in the house who can simply admit that this IS the point of evolution?

If a non-fish 'evolved' from fish, then by definition a fish produced a non-fish, no?

You may believe that the change(s) occurred incrementally over many generations.

But at some point (as in timber's example you may not be able to discern where the point is, but it exists) a creature which fits the definition of 'fish' produced offspring which do NOT fit the definition of 'fish'.

It can be no other way, if evolution is said to occur.

Ya know, rl, the more I think about it, the more I begin to understand at least the thinking behind your fish anology. Mebbe that explains a lot; discussing these matters with such as you sorta puts me in mind of attempting to discuss them with fish ... though the fish at least have an excuse.

What we have here is "real life" attempting to play a word game--to substitute an argument about nomenclature for an argument about the process. If the description of the process can be made to appear sufficiently absurd, then "real life" will assert that the description of the process is too absurd to admit of plausibility.

It is an arbitrary choice on the part of human observers to declare "fish" or "not fish" to any particular creature. C.f. Rosborne's thread on whether or not dinosaurs were reptiles, and whether or not birds are reptiles. These all constitute discussions about what taxonomic labels will be applied.

Frankly, who gives a rat's ass at what point one arbitrarily chooses to stop saying "fish" and start saying "non fish?" It in no way addresses the issue of a wealth of evidence for the occurance of an evolutionary development as opposed to zero evidence for "real life's" imaginary friend.