Monday, March 6

Darwin's Crime Scene Investigators

This is in response to @JaTapps, who dances around Darwin's difficulties like Fred Astaire on Red Bull:
I overestimated you. Considering the limitations of Twitter, I thought that you would be able to address the salient points of your creation myth directly, not run like a coward:
a) You absurdly try to dismiss a perfectly useful English word ("kind") while dancing around your misuse and abuse of "species." (If you must have it translated into your own dialect, then genus or species seem the best fit. Family may or may not be too broad, depending on the family.)

b) When you define all fossils as transitions (including the latest, since everything is always "evolving," right?), then you're not only reading your faith into the facts, but you're sidestepping the issue. Why did Darwin need them? Because you can't get from A to Z without all the letters in-between. He needed proof of Evolution's "failures."

c) The only aspect of macroevolution that really matters in the controversy is simpler forms' "evolving" into newer, more complex forms. All you've got are bacteria to bacteria, mollusks to mollusks, fish to fish, and finches to finches. No one's seen otherwise, ever.
There. That's a tidy summary of your prevarications. Now, back to the original question and its follow-up:
1) Who has seen Life arise apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs)?

2) We've seen Life arise from only the same kind of Life (or its programs). Whom does that support, Moses or Darwin?
And this to a serious offering from @4_site_paradigm, who asks, "can you not investigate a crime scene despite no witnesses? Should we discard the plethora of evidence[?]":
That's a perfectly good question. The problem is not the evidence, but the interpretation. If you approach the scene having determined a priori that it was an accident, then that's what you'll see.

That's fine if it was an accident, but if it was a crime, then you're dead wrong.

You're saying that Life arises apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs). Who's seen that? Ever?

I'm saying that we've only ever seen Life arise from the same kind of Life, etc., which is absolutely true. Dogs from dogs, cats from cats, bacteria from bacteria, coelacanth from coelacanth, finches from finches. Man from Man.

Besides that, the basic unit of Life, the cell, is an incredibly complex Von Neumann-type metabolic machine. Who's ever heard of a machine arising from the muck by accident? And Life's programs, genetic code. In your experience, from where do machines and programs come?

You're discarding the evidence that doesn't suit your creation story.
And this in reply to methos1975, from here:
Comments were closed, so I'll just point out (for now) that you offered nothing that supports your claim that Life arises apart from the same kind of Life (or its programs).

Minor variations within species/genus -- as the organism's pre-existing genetic code allows -- examples of human manipulation of that code and its elements, and assumed descent when all you have are similarities are not evidence of your fundamental truth claim.

In other words, you still haven't answered the questions.

As for the second part of your reply, utter Biblical and historical illiteracy doesn't offer much to work with.

It is telling that you advocate for what no one has ever seen, but reject utterly the eyewitness testimonies of generations.

So much for reason and empiricism.