On the thread entitled “Species Kinds”, commenter phoodoo asks:
What’s the definition of a species?
A simple question but hard to answer. Talking of populations of interbreeding individuals immediately creates problems when looking at asexual organisms, especially the prokaryotes: bacteria and archaea. How to delineate a species temporally is also problematic. Allan Miller links to an excellent basic resource on defining a species and the Wikipedia entry does not shy away from the difficulties.
In case phoodoo thought his question was being ignored, I thought I’d open this thread to allow discussion without derailing the thread on “kinds”.
OMagain,
Evidence that you can get new protein sequences and other timing sequences to form from isolated populations.
What he does is to yell “Design!” just like everyone else in the last bazillion years who has rehashed the question begging teleological argument. IDers make a living out of selling old and failed arguments to the gullible idiots and pretending they’re doing science. Watch Behe get utterly embarrassed by a simple question:
LMFAO!
You know full well we flooded you with papers on that topic over at Sandwalk. You just keep plugging your fingers to your ears and pretend it never happen.
I’m not in any position to criticize anybody about spelling, but this does remind me that on another board I frequent there’s an on-going discussion concerning “deux machinas”. 🙂
The same place you find the number 4 and the ideal circle
The same way you know a physical object is circular or that you have a quartet of something.
you are equivocating on the term something. The “something” in the definition is a very specific thing (the essence/form/idea).
peace
Of course these things are a species. That is what the word means.
There is no reason that the concept of a set of all buttons is fundamentally different than the set of all water buffaloes.
The only reason you think that the idea of a biological species is different than every other species is because you are looking at the world through the Darwinist googles.
It’s a good bet that if in order to make any sense your theory makes you abandon a common well understood definition that works perfectly well in every other instance it might be incomplete.
just saying
peace
no,
Non-life does not share what it is that forms the essence of the set of living things.
Namely life.
This is not a hard thing to grasp all of us use the idea of genus and species all the time in every other area of life. For example we all know that the set of baseballs is a species in the genus “ball”.
There is no species problem at all until you decide without evidence that categorizing biological species is somehow different than everything else you experience.
peace
What is this additional evidence that you find problematic? You never say. Now, since you have above agreed that some evidence supports the hypothesis of common descent, how can you say that you don’t understand the criteria? Two species share a common ancestor if they fit on the same tree for which there is good evidence.
yet your definition is as vague as it gets. You were asked a very simple question: provide a definition of “species” that helps tell them from one another. you can’t just suggest “a wolf is a wolf and a coyote is a coyote”… unless you want to come off as a retard again
I’m done with you
dazz,
A wise move.
Not religious debate, links a video from “The Apologetics Academy”.
I think I laughed for a good 2 minutes there.
And where is that?
By observation you mean, then. So I just look at something and then I “see” it’s “essence”? What the fuck does that even mean? What is the essence of this fellow?
Wolfs are different than coyotes in the same way that baseballs are different than basketballs. This is not difficult.
I know a ball I encounter is a baseball if it shares the essential characteristics of with the other baseballs I’ve encountered.
It works exactly the same with coyotes
I understand it can be difficult to to examine silly premises you have unquestionably accepted.
It is a pity though that you have so much invested that you are unable to take a step back an look at things calmly and objectively and not get so worked up about it.
peace
Except that organisms reproduce themselves, with mutations in their genome, all the time.
Listen, I’m done talking to or with you, this will be my last response to you ever. There really is no point having arguments with people who think the whole world around them is a big lie, I don’t have the patience for it and I don’t believe you are capable of change. I don’t know what logical argument or what evidence to use to convince a person who doesn’t care about logical argument or evidence. Welcome to ignore.
Asking “where” is a category error. It’s like asking “when” pink became red.
You’ve never observed a perfect circle or the concept of “four”ness but you know what they are.
It means “apparently” that you have trouble expressing yourself without using profanity.
I don’t know.
Do you think you have to know the essence/form/idea of everything to know the essence of anything?
That is not my problem. I trust that my senses and cognitive faculties are reliable for the most part. Although I can always be mistaken
I would say that you are the one who thinks that you are being deceived when it comes to species.
Species appear to exist as objective reality but you think your mind is deceiving you.
It seems that it is you who don’t care for logical argument or evidence
I asked for evidence for the idea that species are defined and bounded by inbreeding success. Thus far none has been provided.
You simply accept this premise because at some point someone convinced you to abandon normal common sense logical categorization when it comes to biology.
peace
We are not talking abut organisms we are talking about species.
Baseballs are made all the time each varies from the others in subtle ways. Yet the essence of what it takes to be a baseball does not change. ditto all other species
peace
Try people. There appears to be no problem for humans from anywhere in thé world reproducing with any other human (of opposite sex) and humans don’t hybridize with any other species.
ETA clarity
What? I know lots of people who are unable to reproduce. Your average toddler comes to quickly to mind.
As for hybridization check this out
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151013-how-interbreeding-shaped-us
peace
Sure. Dead people, for example. What’s the problem with that?
Are people who are unable to reproduce still part of the human species?
If so then how does reproductive compatibility define and constrain what a species is?
peace
And this is a problem for thé evolutionary concept of species? Modern humans and Neanderthals share very recent common ancestry. Speciation is gradual, not an overnight process.
Of course. Differential reproductive success is a factor in evolutionary change. Not every individual gets to pass on their genes.
How do we determine the essence of a species so we can determine if X is a member of that species?
It’s only a problem if your definition of species is somehow related to reproductive compatibility.
Is your definition of species somehow related to reproductive compatibility?
We are not talking about evolutionary change we are talking about what a species is.
peace
Yes, Darwin’s great work was on the Origin of Concepts by means of Other Concepts in the Struggle between Concepts.
ETA: Given that species are not objectively real, what follows from that?
The same way we determine what the essence of a baseball is or anything else we categorize in life for that matter.
For the life of me I don’t understand what is so hard to comprehend we do this stuff all the time in everyday life. We categorize every time we say {X} is not {not X} we don’t need to do some kind of difficult mental gymnastics it comes naturally to us.
For some reason you seem to have a blind spot only when it comes to biological categorizing but you do just fine with everything else. It’s like once you accept an unwarranted premise you are unable to even begin to think rationally about the subject from that point on.
Why is that?
peace
It seems even more difficult to examine profoundly evil premises you accept because of your attachment to an old book.
It’s a pity you can’t take a step back and condemn slavery despite the fact that your god condones it.
Are you going to attempt to hijack every thread I participate in in this way?
I would say the polite thing to do is write an OP to accommodate your obsession with God and leave the rest of us to talk about other more productive things here.
peace
Patrick has his own profoundly evil premises, one of which appears to be that the Bible is just an old book. Another of his odd premises seems to be that slavery is profoundly evil.
Patrick is no theologian. Perhaps he has a libertarian argument against slavery, but I doubt it.
If you’re going to behave hypocritically, I’m going to point it out.
You ran away for a bit after the slavery discussion. I’m not surprised you were ashamed. Maybe you’re not fully corrupted by your religious beliefs after all.
Why?
You’re an objectively neutral moral judge acting only for the sake science?
Oh please.
How is that observation evil? It’s simply a fact.
I only see religious people here arguing that slavery isn’t profoundly evil. That says a lot about your religion and character.
Not ashamed but bored and busy. That “discussion” was yet another attempt to derail an otherwise interesting discourse with the locals obsession with the almighty
Trust me I’m not the running type ;-).
I’m just not interested in Bible study with uninformed angry apostates.
It’s of as much value as discussing quantum mechanics with a bunch of disgruntled automobile technicians.
It would take an inordinate amount of time just to explain that we were using the term “Mechanical” in different ways.
By that time they will probably be mad at you on the principle of the thing 😉
peace
You should be.
No, it was about you refusing to unequivocally condemn slavery because your holy book says your god condones it.
That’s a reprehensible position to take.
If we had an example of every generation in the direct lineage from the first eukaryote to humans (or robins, or whales if you prefer) you would not be able to point to one individual and say, “a new species starts here”. The change is too gradual from generation to generation.
But creationists would never concede that evolution is true unless we can produce an unbroken chain of organisms from the first eukaryote to the first human. A burden of proof that Creationist don’t feel they need for their “theory”.
I condemned slavery unequivocally from the beginning and challenged you all to prove that the bible ever condoned it. You must have missed that with all the equivocation and the burning of the straw-man
peace
Here’s one statement you made:
That’s odious.
Sure you could.
A new species would “start” every time an individual organism evinced the essence of a new species instead of the old one.
peace
You’re opinion is valued, in spite of how worthless it is. Thank you.
You’re opinion is valued, in spite of how worthless it is. Thank you.
All Hail Objective Morality!
All Hail Patrick, The Great Moralist!
This is yet another example of the futility of these sorts of discussions.
The Bible classes slavery as a type of uncleanliness (1st Tim 1:9-10).
So the passages about uncleanliness actually condemn slavery in stark and vivid terms. That would be obvious to anyone with a clue of what exegesis was all about.
Since you don’t you spout that sort of uninformed drivel and pass it off as moral superiority.
It would be funny if your willful lack of knowledge weren’t so sad
Do you think that displays of ignorance are morally praiseworthy?
quote;
But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
(Jud 1:10)
end quote:
peace
Mocking people for saying that slavery is evil doesn’t really reflect well on your character or the ethics you get from your religion. Maybe you should put down that old book and think for yourself.
Let’s see:
1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
Nothing there about slavery.
1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
A mention of “menstealers”, but no rejection of slave owners. Given the other passages that describe how owners should treat their slaves, it certainly doesn’t suggest that your god condemns the practice.
None of this, of course, changes the fact that you dismissed the horror of slavery with this:
Is mocking people for saying that slavery is evil while disparaging Biblical passages that say slavery is evil OK in your moral opinion?
peace
Which passages would those be, then?
John Harshman,
Do you have an example of a tree node and what evidence was required to meet the standard of “good” evidence that results in the sharing of a common ancestor?
Is evidence against examined?
Is it thought through how the transition occurred and the potential obstacles? Are experiments performed beyond DNA sequence comparison? Is the selection based on a measured result or just the opinion of experts?
Without rigor at the node level the argument becomes weaker at the macro level because you are assuming common descent on a best fit basis and not a rigorous examination of the feasibility of the transition process.
If this is where you are I get it but now ID becomes real competition because it is inferring design based on the observation of macro machines that appear designed based on what humans know about design. You are inferring common descent based on common DNA sequences plus other commonalities?