Secret Sauce on Your Shirt

By Michael David Rawlings
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(See links to Labsci-Rawlings debate:  Labsci and I Discuss Evolution, The Debate Continues. . . .)

 

If it's about Labsci's point about the Creationist misuse of the terms "micro-evolution" vs. "macro-evolution" ... your response seems to be little more than obsfuscation.

It is trivial to demonstrate that "microevolution", not "microspeciation" (with or without the hyphen), is the term used extensively in Creationist sites, in rebuttals to these Creationist sites, and in the scientific literature. "microspeciation" is almost nowhere to be found. —secretsauce (author's user name) 

The word is spelled o-b-f-u-s-c-a-t-i-o-n, no s after the b, and my comment about terms merely went to the Creationist's perspective, and nothing more. You're arguing with phantoms.  I was merely alerting Labsci about the distinction between our perspectives and the subsequent difference in terms. From the theoretical perspective of Darwinism, I'm well aware of the fact that instances of microevolution are but the intermediate and accumulative steps within the larger dynamic of a continuously branching process of microevolutionary speciation. See. I even use your terms.
 

The ultimate point of the observation about terms is that the Creationist rejects the asseveration that micro-speciation (my terms now, from my perspective) among members of distinct life forms—whether there be a split within a specific kind of life form or not—has the power to lead to the formulation of an entirely different kind of life form altogether, for example, in the sense that some lineage of a land animal eventually evolved via a series of branchings into a sea animal, or vice versa. Or more succinctly put: the idea that all extant species ultimately evolved from a common ancestor.

This Creationist does not misuse the terms; he rejects the conceptual model behind the terms. I’m a Creationist! What’s wrong you? One too many pulls on the crack pipe last night?

Labsci appears to have gotten the point the first time around, mostly. This is the second time around the same bush for you. Do you understand the necessity of defining terms in order to distinguish conceptual models, one from the other, after the Socratic method? My worldview is not subject to yours or its terms, and moreover, biologists disputed Darwin from the very beginning based on the very same distinction. Don’t you know the history and the exact nature of the opposing views?  Is this all new to you? 

This nonsense that because I don't agree with the model, I don’t understand the model, for surely I would if I did, is tiresome.

See if you can follow the drift of the discussion this time around:

Claims that micro evolution occurs but macro evolution does not just display[s] an ignorance, rather than dishonesty, about the fact that there is no difference between them apart from the time over which they occur. Many micro evolutionary steps equals macro evolution. Sometimes little physical change is evident, sometimes a lot of change. —Labsci 

And that's the crux of the matter, isn’t it? We have before us the idea that all species evolved from a common ancestor. That's all you’re really saying; i.e., you're merely restating the theory’s fundamental assertion, one that's driven by yet another idea, the underlying metaphysical presupposition of a materialistic naturalism. It is absurd to call the rejection of these ideas an "error"; they go to the essence of the dispute.

. . . I don't understand the theory of evolution as rendered by its proponents? Perhaps you don’t understand the nature of the skeptic's objections. Aside from the convoluted rhetorical shenanigans, there's nothing rocket-sciencey about the theory. You’re merely invoking the same presuppositions, begging the question.

I don't buy it! It's as simple as that. —Michael David Rawlings

 

Second, the ultimate "playing with words" is the creationist mantra that "a fruit-fly is still a fruit-fly". —secretsauce

I'm not arguing that macroevolution is falsified because any number of species of fruit flies have never been observed to change into . . . dogs or whatever. Labsci sort of missed me on that one, too, the first time around. You're spouting slogans like a mindless zombie. You're not talking to your average Creationist; you're talking to a scholar. In other words, my observation in this particular instance goes to ontological biases only; it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not macroevolutionary speciation occurs, my personal beliefs about the latter notwithstanding. My rejection of evolutionary theory is based on other criteria.  It wouldn't just be your position that would be falsified if such a thing were to occur, as Labsci correctly observed, but mine as well!  For there most indubitably would be something going on that neither one of our belief systems could explain.  That makes the rest of your bather on this point moot.

Once again for the peanut gallery:

In accordance with your confirmation of my point about fruit flies, we can’t observe speciation beyond the "microevolutionary steps" and, also, we don’t see an abundance of obvious transitory forms in the fossil record, so what is Darwinism, the gratuitous insertion or extrapolation of a common ancestry, ultimately based on, if not a materialistic naturalism? —Michael David Rawlings

The term "fruit-fly" is an entire *CATEGORY* of species. The genus Drosophila alone has more than 1,500 known species! —secretsauce

Oh, gee, really?  You think this is profound?

(Facepalm.) Because birds are not claimed to have evolved from bats! ... Or vice versa! —secretsauce

Facepalm your own self. The phrase "to find . . . half-bat/half-bird [intermediate forms] in the fossil record" are not mine.  They’re Labsci’s! That’s why they’re enclosed in quotation marks. That's why the clarifying terms "intermediate forms", which are mine, are enclosed in brackets. Neither he nor I were talking in any kind of literal sense about a transitory relationship between these kinds of animals. It's a metaphor having nothing to do with the actual taxonomic lineages propounded by evolutionists. I'm quite sure that like myself Labsci is well aware of the literal supposition, as he did mention the Archaeopterix (the alleged culmination of changes involving the transformation of a small dinosaur into a bird, not a bat into a bird or vice versa).

 

Well, now you've convinced me.  Macroevolution is true!  You're living proof that humans can evolve into moon bats.  Ultimately, it's Labsci at whom you’re wrongfully sneering, not me.

Really? Where did Darwin express that he was "perplexed"? —secretsauce

Yes, really:

The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. —Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species (First Edition, Avenel Books, Crown Publishers, New York: 1979, pg. 292)

Yes. Darwin did address the matter head-on. He eventually concluded that much of the fossil record had been erased by geological upheavals without evidence, really, but it is clear from his other papers and correspondences that it nevertheless troubled him all his days.

I've read all the works of Darwin, have you? Suggested reading: Foard JM, The Darwin Papers. Not that it would do you much good in your case, apparently, given your obvious lack of reading comprehension.

Your foolishness has been utterly refuted. Next time you pop off, I suggest that you make sure that you properly understand what you're reading, or did you intentionally misrepresent me? Are you making my point about the intellectual dishonesty of many evolutionists?

You don't fly anywhere near the altitude of my intellect.    

You're dismissed.