Darwin Translation

RationalSchema
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Darwin Translation

I have been arguing with a Creationist on Youtube and he presented this as evidence that variations in species happens by chance. I thought this would be a good question of Deluded God and other hard scientists (developing psychologist here).

English is not one of my strong suits but here is my understanding.

Origins of Species chapter 6:

"To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations CHANCE to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants."

My translation is that favourable variations need to be given the chance to occur and then the natural selection process begins. Further, that the right environmental conditions need to be in place for variations to happen.

The creationist first cited this as evidence that variations occur by chance. So the question is the tranlastion mean given a chance or happen by chance?

"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."


deludedgod
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Your creationist is simply

Your creationist is simply demonstrating attributes that we normally expect from a creationist. Ie, he's an idiot.

In Darwinian natural selection, there are three principles to consider:

1. Heredity

2. Variation

3. Selection

The chance part comes from the mutation, or the variation. A single organism cannot "evolve", such a statement would be inherently meaningless. The changes must be passed through the germ line of the organism. Although Charles Darwin did not understand precisely what was being inherited, he, along with Mendel, knew that something must be inherited, whatever that something was, and that it could have variations produced by chance which were then acted upon by natural selection.

Quote:

and he presented this as evidence that variations in species happens by chance. 

Is he being stupid on purpose? The variations are produced by chance but the change in frequency, the selection is what makes evolution a non-random process!

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Yellow_Number_Five
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RationalSchema wrote:I

RationalSchema wrote:

I have been arguing with a Creationist on Youtube and he presented this as evidence that variations in species happens by chance. I thought this would be a good question of Deluded God and other hard scientists (developing psychologist here).

English is not one of my strong suits but here is my understanding.

Origins of Species chapter 6:

"To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations CHANCE to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants."

My translation is that favourable variations need to be given the chance to occur and then the natural selection process begins. Further, that the right environmental conditions need to be in place for variations to happen.

The creationist first cited this as evidence that variations occur by chance. So the question is the tranlastion mean given a chance or happen by chance?

 

Darwin's exact words in that chapter are:

"To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants. And such new places will depend on slow changes of climate, or on the occasional immigration of new inhabitants, and, probably, in a still more important degree, on some of the old inhabitants becoming slowly modified, with the new forms thus produced and the old ones acting and reacting on each other. So that, in any one region and at any one time, we ought only to see a few species presenting slight modifications of structure in some degree permanent; and this assuredly we do see."

 

Read in context and especially the context of the chapter titled "Difficulties on Theory" (which this SINGLE paragraph is lifted from) and the entire work should tell you this is a quote mine.

 Darwin was simply anticipating and defusing possible objections to his theory. Read the whole book.

And for fucks sake, our understanding of biology has certainly increased since Chuck D wrote his book. As much as I revere the man, all Darwin did was propose a very simple explanation of how things work. As his own great grandson, Matthew Chapman personally confided in me, "An idiot could have come up with it".

What makes what Darwin did special is that he built on what others had done, and proposed an explanation that explained a shitload - the hallmark of any good theory.

That theory has stood the test of time, in spite of the ignorant who try to tear it down for a simple reason - it works, and it is confirmed at every turn with empirical evidence thaqt supports it.

 For the love of Thor, don't make me rant about endogenous retrogenes again.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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RationalSchema
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Thanks both for your

Thanks both for your replies.

Yellow- Your response was exactly what I was telling him in my replies. However, this was not good enough for him. I pointed out that things have changed and that this chapter was devoted to obstacles in his theory. This guy then starts talking about six eras in Genesis and not days and that patterns of the ocean and mountain formations are cited in the bible.

"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."