Innovation (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, May 19, 2013, 06:32 (4006 days ago) @ David Turell

Tony: Err We know that speciation occurs? How? We have never observed it? Like God it requires faith to believe in what you have not seen. What you see in the record is that different species existed. That is vastly different that observing one species developing from another. I am not saying that it didn't happen, only that one does not equate with the other.
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>David: Using the famous trail from land animal to whale, or perhaps infamous, we see a progression of fossil forms. They are individual species with enormous changes in each step. According to the fossils speciation occurred. Did it happen naturally, by chance. I don't buy it. We just don't have an knowledge of an adequate mechanism, so I have to conclude that it is guided by God.-One species changing over time but remaining the same species is adaptation, which I agree with whole-heartedly. Saying that one species changed into a new, novel species that had not existed before is a logical assumption that has never been observed. Most cases start from the assumption that evolution happened, and then try to fit the data into that model. They assume that similar species must have diverged because they are similar in form. Little to no genetic data exists in ancient fossils, so it is no more than speculation based on appearance which rests in its entirety on the assumption that speciation did in fact occur. One assumption piled on top of another, all firmly rooted in guess work and an unwillingness to say "we do not have enough evidence and we do not know".-> 
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> > Tony: You see a bushy bush because you have been trained to see a bushy bush.
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>David: I use the term 'bush' because Darwin's tree of life does not exist. Instead one sees life spreading around in a bush-like fashion from the beginning of one-celled forms. It is a better description, and is becoming more and more confusing as trying to establish homology in DNA to follow evolution seems to be more and more difficult, again adding credence to my thought that God steps in and manipulates.-My point is that the tree and bush are both models. They do not exist anywhere except in the minds of men. We all know that models do not necessarily reflect reality, nor do they incorporate all the data, nor are they necessarily built from the proper perspective for them to make coherent sense when compared to reality. -The tree of life was built strictly off of appearance and physical attributes. The bush of life is the tree getting the crap beat out of it by genetic research. Perhaps, the solution is to build a better model, instead of to continue using an obviously broken one simply because 'that is the way it has always been done'. When you put together a puzzle, if the final result does not match the picture on the box, it is because you screwed up and put the pieces in the wrong place. The bush does not match the picture of life we see on earth. Maybe it is time to take the puzzle apart and try again.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.