Evolution of the cardiovascular system is impossible

[Frank]

I see that that expert (in propaganda) 'Cowboy Bob Sorensen' got out of bed on the wrong side on Saturday morning: <snip>

Here are some of the forum rules:

‘Stay on topic - if you wish to discuss something different, start a new thread, don't hijack someone else's discussion.
No Personal attacks - discuss the science, not the person.’

It would be appreciated if the forum rules were adhered to here and irrelevant, ad hominen attacks were not made. Perhaps you forgot that discussion here is supposed to be ‘Science Only’, and related to the topic.

[Frank]

I'd be happy to debate the Science with Cowardly Cowboy Bob. <snip>

Once again, here are some of the forum rules:

‘Stay on topic - if you wish to discuss something different, start a new thread, don't hijack someone else's discussion.
No Personal attacks - discuss the science, not the person.’

This forum is supposed to be ‘Science Only’ and the discussion is supposed to be related to the topic in question. Take your ad hominen garbage somewhere else. It is pathetic.

[Roger Stanyard]

It's a while since I followed this thread and I'm surprised that it's still running. Thanks Christine, for battling on so long. I'm afraid, however, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear - whether via a vertebrate head or not! As for where they speak from...

I'm astonished Frank has come back to this forum several years after having, apparently, given up with it.

I's surprised that, given his self proclaimed expertise on intelligent design, he hasn't since been awarded to Noble prize.

Alas for Frank, intelligent design is dead. Has been since the end of 2005 (the Dover trial). Nobody anywhere is listening.

[ProfessorTertius]

No, Frank. The Argument from Personal Incredulity and the Argument from Circular Reasoning are NOT the same thing.

Please. Take a logic course. (However, I recommend that you take a few of Dr. Janis' comparative anatomy courses at Brown University first. That seems to be the area where your ignorance of evolutionary processes is the most obvious and appalling.)

[ProfessorTertius]

Notice how IDers and YECists love to declare Argument from Personal Incredulity fallacies.

With Frank, it is "I just don't see or understand how evolution of the cardiovascular system is possible. Therefore, I hereby declare that NOBODY understands how it could evolve. And that proves that the Theory of Evolution is invalid!"

I've had similar debates with Mark Armitage on his Youtube channel. Armitage uses the same sort of Argument from Personal Incredulity to say that:

1) I don't know how soft tissues in dinosaur fossils can possibly survive for millions of years.

2) Therefore, I hereby declare that science will NEVER explain how soft tissues can be preserved for millions of years through some mechanism involving iron.

3) As a result, all of the copious evidence for millions of years of history can be disregarded because I have successfully debunked the preservation of soft tissues for more than a few thousand years.

And if you think the logic fallacies can't get any worse, Armitage tops it off with this argument:
{My paraphrase:} If the presence of iron could preserve soft tissues for millions of years as evolutionists claim, then the corpses from countless battlefields in human history should all be perfectly preserved throughout the world.

Thus, Frank's logic fallacies are part of a long and not-so-proud tradition among the science-denialists of the ID and Young Earth Creationist world of pseudo-science.

It is hardly surprising that these same pseudo-science movements still promote the argument that Louis Pasteur somehow proved that "biological life from non-living materials is impossible." I'd sure like to see the falsification experiments that were devised to demonstrate that (1) abiogenesis is impossible, and that (2) evolution of the cardiovascular system is impossible.

Perhaps Frank can tell us about his falsification experiments which determined that evolution of the cardiovascular system is impossible.

(And please, Frank, try to stay on topic instead of posting your tiresome complaints about how everybody else is not addressing science. Also, when you take that remedial logic course, please pay special attention to the Argument from Ad Hominem fallacy---because you clearly don't understand its definition. Just because someone is insulted by the truth does NOT make the argument an Ad Hominem fallacy. It is only an Ad Hominem fallacy when the insulting disclosure is irrelevant to the subject at hand. Let me know if I still need to explain this to you.)

[ProfessorTertius]

Perhaps you forgot that discussion here is supposed to be ‘Science Only’, and related to the topic.

My thoughts exactly. When you (Frank) say that "Evolution of the cardiovascular system is impossible", that's not science. If it were science, you could cite falsification experiments which would demonstrate such evolution impossible. But how would you do that, Frank? How could you possibly test every possible "route" by which evolution could produce anatomical structures?

Have you ever noticed how silly various "X is impossible" arguments of the past sound today?

(1) "Heavier-than-air flight will forever be impossible."

(2) "Synthesis of organic compounds in the laboratory will always be impossible." (Friedrich Wohler kaboshed that one when he made urea in his lab---and "organic chemistry" saw a change of definition as a result.)

(3) "Cloning will forever be impossible because it's science fiction, not science."

(4) "Evolution beyond species boundaries is impossible."

Nevertheless, I warmly welcome you to this forum, Frank. Your logically fallacious declarations do an excellent job of motivating people to post the flaws in your thinking.

[a_haworthroberts]

I see that that expert (in propaganda) 'Cowboy Bob Sorensen' got out of bed on the wrong side on Saturday morning: <snip>

Here are some of the forum rules:

‘Stay on topic - if you wish to discuss something different, start a new thread, don't hijack someone else's discussion.
No Personal attacks - discuss the science, not the person.’

It would be appreciated if the forum rules were adhered to here and irrelevant, ad hominen attacks were not made. Perhaps you forgot that discussion here is supposed to be ‘Science Only’, and related to the topic.

The person who went off-topic was the young earth creationist blogger 'Cowboy' Bob Sorensen. I simply reported the fact.

However, if Sorensen persists with unsupported claims about this discussion on his closed (to those who disagree in any way) propaganda pages it might be better to ignore him HERE - and instead challenge him with a comment HERE:
http://stormbringer005.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ction.html

[Christine Janis]

"Whenever I describe the details of the functioning of the CV system, it shows how irrational evolution is and you cannot answer."

My goodness, Frank, you're back and it hasn't even been a year yet. And, of course, I have provided many, many answers on this forum

I guess my response to you here "whenever I describe how the CV system could have evolved, you switch the topic to the renal system, or the mammalian diaphragm" or something else because you have no response to science.

If only your buddy Bob was correct, and I were indeed a "pretend professor". Then I'd have oodles of time to pen a detailed response to you statements, which basically consist of describing the human CV system as if it was unique among organisms (which, of course, it is not). I will respond, and it will take me less than a year, but meanwhile I have some other fish to fry --- like dealing with real science instead of trying to swat flies.

1 If evolution were true, we’d expect that organisms would share some similar anatomical structures. (if p then q)
2 Organisms do share some similarity in their anatomical structures. (q)
3 Therefore, evolution is true. (therefore p)

No, Frank, that is not my argument, it's your parody of it. Meanwhile, here is one example of the debates that I have had with you.

Frank. Evolution of the cardiovascular system is impossible because it would be impossible to have an animal that had a double circulatory system with a lung without a divided heart.

Me: Here is are examples of animals living today that have exactly that system. Basal ray-finned fish such as Polypterus (reed fish), Amia (bowfin), Lepisosteus (garpike), and many basal teleosts.

Frank: That's irrelevant because you can't explain how the lung evolved.

I rest my case. But i shall return.

The argument is fallacious because similar anatomical structures are predicted by intelligent design.

Everything is explicable by ID (aka creationism). But as ID/creationism makes no predictions that can be falsified (unlike evolutionary science), it's simply bogus.

[Christine Janis]

.

It was pointed out that autonomic innervation involves receptors, neural processing, a preganglionic neuron, a ganglion, a postganglionic neuron, and signal transmission at chemical synapses via neurotransmitter molecules. Janis has failed to provide an evolutionary explanation for autonomic innervation of the CV system

.

It was pointed out to you that hagfish lack any kind of autonomic innervation of the heart, and that fish (over half the vertebrate species alive today) lack sympathetic innervation of the heart. Yet you persist in claiming that a heart cannot function without the type of innervation seen in humans. You are wrong.

[Christine Janis]

3. Fails to provide an evolutionary explanation for heart chambers, heart valves, endocardium, myocardium, epicardium, pericardium or cardiac conduction.
4. Fails to explain how the single circulation CV system supposedly evolved into the dual circulation CV system.

What I've done here is to provide anatomical descriptions of living vertebrates that possess the anatomical systems that you deem impossible. I could indeed provide an evolutionary explanation for these structures. What would be the point, as you would then claim that I'm just '`waving my evolutionary wand"? Hence, I have been sticking to the anatomy, something that you, strangely, accuse me of avoiding.

But, in any case, it's clear to me that you lack the knowledge in comparative anatomy to understand any evolutionary description here that I could give. For example, if I mention something that you've not heard of (e.g., haemal arches in larval hagfish), you make the immediate assumption that I must be mistaken because you know nothing about this ---- rather than realise that you're talking to somebody who keeps up with the current scientific literature, and who is an expert in vertebrate comparative anatomy. You're simply not equipped for a debate about this topic, as all you know about (or, at least, can copy and paste about) is the human condition.

[ProfessorTertius]

Looks like a series of slamdunks for Dr. Janis. Again.

In U.S. law, if a professional boxer engages an amateur, assault with a deadly weapon charges can apply. But in matters of science, such a mismatch has no such protections. The brutal carnage is sure to follow. Fortunately, evolution gave Frank some helpful blood clotting factors---despite Michael Behe's ignorance of such evolutionary processes in the Dover trial. (Like Frank, Behe likes to list biological phenomena which he thinks couldn't have evolved---yet they did, and scientists have lots of evidence about how they did it.)

It's always fun to watch those with impressive knowledge of comparative anatomy point out the "transitional structures" which can be observed even in the circulatory systems of animals alive in our day. I'm amazed that anyone would want to bombastically declare what is and isn't possible for evolutionary processes to produce when they don't even know what animals have in their bodies today.

Perhaps Frank will resort to the Cowboy Bob standby excuse: "I never claimed to be an expert on comparative anatomy. So be gentle with me!"

[Christine Janis]

"I'm amazed that anyone would want to bombastically declare what is and isn't possible for evolutionary processes to produce when they don't even know what animals have in their bodies today."

And then to bombastically declare that I'm avoiding discussing the anatomy when I describe such cases!

[Christine Janis]

Frank complains: "This forum is supposed to be ‘Science Only’ and the discussion is supposed to be related to the topic in question."

But on the previous page he declares the following:

Intelligent Design is the default explanation for the origin of the CV system.

Thus invalidating any pretense to be talking about "science only"

[Christine Janis]

I would just like to note that I made a very brief comment on Bob Sorenson's Facebook page, to rebut his accusation that as an `"evolutionary biologist" I could know nothing about medical matters (commented that I'd been teaching this stuff to premedical students for years, and thus was certainly in a position to know what I was talking about). Sorenson wrote back that many evolutionary biologist who came on his forum wrote outdated science, to which I tried to reply "not those who write the textbooks", but found that, after a single post, any replies from me had been blocked

Now I'm getting a barrage of emails forwarded from Facebook accusing me of writing no science on here, only personal attacks on Frank.

Ashley is right, Sorenson is a coward who blocks anybody who disagrees with him and then claims "victory" over his silenced opponent. And, as usual, we're seeing that what creationists mean by "ad hominem" is "somebody who posts facts that disagree with my beliefs". Unlike Ashley, I won't bother with Sorenson and his crew any more unless they have the balls to discuss something in an open forum where they can't censor the content to make it look as if they're winning. And I shall tackle Frank's comments further when I have the time (I believe I have another year, 2 months and 27 days ---- right?)

[Roger Stanyard]

I would just like to note that I made a very brief comment on Bob Sorenson's Facebook page, to rebut his accusation that as an `"evolutionary biologist" I could know nothing about medical matters (commented that I'd been teaching this stuff to premedical students for years, and thus was certainly in a position to know what I was talking about). Sorenson wrote back that many evolutionary biologist who came on his forum wrote outdated science, to which I tried to reply "not those who write the textbooks", but found that, after a single post, any replies from me had been blocked

I must admit I've never bothered with Cowboy Bob. He's unqualified to talk about science (or anything else as far as I can make out). He's also clearly a complete arsehole (as we would say in English English)