I came across these statements in this forum section (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2176065/+1840#). It seemed that the poster's method of inquiry that seeks to describe, explain, and predict occurrences in the natural world, tends to work backward from desired results. This is also referred as “motivated reasoning.” It indirectly helps in my research to investigate the percentage of Malaysians who are “scientifically illiterate,” despite the profound impact science has on our daily lives.

Since I’m neither evolutionary biologist nor geneticist, I’m wondering if that is some kind of unscientific thinking masquerading as scientific thinking. Does the thinking appear to be scientific but is, in fact, faithless to science’s basic values and methods? This definition is indebted to Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, p. 13.

Because pseudo-scientific thinking often looks and sounds like real science, it can be quite hard for non-scientists or casual readers to tell them apart. Luckily, there are certain criteria of pseudoscience that any educated person can use to distinguish it from true science, including the following:

· 1. Does it make claims that are not testable?
· 2. Does it make claims that are inconsistent with well-established scientific truths?
· 3. Does it explain away or ignore falsifying data?
· 4. Does it use vague language that almost anything could be counted as confirming it?
· 5. Does it lack of progressiveness?
· 6. Does it involve no serious effort to conduct research using scientific method?

Our discussion of the case study in this thread is indebted to William D. Gray, Thinking Critically about New Age Ideas (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991), chap. 5.

1. Does it make claims that are not testable?
This is testable so it does not apply. See below.

2. Does it make claims that are inconsistent with well-established scientific truths?
This does apply.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep–goat_hybrid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology)
There are fertile and infertile hybrid offsprings with chromosome numbers different from the parents. Given how absolute the statement was on this matter, any example of fertile hybrids would disprove it.

Man could not evolve from a monkey would probably be true as there is no scientific truths that claims that. This is more of creationist claim rather than a scientific claim.

3. Does it explain away or ignore falsifying data?
No data were provided.

4. Does it use vague language that almost anything could be counted as confirming it?
Nothing realy vague detected from the above. The specificness of the statement makes it easy to disprove due to the examples in 2.

5. Does it lack of progressiveness?
Don't quite know what this means.

6. Does it involve no serious effort to conduct research using scientific method?
Pretty sure most of the people on this forum would not be able to do the above whether they are supporting or opposing this view.

The quoted example's problem is not because it suffers from any of these. But rather, it's starting assumption is simply incorrect. Please refer to the bolded part in the first post above.

A quick google search, the first hit at yahoo, turns up this ..

Actually there is plenty of evidence that a species can change the number of chromosomes (and chromosomes don't occur "within" DNA). We even know the mechanism by which this happens ... a runaway gene translocation that effectively copies an entire chromosome onto the end of another (thus fusing two chromosomes together). While this is often fatal or leads to infertility ... it doesn't *have* to do either ... as long as the genes are still line up, the males and females can still interbreed, and even produce fertile offspring.

For example, the domestic horse has 64 chromosomes, while the wild horse (Przewalski's horse) has 66. The two can not only interbreed, but produce fertile offspring.

This post has been edited by dkk: Apr 14 2012, 09:49 AM

Why did 'we' evolve and lose our fur?

That has nothing to do with the topic being discussed here. Please read carefully before posting.

Do you rather instructed your student to read carefully before ask question? That's so uncreative. I only ask the simple question before go further with the formula 1-6.

unfortunately....makes zero sense..........

Answers are not meant to be creative, they are meant to be correct.

Of course it does not make any sense, you are playing by rules that only you know and expecting others to play according to your rules. They way you answer things does not make sense to me and others as well because they don't follow any logical pattern.

Did we have fur to begin with?

Let me generalize the question a little. Why would an animal that previously had fur, evolve into one that does not have fur? The "evolutionary" answer is that it lives in an environment that favours those offspring with fewer/no fur. At each generation, those that carry the genes for less fur, reproduce better and have more offsprings. This is why elephants today do not have fur.

Indonesian rhino have fur but not the African rhino, white people have more hair all over the body than Asian particularly the face.

Tiger don't mate with lion or chimpanzee don't mate with monkey but if their gene make a species look alike, why the same Chromosome in human can have different race and appearance? Aren't we all suppose to look alike?

Thank you for the findings. You’re resourceful. Now I remember that Killer bees are hybrid of the european honey bee and african bee.

At least, I found the probable motive behind SalahAdDin’s reasoning for creationism (see below), much to my dismay. Probably through the process of elimination, but I don’t see any causal hypothesis at issue, that any evidence against evolution leads to strong evidence for creationism. Furthermore, there are multiple other possible origin explanations have been suggested and discussed.

The physical changes in our species are superficial. Our genome is so close we are able to cross-breed without genetic loss. Its like a car with a lot of accessories like window tint, spoilers, mag wheels, twin turbo fuel injection and LCD player. No matter what you pile on, no matter what paint job or paint scheme or no matter how it looks totally different, it would still be the same make and model car that you can interchange crucial parts like engines and transmissions and the like. Anyway not interested to go further.

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Added on April 16, 2012, 7:02 pm

QUOTE

Evolutionists prove that getting a college education does not impart wisdom.

Besides, no one ever said going to college imparts wisdom. You go to college to get an education to get a higher paying job.

This post has been edited by norther: Apr 16 2012, 07:02 PM

Wrong. The chromosome count of 46 in humans is THE proof that evolution holds true after 150 years, and that we humans do indeed share common ancestors with the great apes.

This video explains it all:


This post has been edited by tester: Apr 16 2012, 09:07 PM

The number of chromosomes is the equivalent to the number of characters that you can send in an SMS. With the same space, you can transfer different kind of messages depending on the words that you use. That is the reason why you can have different apperances from the same number of chromosomes. The DNA contained in the chromosomes of a person is different from one person to another.

Tigers and lions can interbreed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiglon

Tiglon & Liger is artificially created by human like how human breed dogs, it wasn't natural or would not happen naturally and from different climate, is it enough to prove evolution? It doesn't explain why human look different in appearance compared to any animal species.

Animals don't need to look different or unique individually but why human does?

animals look different
you can't notice the difference doesn't mean that they all look the same.

The reasons are survival and sex.

Some of the differences contributes directly to survival. Human have managed to thrive on nearly every part of the world. The world consists of areas with different climate. It actually help in surviving different climates by providing protection. Skin color depends on melanin production. The page below should provide more information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin#Human_adaptation

In order to pass on your genes to the next generation, you need to mate with the opposite sex. If all the people around you have the same genes that allowed you to survive to sexual maturity, you need additional features that allows you to attract a mate. These features don't directly contribute to survival but it helps. A peacock's tail serve this purpose for peacocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock

Given that different societies have different standards for beauty, this can lead to a larger difference between different groups of humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness

It's in the eye of the beholder. You think humans look different because you're the one doing the looking.

When I was a kid, my parents raised chickens. About 50 of them. And I know each one by sight. To a city dweller, all chickens look alike. A chicken is a chicken. Especially if they're all white, they''ll be impossible to tell apart. But to a chicken, all humans look alike.

Second example. My mom says all black africans look alike. I think she has a point. They could be a bit hard to tell apart. But that is only because we grow up not seeing a lot of them. I'm sure they also say that all Asians look alike.

I suspect, it's not that humans look different individually. But as we grow up, our brains are wired to pick up certain cues to enable us to tell human faces apart. If you grow up in a farm with 100 sheep, you'll be able to tell sheep apart by sight as well.

Thanks for the explanations, I read about it long ago but think that human has more facial and physical variant than animal despite the race, African and aboriginal people are much closer to one another by majority and gave the impression of them looking alike (perhaps due to in-breeding).

Animal is much harder to tell, unless you have been observing them and each has its minor differences. If human rely on appearance to choosing mate, then it would be very disappointing to many because pretty and handsome are the minority regardless of race or perceptual standard Blame the chromosome.

Artist / designer has the ability to judge by sight and determine visual quality, movie role casting is a good example.

This post has been edited by 3dassets: Apr 17 2012, 11:23 PM

As a Case Study, the primary cognitive flaw that marks a belief system or behavior as denialism is moving the goalpost, or always demanding more evidence for a claim than is currently available. When that burden of evidence is met, then the goalpost is moved back further and even more evidence is demanded. As an example, SalahAdDin, who engages in evolution denial, or creationism in this forum section (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2176065/+1860#), claims that there is no evolutionary species in the genome descent mapping. He uses vagueness in defining the term evolutionary species to move the goalpost. (See key points below)

At first, it seems as if SalahAdDin means evolving a new species is scientifically impossible because there is no scientific evidence that a new species can change the number of chromosomes through the interbreed between two extant species or between a descendent species and its ancestor. When such examples are provided, he then moves the goalpost by changing the definition. He then demand specific evidence that if Human is really a new species descended from the Great Ape, then Human should have the same chromosome count as his ancestor, Ape, or the Ape at least, should exhibit a vocalized speech capability like its descendent, Human.

A simple DNA comparison should easily answer the question on whether we are descended from the same genetic pool that other great ape are from. The similarity is quite high.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics
Also from the same link above, the split between humans and the other great apes happened around 5 millions years ago. 2000 years is quite a small number when it comes to evolution.

Chromosome count does not really mean much. The highest known chromosome count from the list below is a species of fern at around 1200 chromosomes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_by_chromosome_count

Any reason why we can't be the first to come up with vocalized speech? The idea of evolution is new species with new features.

Vocalized speech can be considered as a tool. There are apes that are capable of using simple tools or ipads as the link below shows. So it is not without precedent.
Apps for apes: Orang-utans want iPads for Christmas