Do patterns of phylogenesis show evolution?

[Difflugia]

Question for debate: Are the patterns seen in molecular phylogenies sufficient to show that biological evolution occurred?

For reference and easier Googling, the science of generating evolutionary trees is known as cladistics or phylogenetic systematics. Using DNA sequence data to generate the trees is molecular phylogeny.

The standard of evidence I'll be discussing is reasonable doubt. Even that's pretty broad, but if your argument hinges on "possible," you should be able to at least quantify that.

I've generated phylogenies using online tools previously and discussed them in this post. I tried to start a tutorial in this thread. If someone wants to discuss how to actually use the tools and data, feel free to ask questions in the tutorial thread and I'll pick it back up.

This debate question is a response to this comment.

[marke]

Christians are not compelled to disbelieve God simply because unbelievers have built a dating scheme that seems to disprove the Biblical record of God's creation of the universe. The entire old age secular dating megalith is built on the false assumption that the universe did not exhibit signs of old age from the very beginning. Had rocks been decaying for millions of years from day one? No, they just looked like they had according to unbelievers' scientific assumptions.

You seem to have missed this (Post 595): "You've inadvertently cited a paper that decisively refutes your beliefs."

My words have been shown to be true (Post 591):
"Let's be honest though, you would believe in a flat earth to protect the religious beliefs you currently hold if such a thing was required."

Marke: Yes, if the Bible said the earth was flat then as in every other instance in which science always harmonizes with the Bible the evidence would also show the earth is flat like a disc instead of round like a ball. However, neither the Bible nor the evidence shows the earth is flat like that. The earth is not flat like a disc although it would have been flat due to the accelerated rate of earth's rotation were the earth 4 billion years old.

[Clownboat]

The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

This is just a claim. A claim that is not accepted by scholars I note. So why do you make this claim? What is your justification for making it?

[Clownboat]

Christians are not compelled to disbelieve God simply because unbelievers have built a dating scheme that seems to disprove the Biblical record of God's creation of the universe. The entire old age secular dating megalith is built on the false assumption that the universe did not exhibit signs of old age from the very beginning. Had rocks been decaying for millions of years from day one? No, they just looked like they had according to unbelievers' scientific assumptions.

You seem to have missed this (Post 595): "You've inadvertently cited a paper that decisively refutes your beliefs."

My words have been shown to be true (Post 591):
"Let's be honest though, you would believe in a flat earth to protect the religious beliefs you currently hold if such a thing was required."

Marke: Yes, if the Bible said the earth was flat then as in every other instance in which science always harmonizes with the Bible the evidence would also show the earth is flat like a disc instead of round like a ball. However, neither the Bible nor the evidence shows the earth is flat like that. The earth is not flat like a disc although it would have been flat due to the accelerated rate of earth's rotation were the earth 4 billion years old.

So that is why you cited a paper that decisively refuted your beliefs? That doesn't even make sense.
As far as the earth being flat if billions of years old, it seems you now reject gravity too!

[The Barbarian]

Christians are not compelled to disbelieve God simply because unbelievers have built a dating scheme that seems to disprove the Biblical record of God's creation of the universe.

Again, your error is to assume that God made some comments about the age of the universe. Why not just accept scripture His way?

The entire young Earth revisionist dating megalith is built on the false assumption that the universe was created with faked evidence of old age from the very beginning.

This belief depends on the idea that God is appallingly deceptive. And for a Christian God is truth. I accept it His way.

Why won't you?

Marke: The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

Actually, there are two, contradictory genealogies for Jesus. They can't both be literally true. Which one do you think is right?

[marke]

The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

This is just a claim. A claim that is not accepted by scholars I note. So why do you make this claim? What is your justification for making it?

Marke: Scholars who recognize the lack of scientific proof to support assumptions about levels of radioactive decay elements in original matter can easily believe God created the universe with built in apparent age.

[marke]

Since radiometric test results rely on unverifiable assumptions about decay rates, among other variables, radiometric test results will always be tentative or debatable.

Since you asked Google AI, let's ask AI how trustworthy it is...
According to the Google spokesperson, in many cases when AI Overviews returns incorrect answers it's because there's not a lot of high-quality information available on the web to show for the query—or because the query most closely matches satirical sites or joke posts.

Hmmm... not so trustworthy, um?

Your AI source neglected isochrons, by which we can determine the initial state of the rock. Constant rate of nuclear decay is well-documented. I notice you didn't comment on the evidence I showed you for the reasons why radioactive decay remains constant.

If you can't even do the math, what makes you think you're right? I suppose AI might be helpful in some cases, but it's no substitute for knowing what one is talking about.

Marke: Isochron dating has its problems also.

https://phys.org/news/2017-01-paper-spo ... idely.html
Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
January 31, 2017

Paper spotlights key flaw in widely used radioisotope dating technique
by Matt Shipman, North Carolina State University

According to the actual paper, even very ancient rocks (which is where the errors would show up) would show errors that were tiny, but "not negligible."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.13182/NT16-98

Such errors would give no comfort to YE creationists. If the world was 5.0 billion years old, rather than 5.4 billion years old, it causes no problems for evolutionary theory, but is an unsolvable problem for YE creationists. You've inadvertently cited a paper that decisively refutes your beliefs.

Marke: The paper you claim refutes my claim has a major flaw that cannot be hidden. Isochron dating is worthless if science cannot determine which isotopes were present at the origin of the sample and in what degree.

[marke]

Christians are not compelled to disbelieve God simply because unbelievers have built a dating scheme that seems to disprove the Biblical record of God's creation of the universe.

Again, your error is to assume that God made some comments about the age of the universe. Why not just accept scripture His way?

The entire young Earth revisionist dating megalith is built on the false assumption that the universe was created with faked evidence of old age from the very beginning.

This belief depends on the idea that God is appallingly deceptive. And for a Christian God is truth. I accept it His way.

Why won't you?

Marke: The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

Actually, there are two, contradictory genealogies for Jesus. They can't both be literally true. Which one do you think is right?

Marke: The KJV Bible does not give contradictory geneologies for anyone.

[Clownboat]

The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

This is just a claim. A claim that is not accepted by scholars I note. So why do you make this claim? What is your justification for making it?

Scholars who recognize the lack of scientific proof to support assumptions about levels of radioactive decay elements in original matter can easily believe God created the universe with built in apparent age.

What the...?

Why do you make the claim that the Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus? No one on earth would consider this as being evidence for the age of the earth outside of some Christians that seemingly hold the Bible as their idol. Your claim is unjustified, yet you make it anyways and you don't seem to know why you make it. At least we found some common ground!

[marke]

The Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus and those records indicate a short time period from the creation to the present, contrary to the billions of years the unbelieving theorists imagine.

This is just a claim. A claim that is not accepted by scholars I note. So why do you make this claim? What is your justification for making it?

Scholars who recognize the lack of scientific proof to support assumptions about levels of radioactive decay elements in original matter can easily believe God created the universe with built in apparent age.

What the...?

Why do you make the claim that the Bible provides an accurate genealogy from Adam to Jesus? No one on earth would consider this as being evidence for the age of the earth outside of some Christians that seemingly hold the Bible as their idol. Your claim is unjustified, yet you make it anyways and you don't seem to know why you make it. At least we found some common ground!

Marke:
AI Overview
Learn more
Chronology vs. chronogenealogies: Is Ussher to blame?
The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century timeline of world history based on a literal interpretation of the Bible's Old Testament. It was created by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh.

[The Barbarian]

The KJV Bible does not give contradictory geneologies for anyone.[/b]

Well, let's take a a look...

Jesus’ genealogy is given in two places in Scripture: Matthew 1 and Luke 3:23-38. Matthew traces the genealogy from Jesus to Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy from Jesus to Adam. However, there is good reason to believe that Matthew and Luke are in fact tracing entirely different genealogies. For example, Matthew gives Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew traces the line through David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), while Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). In fact, between David and Jesus, the only names the genealogies have in common are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27).

There have been various attempts to dodge this problem, but they all come back to the same issue. Can't both be literally true.