This guy is a 'traditionalist' and he is a wanker...

[BillHopkins]

Has a virus, in all this long conflict, ever become a non-virus?  No.  No evolution has taken place; only variance.

Is variance at odds with Tradition?  Absolutely not - it's commonly observable in various species.  Hell, before genetic theory, people may have believed that their bodies changed in fundamental ways as they grew older and wiser (which epigenetics may support?), which might allow for the progression - or regression! - of humanity, as well as other species of animal.  Edit: evolution, in contrast, allows only progression - no matter that we're almost universally morally reprehensible, unfit, self-absorbed idiots; because of evolution, we're advancing!  Things can only get better!

I don't know where you get a teleological reading of evolution from. This seems to be a straw-man argument. Evolution only holds that species will get increasingly sophisticed in terms of physical complexity as they adapt to their ecological and social environments.

[Cargést]

That's micro-evolution (Edit: it would be far better to call it variance, in all honesty; evolution too much suggests the divergence of species).  Clearly you aren't aware that evolutionists seek to account for the entirety of the variety of life on this planet through their theory.  This is at odds with the metaphysical notion that each species represents a certain form - which may or may not be manifested at any one point in time - that is distinguishable from all others, itself whole, perfect, and eternal.

[BillHopkins]

That's micro-evolution.  Clearly you aren't aware that evolutionists seek to account for the entirety of the variety of life on this planet through their theory.  This is at odds with the metaphysical notion that each species represents a certain form - which may or may not be manifested at any one point in time - that is distinguishable from all others, itself whole, perfect, and eternal.

I was addressing your point related to teleology in that post, not micro/macro.

Macro: when individuals in a new species move into a new area and the selection pressures change, evolution will drive that sub-population in a slightly different direction. Over time, when the two sub-populations can no longer breed with each other, they are called different spcies and evolutionary difference is then driven even more. I really think you should watch the full episode of that doco i posted.

[Cargést]

This can't happen, though.  The extent of their variation is in their genetic make-up - surely you know that if you try to breed too exclusively for certain traits, the generations become weaker, more susceptible to disease, and ultimately incapable of independent survival?  This is a fact that any animal carer knows, and yet it seems evolutionists are unaware of it.  Perhaps they should spend more time interacting with living things, and less time thinking about living things.

Edit: we are talking about micro-macro.  Our debate is about whether macro-evolution occurs, not micro-evolution.  Please keep up.

[BillHopkins]

This can't happen, though.  The extent of their variation is in their genetic make-up - surely you know that if you try to breed too exclusively for certain traits, the generations become weaker, more susceptible to disease, and ultimately incapable of independent survival?  This is a fact that any animal carer knows, and yet it seems evolutionists are unaware of it.  Perhaps they should spend more time interacting with living things, and less time thinking about living things.

Ok. I'll tell Rirchard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson and Stephen Jay-Gould to start spending more time interacting with living things, and less time thinking about them. I'll email them now (though i think Gould may be dead - at least we witnessed his 'transition' from moron homo sapien to educated human being).

I don't understand your point here, sorry. Can you expand? (I don't see how it is a point about macro-evolution)

[Cargést]

It's incredibly simple: an organism's progeny cannot diverge too far from the archetype of that organism; there is no place for such abberations in the divine plan (or whatever you want to call it, I'm just rubbing it in).  If there is such divergence, the animals suffer, they are incapable of surviving, they cease to procreate.  It happens every time somebody selects for a specific trait in dog, cat, horse, plant, fish, bird, insect, or whatever populations (except perhaps viruses?  That would be very interesting, especially given their apparent [instantial] simplicity, but the sheer number of individual forms they can take shows the single "Virus" to be a very complex Form).

[BillHopkins]

It's incredibly simple: an organism's progeny cannot diverge too far from the archetype of that organism; there is no place for such abberations in the divine plan (or whatever you want to call it, I'm just rubbing it in).  If there is such divergence, the animals suffer, they are incapable of surviving, they cease to procreate.  It happens every time somebody selects for a specific trait in dog, cat, horse, plant, fish, bird, insect, or whatever populations (except perhaps viruses?  That would be very interesting, especially given their apparent [instantial] simplicity, but the sheer number of individual forms they can take shows the single "Virus" to be a very complex Form).

But the divergence between two species is not an all-in-one jump. It is extremely small genetic modifications that are  selected and then reinforced over many millions of years. The new species doesn't happen all at once. Only when the two sub population can no longer interbreed.

[Cargést]

I'm talking about extremely small changes, not about macro-evolution.  You're trying to suggest that micro-evolution (variance) can account for macro-evolution (evolution between species), but it simply can't: beyond a certain point of specialisation, an organism's balance becomes lost, it becomes unfit for life, its progeny are weak and sickly.  These are not mad prophesies, but commonly known facts (or, at least, they were commonly known in less metropolitan civilisations).  In order to express certain genetic trends more strongly, others must suffer; ultimately this causes problems for the organisms involved.

Edit: that is, beyond a certain comfort zone, which we might understand through Tradition as being the limitations given to the species in accordance with their right and proper place/environment.  You can have white people and black people, but albinos are less suited to survival.  Imagine if you pushed albinism further - you'd have a complete failure of an organism on your hands, totally incapable of independent survival, being incapable of residing in the sun!  Or, perhaps, it might evolve into a subterranean offshoot of man, and the mole people shall ultimately rise to crush us all!

That last bit is about as vapid and moronic as your frequent quips about this that and the other cultural reference/blatant hypocrisy perceived on your part, etc.

Edit 2: congratulations, Bill.  You're convincing me that evolutionary theory is demonstrably false, or at least totally unfounded.

[BillHopkins]

Edit 2: congratulations, Bill.  You're convincing me that evolutionary theory is demonstrably false, or at least totally unfounded.

You're being a moron, again. Gee you're on a role in the last couple of days. If it's wrong, it's wrong. The fact you are more and more convinced that it's false is no skin off my back. I don't think you are justified in throwing out the whole ediface of evolutionary theory just yet because of 'overspecialisation':

I'm talking about extremely small changes, not about macro-evolution.  You're trying to suggest that micro-evolution (variance) can account for macro-evolution (evolution between species), but it simply can't: beyond a certain point of specialisation, an organism's balance becomes lost, it becomes unfit for life, its progeny are weak and sickly.  These are not mad prophesies, but commonly known facts (or, at least, they were commonly known in less metropolitan civilisations).  In order to express certain genetic trends more strongly, others must suffer; ultimately this causes problems for the organisms involved.

Edit: that is, beyond a certain comfort zone, which we might understand through Tradition as being the limitations given to the species in accordance with their right and proper place/environment.  You can have white people and black people, but albinos are less suited to survival.  Imagine if you pushed albinism further - you'd have a complete failure of an organism on your hands, totally incapable of independent survival, being incapable of residing in the sun!  Or, perhaps, it might evolve into a subterranean offshoot of man, and the mole people shall ultimately rise to crush us all!

That last bit is about as vapid and moronic as your frequent quips about this that and the other cultural reference/blatant hypocrisy perceived on your part, etc.

I would think that if a species is pushed too far into a specialised niche, and this is deleterious, then seleciton will obviously favour less specialised individuals again, and it will go back and forth.

[Cargést]

If that group of the species is the only one in its area, as per your model of divergence, then the species will be overrun by the natives, who are already apt to the area, though they may have been fed upon for a number of generations by the invader.  The original species, still unevolved, has varied a little over those generations, but is comfortable in its habitat.

I'm having a moment of joy that you're even less capable than I am of defending your position, even though we're still arguing on your grounds.  I should probably apologise, since that's not a good thing; I ought be more aware.  No offense intended, but I'm still waiting for anything that you might have to try and convince me, originally the sideliner, of your position - once I'm convinced, you can begin trying to convince Eleison, and, if that happens, we can accept that physicalism has won in this conflict of theories.

Edit: I'm not throwing out evolutionary theory, I'm throwing out the supposed evidence that you've given in support of it (and even one of the theoretical processes).  So far, there's nothing at all to convince me that evolutionary theory is correct, and a great deal to convince me that Tradition has it right as to the origin of species.  I was more convinced of evolution at the start of this, I must admit, but it's definitely swung the other way - I suppose I should thank you for helping me grasp this aspect of Tradition.

[BillHopkins]

If that group of the species is the only one in its area, as per your model of divergence, then the species will be overrun by the natives, who are already apt to the area, though they may have been fed upon for a number of generations by the invader.  The original species, still unevolved, has varied a little over those generations, but is comfortable in its habitat.

Again, I don't see how this fits into the dialectic. I'm sure it does, i just can't grasp it yet. Can you clarify?

[Cargést]

If the species does not successfully evolve into a new one - one sufficiently different from the old to be successful in its new habitat - it will die out.  If the habitat is such that the animal doesn't have to evolve into a new species, why would it evolve into a new species?  If a new set of behaviours is introduced, to which the animals in a certain area tend, and which they become more accustomed to over life and over generations, but for which the increase in the resultant genetic traits leads to problems in other areas, the animals must either abandon the behaviours - revert to normal? - or die out.  I'm not even taking literal interpretations of evolutionary theory, and it's not working.

If you would accept that at the point of being pushed too far, the species will revert to normal, then where is there any evolution occurring beyond mere variance?  There is now not even the acceptance of evolution; the idea that one species came from another is still not even supported.

Edit: following up on my notion on the limitations of variance, it seems that the only actual experiments conducted in attempts to prove cross-species evolution - those on fruit flies and those on e. coli - auggest that variation only occurs within certain limits, and that organisms approaching those limits become less apt for survival than their better balanced cousins.

[lost_wanderer]

Ah, so this is where I found Nasr - how absolutely wonderful, that the person who should introduce me to such an influence should be the person to whom I would gift such influence.

Bill, you must understand Tradition as progressing from the "internal" dimension of certitude to the "external" dimension of possibility, when it is dealing with what is.  As such, if a theory (a possibility) contradicts a certitude, the theory cannot obtain.  I'm withholding my position on evolution, because it is not yet complete; suffice it to say that to judge another's method by one's own is the solipsism you keep haranguing us about!

Your method assumes that what is external is real; ours assumes that what is internal must be real before anything external could have a hope of being so.  Going "within" oneself, certain universal truths are discovered, which might not only be counterintuitive, but might outright contradict the apparent nature of the "external".  Still, truth is truth, and it can be known to be so by the seeker.

Why the external is less real than the internal? I think the external is always true, it's just our interpretation with it who can be erroneous. Maybe it is the internal who is a possibility.

Can you explain more about the internal and the external? Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to understand it or my english is just not good enough.

[Cargést]

The external is certainly real, but it has reality only because the internal is real - as such, its reality is dependent upon a greater reality, to which we are nonetheless privy.

The internal is that which is fundamental to reality: the metaphysic, the blueprint, the singularity within which the potential for all existence is contained.  The external is the differentiated expression of this undifferentiated absolute; the shape, the shadow, the "illusion".  Of course the illusion is "real", in the same way that the film is "real"; it is an experiential phenomenon, though it is ephemeral, and so no single instance or collection of instances is universally "true" or "real".

[Tralfamadorian]

On the contrary, for the traditionalist, every species is an emanation of a metaphysical archetype

This smacks of anthropocentrism. Was every scientist whose ever identified a species been divinely inspired? Species names are mutable and can be revised. Does that mean whenever a species is re-categorized the 'metaphysical archetype' change as well?

Cargest, how do you explain how different species came into being here on planet earth? Magic? Like, "POOF! And then there were Bonobos!" ? C'mon. If wolves would've died off if their 'variances' became too great, then how'd the domestic dog come about? Do you realize how irrational and conceited you're being?

 Look, the theory of evolution isn't perfect, but it's all we got. Occam's razor dictates evolution is a better explanation than magic.

Anyways, I don't see how evolution violates Traditionalist principles at all, save for when zealot atheists use it as a way to slander the profound implications of Life. I mean, the Catholic church is fine with evolution, how are ya'll supposed Perennialists not?

EDIT: I'd like Conservationist to weigh in here. That guy seems pretty keen on natural selection.