Tree of life not real (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, February 16, 2014, 05:26 (3935 days ago) @ David Turell

Tony: Humor me. Call it a hypothetical situation where we actually look at the evidence and throw away the assumptions which we can not prove(and will never be able to prove).
> > 
> > To me, all that this does is show that complex and simple life have been living side by side for all epochs which we have reliable data for.
> 
> David: I'm still p;uzzled. You are going to have to define reliable data. I have travelled the Grand Canyon by raft with an internationally recognized expert on Canyon geology. At the time he was head of the geology department at U. Manitoba. I've seen the layers, heard about the aging. I have touched the Great Unconformity. Bacteria have been around for about 3.5 bilion years. There were no humans around at the time of the Vishnu Shist, two billion years ago, which I have also touched. So I don't know where you are taking me. Is your point that the aging techniques are not at all adequate?-
No, it was just a poorly worded question because I was pressed for time. My point is we do not have this gradual progression from less complex to more complex. Where complex creatures exist, they exist, with no obvious reliable precursors, and they exist alongside simpler forms already existed and did not grow significantly more complex. At least, we have no definitive evidence that one creature grew into a more complex one, only speculation. I am asking what happens to this train of thought if we remove the speculation about one organism metamorphosing into another organism, something which we have no definitive observations of, and simply look at the evidence for what it actually is instead of what we want it to be? Would our perception about the whole thing change?

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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.