The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Is this girl a product of evolution? You decide! (Video ok for all audiences)

http://www.vidmax.com/index.php/videos/view/209

No, I believe she is a hologram.

WTF kind of dumbass question is that?

I think you mean "they", not "she", and so on. ;)

I... don't... know...?

It's probably not that unlikely for things like this to happen, just a little duplicate command and a few nudges somewhere in the DNA. It's certainly a useful tool for mother nature, duplicate and mirror. Radial creatures would agree.

It would be cool with 4 arms... or maybe 2 arms and 4 tentacles... Squids can do awesome things with their tentacles.

Fortunately, to the dismay of many the stereotyper such as yourself, I don't hang my hat on an infallible designer. This seems more likely a genetic accident. Possibly the genetic degregation of the aboriginal, designed , DNA codes..?  ;)

Anyway, isn't this sort of mutation supposed to be the driving force behind evolution? I can see natural selection selecting for her/them (thnks Novus) over one headed humans.. After all, two brains are better than one, and she is kinda cute...Although there might be a problem in marriage, as any married, nagged out person could attest.

Then there is the problem of genetics, can she pass this to her offspring? Probably not. So is this really an evolutionary tool?

Oh, and by the way, I have yet to see a "tool" that wasn't built by a designer..

Wait, I'm confused. Are you stereotyping me?


Either way is possible I suppose.


I'm not sure what would give her an "edge" evolutionary speaking. I mean, selection pressure mostly affects situations where the mutation gives some sort of tangible advantage, such as running faster, seeing colour, or whatever. The two brains does seem to be offset by a natural clumsiness, which would negate her advantage from a purely survival based point of view. And Two brains doesn't (I assume), mean you're twice as smart, you might have two fairly average brains as well.

The video was interesting to watch though, thank you.


Hard to say without studying her genetic material. It might, although probably not.



In context, I do not understand. Are you saying that we are all bult by designers that you don't believe in?

Hard to say,

Is this a girl a product of evolution?

I don't see why not. Evolution tries every variation, and most of these variations are bad. Then they disappear, because they're bad.

She's not an end product, but nothing is.

That variations can be as extreme as this merely shows how powerful evolution can be. Small mutations -> big changes that can be dealt with.

I'm unable to watch this video at work (stupid blocking software!), but judging from the comments I've read thus far, I think I have a good idea what you're all seeing. This is the girl with 2 heads, right?

This is little more than a (somewhat atypical) case of conjoined twins, who could not be separated through surgery because they share vital organs (quite a lot of them in this case). Suffice to say, humankind has been familiar with this particular type of condition for centuries (though thankfully, we're mostly beyond the point where society would exploit those girls as sideshow freaks, or put them to death out of superstition). As I understand it, the clumsiness mentioned above stems from the fact that each head is in control of its respective half of the body; even walking is a monumental effort of coordination between essentially 2 individuals, sort of like being trapped in an eternal 3-legged race. I imagine that when the two disagree on what to do, they are at the very least literally paralyzed by indecision, and at worst, could get injured as they literally try to move in two directions at once.

What does this have to do with a "supreme designer," whether you're for or against the idea? Jack squat, really.

Yes, specifically the conjoined twins Abigail and Brittany Hensel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel), from a recent Learning Channel documentary.

I'm sorry, but this is not "Evolution" as you seem to think it is.

First off, two brains don't always mean better. Two brains means two people, which means two seperate opinions and thoughts on things, it doesn't mean jack if one is of a totally different mind-set, then they will find it hard to co-operate (I.E the whole Marriage issues.)

If it is a work of evolution, it sure has a strange way of working things, as we can see that the secondary twin isn't symetrical to the other, their neck is slightly tilted and positioned in such a way that the other can actually hamper the visual range.

(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060530/060530_arms_vlrg_6a.widec.jpg)

Something I find closer to the links of evolution involves that of a Chinese boy. He was born with a fully developed extra arm. There can be several uses to having an extra "tool," but the arm was developed in a way that the other arm was in pain, so they removed it.

Now, if you had four arms, boy, you could type a hell load faster, eh?

But I digress, there's a fine line between Evolution and Mutation, Evolution is a Mutation that is beneficial, Mutation is something that happens when a gene switched on or off, and often has a negative side effect.

Two heads aren't esentially better than one, especially if it hampers their life in any way.

(http://members.cox.net/alleah/craniopagus%20parasiticus%2010.jpg)

Uh... Maybe?


I understand one limb was useless as well so this doesn't bode well for evolution imo. Can you give any more links to the chineese baby, a name maybe?

Ok, how about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyly

"Range of motor skills in these extra digits is hard to chart given the rarity of the condition, but cases have varied. In some cases, the extra digit has no joints in the bone and thus is completely immobile, in other cases the extra digit has limited dexterity, and some cases have been reported in which an extra finger was fully functional, and indistinguishable from the rest of the fingers."

Is this evolution perhaps?

It would be if your survival depended on playing a piano, however without any selective preassure on this feature, it will keep comming and going.

I'm not sure if you're using these cases in an attempt to question the validity of evolution in a roundabout fashion, or if you are genuinely confused to as how evolution works and are merely looking for clarification. If you are doing the first, it is annoying and displays a lack of understanding regarding the subject you criticise. If you are doing the second, it is slightly worrying as you claim to have studied evolution carefully before discarding it, but I'll be happy to try and clarify any questions you have.

As for the lady (ladies?) with two heads, I have a slightly different quesiton in mind. For
those of you who believe in souls, would Ashley & Brittney have one soul (as in
one soul per body) or two souls (two heads/minds/personalities)?

Natural selection, according to Darwin, is supposed to scrutinize the slightest variation and fine tune even the smallest change. Thus we get say, the complex innerworkings of the human ear. But are there not many biological features we observe in nature that do not have any concievable selective pressure to select for them?

For example what selective pressure would select for a human brain over any animal brain? What selective pressure would make a spider grow silk organs? What selective pressue would make an orchid flower produce the exact chemical compound to sexually excite a male wasp (and mimic the colors of the female)? Why is so much bio energy poured into sex organs and complex sexual behaviors in the first place? Wouldn't asexual animals be much more efficient.


Luki, not to worry man, I'm just trying to spark some interesting conservation, nothing more. When I first saw the twin video I was curious if this meant anything in evolutionary terms and from an evolutionist point of view.

I have yet to see one of these so called "beneficial mutations", which , as I understand it in evolutionary theolo.. err philosophy, to be a crucial and important part of the evolutionary process. The closest I've gotten is bacterial resistance to antibiotics. But all be darned if those e-coli bacteria aren't still e-coli bacteria after the mutation.. And the resistant strain can't even compete with the original, non-resistant strain, when the antibiotic selection pressure is removed.


I'd say 2 souls. I believe the soul is or is inside the brain.

This is a misconception. Mutation provides variation. Selection knocks off those things which do not work. For things that are not critical to survival, a great deal of variation can occur. For things that are critical to survival, a rapid optimization takes place. This latter case is the case Darwin was speaking of.

Oh, maybe the ability to plan? We didn't get where we are by being extremely stupid.


These comprise a mixture of you ignoring a well-known and fairly obvious reason for selection to favor something, with some cases where it is not entirely clear which mechanism came into play, but it is clear that there are mechanisms which could work. In neither case is there 'no conceivable reason'.


Yes. it means that mutations can be very big, yet not be fatal (if this actually is due to a mutation, that is). Big mutations will most often be bad things. However, a nearly arbitrarily large number of bad mutations are no problem for evolution, since they'll be pruned away. On the very rare occasion of a good large mutation, everything jumps ahead in a big way. On the much more common occasion of a good small mutation, everything jumps ahead in a little way.

:P

Two points.
First, consider my toes. Two of them are webbed together. This was a fresh mutation, originating in my father. He passed it to me. This has had no disadvantages, and may have made me slightly faster at swimming. If this sort of mutation were to occur to a creature whose life depended on swimming, this mutation could be a life-saver. And that's an issue of body morphology, which, when such mutations are compounded upon each other, should clearly produce large changes... things that would be recognizably different.

Second, it's hard to recognize good mutations in the wild because we do not generally genotype everyone/everything. The really bad fatal mutations stand out even in animals of unknown heritage because it's clear that that could not have been a trait of either parent. For good mutations, there is generally nothing to so recommend it. How do we know that trait wasn't around before?


Optimized for one situation is not the same as optimized for ALL situations. This is in fact a major point of Darwin's.

Also, species lines are very blurry in many cases. It is a mistake to get too hung up on what we call a creature.

(edited to finish a sentence which had been left dangling)

Having six fully-functional fingers would be kinda nice. Having an extra pair of arms with six-fingered hands (fully functional, naturally) would be even nicer.

I'm wondering what eventual goal evolution/God (whichever you prefer) has in mind for the human animal. We're vastly more intelligent in so many ways than other creatures, just to start off with. We have so many more functions in our brains than others. But why?

I suppose it's because we evolved from an underdog species (not apes, they branched off.) which were (I can't find the name for it as I've misplaced the book I found the fact in, the "Book of General Ignorance") a species of " squirrels, which might have been prey animals, we might of had to evolve our brains to survive.

Of course, there's Cetacean intelligence too, they show most traits of Human wisdom, but don't have the tools to manipulate their environment :S.

Exactly. And what selection pressue evolves these complex brain functions? Certianly song and language isn't a life or death nesescity. Are emotions important to species survival? Many animals seem to be doing just fine without mathematics. etc.

Evolutionists often make much of the fact that much of ape DNA is somewhere around 95% the same as human DNA. But that difference gives us Mozart, Plato, Shakespear, Einstien etc. Apes also lack the fine motor control humans have with their fingertips.

I don't think we're that much smarter, there are animals that can compete with human kids. We may have computers, cars and fancy things, but it has taken quite a long time for use to come up with that stuff. Our prowess comes from being able to save, transfer and accumulate information. Being able to trade services helps a lot too, because this allows the existence of individuals with peak skills that don't have to waste time on foraging/hunting or whatever.

I think we just got over a threshold. Barely! Also remember that there are still tribes that run around throwing spears. If I had my memory erased and then were dumped on some isle, I might come up with the concept of somehow attaching a pointy or heavy thing on a staff. This is a tad better than the apes and monkeys who merely use branches as weapons, but not vastly better. I wouldn't be all that different from other large animals.

I would guess that once we arrived at the threshold, groups which were able to communicate were greatly favoured by natural selection. With communication comes a lot of bi-products too.

Language allows us to communicate and coordinate our actions, warn eachother of danger, pass on knowledge... please, it doesn't take much thinking to come up reasons why it would improve your survival chances.

Yes music seems to be useless when it comes to survival, but it might be just a side effect of other brain functions evolving.


Of course they are!
Fear, sadness, anger, hapiness, love... they make us evade things that are bad for us, do away with them, or draw us closer to things that are good for us.


Really? You think most animals have absolutely no concept of numbers?
Please think of  the implications that would have.


Rewind a couple of tens of thousands of years.
From an evolutionary point of view, we were exactly the same as we are now, but other then that we're barely distinguishable from other animals.
It wasn't  a giant evolutionary leap that gave us those artists, philosophers, and scientists, it was millenia of passing on knowledge.
As far as evolution goes, the change was most likely small and gradual increase in analitical thinking. You'll notice that our evolutionary cousins, or other animals like dolphins, exhibit this ability as well, but to a lesser extent.

Interesting question. I'd say two souls, one per mind. Of course, that raises the question of schizophrenic persons. If their secondary personalities are evolved enough, do they also have souls?


So in other words, despite the fact that you during the last two long threads on evolution pointed out several times that you've intensely studied both evolution and ID, you are still fumbling with some fairly basic evolutionary concepts. This seems a tad depressing.


This is another thing I don't quite get. I understand that ID is important to you and that you find it interesting and probable. I can tell that from the way you will derail any thread where it is even causally mentioned in an offhand manner (The Jack Chick thread, Geomans thread over at SCDB). You don't like people making fun of it, we get it. But yet, at the same time as a small comment on how ID is unscientific will set you off in defensive mode and compel you to set things straight, it is completely acceptable for you to call evolution a theology or dogma. It seems like a tad of a double standard. This however is beyond the scope of the current argument.


This is one of the things that has been mentioned again and again and again and again, but you still seem to not quite grasp it. Evolution does not mean that everything is completely optimized, streamlined to the finest degree, tuned to perfection. No one is making that claim but you. Variation due to mutation can flourish unfettered, as long as said mutation doesn't actively harm the mutatees ability to compete in critical functions.

Deaths toe is an awesome and simple example which I intend to use for this from now on until eternity, thanks for that. It is also a demonstration  of how a trait can have different effects at different times. For example, in a simplified version we have:

• Death_999, present day. Webbed toe means nothing. It's passed on locally within his family, and neither hinders nor helps him.
• Death_999, the beach monkey who enjoys seafood. Better ability to swim means more mates, trait is passed on much more quickly through the population as anyone who has it has an innate advantage.
• Death_999 the newborn in medieval Europe. Webbed toes indicate a close connection with Satan. Baby is drowned in exorcising effort. Mutation is obviously not good for survival and doesn't get passed on.

Also worth to think on. Assume this two armed woman does carry the mutation in here genes. Assume it is a dominant trait, and that when she gives childbirth, the child looks just like her. Assume that these two-headed people turn out to be pretty damn good at  surviving after the oil crash of 2016 rips our world asunder. Two heads allows them to keep a vigilant lookout for enemies while gathering food or whatnot. Because this is an advantage, there will slowly be more and more twoheaded people in the sad cold world post apocalypse. In 3032, after the rejuvenation of mankind, RTyp3000 posts



This is a very good point. Our ability to store information is what gives us such power. If five of us, even with the knowledge we have now, were stripped and placed on an island, we wouldn't be able to just construct an utopia. If we were mindwiped at that, we'd be feral. Look at children who have grown up without much human contact. They're hardly superior to animals in any form or shape, even though their brain is bigger.

Excellent points. However I'm not disputing reasons it would inprove our survival, I'm asking what selection pressures would push us into developing language through evolution. Language is a complicated process envolving our lungs, vocal chords, memory capacity etc.. And sure our unique brains give us great works of art and science but it also gives us great destructive powers. Hitler, Pol Pot, Napolean etc. It is perhaps our big brains that may ultimately be our undoing.


How does anger aid us? And imagine if we didn't have the ability to control our anger? Just the difficulties of rasing a child might be a monumental task without wisdom and anger control.. Love and lust are very different, Our species could easily carry on without love as long as we desire the opposite sex. And what of lust? If it is just an animal, chemical attraction, then whay are we not incestual creatures having sex with parents and siblings? This by itself is amazing if you think about it. Of The higher order of animals, incest avoidance is the norm, and genetically important.



No I don't. At least nowhere near our mathematical capacity. And even if they did, how would this aid in survival? Without mathematics we probably couldn't build much beyond a grass hut. And is building beyond a grass hut esential to our survival? I think not.



Elephants, Dolphins, Apes are impressive creatures howerever I don't see us as being "slightly" better cognitively. In evolutionary terms we are lightyears ahead of these animals.


I disagree. Our ability to build even the crudest tools is far beyond the capability of any animal. Animals can use simple objects as a tool, ie. ape uses stick in ant hole, beaver builds a lodge from trees. But we have the ability to conceptulize and see an end product in our mind from a variety of raw materials. Our problem solving skills go far beyond just utilizing a single raw material.


I never said I knew everything about evolution and I'm not "fumbling" with anything. I'm curious about mutations such as conjoined twins, extra digits, even the brain of savants and what they may or may not mean in evolutionary terms. Please explain how this is fumbling with basic concepts.

If evolution cannot give us a useable extra digit on our hands and feet due to neutral changes, how am I supposed to accept that evolution can give us the fine tuned organs and bones, placed in a complex and contrived manner that are involved in hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, blood clotting, respitory functions, nervous systems, digestion etc?


You can make fun of whatever you like. I don't believe I have ever derailed anybody? Yes I did interject my thoughts on the matter at hand in previous threads, but isn't that what a disscussion board is all about? It is true that I regard much of evolutionary theory as being in the same vein as a religious belief simply because of the grandious claims made by evolutionists and the lack (or at least the very flimsy) evidence. Thus, believing a land mammal entered the sea and evolved into a whale becomes a matter of faith rather than any true scientific observation imo. That doesn't mean I reject evolution entirely. Common ancestory and natural selection are a reality. But as the driving froce behind macroscopic changes, I simply have doubts.

Also, As I have said many times before, I'm not against the prospect of evolution, just the claimed mechanisim for driving it. And, please, I do not wish to discuss ID. Let's focus on evolution here.

BTW, I appreciate everyone's perspective and input..

One other thing.. This may be an "awesome and simple example ".. that is until you try to reconcile the details. It's easy to speak in general terms, but what would it take to evolve a webbed foot? First you have to have the new genetic information.. Where did that come from? Is a webbed foot a simple one or two point mutation to DNA? Doubtful.

Ok so now we have a webbed foot. This new genetic information has to happen in a meaningful place where it can be passed to offspring. So the mutaion has to happen in the sex cells, egg or sperm, decreasing the odds greatly. Just those two things alone is a daunting and highly unlikely event. Now the webbed foot has to offer a distinct advantage to become incorporated into the human genome. Now you have 3 unlikely events.

Then add on that the webbed foot can't be too small (useless) or too big (a hinderance). A 300 lbs. webbed foot would probably be a hinderance and detremental to the individual.
That's 4 unlikely events.

This is for just one new human feature. Then you have to figure that every biological feature a human has evolved in this manner?

To me this rules out accidental or random mutation. At least to some degree.

Just to be clear, I'm going to be using "evolved" in a lot of sentences here. That does not imply that I believe that this is the one holy truth or any such things, just that it is the most probable theory.


I think you're looking at it in a slightly skewed fashion. I mean, it seems your starting with the assumption that language just popped into being one day, like our two-headed friend. All those things you list as prerequisite for language are also prerequisites for earlier thing. You need good lungs in order to be able to hunt, swim, run and all manner of physical activities. Most animals can make noise of one sort or another. Chance mutations that increase your vocal range could be very beneficial just for mimicry, let alone mating calls and such. A good memory allows you to remember where you buried your acorns in the fall. So basically we didn't evolve all these things for the specific ability of language, we evolved them because they were useful for other survival in other ways. Then those who managed to string together a language became superior to those who couldn't.


On a long-term evolutionary scale, yes. In 1 million years it may well turn out that humanities intelligence was both our power and undoing. But that's evolution for you. It adapts what fits the situation best, it doesn't guarantee it'l always be the best. Just ask the dinosaurs :)


Not being very adept at these things, isn't anger a way of kickstarting adrenaline production? It might prove a very large advantage when fighting for females if you can draw on a surprise reserve of strength.


Then we don't get to mate and/or our offspring doesn't survive very well. The problem corrects itself. there are people like that out there already.


It might not be as advantageous for the offspring if their parents didn't care about them. There are creatures that take these path as well, and survive just fine. Love might be something that gives us an extra edge.


This is actually one of those instincts that are fascinating. I once watched a documentary that claimed that people are in general more attracted to those with a different accent, precisely because of the biological desire to avoid cross insemination. Animals might have similar instincts based on smell or some other minute appearance. From an evolutionary standpoint I suppose you could say that those who didn't have any inhibitions about mating with close kin were weeded out when their offspring died from genetic problems. The hows and whys are still a good question though, that we really can't answer.


Nowhere near our mathematical capability is still very different from "doing fine without it".


Assuming you mean "even if they have some ma thematic capability", not "even if they were close to our ma thematic capability", there are plenty of things they could conceivably do with basic mathematics. Keep track of how many children they have for example, in case one falls out of the nest.


Depends on where you live. this is where environmental pressure comes in. Around the equator I'm sure you'd do fine, but up here in Finland you'd freeze pretty quick.


Really? I understand that dolphins and monkey can often be compared intelligence wise to small children. And a human reared to adulthood in a jungle somewhere isn't that much ahead of them. Yes, there is a difference. But how large is it really?


I think that Arne meant that without the knowledge in his brain that comes directly from being part of civilisation, he might be able to conceptualise far less than he does now. Sure, if you and I were dropped on an island, we'd be pushing over trees and building canoes in no time. I'm sure we'd be able to carve out a nice little island paradise before being forced to flee from the gigantic monkeys. But if we arrived there with amnesia, no memory of the world or any object created by man? I suppose it's all a mental exercise, but I wonder if we'd be able to accomplish much without standing on the shoulders of giants.


Then perhaps my memory fails me. I could have sworn that, during the last thread on this topic, you stated several times that you had read a lot about both evolution and ID before making the decision that ID seems more reliable.  Assuming that my memory is in fact correct, qurestions such as:


Which Death_999 answered very well and


equally well answered are fairly basic points. Evolution does not streamline things that aren't essential in some way, and it does not mean that once evolved, you will always stay on the top of the food chain no matter what.


Your acting as if the key point of evolution is the addition of fancy bling-bling. There are people who have neutral mutations (such as Detahs feet) that work well or semi well. If an extra digit suddenly became a key factor in success (say packs of roving aliens eat people, but not if they have six fingers),  those few born with such a mutation would start becoming much more common. But there is nothing to gain in a extra digit.

You also seem to assume that these changes need to be instantaneous. If someone has a mutation that adds a crappy semi functioning sixth digit, that doesn't mean there can't be well functioning ones. Myabe his grandsons grandsons will have another small mutation, and come out with a much better functioning sixth digit. Or maybe he'll simply lose the extra digit. It all depends on what is beneficial and what just is.


You are free to do whatever you want of course. I'm simply pointing out the disrepancy between your (admittedly small) barbs at evolution and your vehement demand that ID be recognised by any and all. Surely the golden rule should be guiding you?


I'm unsure on what grounds you can discredit their evidence as flimsy when you are currently asking about some very basic tenets of their discipline. That would be like me dismissing string theory as flimsy and silly and then continuing by asking "So.. these strings. They tie together?".


Then by all means, let us delve deeper into the subject! Perhaps the mechanisms you object to are not exactly the same as the mechanisms that exist, and a discussion will bring  fruitful results.


But I thought that's what a discussion board was for? Interjecting ones thoughts onto matters at hand? ;)

No, it is probably a throwback from early genetic memory of what we used to look like. That in itself implies that we once used to have webbed feet, and thus probably looked different from now. Your alternatives here are either

1. It is a simple mutation in a gene or two, so small neutral mutations are possible.
2. A small mutation has caused old genetic code to be reinitialized. If we actually carry around code for webbed feet, we have  probably had them at some point. This implies that we've evolved from a creature with webbed feet.


In the sperm probably, if both him and his father has it. Lucky we produce a lot of those little bugger eh? The odds of the "right" one hitting the mark is low of course, but consider how many instances of impregnation happens, and we can overcome that hurdle. It still wont be common, but it will happen.


No, it doesn't. Again, look at Death. The foot offers NO advantage, but he still has it, as does his father. this is the part you seem to be overlooking still. It doesn't have to bring and advantage, as long as it doesn't bring a DISadvantage.

That would again be the same, it mustn't be a disadvantage.


I count, mutation in sex cell (1) and no disadvantage (2). Taking into account how many lifeforms we have on the planet, even with the odds badly against it such mutations will happen.


Well, not really. A lot of our features are the same as those of our semi-close ancestors. Eyes, ears, fingers, tongue, and so on. There isn't really that much unique in a human, other than the brain.


So the fact that Death has a webbed toe rules out the possibility that millions of accumulated mutations during billions of years of varying selective pressure could alter his physical appearance and internal organs enough to make him something other than human? I would have thougth it would go the toher way.

This whole thread is a double standard.  RType06 was blatantly flamebaiting and the response he's received has been more than fair.  I can't believe RType has the gall to post a mockery of evolution (or a strawman version of it) after his arguments on evolution/ID have already been trounced over and over and over and over again back on the comic booklets thread.

RType...bring up the subject when you have something new.  Otherwise, just shut the hell up.

He may have "answered it well" but I think he is mistaken, here is why:


From the origin of Species by Charles Darwin:

"It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapses of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were. "

Also:

"To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants. And such new places will depend on slow changes of climate, or on the occasional immigration of new inhabitants, and, probably, in a still more important degree, on some of the old inhabitants becoming slowly modified, with the new forms thus produced and the old ones acting and reacting on each other."

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html


I'm not assuming that the changes need to be instantaneous, just that new information MUST be ADDED somwhere along the evolutionary process. Wether it's adding it to our nematode ancestor's  genome or generated more recently..To me there needs to be a bit more than random changes, additions and repeats of existing genetic codes for novel new information to be formed. And this novel new information is essential to evolution, otherwise we would not evolve beyond a single celled organism imo.


"your vehement demand that ID be recognised by any and all."

C'mon, Aren't we being a bit dramatic here? ;)

I think you don't really grasp the timescales and the amount of mutations involved...
I don't claim to grasp 'em myself, but moth are immense. :)

Keywords in your post are: IMO, to me
Keyword in my post: I think

P.S
Darwin's theory is a product of his time, and thus seems somewhat restricted from our perspective. Shouldn't take it too literally, many ideas still have a point there.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactyly)
At about 16 weeks of gestation, apoptosis takes place and an enzyme dissolves the tissue between the fingers and toes, and the webbing disappears. In some fetuses, this process does not occur completely between all fingers or toes and some residual webbing remains. The exact cause is not known. In cases, this condition appears to be hereditary.

So in this case the webbing is there from the start, then removed. Some other webpage told me this happens every thousand births or so. There seem to be both merge and duplicate functions. Not hugely surprising, but interesting. It's a bit like procedural modelling. You make a basic part, then you duplicate, rotate or whatever, and apply more changes after that. You don't model each part from scratch.

It's also interesting how the body (of a baby) is constructed by things shutting on and off, regulators, splitters, mergers, timers, you can't really tell what's it's gonna be until it's finished. There's scaffolds, placeholders, strange alien stuff. It's not a small human getting larger and larger, just like a painting isn't painted like a printer prints it or a harddrive saves it.. This also reminds me of procedural modelling.

Apoptosis (Greek: apo - from, ptosis - falling; commonly pronounced with a silent second p[1]) is a process of deliberate life relinquishment by a cell in a multicellular organism. It is one of the main types of programmed cell death (PCD), and involves an orchestrated series of biochemical events leading to a characteristic cell morphology and death. The apoptotic process is executed in such a way as to safely dispose of cell corpses and fragments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

Arne, I'm glad you brought this up because embryology is fascinating. My understanding is that when a baby's hands are being formed it is not "webbing" as you call it, but instead , the hands start out as flaps of tissue. Then ,programmed cell death etches out between the fingers and the bones of the hand start forming. What evolutionary "tool" brought programmed cell death into play? This also goes for temporary scaffolding structures such as the placenta and umbilical chord) that are used for a purpose then discarded when no longer needed.

For me, it is very difficult to imagine evolution producing programmed cell death. Especially when you consider how perfected the process is during fetal development (at least the vast majority of the time).

Also, in sort of  the same vein as PCD, I read that white blood cells not ony attack foriegin invaders in the body, but non functioning or damaged cells will emit a chemical signal so that white blood cells will remove them. Did a lucky random mutation(s) really bring this about millions of years ago?


Intereseting indeed.

There has been a couple of papers written on this, atleast that's what google tells me when searching for

programmed cell death evolution
site:www.nature.com programmed cell death evolution

I know little of these processes, and I'm not gonna plow through those papers... but my hunch is that many tools like the ones I've mentioned were made early, and even if an asteroid slammed into us, a lot of the work nature has done would not be lost as long as some smaller lifeforms survive.

Anyways, I guess the point of my posts in this thread are that great complexity can come from much simpler functions, whether it's cultural or biological. I just wanted to point out that one mustn't judge the finished painting, but the complexity... (or maybe 'information') needed to produce it. Nature probably isn't too keen at having to come up with more tricky stuff than what's needed.

I wonder how adreniline and testosterone evolved. And what if it had evolved 10% , 50% stronger or weaker....?

Or if controlled by the amount a species has, what if we had 50% more? Less?

50% more Hitlers .. 50% more Gahndi and Mother Theresas? Would we all be hippies and hang around camp fires singing cum-by-yah(sp)? ;)

Hitler's power was enabled by technologies and a social structure that we haven't had for that long though.

There's a section here called "November 14, 2006: Technology, history and destiny"
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/

I haven't listend to all yet, but it's interesting how it was mentioned just how sub-optimal the human construction is. It's merely good enough, there's no pressure for anything more. Rapid technologal growth would enable us to step over that threshold and transcend into... something.

Today there are geeks that optimize code into just a few lines just to see how far they can push it. Maybe in the future they'll see how much of our junk DNA they can toss away, and still end up with a human (probably far more optimal than 'pre-transcendence' humans). That would truly be Intelligent Design.

This is not evolution.
Early in the development stage it is not uncommon that the cell cluster splits in two. This usually leads to identical twins. What also happens a lot is that the split cell clusters remerge and you only get one person. Conjoined twins like this happen if something goes wrong with the remerging process.

This is developmental and has nothing to do with DNA or evolution.

Yes you are right. Hitler was a coward anyway. 


I watched both the Kevin Kelly and Ray Kurzweil videos. These guys are excellent at comparing technological advances and evolution. Thanks for the link.

I have one glaring problem that neither discuss at all though. Technological advances are  true evolution. For example, the cars we drive today are directly taken from lessons learned in previous models that can clearly be traced back to primitive vehicles. Steam cars and model T's etc.. Technological evolution is indeed fact.

Biological evolution. First It does indeed look like *some* animals are advanced forms of previous animal forms, but not always. Trilobites for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilobite), one of the oldest and most widespread animal fossils around the world, have biological features that are just as advanced as anything alive today. I read a while back one species had 15000 crystal lenses in it's eyes.

Second. All human made technology  has advanced through intelligence. Sure we use trial and error in some cases to see what might work and what might not, but we intelligently choose between them. Since nature can't intelligently choose features and only selects for  an advantage of some sort, we should see all kinds of useless biological artifacts that are neutral in survival terms and this doesn't seem to be the case. Instead we see perfection and optimization that nearly mirrors technilogical advances.

Darwin, On the Origin of Species,Chapter 9: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record
: "But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.



More and more we are finding that "Junk" DNA  has uses. Latent effects and regulatory roles are the most common thus far.

I don't think this is true. There are more faulty states than working ones. With just random mutation, things would surely go downhill. Natural selection can push things upwards... but with no foresight it's not very good at optimizing beyond what the environment requires. Also, it tends to get stuck on smaller local peaks on 'mount improbable'. It does not understand that one might have to go down for a bit in order to reach another higher peak later.

We're not that far up on 'mount improbable' yet, but I think technology gives us a vastly better climbing tools than what regular evolution offers, such as foresight, an easy way to truly 'irreducably complex' constructions. I suspect that in the next 100 years we might climb further than evolution has brought us in 3 550 000 000 years. And even if God made us, we'll still make his work look like that of a dabbling amateur.

Ok , fair enough. You, Luki and others do not see near perfection in biology where I do. Thinking about it, our differing opinions here really don't matter so let me ask you this:

When you see an automobile, a TV set, a circuit board or any other human made technology do you see a chance assembelage of parts?

Then, when you see biological structures such as a human hand, the eye, the digestive system, or the delicate bones of the inner ear do you see a chance assembelage of parts in each?

I see intention and purpose in both examples. Thus I logically deduce that somthing more than random, chance mutation is responsible for these biological systems. To me, the only true similarity between human technology and biological "technology" is that they are both built and manufactured. Human Technolgy is built by factory workers following a blueprint. Biological technology is built by microcellular "machines" that follow a DNA blueprint. Quite litterally.

No.
These are tools made to be used by humans.

No.
This brew needs natural selection and inheritence. The 'purpose' is effective self-replication.


However, in both cases, chance may dictate the general route because of butterfly effects.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/index.html

Check out this PBS series about the human brain. I highly recomend the 3D brain map and the episodes. (The mind illusions and explanations are pretty cool too). Seeing this, I'll bet even the most hardcore evolutionist amongst us will have at least a slight tinge of doubt to a naturalistic, chance chemical origin and evolution of this amazing organ.

Absolutely fascinating.

If you throw a truckload of tennis balls down a mountain, it's a matter of chance what route they are going to take, but it is no miracle that most of them end up somewhere at the bottom.

Chance can produce organised results, as long as there is some property driving it, whether it's "distance to the centre of the earth" or "fitness to survive".
Note that the balls don't know where they're supposed to end up.

It's the aliens! [/jerking around]

Seriously.

Let us assume that it is God (or whoever) controlling evolution. Fine, cool. We designed cars to move us around, and have been improving on the basic design for over 100 years to move us around more efficiently, more cleanly, and so on. The end result is that you can compare a 1899 model car to a 1999 model car. See any similarities, apart from the presence of an engine and four wheels? Quite. The purpose remains the same, though - transport.

I think it is safe to assume that God has some eventual goal in mind for humanity, even if it is only as an evolutionary testbed.

Now let us assume that evolution is a self-controlled thing. WHAT GOAL IS EVOLUTION WORKING TOWARDS? Creating Gods?

Evolution is a competitive thing, survival of the species. Evolution allows a species to develop an edge, increasing said species' odds of survival in a system in which several species compete. Every species develops along a certain path to take advantage of a niche. Humanity removed itself from the niche thing aeons ago, thanks to [developing] the intelligence needed to develop science and then apply it.

We have rendered our physical environment less of a factor than it was when we were still banging rocks together to keep warm. TRANSLATION: instead of us adapting to our environment, we adapt our environment to us. So we have taken some of the pressure off evolution/God i.t.o. physical, but what about cerebral?

The only answer I can think of is transcendance. Either the Creator is creating fellow Creators, or the universe is preparing to spawn a God.

[and if the collective human race is/becomes God, I turn atheist]

This is what my rather limited view can contribute. I just hope it was a breath of fresh air and not a stale brainfart...

A self-contained evolutionary drive is not working toward any goal at all; it's a natural force. Personifying "evolution" is like personifying "gravity" or "tectonic shift." Are these forces working towards any goal? I should think that nobody would suggest that they are (go ahead, prove me wrong).

Attempting to ascribe human motivations to the natural world is a dangerous trap, and is at the core of logical fallacies like ID. Natural forces aren't striving toward some future objective, they simply exist.

Why does evolution need a god to control it?

Way to go!  Argument from astonishment....no, we haven't seen you do that before....

Well call me crazy but when I read stuff like:

The mystery begins in the womb -- only four weeks into gestation the first brain cells, the neurons, are already forming at an astonishing rate: 250,000 every minute. Billions of neurons will forge links with billions of other neurons and eventually there will be trillions and trillions of connections between cells. Every cell is precisely in its place, every link between neurons carefully organized. Nothing is random, nothing arbitrary.


...It's difficult to ascribe a naturalistic force such as "gravity" or "tectonic drift" producing this.

So if I were to use Meep's tennis ball analogy when describing evolution, I'd have to say the balls rolled down the hill and organized themselves into, say, the shape of the Ifel Tower.

I notice a trend for natural evolutionists to describe evolution in vauge and simplistic, trivial  terms. Somthing that life itself is neither. Life from the simplest cell on up is specific and complex.

Also, I personally would never claim that evolution needs a god, just somthing more than chance and natural selection. People seem to forget that natural selection can only work AFTER the chance phisiological change, so one would think natural selection can't really drive anything in any particular direction.

Arne talked about a need in animals to evolve to an ever changing enviornment.. A need to survive. I don't disagree. But what could possibly establish such a need? Does this seem like a naturalistic force of nature such as wind, gravity etc.?

Evolution is definetly magical, and its amazing, but that doesn't mean it can't be random.

Ok, let me give this another try.
(1) chance mutations go in all directions, some are for the worse, some for the better
(2) natural selection culls out the individuals that are worst suited for their environment, leaving the better ones
(3) the result of 1 and 2 is that given
      (a) a high enough reproduction rate (so that there are enough good changes),
      (b) the existence of changes for the better, and
      (c) enough time
      the average population will be better suited for their environment

Now why do you think natural selection can't really drive anything in any particular direction? What step of my reasoning is wrong? And I'm explicitely asking you to point out what is wrong in my reasoning. I don't want another example of how complex life really is, or how all other complex stuff has been designed. Just give me a straight answer to my question, please. What is wrong, and why is it wrong? If you're going to ignore any part of my post, ignore what is below, but just answer this one.


Yes, biological organisms are complicated. But this didn't happen overnight. If you think evolution hasn't been going on long enough, how many generations do you think would be needed to produce enough small improvements for such complicated total results?

Ok fair enough. There is nothing "wrong" with your reasoning but i have a few questions that I believe make your reasoning highly unlikely.

1) Where do these chance mutaions take place in the body, specific location(s) please.For argument's sake let's say you may have a sixth finger or a 20% larger brain than the average person. If these mutations do not take place in a meaningful place in the body where you can pass it on to your offspring, what good are they?

2) Natural selection can only select for good mutaions by way of weeding out bad (detrimental) mutations. Thats it.  So why do we not see (as Darwin asked) many neutral and flivorous body changes both living and in the fossil record? And especially internal systems such as the inner ear, the lungs, the liver, the heart, the brain etc. Can natural selection really fine tune organs to thier present state? And why do we not see half made organs, not quite evolved yet but on their way to becoming?

Natural Selection is fact an can account for much in the arena of survival of the fittest. Specifically the mechanical systems of the animal. Longer legs, sharper teeth, wider habitat etc. But what about the features that don't seem to offer a direct survival advantage? For example, is the individual really more "fit" if it has say a 5% better hearing than it's contemporaries? So maybe it can hear slightly better,see slightly better, taste better etc. but these are not  nessicarily a distinct survival advantage and one would think they'd be just as competitive with their close family members.

To me there are too may biological features that defy Natural Selection in this manner. Natural Selection can account for some biological systems but I don't believe it is the whole explanation for every biological system.


The complexity argument isn't this simple. We find that life and it's biological systems are "specifically" complex. For example I read that the human ear can detect sound wave vibrations half the distance of a molecule. Not only that but has safety features that damp down sounds that are too loud. (That's why one rock concert, or sonic boom won't destroy our ears). Our inner ear also has an organ so that our brains can process balance and allow us to walk upright,

This doesn't seem like a chance assembelage of parts to me. Take a look for yourself and tell me if this looks like a series of accidents to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear

So how does random mutation build this system or even a more simple version? And it has to be built BEFORE natural selection can "decide" if it's bad or good? I can't even begin to quantify how unlikely this is, let alone every biological system of every creature on earth being built in the same manner.

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/creation.shtml (http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/creation.shtml)
This exceptional page has many arguments in favor of creation and against evolution, plus bibliography.

The problem with arguing from religion is that god trumps any argument and requires no scientific evidence. Although, some creation sites do raise some good scientific questions, they just end up going beyond the science into their mythology.

btw One of the more interesting God arguments I heard was from the Stephen Colbert show:

"Why is there anything at all?"

Neutral evolution occurs quite often. There are actually numerous formulas that can be used to calculate how advantageus or not.


I'm not really sure what you mean here. Not all mutations are useful, thats true, but that doesn't mean evolution is controlled.

And all biological systems can be explained by natural selection. Sensory organs developed further and further. The auditory organ isn't the same in every single organism.

Think where the physical DNA mutations have to take place in order to be incorporated into the subsequent generations. Don't the mutations have to take place in the sperm or egg cell of breeding animals? If the genetic mutaion happened anywhere else in the body, it wouldn't be passed on.

Applying the weak anthropic principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle), the explanation would be something like "If nothing existed, we wouldn't be here to ask the question, would we?". This, of course, explains little or nothing about how the universe is created. All it really says is that a lifeform will find itself in a universe where it can exist.

Let's start off with a problem we have more data on: "Why does this planet Earth, which is so nice to live on, exist?". Applying WAP, we get "We have to evolve on a planet where we can thrive." (or similarly for ID, assuming the designer actually cares about us staying alive). Now, looking at the universe we see, there would seem to be a lot of different planets, and as far as we understand planet formation, it seems a few of them (which is quite enough) would be suitable for our form of life.

Generalising this concept to universes, you could speculate that anything that can happen will, in a universe somewhere in an imperceptible multiverse (quantum physicists, especially many-worlds guys, like this one), or, at least, that lots of different universes exist. As far as theories go, this is actually a simplification, because we don't need to explain why everything in our universe is tuned just right for us; it's just that this particular universe was one where we popped up. However, some people object on methodological grounds to introducing uncountable amounts of universes as an explanation (and I see their point!). A variation on this idea allows a universe to have areas with varying physical constants or even different laws of physics; however, in this case you'd expect to see some evidence of variation (which some argue they have; this is really unclear at this stage), making this theory at least somewhat testable.

Choosing the ID approach, the answer was that someone designed it to suit us, but as usual, that raises the question of where the designer came from. It also doesn't really explain anything.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that this question is great for speculation but really hard to answer well.

Ah, apropos, has someone of you bothered to check well the arguments of the other side? I mean, evolutionists should try to prove creation and creationists should try to prove evolution. In that way, they would be more informed about the arguments of what they want to dismiss.

Have you bothered to read all the page, especially starting from the table?
Do you even bother to consider creationism a valid hypothesis?

In order for it to be a hypothesis, it must make falsifiable predictions. I don't see any predictions stemming from creationism that weren't post-facto.

"Predictions" here means the "act of foretelling on the basis of observation, experience, or scientific reason.". Such predictions can happen in the past too.
And creationism is falsifiable. If you prove evolution, it means that creationism is wrong.

Still, this doesn't answer my question.

As RTyp06 can attest, the subject been done to death on this board already, ending in both parties having read much of the others' material and rejecting it (I actually spent quite a while trying to make sense of Dembski's mathematics and ended up showing the opposite). The site referenced here appears to be little different from the (by this time rather long) list of creationist sites I've seen so far, and even goes so far as to be Young Earth Creationist. As usual, it's full of logical fallacies. A few of the most glaring ones:

• The reasoning about the age of the Universe and Earth is essentially irrelevant; even if the age of the Universe were overestimated by a few orders of magnitude (which is highly doubtful), it still isn't young enough to fit the YEC model. Non-astronomical dating methods are also ignored here.
• The flooding explanation for the amount of fossils (using a YEC model) does not take into account that widespread redistribution of dirt and sediment would also uncover fossils near the surface. Furthermore, the evolutionary model is dismissed for no apparent reason here (flooding would also be an applicable mechanism in that case).
• Polystrate tree fossils (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html) have apparently been observed long ago, as requested, rendering this objection irrelevant.
• Several misconceptions about evolution appear multiple times, such as larger brain = more advanced (counterexample: whale against human), species always become more "advanced" during evolution (the opposite can occur if losing an "advance" favours survival of the species), closely related species can not co-exist (why not? In fact, evolution would suggest this to be very common, at least for a short period).
• The "circular reasoning" argument against index fossils ignores the fact that other dating methods can be used to verify index fossil dates (which is even mentioned elsewhere in the article).
• The complaint about lack of transitional forms fails to take into account the possibility that these transitional forms are quickly supplanted by the stabler forms better adapted to their environment (if they weren't, they wouldn't be transitional) and are therefore uncommon in fossils and at any given time (e.g. now).
• Many dating mechanisms are rejected based on the cases where they've worked badly (ignoring the times they agree) and all explanations for the failure are rejected as excuses.

Dating methods fail only for very large time periods.
The age of the Universe, as calculated by astronomical means: a) The light from the furthest space bodies would have had to travel billions of years to reach us - Not if God created that light already spread in the Universe, as thought the billions of years would have passed already.
b) Furthest White Dwarves' age - again, they could be created in different stages of their life, meaning that their calculated age is irrelevant.
etc. (So, basically, as RTyp06 said, God trumps every argument)
We can say that, indeed, creation vs evolution debates are unsolvable and you can only choose your champion based on your beliefs, not scientifical evidence.

I can bookmark the following site in Arne's style:
http://www.raptureready.com/rr-ec-debate.html (http://www.raptureready.com/rr-ec-debate.html)
(the introduction especially)

Good reply. A direct response to the questions asked for once.

Mutations happen everywhere, in every cell (actually, I think the mutations usually happen during copying, so they only affect new cells). But usually, these mutations are harmless. A change in the code of a kidney cell that regulates the shape of the finger is not going to have any effect.
But the DNA in the sex cells will be copied all throughout the body of the child (including his own sex cells, having the consequence that the change will be passed on).
You do need the "right amount" of mutations. But this itself is regulated by evolution. If a system becomes "perfect", so no more mutations would occur, the species can no longer adapt to changing conditions, and will inevitably die out. If too many mutations occur, there will not be enough individuals fit to maintain the species. So natural selection itself ensures that those individuals with the best "mutation rate" will succeed.

(Note: It's also possible that mutations are more likely in sex cells (since there is a merger of two different strains of DNA involved), but I don't know enough about that. It is not a necessary part of my argument though. Just the fact that mutations that happen elsewhere are usually harmless is enough.)

We do actually. I don't know what "flivorous" means, but there are many variations. Externally, you can see this in skin tones, eye color, freckles, shape of the face, etc. Internally, it's harder to see this, but just look how people react differently to some medicines. And I bet there are all sorts of little differences in organ size and form, and cell composition, etc.

As for the fossil record, I don't know what Darwin asked (quote and source please), but you can't tell a lot about the details of internal systems when only bones and petrified matter is left.

We do actually. Look at your feet. It's not very useful to have separate toes when you're not using them for grabbing them, and the fossil record will show the form of them slowly changing to be better suited for upright walking, even though they're not all the way there. Same for the shape of the pelvis. Child birth has become more difficult for humans as they adapted to walk upright. The shape of the pelvis is changing, but as most women who had children will tell, it needs improvement. And if you want more examples look at the tail bone or the appendix (Evolution doesn't always mean adding things. Sometimes removing things is a benefit).

If a change doesn't have a large disadvantage, it will remain in the gene pool, and after a lot of generations, with sufficient interbreeding, there will be many individuals with that change. There are many such changes, some with a negligable benefit, some with a negligable disadvantage. But as there are many such changes, those changes will add up. And the ones that inherited many small good changes (like +1 hearing, +1 smell, +1 vision, +1 speed) will have a greater likelyhood of surviving. Which means there will be more species with good changes around.
Repeat this process for many generations, and you'll end up with a species with very significant improvements.

I don't know what you mean by "specifically".
"Detecting sound wave vibrations half the distance of a molecule" is absurd. The maximum frequency humans can hear is about 22Khz. Dividing the speed of sound in air by this number gives the wave length of the sound wave: λ = 343 [m/s] / 22000 [1/s] = 0.015 [m]. So about 1.5 cm. That's a long way off from half the "distance of a molecule" (whatever that means).

Now to the actual point you were making with this example:
It's unfortunate that you're back pointing out how complex it is, despite my request to just respond to the points I was making.
So let me just get back on track by pointing out that the ability of natural selection to produce large improvements over a long time period by culling out bad mutations, is the point which I am arguing here. Pointing out that there are large improvements does not argue your case.

No, no, no. Large improvements aren't built before natural selection. Natural selection produces large improvements through many small changes that have an incremental benefit, over a long period of time. I'm not sure why you are saying this. I thought you at least understood this part of how evolution is supposed to work. People have explained it often enough in this thread. Small mutations, culling, repeat. No foresight.

(Are you claiming that the ear is built to withstand rock concerts and sonic booms? I'd expect the ability is a side-effect of the ability to withstand large shocks, like a blow to the head, or something like that.)

Ok let's try this again.

1) Mutations. Mutations are usually neutral or bad. The vast majority are bad because the DNA code sequence is so exacting. So exacting in fact that the cell will splice out and repair mutaions on the fly. The entire science of gene splicing was born from this splice/repiair phenomena. As you can see, the cell doesn't "like" these changes and fights to retain the original DNA sequences. But genetic mutations do occasionally get through. Thus we see a whole host of genetic diseases. Fortunately (or deliberately) these genetic diseases are realitively rare. And we have yet to witness a true, "benefical" mutation. (Please no antibiotic resistant bacteria which I've covered in detail several times now)

2) The Genome: What scientists are finding is that the genome of all species has large quantities of Transposon or jumping Genes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_genes

The more we study these mobile genetic sequences the more we are finding that they gently scramble the genetic code in safe places. This is why we all have a different wired brain, hair/eye color, different immune system etc. But they don't jump into "unsafe" areas such as the heart, liver, lungs etc. I liken this to changing the background,screen resolution or font of a windows application. Safe variables. The rest are hard coded constants.

This can be seen in dog or cattle breeding. You can achieve a vast variety of different looking animals but only within limits. Only so big, so small etc.



3) Natural selection. Natural Selection Is basicly a yes or no question. The point I'm trying to make with the ear example is how can a yes /no question , even over millions of years, add up to this finely integrated system? Natural selection supposidly has taken a bone in the skull of an acient fish and transformmed it into the ear canal and it's integrated bones and nerves. To me there must have been many neutral changes in the process. How did they add up to the ear we have today? Can a series of accidental mutaions to existing DNA code that the cell figths to retain, really add up to somthing better?


But isn't there an equal and perhaps even more likelyhood that individuals would end up with -1 hearing -1 smell -1 speed -1 intelligence, due to mutations usually causing harm?

Also what constitutes a +1 hearing? Is a little tighter ear drum, a little longer adutory canal, a slightly elongated  cochlea a +1? And if it is, how can Natural Selection select for this since small incremental changes are most likely neutral? One would think these neutral changes could be a whole host of -1 or +1 with no real direction. There must have been many setbacks along the evolutionary route as well?

Finally, Natural Selection is reactionary. A change has to be made first before natural selection can act. No matter how minute, the change must be made first before NS can weigh in. There is no way around this. Even if a preceeding NS retained some valuable DNA code, that DNA code had to have mutated first.. So on and so forth until you reach back through evolution to the first dividing cell. The cell had to come first then natural selection.


Darwin Quote you asked for:

Darwin, On the Origin of Species,Chapter 9: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record
: "But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

(emphasis added)

If random mutation is able to create the fantastic diversity of life and fine tune organs to the degree we see, it should be easy to reproduce in the lab. If random mutations are truely the driving force behind such amazing complexity then why does it reamin so elusive? Shouldn't we have been able to achieve somthing by artificial, random mutaion by now? We should be able to empirically demonstrate evolution in every eighth grade science course world wide. Evolution should be as easy as a grade school field trip to the nearest fossil dig.

Yes but cells in the human body deal with the DNA codes related to the cell itself and ignore the irrealivant DNA codes. So I'd argue that it's unlikely that a single cell will mutate then copy itself everywhere in the body. Thus it is unlikely to be passed to the sex cells.



Except that A) There is no proof whatsoever that we are losing our tailbone or appendix and B) Both are important . The tailbone is an anchor point for muscles and any doctor removing a healthy appendix today would probably lose his/her medical liscense for malpractice. Sure we can live without it but as is so without tonsils or perhaps a kidney.

Nautral Selection: Natural selection is not a yes or no question. Natural selection is simply how certain changes in an organism benefit it. Even very small changes can have benefits. Or you might have a neutral mutation that gets sustained in a population (purely by chance) that combines with another seemingly neutral mutation to produce something beneficial. In this way, and with a long period of time, these qualities will lead to a speciation event, in which a new species is created with these new characteristics.



Mutation: Random mutation can be generated in a lab. If you do a PCR reaction you'll end up with gene sequences that are mutants from the original. Changes in genetic information can also occur in situations other than mutations.

Sure, most mutations just affect a limited part of a single organism, and if they have a noticeable effect it's usually harmful (e.g. cancer). However, you need to note that mutagenic factors (e.g. radiation) often affect large parts of the body, not just a few cells (especially penetrating forms like gamma radiation).

Not removing a healthy appendix is just an application of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle. As long as it isn't hurting the organism, taking the risk of complications in surgery is unnecessary. That certainly doesn't mean it's important (no significant problems have been noted in people lacking one by birth or surgery to my knowledge, and it doesn't seem to do anything).

How about Lactose tolerance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance)?

The harmless changes to "safe" areas are, of course, going to be much more common in living specimens than changes that affect critical aspects of the organism (dramatic negative changes will probably kill the baby before birth; less dramatic changes may leave it an invalid).

No, it isn't. I assume you mean the question is  "reproduce or not?". However, you must also take into account how many children an organism gets, what sort of environment it can provide for them and so on.

Never underestimate the power of simple operations in large quantities. Consider what genetic algorithms can achieve even in a vastly simplified context.

Much greater, especially if you take a complex system like the human ear. Where do you think all these deaf people come from, for example? Now note that the chances of a deaf person reproducing are much worse than those of a hearing person (at least in the wild; modern civilisation mitigates the chance of being eaten a lot).

Lots. Happens all the time.

Anything that replicates itself with a possibility of change is subject to both mutation and natural selection. See e.g. the Spiegelman Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelman_Monster).

What's wrong with the suggestion in the sentence following the underlined one?

Expecting laboratory reconstruction of a process that has taken millions of years and an entire planet to complete is ridiculous, especially since the whole point is that process can not be explicitly guided to make it faster.

Why should there be that many and varied fossils? You're requiring a standard of evidence that is essentially impossible to provide with the available historical data and experimentation time, assuming the theory is true. I can't think of a way to convince you that doesn't involve time travel or very large amounts of well-preserved fossils suddenly being found. Methodologically speaking, that's insane.

Let's turn this around: if intelligent design and/or creationism is true, why doesn't the creator/designer create/design something completely different in front of our noses? In most creationist models (any one that assumes an omnipotent ever-lasting creator), at least, this is entirely possible; intelligent design models that rely entirely on a finely-tuned starting point and no further designer interaction naturally don't allow this. If intelligent design is true, why is evolution (or microevolution, if you want to make the distinction) even permitted, considering that it interferes with the design? And why is the designer exempt from having to be designed?

Uhh, this is evidence of a beneficial mutation how? I do remember an article where they knocked out the gene that allows Lactose digestion and low and behold, through mutation, lactose digestion was restored. Come to find out there is a "spare tire" gene that is one mutation away from taking over the role. When both genes were knocked out, lactose digestion never "evolved" again. Seems anything beyond a one point mutation is next to impossible.. I'll see if I can find the article again.



Yes there are many variables involved but if you think about it, Natural Selection breaks down to Live or Die. Period.  How prolific a species is, is irrelevant, although it may dictate (or play a role in) how long the species tenure here on earth is, it will either die out or survive. Again, a Yes, No.

I'm not familiar with genetic algorithms but I think I get the jist. A simple operation can add up to somthing complex as long as there is a large quantity of them?  I need more...


Hunh? You lost me there...

Ok, so is evolution pushing biologicals in a decidedly  "better" direction or not  then?

I find these two sentences from that Wiki link particularly interesting:

"It was created by Sol Spiegelman" and "Such a short RNA had been able to replicate very fast in these unnatural circumstances."

Created by a human brain, with human intervention and  in an unnatural enviornment... Anyway, Im not seeing where mutation and natural selection are any part of this expiriment.


That's a good question and does depend partially on our own view of the fossil record. In Darwinian evolutionary terms, the fossil record is remarkably incomplete meaning there must be trillions upon trillions of species that lived and we are unaware of them. I disagree with this, somewhat. Yes there probably are many species we are unaware of but, in the 180 years since Darwin we have found many, many more fossils. What we are finding is completely new animals (even different phyla!) that don't seem to fit into the tree of life and species that are closely related. The so called "missing links" that connect animal phyla (right at the trunk of the tree ) are suspiciously sparse and questionable at best.


Ahh but why can't we speed up the process? Bacteria have a high reproduction rate and by artifically introducing mutegens, we should be able to evolve Bacteria easily. That is unless random mutation is really not the driving force behind evolution?

I read an article a while back that fruit flys are a popular subject because of their short life and high reproduction. They also have rather large DNA strands. Interestingly we've been able to make them grow extra wings, eyes legs etc. by mutating their DNA. But evolution has never occured because the new limbs and eyes were useless and made the animal a hopeless cripple.


Becuase if evolution proceeds in small incremental steps, we should see this preserved in the fossil record and living today. We should see scales turning into feathers. Fins turing into feet etc.


Well you probably won't convince me without empirical scientific evidence. Evidence that has never been found. At this point it's looking like it never will be found. Also keep in mind that we have found many well preserved fossils. Fossils that show soft tissues and organs. The Bergess Shale formation in Canada is one of them and dates to the mid and late Cambrian. These animals seem just as "evolved" as anything alive today.


I cannot speak from a creationist point of view and not all intelligent design theorists believe in a god or diety. How new design plans come about remains a mystery. Instead ,I look at biology from the other direction. I think that anything designed by an intelligence has certain empiricaly detectable properties.

Specified  and Irreducible complexity are perhaps two of these properties and can't, as of yet, be produced by any blind,  naturalistic force.


Perhaps the designer wanted diversity and programmed it into the DNA? btw how does micro evolution interfere with the design?

That's a philosophical question. I think the scientifc method has limits. Let's say for arguments sake that a god does exist and created the universe and life. Is there any way we could empircaly detect god? The closest we could come would be to expect order and purpose in the universe with an intelligence similar to ours..

What kind of odds would you put on gamma radiation (or any other massive mutegen) changing existing DNA sequences into anything positive? To me, randomly mutating DNA sequences would no more likely produce any sort of positive result than randomly modifying,moving,adding or deleting the parts inside your television would improve the picture. It's just not going to happen.


Well the appendix is a mystery. We don't know if it has function or not and only a few species of animals have them. Interestingly, humans have the largest, most pronounced appendix of any species, is supplied by a rich blood supply and the tissue texture/color sets it apart from any other organ. it almost seems that the human appendix is evolving into somthing rather than a reminant of an evolutionary ancestor.

It can't be evolving, since it has no function. As such, it doesn't constitute an advantage, so the bearer of a larger appendix isn't better adapted.

Ever heard of exaptation? Lack of purpose now does not imply future lack of purpose.


Yes. Many individuals suffer setbacks. MANY individuals suffer setbacks. Evolution makes that matter much much less than the few who get an advantage.

He seeded a starting sequence, then let it run. Due to the lack of adverse circumstances, selection favored shorter sequence variants. Mutations provided them.

There it is. Mutation, selection... and what the guy devised himself was about one third as good as the stuff that then evolved.



At the root of the phyla was a looong time ago, back when critters were just beginning to fossilize well. Or do you forget the last time we were over this?


Artificially induced mutation is very different from naturally occurring mutation. See the difference between induced rat tumors and natural tumors that develop on their own. That's evolution in miniature.



O RLY? Cellularly, yes, we haven't changed much in a long time.. Soft tissues, as well, were well-developed before fossilization was able to come along. And then they could grow hard bits. So they could fossilize.

Your problem with this is what? That it wasn't hard bits THEN soft tissue development? Sorry history doesn't suit your tastes, man.

You say that above, then say this next:


Does his experiment have anything to do with natural mutation and natural selection? So which is it champ? You can't have it both ways.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there were not artificially induced mutations; he didn't use a mutagenic compound, or bathe the samples in UV light. He just let them run, and the RNA itself changed and evolved.

Recently (in evolutionary terms) gaining the ability to digest a new food source isn't beneficial?

In any case, your counterargument is silly. If you remove everything that's close to the desired functionality, it will of course take longer for it to redevelop (you're selecting against it).

I understand why you find evolution so implausible; you're oversimplifying most of what makes it work out of it. The longer a species survives (and the greater the numbers), the more chances it has of changing into something that can survive in a changed environment.

Wikipedia has a few good summaries on the subject of Evolutionary algorithms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm). Genetic algorithms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm) are perhaps the best established subset of these and have been successfully applied to a large amount of tricky search problems.

If you want more on how this applies to our evolution, you could try The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.

I was just agreeing with you that harmful mutations are common, and arguing that they will be weeded out pretty effectively.

The "better" creatures are more likely to reproduce. Note also that "good" depends on the environment; it doesn't have to mean "more intelligent" or "more complex", just "more likely to appear in large quantities several generations later".

Actually, I was arguing that mutation and natural selection work even without a cell and that Spiegelman's original chain evolved into a more efficient one (without his encouragement; he was just trying to prove that RNA life was possible).

Sure, you can do interesting stuff with bacteria, but I thought you didn't want to talk about that. Still, even with some creative application of mutagens, you're still talking about a vastly smaller and shorter experiment than the evolution of life on Earth.

Right, except that, as you point out, such "in-between" creatures don't survive too well, so they're rapidly replaced by either the old-style creature or something new; this is called Punctuated equilibrium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium). This goes a long way to explaining the gaps in the fossil record.

Well, as noted previously, we disagree on whether we have this.

Nice try, except specified complexity is gibberish (as I've previously explained) and irreducible complexity, while a good argument, doesn't seem to have any evidence.

Actually, you have a point there. If the designer wants diversity, you could get microevolution, but it would still be jump-started by design.

I suppose much of this comes down to that I feel that explaining intelligent life by assuming an intelligent designer is just begging the question. Even if true, it still doesn't explain where the intelligence came from.

Yes it is, so I stand corrected. This is a beneficial mutation. But restoring a previously lost function doesn't explain how the function came about in the first place. And it's not really gaining a new ability but rather restoring itself.

It's not just a matter of taking longer, it never redevelopes.

Where is your evidence that the longer a species survives the more chance it has of changing? Crocs and Alligators for example haven't changed in millions of years. And what exactly am I oversimplifying?


Ok thanks.


Which is the fittest? The most prolific. Which is the most prolific? The fittest. Seems like circular reasoning to me.


He used an artifical solution containing RNA replicase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_replicase .Most likely from a virus. The test RNA which became shorter and shorter was placed in fresh solution each time. The test RNA would never have replicated without help from the RNA replicase. So how exactly does this prove that RNA life is possible?


The problem is that thus far, evolution of life can't be demonstrated in ANY capacity.


Punctuated Equilibrium is an interesting theory and probably the most plausible evolutionary varient. It recognizes the sudden apperance of species in the fossil record. Especially the cambrian explosion. What remains a mystery is how large macroscopic changes can happen so quickly. One would think that large changes would require alot of DNA re programming.

Then you should see the work of this guy: http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/mmbb/p_minnich_s.htm
He has devoted much time studying the bacterial flagellum. Specificly knocking out genes that build the flagellum.

We will simply disagree wether specified complexity is gibberish or not.


Thus we may have found the limits of the scientific method.

Yeah, because you had how many knockouts reproducing for how many generations? What? Of order a hundred knockouts reproducing of order five generations? Evolution would not in any estimate produce any noticeable effects that quickly (except those of people who believe that the ark contained the roots of all modern species).

You're complaining that our pot of water didn't boil the moment we turned the stove on.


Also answered, many times...  a species which is well adapted to its present situation is under very little evolutionary pressure and tends to stay largely the same for very long periods, in no small part because it turns down its mutation rate. This has been directly observed in bacteria; and sexual selection is a great stabilizer when it does not run amok (peacocks).


It's not circular reasoning. We're talking about definitions of terms. What makes a creature fit is its ability to reproduce in the long run. That means several generations down the road -- as far as the influence of this individual extends.
Now, one good way to achieve that is to have a lot of kids. That's where being prolific fits in. If you have no kids, they're not likely to have kids either (as the saying goes), so being at least a little bit prolific is fairly important.

This is no more 'circular reasoning' than to say that the thing that goes on top of the table is higher than the table. Because it's not reasoning yet. It's just definitions; and each of these terms can be defined in terms of the other if desired, or other terms. That you chose to define each in terms of the other is not a weakness of the system.



Depending on what you're referring to, it seems more like we've found the limits of the 'make random stuff up and believe it to be true' method.

But what if the E. coli had
not been so fortunate as to have this spare tire gene?  What would
have happened then?  Hall wondered about this himself.  He then
deleted the spare tire gene as well as the lacZ genes.  Would there be
lactase evolution now?  So far, none of these colonies has ever
evolved lactase ability despite being subjected to highly selective
media over many years.   Evidently, no other gene could lend its
information by itself or in combination with any other gene to aid in
the bacterial "evolution" of lactase.

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/478dd837a6684a30?&hl=en

Which was posted from Sean Pitman's website..

http://www.detectingdesign.com/rubegoldberg.html

8th paragraph

Come back when you've run the experiment over a few millennia and I'll be a bit more accepting of the "never" part. How long did that ability take to evolve in the first place? How probable is getting that specific ability? Death 999's objection is still valid, and you're also failing to take into consideration that evolution is not working toward a specific goal; if you repeat it you're likely to get different results (especially if circumstances are different).

I will refrain from repeating my objections to specified complexity, as you didn't seem to understand them the last time (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3029.msg38878#msg38878). As far as I can tell (and it seems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity#Criticisms) there's even more wrong than I stated), Dembski's reasoning is based completely on misuse of probability and information theory. Regardless of your scientific methodology, this means Dembski's work is invalid.

There are many wild bacteria that cannot produce the enzyme to digest lactose even though it certainly would benefit them as a new food source. And if it takes a millennia to evolve a *single* gene that produces an enzyme for the simple task of digesting lactose (not to mention bacteria are considered some of the oldest species on earth), how am I supposed to believe that evolution can produce anything that uses multiple genes for more complex tasks? Especially when you get to the level of hearing, seeing tasting etc where many genes are responsible for the protiens and programming that make the parts fit like a finely tuned machine. Let alone the big picture that we humans evolved from single celled life? Is my thinking here *really* that flawed?

One other thing to keep in mind is that Hall spent 25 years trying to evolve functions in bacteria and this one expiriment, to my knowledge, was the only success. His reason for E-Coli not evolving the function back after the double gene knockout is the lack of "evolvability" of the species. Another band-aid excuse so we can all go on happily knowing that evolution is indeed "fact". Could it just possibly be that (gasp!) perhaps the premise is flawed?


 
All right, I'll re-read your objections and the criticisims...

I'd have to see a description of the experimental setup. How much pressure was on them to develop a way of digesting lactose?

Also, they may have developed ways of doing other things, that he wasn't monitoring. Trying to aim evolution at a target is like trying to aim a can of spraypaint at a passing airplane. You're going to hit a lot of things, but likely not exactly what you were aiming for.

anyway, 1000 years for a gene seems fair... how many genes are there in the human genome? 40,000? Great. That means we'd only take 40 million years. Bacteria had BILLIONS to work with.

But think about how many quintillion bacteria offspring you'd have in just a couple of years let alone 1000. That's alot of chances to evolve. Humans roughly have a new generation about every 20 years? And I understand the human gene count is not known for sure and estimated anywhere between 40k and 100k.

Oh and Novus said a few mellinnia, not just one .. ;)

Stuff like this sounds very reasonable and looks good on paper in a college text, but can you point to real world living examples?

I can think of species that are under enviornmental pressues. Global warming is shrinking the polar ice caps and causing starvation of polar bears. Do you think polar bears will evolve to adapt? Why or why not? How about south american parrots that are losing their ancient breeding grounds due to removal of the tropical rain forest. Will they evolve to adapt?
How come the passenger pigeons didn't evolve a fear of man and were hunted to extinction?

Then what about crocs and alligators? Crocs supposidly have been a stable species for millions of years, yet lived just fine through global ice ages that killed off many other species?

Way to miss the point. We are more complex than bacteria. If you're willing to grant a new gene every thousand years, then the bacterial genome could be generated in far far less time than they actually did the job in. Like, a hundred times faster.

Okay, so what? My math was so obviously order-of-magnitude that this is insanely quibblesome.

Actually I didn't miss your point. I'm not arguing if there is enough time to evolve or not,  just that if there are so many bacteria with so much evolutionary potential, why are we not seeing it happen? And if it takes thousands of years to evolve one small component with so much evolutionary potential in the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of bacterial generations a millinea represents, wouldn't the problem be compounded once evolution arrived at the multicellular level with a much slower reproduction rate?


Of course it is, I was just being an ass and wasn't really serious. Hence the winky emoticon.

Ok, Novus, it seems your problem with Dembski is that plutonium supposidly fits the description of specified complexity. As for your quantum physics argument, I'll admit I do not understand what you are driving at. And I'll admit I know very little about quantum physics.

Your understanding of plutonium seems different than mine. Plutonium as I understand it, is randomly complex in metallic composition yet specified in it's radioactivity. Radioactivity comes in waves with clocklike precision yet you claim it's random? The radioactivity is subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and thus has a half life and will eventually run it's course.

Now, many things can be contaminated with radiation. So the plutonium itself and the radiation it emits is not mutually exclusive. Also, plutonium with it's radioactivity *togther* doesn't preform a specifc function. Thus is not specified.  Instead, plutonium acts as a container and radioactivity simply leaks out.

Well, the version on Wikipedia gets the same result by flipping a coin a few thousand times. I just chose to use radioactivity as an example as its been around longer than coins.

This is an interesting question with an interesting answer.

What has changed since the development of multicellularity? Not much in the way of biochemistry and metabolism; mostly the arrangements of cells and assigning them variants. This is an entirely different kind of gene, and yields different evolutionary constraints. For the most part, they are lighter constraints.



Okay, I thought that winky applied only to the second paragraph.

Genetic Algorithms:

I find this particularly disturbing...

An ideal fitness function correlates closely with the algorithm's goal, and yet may be computed quickly. Speed of execution is very important, as a typical genetic algorithm must be iterated many, many times in order to produce a usable result for a non-trivial problem.

And this:

In some cases, it is very hard or impossible to come up even with a guess of what fitness function definition might be. Interactive genetic algorithms address this difficulty by outsourcing evaluation to external agents (normally humans).

So here, since "fitness" cannot be defined, human intelligence intervenes... Tsk, Tsk, Tsk... Do these seem like a realistic representation of natural selection to anybody? C'mon now...

From,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_function

...which linked off Novus' wiki link to genetic algorithms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm.



Ok back to Dembski.. I get the critisim. They feel Dembski (as do you) that he is shooting for a specific goal where evolution has no direction and any number of possibilities. Described this way:

Another criticism refers to the problem of "arbitrary but specific outcomes". For example, if a coin is tossed randomly 1000 times, the probability of any particular outcome occurring is roughly one in 10^300. For any particular specific outcome of the coin-tossing process, the a priori probability that this pattern occurred is thus one in 10^300, which is astronomically smaller than Dembski's universal probability bound of one in 10^150. Yet we know that the post hoc probability of its happening is exactly one, since we observed it happening. This is similar to the observation that it is unlikely that any given person will win a lottery, but, eventually, a lottery will have a winner; to argue that it is very unlikely that any one player would win is not the same as proving that there is the same chance that no one will win.

The problem with this critisim as I see it is that as you climb the ladder of complexity, there become less and less viable options. Expotentially growing vast seas of neutral, meaningless  possibilities.

Here's a interesting analogy from Sean Pitman's great site.

" Regis Philbin is the host of a game show called “Millionaire or Not” and you are the next contestant.  In front of you is a safety deposit box with a million dollars in it.  On the front of the box is an apparatus that looks like a slot machine.  It has 15 rotating wheels, each with the 26 letters of the alphabet on it.  Regis tells you that there are one million different winning combinations of fifteen letters that will open the safety deposit box.  You can rotate each wheel at will and then press a button to see if the combination that you chose is one of the one million winning combinations.  You can keep doing this until you give up.  You think that this game is a synch.  With one million winning combinations possible, you are practically guaranteed to win.  However, if you never choose the same combination twice and if you test a new combination every second, how long will it take you on average to find any one of the one million correct combinations?  It would take you a bit over 53 million years on average.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/thecatandthehat.html

5th paragraph

http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/804.htm

Looks like yet another evolutionary "riddle" brewing to me.. ;)

Before looking at the link: Well, yeah, no theory answers all questions, duh.

After reading the link: What's the problem here? This sort of calculation is done very easily by something called a 'neural net', and furthermore is fairly stable against perturbation (i.e. not being exactly right). Which means it's not even trivially irreducibly complex

No 'riddle' here.

Sometimes there is not enough time for a suitable mutation to appear. When it comes to the pidgeon for example, it would probably have taking evolution over a very long time and a transformation of the species for them to survive. There can only be so much the species can adapt to within a reasonable amount of time. And species that don't adapt will die out.

Yes, what is the problem with that?

Well 53 million years is nothing compared to the age of earth so if anything that proves that with sufficient time and random events unlikely results will be achieved.



http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/15-03-2005/7885-hiv-0
Beneficial mutation?

You're comparing apples to oranges. If you're trying to use genetic algorithms to achieve a specific goal, you need to use a fitness function that corresponds to what you want. For example, if you want to evolve a sorting program, the fitness of your program is (typically) how close to the right order you get; if you choose something unrelated, there's nothing to favour programs with the desired trait. The biological equivalent would be selective breeding of animals (e.g. dogs) for a specific task (e.g. herding sheep).

The long-term natural evolution scenario could be considered to be (very roughly) equivalent to a genetic algorithm where the fitness function is, essentially, capability to survive and reproduce in whatever environment the organism is in.

The point here, anyway, was to illustrate that a wide range of goals can be met by evolutionary processes, not that genetic algorithms are always equivalent to the evolution of life on Earth.

The problem with that counter-argument is that it's not really true. Considering the sheer amount of genetically different individuals of our species alone (with different strengths and weaknesses) compared to the large amount of species of bacteria with billions of identical individuals, I'd say that complexity does not limit diversity. However, I agree that it can limit the speed with which change occurs due to the amount of neutral and harmful changes available (why is why evolutionary experiments stick to simple organisms).

Dembski's reasoning (or at least this particular part) would be a sensible argument against evolution if, for example, bacteria must have flagella to survive (many don't). The argument against Dembski is that life needn't be like we see it; there is a huge amount of possibilities, and the probability of a specific mechanism appearing is irrelevant.

Ok, perhaps for that particular example. The evolutionary idea, though, is that animals under environmental distress / selection pressure will fairly quickly evolve in order to survive. The fossil record shows stasis. Most preserved animals seem to come from nowhere, live for X million years, then dissapear from the fossil record altogther. This is the rule rather than the exception.

The problem I have with this is that Crocs are considered "living fossils" with little to no morphical change through the millenia and their ancesteral, fossilized remains supposidly date back  ~80 million years. The dinosaurs supposidly died around 60 million years ago due to a massive global extinction event (meteor or comet collision) yet crocs didn't? Then you have the famed ice age animals of wooly mammoths and saber toothed tiger remains that are believed to have lived  from 4.8 million years ago to around 3,500 years ago. Crocs happily lived through this epoch as well? We know from modern crocodial and alligator studies that these animals live in specific temperate climates.. Their eggs in particular produce male or female offspring depending upon the temperature they are incubated at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodilia


The Regis example represents 26 letters of the alphabet and a mere 15 character combination. In living cells, protiens are built from 20 possible amino acids and the "simplest" protien is around 50 amino acids long. (Most folded protiens are hundreds of amino acids in length.) These are then  placed in a specifc order, and folded into a precise 3 dementional shape.

Now, we have found that the amino acid sequence can vary to some degree and some amino acid positions can in fact be substituted. But there are many positions where only one specific amino acid will work in order to get a folded protien. And keep in mind that our diverese cellular structues, such as hair, finger nails, blood, liver tissue, brain  tissue etc. are made from many *different * and many *combinations* of protiens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protien


Every one of us has a unique immune system. Our immune systems are built with a large amount of jumping genes or mobile genetic elements. This is why I may have allergies where you may not.

Let's say a super flu hit the world and killed 90% of human population leaving 10% to survive and carry on the species. In a sense this is evolution via. natural selection. The flu resistant people didn't evolve to cope with the flu epidemic ,but rather some of the population was already immune, thus not affected. Also every survivor is not a new species of human. So, even though this *may* be a benefical genetic mutation, it says nothing about the morphilogical changes darwinian evolution predicts.

Good points. My point would be that without some sort of established goal, true random mutation is virtually powerless to achieve anything. According to you, In nature, the fitness function is represented by natural selection. To me, natural selection can only act after function is established and is not absolute. We see survival of the luckiest (wrong place at the wrong time could wipe out a species), survival of the weakest  (a human baby is a good example) and we cannot pinpoint what the "fittest" really is.


Some examples please?



I agree that complexity does not limit diversity, just that *randomly* stumbling upon the diversity we see in nature becomes exponentially more difficult.




Very true. But consider the fact that flagella did evolve, this would give flagella equipped bacteria a survival advantage right? yet living, unequipped bacteria compete just fine in the same environments?

And if a specific mechanism evolving is irrelevent, why do we not see any of these other countless possibilities manifest?

Let me try to explain in another way.. Chance evolution predicts that elephants and dolphins could have just as easily recieved the equivilant of the human brain and we could have easily remained an ape species indefinately. But isn't it odd that the one species that recieved the human type brain has the nessicary tools to go along with it? Could dolphins or elephants smelt metals, design intricate machines, explore space etc. with a trunk or a pair of flippers instead of hands with opposible thumbs?

Likewise, flagella equipped bacteria have the nessicary sensory organs and tools to control thier flagella in a useful fashion, it's not like you can just throw a flagella on any single celled organism and off you go. Not only does the organism need to grow the flagella, but in specifc sequences and in intricate protien combinations.

When expirimental science discovered how to duplicate wings, eyes and legs in various places on a fruitfly, this is only half the battle. These are useless to the animal unless the muscles and brain connections can utilize them.

All the intricate microcellular machines inside a cell act like a complier of a programming language. Just like a modern programming language the code needs to be fairly specific. You can't just throw random codes in and expect it to compile. At least not in any meaningful way.

Anyway, Dembski may need to work on his Specified Complexity arguments but I still think he has the right idea.

yes. Function is established by the creature growing up and using what it has. Then natural selection judges whether it was any good. Your problem?

Yes quick, but in a "geological" sense, that's much much more than 100 years for example. We have very few fossiles compared to how many individual animals that have lived, and the transitory forms most likely lived for a short time, like mentioned before in the thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium). Also there are fossiles that could be "missing links":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
Just take a look at this for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus

Most likely the crocodiles were not impacted severely enough when the dinosaurs died out and during the ice age they probably lived in unaffected regions too. But really millions of crocodiles may have died during the ice age or when the dinosaurs were extinct, they may just have survived barely.

It's not like these structures have been assembled at random from nothing at all. They've been gradually built up step by step during billions of years.

They became immune due to a mutation and natural selection followed. Not all mutations affect the appearance of a species. But what do you think about things like these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhagoletis_pomonellahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
   
   
           
   

No evolution is driven a lot by what specific capabilities a species has. If you can't utilize your superior intelligence then that trait won't be passed on. For example in humans intelligence was a key factor in our survival, likely because of the use of tools and the fact that we had hands that could manipulate thing easily. So the actual fact that we had hands instead of flippers is probably what drove our evolution in the more intelligence direction (This is an interesting field of study in of itself to me. The evolution of intelligence.). Look at this for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominid_intelligence

So an animal cannot evolve in 100 years time?


Why did they die? Not one transitional species linking phyla survives to this day ,even though we have millions of animal species living?


Palentologists use cladistics to compare bone structures and determine an evolutionary heredity. There are problems with this approach:

Imagine if bulldogs, chiuauas, and great danes were only known from the fossil record. What do you think palentologists would conclude? How about egg laying, duck-billed platypus with poisionus talons? Or what if butterflies and caterpillars were only known in the fossil record?

Also, most often, complete skeletons are not found, leaving much to the imagiantion of the reconstructing palentologist.

Scientists link animals on strange premises. For example from yor wiki link,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus

These are the precursors to dolphins because they share a similar feature in the ear?

(And notice how some of the links remain blank and many other links have wikipedia quality warnings to boot)

And I count a whopping 47 transitional species listed on that wiki page. Darwin himself expected to find countless millions of animals to fill in the gaps in the years ahead of him.


Except that "most likely" isn't a convincing scientific piece of evidence and amounts to nothing more than a "just-so" story designed to explain evolution.


But how exactly do these structures get built step by step? Complex organs for instance need to have everything pretty much working all at once. What good is a muscle without a blood supply, bones to move and control wiring? And what good is blood without a transport system, a pump and lungs (or gills) to supply oxygen? Bones would be useless without all of the above. etc.



The evolution in these links isn't outside the realm of microevolution (changes due to breeding alone). I'm not disputing microevolution. The problem is that microevolution has limits and can only change an existing species so far. This has been proven through artifical animal breeding.
   

From your link:

Around 10 million years ago the earth's climate entered a cooler and drier phase, which led eventually to the ice ages. One consequence of this was that the north African tropical forest began to retreat, being replaced first by open grasslands and eventually by desert (the modern Sahara). This forced tree-dwelling animals to adapt to their new environment or die out. As their environment changed from continuous forest to patches of forest separated by expanses of grassland, some primates adapted to a partly or fully ground-dwelling life. Here they were exposed to predators, such as the big cats, from whom they had previously been safe.

Man I'd like to take a ride in this guy's time machine. We just don't know what happend for sure and to suggest otherwise is just plain arrogant to me.

Sure it can. I was just thinking about the pidgeon and that 100 years is not enough to evolve when your species is being systematically hunted like that. Like I said, drastic change would have been needed for it to survive.

Sure millions of species are alive today but many many more are extinct. I'm not sure what you would accept as a "missing link". Classifying animals into different species is something we humans do in retrospect, if we had every individual from the earliest horse until today I don't think we'd see that clearly delimited species, the change is more gradual.


Well if only the cetacean share that trait then it's very likely that the animal is an cetacean.



Yes but only have very very few animals preserved. It takes very special circumstances for fossils to form.

Can you really disregard all those transitional fossils?
These ones are also kind of interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik_roseae

I'm not a scientist. But I really don't see why crocodiles couldn't have survived the ice-age, it's not like the entire earth was covered with ice and millions of other species survived it. The same goes for whatever killed the dinosaurs. How did they survive according to you?



Well it's not like you just get a complete eye right away. It's gradual:
* photosensitive cell
* aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
* an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
* pigment cells forming a small depression
* pigment cells forming a deeper depression
* the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
* muscles allowing the lens to adjust

And when it comes to organs, like I said, the development is gradual. And an organ may even change function at some point.


Well that's one change, give it a million years and you'll see a similar constant stream of change. Microevoulution isn't a completely separate concept from evolution. Also the HIV-resistance was because of a genetic mutation. And it says that the Rhagoletis pomonella looks like it's becoming a separate species, so that's quite alot of change.
   
And what about this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylonase
Scientists were able to induce another species of bacteria, Pseudomonas, to evolve the capability to break down the same nylon byproducts in a laboratory by forcing them to live in an environment with no other source of nutrients.

It's not arrogant to believe that we can draw conclusions about the past from what we know now. Geological data, fossils and so one can give us an understanding about what is likely to have occured.

While I've resisted feeding the troll for some while now, I couldn't resist pointing out this particularly nasty set of quotes that popped up in the span of a single post.

GET OVER YOURSELF. Nobody knows what happened for sure, nobody knows 100% of the intricacies of the process. Why do you feel the need to write everyone off just because they're offering reasonable guesses? What they have to say carries a hell of a lot more merit than "God / aliens / some random unknown, invisible, all-powerful, and mysterious designer / a wizard did it."

Of course, this will do nothing to stymie the flow of circumstantial evidence, circular reasoning, and arrogant dismissals that have been freely flowing from you since minute one, but I really needed to get this off my chest. Dont worry, I won't interrupt again.

To everyone else: Sorry for the outburst. If you're into troll-baiting, please feel free to carry on.

"What they have to say carries a hell of a lot more merit than "God / aliens / some random unknown, invisible, all-powerful, and mysterious designer / a wizard did it."

Nice straw man.

Hug?

Why did the transitory animals "...most likely lived for a short time..." exactly? Is your reason for "most likely" because of the fact that we are not finding them in the fossil bearing strata? This seems like circular reasoning to me.


I do consider Archeopteryx a very plausible missing link. I just can't help wonder why we have so few examples of this calibur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeopteryx

It's kinda weak to me.. Too bad the links to "ectotympanic bone " and "auditory bulla" don't have articles yet.




The Tiktaalik is interesting but shouldn't we remember the lessons of the Coelacanth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth

This fish wast hyped as one of the de facto icons of evolution. We thought it went extinct for 80 million years ago then it turned up living off the coast of Africa. Once we studied the living examples with very little morpic changes over eons of time, we found out it wasn't the land walking proto vertibrate we once thought. No this wasn't a walking fish that represented the move from the ocean to dry land by vertibrates. We have no reason to suspect that the ancient Coelacanth is anything more than it really is, an oily, boney fish with some unique features.


I'm not a scientist either and you are right, they could have survived, and that might indeed be the case. I just think that the Crocs represent what we see in the fossil record, stasis. We see species living virtually unchanged for millions upon millions of years. Multicellular life was thought to only have arisen 550 to 600 million years ago and yet this amount of time is quickly gobbled up with many, many examples of stasis.



Yes and this is the same story Darwin presented in his classic writing "On Origin of Species." But what does it take to get a photosensitive cell?

Let us return to the question, how do we see? Although to Darwin the primary event of vision was a black box, through the efforts of many biochemists an answer to the question of sight is at hand. 4 When light strikes the retina a photon is absorbed by an organic molecule called 11-cis-retinal, causing it to rearrange within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in shape of retinal forces a corresponding change in shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which it is tightly bound. As a consequence of the protein's metamorphosis, the behavior of the protein changes in a very specific way. The altered protein can now interact with another protein called transducin. Before associating with rhodopsin, transducin is tightly bound to a small organic molecule called GDP, but when it binds to rhodopsin the GDP dissociates itself from transducin and a molecule called GTP, which is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP, binds to transducin.

The exchange of GTP for GDP in the transducinrhodopsin complex alters its behavior. GTP-transducinrhodopsin binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When bound by rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cleave a molecule called cGMP. Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the action of the phosphodiesterase lowers the concentration of cGMP. Activating the phosphodiesterase can be likened to pulling the plug in a bathtub, lowering the level of water.

A second membrane protein which binds cGMP, called an ion channel, can be thought of as a special gateway regulating the number of sodium ions in the cell. The ion channel normally allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump proteins keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the concentration of cGMP is reduced from its normal value through cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, many channels close, resulting in a reduced cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions. This causes an imbalance of charges across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain: the result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.



This would be so much more plausible with some real, empircal science.



But that's the problem bro, animals show abrupt arrival and millions of years of stasis in the fossil record, not a steady, constant stream of intermediates of which Darwin predicted.


Of course it's not, in fact Evolution needs breeding changes. Darwin's microevolution of finch beaks is a coner stone to his theory.The problem is that no matter how much we breed animals they don't change in unexpected ways. Although we can achieve some very interesting breeds, it only goes so far. So big, so small.
   

This is interesting and I have read a bit about this particular example previously. Seems this could be reproduced in a lab.


This looks a little "just-so" to me. Interesting idea, but I'd feel much more comfortable with such a scenario with some hard, empirical science.


Agreed 100%, but when we start going lightyears beyond the scientific data and completely speculate around a single prevailing idea (to the exclusion of any other possible competeing explanations) it's a bit arrogant. At least to me.

I was basing that claim on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
Which says that evolution happens quickly, in leaps, between periods of relative staticity.



Well fossils do take some special circumstances to form and who knows how many fossils are left out there. But what's interesting is that we're constantly finding new fossils that appear to be "missing links". I just did a search on Google news quickly:

March 22 2007:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cave-may-hold-missing-link/2007/03/21/1174153159560.html

March 14 2007:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_497722.html

January 25 2007:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;315/5816/1282

March 2 2007::
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/166059/fossil_find_may_be_one_of_oldest_ever.html


If educated people working in that field sees a specific feature that only exists within a certain group then I'd say the animal also belongs to that group. From what I understand they've also done genetic testing. It seems it evolved from some sort of hippopotamus and evolved to the (air-breathing) dolphin. The Ambulocetus natans is also from the same suborder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans#Pakicetids:_the_earliest_cetaceans.3F



That's true, it may not be a proper missing link. But there are 46 others on that list and like I said, it seems like we just keep finding new ones. And also the Archaeopteryx which you agreed is a very plausible missing link.


Yes but that theory "punctuated equilibrium" seems to coroborate that. There is much stasis and then quick bursts of evolution, kind of "the last drop". When it happens it happens alot in a short time, like a dam breaking. Also if one species evolves a specific benefit it may cause a sort of "arms race" because the pressure on other species will increase rapidly. So evolution may also fuel itself.




I don't know how complex an "eye" that refers to, but here's another explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell
I don't know how primitive a cell could be to only be able to detect light. But photons do impact and affect cells creating some kind of reaction.

Also photosynthesis is strongly connected to light and light sensitivity. Just think about algae and some bacteria.

I found some links when Googling around:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/04_14_06.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/evolution/mg18624995.700
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocoma_wendtii
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994RSPSB.256...53N


http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/top10_vestigial_organs.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030508075843.htm
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/feature4/
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/1/156
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/0400_feature1.html
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/34/2/289

And I'm sure there's much more. But the idea is like with the eye, gradual evolution.



Again theories like punctuated equilibrium agree with that. And fossil formation is a rare occurence.


Well they claim that Rhagoletis pomonella is becoming a separate species. Then there's the Nylonase. And what about the pig or the dog? So we can certainly get new species. There probably are problems with breeding a dolphin to the size of a blue whale for example, the physiology of the animal may not be compatible with such a big size.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060206232450.htm
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/10/27_greeneyed.shtml
http://english.people.com.cn/english/200010/12/eng20001012_52433.html




Yes, seems like proper evolution in action.



There is science behind this.
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wilson/ant304/projects/projects97/weimanp/fossils.html
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-419/s2.2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/163/9/1652
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n13/mente/evolution/evolution05_i.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000C1E5D-B9BA-1422-B9BA83414B7F0103

I don't think he does that, he extrapolates from what we know and "paints a picture" of how it could have looked.


I found most of the links on google and unfortunately sometimes you find results that are references to books or sites you have to pay to access so I'm sure there are better sources out there.

I'm pressed tonite, but this caught my eye.

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/top10_vestigial_organs.html

 10) Flightless birds. Show me one flightless bird that doesn't use it's wings.. Every species has a use wether from courtship, to diving in the water, to balancing themselves on fast runs, camoflague.. You name it, they use them and they are FAR from useless.

9) Hind legs in whale. First, note how blurry the un-clicakble inlay is, even though it instructs you to view the inlay. Second, they've only found two specimines total that looked anything like a leg bone, not beyond the realm of a tumor or anomolus genetic defect. Third: These uniform bones in modern whales are important anchors for the reproductive organs.

8 ) erector pili . Or goosebumps. These are VERY important to sex in humans. Imagine if your girl didn't get erect nipples. Need I say more? (Sorry if this is a family show.)

7) human tailbone : Important anchor for buttox muscles.

6)The Blind Fish Astyanax : I'm not sure that absolute darkness wouldn't do this to many species.

5)  Wisdom Teeth : I'm not sure this isn't an inbred genetic trait in humans. A) It doesn't affect all people. B) Inbred hicks often have messed up teeth.

4)Dandelions. Have sex organs which they "don't use" but clone themseleves instead. A) They do use them to attract bees and ants which benefit from their pollen and B) in turn they are protected from other insects. C) I'm not so sure they don't use them for normal flower sex as well. D ) There are species of Dandelion that do reproduce normally.

3) Fake lizard sex: No comment, interesting. Some species of sea fish actually are all female and one of the dominant females begins producing testosterone and becomes the male, litterally.

2) Male breast tissue(nipples). It is my understanding that we are all female in the womb untill the DNA codes differentiate us as sexes. So not all tissue is removed. Saying it is vestigial seems to imply that humans will evolve and lose them. I don't think that will happen.

1) Human Appendix : The Encyclopedia Britainica (forget  wich year, sometime in the 90's described the appendix as the place where digestive, immune responses start. I'll see if I can find a link.

Vestigal doesn't mean that it's not used for anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigal_organ







I don't see how that would matter, it might matter in breast feeding though. But are the erector pili responsible for erect nipples?



Again vestigal doesn't mean it's absolutely not used for anything.



Well the point is that they have a vestigal eye.



Inbred genetic trait? I dont't see any basis for that. And I don't really think many "hicks" are inbred. And even if they have teeth problem it's probably due to their lifestyle.



Again, vestigal doesn't mean not used for anything.








Yes they even mention the fact that we're "sexless" early in the womb, but it's still vestigal.

That seems to be debated. Either way, vestigal doesn't mean useless. And it's interesting that there were 300,000 appendectomies 2000 in USA.

We both link Wikipedia articles but this should be noted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source of information.

Yes that's true. Wikipedia articles may be incorrect, but very often there are references to different sources and you can often find other web pages to back up the information.

For example the definiton of a vestigial organ seems to be agreed on, even Darwin said they didn't have to be useless.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/scadding.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#vestiges_functional
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:WR_x_70TA9kJ:wiki.cotch.net/index.php/E...rip=1 (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:WR_x_70TA9kJ:wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Evolutionists_are_changing_the_definition_of_vestigial+definition+of+vestigial&strip=1)

Punctuated Equilibrium is a minority view among evolutionists and hotly contested with it's own set of problems.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html



Now isn't this the issue between gradualism and punctuated equilibrium?



That's just it, we are NOT constantly finding new fossils that appear to be missing links. We are finding many more animals that do not fit into the tree of life and completely different phyla.


This is a completely new insect and just because it's genome is more consistent with the praying mantis than a cockroach is irrelevant. The two genomes of any given frog species can have many times the difference between the genome of a bat and a blue whale.



So because my TV has a circuit board and my car has a circuit board one evolved from the other?


Could be? Why EXACTLY is it a missing link? Because it's old? Because it fits the same phyla? Because of the FACT of evolution and that cuttlefish, squids and octopus had to evolve from a common ancestor?


Dude they determined it was a ancestor to modern dolphins based on a skull and similarties in the inner ear. They determined that Tiktaalik was a walking mammal when the only remains they had was a skull, nothing more.  they haven't found a complete skeleton. How do we know it wasn't an ancient whale/dolphin species?



Most of the 46 others are superficial bone differences not outside the realm of limited, microevolution. And even though Archaeopteryx is a plausible missing link, doesn't mean it is one. The Duckbilled platupus is among a very few species of egg laying mammals yet nobody is casting these living animals as missing links between reptiles or birds to mammals.


As stated before, PE is fraught with it's own problems and is not a widely accepted paradigm.


That isn't the entire eye but what takes place inside a single human photoreceptor cell. Since you argue that the human eye is built from "simple" to more complex I thought I'd show just how "simple" a single photo receptor cell is. We see precision and purpose from the most minute microscopic detial of our modern eye to the largest features such as eyelids, control muscles, tear ducts etc.



It's not just "some kind of reaction" but a highly prefected interaction of specific and complex protiens and enzymes. We see specific functions at every level of complexity conspiring to achieve vision regardless of how "simple" the eye itself is.


Oranges and apples. Photosyhthesis is a process by which plants and algea turn sunlight into useable energy. "light sensetivity" as you marginalize this complex and specifc function we call sight, has nothing to do with photosynthesis and turns photonic information into electirical signals to be interpreted by the brain.


That whole link is a just-so story built around darwinian dogma. I especially liked this:

"And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch. "

I'd like to see this guy's calculations...


Once again, interesting but conclusive? Only if you are a firm believer in the "fact" of evolution. It's fascinating that lizards see in two colors but can we really conclude much more than that ?


"So cubozoan eyes are good for spotting large, stationary objects, while filtering out unnecessary detail such as plankton drifting with the current.

So the jellyfish eyes are specialized to their environment. Specifed and purposeful.

"From here it would be an easy step to evolve an image-forming eye."

Well if it's any easy step then by all means demonstarte it in the lab!!! I love the darwinist's magic wand, happily skipping over  volumes of complexity with the wave of a hand.


Did you follow the link in that wiki article?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0822_starfisheyes.html

Scientists have discovered a species of brittle star whose outer skeleton is covered with crystalline lenses that appear to work collectively as an all-seeing eye. ...

"These lenses have exceptional optical performance," said Aizenberg, who is co-author of a report on the discovery published in the August 23 issue of Nature. "They are compensated for physical effects that bother us when we fabricate lenses in the laboratory"—effects known as birefringence and spherical aberration.

So how does this fit with the evolution from light sensetive cell to modern complex shutter camera eyes of humans?


a light-sensitive patch will gradually turn into a focused lens eye through continuous small improvements of design

Show me the emperically testable evidence please.



Covered this earlier.


The evolutionary computer program called ALife is a simple computer program designed to succeed and is not really a realistic example of evolution though random mutation and natural selection. Natural selection is not an absolute series of IF THEN statements that will weigh in favor of a given function every time. Further more, the AND, XOR , EQU etc. functions that the program rewards were written ahaed of time and represent easy to evolve 3 sequence of characters. Protien sequences are at leats 50 amino acids in length or larger and each amino acid sequence is written by 3 base pairs in the DNA structure.



"The idea is simply that you fiddle around and you change something and then you ask, Does it improve my survival or not? And if it doesn't, then those individuals die and that idea goes away. And if it does, then those individuals succeed, and you keep fiddling around, improving. It's an enormously powerful technique."

It is indeed a powerful idea. But if you can "simply fiddle around" why does it reamin so elusive in the lab?


I'll look at these later..


In these links you provided I see references to gradualism but I have yet to read anything regarding expirimental science confirming such speculation. Thats all it is, speculation and just-so stories based around a centeral evolutionary idea.

Punctuated Equilibrium is the opposite of gradualism so it doesn't "agree with that".


Human populations have lived in realitive isolation for thousands of years. Micro evolution is evident. Africans, Chinese and Europeans for example exhibit distinct characteristics. So according to this logic, if humans remained isolated they would eventually become a different species. Somthing I don't think will ever occur. This idea is a centeral theme to Darwin's gradualism but unfortunately has never been documented or reproduced in a lab in any capacity.

Even bacteria which we can reproduce into the trillions upon trillions of generations and witness real time mutation by sequencing their genome never produce anything but the same species. It's a pipe dream man, I'm telling ya.



Once again, yeast cells produce nothing novel morphically and are just more yeast cells with some unique genetic characteristics. They even admit to microevolutionary changes.


Sigh.. Really? Two isolated "species" of frog creating a hybrid. So what, where's the evolution? If they can interbreed then they aren't a seperate species to begin with.


Sigh..Bipedabilty requires some sophisticated hardware, especially in the inner ear and the equilibrium of the species. Not only that, just because our hands were "freed up" doesn't mean we had the intelligence to use tools. This is one of those just-so stories that really isn't backed by anything other than believing the "fact" of evolution.

.. that's all I have time for today.

btw. About goosebumps on humans. Think what happens to the human body while in cold water. Especially if you are a man. The body has an interesting way of conserving heat.

I don't agree. A quote from Darwin himself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

In much of the criticism seems to be simply that punctuated equilibrium shouldn't be separated from the evolution theory, it's already a part of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

The point is that the change is still gradual. It's just that there may be periods were a species changes relatively little and then periods in which it changes more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletic_gradualism

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html







Like I wrote above, they are not at odds with each other.





The scientists who found the fossils are openly stating that they look like missing links. I don't see the fact that we are finding new animals that doesn't fit in a specific position as a problem.




They had more to go on that just its genome, it's in the article.




No. I don't see how that's relevant.



It looks like a missing link for several reasons, but it's a relatively new find. Here's some information at least:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/03/orthozanclus.php





Are you referring to the Tiktaalik with the lack of a complete skeleton? As I understand it they have nearly complete fossils of that. And when it comes to the Pakicetus, I don't see your problem. They examined the skull, found strong similarities between the teeth and the inner ear of other ceteceans. In fact only cetaceans have those same inner ear features.

The wikipedia page on Tiktaalik is interesting, scientists do study these fossils and work to determine where they fit/what they are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik






No I don't agree that you can disregard all those probable transitional fossils with "superficial bone differences not outside the realm of limited, microevolution". Also, like I said, during the last years we've just been finding more and more of these. Of course when it comes to the Archaeopteryx for example we will probably never be 100% sure of a specific find, but the sum of the evidence does point in one direction.

There is solid research on this subject:
http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/140Sarcopterygii/140.000.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-1.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-2.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-3.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-4.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-5.html
http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/5-6.html
and obviously much much more.

And of course they don't claim that Platypuses are missing links to bird or reptiles. There is solid science behind all of this, not guesswork:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus#In_mammalian_evolution




Like I said before, I don't agree with that.




The eye is not perfect, take the blind spot for example. And it's no surprise that the attributes surrounding our eye have a use, that's why they were passed on to the next generation. Furthermore things like eyelids most likely came early in animal (eye) developement.




Like I said, I don't know exactly how simply a cell would have to be to be able to register light and I doubt you do either. It would definitely be less complicated than the cells in our eyes. In fact there are animals today who have very simple photo-sensitive cells, just simple enough to detect light.

That proves there was light sensitive chemistry around. If photosynthesis could arise then surely light sensitivity in cells could. And the reason I simplify it as light sensitivity is because there was a gradual evolution from there.

I mean what is photosynthesis? A conversion of light to chemical energy. In fact some plants move towards the sun, that's hardly a long step from simple sea-living animals moving towards the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliotropism
In fact there is animal heliotropism too.

For example here is a single cell organism that's evolved an eyespot to find the best location for photosynthesis:
http://ebiomedia.com/gall/eyes/primitive.html



How do you come to the conclusion that this is "darwinian dogma"? This guy wanted a PhD on insect eyes and has one on crustacean eye optics, he's also a professor in zoology. And he's also written books on mathematics. It seems like you have to pay for his paper, but here's his homepage:
http://www.biol.lu.se/funkmorf/vision/dan/Dan.html




Which "we"? Certainly well educated scientists who work in that area seem to believe that this is significant.



The point is that they have an eye that has potential to be very accurate but the image is focused behind the retina. So the next step would be to further evolve this eye. So this looks like an intermediary stage in the evolution of the eye. Actually having this animal evolve in a lab in the direction of your choosing is not feasible.




That's what I've been trying to do, linking to countless fossils, transitional eyes, rudimentary eyes, primitive eyes, degenerate eyes, scientific theories, mathematical models, computer simulations and so on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

We can't simulate or recreate the entire evolution of Earth in a lab. So we have to use the scientific method and figure out a theory that fits reality.





It's not a complete simulation of the evolution of live on Earth but a model of evolution. From where did you get that it's created to succeed?. Also the program is more than just IF THEN statements:

And it's not the only example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life




Didn't we just talk about things like nylonase? And genetically modified crops are big. Or what are you looking for?
Stuff like this?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html



It's not speculation. I've given you sources to multiple examples of rudimentary eyes, transitional eyes, theories on the formation of eyes etc. Just because we can't be 100% sure of every detail on the developement of eyes doesn't mean the theory is all wrong and needs to be discarded.



As I said before, I don't agree.



Do you want examples of speciation (including in labs and due to isolation)?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Speciation.html
http://www.nd.edu/~aforbes/
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/13/7348




They're saying that this is early in the process of speciation.




No, that's right, they weren't two different species to begin with.



I've given you multiple sources for this theory. Something as simple as picking up a rock and hitting a nut with it is using a basic tool. From there on our use of tools just accelerated. Many animals can stand on two legs well. And especially monkeys who really have great balance, you need that if you're living in trees.


Just like with the nipples I ask, do the erector pili have anything to do with that?

That's because stating so isn't heresy in modern biology where Darwinism is the reigning paradigm. In any other branch of science, making such flimsy claims without solid scientifc data would be frowned upon.

And nobody is saying there is a problem, just that the fossil record isn't providing the undeniable evidence predicted by Darwin.


Yes they did have more to go on than the Genome and the animal's "posture" which is measureable and demonstrateable real science... a firm belief in the "fact" of evolution.


So what? This is evidence of different ears suited to the individual specie's enviornment. Extrapolating any further links comes soley from a firm belief in biological evolution and not any real world testable evidence.


They found a skull of an ancient whale.. That is it. So what?


How can you sum up a mere 46 fossils mostly made of bone fragments and come to any concrete conclusion? Think of the difference in skeletons of a grate dane, bulldog and a chiauaua alone..


Of course there isn't guesswork when you have a living, breathing example! What if they found a living Archaeopteryx ? Just like the Coelacanth, museums had all kinds of displays and scietists were convinced this animal represented evolution encarnate. When it was only known from the fossil record this was a slam dunk example of evolution.. That is until they found it living off the coast of Africa and quickly took down the exhibits and distanceed themseleves from this absolute embarassment!


What about the blindspot? It doesn't hinder us in anyway and mammals are thought to have some of the best eyesight in the animal kingdom. And it's not a matter wether or not the attributes surrounding our eye have a use or not, it's how did they evolve in the first place? It's one thing to wave the magic evolutionary wand and say things like " and then the first fishes or amphibians walked out onto dry land", but think of the multitudes of complexity that need to be in place and working before this is even possible. Were talking a completely different enviornment here. Tear ducts and eyelids for example were crucial for this step. Not to mention legs able to support the animal, lungs to breathe etc. This would be about like humans evolving to walk on the lunar surface.


There is nothing simple about any living cell found anywhere at any time. There is no reason to suspect that the cells found inside say a trilobite are any less complicated than any cell found living today. The ONLY reason we would ever expect to find simpler versions of cells is in light of evolutionary theory.

We are still talking about two completely different processes here, each with their own set of intricate protiens, pathways and genetic programming.


You can try to simplify this all you want. I'd recomend reading more articles regarding microbiology. we are finding things in cells at the microscopic level Darwin never even dreamt of.


Because it was pure speculation based on a firm belief in evolution. Not any real, lab tested data.


So? There are many people whith PhDs that disagree with many  biological Darwinistic principles.


Yes and there are well educated scientists who work in that area that would question the significance as well.


I have a slab of wood in my back yard that has the potential to be a tabletop for my family's dining room too.. So what? In this case I would have to mill, build and varnish it into a finished product. Likewise, In the case of intermediate biological eyes, we need a plausible mechanism to achieve that next level of complexity. Randomly mutating the codes that build the intermediate eye is no more likely to stumble upon somthing better than me doing random things to my slab of wood with various hand tools in my garage will build a tabletop.

[/quote]

To me this is like trying to prove god exists by providing links to creationist sites. Biological Evolution is unfalsifyable and at the same time, unproveable. Just as God or even  Zeus is..


I for one am not asking for the entire evolution of Earth in a lab. I'd be happy with one lab expiriment that demonstrates real time macro evolution of a species.


This is virtually the same program I spoke of. The enviornment, the mathematical calculations and the rewards are all set up ahead of time and the program is designed to succeed. If this were anything close to reality, we should be able to do the same thing in a lab with real biological organisms.


Nylonase.. C'mon man, really? Because Nylon never existed before thus bacteria "evolved" to utilize it as a food source? That's like saying because Twinkies were invented by humans and don't exist in the wild, humans evolved to eat them. How do we know that these bacteria didn't already eat some of these chemicals before hand? All products we make come from naturally occuring chemicals or coctails thereof.

And so we geneticly enhance crops.. Call me when we turn wheat into a newly evolved organism.



I'm not saying discard it.. In fact I'd love nothing more than to see it proven. A bicycle and a motorcycle in existence is not proof of one evolving into another anymore than a "simple" and "complex" eye. If you can't demonstrate a pathway then you have nothing but speculation.


Yes you have but every example is pure speculation around a centeral idea, nothing more.


How? How did it "just accelerate"? Monkeys can poke sticks in antholes to get a tasty snack. There ya go.. tool use. I don't see their tool making skills accelerating do you? Monkeys will be poking sticks in ant holes
millions of years from now unless somthing redesigns their brain to do more. And I'm sorry, but random mutation to the genes that build their brain is no more likely going to improve the situation than mutating the genes building our brains will give us any more improvement.


I can't think of any animal that doesn't have good balance.


I think so but trying to do a search on the subject yields little. Seems intuitive that cold causes goosebumps and causes hard nipples as well. Perhaps I'll do a little empirical research on the subject when her and I hit the sheets tonite.. ;)

They are justifying their assessment of these as missing links with evidence.

Fossils are rare, fossil discovery rarer, fossils can be destroyed, the Earth is large and not much of it has been searched for fossils. Fossils are simply a rare find.

And the fact is that there are transitional fossils (and many more regular fossils), I've given you links to 47 on Wikipedia and more on other pages. Also we're constantly finding new ones.




Of course you can look at an animal's demeanor, its posture, how it hunts, how it feeds, its physical attributes and draw conclusions from that. Just compare ordinary cats and big cats for example. And they also mention it's behaviour while breeding and then there's the DNA tests. A collection of evidence that points in one direction.



We see evolution both in the fossil records and around us on Earth.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC215.html




They've found complete skeletons of the Pakicetus. I guess you could say it's an ancient whale because it evolved into our modern day whales as the many physical similarities suggest.




Well first of all, we do have more than 46 transitionary fossils. Here are some more examples:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

Studying these fossils scientists have found similarities and clear developement of attributes of these animals. We can see how the animals have gradually evolved through the fossil record:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC216_1.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC214.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse
etc.

Considering the fact that we're constantly finding new fossils we've probably only scratched the surface.




I don't know the full story of the coelacanths but of course mistakes can be made. But from there to saying that the entire theory of evolution is a mistake is a gigantic step.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB930_1.html




Well surely a perfect creation wouldn't have a spot in the field of vision where we're blind? We can't really judge how it would benefit us to not have a blind spot, we have nothing to compare to. Also the eye is very vulnerable and prone to errors, just think about all the people wearing glasses.

Like I said, everything is gradual, and remember, over billions of years. The developement of fins to legs were due to the need to travel between drying puddles of water, the fish who couldn't make it to water died so the ones with the best prerequisites lived and passed on their genes. And here we come to the Tiktaalik and similar finds again where we can trace the evolution of limbs through the fossil record, whales and dolphins found with limbs/fins are also interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusthenopteron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishapod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fishapods.jpg
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC216_1.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227572,00.html

Snakes for example have different system than us, they have transparent eyelids (or the equivalent) permanently attached to their eye with fluid underneath. Fish who feed in sandy or muddy areas can have this "spectacle" similar to what snakes have. Also take a look at adipose eyelids, they are a kind of eyelids for fish.

When it comes to lungs I believe some fish developed the ability to swallow air and "digest" it, taking the oxygen in their digestive system, perhaps to survive longer on journeys on land or in a dried up puddle. From there it evolved to a separate pocket for air and so on.



One interesting things is that for example simple alkali salts and silver halides are light-sensitive. Also some plants can amass photosensitive substances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitivity_in_animals

I'm just saying that the cells in our eyes are more advanced than the ones in a jellyfish for example. And there are many different types of cells, take mycoplasma for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma



Well, like I tried to point out in my last post, I don't think they're that separate. Here's some more on that:
http://www.herbalgram.org/default.asp?c=algaerestoresvision





I'm not surprised, Darwin did his work about 150 years ago, it's good that the theory of evolution is evolving from what we learn.





It wasn't pure speculation, he didn't just throw out some numbers but he did do serious work with this. However it would be unfeasible to confirm his conclusions if it would require watching the entire evolution of Earth. But it can be one piece of the puzzle, corroborated by other findings.

With PhDs in relevant areas? I'm sure there are some but the theory of evolution is widely accepted in the scientific community.




There are always people who question things. However much proof and the vast majority of the scientific community stand behind this idea.




I don't think you can compare those things. Can you imagine what would happen if you did that for 4 billion years? What would the results be? I mean roll a dice for 4 billion years, I'm sure you'd get some results that would be highly unlikely.





No I don't agree with either those things. However if you want to prove evolution wrong it would have to take some very significant discovery since there's so much evidence in favor of it.




Something like this?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
There is not a single one on that page you can accept? However evolution does happen over long periods of time, being able to do it on cue in a lab is asking very much.

http://english.people.com.cn/200606/16/eng20060616_274556.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021202071449.htm
Perhaps those?




No I don't agree, if you reason like that we should be able to do all things we can with computers in the real world.




Well those particular byproducts didn't exist before the invention of nylon. I don't think your allegory is apt, it would be more like humans evolving to be able to digest cellulose or some new material like styrofoam.

And when it comes to speciation here are some more examples:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html





The fossils we have discovered show a clear pattern of evolution and transition between species. There are also much other corroborating evidence, it's an entire part of science. We have to look where the sum of the evidence points.



Yes they extrapolate from a central theory (basically back at the theory of evolution) and of what we know of our world.



If you could use tools well you could protect yourself better and get food easier, so the propensity for tool use and intelligence was passed on.

Well the idea is that monkeys like chimpanzees and humans come from a common ancestor, and as they continue evolving they may evolve to become more intelligent, but it's no guarantee of course.

And humans are still evolving, I mentioned that AIDS resistance before if you recall.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB928_2.html




Very simple animals just float along the current so they don't really need balance and then there are animals who don't move. Having good balance is easier with four legs too. It can be hard to judge for example with animals like octopuses.


Here's some good stuff :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erection


What I'm basically trying to say is that the evidence points in one direction; the fossil record, clear signs of evolution in the fossil record, microevolution all around us, examples of speciation, DNA and genetic analysis, geological finds, attributes of current animals and so on.

The evidence is flimsy and they are forcing the animals into their pre-defined paradigm. Funny how when religious scientists judge the evidence to fit their sacred texts they are ridiculed and scorned by main stream science, yet aren't evolutionists basicly doing the same thing? Science isn't supposed to be completely biased and one of the first scientific rules in any scientific field is not to fall in love with a paradigm.

We are all biased. Including myself. I admit it. But at least I aknowledge this and go to great efforts not to make completely biased arguments. (I'll admit I may have slipped from time to time)

To me, science should state the facts,present the evidence and suggest an explanation when warrented. And It's certainly ok to suggest evolutionary pathways since that is the reigning paradigm, but when you strat overreaching the evidence and begin building fantastic just-so stories, it's too much in my opinion.


I do agree that the fossil record is incomplete but not to the degree most evolutionists do. Even so, I think we can gleen a pretty clear picture of life's history from it. The most predominate feature of the fossil record is stasis. Animals remain virtually unchanged for millions upon millions of years. For example we've found ancient bacteria preserved in salts dating to the earliest examples of life that are identical to today's bacteria.


"Transitional fossil" is a far overused term in palentology. They base these claims largely on bone differences alone and they extrapolate this from a belief in evolution. The same species of any given animal can have bone differences from the natural variation built into the animal's genome. But as I've said before, all breeding seems to show limits. To extrapolate these naturally occuring breeding variables into huge morphic changes goes beyond the science in my opinion.


We disagree, it doesn't point in "one" direction. All big cats can interbreed. Lions, Tigers, Leapords, Cheetahs etc. Look at the diversity of these animals. Yet since they can interbreed, they are the same species of animal. Now it is possible that certain breeds will survive better in different environments and it may even be true that isolated from eachother long enough that they can no longer interbreed and indeed become a different species. (This could be the explanation of house cats if they can't breed with their big cousins) The problem I have is that I don't think cats will be anything but cats no matter how many millions of years you give it.


I think you need to check again because, if they have, I have yet to see it..



talkorigins is committed to Biological Evolution and Wikipedia is very biased in favor of Evolution. In fact Wikipedia is starting it's own version of the talkorigins site.


This probably is correct but I don't think fossilized bones will ever give us the detail we need to draw a conclusion either way.


I'm not saying the entire theory of evolution is a mistake. If I have led you to believe so then I apologize. Actually Im not really an antievolutionist in  the traditional sense, I just feel that evolutionary biologists are way overstepping the scientific evidence to bolster their theories.  Also, the real main gripe I have isn't the theory itself, which in all honesty isn't that unplausible, but the random, naturalistic mechanisims that supposidy drive it.


I do not recall saying that the eye was a "perfect creation".


Yes, we cannot judge the eye at all. Scientists like Dawkins likes to point out "flaws" in the eye to combat creationists (of which I am not) with such things as backward facing rods and cones. He argues that no designer in his right mind would engineer an eye in such a way. But how can we judge somthing we cannot even come close to building within our limited human technology? Their may be an as of yet undiscoverd "reason" for such a feature. Perhaps somthing as simple as we are more prone to looking at the sun and this is a protection feature?



The problem here isn't that this scenario is improbable, just that it's pure speculation based around the idea of evolution. There really isn't any true scientific observations to justify this just-so story. It's an interesting idea to be sure, but not really rooted in any sort of scientifc fact.


I read through several of these and it's all pretty much the same as your other links. The Dolphin with an extra set of fully functional fins is interesting, but linking these anomolous fins to ancesteral legs is a stretch.


Fascinating but not very conclusive.


Do we have scientific evidence of fish swallowing air and digesting it? And even if they did, it's a far stretch to think this behavior evolved into lungs which are very specific and complicated organs. Even if we have examples of "intermediate eyes" do we have evidence of intermediate lungs?


That's a nice belief. But that's all it really is at this point, a belief. Wether somthing is "more adavanced" or not is speculative and heavily biased by human intrepretation.


Well it pretty much has to evolve because in my opinion, we've made scientifc discoveries that provide quite a pickle for pure, random gradualism.

Just because somthing is "widely accepted" doesn't make it fact. At one time the scientific paradigm was that the earth was the center of the universe. Or that the universe was satic and unchanging. Or that the world was flat. Or that heavier than air vehicles were uncapable of flying. etc.


Do we have polls to confirm this? I suspect most scientists are mainly concerned with their field of science and are indifferent to the theory of evolution. I suspect that most people believe the theory not because they can actually see how it works, but because they were indoctrinated throughought school and college science courses. Any sort of opposition to the theory is not allowed into science cirriculums, even if their arguments are purely scientific.

What's sad is that school science texts are still presenting erroneous material that has been known to be false for decades. Once more, lawsuits have become  the ally of the evolutionists against anybody wanting to change the status quoe. Why would a theory so well rooted with scientific fact and with such concrete scientifc underpinnings be concerned in the least?  I'm a firm believer in teaching the controversy and allowing students to explore critical thinking rather than leading them down a specifc pathway. There is controversy amongnst the scientists and it shouldn't be hidden imo.


Yes I may. But multicelled life is only thought to have been here for 550 to 600 million years and vertebrate animals thought to have crawled out of the ocean around 300 million years ago. Also, at the microscopic level, all biological features are carefully crafted by specific sequences of chemical codes. If scientists could just randomly throw DNA codes together and produce somthing viable, your argument would hold more weight. We know this is not the case.


That's just it, you cannot prove it wrong because it's nothing more than an idea. Here's a park table with built in benches and an umbrella:

First rectangle planks sat side by side on the ground. Then crossplanks formed to hold the top planks togther. Then it began growing crossed legs at the four corners. As it got taller and taller people could no longer reach it's surface to enjoy their meal. so this nessicated chairs (similar evolutionary chair story here). Then a hole evolved in the middle to support an unbrella to protect patrons from rain and provide shade from the sun. etc. etc.

The point is that anything can be evolved with enough imagination, and unfortunately, we see alot of this in scientific articles.. Assuming we didn't know that park tables were manufactured by humans, how can my story be falsified?



I'm not sure you know what macroevolution is..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution



Well not really. Chemical coded life is informational in nature. Computers are informational in nature. there is a much higher corellation between the two. Computers can easily be used to manipulate amino acid sequences. These new sequences can then be sequenced into the genome of a species. This is reality in the 21st century and is in fact being done. Companies are putting patents on designer genes in fact.

Now, If those evolutionary programs you linked to were a representation of natural evolution, we should be able to easily evolve organisms in the same way and  then sequence the results into living examples of evolution.


Bacteria are amazing little creatures and can adapt to pretty much any enviornment. I believe this is a clear case of microevolution.



I disagree that a "clear pattern" is shown.


Can this philosophy be demonstrated in a lab?


I'm aware of the idea. So do you think that any races of humans are more or less evolved than any others?


Microevolution. No new species of human just a unique trait of some individual's immune system.


Ok, I meant land animals.


"fossil record", "clear signs of evolution in the fossil record", and "geological finds" all seem to be the same thing. I disagree that the fossil records shows "clear signs" of anything other than a robust diversity of past life and remarakable stasis of these animals. As for microevolution, this is breeding differences due to variables programmed into the genome. Speciation as you've linked previously is nothing more than microevolution. Attributes of current animals? I'm not sure what you are driving at here.

The offspring are infertile. They are different species.



Wouldn't that mean that you should check again?



What drives evolution is part of the theory.

The nerves which are supposedly doing the shielding in this explanation are also susceptible to radiative damage. In fact, if they get damaged, it's worse.



"Just-so" stories are completely made up myths which are not believed by the storyteller to get a kid to shut up and give a moral lesson. The theory of evolution is the result of two observations:
1 A mechanism which definitely exists would produce it.
2 The observations of ancient animals fit this pattern.
While using the term to refer to specific branches with little evidence, the overall picture is NOT one. Even if it happens to be wrong, it's not a Just-So story.


Why?

Okay, try this on, then: snakes have infrared detectors on the sides of their faces. There is NO LENS. There is only a sharp edge, which they can sweep across the field of view by swaying their head. A set of experiments revealed that they were able to detect rabbits from fairly similarly shaped warm objects, just by this very crude method, due to appropriate neural processing.
So, having a lens at ALL is actually optional. A lens does improve matters, to be sure.


Yes. Ever heard of 'book lungs' ? They're kind of crappy lungs, but they work fine as gills. Found on several fish, and in a few spiders.


There are several reasonable definitions of 'advanced', and under several of them, the statement is correct. Stop nitpicking.


And yet the theory, in being refined, has principally incorporated more details about the mechanism (gene changes) which have been discovered and verified - not just postulating them to explain otherwise inexplicable results. This kind of change is good science. Restricting the question to gradualism is a total straw man.

I dont know if anyone has adressed this, but during the last Ice Age, the polar ice caps only came down as far south as London, hence nowhere near the modern habitat of crocodiles who have not significantly evolved since the age of the Dinosaurs because there is no mutation that would be favourable.

In other words crocs havent evolved because theyre perfectly adapted to their habitat, which has not significantly changed  since the dinosaurs.

Not only do we have scientific evidence of fish breathing  air, we have common examples in home tropical aquariums, Anabantoids, or Labyrinth fish.  These include Gouramis, Siamese Fighting Fish and Climbing Perch who can crawl out of one body of water, into another, they have even been known to climb trees.

The lung like Labyrinth organ which enables these fish to breathe air would have primarily enabled the fish to survive in waters with low oxygen content, as a consequence some, like the climbing perch developed a land loving habit.

The only random aspect in the theory of evolution is genetic mutation, or a Darwin called it, variation, but observations support that.   Natural Selection is also an observable fact, its simply one species causing a decline in another due to more advantageous characteristics.

We also observe the effects of Artificial Selection, where characteristics of domesticated species are promoted through selective breeding.   

Goldfish are a typical example  Sarasa Comets,  Fantails, Orandas and Lionheads can all be traced back to the common goldfish, which in turn is a descendend of a Crucian Carp or similar fish, yet they look very different to their ancestors.

Charles Darwin noted the same kind of thing, but in pigeons at first, and then other domesticated species.   Then on Galapagos, he famously noticed the same kind of thing happening to wild finches.

It is argued that a different shaped beak, or modified body shape may be reasonable, but for one type of creature to become an ancestor of another over time is not.   The trouble is, on what basis can we draw a line?   How can we define a limit in the change of characteristics of species over generations?

Hmm, sorry for my absence, I've had problems with my Internet connection. But it seems Death 999 answered some of the points and the discussion seems to have petered out?

Wrong. The Liger for instance produces females that can breed, it's just the male that is infertile. Hybrids are not always infertile. Take the Beefalo for instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefalo

It doesn't matter if the hybrid offspring are infertile anyway, how does that seperate them as species? As I said, the animals may drift away from one another genetically but the fact they can breed shows common ancestery which isn't a mystery at all. What is a mystery is morphical changes above the species level that has never been demonstarted.. well... ever.


I have and my assertion still stands. This is another case of scientists extrapolating beyond the factual science.


Of course it is.. This is where I have my biggest objections to evolutionary theory.


And you know this "fact" how?


Why isn't it? Do these fins look anything like legs to you?




So I guess the fact that snakes have eyes is completely redundant then? Sharks can detect electromagnetic fields of prey. Ducks and geese can detect the magnetic poles of the earth. Some insects can detect ultraviolet light. In light of this, I don't think you have a point here.


No the statement is not correct and I am not nitpicking. What makes us more complex than bacteria is that we have multiple cells working in conjunction to achieve specific functions and pathways where the bacteria do not. I'd argue that the single cell by itself is no more or less complex or "advanced" in either example.




Just because genes change doesn't mean we can accurately extrapolate this into macro changes beyond the species level. The more we study these genetic changes that occur in all species, the more we are finding that they are purposeful and useful to the species.

Even half of them being infertile is not a characteristic you would expect of individuals in the same species.

But really, let's look at how big this category you've drawn is: it says that servals, caracals, lions, and tigers are not merely related, but the same species (there are some serious differences between these, just look). The 'they're still just cats' statement is empty. Yes, they are cats. There's no reason they shouldn't be. Every theory produces their being, in fact, cats. In evolution, this is because being a cat has, so far, worked. When being a cat breaks down we'll see some larger changes, or they'll die out.
As for having no surviving close relatives except each other, there's no problem with that. Are you claiming there is one?


The nerves in the front gather, process, and transport information from multiple photon-receiving nerve cells. If one of these is cut off, then one kind of information from many light-sensitive cells is cut off. One detection cell is not as critical.

The point was not that these fins are legs, the point was that clearly large morphological changes can occur, and maintain functionality.
So, your statement is irrelevant to the claim being made.
Especially since the changes we are really talking about are thousands of times more gradual and thus possible to accomplish with accumulated slight changes, as opposed to this change.


1) Being able to see in the dark is useful. These are infrared detectors.
2) Even if it were redundant, their existence still proves the point I was attempting to make.

This grievous misinterpretation does not inspire me to read any further.

In which way are they making the evidence fit their paradigms? They're basing their theories on the evidence not the other way around.

What fantastic stories are they building?



Yes naturally some life-forms look unchanged like the crocodiles or species of bacteria. But we're also seeing much change in the fossil record. And again, punctuated equilibrium makes the point that fossil formation of "transitional" stages are even more rare since evolution occurs in "bursts".




Well the theory of evolution is based on the evidence and the findings not the other way around. And naturally they base their claims a lot on bone differences because there's not much else to examine on a skeleton. It's interesting when we can follow certain features changing through the fossil record, there's alot out there:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html




According to biology they are different species. Whether or not they can interbreed isn't the only criteria for different species. Even if the offspring isn't sterile they may be different species. For example are they fertile only with the parent species or also with each other, are both the males and the females fertile and so on.

But really my point was that you can look at an animals demeanor and draw conclusions about it's close relatives. And that plus the DNA-test plus its behaviour while breeding points in one direction.




They did find complete skeletons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PakicetusHere's a site:
http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/Thewissen/whale_origins/whales/Pakicetid.html




Perhaps but they do give you sources and references. They're basically places that collect information, taking it from other sources.




Well it's really never about a single find, it's the sum of evidence from different sources and of different kind that has to support a theory.




What does feel wrong about it?

I've personally always thought it sounds reasonable. Random mutations and then they're "tested" in the field, and as a consequence the most beneficial ones remain. But there can of course be complex mechanisms within that like isolation and re-breeding between isolated groups and so on.




No I guess not. But you said:
And I was disagreeing with that.




Still if we can't judge our eye isn't your statement above excessive? And I think a detail like the blind spot is still a flaw. Either way the eye is far from perfect.




Well the science behind it is the theory of evolution and all the finds connected with that. We have fossils showing this development for example.




Maybe if we only had that but the sum of the evidence is quite conclusive if you ask me.




It was just to point out that eylids for example wasn't necessarily a problem when venturing onto land. In fact even the early eyes surely had protection, it's not something that popped up. It most likely evolved in parallell with other features of the eye.




The Arapaima is an interesting fish, it has the capability to breath air.It sounds very much like the first air-breathing fish.

It's interesting to read about these things. Apparently many fish evolved the ability to breath air but not all ventured onto land just because of that. And it seems the swim-bladder can have ties to the lungs too. And also signs have been found of "marine anoxia" perhaps an explanation for why so many fish developed ways to breath air. Interesting when different discoveries intersect and corroborate each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhipidistia
http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Intermediate_Forms_Between_Classes#Fish-amphibian_intermediates

Here's an entire lecture on the subject:
http://www.csupomona.edu/~dfhoyt/classes/zoo138/PRIM_FISH.HTML




I don't know if it's biased. It's like saying a fat cell is less advanced than a brain cell. The cells in our eyes, giving us good vision is superior to those in a jellyfish who may only be able to separate light from dark to me.



Yes it seems evolution is changing with new discoveries, just as it should be. However I'm not sure what you mean with "pure, random gradualism". Even punctuated equilibrium can be considered gradualism, just not with a constant rate. Even Darwin said:

None of those ideas were as widely accepted as the theory of evolution. I'd say the theory of evolution is one of the most strongly supported in science and one of the most scrutinized.




http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA110.html

And I don't think it's due to indoctrination, why would it? Opposition to the theory of evolution is allowed but what kind of opposition would you like to have in the curriculum?

If there are errors in the education that is bad of course. There is hardly any controversy between scientists about the validity of the theory of evolution. Perhaps some fine details are disputed but not the entire theory. But could you give an example of some fact you would like to be taught?




Well DNA wasn't thrown together from nothing to a complete lifeform. It evolved gradually retaining pieces that worked. And isn't this precisely what scientists have been trying to emulate in their labs, albeit with computer programs like we talked about earlier. If multi-celled life has only existed for about a billion years that's a very long time, you would get unintuitive results doing random actions for that long.




Well we could look at fossils of park tables and compare them to contemporary tables for example. Also a table isn't alive either and so on. That analogy is kind of a stretch.




Microevolution over time... What is it you want to see?




Our understanding of genetic engineering is still in it's infancy, we've only been doing this kind of science for a few years. Countless genetic diseases still exist and so forth, I don't think we have the technological capability or know-how to do that. Precisely what would you like them to do?




Ok, but don't stamp all of this with "microevolution" and reject it, I don't think that's reasonable. From the link you gave me yourself about macroevolution:
What kind of changes do you want to see more than for example speciation and significant changes in an organism like these bacteria?




If we can clearly see how a part of an animal has evolved in the fossils, for example the legs of a horse, the fins of fish to limbs, and all other examples I've shown then that's not a pattern?

I just watched a program a couple of days ago about how we can see in many water living animals varying adaptations for life at sea from their land-living ancestors. Otters, sea-lions and seals for example. And one interesting thing they mentioned is that manatees even have nails on their flippers.




Seeing if someone who can't use their hands is better or worse at getting food and protecting themselves? I think that could be shown easily. And naturally those individuals who could get food and protect themselves lived and procreated.

I also saw a theory on the program I watched, some signs pointed towards Africa being flooded due to continental shifts around that time. Have you ever seen a monkey cross water? They walk upright, so that was another theory of why human ancestors became bipedal. Just adaption to the environment through natural selection; evolution.



"Less evolved" how? For example people with black skin are more resistant to sun, the mutation that made people more AIDS resistant also benefit people in certain regions more:
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030397
People from Asia also have a lower rate of alcohol metabolism and so on, but what is your point?

How do you delimit races? Just by physical appearance?




My point was simply that humans are evolving. I've given you many examples of speciation previously. And like I mentioned above, using microevolution to reject many things like you do isn't reasonable.

I would like to understand what you want to see. Speciation occurs through many steps of microevolution, the examples of speciation I've given you isn't macroevolution according to you. And scientists say that macroevolution is basically microevolution over time. So could you elaborate on what it is you want to see?




Well good balance is pretty much a prerequisite for even living on land. However on that program I watched they showed the Tamandua, it used its tail like kind of a life line and it fell multiple times. But how do you even define bad balance? Animals have good enough balance to live as they live. A cow doesn't really need as good balance as some monkey swinging through the trees.



Like I said, the fossil record shows animals evolving over time. Attributes of species changing to suit their new environment. How could the nylonase for example be pre-programmed to digest chemicals that hadn't even existed a couple of years prior? And if speciation is microevolution too then what is macroevolution? Attributes of current animals are vestigial organs for example.

What I mean is that when different pieces of the evidence, obtained in different fashion and from different areas of research, converge and corroborate one another it creates a sort of synergy.

I found a list of a collection of evidence for evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA202.html
There are far more extensive lists though, for example one of the links at the bottom of that page.

I came across this discussion and couldn't help but comment. It's not often you come across such die hard anti-evolutionists... Don't want to comment that much tho so I'm unlikely to be back after this. But I've noticed several rather silly things in these arguments. Firstly claims that something is more or less evolved is meaningless. Evolution is directionless and doesn't have a purpose. Something may be closer to the ancestorial form but it doesn't mean it's less evolved. Also don't assume something is the same as the ancestorial form just because the fossils look similar. It's rather likely that there are many significant differences between an ancestorial crocodile and a modern crocodile even though they may look similar. This is even more important when it comes to things like e.g. comparing humans to other apes and monkeys. All apes have evolved in their own way, as have monkeys. You can't say that a orangutan is 'less evolved' then a human or chimpanzee just because we split off later. If you start talking about monkey's having stopped evolving or asking silly questions like why don't monkey's evolve into humans, you should stop talking now and read read read. I haven't noticed anyone RTyp06 or anyone else say such things but some of the comments seem to be verging on this so this  may be useful.

Also, Rtyp06 has brought up a lot of supposed evidence against evolution like how the brain works and other such nonsense. Why don't you try asking people involved in such research whether they think their research shows what you claim? Oh that's right they've been indocrinated to believe in evolution right? Why do you trust their research at all then? Maybe they have no idea what they're talking about and the brain doesn't work like they say it does?

And please, don't say there are scientists who don't believe in evolution. Firstly, I personally don't think it's particularly relevant if a physicist doesn't believe in evolution anymore then it's relevant that a biologist doesn't believe in string theory. Secondly, even though there are biologists who don't believe in evolution, they are an extreme minority. If you don't believe that, there's no use talking any further and if you do believe it, then why bring the matter up at all?

Also, contrary to what some people believe, many die hard evolutionists do in fact want to teach the controversy. Just not the contoversy you're talking about. The controversy you're talking about is made up and mostly shows a lack of understanding of the basics of evolution. But there is still a lot we don't know about evolution and a lot of debate that they would gladly be tought. E.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html

Incidentally, I know protein structure and also the genome have barely come up in these arguments. These, especially the convergent evolution and the conservation aspects are good evidence for evolution. A little technical perhaps but I would have thought that anyone who has spent as much time studying evolution as Rtyp06 claims to would have studied them to some degree.

Finally, since there is a lot of talk of 'diseases' why don't you consider sickle-cell anaemia (and similar diseases).

BTW, I find some of the comments on this page extremely amusing

Um........ That's because it's a modern mammal? Perhaps this arises from your apparent confused belief that things stop evolving. They don't. The duckbilled platypus is not the same thing as it's ancestor...

Um there are two very big problems with this idea:
1) The programs are not complex enough
2) Our computers don't even come close to be able to do this with their current processing power, especially not in the timeframe you seem to be thinking

You must understand, while bioinformatics is incredibly important to molecular biologists, it's still only very rudimentary (so it genetic modification as someone else mentioned). 'Designer genes' aren't usually created in a computer. Or not really. They originate from some source. Genes may be modified to some extent to help create more stable (or whatever) proteins. Promoters may be added. But the experimental side is still vital. Someone doesn't say well I want an enzyme to convert X to Y and make it. They find one, then work out how to adapt it for their purpose and then keep trying until it works.

Also, structural prediction is also in it's infacy. Some success has been achieved via various forms of comparative modelling but de novo prediction is still virtually non existant. Similarly the protein interactome as a whole is something that is only beginning to be analysed.

My point being then there is clearly no way in hell we can do any of the stuff your suggesting. Evolutionary models are interesting in a number of ways but they cannot and will not be able to achieve what you seem to think they should anytime soon.

Um what have you been smoking. Our lungs, vocal folds, memory capacity almost definitely evolved way, way before we 'evolved' language (we probably didn't evolved language per se but anyway). Most land based vertebrates can make noises (which they used to communicate) and have lungs. Various parrots are good imitators of human speech. The aparatus for language therefore doesn't actually require language to exist. While there have obviously been adaptations to our vocal folds and lungs which has helped us with language, it's clearly not a case of us suddenly evolving these for language. Similarly, memory obviously predates language. Most mammals have a memory of some sort. Of course it's not just memory but more complicated brain functions that are essential for language. But again, there are unlikely to (initially anyway) be specific to language. They enabled us to do many things differently and more successfully. Build better tools etc. And yes one of the advantages was probably the ability to communicate with a greater level of complexity. Remember that an evolutionary advantage doesn't have to be in one specific area. Most are probably in a number of areas.

For someone who quotes a lot of statistics, it's amazing you don't appear to apply it to your own arguments. Assuming better hearing is an advantage (i.e. increases the likelihood you will have successful offspring) in the environment the animal is in then of course this 5% better hearing will be an advantage. If it's an inherit trait then it will be an evolutionary advantage. It's silly to suggest otherwise. It may not be a great advantage. it may not mean you're likely to have 2x the number of successful offspring. It may just be 5% more successful offspring (although it could easily be more then that). These offspring will similarly have 5% (or whatever) more successful offspring. Of course, things won't stop here. Another change might improve the hearing yet again. This is how evolution works. It doesn't require remarkable more successful offspring. This is obviously a very simple model since as someone else pointed out, there are many many traits. And of course your assuming the improved hearing doesn't come at a cost in some other area.

You're seemingly mixing up different things. Firstly, the function (if any) of the appendix and the tonsils is in some dispute. They appear to be part of the lymphatic system and probably serve some non-essential function but they don't appear to be that important. There is considerably debate about when they should be removed but I don't think many people will compare their removal to the removal of a kidney. The functions of kidneys are fairly well appreciated. Most people can survive with one kidney and sometimes even with a piece of kidney. The kidney does have the ability to regenerate and grow in response. However I don't think anyone would saying having only one kidney is ideal. There are definite disadvantages to only having one kidney (the lack of a 'backup' amongst them).

P.S. A highly political area but there is considerable debate whether race is a meaningful concept genetically speaking.