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Topic: Evolution of plant-insect symbiosis (Read 30731 times)
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jucce
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As far as I know Dawkins paused because he just realized they were creationists, and also it seems it was cut unfairly. Ahh always two sides to every story.
Yes indeed.
And we have seen new information beeing added to the genome. For example polyploidy, gene duplication and mutations can and do results in new information. For example isn't the ability of Nylonase to break down nylon by-products new information? Do you honestly think the nylonase example can be extrapolated into the morphic changes we saw in the Sagen video? nylonase is most likely a 1 or 2 point mutation realized in a single bacterial generation.
Yes the nylonase mutation wasn't a huge change but that's the idea with evolution, the change is gradual, incremental, cumulative, in small steps, slow etc., over large quantities of time.
I mean 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+... does eventually reach 1.000.000.
And what was with the first video? Just somthing to contrast the second video. That was classic Carl Sagan and it illustrates just how much novel new information had to be generated over the course of 600 million years in the evolutionary theory. So it's hard to be impressed by a nylonase enzyme that may be the result of a one or two point mutation to an existing enzyme. To me, if you have to rely on such flimsy evolutionary examples to explain what we see in the Sagan video, your theory may be in trouble.
It's more like 3 billion years. I mean we got the mutation in the nylon eating bacteria in just a couple of years, just imagine the same processes but over billions of years.
Ahh those crazy creationists!  Well he didn't look mad but who knows. And knowing Dawkins is an athiest, he may not have any qualms about lying and backtracking...
No I don't think he's lying, and I don't see what him being an atheist has anything to do with it. I mean he's written books on the subject, also read the article by Barry Williams, it mentions some interesting things.
Further evidence of incompetence includes the tape showing the male "interviewer" in a completely different room from the Dawkins' drawing room where the interview took place, and with entirely different lighting. Moreover, the person who interviewed Prof Dawkins was named as Geoffrey Smith, while the "interviewer" shown in this clip is identified as Chris Nicholls, the narrator of the entire tape. Nowhere else in the tape is an interviewer shown directly asking a question of any of the other four people who speak, nor is an interviewer seen posing any questions to Richard in his previous pieces.
And even if he wasn't able to answer, which I think he can, there really are mutations that add new information.
It's not just similar genetic sequences but a very special mechanism in which certain viruses fuse with the genome and that means we can track which of those parts of virus DNA we have in common with different species. Pointing to the fact that we were one species when those viruses fused with our genome. Do we really know that those "viruses" fused with our genome? Perhaps the viruses evolved from our genome? Kidding of course.. this is your best evidence yet.
I'm glad.
Yes each ball that sticks is a beneficial trait passed on by natural selection. What I was trying to show really is that natural selection is gradual, cumulative and non-random.
Ok so if a 1 sticks in the first position and it is kept it is a beneficial trait irregardless of any other numbers? so 1888888888 is the same as 1452326429 and is the same as 1000000000 ? Then what if the 6 in the 6th place came first. 8888868888 and that is kept. See I don't think this is a good example because it is nowhere near reality. it's difficult to take this idea seriously when you consider irreducibly complex systems such as the inner ear or gall producing insects where everything has to be present for the system to function properly.
I don't know if the inner ear or gall producing insects are irreducibly complex, certainly others systems claimed to be have been proven otherwise like the flagellum and blood-clotting system. And either way irreducibly complex systems can actually evolve.
Furthermore this suggests that complex organs can arise in any unspecific order, thus the eye would not need the first light sensing cell to start but could have proceeded from anywhere as long as a selection advantage for any part was obtained, which is too vauge and very doubtful.
Yes any trait with a selection advantage is passed on. And in fact changing the use of already existing features is quite common. For example the bone structure in bat wings and human hands is quite similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_%28biology%29
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section3.html#morphological_parahomology
Darwin also mentioned this in "The Origin of Species", although he may have been wrong about the order:The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration.
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« Last Edit: May 01, 2007, 03:53:01 am by jucce »
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Lukipela
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But can you? How do you figue which is better? Do you count individuals? So if there is more fir trees than pine trees "competeing" in the same area, which is better evolved? If you find 500 different species of fish in the Amazon river or an ocean area all competeing for the same food source, which of these is better evolved? Can you honestly tell me that a trilobite is more or less evolved than a modern horseshoe crab?
Ah, I understand what you mean. You are saying that because comparing and ranking each and every species in an ecosystem is a complicated and hard job, it is better to assume that none of these animals have an edge over any other. The thing is, when you have 500 fish competing over the exact same food source, then it is fairly easy to check which is better than the other Remove half of the food and see which species survive. Repeat until you have only one. In systems with plentiful nutrition, the need for extreme adapting will be smaller than in systems where resources are scarce.
Such as.... ?
- Any animal that has come into contact from man, for instance buffalo. When the environment changes to include rifles, being huge is no longer the advantage it used to be. Another good example would be the Dodo.
- Most animals in Australia, and on isolated islands after the introduction of european animals
- Dinosaurs (assuming large scale enivormental changes were behind their mass extinction
- Ice bears are now threatened by a warmer climate, where they are less well adapted
Selection pressures may be the reason for animals with certain genomic variables expressed to thrive while others of the same species die . This is natural selection at work. But I believe these are variables programmed into the genome. The genome "allows" these to vary as a survival strategy. And this may extend to the macro level but it has yet to be demonstrated scientificly. It's certainly possible as we all work off the same genetic information system. Intelligent scientists have been able to isolate genes and sequence them into lab rats, but it has never been shown to happen naturally.
So basically, even micro evolution can never be dependent on any sort of random mutation. Rather, somewhere within the genome lies a optimization program that adapts to new circumstances. However, somewhere within this optimization program lies some sort of random seed, where the program in some individuals will vary in one way, whereas other individual of the same species will react differently under the same circumstances. Other than this slight allowance for randomness, the only random things are completely inconsequential, such as fingerprints. Did I understand your position correctly?
It may be possible but scientific expirimentaion has shown stability and longevity in genomes. The fossil record mirrors this as well, species stasis, usually into the millions of years.
Out of pure interest, could you link me to some info about this. Search as I may, I can't really find any articles about million year old genomes, are they extracted from fossilized remains?
That is certainly a possibility but I think the evolutionary tools are present, if anything, rather than full sections of pre-existing code. We know DNA is an information storage molecule. We know that the tools are present to read, write, cut-n-paste the DNA information.. Is it so strange to think that, if evolution occurs, that some microcellular machines might have the ability write new code?
This would seem to indicate that I understood your thoughts on micro evolution correctly. Would it then, in your opinion, be fair to say, that every living being carries this program, which allows for optimization and evolution? So you could start with, say E.coli, and through calling a series of commands (Get Respiratory system, Get Optical system 3, and so forth) you could reproduce any animal from an E.Coli?
Ahh, but isn't that the case (except for the interbeeding part)?
Yes, if we ignore the crucial part then it is exactly the same. However, my point was that if there is a set blueprint that the cells work from, all those similar species should also be able to interbreed, i.e the same species with some extra bling. Seeing as I misunderstood your idea (you're thinking adaptive programming, not pre made blueprints), the argument changes. If, we start from simple life-forms, and move up to complex ones through adaptive programming, shouldn't there be more species rather than less? I mean, obviously they'd all have roughly the same parts (because they are calling object functions like "heart", "eye" and so forth which are stored somewhere), but shouldn't the program then allow them to take pretty much any path which is at all feasible, rather than just sticking to "Cow" shape, "cat" shape and so forth? In evolution it makes sense that the most succesful shapes stick around, and then evolve to fill differing niches. To me at least it seems that ID should have quite a few more classes of animals.
Don't we have fewer phyla of animal species today than preserved in the cambrian strata? And notice how there are hunders of thousands of frog , ant , bird, dog, cat, cattle etc. varients? And don't most similar local ecosystems approximate eachother? Deserts tend to have scorpions lizards and snakes for example.
This is exactly what I meant. If some phyla die out because they are less fit, then that's a case for evolution. If something can just jump phyla because the adaptive system deems it adavantegous, then that would be ID.
As for bovine, american buffalo, oxen, water buffalo, domestic cows can all interbreed. Aren't they all just different looking and esentailly the same species?
Water Buffalo can't interbeed with cows. Several of the other species listed can only produce sterile male offspring, which is quite good evidence that they used to be, but are no longer the same. Which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint where they have some common ancestors. However, if they used to be the same species, but their code has now beeen optimized, I'm hard pressed to understand why they aren't either
- The same species and capable of full interbreeding despite cosmetic dfferences
- A new species and no longer capable of interbreeding.
And it is possible that a species of animal can be seperated long enough that they cannot interbreed anymore. This could be a survival strategy to leave bad mutaions such as birth defects behind.
Just to be clear, this survival strategy is then pre-built into the program that every living cell carries, right?
All large cats can interbreed and I believe all the paciderms can interbreed.
Again, as in the case of bovines, ligers and tigons are sterile if male. No idea about paciderms, but since every other example you've used was not capable of full species interbreeding, I'll just go ahead and assume this is incorrect as well.
That may be the case but how did the first "light sensitive patch" come into existance? To me, somthing had to realize the importance of detecting light.
You're over-thinking it again. A random mutation that does not cause any harm is not culled The first light sensitive patch might not have had any use for eons, until a series of other mutations made it useful. As long as something doesn't kill the bearer, or stop it from having offspring, it doesn't need to immediately be fully functioning.
I don't think it happend by chance or co-opted from other existing systems. We are just going to have to disagree here.
Indeed. But I'd be more happy to disagree if I was sure you were aware that not every part of a complex system must just turn up at once, fulyl functional.
Very true, I shouldn't assume it's impossible, and really I don't.. I just find it very improbable. And if it was just one single organ that is one impobability, but nearly every aspect of biology contains this amount of improbabilty which only compounds the problem for me.
So basically, if it looks like too much random chance, it can't be random chance.
Good point, however I don't believe humans were nessicarily destined to become exactly the creatures we are. And as I said above, any evolutionary properties life has I believe were preprogrammed to make evolutionary decisions.
This raises an interesting question. Obviously, we are fairly successful creatures. We dominate the world. Large parts of this can be traced back to our intelligence. Why is it that no other creature has gone the same route. If this optimization took place in all creature, shouldn't we have several highly intelligent races by now? I mean, it's obviously a great edge.
I am agnostic. There may be a god, and an overall plan. This is an area that I ponder alot and am currently undecided.
As an aside, do you think you'll ever decide? I always thought faith was much like love, where logical thought helps very little.
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What's up doc?
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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I don't!
I eat kittens for lunch, and wear puppry-fur pants
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Baltar
*Many bubbles*
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In other words, when challenged on the videos you posted, all you really had was a lame joke.
The link to the Dawkins interview was a pointless digression--how can you not see that for the propaganda piece that it is? He was clearly ambushed for an esoteric piece of information, and how can you respect the video when it was so obviously designed to ridicule. A responsible documentary would not have been put together in this fashion.
This brings me right back to my point as you've seen fit to post videos in the hope of mocking the opposition. I guess since this is in fashion I'll link the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOYfG0QGG0
And lets also look at what your ID friends are up to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zwbhAXe5yk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504
Honestly now...you claim you are agnostic....how can you not apply rigors to creation/ID arguments as you are to evolution arguments and see the creationist/ID movement for what it is. No, this isn't me brow beating you to 'fall into line' and 'believe' in evolution. Noone in any of these threads has done that, actually. You have said before that you are just trying to expose people here to new ideas. You seem to be operating under the impression that just because an alternative exists it must be at least equal. Well let me tell you something, from one agnostic to another. Not all alternatives are necessarily equal. I can understand if you want to sound out the arguments for and against them, but you keep treading on the same territory over and over again, and in your frustration you appear to have resorted to ad hominem attacks, red herrings, mockery, and ridicule over and over again.
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2007, 03:07:53 am by Baltar »
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RTyp06
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Ah, I understand what you mean. You are saying that because comparing and ranking each and every species in an ecosystem is a complicated and hard job, it is better to assume that none of these animals have an edge over any other.
Did I say I assumed that none of these animals had an edge over eachother? You said "better evolved", please, let's put Mr. Stawman away...
The thing is, when you have 500 fish competing over the exact same food source, then it is fairly easy to check which is better than the other Remove half of the food and see which species survive. Repeat until you have only one.
How can you say one is "better"? One is faster perhaps. One is bigger and can bully it's way to the food perhaps. One is smarter and knows where the food will appear before the others perhaps. One species is more prolific and thus has more offspring and more chances at the food. One may have a lower nutritional need. One may work in groups. One may poision the food that only they can eat etc. etc. And you could most likely run the scenario a hundered times and achieve a hundred different results.
Most ecosystems work off of a hierarchy of predator prey relationships anyway. It doesn't matter which rung dies off it's just a matter of luck who will survive. Caertainly not the "better" or "better evolved".
In systems with plentiful nutrition, the need for extreme adapting will be smaller than in systems where resources are scarce.
So in contrast, in systems with little nutrition, the need for extreme adapting will be much greater? Have we ever witnessed this outside of a textbook?
Any animal that has come into contact from man, for instance buffalo. When the environment changes to include rifles, being huge is no longer the advantage it used to be. Another good example would be the Dodo.
Most animals in Australia, and on isolated islands after the introduction of european animals
Dinosaurs (assuming large scale enivormental changes were behind their mass extinction
Ice bears are now threatened by a warmer climate, where they are less well adapted
Every animal that ever existed was and is well adapted to it's enviornment. Every animal that ever existed could be hunted to extinction, introduction of non indiginous species could wipe out any native species, large scale enviornmental changes could wipe out any species as well. You're describing natural selection and human interference. In every case, just because some animals survived, doesn't mean they were better adapted to thier enviornment, or better evovled. It's luck of the draw and it's random. That is what natural selection is... Random. There is nothing conclusive about evolution in that list.
So basically, even micro evolution can never be dependent on any sort of random mutation. Rather, somewhere within the genome lies a optimization program that adapts to new circumstances. However, somewhere within this optimization program lies some sort of random seed, where the program in some individuals will vary in one way, whereas other individual of the same species will react differently under the same circumstances. Other than this slight allowance for randomness, the only random things are completely inconsequential, such as fingerprints. Did I understand your position correctly?
Not random, every species has a set of variables that can be expressed. Some more, some less. Whatever controls this, is a similar process in all genomes.
It may be possible but scientific expirimentaion has shown stability and longevity in genomes. The fossil record mirrors this as well, species stasis, usually into the millions of years.
Out of pure interest, could you link me to some info about this. Search as I may, I can't really find any articles about million year old genomes, are they extracted from fossilized remains?
I didn't say million year old genomes, I said fossils show species stasis into the millions of years. Modern animals of which scientists explore thier genomes show stasis as well. The E. Coli genome has always been E.Coli. Fruit Flys have always been Fruit Flys. And isn't it safe to assume when we find a fossil of a modern animal dating back 250 million years such as a perch, it's genome was most likely very close to what it is today?
This would seem to indicate that I understood your thoughts on micro evolution correctly. Would it then, in your opinion, be fair to say, that every living being carries this program, which allows for optimization and evolution? So you could start with, say E.coli, and through calling a series of commands (Get Respiratory system, Get Optical system 3, and so forth) you could reproduce any animal from an E.Coli?
If macro evolution does occur, I think it's much simpler than that. I think it knows the whole system and makes evolutionary choices based on that information. It doesn't pick things that wouldn't work and changes the whole system to accomodate accordingly. We really don't see evolutionary "expirimentation" and complete randomness in biology. Yes, I know NS is supposed to weed those things out.
I know how far out this may sound, but if the cell has the Data storage, the mechanisms to write, read, splice, error check and utilize this data, why not a way to write specific and new information as well?
Yes, if we ignore the crucial part then it is exactly the same. However, my point was that if there is a set blueprint that the cells work from, all those similar species should also be able to interbreed, i.e the same species with some extra bling. Seeing as I misunderstood your idea (you're thinking adaptive programming, not pre made blueprints), the argument changes. If, we start from simple life-forms, and move up to complex ones through adaptive programming, shouldn't there be more species rather than less? I mean, obviously they'd all have roughly the same parts (because they are calling object functions like "heart", "eye" and so forth which are stored somewhere), but shouldn't the program then allow them to take pretty much any path which is at all feasible, rather than just sticking to "Cow" shape, "cat" shape and so forth? In evolution it makes sense that the most succesful shapes stick around, and then evolve to fill differing niches. To me at least it seems that ID should have quite a few more classes of animals.
That is logical. I don't think the designer only sent certain species of life to this planet. I think there were many, many, many more species and through natural selection, the best suited (and lucky) designs for *this world* survived. Other life sustaining planets would be completely different.
This is exactly what I meant. If some phyla die out because they are less fit, then that's a case for evolution. If something can just jump phyla because the adaptive system deems it adavantegous, then that would be ID.
Yes that can be seen as a case for evolution, but unfortunately we have no way of determining if they are "less" fit or not.
--- That's it for tonite ---
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2007, 04:06:52 am by RTyp06 »
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Lukipela
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Did I say I assumed that none of these animals had an edge over eachother? You said "better evolved", please, let's put Mr. Stawman away...
Oh I'm sorry, I must've forgotten to add a wink to that statement. On a more serious note, I'm paraphrasing you to try to illustrate what you're saying in a few simple sentences, and this certainly seems to be it. I mean you keep repeating that because we cannot exactly measure each and every variable in an ecosystem, we should completely discount that there might be anything but blind luck between natural selection. To me that implies that all animals are equally well adapted, and chance is the only thing that keeps some alive and kills others.
How can you say one is "better"?
The one that survives, that is the point of natural selection.
One is faster perhaps. One is bigger and can bully it's way to the food perhaps. One is smarter and knows where the food will appear before the others perhaps. One species is more prolific and thus has more offspring and more chances at the food. One may have a lower nutritional need. One may work in groups. One may poision the food that only they can eat etc. etc. And you could most likely run the scenario a hundered times and achieve a hundred different results.
Let me put this is in more game-like terms for you. You are playing Starcraft, on a level with 8 other players. 3 players are playing Zerg, 3 are playing Protoss and 2 are playing human. Each player has one definite strategy that they always stick to. So you have a defensive Zerg, an offensive Zerg, and so forth. The levels that are being played have been designed to be fair and balanced to all, with equal amounts of starter minerals. After 50 games, one player is consistently winning most games. sure, he might lose one or two, but he wins most of his games. This means that his strategy is best (defensive Protoss or whatever). See the similarity?
Most ecosystems work off of a hierarchy of predator prey relationships anyway. It doesn't matter which rung dies off it's just a matter of luck who will survive. Caertainly not the "better" or "better evolved".
So basically, based on your theory lions could die off tomorrow and just be replaced by hyenas or some such? It would have nothing to do with which is the better hunter, has the best hunting techniques, or any such thing?
So in contrast, in systems with little nutrition, the need for extreme adapting will be much greater? Have we ever witnessed this outside of a textbook?
How about thermal vents?
Every animal that ever existed was and is well adapted to it's enviornment. Every animal that ever existed could be hunted to extinction, introduction of non indiginous species could wipe out any native species, large scale enviornmental changes could wipe out any species as well.
And the reason they are well adapted to their environment is natural selection. Those animals that thrive best in their environment get to breed. Those that have a positive mutation get to breed even more. Thus animals get more and more adapted. Then, the environment changes to include new predators, different climates or some such, it all starts over. And new species rise.
You're describing natural selection and human interference.
I'm describing natural selection? Such a shock and surprise.
In every case, just because some animals survived, doesn't mean they were better adapted to thier enviornment, or better evovled. It's luck of the draw and it's random. That is what natural selection is... Random. There is nothing conclusive about evolution in that list.
In every case, the animals that survived were better adapted to the new environment, and those who died were better adapted to the old. So the Dodo used to do well in it's environment, but after man came around smaller species that were harder to catch did much better, and eventually replaced the Dodo.
Not random, every species has a set of variables that can be expressed. Some more, some less. Whatever controls this, is a similar process in all genomes.
Right, so every species starts from some proto-species, which contains programming that will allow it to differentiate say, from a cow to a water-buffalo. But this only happens once, once you've become a water buffalo, you can't chnange your direction, and be a cow again. And this is why we only have one large bovine per continent. did i get that right? The program just terminates at some stage?
I didn't say million year old genomes, I said fossils show species stasis into the millions of years. Modern animals of which scientists explore thier genomes show stasis as well. The E. Coli genome has always been E.Coli. Fruit Flys have always been Fruit Flys. And isn't it safe to assume when we find a fossil of a modern animal dating back 250 million years such as a perch, it's genome was most likely very close to what it is today?
Right, I forgot that entire species evolve as one, leaving nothing behind.
If macro evolution does occur, I think it's much simpler than that. I think it knows the whole system and makes evolutionary choices based on that information. It doesn't pick things that wouldn't work and changes the whole system to accomodate accordingly. We really don't see evolutionary "expirimentation" and complete randomness in biology. Yes, I know NS is supposed to weed those things out.
I know how far out this may sound, but if the cell has the Data storage, the mechanisms to write, read, splice, error check and utilize this data, why not a way to write specific and new information as well?
Wait, so natural selection does nothing for a species, just luck of the draw. But at the same time, every creature in the world is evolving together, as one large Gaia type planet? How long til we regress then, surely we can't be good for the world. This brings up an interesting new question though. If every creature/species is in contact with each other, why do species go extinct by accident? Surely dinosaurs and dodos should have turned up again by now, if they were wiped out by blind chance and thus not less fit in any way.
That is logical. I don't think the designer only sent certain species of life to this planet. I think there were many, many, many more species and through natural selection, the best suited (and lucky) designs for *this world* survived. Other life sustaining planets would be completely different.
I thought that earlier on Natural selection was blind chance, not what narrows species down to the best fit ones. I must be misreading something, please explain.
Yes that can be seen as a case for evolution, but unfortunately we have no way of determining if they are "less" fit or not.
The fact that they are extinct would seem to indicate that.
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2007, 08:03:21 pm by Lukipela »
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What's up doc?
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