It disregards the provable facts that mutations are almost always detrimental and usually non reproducible as the "victim" is sterile.
Not true. A lot of mutations go unnoticed simply because their effects aren't always obvious. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.
"Now we come to why Evolutionists hate Mathematicians........the Evolutionist's numbers simply don't add up........Darwinian evolution is predicated on the fossil record proving that the theory was true, but there was no fossil record.......
"The minimun number of genes required to support cell function and reproduction in the simplest form of life is 256........our worm will have several thousand, and its estimated that the human genome may have between thirty and one hundred fifty THOUSAND genes, so if it is a mathematical impossibility for the worm to evolve during the four billion years of the earth's existence, how many more billions of years would be required for a human being to evolve".
Okay if so then the point is?
Not true. A lot of mutations go unnoticed simply because their effects aren't always obvious. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.
If most mutations are unnoticed, how would we know that they have occurred?
The point is that you're wrong about most mutations being detrimental.
If most mutations are unnoticed, how would we know that they have occurred?
You aren`t a very deep thinker are you.
No, I don't consider myself a very deep thinker but what I have going for me is that I'm curious about things.
To establish the rate of mutation, the team examined an area of the Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is unique in that, apart from rare mutations, it is passed unchanged from father to son; so mutations accumulate slowly over the generations.
Despite many generations of separation, researchers found only 12 differences among all the DNA letters examined. The two Y chromosomes were still identical at 10,149,073 of the 10,149,085 letters examined. Of the 12 differences, eight had arisen in the cell lines used for the work. Only four were true mutations that had occurred naturally through the generations.
We have known for a long time that mutations occur occasionally in each of us, but have had to guess exactly how often. Now, thanks to advances in the technology for reading DNA, this new research has been possible.
Understanding mutation rates is key to many aspects of human evolution and medical research: mutation is the ultimate source of all our genetic variation and provides a molecular clock for measuring evolutionary timescales. Mutations can also lead directly to diseases like cancer. With better measurements of mutation rates, we could improve the calibration of the evolutionary clock, or test ways to reduce mutations, for example.
Even with the latest DNA sequencing technology, the researchers had to design a special strategy to search for the vanishingly rare mutations. They used next-generation sequencing to establish the order of letters on the two Y chromosomes and then compared these to the Y chromosome reference sequence.
Having identified 23 candidate SNPs - or single letter changes in the DNA - they amplified the regions containing these candidates and checked the sequences using the standard Sanger method. A total of four naturally occurring mutations were confirmed. Knowing this number of mutations, the length of the area that they had searched and the number of generations separating the individuals, the team were able to calculate the rate of mutation.
"These four mutations gave us the exact mutation rate - one in 30 million nucleotides each generation - that we had expected," says the study's coordinator, Chris Tyler-Smith, also from The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "This was reassuring because the methods we used - harnessing next-generation sequencing technology - had not previously been tested for this kind of research. New mutations are responsible for an array of genetic diseases. The ability to reliably measure rates of DNA mutation means we can begin to ask how mutation rates vary between different regions of the genome and perhaps also between different individuals."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827123210.htm
So they studied one family, found a total of 4 unnoticeable mutations to the DNA sequencing that resulted in no significant change over 13 generations.
I don't think anybody questions whether DNA can change and mutate, the question is whether those mutations can actually be significant enough to create a new species. I think the original point still stands. To evolve from a single celled organism to a complex multi-celled organism requires frequent huge evolutionary changes. To produce the vast range of life that exists on earth would require extreme, near constant mutations, and we should be able to still see huge evolutionary leaps.
In other words it would take far too long to evolve from single celled creatures to what we have now in the timeline put forward by evolutionists?
Pretty much.
So they studied one family, found a total of 4 unnoticeable mutations to the DNA sequencing that resulted in no significant change over 13 generations.
I don't think anybody questions whether DNA can change and mutate, the question is whether those mutations can actually be significant enough to create a new species. I think the original point still stands. To evolve from a single celled organism to a complex multi-celled organism requires frequent huge evolutionary changes. To produce the vast range of life that exists on earth would require extreme, near constant mutations, and we should be able to still see huge evolutionary leaps.
The rate of mutation seems low but when one considers the size of the human population and the fact that each sperm cell carries about 2 mutations it's easy to see that there's a whole lot of mutating going on.
How exactly do you think this study proves that species evolve into new species?
The rate of mutation seems low but when one considers the size of the human population and the fact that each sperm cell carries about 2 mutations it's easy to see that there's a whole lot of mutating going on.
Additionally, why have we not seen any completely new species evolve for the past 505 million years? If Darwin was correct, we should have seen at least one during the roughly 10,000 years of known human existance........we've seen extinctions, certainly, but nothing new has been added by the evolutionary process........
Really? Where are all these mutations? We have seen evidence of chromosomal damage that causes birth defects, but not just random mutations. With 6 billion plus living laboratories, surely there would be some mutations visible.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex1
In the case just mentioned, we have found a quite complete set of dinosaur-to-bird transitional fossils with no morphological "gaps" (Sereno 1999), represented by Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba, among many others (Carroll 1997, pp. 306-323; Norell and Clarke 2001; Sereno 1999; Xu et al. 1999; Xu et al. 2000; Xu et al. 2002). All have the expected possible morphologies (see Figure 3.1.1 from Prediction 3.1 for a few examples), including organisms such as Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, and the famous "BPM 1 3-13" (a dromaeosaur from China now named Cryptovolans pauli; Czerkas et al. 2002 ) which are flightless bipedal dinosaurs with modern-style feathers (Chen et al. 1998 ; Qiang et al. 1998; Norell et al. 2002). Additionally, several similar flightless dinosaurs have been found covered with nascent evolutionary precursors to modern feathers (branched feather-like integument indistinguishable from the contour feathers of true birds), including Sinornithosaurus ("Bambiraptor"), Sinosauropteryx, Beipiaosaurus, Microraptor, and an unnamed dromaeosaur specimen, NGMC 91, informally called "Dave" (Ji et al. 2001). The All About Archaeopteryx FAQ gives a detailed listing of the various characters of Archaeopteryx which are intermediate between reptiles and modern birds.
4-legged animals emerged earlier than thought
...
An expert unconnected with the research said the find would force experts to reconsider a critical period in evolution when sea-based vertebrates took their first steps toward becoming dinosaurs, mammals and — eventually — human beings.
"It blows the whole story out of the water, so to speak," said Jenny Clack, a paleontologist at Cambridge University.
...
In other words...when we want to call it a dinosaur we will call it a dinosaur,when we want to call it a bird we will call it a bird.
Show me how they can prove that there was a mutation or mutations that produced the feathers.
It is taking a conclusion that has been reached and wrapping all they can into it without proof.
For all I know, they may just decide it is time to exist and so they do.
Evidence of a genetic link between birds and dinosaurs was found only recently so I don't blame anyone for not knowing about it. Anyway, here it is: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genetic-sequencing-t-rex-confirms-dinosaurs039-link-birds-16088.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100106/ap_on_sc/eu_sci_fossil_footprints
It wasn`t until the 80s that it became accepted that there simply wasn`t enough time for that to have occurred based on observable and verifiable evidence.
Thus came the theory of the hopeful monster as it has been called,evolution occurring in a dramatic leap via mutation.
...
However now that is the standard and any challenge to that is viewed as a similar blasphemy.
...
Exactly who has "accepted" this idea that there hasn't been enough time for evolution by natural selection?
Huh? The Hopeful Monster hypothesis was never widely accepted.
Return of the Hopeful Monster
by Stephen Jay Gould
ig Brother, the tyrant of George Orwell's 1984, directed his daily Two Minutes Hate against Emmanuel Goldstein, enemy of the people. When I studied evolutionary biology in graduate school during the mid-1960s, official rebuke and derision focused upon Richard Goldschmidt, a famous geneticist who, we were told, had gone astray. Although 1984 creeps up on us, I trust that the world will not be in Big Brother's grip by then. I do, however, predict that during this decade Goldschmidt will be largely vindicated in the world of evolutionary biology.
Goldschmidt, a Jewish refugee from Hitler's decimation of German science, spent the remainder of his career at Berkeley, where he died in 1958. His views on evolution ran afoul of the great neo-Darwinian synthesis forged during the 1930s and 1940s and continuing today as a reigning, if insecure, orthodoxy. Contemporary neo-Darwinism is often called the "synthetic theory of evolution" because it united the theories of population genetics with the classical observations of morphology, systematics, embryology, biogeography, and paleontology.
The core of this synthetic theory restates the two most characteristic assertions of Darwin himself: first, that evolution is a two-stage process (random variation as raw material, natural selection as a directing force); secondly, that evolutionary change is generally slow, steady, gradual, and continuous.
Geneticists can study the gradual increase of favored genes within populations of fruit flies in laboratory bottles. Naturalists can record the steady replacement of light moths by dark moths as industrial soot blackens the trees of Britain. Orthodox neo-Darwinians extrapolate these even and continuous changes to the most profound structural transitions in the history of life: by a long series of insensibly graded intermediate steps, birds are linked to reptiles, fish with jaws to their jawless ancestors. Macroevolution (major structural transition) is nothing more than microevolution (flies in bottles) extended. If black moths can displace white moths in a century, then reptiles can become birds in a few million years by the smooth and sequential summation of countless changes. The shift of gene frequencies in local populations is an adequate model for all evolutionary processes—or so the current orthodoxy states.
The most sophisticated of modern American textbooks for introductory biology expresses its allegiance to the conventional view in this way:
[Can] more extensive evolutionary change, macroevolution, be explained as an outcome of these microevolutionary shifts? Did birds really arise from reptiles by an accumulation of gene substitutions of the kind illustrated by the raspberry eye-color gene? The answer is that it is entirely plausible, and no one has come up with a better explanation. . . . The fossil record suggests that macroevolution is indeed gradual, paced at a rate that leads to the conclusion that it is based upon hundreds or thousands of gene substitutions no different in kind from the ones examined in our case histories.
Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and macroevolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a necessary corollary of natural selection. Yet, as I argue in ["The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change"], Thomas Henry Huxley divided the two issues of natural selection and gradualism and warned Darwin that his strict and unwarranted adherence to gradualism might undermine his entire system. The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection does not require it—selection can operate rapidly. Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory.
Goldschmidt raised no objection to the standard accounts of microevolution; he devoted the first half of his major work, The Material Basis of Evolution (Yale University Press, 1940), to gradual and continuous change within species. He broke sharply with the synthetic theory, however in arguing that new species arise abruptly by discontinuous variation, or macromutation. He admitted that the vast majority of macromutations could only be viewed as disastrous—these he called "monsters." But, Goldschmidt continued, every once in a while a macromutation might, by sheer good fortune, adapt an organism to a new mode of life, a "hopeful monster" in his terminology. Macroevolution proceeds by the rare success of these hopeful monsters, not by an accumulation of small changes within populations.
I want to argue that defenders of the synthetic theory made a caricature of Goldschmidt's ideas in establishing their whipping boy. I shall not defend everything Goldschmidt said; indeed, I disagree fundamentally with his claim that abrupt macroevolution discredits Darwinism. For Goldschmidt also failed to heed Huxley's warning that the essence of Darwinism—the control of evolution by natural selection—does not require a belief in gradual change.
As a Darwinian, I wish to defend Goldschmidt's postulate that macroevolution is not simply microevolution extrapolated, and that major structural transitions can occur rapidly without a smooth series of intermediate stages. I shall proceed by discussing three questions: (1) can a reasonable story of continuous change be constructed for all macroevolutionary events? (my answer shall be no); (2) are theories of abrupt change inherently anti-Darwinian? (I shall argue that some are and some aren't); (3) do Goldschmidt's hopeful monsters represent the archetype of apostasy from Darwinism, as his critics have long maintained? (my answer, again, shall be no).
All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record—if only one step in a thousand survives as a fossil, geology will not record continuous change. Although I reject this argument (for reasons discussed in ["The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change"]), let us grant the traditional escape and ask a different question. Even though we have no direct evidence for smooth transitions, can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms—that is, viable, functioning organisms—between ancestors and descendants in major structural transitions? Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing? The concept of preadaptation provides the conventional answer by permitting us to argue that incipient stages performed different functions. The half jaw worked perfectly well as a series of gill-supporting bones; the half wing may have trapped prey or controlled body temperature. I regard preadaptation as an important, even an indispensable, concept. But a plausible story is not necessarily true. I do not doubt that preadaptation can save gradualism in some cases, but does it permit us to invent a tale of continuity in most or all cases? I submit, although it may only reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no, and I invoke two recently supported cases of discontinuous change in my defense.
On the isolated island of Mauritius, former home of the dodo, two genera of boid snakes (a large group that includes pythons and boa constrictors) share a feature present in no other terrestrial vertebrate: the maxillary bone of the upperjaw is split into front and rear halves, connected by a movable joint. In 1970, my friend Tom Frazzetta published a paper entitled "From Hopeful Monsters to Bolyerine Snakes?" He considered every preadaptive possibility he could imagine and rejected them in favor of discontinuous transition. How can a jawbone be half broken?
Many rodents have check pouches for storing food. These internal pouches connect to the pharynx and may have evolved gradually under selective pressure for holding more and more food in the mouth. But the Geomyidae (pocket gophers) and Heteromyidae (kangaroo rats and pocket mice) have invaginated their cheeks to form external fur-lined pouches with no connection to the mouth or pharynx. What good is an incipient groove or furrow on the outside? Did such hypothetical ancestors run about three-legged while holding a few scraps of food in an imperfect crease with their fourth leg? Charles A. Long has recently considered a suite of preadaptive possibilities (external grooves in burrowing animals to transport Soil, for example) and rejected them all in favor of discontinuous transition. These tales, in the "just-so story" tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything. But the weight of these, and many similar cases, wore down my faith in gradualism long ago. More inventive minds may yet save it, but concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal much to me.
If we must accept many cases of discontinuous transition in macroevolution, does Darwinism collapse to survive only as a theory of minor adaptive change within species? The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the major creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that natural selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well. Selection must do this by building adaptations in a series of steps, preserving at each stage the advantageous part in a random spectrum of genetic variability. Selection must superintend the process of creation, not just toss out the misfits after some other force suddenly produces a new species, fully formed in pristine perfection.
We can well imagine such a non-Darwinian theory of discontinuous change—profound and abrupt genetic alteration luckily (now and then) making a new species all at once. Hugo de Vries, the famous Dutch botanist, supported such a theory early in this century. But these notions seem to present insuperable difficulties. With whom shall Athena born from Zeus's brow mate? All her relatives are members of another species. What is the chance, of producing Athena in the first place, rather than a deformed monster? Major disruptions of entire genetic systems do not produce favored—or even viable—creatures.
But all theories of discontinuous change are not anti-Darwinian, as Huxley pointed out nearly 120 years ago. Suppose that a discontinuous change in adult form arises from a small genetic alteration. Problems of discordance with other members of the species do not arise, and the large, favorable variant can spread through a population in Darwinian fashion. Suppose also that this large change does not produce a perfected form all at once, but rather serves as a "key" adaptation to shift its possessor toward a new mode of life. Continued success in this new mode may require a large set of collateral alterations, morphological and behavioral; these may arise by a more traditional, gradual route once the key adaptation forces a profound shift in selective pressures.
Defenders of the modern synthesis have cast Goldschmidt as Goldstein by linking his catchy phrase—hopeful monster—to non-Darwinian notions of immediate perfection by profound genetic change. But this is not entirely what Goldschmidt maintained. In fact, one of his mechanisms for discontinuity in adult forms relied upon a notion of small underlying genetic change. Goldschmidt was a student of embryonic development. He spent most of his early career studying geographic variation in the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar. He found that large differences in the color patterns of caterpillars resulted from small changes in the timing of development: the effects of a slight delay or enhancement of pigmentation early in growth increased through ontogeny and led to profound differences among fully grown caterpillars.
Goldschmidt identified the genes responsible for these small changes in timing, and demonstrated that large final differences reflected the action of one or a few "rate genes" acting early in growth. He codified the notion of a rate gene in 1918 and wrote twenty years later:
The mutant gene produces its effect . . . by changing the rates of partial processes of development. These might be rates of growth or differentiation, rates of production of stuffs necessary for differentiation, rates of reactions leading to definite physical or chemical situations at definite times of development, rates of those processes which are responsible for segregating the embryonic potencies at definite times.
In his infamous book of 1940, Goldschmidt specifically invokes rate genes as a potential maker of hopeful monsters: "This basis is furnished by the existence of mutants producing monstrosities of the required type and the knowledge of embryonic determination, which permits a small rate change in early embryonic processes to produce a large effect embodying considerable parts of the organism."
In my own, strongly biased opinion, the problem of reconciling evident discontinuity in macroevolution with Darwinism is largely solved by the observation that small changes early in embryology accumulate through growth to yield profound differences among adults. Prolong the high prenatal rate of brain growth into early childhood and a monkey's brain moves toward human size. Delay the onset of metamorphosis and the axolotl of Lake Xochimilco reproduces as a tadpole with gills and never transforms into a salamander. (See my book Ontogeny and Phylogeny [Harvard University Press, 1977] for a compendium of examples, and pardon me for the unabashed plug.) As Long argues for the external cheek pouch: "A genetically controlled developmental inversion of the cheek pouch may have occurred, recurred, and persisted in some populations. Such a morphological change would have been drastic in effect, turning the pockets 'wrong side out' (furry side in), but nevertheless it would be a rather simple embryonic change."
Indeed, if we do not invoke discontinuous change by small alteration in rates of development, I do not see how most major evolutionary transitions can be accomplished at all. Few systems are more resistant to basic change than the strongly differentiated, highly specified, complex adults of "higher" animal groups. How could we ever convert an adult rhinoceros or a mosquito into something fundamentally different. Yet transitions between major groups have occurred in the history of life.
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, classical scholar, Victorian prose stylist, and glorious anachronism of twentieth-century biology, dealt with this dilemma in his classic treatise On Growth and Form.
An algebraic curve has its fundamental formula, which defines the family to which it belongs. . . . We never think of "transforming" a helicoid into an ellipsoid, or a circle into a frequency curve. So it is with the forms of animals. We cannot transform an invertebrate into a vertebrate, nor a coelenterate into a worm, by any simple and legitimate deformation. . . . Nature proceeds from one type to another. . . . To seek for steppingstones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, forever.
D'Arcy Thompson's solution was the same as Goldschmidt's: the transition may occur in simpler and more similar embryos of these highly divergent adults. No one would think of transforming a starfish into a mouse, but the embryos of some echinoderms and protovertebrates are nearly identical.
1984 will mark the 125th anniversary of Darwin's Origin, the first major excuse for a celebration since the centenary of 1959. I hope that our "new speaking" these few years hence will be neither dogma nor vacuous nonsense. If our entrenched, a priori preferences for gradualism begin to fade by then, we may finally be able to welcome the plurality of results that nature's complexity provides.
[ Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History 86 (June/July): 22-30; Reprinted here with permission from The Panda's Thumb New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980, pp. 186-193. ]
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_hopeful-monsters.html
I think you're misunderstanding the point of the S.J. Gould essay on the Hopeful Monster idea. Consider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopeful_Monster
It has been common practice for creationists to associate Goldschmidt's "hopeful monsters" with the theory of punctuated equilibrium, as proposed by Eldredge and Gould.[6] Punctuated equilibrium differs only slightly from hopeful monsters in that the former acts on populations rather than individuals, is theoretically more gradual (imagined to take 50,000 to 100,000 years), functions by theoretical isolating mechanisms (particularly allopatric speciation), and the latter says nothing of stasis. Creationists such as Luther Sutherland claim that both theories inadvertantly appeal to the absence of fossil evidence for evolution and thereby undermining the theory of Darwinian evolution. This predicament is used by creationists to argue that "there are no transitional fossils." Paleontologists such as Niles Eldredge, Stephen Jay Gould, and Steven M. Stanley avoid this by explaining that transitional forms may be rare between species, but "they are abundant between larger groups."[7] Moreover, none of these paleontologists argued in support of Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" hypothesis, but the rational still remains of explaining away the absence of evidence is evidence of their rapid unseen process.
Steven M. Stanley argued that some of Goldschmidt's views err mainly in exaggerating the importance of "chromosomal rearrangements" leading to "rapid changes in growth gradients or developmental sequences, and on what we now call quantum speciation."[8]
Macromutations do occur in the wild and in human genetic diseases, but are more often than not removed by natural selection.
In a nutshell it sounds like they dislike the name "hopeful monster" because it sounded silly even though that is what it amounted to.
Sort of like trying to throw away global warming for climate change so it can be an all encompassing dogma even when realities don`t fit the predictions.
No. In a nutshell, S.J. Gould argued that the Hopeful Monster idea hypothesis was invalid but not devoid of merit.
Huh?
It is exactly the same as disgarding global warming when the realites are inconveniently contradictory to the premise.
Out of nowhere came climate change and all is solved.
It still cannot explain the origin of life to begin,how so much variety exists today (a mouse and an elephant both being mammels) and why the sudden acceleration of evolution occurs and then stops.
The term "climate change" is not new and the term "global warming" has not been discarded. Climate change is talked about more than global warming these days because knowledge about how global warming is changing the climate has increased.
BS and you know it,was the greenhouse effect but that wasn`t dramatic enough so global warming came in to sound sinister and frightening.
That creates problems when warming doesn`t happen as it should so climate change is substituted.
The term "global warming" doesn't sound sinister at all. In fact, it sounds kind of cozy... especially around winter time.
When did this supposed switching of terms take place?
That is the same as global warming,change the definition when the facts don`t fit.
Only analogy I will make between the two.
Now..explain how life came into being to begin with...
...how it is possible for genes to continually mutate positively into higher species.
Do you know what the IPCC is?
The theory of evolution is not a theory on the origin of life... nor was it ever intended to be that.You're going to sit there and pretend that the theory of naturalistic, materialist, accidental mutations only describes evolution but at no point offers a subtext about origins as a whole?
The thread was on evolution...stick to that.
You're going to sit there and pretend that the theory of naturalistic, materialist, accidental mutations only describes evolution but at no point offers a subtext about origins as a whole?
You're going to pretend that the quest for the pre-biotic soup recipe has no connection to evolution whatsoever?
You brought up climate change and global warming. I'm just challenging your assertion.
I made an analogy to the respective changing of terms used rather then address the flaws of both.
That is all,nothing more.
I'm not allowed to challenge your analogy?
I'm not allowed to challenge your analogy?
It's called "The Origin of Species" not "The Origin of Variations Within Pre-Existing Species".
On the basis then that climate change isn`t a change in the definition of terms to suit the need to ignore the flaws and Goulds punctuated equillibrium is?
Go ahead.
Not in this thread, TNO.......lest you risk me splitting the topic.........AGW (farce that it is) is discussed in another forum.
Carl merely brought it up as a descriptive analogy to what I stated in the OP, regarding "scientists" becoming so invested in a flawed theory that they spend their resources defending an error in thought, rather than searching for the truth......
Stay on topic.......
doc
On the basis then that climate change isn`t a change in the definition of terms to suit the need to ignore the flaws and Goulds punctuated equillibrium is?
Go ahead.
An explanation of the difference between global warming and climate change: http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,39210.0.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex1
Your friend was talking about Haldane's Dilemma, which isn't really a dilemma at all but rather a conclusion based on a mathematical blunder:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane1.html
Conclusion
Remember, Haldane's 1957 paper was a theoretical treatise on the cost of natural selection. Here is Haldane's conclusion, which is correct in both points:
"To conclude, I am quite aware that my conclusions will probably need drastic revision. But I am convinced that quantitative arguments of the kind here put forward should play a part in all future discussions of evolution."
That concept could be argued, though. I find it a little coincidental that the dinosaurs had conveniently died off right before mankind came into the picture.
After attempting to wade through most of that, it seems to focus on "probabilities", and not actual biological events........I therefore must assume that it still does not answer the question of why no new phyla have evolved for nearly half a billion years.
Dinosaurs died off over 60 million years before humans emerged.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you wanted recent examples of speciation. Here are a few: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html
Fail.So when scientists discuss variations within a species they're being redundant?
Charles Darwin's book was titled The Origin of Species because it was intended to explain the existence of species, which can be defined as variety. Had Darwin intended for his book to explain the origin of life itself he would have titled it The Origin of Life.
Dinosaurs died off over 60 million years before humans emerged.
So when scientists discuss variations within a species they're being redundant?
You can argue semantics all you want but the fact remains every atheist uses evolution as THE argument to buttress their allegiance to naturalistic materialism and the non-theistic origin of life (except for some who occasionally likes little green men more than God). To argue otherwise is absurd on its face.
and humans emerged how? a trillion mutations in how many years?
A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve
Nilsson, Dan-E.; Pelger, Susanne
Proceedings: Biological Sciences, Volume 256, Issue 1345, pp. 53-58
Theoretical considerations of eye design allow us to find routes along which the optical structures of eyes may have evolved. If selection constantly favours an increase in the amount of detectable spatial information, a light-sensitive patch will gradually turn into a focused lens eye through continuous small improvements of design. An upper limit for the number of generations required for the complete transformation can be calculated with a minimum of assumptions. Even with a consistently pessimistic approach the time required becomes amazingly short: only a few hundred thousand years.
The only atheist I've ever encountered who is confused about what The Origin of Species is intended to explain is you.
I repeat for the deliberately obtuse: The fact remains every atheist uses evolution as THE argument to buttress their allegiance to naturalistic materialism and the non-theistic origin of life. To argue otherwise is absurd on its face.
Consider...
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994RSPSB.256...53N
Can you name some of these atheists who think that TOoS explains the origin of life and what they've said to give you that impression?
Can you name some of these atheists who think that TOoS explains the origin of life and what they've said to give you that impression?
What is then the origin of life?
At least TRY to make this interesting for me:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/23/dawkins.darwin.atheism/
Talk about being obtuse. Nothing in the CNN piece you provided a link to indicates that Richard Dawkins thinks The Origin of Species explains how life began.
Unknown. My money is on abiogensis.
http://www.allaboutscience.org/abiogenesis.htm
That is your privilege but you must also then be honest to admit it requires a faith equal to or greater then one who believes in Creation.
An excellent point. Yes, it takes faith to believe that abiogenesis is what started life on Earth but I don't believe that abiogenesis is what started life on Earth. I'm just guessing that abiogensis is the explanation because recent discoveries seem to point to that conclusion. Hopefully the mystery will be solved in my lifetime.
Okay,but since evolution then is a process stemming from what cannot be explained,utilizing mechanisms that also cannot be explained (the sudden mutation of an entire species over what amounts to a blink of an eye in the evolutionary time frame) why is that also not looked at with a bit of skepticism?
It takes the same level of faith to accept evolution as an irrefutable fact as it does Creation.
You can believe what you want but if you are even remotely honest about the matter you will admit to that.
There is no science to suggest that the time frame for evolution is too short.
Evolution is a fact... or at least as factual as anything can be in science. To put it bluntly, modern biology doesn't make sense without evolution.
Quote from: Carl on Today at 05:53:04 pm
What is then the origin of life?
Unknown. My money is on abiogensis.
If you can get people to believe in "science" you can get them to believe in anything.
There is no science to suggest that the time frame for evolution is too short.
Evolution is a fact... or at least as factual as anything can be in science. To put it bluntly, modern biology doesn't make sense without evolution.
SO I assume they have done this in a laboratory?
"Most people believe that the scientific theories and theses of their particular time are the right ones, and what remains for scientists to do is to expand and develop wondrous new technologies from their absolute understanding of nature's laws, mechanisms, and structures........many scientists believe that they live in the age of ultimate enlightenment, and become so committed to a particular theory that they spend entire careers desperately defending a concept, even as new discoveries rapidly destroy it."
"When a scientist tells you that 'the science is settled' in regard to any subject, he or she has ceased to be a scientist, and has become an evangelist for one cult or another. The entire history of science is very simply that nothing is ever settled...........new discoveries are being made on a continuous basis, and are constantly setting aside that which was held as commonly true".
Just as they ignore "minor" problems...like tetrapods leaving fossils older than the species they supposedly arose from. It all fits together so nicely if you're careful to read only the propaganda on talkorigins and ignore the facts that don't fit...
:lmao: :lmao:
As does this........
doc
It goes without saying that science is never settled in an absolute sense. Settled science can always be overturned by a new discovery.
The theory of evolution is about as settled as anything can be in science. In a way, the theory of evolution is a more settled than the theory of gravitation, something which no one doubts.
But there is proof to support the fact that early Earth atmosphere...back to the time when we were supposed to have come out of the "primordial ooze"...couldn't even support simple amino acids.
It goes without saying that science is never settled in an absolute sense. Settled science can always be overturned by a new discovery.
The theory of evolution is about as settled as anything can be in science. In a way, the theory of evolution is a more settled than the theory of gravitation, something which no one doubts.
Now wait a minute..a fact is something that can be provable,demonstrated and replicated.
Show me how that applies to the whole of the theory of evolution.
I ask you again to prove by that means how a reptile suddenly began to bear live young,grow hair/fur and have milk glands.
You can`t but somehow have to believe it happened.
That takes faith.
Your statement regarding it is as factual as science can do in light of that shows again it is a matter of faith,you make the argument against yourself.
I suppose if one views evolution as you do, as a ladder, then the discovery of the 385 million year old footprints is a huge problem. Fortunately, scientists don't view evolution as a ladder. They view it as a tree.Even with a tree, you can't have a branch growing without any connection to the trunk...and then have the connecting bit show up later. :rotf: :rotf: Don't let it worry you, though...there is absolutely no reason to begin to doubt a "rational" theory just because the ancestor of some creature doesn't show up until AFTER that creature is out walking around. (By the way, with that theory in mind, you might manage to watch the birth of your great-great grandmother, TNO.) :lmao: :lmao:
Horsecrap........Come on, doc...it's exactly the same. Never mind that we can see gravity work...and it's completely impossible to see the origin of life or the first tetrapod walking around a few million years before it's grandparents...it's PROVEN. SERIOUSLY!! :rotf: :rotf:
doc
Please answer in any way that can show how science has proved beyond any dispute..to the point where evolution is regarded as a fact and unchallengeable.
You've been misled by creationist websites.
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
Miller/Urey Experiment
By the 1950s, scientists were in hot pursuit of the origin of life. Around the world, the scientific community was examining what kind of environment would be needed to allow life to begin. In 1953, Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey, working at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment which would change the approach of scientific investigation into the origin of life.
Miller took molecules which were believed to represent the major components of the early Earth's atmosphere and put them into a closed system
The gases they used were methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. Perhaps most importantly, Miller's experiment showed that organic compounds such as amino acids, which are essential to cellular life, could be made easily under the conditions that scientists believed to be present on the early earth. This enormous finding inspired a multitude of further experiments.
In 1961, Juan Oro found that amino acids could be made from hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and ammonia in an aqueous solution. He also found that his experiment produced an amazing amount of the nucleotide base, adenine. Adenine is of tremendous biological significance as an organic compound because it is one of the four bases in RNA and DNA. It is also a component of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is a major energy releasing molecule in cells. Experiments conducted later showed that the other RNA and DNA bases could be obtained through simulated prebiotic chemistry with a reducing atmosphere.
These discoveries created a stir within the science community. Scientists became very optimistic that the questions about the origin of life would be solved within a few decades. This has not been the case, however. Instead, the investigation into life's origins seems only to have just begun.
There has been a recent wave of skepticism concerning Miller's experiment because it is now believed that the early earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules. Another objection is that this experiment required a tremendous amount of energy. While it is believed lightning storms were extremely common on the primitive Earth, they were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed. Thus it has been argued that while amino acids and other organic compounds may have been formed, they would not have been formed in the amounts which this experiment produced.
Many of the compounds made in the Miller/Urey experiment are known to exist in outer space. On September 28, 1969, a meteorite fell over Murchison, Australia. While only 100 kilograms were recovered, analysis of the meteorite has shown that it is rich with amino acids. Over 90 amino acids have been identified by researchers to date. Nineteen of these amino acids are found on Earth. (table showing comparison of Murchison meteorite to Miller/Urey experiment) The early Earth is believed to be similar to many of the asteroids and comets still roaming the galaxy. If amino acids are able to survive in outer space under extreme conditions, then this might suggest that amino acids were present when the Earth was formed. More importantly, the Murchison meteorite has demonstrated that the Earth may have acquired some of its amino acids and other organic compounds by planetary infall.
If these compounds were not created in a reducing atmosphere here on Earth as Miller suggested, then where did they come from? New theories have recently been offered as alternative sites for the origin of life.
Evolution has been observed both in the laboratory and the wild. What more do you need?
Come on, doc...it's exactly the same. Never mind that we can see gravity work...and it's completely impossible to see the origin of life or the first tetrapod walking around a few million years before it's grandparents...it's PROVEN. SERIOUSLY!! :rotf: :rotf:
Yet you say it is as settled as anything can be.
Even with a tree, you can't have a branch growing without any connection to the trunk...and then have the connecting bit show up later. :rotf: :rotf: Don't let it worry you, though...there is absolutely no reason to begin to doubt a "rational" theory just because the ancestor of some creature doesn't show up until AFTER that creature is out walking around. (By the way, with that theory in mind, you might manage to watch the birth of your great-great grandmother, TNO.) :lmao: :lmao:
I don't understand what you're trying to say.She's saying regardless of which botanical analogy you employ you still have to account for pre-biotic origins.
It goes without saying that science is never settled in an absolute sense. Settled science can always be overturned by a new discovery.
The theory of evolution is about as settled as anything can be in science. In a way, the theory of evolution is a more settled than the theory of gravitation, something which no one doubts.
You need to slow down. What I wrote is that the theory of evolution is a settled science. Abiogensis, which has to do with the origin of life, is not a settled science and I haven't suggested that it is.You need to read better and think deeper.
You Know, TNO, upon reflection, I gave you credit for having more intelligence than to make a comment like this one..........although I consider you to be politically misguided, I've credited you as an articulate, reasonably smart person, with well above average research and communication skills.........however........
Back when I was a postdoc, teaching Physics classes to undergrads, the professors would categorize students making statements like this as "fuzzy thinkers". In science, a "fuzzy thinker" is one who for whatever reason (religion, political ideology, or just plain stubbornness) arrives at a conclusion on as issue "first", based on how they "feel" about it, and then proceeds to expend all of his/her energy rushing to the library to find the least bit of out-of context "evidence" in order to fight off challenges to what, in their mind, has become set in concrete.
Students striving to become well versed in scientific principles look at even the most established concept with a jaundiced eye........forever skeptical, a good scientist never allows his/her outside opinions color their consideration of a scientific issue/problem. As I mentioned to you in a long-ago thread on another topic, many of my professors, when I was coming up in academia were outright Marxists, and many Athiests, but it was never allowed to influence their research, nor did they begin consideration of a theory with either their politics or religion (or lack thereof) as the remotest part of their work. They were scientists, first and foremost, and their Atheism, Marxism, or any other influence was left out of the process. I might hear about it over coffee at lunch at the Dean's house, but never in the lab or classroom.
You demonstrate this flaw in thinking here as well, as you frantically Google for the smallest tidbit if information to dispute a piece of a presented concept, rather than stepping back, and looking at the topic with a skeptical scientific approach, organizing your thoughts, and presenting the well thought-out, organized, and articulate argument that I know you are capable of........without letting your politics, or "religion" color your presentation or thought process.
If, after careful self-analysis, you can't arrive at such a place, perhaps PolySci or Philosophy is your thing, and threads involving science, religion, and related topics should be overlooked. Just a suggestion......
I think that it is great that you have joined this discussion, as your positions have certainly created great interest from the membership, but you are capable of better.......let's see it.......
doc
The origin of life is the basis for an evolutionary system,to suggest otherwise is absurd as has already been pointed out.
It is intellectually lazy to proclaim otherwise.
If it also was somehow settled science then it couldn`t be referred to as a theory which you just did.
You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.
Uh, no. Natural selection is the basis for an evolutionary system.
You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.
blah blah blah blah
no blah blah blah
you!! blah blah
um, I'm telling mama
I am so tired of this thead. heh.
This is actually a really good thread even if just for the fact that it me made aware of Tiktaalik's demotion. :-)
You've been misled by creationist websites.
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.
Uh, no. Natural selection is the basis for an evolutionary system.
You have it backwards. The theory is the end result of the scientific process.
(http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/scientific_theory.gif)
I don't understand what you're trying to say.OK, I'll say it very slowly. The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods. Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents. There. Was that slow enough? Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article? :-)
OK, I'll say it very slowly. The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods. Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents. There. Was that slow enough? Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article? :-)
You've dismissed the very basis for modern biology on bogus calculations which have zero support in scientific literature and yet you accuse me of lacking skepticism. That takes the cake.
All you did was reinforce everything he just said.
It doesn't matter if the proposition is correct you're more worried about its threat to "modern biology" (which in due course will become ancient biology).
Alas, the scientificalist community suffers its ideological biases. It is a tautological doctrine that no scientist believes in creation or ID because anyone who believes in creation or ID is not considered a scientist. I'm not surprised that a "community" populated with the likes of Dawkins, Gould, Huxley, Russel et al would refuse to consider a thesis such as the one offered in the OP and then they would sneer--as have you--that such a paper has never passed "peer review".
I have the luxury of long ago having ceased to concern myself with origins. It's nonsensical thinking arrogantly pawned off in tones of self-satisfying elitism that chafe my cottontail.
Scientificalists are people who use shades of science to make themselves look smarterer.
Scientificalism is the gelatinous-spined crap peddled by the AGW crowd, tautologically minded evolutionists and those rubes who every third week shift eggs from the OK-to-eat to do-not-eat column or back again. You know, the researchers who drop a ton of statistics on a mayor's desk in order to make him outlaw sodium content of the city's restaurants.
THAT scientificalism.
where can I find some details on that?http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100106/ap_on_sc/eu_sci_fossil_footprints
...Tracks left behind by the animals 397 million years ago...
>>>
Before the discovery of these tracks, it was thought certain fish evolved into four-limbed animals during the Givetian Period, 391 to 385 million years ago. Fossils seemed to neatly support this timing for the fin-to-limb gradual change, since some fish, known as elpistostegids, appeared to belong to a mid-point stage where the fish had tetrapod-like heads and bodies, but retained fish characteristics, such as paired fins.
>>>
In a separate commentary in Nature, they call the new finds a "stunning discovery." They write that the sea and lagoon location described by Ahlberg and his colleagues "is at odds with the long-held view that river deltas and lakes were the necessary environments for the transition from water to land during vertebrate evolution."
Given this difference, and the very early date of the tracks, Janvier and Clement believe the new findings "lob a grenade" into accepted theories of the fish-to-tetrapod transition.
However, these groups were also widely separated without any apparent environmental continuity between them at the time of their evolution. Late Devonian tetrapod species are "highly endemic" (Clack 2006, 184), meaning that they are "restricted to the locality or region where they have been collected" (Blieck et al. 2007, 229). The fossils come from sites many thousands of miles apart.
Thus, the phylogenetic series reconstructed in familiar evolutionary cladograms include taxa rarely found together as fossils. Cambridge University paleontologist Jennifer Clack, an expert on this evidence, notes that "taking the tetrapods sites worldwide, one thing is obvious: they lie scattered over the globe in places that were remote from each, on separate continents, even in the Devonian" (2002, 99). "These forms," note other paleontologists working on the puzzle (Zhu et al. 2002, 720), "seem to have achieved worldwide distribution and great taxonomic diversity within a relatively short time." This paleo-biogeographical puzzle raises significant evidential difficulties for monophyletic (single origin) scenarios.
No. Sorry. The Miller-Urey Experiment was disproven in the 1970"s by Geochemists who determined that the make up of the Earth's atmosphere at the time could not support life.
In attempting to overcome various problems, they're thinking tetrapods may have evolved multiple times, in many areas. If evolution used to be so extremely prolific, what stopped it? ::) Unless, of course, it's a case of "any idea is better than admitting God did it..." :lmao:
Scientificalists are people who use shades of science to make themselves look smarterer.
Scientificalism is the gelatinous-spined crap peddled by the AGW crowd, tautologically minded evolutionists and those rubes who every third week shift eggs from the OK-to-eat to do-not-eat column or back again. You know, the researchers who drop a ton of statistics on a mayor's desk in order to make him outlaw sodium content of the city's restaurants.
THAT scientificalism.
Evolution hasn't stopped. You're just to dogmatic to acknowledge widely accepted examples observed evolution.
OK, I'll say it very slowly. The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods. Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents. There. Was that slow enough? Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article? :-)
Observed Evolution?
We have "observed" an animal becoming a totally different animal?
I have the luxury of long ago having ceased to concern myself with origins.
It's nonsensical thinking arrogantly pawned off in tones of self-satisfying elitism that chafe my cottontail.
White noise.Your every argument from your subjective morality you keep pushing on to others while looking down your crooked little beak at them to your faith in abiogenesis to your dismissal of anything that challenges your preconceptions is "white noise."
You're announcing your lack of intellectual curiosity as though it's an admirable quality? Um, okay.I don't consider my personal qualities to be admirable or risible; simply are.
So, which hypothesis on the origin of life would you describe as sensical thinking? The God-Did-It hypothesis?Your mother never really loved you. It was merely a biological mechanism which, if not present but for the sake of a series of bio-molecular happenstances, she would not have been motivated to propagate her species. What you thought was affection was merely molecules rearranging themselves according to chemical law.
Yes.
Quote from: FGL on January 16, 2010, 10:47:17 pm
Observed Evolution?
We have "observed" an animal becoming a totally different animal?
Yes.
Quote from: MrsSmith on January 16, 2010, 05:55:36 pm
OK, I'll say it very slowly. The tetrapods left fossils behind that are older than those of their ancestors...the fish that were supposed to become tetrapods. Your position at this time is that there is no problem with a fossil line-up that puts you several millions years before your many-times great grandparents. There. Was that slow enough? Did you somehow miss that fact in the posted article?
Just as I thought. You incorrectly view evolution as a ladder rather than a tree.
Can you name the geochemists who supposedly overturned the Miller-Urey experiment or am I just supposed to take your word for it?
Yes.
So, calling it a tree excuses the fact that the origin of the tetrapod actually showed up AFTER tetrapods walked the earth...just as we see in trees...the branches show up before the trunk. I see. :lmao: :lmao: :loser: :rotf: :rotf:
Our good friend Tiktaalik is one of perhaps several branches which led to tetrapods.
Sydney Fox and Klaus Dose 1977.
Also....for further proof:
“The likelihood of life having occurred through a chemical accident is, for all intents and purposes, zero.â€
Robert Gange, Ph.D., Origins and Destiny, 1986, p. 77.
"Since Miller’s beguiling picture of a pond full of dissolved
amino acids under a reducing atmosphere has been discredited, a new beguiling picture has come to take its place. The new picture has life originating in a hot, deep, dark little hole on the ocean floor.
Freeman Dyson, Origins of Life, 1999, pp. 25-26. (Dyson is a Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a member
of NAS.)
Do you believe in love?
I don't see myself going to Heaven so what does it matter if the world is miserable little mud ball of evolution or the fallen paradise of theists. The end result, at least as far as I am concerned, is the same: NOTHING.
Where and when? You don't expect me to just take your word for it do you?
Two points:
1. Robert Gange is not a geochemist (his background is in engineering). Freeman Dyson is not a geochemist (his background is in physics and mathematics).
2. Origins and Destiny is not peer reviewed scientific literature. It's creationist literature.
So far, all you have is a creationist engineer who wrote a creationist book.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
Ummm...not quite. Because your outdated BS doesn't take into fact that footprints of a full-tetrapod that were made about 20 million years before Tiktaalik have been discovered in Poland.
Oh and by your standard...they aren't peer reviewed.
Nice of you to completely avoid the fact that I gave you the names of the people that completely debunked the Miller-Urey experiment.
Considering that Tetrapod fossils have been found all over the world, it should come as no surprise that fossils of their predecessors will be found all over the world.
I'm guessing that you, like Mrs. Smith, are under the impression that evolution is a ladder.
All Talk Origins articles are based on published scientific studies which are listed at the bottom of the page.
All you provided are two opinions printed in creationist literature. Show me a peer reviewed scientific study debunking the Miller-Urey experiment or bow out.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
5.6 Flour Beetles (Tribolium castaneum)
Halliburton and Gall (1981) established a population of flour beetles collected in Davis, California. In each generation they selected the 8 lightest and the 8 heaviest pupae of each sex. When these 32 beetles had emerged, they were placed together and allowed to mate for 24 hours. Eggs were collected for 48 hours. The pupae that developed from these eggs were weighed at 19 days. This was repeated for 15 generations. The results of mate choice tests between heavy and light beetles was compared to tests among control lines derived from randomly chosen pupae. Positive assortative mating on the basis of size was found in 2 out of 4 experimental lines.
All you provided are two opinions printed in creationist literature. Show me a peer reviewed scientific study debunking the Miller-Urey experiment or bow out.
There has been a recent wave of skepticism concerning Miller's experiment because it is now believed that the early earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules. Another objection is that this experiment required a tremendous amount of energy. While it is believed lightning storms were extremely common on the primitive Earth, they were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed. Thus it has been argued that while amino acids and other organic compounds may have been formed, they would not have been formed in the amounts which this experiment produced.
Dude..one of your own links from a few pages back pretty much did that.
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
Origin-Of-Life Chemistry RevisitedReanalysis of famous spark-discharge experiments reveals a richer collection of amino acids were formed
Stephen K. Ritter
In the quest to understand how life on Earth became possible, Stanley L. Miller conducted a set of "primordial soup" experiments in the early 1950s to synthesize amino acids, the basic building blocks of peptides, proteins, and nucleic acids. The famous experiments, part of his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago, mimicked possible stormy atmospheric conditions on ancient Earth.
In a new twist involving the experiments, a team including Adam P. Johnson of Indiana University, Jeffrey L. Bada of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Antonio Lazcano of the National Autonomous University of Mexico uncovered some of Miller's original samples and reanalyzed them. They found that one particular variation of the spark-flask apparatus experiments produced a wider variety of amino acids—research that Miller never published (Science 2008, 322, 404).
...
Miller identified five amino acids and detected others in his reported experiments. But with modern liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques at their disposal, Bada and coworkers identified 14 amino acids and five amines in those samples and a richer collection of 22 amino acids and the five amines from the unpublished volcanic experiments.
"The volcanic apparatus experiment suggests that, even if the overall atmosphere was not reducing, localized prebiotic synthesis could have been effective," the researchers write. They speculate that amino acids formed in volcanic island systems could have been polymerized by carbonyl sulfide— volcanic gas—to form peptides leading to proteins.
...
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i42/8642notw4.html
And Miller conceded that glycine was the best he could do in the absence of methane. In 1984, Heinrich Holland confirmed that mixtures of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor yield no amino acids at all.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i42/8642notw4.html
"The volcanic apparatus experiment suggests that, even if the overall atmosphere was not reducing, localized prebiotic synthesis could have been effective," the researchers write. They speculate that amino acids formed in volcanic island systems could have been polymerized by carbonyl sulfide— volcanic gas—to form peptides leading to proteins.
To show how amino acids--life’s building-blocks--could have formed on the early Earth, the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment used a simulated hydrogen-rich atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. By 1970, though, most geochemists were convinced that the Earth’s primitive atmosphere was nothing like this, but instead consisted of gasses emitted from volcanoes--mainly carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. [2]
Sidney Fox and Klaus Dose reported in 1977 that no amino acids are produced by sparking a carbon dioxide-nitrogen-water vapor mixture. In 1983, Miller himself reported that he could produce no more than a small amount of the simplest amino acid (glycine) by sparking an atmosphere containing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and then only if free hydrogen was added. And Miller conceded that glycine was the best he could do in the absence of methane. In 1984, Heinrich Holland confirmed that mixtures of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor yield no amino acids at all. [3] Perhaps Ussery was ignorant of these facts.
That is the point the "hopeful monster" comes into play (was that Stephan Goulds theory,too lazy to look it up) which suggests evolution occurred in enormous leaps.May as well begin here.
It disregards the provable facts that mutations are almost always detrimental and usually non reproducible as the "victim" is sterile.No, in fact mutations follow a classic bell-curve distribution, with the vast majority being neutral in character and about the same number of detrimental/lethal mutations versus advantageous ones. There are two types of advantageous mutations, though: the kind that's passed along in reproduction (which only happens when it's a germ cell - that is, a sperm or egg) which receives the mutation; and the kind which doesn't get passed, for example any mutation that isn't heritable. The first sort represents something which can affect a species evolutionarily; the second doesn't, because only populations evolve not individuals.
It does however provide a basis for the magic of faith that they claim they don`t have as no longer is the inconvenience of the fossil record troubling.What's inconvenient about the fossil record?
The conclusion of that article...You are using the word "theory" in a nonscientific sense - a heartbreakingly common layman's mistake. Scientific theories are not "speculations." Theories are assemblages of available factual data which, when interpreted in a coherent form, lead inexorably to one explanation for some particular phenomenon or suite of phenomena. That theories are always provisional (rather than speculative) is the nature of their assembly: they must incorporate only data which is currently known and confirmed. It would be nice to be able to incorporate data from the future, but unfortunately science eschews crystal balls and entrail-reading.
Why did I bolden those words?
Simple,it shows that it is all theory and speculation..
The conclusion of that article...
Why did I bolden those words?
Simple,it shows that it is all theory and speculation..I have no issue with that.
I do have an issue with taking those things and then declaring it to be fact.
Once more your own link argues the point I am making,that evolution is a belief system and not a proven or provable fact.
You are using the word "theory" in a nonscientific sense - a heartbreakingly common layman's mistake. Scientific theories are not "speculations." Theories are assemblages of available factual data which, when interpreted in a coherent form, lead inexorably to one explanation for some particular phenomenon or suite of phenomena. That theories are always provisional (rather than speculative) is the nature of their assembly: they must incorporate only data which is currently known and confirmed. It would be nice to be able to incorporate data from the future, but unfortunately science eschews crystal balls and entrail-reading.
Main Entry: the·o·ry
Pronunciation: \ˈthē-ə-rē, ˈthir-ē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural the·o·ries
Etymology: Late Latin theoria, from Greek theÅria, from theÅrein
Date: 1592
1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2 : abstract thought : speculation
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art <music theory>
4 a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action <her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn> b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory <in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all>
5 : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena <the wave theory of light>
6 a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : conjecture c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject <theory of equations>
synonyms see hypothesis
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory
theâ‹…oâ‹…ry [thee-uh-ree, theer-ee] Show IPA
Use theory in a Sentence
–noun, plural -ries. 1. a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.
2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
3. Mathematics. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
4. the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
5. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles.
6. contemplation or speculation.
7. guess or conjecture
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory
Yet. But the same can be said for your line of thinking as well, hence being faith based. No?
I have no problem with that and that is the difference.
I believe God created all we see,I can not "prove" it nor will I attempt to though there is evidence to suggest it is far more then just random mutations can accomplish.
My point is just that..evolution is just as much a matter of faith but it is not honest about it.
I think this thread has shown that.
A nice try to redefine a word to suit your purpose but an epic fail.Maybe you're not familiar with the concept of specialized jargon - you know, like the sort used by the credit industry, where a "deadbeat" is in fact someone who pays their credit card bills in full every month. Try finding that definition for deadbeat in a dictionary, though.
Dawinist and Djones. Now it's a party.
And if we just accepted that we lived by inhaling and exhaling, then we wouldn't know a thing about atmospheric dynamics today. Learning how the universe was created, or how life began, is not about proving God does not exist. One simply cannot do that. It's about learning. Which should never be discouraged.
Dawinist and Djones. Now it's a party.
And it mught be the shortest in recorded history.......
doc
Maybe you're not familiar with the concept of specialized jargon - you know, like the sort used by the credit industry, where a "deadbeat" is in fact someone who pays their credit card bills in full every month. Try finding that definition for deadbeat in a dictionary, though.
The meaning of scientific theory is an overarching explanation tying together the facts pertaining to a specific natural phenomenon or set of related phenomena.
I suggest you revise your definition: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scientific+theory
And it mught be the shortest in recorded history.......How does your post address the topic, Mr. Moderator?
doc
How does your post address the topic, Mr. Moderator?
I'm not here to support you. I'm just here to show that not all Atheists are ass hats. Something I learned long ago, is that arguing this is as pointless as trying to convince a DUmmie that George Bush is a decent guy. It's not a topic where you can just point at an established fact and say there, you can't refute it. It's an idealogical belief system, on both sides of the aisle, and neither side is ever going to give in.
I am in full agreement and can respect that,however an evolutionist can`t.
I suggest you try to accept what the word means and has always meant.I do have so little patience with people who insist on remaining ignorant at all costs.... but, Christlike, I persevere. Once again: within the professional context of science the meaning of "theory" is different from common-usage meanings, and refers to a falsifiable fact-based explanation describing the physical mechanics of a phenomenon. It is not a guess, not a speculation, not a shot in the dark: it is a coherent collection of factual data that explains a phenomenon.
Now you are saying that "in my world a theory is not what a theory has always been but something different".
I'm an atheist who believes in an evolutionary system, and your agreeing with my statement. Or are you trying to refer to someone specifically?
I'm not here to support you.
Something I learned long ago, is that arguing this is as pointless as trying to convince a DUmmie that George Bush is a decent guy.
I do have so little patience with people who insist on remaining ignorant at all costs.... but, Christlike, I persevere. Once again: within the professional context of science the meaning of "theory" is different from common-usage meanings, and refers to a fallsifiable fact-based explanation describing the physical mechanics of a phenomenon. It is not a guess, not a speculation, not a shot in the dark: it is a coherent collection of factual data that explains a phenomenon.
I suggest you try to accept what the word means and has always meant.
Now you are saying that "in my world a theory is not what a theory has always been but something different".
Once again I have little patience with some one that chooses to define words in ways that suit their purposes.
Why must the definition of theory be anything different then what has always been?
If your belief system can`t accept that it is your problem not mine...I am not the one trying to move the goal posts here.
What if I say that theory is nothing more then hopeful wishes of those that have an agenda to push,it is simply a word used to describe a hopelessly failed explanation of organic lifes history and is a keyword to recognize one that has no cognizant argument to offer?
[Sun 09:32] <Darwinist> Say TxR, what makes you think you can? I've been cutting off creationists and IDers at their shoetops for almost 20 years now: what makes you special?how you plan to do that without creating new meanings to words.
Am I missing something here? The primary definition of the word theory listed in the definition you provided fits Darwinst's understanding to a tee.
Theory
1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
I mean, there it is in black and white. The word theory can be used to mean speculation but that's not the kind of theorizing we're talking about. Okay?
Carl....."Darwinist" is correct inasmuch as a "Theory" in scientific terms is defined more narrowly than it is in general useage.......however, even in the narrow definition of science, Darwin's thoughts are not without significant problems in today's world."Darwin's thoughts are not without significant problems in today's world."
The overall view is my motivation for the discussion.....
doc
So be it but it doesn`t equate to it being a fact now does it?Yes, because scientific theories are composed of facts, therefore they are structures of fact, therefore they are facts. They can be toppled - falsified - of course; but that takes facts too.
Carl....."Darwinist" is correct inasmuch as a "Theory" in scientific terms is defined more narrowly than it is in general useage.......however, even in the narrow definition of science, Darwin's thoughts are not without significant problems in today's world.
The overall view is my motivation for the discussion.....
doc
Yes, because scientific theories are composed of facts, therefore they are structures of fact, therefore they are facts. They can be toppled - falsified - of course; but that takes facts too.
Yes, because scientific theories are composed of facts, therefore they are structures of fact, therefore they are facts. They can be toppled - falsified - of course; but that takes facts too.
BTW, "Carl," you sound a lot like someone with the same name who used to post at the CARM Evolution Forum several years ago. Would you by chance be him?
Nope,not me...as political forums go I have been at FR,CU for a short time and here.Okay, just curious. Back to the fray.
"Darwin's thoughts are not without significant problems in today's world."
Speculate?
Your creationist literature is behind the times. New experiments using the current model of early Earth conditions have produced even more amino acids than the Miller-Urey experiment produced.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i42/8642notw4.html
Creationist literature? Oh you mean books written by authors who happen to disagree with your fairy tale.
I asked you to present the facts of evolution..please do.The facts of evolution: evolution is a genetic process by which organisms diversify through the accumulation of changes to the genome (i.e. adaptations) that lead to an advantage in differential reproduction and are heritable. Technically, and in its most succint form, evolution is "conserved changes in allele frequency" and that's all. Speciation, which is a manifestation of evolution, is the inability of one group (or single organism) to reproduce with other organisms of sufficient genetic difference.
Yet. But the same can be said for your line of thinking as well, hence being faith based. No?
By the term creationist literature I mean material which has not undergone scientific peer review.I would actually amend that: creationist literature is, specifically, literature based on nontestable and therefore unfalsifiable claims pertaining to supernatural creation of the universe and the earth, and the so-called "special creation" (i.e. nonreproducible) of organisms by a diety.
The facts of evolution: evolution is a genetic process by which organisms diversify through the accumulation of changes to the genome (i.e. adaptations) that lead to an advantage in differential reproduction and are heritable. Technically, and in its most succint form, evolution is "conserved changes in allele frequency" and that's all. Speciation, which is a manifestation of evolution, is the inability of one group (or single organism) to reproduce with other organisms of sufficient genetic difference.
To actually buy into evolution requires more "faith based" belief than to buy into anything written in the Bible.Nonsense. Evolution is a fact-based historical biological science. Its conclusions are no more "faith-based" than the sort of forensic examinations you see on TV shows like CSI.
I do have so little patience with people who insist on remaining ignorant at all costs.... but, Christlike, I persevere. Once again: within the professional context of science the meaning of "theory" is different from common-usage meanings, and refers to a falsifiable fact-based explanation describing the physical mechanics of a phenomenon. It is not a guess, not a speculation, not a shot in the dark: it is a coherent collection of factual data that explains a phenomenon.
I asked a series of questions that if evolution was a proven and provable fact should be easy to answer.(Sigh.) Where?
Please do.
I would actually amend that: creationist literature is, specifically, literature based on nontestable and therefore unfalsifiable claims pertaining to supernatural creation of the universe and the earth, and the so-called "special creation" (i.e. nonreproducible) of organisms by a diety.
(Sigh.) Where?
Btw...once again you resort to the tired tactic of "you are too ignorant to understand what I am saying".
You prove what I have said at every point.
Tell us person that has
Quote
[Sun 09:32] <Darwinist> Say TxR, what makes you think you can? I've been cutting off creationists and IDers at their shoetops for almost 20 years now: what makes you special?
how you plan to do that without creating new meanings to words.
What is the origin of life?
How did evolution get triggered?
How does new genetic material form (scales becoming feathers) ?
Why do we not have transitional animals among us?
If natural selection is the means then why did the "hopeful monster" have or be postulated?
Why did punctuated equilibrium have to enter the argument?
Why does it start and stop?
No more word games to waste time and divert attention,explain it and show the observable,duplicateable mechanism that does it.
Nonsense. Evolution is a fact-based historical biological science. Its conclusions are no more "faith-based" than the sort of forensic examinations you see on TV shows like CSI.
Nonsense. Evolution is a fact-based historical biological science. Its conclusions are no more "faith-based" than the sort of forensic examinations you see on TV shows like CSI.
Except for the fact that there is no coherent collections of factual data to support the theory of evolution.That's a claim 100% stuck in ignorance of the facts. Evolution, like any proper branch of science, makes predictions that are testable for accuracy against the theory. For example, based on an examination of the fossil record of mammallike reptiles (the gorgonopsids and their kin, for which the fossil record is remarkably complete) it was hypothesized that mammalian inner-ear bones evolved from processes on the mandible that grew thinner and smaller and eventually detached themselves from the jaw and migrated to the ear where they were exapted to perform their new "job." Hypothesize, I say, because there was a crucial gap in the fossil record at just the moment in evolutionary time where the critical detachment would occur. Of course this simply gave paleontologists an opportunity to predict the critical adaptation would be eventually discovered in the fossil record. And, 20 years later, so it was: the extremely well preserved skeleton of a species now known as Diarthrognathus (and several others since that first discovery) was uncovered, at the right moment in the fossil chronology, and it showed exactly the predicted critical adaptation to the jaw.
Nothing in the fossils...nothing at the cellular level...or the molecular level.That is a statement of pure faith on your part. I just demonstrated your ignorance concerning the fossil record as a confirmer of evolution. Wanna try for more? Give me a specific claim.
And evolution literature is specifically literature based on decades of attempts to duplicate a process yet never has.Wrong again. Speciation - and therefore evolution - has been directly observed in nature. I direct you to two species of "nylon-eating bugs," Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nylon, being an artificial fiber synthesized in 1935, could not have had species of bacteria that "grazed" on it prior to its invention. Speciation has also been compelled in the laboratory, with a reporducively viable tetraploid species of the Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) being at least one exemplar.
That's a claim 100% stuck in ignorance of the facts.
Evolution, like any proper branch of science, makes predictions that are testable for accuracy against the theory.
For example, based on an examination of the fossil record of mammallike reptiles (the gorgonopsids and their kin, for which the fossil record is remarkably complete) it was hypothesized that mammalian inner-ear bones evolved from processes on the mandible that grew thinner and smaller and eventually detached themselves from the jaw and migrated to the ear where they were exapted to perform their new "job." Hypothesize, I say, because there was a crucial gap in the fossil record at just the moment in evolutionary time where the critical detachment would occur. Of course this simply gave paleontologists an opportunity to predict the critical adaptation would be eventually discovered in the fossil record. And, 20 years later, so it was: the extremely well preserved skeleton of a species now known as Diarthrognathus (and several others since that first discovery) was uncovered, at the right moment in the fossil chronology, and it showed exactly the predicted critical adaptation to the jaw.
Except there is nothing out there that proves your alleged fact based "science".
Miller-Urey - disproven
Except there is nothing out there that proves your alleged fact based "science".
Miller-Urey - disproven
Wrong again. Speciation - and therefore evolution - has been directly observed in nature. I direct you to two species of "nylon-eating bugs," Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nylon, being an artificial fiber synthesized in 1935, could not have had species of bacteria that "grazed" on it prior to its invention. Speciation has also been compelled in the laboratory, with a reporducively viable tetraploid species of the Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) being at least one exemplar.
For the sake of argument, let's pretend that Miller-Urey study has been overturned. Here are two more studies for your consideration:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/107640215/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31491
Wrong again. Speciation - and therefore evolution - has been directly observed in nature. I direct you to two species of "nylon-eating bugs," Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nylon, being an artificial fiber synthesized in 1935, could not have had species of bacteria that "grazed" on it prior to its invention. Speciation has also been compelled in the laboratory, with a reporducively viable tetraploid species of the Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) being at least one exemplar.
Nothing concrete. Nothing to back up the theory of evolution as anything more than a fairy tale. Lots of speculation and hypothesis though.
Oh and TNO...possibilities of things that might be able to occur doesn't prove your point.
What about Miller-Urey is "disproved". The experiments indisputably produced organic materials from ordinary matter, in a simulation of what were thought to be possible early Earth conditions.
Do you just think those conditions weren't indicative of the early earth? Many agree with that assessment today. But regardless of whether you think those conditions were a plausible simulation of some early earth conditions - they certainly could plausibly exist someplace. In that sense, the experiments were powerful demonstrations of the thesis that biological matter can, in fact, come from non-biological matter in conditions that can naturally exist.
The science has hardly stood still in this area of research - abiogenesis is a fruitful and fast paced field of study, almost to the point where if you don't make an active habit of keeping up with it from day-to-day, you will be out of date. We now have countless examples of organic building blocks being created under a huge variety of possible natural conditions.
Btw...once again you resort to the tired tactic of "you are too ignorant to understand what I am saying".
You prove what I have said at every point.
Tell us person that has
Quote
[Sun 09:32] <Darwinist> Say TxR, what makes you think you can? I've been cutting off creationists and IDers at their shoetops for almost 20 years now: what makes you special?
how you plan to do that without creating new meanings to words.
What is the origin of life?
How did evolution get triggered?
How does new genetic material form (scales becoming feathers) ?
Why do we not have transitional animals among us?
If natural selection is the means then why did the "hopeful monster" have or be postulated?
Why did punctuated equilibrium have to enter the argument?
Why does it start and stop?
No more word games to waste time and divert attention,explain it and show the observable,duplicateable mechanism that does it.
What about Miller-Urey is "disproved". The experiments indisputably produced organic materials from ordinary matter, in a simulation of what were thought to be possible early Earth conditions.
Do you just think those conditions weren't indicative of the early earth? Many agree with that assessment today. But regardless of whether you think those conditions were a plausible simulation of some early earth conditions - they certainly could plausibly exist someplace. In that sense, the experiments were powerful demonstrations of the thesis that biological matter can, in fact, come from non-biological matter in conditions that can naturally exist.
The science has hardly stood still in this area of research - abiogenesis is a fruitful and fast paced field of study, almost to the point where if you don't make an active habit of keeping up with it from day-to-day, you will be out of date. We now have countless examples of organic building blocks being created under a huge variety of possible natural conditions.
What about Miller-Urey is "disproved". The experiments indisputably produced organic materials from ordinary matter, in a simulation of what were thought to be possible early Earth conditions.
What is the origin of life? - Not a concern of evolution. Evolution is concerend strictly with species diversification not how life came to exist. That is the concern of a realtively new science called abiogenesis, which is more a division of molecular biology/organic chemistry than of classical biology and evolutionary study.
How did evolution get triggered? - Probably by the first genetic transcription error during cell division. ...And by the way, there are ZERO cell divisions without transcription errors.
How does new genetic material form (scales becoming feathers) ? - Through transcription errors which serendipitously are beneficial and subsequently conserved in the genome; and through beneficial mutations, also conserved.
Why do we not have transitional animals among us? - We do. Everywhere. Every individual organism is a potential transitional form. The biological lottery is this: will a given individual's genes spread through its population and eventually provoke or take advantage of a speciation event?
If natural selection is the means then why did the "hopeful monster" have or be postulated? - Natural selection does not preclude saltation any more than the gradual burning out of stars below the Chandrasekhar limit precludes the extremely rare (given the number of stars in the universe) supernova. Saltation events among animals are extremely rare but not unheard of. They are far more common among plants and typically occur through polyploidization, during which the orignal number of genes doubles or even quadruples, rendering a new species in a single generation which is gentically distinct and reproductively incompatible with even its immediate parent. Most polyploidal events are lethal, but not all of them. Most surviving polyploids are sterile, but, again, not all of them (review the earlier note concerning the Maidenhair fern).
Why did punctuated equilibrium have to enter the argument? - It was a pet project of Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge. All it does is theorize, based on the appearance of the fossil record, that due to environmental factors the rate evolution is inconstant, sometimes crawling along very slowly (periods during which little diversification occurs) and sometimes cracking along at an accelerated pace (periods during which diversification expands).
Why does it start and stop? - Evolution? It never stops ...or well, rather, it won't until life on earth is snuffed out. Why did it start? Because life isn't perfect ...fortunately for us.
... Is that all? Gee. For a moment I was afraid you were going to ask hard questions! ;)
Have they ever created organic life or shown the process that would?
What is the origin of life? - Not a concern of evolution. Evolution is concerend strictly with species diversification not how life came to exist. That is the concern of a realtively new science called abiogenesis, which is more a division of molecular biology/organic chemistry than of classical biology and evolutionary study.
How did evolution get triggered? - Probably by the first genetic transcription error during cell division. ...And by the way, there are ZERO cell divisions without transcription errors.
How does new genetic material form (scales becoming feathers) ? - Through transcription errors which serendipitously are beneficial and subsequently conserved in the genome; and through beneficial mutations, also conserved.
Why do we not have transitional animals among us? - We do. Everywhere. Every individual organism is a potential transitional form. The biological lottery is this: will a given individual's genes spread through its population and eventually provoke or take advantage of a speciation event?
If natural selection is the means then why did the "hopeful monster" have or be postulated? - Natural selection does not preclude saltation any more than the gradual burning out of stars below the Chandrasekhar limit precludes the extremely rare (given the number of stars in the universe) supernova. Saltation events among animals are extremely rare but not unheard of. They are far more common among plants and typically occur through polyploidization, during which the orignal number of genes doubles or even quadruples, rendering a new species in a single generation which is gentically distinct and reproductively incompatible with even its immediate parent. Most polyploidal events are lethal, but not all of them. Most surviving polyploids are sterile, but, again, not all of them (review the earlier note concerning the Maidenhair fern).
Why did punctuated equilibrium have to enter the argument? - It was a pet project of Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge. All it does is theorize, based on the appearance of the fossil record, that due to environmental factors the rate evolution is inconstant, sometimes crawling along very slowly (periods during which little diversification occurs) and sometimes cracking along at an accelerated pace (periods during which diversification expands).
Why does it start and stop? - Evolution? It never stops ...or well, rather, it won't until life on earth is snuffed out. Why did it start? Because life isn't perfect ...fortunately for us.
... Is that all? Gee. For a moment I was afraid you were going to ask hard questions! ;)
Natural selection does not preclude saltation any more than the gradual burning out of stars below the Chandrasekhar limit precludes the extremely rare (given the number of stars in the universe) supernova. Saltation events among animals are extremely rare but not unheard of. They are far more common among plants and typically occur through polyploidization, during which the orignal number of genes doubles or even quadruples, rendering a new species in a single generation which is gentically distinct and reproductively incompatible with even its immediate parent. Most polyploidal events are lethal, but not all of them. Most surviving polyploids are sterile, but, again, not all of them (review the earlier note concerning the Maidenhair fern).
Evolution? It never stops ...or well, rather, it won't until life on earth is snuffed out. Why did it start? Because life isn't perfect ...fortunately for us.Another non reply but one that shows evolution is a matter of faith and a belief system.
They have processes for a heck of a lot - the major holy grail, I suppose, is to demonstrate RNA naturally forming. Then there are additional problems after that, such as moving from RNA to DNA, or even getting RNA molecules to a sufficient size and complexity, etc. As I said before, these are fruitful areas of research, and barriers are crossed practically daily.
But it clearly does not make sense to suggest that since they havent yet demonstrated the full process of abiogenesis, that abiogenesis is impossible or implausible. The amount of discovery in that field of research that marches on, if anything, encourages the thought that abiogenesis is plausible - not the other way around.
What is the origin of life? - Not a concern of evolution. Evolution is concerend strictly with species diversification not how life came to exist. That is the concern of a realtively new science called abiogenesis, which is more a division of molecular biology/organic chemistry than of classical biology and evolutionary study.
How did evolution get triggered? - Probably by the first genetic transcription error during cell division. ...And by the way, there are ZERO cell divisions without transcription errors.
Through transcription errors which serendipitously are beneficial and subsequently conserved in the genome; and through beneficial mutations, also conserved.
We do. Everywhere. Every individual organism is a potential transitional form. The biological lottery is this: will a given individual's genes spread through its population and eventually provoke or take advantage of a speciation event?
It was a pet project of Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge. All it does is theorize, based on the appearance of the fossil record, that due to environmental factors the rate evolution is inconstant, sometimes crawling along very slowly (periods during which little diversification occurs) and sometimes cracking along at an accelerated pace (periods during which diversification expands).
Why does it start and stop? - Evolution? It never stops ...or well, rather, it won't until life on earth is snuffed out. Why did it start? Because life isn't perfect ...fortunately for us.
... Is that all? Gee. For a moment I was afraid you were going to ask hard questions! ;)
TRG read a book from 1986 which tries to present uncertainties regarding the composition of Earth's prebiotic atmosphere as a refutal of the Miller-Urey experiment.
It was a pet project of Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge. All it does is theorize, based on the appearance of the fossil record, that due to environmental factors the rate evolution is inconstant, sometimes crawling along very slowly (periods during which little diversification occurs) and sometimes cracking along at an accelerated pace (periods during which diversification expands).
I see that the new troll sure has the wheels spinning here.
:popcorn:
Kinda. He's not saying or posting anything that TNO hadn't already.
And which had already been refuted as well I might add.
Kinda. He's not saying or posting anything that TNO hadn't already.
And which had already been refuted as well I might add.
True, but I can't help notice that he has others wasting a lot of bandwidth by responding to him.
But but but I thought that theory was the same as fact where science is concerened?Punctuated equilibrium is a fact in that the fossil record does show sporadic periods of evolutionary acceleration and near-stasis. Gould and Eldredge were trying to work out a physical mechanism for the pattern. The jury is still out on whether they compellingly succeeded. Most biologists believe the answer to the question is actually of little importance because punk-eek is really not much more than an observation of rate, like someone observing that a hiker walks faster over some portions of the trail and slower on others. The reason why he does that isn't necessarily important. Might be, but not necessarily.
You mean they speculated and conjectured?No, they studied the fossil record and noted a discernible pattern of change with regard to biotic diversity over time.
The actual meaning of "theory" that is.That ship has sailed, and you were left standing on the dock waving a hanky, and with a sad little tear in your eye. Back to your little shack on the beach now....
And yet they still have no explanation for the Cambrian period.
They have no way of explaining how in a span of 5-10 million years (the Cambrian period) nearly every animal phyla we have today suddenly appeared over 500 million years ago.
It's something not even Darwin could explain.
True, but I can't help notice that he has others wasting a lot of bandwidth by responding to him.
The easy questions we hand out to shallow thinkers like you and TNO.Tex, I've forgotten more about evolutionary biology than you've ever learned or are ever likely to be motivated to learn.
Considering that Tetrapod fossils have been found all over the world, it should come as no surprise that fossils of their predecessors are being found all over the world.Fossils of their PREdecessors?? :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: PREdecessors, by definition, must come BEFORE, not after.
I'm guessing that you, like Mrs. Smith, are under the impression that evolution is a ladder.
Punctuated equilibrium is a fact in that the fossil record does show sporadic periods of evolutionary acceleration and near-stasis. Gould and Eldredge were trying to work out a physical mechanism for the pattern. The jury is still out on whether they compellingly succeeded. Most biologists believe the answer to the question is actually of little importance because punk-eek is really not much more than an observation of rate, like someone observing that a hiker walks faster over some portions of the trail and slower on others. The reason why he does that isn't necessarily important. Might be, but not necessarily.
No, they studied the fossil record and noted a discernible pattern of change with regard to biotic diversity over time.
That ship has sailed, and you were left standing on the dock waving a hanky, and with a sad little tear in your eye. Back to your little shack on the beach now....
Most biologists believe the answer to the question is actually of little importance
That ship has sailed, and you were left standing on the dock waving a hanky, and with a sad little tear in your eye. Back to your little shack on the beach now....
Tex, I've forgotten more about evolutionary biology than you've ever learned or are ever likely to be motivated to learn.
Just to let you know....
Tex, I've forgotten more about evolutionary biology than you've ever learned or are ever likely to be motivated to learn.
Just to let you know....
More speculation and hypothesis devoid of facts.Nevertheless, evolution focuses on how life diversified not on how it came into existence. Obviously evolutionary biology and abiogenesis are related fields. So are the studies of star and black hole formation, as fields within the main science of astronomy. However the two fields obviously have very different focuses, just as evolution and abiogenesis do.
What caused that first genetic transcription? What triggered the need for that cell division?Unknown. ...By the way, "Unknown" is not a response science tries to avoid.
More leaps of faith that this is how it's supposed to work. Yet there is nothing in the fossil record to back up what you claim.A fossil record for genetic transcription errors? ...Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?
If they are out there then why are you not able to list any of them?What part of "every individual organism" did you not understand?
And yet they still have no explanation for the Cambrian period.What explanation do you believe is required, just out of curiosity?
They have no way of explaining how in a span of 5-10 million years (the Cambrian period) nearly every animal phyla we have today suddenly appeared over 500 million years ago.The Cambrian Explosion actually lasted about 40 million years, FYI. A long time, 40 million years. Relatively brief in geologic terms; but still nothing to sneeze at. It does represent, after all, roughly 1/100 of the earth's history.
It's something not even Darwin could explain.Out of curiosity, what explanation do you think is required?
Yet we're supposed to believe two cultists like Gould and Eldridge like what they say is holy writ.Cultists? What makes them cultists?
If evolution never stops...then why aren't we still inundated with the same species that walked the earth millions of years ago?Because extinction never stops either.
WOuldn't they have evolved and adapted to the current version of "earth" in order to survive and continue?That depends on contingent factors like rate of environmental change (it's so much easier to just run from a lava flow, for example, than try to evolve an adaptation to it...) and natural selection through differential success in competition, among other things.
If natural selection is the means then why did the "hopeful monster" have or be postulated? - Natural selection does not preclude saltation any more than the gradual burning out of stars below the Chandrasekhar limit precludes the extremely rare (given the number of stars in the universe) supernova. Saltation events among animals are extremely rare but not unheard of. They are far more common among plants and typically occur through polyploidization, during which the orignal number of genes doubles or even quadruples, rendering a new species in a single generation which is gentically distinct and reproductively incompatible with even its immediate parent. Most polyploidal events are lethal, but not all of them. Most surviving polyploids are sterile, but, again, not all of them (review the earlier note concerning the Maidenhair fern).
Arrogance much?Is that what you call that little delusion of yours? "Refutation??" ;D
You make that claim...yet I've learned enough to be able to refute every thing you and your buddy TNO have tried make us believe.
Nevertheless, evolution focuses on how life diversified not on how it came into existence. Obviously evolutionary biology and abiogenesis are related fields. So are the studies of star and black hole formation, as fields within the main science of astronomy. However the two fields obviously have very different focuses, just as evolution and abiogenesis do.
Unknown. ...By the way, "Unknown" is not a response science tries to avoid.
A fossil record for genetic transcription errors? ...Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?
What part of "every individual organism" did you not understand?
What explanation do you believe is required, just out of curiosity?
The Cambrian Explosion actually lasted about 40 million years, FYI. A long time, 40 million years. Relatively brief in geologic terms; but still nothing to sneeze at. It does represent, after all, roughly 1/100 of the earth's history.
Out of curiosity, what explanation do you think is required?
Cultists? What makes them cultists?
Because extinction never stops either.
That depends on contingent factors like rate of environmental change (it's so much easier to just run from a lava flow, for example, than try to evolve an adaptation to it...) and natural selection through differential success in competition, among other things.
Is that what you call that little delusion of yours? "Refutation??" ;D
A question then...
You have stated that most are sterile,which does more to disprove evolution then prop it up,so what do you think of human hybridization...The mixing of races?
One element of Darwinisim has been extrapolating and extending it to social society.
Is natural selection applicable as far as it relates to evolving a human race and if so what sub species should be left off to die out?
Is that what you call that little delusion of yours? "Refutation??" ;D
Then show me where I'm factually wrong.
If Evolution is settled science as you and the rest of the cultists claim that should be pretty easy right?
But still a theory none the less.
Quote from Darwinist..How do you figure that? That no more acts to "disprove" evolution than to observe that based on the diversification of species we see in the fossil record 95-99% of all the species that have ever evolved are now extinct. ...But if you have some logical connection there, please, by all means, trot it out.
A question then...
You have stated that most are sterile,which does more to disprove evolution then prop it up
so what do you think of human hybridization...The mixing of races?I think nothing of it because the "races" are social constructs not biological classifications. There is less variability in the human genome worldwide than there is among chimpanzee troops occupying neighboring valleys. (By the way, that indicates that sometime in the remote past humanity was very nearly made extinct: the entire human population was probably reduced to no more than a few dozen individuals - a "genetic bottleneck" we call that. Same thing happened to cheetahs, the African hunting cat that's the fastest land animal; except their population was crushed down to probably 5 - 8 individuals ...which is why all cheetahs are virtually clones of one another: because their variability as a species is almost nil.)
One element of Darwinisim has been extrapolating and extending it to social society.Tread carefully there. Social darwinism is a facile perversion of darwinistic principles because it has no evidence supporting it. On the other hand the field of sociobiology, which observes that human behavior is affected on a darwinian level in that we have (and are affected by) more instincts than we suppose, does have direct and circumstantial evidentiary support; although much of it is hotly disputed among sociobiologists and their field-related detractors. Moreover social darwinism and sociobiology draw dissimilar conclusions regarding their respective specifics.
Is natural selection applicable as far as it relates to evolving a human race and if so what sub species should be left off to die out?Once again, "race" is a social designation not a biological or taxonomic classification.
Why, pray tell, is this pointless discussion even necessary?
Then how can it be declared to be settled fact?Continued research, of course.
How do you figure that? That no more acts to "disprove" evolution than to observe that based on the diversification of species we see in the fossil record 95-99% of all the species that have ever evolved are now extinct. ...But if you have some logical connection there, please, by all means, trot it out.
I think nothing of it because the "races" are social constructs not biological classifications. There is less variability in the human genome worldwide than there is among chimpanzee troops occupying neighboring valleys. (By the way, that indicates that sometime in the remote past humanity was very nearly made extinct: the entire human population was probably reduced to no more than a few dozen individuals - a "genetic bottleneck" we call that. Same thing happened to cheetahs, the African hunting cat that's the fastest land animal; except their population was crushed down to probably 5 - 8 individuals ...which is why all cheetahs are virtually clones of one another: because their variability as a species is almost nil.)
Tread carefully there. Social darwinism is a facile perversion of darwinistic principles because it has no evidence supporting it. On the other hand the field of sociobiology, which observes that human behavior is affected on a darwinian level in that we have (and are affected by) more instincts than we suppose, does have direct and circumstantial evidentiary support; although much of it is hotly disputed among sociobiologists and their field-related detractors. Moreover social darwinism and sociobiology draw dissimilar conclusions regarding their respective specifics.
Once again, "race" is a social designation not a biological or taxonomic classification.
Once again, "race" is a social designation not a biological or taxonomic classification.
IMHO it's not.
But folks seem to enjoy partaking in it.
So I say let them.
Why, pray tell, is this pointless discussion even necessary?
Show where you have proved any point you make short of saying that it is something you believe.I gave the specific prediction, based on evolutionary principles and the state of the fossil record, and 20 years in the waiting for confirmation, of the transitional form named Diarthrognathus.
Continued research, of course.
No not really.Back it up then, sport.
The existence of just one confirmed prediction is sufficient to confirm the general principle.
Have you read the entire thread?
Agreed that it has wandered into "micro", rather than "macro", however, its point is to determine whether there is validity to evolution (from member's perspective) or whether much more needs to be learned about "The Origion of the Species".........
In light of thiis explanation, do you still think it pointless?
doc
How do you figure that? That no more acts to "disprove" evolution than to observe that based on the diversification of species we see in the fossil record 95-99% of all the species that have ever evolved are now extinct. ...But if you have some logical connection there, please, by all means, trot it out.
I think nothing of it because the "races" are social constructs not biological classifications. There is less variability in the human genome worldwide than there is among chimpanzee troops occupying neighboring valleys. (By the way, that indicates that sometime in the remote past humanity was very nearly made extinct: the entire human population was probably reduced to no more than a few dozen individuals - a "genetic bottleneck" we call that. Same thing happened to cheetahs, the African hunting cat that's the fastest land animal; except their population was crushed down to probably 5 - 8 individuals ...which is why all cheetahs are virtually clones of one another: because their variability as a species is almost nil.)
Tread carefully there. Social darwinism is a facile perversion of darwinistic principles because it has no evidence supporting it. On the other hand the field of sociobiology, which observes that human behavior is affected on a darwinian level in that we have (and are affected by) more instincts than we suppose, does have direct and circumstantial evidentiary support; although much of it is hotly disputed among sociobiologists and their field-related detractors. Moreover social darwinism and sociobiology draw dissimilar conclusions regarding their respective specifics.
Once again, "race" is a social designation not a biological or taxonomic classification.
So...No. It may never become established fact. Obviously one must ascertain fact before establishing it. To ascertain one must first find and confirm evidence. No evidence, no ascertainment
It will become an established FACT, only after more scientific research?
Awesome.Why, yes, in fact science is.
Then you admit that it is not yet fact. So we are back to it being nothing more than an interesting scientific theory.The particular answer to the particular question "When did the first transcription error take place?" No. No factual answer yet. But ask yourself - and I mean ponder this: what makes that an important question in light of the confirmed fact that transcription errors happen in every cell division? Why is it important to know when the "first one" happened?
Ummm...Not even close. The better lottery metaphor is that when one person wins the lottery it proves the lottery is winnable.
Nope.
That's like saying that just because I won the lottery one time, my method of picking the numbers is sufficient to confirm my method as scientifically valid.
So we are back to it being nothing more than an interesting scientific theory.
I gave the specific prediction, based on evolutionary principles and the state of the fossil record, and 20 years in the waiting for confirmation, of the transitional form named Diarthrognathus.
The existence of just one confirmed prediction is sufficient to confirm the general principle. How many more individual examples do you need?
Yup. It's a matter of working out the details of how God created the world as it is using such wonderfully indirect mechanisms as evolution, and in a universe that has indeterminacy built in at the root level, with quantum mechanics. There is utterly nothing inconsistent with the existence of God, Jesus, and the rather well-developed theory of evolution.
Not even close. The better lottery metaphor is that when one person wins the lottery it proves the lottery is winnable.
No. It may never become established fact. Obviously one must ascertain fact before establishing it. To ascertain one must first find and confirm evidence. No evidence, no ascertainment
Why, yes, in fact science is.
The particular answer to the particular question "When did the first transcription error take place?" No. No factual answer yet. But ask yourself - and I mean ponder this: what makes that an important question in light of the confirmed fact that transcription errors happen in every cell division? Why is it important to know when the "first one" happened?
I gave the specific prediction, based on evolutionary principles and the state of the fossil record, and 20 years in the waiting for confirmation, of the transitional form named Diarthrognathus.
The existence of just one confirmed prediction is sufficient to confirm the general principle. How many more individual examples do you need?
That's very inspiring, and this IS the "Religious Discussions" forum, however man, in his eternal quest for truth sometimes requires a bit more........after all, where did our magnificent intellect come from in the first place?
doc
Back it up then, sport.
Funny you should mention that.
Diarthrognathus lacks the dental specialization of the tritylodonts; thus, its transitional status can be questioned.
The skeletal remains of many "transitional" forms, such as Diarthrognathus, are fragmentary. Furthermore, the demarcation between the reptilian [92] and mammalian structures is becoming blurred as knowledge about each group increases. The diagnostic characteristics of the class Mammalia essentially reside in the soft anatomy and physiology that cannot be determined from skeletal remains. Therefore, the classification of mammalian fossil according to skeletal features is tentative. In addition, the almost simultaneous appearance of Diarthrognathus (late Triassic era) and the first known mammal fossil (Triassic-Jurassic boundary) leaves little time for the evolution of mammals from this presumed transitional form.
http://www.ibri.org/Books/Pun_Evolution/Chapter2/2.2.htm
I and any person with more than two brian cells to rub together need an example that can't be shot down in less than five minutes and one internet search.
That's very inspiring, and this IS the "Religious Discussions" forum, however man, in his eternal quest for truth sometimes requires a bit more........after all, where did our magnificent intellect come from in the first place?
doc
[Sun 09:32] <Darwinist> Say TxR, what makes you think you can? I've been cutting off creationists and IDers at their shoetops for almost 20 years now: what makes you special?
Fossils of their PREdecessors?? :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: PREdecessors, by definition, must come BEFORE, not after.
As it is, the tetrapods are now "proven" to have shown up several million years BEFORE their PREdecessors.
That is a question an Evolutionist will never give you a straight answer on.
For it requires an answer that would totally shatter their whole belief system
Uh, no. The tracks found in Poland belong to a tetrapod which existed millions of years before the predecessor of another kind of tetrapod. We're talking about separate tetrapod lineages.
Quote from: The Night Owl on Today at 09:33:26
Our good friend Tiktaalik is one of perhaps several branches which led to tetrapods.
Ummm...not quite. Because your outdated BS doesn't take into fact that footprints of a full-tetrapod that were made about 20 million years before Tiktaalik have been discovered in Poland.
Philippe Janvier & Gaël Clément, "Muddy tetrapod origins," Nature Vol. 463:40-41 (January 7, 2010)
Sorry TNO...you failed again.
Hardly. "I don't know yet" is a perfectly valid answer which, BTW, is not the same thing as an admission that an answer will not be forthcoming from a purely scientific perspective all in due time.
[Sun 09:32] <Darwinist> Say TxR, what makes you think you can? I've been cutting off creationists and IDers at their shoetops for almost 20 years now: what makes you special?
I can accept that as long as it comes with the admission that the whole thing is a belief system equal to any religious one.
I had hoped TNO had recruited someone to bail his behind out that truly was an intelligent and capable debater.
When he announced his arrival it seemed like maybe it was but alas it is just another one that repeats old and tired arguments.
I wonder where that has happened over the last 20 years?
Actually here is what you tried to posit as proof earlier today and what I provided to refute what you'd said.
To which I replied:
You're trying to engage in revisionism to wriggle your way out.
Next time wait a few days before you hope people forget what you've said.
Dude! How can I put this? Tiktaalik is not the daddy of all tetrapods and neither is the creature responsible for the tracks found in Poland. Both represent separate lines. I can't put it more simply than that.
You were portraying it as one of the "missing links".
When the fact of the matter is that it's not.
I was just curious as to why some species don't seem to evolve much at all. The coelacanth for example, and some species of crocodiles and sharks come to mind.
Oh. And libs.
Beats me. It just seems that if all these species are subjected to the same conditions that supposedly drive evolution, then why do some evolve while others don't? i was just curious. It's a long thread. Maybe somebody already mentioned those examples.
Evolution
Species Change over time
Feb 6, 2007 John Blatchford
There are very many misconceptions about what most biologists understand by evolution. By definition any possible ancestor must be long dead, and describing any animal as ‘primitive’ is not the same as saying that it has not undergone the same amount of adaptive change as everything else. Coelacanths are certainly very much like some fossils, but that does not mean that they have stopped evolving. In much the same way modern crocodiles are very similar to fossil crocodiles. In both cases we can see that these animals are supremely adapted to their environments, but these environments have not changed recently and so nor have the animals.
Mantis Shrimps, as a group of animals, are twice as old as the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs’ environment changed too rapidly for them to adapt (maybe literally overnight if asteroid-impact theories are correct ), but the Mantis Shrimps have obviously been able to cope with changes. Everything alive today is equally ‘modern’, and when biologists describe a creature as ‘primitive’ they mean simply that it does not appear to have changed much recently. Fossils only give information about the harder parts of animals that existed in the past. Nothing about the physiology or behaviour of deceased animals is preserved in the rocks.
‘Survival of the fittest’ is a concept that is often misunderstood. It does not imply any ‘quality judgment’. In fact it is not even what Darwin said, his version was ‘survival of the best fitted’ … to their environment. The evolution of a species does not always lead to a more complicated version either - look at the barnacle parasites of crabs! These creatures evolved from shrimp-like ancestors to become parasites that look rather like blobs of jelly.
There appear to have been several periods in the earth’s history when the environment changed too rapidly for most animals to adapt. These events are known as ‘mass extinctions’, and it seems that we are presiding over one at the moment. Humans are causing much of the earth to change at a rate that is too fast for many species to cope with, and those species that are affected will probably join all those that are already extinct.
Evolution implies that all species alive today will either adapt to their changing environments or become extinct.
Beats me. It just seems that if all these species are subjected to the same conditions that supposedly drive evolution, then why do some evolve while others don't? i was just curious. It's a long thread. Maybe somebody already mentioned those examples.
There appear to have been several periods in the earth’s history when the environment changed too rapidly for most animals to adapt. These events are known as ‘mass extinctions’, and it seems that we are presiding over one at the moment. Humans are causing much of the earth to change at a rate that is too fast for many species to cope with, and those species that are affected will probably join all those that are already extinct
Uh, no. The tracks found in Poland belong to a tetrapod which existed millions of years before the predecessor of another kind of tetrapod. We're talking about separate tetrapod lineages.Uh, no. Read the articles again, skippy. :-)
Uh, no. Read the articles again, skippy. :-)
Dude! How can I put this? Tiktaalik is not the daddy of all tetrapods and neither is the creature responsible for the tracks found in Poland. Both represent separate lines. I can't put it more simply than that.Regardless of how you dance around the point, current fossil evidence puts tetrapods on the earth before ANY of their assumed PREdecessors. The articles make it quite clear that this discovery total screws up the "settled" science of the evolution of tetrapods. As I also posted, they are trying desperately to say that tetrapods must have evolved several times, in several different places and times, but there is no evidence for that desperate hope.
Regardless of how you dance around the point, current fossil evidence puts tetrapods on the earth before ANY of their assumed PREdecessors. The articles make it quite clear that this discovery total screws up the "settled" science of the evolution of tetrapods. As I also posted, they are trying desperately to say that tetrapods must have evolved several times, in several different places and times, but there is no evidence for that desperate hope.
Oh, and I never said anything about Tiktaalik...you did. It's merely been pointed out that Tiktaalik arose much later than his progeny, also.
MrsSmith - perhaps you should make an earnest attempt to learn about evolution from people who accurately represent it. Not Discovery Institute knuckleheads or AIG. So no.. tetrapods certainly have not been shown to be on earth, before any of their predecessors.
Here is how the footprint discovery has affected the phylogenetic tree, and Tiktaalik (Tik in the picture) in particular. The top tree is before the footprints - the bottom tree is after. Notice how all the relationships remain the same, before and after, and all that gets changed is the timeline.
[cut out boring charts]
Please also note this curious fact - Tik is considered a transitional, yet it has no descendants. Marinate on that for a second.
Hey! Darwin came back as a sock puppet! Welcome back *******!
A few here know I am not a sock puppet
Hmm...I was mistook...the same egotistical stupidity you come across with mirrors the writing style of darwinist.
Are you sure you don't have a masters in wymen's studies and a freakishly small penis?
That sums up pretty much everyone I've encountred on the internet who believe they are morally superior to everyone else because they buy into the Evolution Cult.
There are a few that are civil.
But most are like the Evo Cultists we've been dealing with here.
I think you're rather understating the basis for evolution, and in a similarly ideological manner.
As I stated before...the inevitable line of defense becomes something to the nature of "You`re too stupid to understand".
Constant redefining of words and terms with goalposts set up on wheels is the basis for evolutionary argument as has been demonstrated often on this thread.
They can`t admit for a second that it is a matter of faith and belief even though they can never provide the answer to the basic questions that must be answered..how did life begin,why did evolution start,why so many unexplained yet assumed as fact (punctuated equilibrium) theories and so on.
I personally don`t care what anyone believes but to declare nothing more then guesses as being hard fact is dishonest and indicating a motive (denial of God) beyond any scientific interests.
First off, there isn't a wide consensus over PE to my knowledge, so its hardly an assumed fact. Richard Dawkins, for example, is a famous and notable example of one who does not endorse it. Evolution/abiogenesis is actually answering the questions "how did life begin", and "how did evolution get started". They havent been throroughly answered yet, but so what?
Thank you for making my point. :cheersmate:
You don`t know but you say it is fact...that is faith.
Huh? I have never said PE is fact, nor would I.
No,that there is much that hasn`t been answered and you don`t care..you still call it (evolution) an unequivical fact.
That is a matter of faith...you don`t know how it is but you believe it.
Fine,I have no grudge against that but be honest about the whole proposition and admit it is still an unproven and unprovable theory that requires blind faith to accept.
For some reason that very simple and logical premise is like a cross to a vampire.
Why is that?
Because its false. So to any cautious respecter of truth, its bound to offend.
Evolution is quite simply the best explanation for the diversity of species. It has so much supporting evidence, that cannot be reasonably predicted or explained any other way, that even without the fossil record, it would still be the most well supported explanation for the diversity of species.
Its not faith - its called inference to the best explanation.
To me creation does that just fine,so we disagree.
Once more you make a statement full of faith and deny it is such..oh well I guess.
If you think that somehow life spontaneously generated and new genetic material from time to time also does (where did hair/fur genes come from well into any evolutionary time frame) and that doesn`t require faith then so be it.
In order for creation to work as an explanation, every well-established major natural science would have to be uprooted and gutted - to their most basic fundamentals. Based on that fact alone, creation is an immensely poorly supported explanation - it contradicts nearly everything we have learned about the natural world. Chemistry, physics, biology, geology, cosmology, etc. Pretty much nothing remains intact. Evolution, on the other hand, sits right in comfortably, with little disruption.
Its really easy to underestimate just how much stuff creation theories contradict. In that light, its amusing to look back at the OP, and chuckle a little.
Just because you are incredulous over the idea that life could spontaneously arise, in a gradual fashion, from non-living matter, it doest mean there are no good or no plausible explanations. There are.
Scientists are continually posing plausible pathways that could have led to life, then they attempt to confirm or disprove their ideas through experimentation. Many have been experiencing marked success.
I care little if by your thinking it doesn`t make sense,to me it is a satisfactory explanantion of the unknown and the continuing unknown..pretty much your take on evolution.
I can admit it is faith,you can`t...it is that simple.
If you were to admit you are accepting the unknown as true,which is what faith is then we have no disagreement in principle.
You refuse because it would throw your belief system into turmoil which you can`t accept.
We can go back and forth all day but you have illustrated my points and the point of the OP completely.
My dedication is to the best, most probable explanation, not evolution per se. Its not faith based, its evidence based. If the evidence turns on evolution, so will my belief.
There is a definite distinction between faith, and inference to the best explanation.
Well, let me just share my experience - there is a metric ****ton of ideologically driven misinformation regarding evolution. Whether intentional or not, the inevitable consequence is that folks read and believe it... then when, say a trained scientist, comes along and uses terms correctly or says something contrary to the misinformation - it appears to the unwashed that he's being dishonest and the "goalposts have moved", or that he's frantically redefining terms to "keep his faith intact". Admittedly too, inexperienced or naive evolution amateurs use terms imprecisely or have flawed understandings of basic concepts as well. However, most of the err generally resides in the person who uncritically accepts bad information.
Don't even get me started on the terms "transitional form", or "junk DNA".
First off, there isn't a wide consensus over PE to my knowledge, so its hardly an assumed fact. Richard Dawkins, for example, is a famous and notable example of one who does not endorse it. Evolution/abiogenesis is actually answering the questions "how did life begin", and "how did evolution get started". They havent been throroughly answered yet, but so what?
There are plenty of evolution believing Christians - evolution does not entail atheism. There are several notable Christian biologists who not only strongly advocate the idea that Christianity is compatible with evolution through many books and foundations, but also actively fight creationism and intelligent design - like Ken Miller and Francis Collins.
*yawn*
Keep believing your fractured fairy tale. It's got more holes in it than a Krispy Kreme at 6 in the morning.
MrsSmith - perhaps you should make an earnest attempt to learn about evolution from people who accurately represent it. Not Discovery Institute knuckleheads or AIG. So no.. tetrapods certainly have not been shown to be on earth, before any of their predecessors.Yep. They just changed the dates...and now they'll search frantically and either find or invent some sort of evidence to back up their currently unsupported assumptions. Same old...after all, the alternative to evolution is to admit God made it all...and we can't have them breaking the first rule, the one that demands they find ANY explanation, no matter how contrived, to explain everything without Him. :-)
Here is how the footprint discovery has affected the phylogenetic tree, and Tiktaalik (Tik in the picture) in particular. The top tree is before the footprints - the bottom tree is after. Notice how all the relationships remain the same, before and after, and all that gets changed is the timeline.
Before:
(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/01/clad1.jpeg)
After:
(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/01/clad2.jpeg)
Please also note this curious fact - Tik is considered a transitional, yet it has no descendants. Marinate on that for a second.
Translation: "I got nuthin".
Yep. They just changed the dates.
Ummm no. I had 15 pages worth of something in this thread.
Between two of your fellow cultists I debunked every Evolution myth they tried to trot out.
I direct to TVDOC...
Have you ever read "Breathless" by Dean Koontz? I actually just finished it.
So they studied one family, found a total of 4 unnoticeable mutations to the DNA sequencing that resulted in no significant change over 13 generations.
I don't think anybody questions whether DNA can change and mutate, the question is whether those mutations can actually be significant enough to create a new species. I think the original point still stands. To evolve from a single celled organism to a complex multi-celled organism requires frequent huge evolutionary changes. To produce the vast range of life that exists on earth would require extreme, near constant mutations, and we should be able to still see huge evolutionary leaps.