Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: Peter Barker on 10/07/2008 22:14:15
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Peter Barker asked the Naked Scientists:
Do you wince at the fundamentalist Christians who estimate that the Earth is around 3,000 to 6,000 years old and dismiss carbon dating? Further, do you, like me, lead a good moral life without the belief in an imaginary higher being in 'heaven'? Yes, I am an a-theist, just as I am an a-fairyist. Does your knowledge of science also make you non-believers ?
What do you think?
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I am certainly not a believer in intelligent design. I do have religious beliefs, but they are not in conflict with science.
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There is a very good article in this week's New Scientist about getting religion into US science classes and what seems to cause most annoyance is the way that ID proponents have "taken a cherished feature of science and turned it on its head to promote a non-rational agenda". It's on p.8 Class Conflict.
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I find intelligent design to be quite dishonest - rather than just saying "I choose to reject the scientific explanation of how species form and change over time, and instead believe the christian doctrine of creation" it seeks to distort science to fit a set of religious assumptions.
I don't mind if people chose to believe the bible instead of reason and science, that's up to them. However, I feel that once you do this, you opt out of discussion on the science of evolution and speciation. I'm not sure how people can choose to reject logic and science on this topic, but continue to work within other scientific fields, but I accept that this is a personal issue that each individual has to deal with.
I am deeply offended, however, by the intelligent design movement seeking to censor evolution in schools, or worse, to insist that it is taught alongside evolution in science lessons. I feel that all the creation myths should be taught in religious education lessons, as they are key to understanding different cultures.
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I think it would be really funny if, one day, it was proven that an alien prankster dictated the Bible [:D]
Well, I've seen it "proven" that spaceships and aliens are referred to in the Bible.
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Worryingly some book companies, who have a reputation for producing good quality science resources, are adding intelligent design workbooks to their available lists. Surely, they shoud be offered alongside religious theory books, not science...? Wadyathink?
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Worryingly some book companies, who have a reputation for producing good quality science resources, are adding intelligent design workbooks to their available lists. Surely, they shoud be offered alongside religious theory books, not science...? Wadyathink?
I agree. There is no science whatsoever in ID.
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In a an advertised sample page, they were suggesting that descriptions of ancient animals in the bible were in fact descriptions of dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!! The book was intended for primary school pupils- how outrageous is that ......?
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I will never believe in Intelligent design as it's all because of some schools and certain court cases in the States.
But we've evolved from fish, monkeys to early humans to the modern world that we live in Now. With all of its problems.
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When teaching, I used to regularly say how things were 'designed' in nature for instance- I wince myself if I say that now, in case it sounds like I believe in intelligent design!
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The politics have obscured the science. Behe's case is absolutely watertight despite evolutionist blathering.
Has any of you ever read the book, or are you simply taking up positions for less worthy reasons?
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lol...I read some very convincing articles and homepages and arguments of creationists... they convinced me, that I will never believe in ID.
My favourite: http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/ [;D]
I really love the "Thale of transition from water to land"... better than any good-night-thale!
I´m always wondering if lungfish, mudskipper and eels never read the "Why Transition From Water to Land
is Impossible"-part.
Maybe someone should tell them, that they will die within the next few Seconds, when they leave water..
Why does the eel not know, that its impossible for him, to cover the distance between two habitats, spending hours out of water without a propper sceletton or the right muscles?
Why does the Mudskipper not know, that he will dry up immediately, when spending more time out of water (like all the amphibias do, which should have the same skin-problem as described).
Why does the lungfish not know, that he wasn´t allowed to suddenly (all evolutionists know, that the fish ages ago jumped suddenly out of the water and started climbing the trees, eh?!...Thats what evolution ist all about, isn´t it??) develop these organs for breathing which gave him his name?
Why the hell do some fish die, when you prevent them from taking the chance to breath air (Anabantoidei, Corydoradinae).
Maybe someone should go out an tell them, that they don´t exist... there are no transitional forms...nooo! [:-X]
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I followed your link, atrox, and came on this:
"Mathematicians looking for answer to this question (why bees construct hexagonal cells) reached an interesting conclusion: "A hexagon is the most appropriate geometric form for the maximum use of a given area."
A hexagonal cell requires the minimum amount of wax for construction while it stores the maximum amount of honey. So the bee uses the most appropriate form possible."
Now a bee has a brain the size of a pinhead, and I doubt very much if there are too many bees out there with mathematical degrees.
How did they figure out the extreme intelligence-requiring fact that a hexagon would be the ideal mathematical structure for the storage of their honey? It also requires the minimum amount of wax, I gather.
If there's no intelligence at the back of it, how did they come up with the design?
Cheers
Asyncritus
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In a an advertised sample page, they were suggesting that descriptions of ancient animals in the bible were in fact descriptions of dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!! The book was intended for primary school pupils- how outrageous is that ......?
No more outrageous than my hearing a 7 year-old telling her mother in the pharmacy that 'you know the reptiles became birds, mum'. There's been some serious brain washing there!
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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjqdLG5RNg
that is all you need to know.
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Oh wow, Asyncritus... did you even read what I wrote?
You know what the problem whith ID is? That most of the arguments are either just a lie/not true (as the example with the fish) or meaningless because they wont prove a theory to be wrong (as argueing, that evolution was an instrument of the nazis... even if so, thats just no argument in science...btw, I´m still waiting for the acurate quotation, where they got the idea from, that Darwin himself was a racist...he never said anything like that) or because it fits with the theory of evolution as well.... as your example with the bees (btw. thats not the only argument you would base your opinion on, is it? [:o] )
If this is the best form to fit honey in, then it is also the form, where the chance to survive is the biggest... just as simple as that.
You know, what the real problem with ID is?
I would never go out there and say, people who believe in god or an intelligent designer or whatever they want to are brainwashed, stupid...whatever. ... as long as they won´t do exactly that with people believing in the theorie (oh yes, it is a theorie, not the ultimate truth...we know that...do you creationist know that too?) of evolution *yeah, thats me for example*... and trying to demonstrate that trough arguments without rhyme or reason. Sorry, but I really wonder who is the brainwashed then... I repeat: didn´t you read the thing with the fish? What do you say about that argument?
cu
aj
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Asyncritus, I think you've missed the point. The bees that produced hexagonal cells were the most successful, as they were getting the maximum gain from the minimum use of wax. Therefore, they were more likely to breed than the other bees. This is how natural selection works.
No intelligence required.
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Asyncritus, I think you've missed the point. The bees that produced hexagonal cells were the most successful, as they were getting the maximum gain from the minimum use of wax. Therefore, they were more likely to breed than the other bees. This is how natural selection works.
No intelligence required.
You couldn't have figured that out by yourself, Ben - I know I couldn't. Because I wouldn't know how to make honey, certainly not how to make wax without an organic chemistry lab, and without a mathematics degree I wouldn't be able to figure the hexagon bit out.
How do you see it happening? There are all these bees, each trying out different shapes some square, some round etc etc.
The hexagonal ones are the best, so all the others turn up their toes and die out.
That sound likely to you?
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lol...I read some very convincing articles and homepages and arguments of creationists... they convinced me, that I will never believe in ID.
My favourite: http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/ grin
I went and read that, and found the bees point on there. It was your reference that I was checking.
Now do stick to the point, and answer my question. How did the bees figure out that the hexagonal shape, in 3-dimensions yet, was the most economical for the purpose?
There are other related points, like how did they figure out how to make honey, wax,and then get it into their genes to pass the info on to their progeny?
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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjqdLG5RNg
that is all you need to know.
Har de har!
I love it!
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Lol...
Well, I don´t know how to make Honey myself...but I´m sure a bee wouldn´t know how to go fishing... [::)]
Well yes, you went through the reference, which is ok.
But you completely ignore all things that won´t fit, right ^^
Once again: whats your opinion on these nice arguments with the fish for example?
I told you my evolutionary opinion on how bees evolved this form.
But I can get more specific if you want to:
Lets imagine there are two colonies of bees at one place... both have nearly the same size of their hives. But one colony uses round cells, where they cant use the whole space propperly, the other uses hexagonal cells and so they can stash a lot more honey in their hive.
Both colonies are ok with their amount of honey.. all is fine, as long as all the ecological terms stay the same.
But then, there comes the winter and the colonies have to stay in their hives for a long time. No problem at all...they have the honey to survive.
But maybe(e) this winter is longer than the other ones, food is getting short. What do you think, which colony has the best chance to survive, to reproduce in next spring, to spread?
Noone ever said, that the bees with round cells just go dieing because there bees which are a bit better adapted...thats where creationist allway try to mock evolutionist...but no evolutionist would ever use the word suddently.. and no, the other ones did not just die because they felt outbided...they died because when the terms changed, the other ones maybe where more patient.
Thats just no argument to prove the theorie of evolution wrong... give me a better one... you didn´t just base your view of the world on bees I guess...
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Asyncritus, I'm afraid that rather than posting evidence against evolution, you're merely throwing light on your own lack of understanding of evolution. There are a number of very good books that will explain it for you. Failing that, why not try thinking of these sorts of issues without the initial assumption that everything was designed by some alien intelligence? You will find that evolution is beautiful, natural, logical and wonderful.
I think that the simplicity of evolution, the sheer beauty of the process and it's results is far better than any god figure could ever be. As someone else has said on this forum, and I am inclined to agree - lets look at the beauty of the garden without trying to see the fairies at the bottom.
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Asyncritus, I'm afraid that rather than posting evidence against evolution, you're merely throwing light on your own lack of understanding of evolution. There are a number of very good books that will explain it for you. Failing that, why not try thinking of these sorts of issues without the initial assumption that everything was designed by some alien intelligence? You will find that evolution is beautiful, natural, logical and wonderful.
I think that the simplicity of evolution, the sheer beauty of the process and it's results is far better than any god figure could ever be. As someone else has said on this forum, and I am inclined to agree - lets look at the beauty of the garden without trying to see the fairies at the bottom.
Isn't that marvellous! Here's a serious criticism of evolution, and all you can say is 'I don't understand it'! I didn't post evidence against evolution - atrox did, so don't blame me. I'm just asking what seems to be a set of sensible questions based on his facts.
I have read a fair number of books on the subject, including Origin, and I hold an honours degree in a biological science.
I am asking what seems to be a simple and logical question given the facts he raised in his reference.
How did the bees figure out how to do this marvellous thing?
Simple isn't it?
Let's look at the garden and think a bit about the bees that pollinate the flowers - and that raises another host of questions, which we won't go in to until we get some sensible answers to this one.
Atrox brought the subject up, and I'm simply asking the questions any sensible biologist would ask.
Now stop berating me, and focus on the question.
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Lol...
Well, I don´t know how to make Honey myself...but I´m sure a bee wouldn´t know how to go fishing... [::)]
Well yes, you went through the reference, which is ok.
But you completely ignore all things that won´t fit, right ^^
Once again: whats your opinion on these nice arguments with the fish for example?
I told you my evolutionary opinion on how bees evolved this form.
But I can get more specific if you want to:
Lets imagine there are two colonies of bees at one place... both have nearly the same size of their hives. But one colony uses round cells, where they cant use the whole space propperly, the other uses hexagonal cells and so they can stash a lot more honey in their hive.
Both colonies are ok with their amount of honey.. all is fine, as long as all the ecological terms stay the same.
But then, there comes the winter and the colonies have to stay in their hives for a long time. No problem at all...they have the honey to survive.
But maybe(e) this winter is longer than the other ones, food is getting short. What do you think, which colony has the best chance to survive, to reproduce in next spring, to spread?
Noone ever said, that the bees with round cells just go dieing because there bees which are a bit better adapted...thats where creationist allway try to mock evolutionist...but no evolutionist would ever use the word suddently.. and no, the other ones did not just die because they felt outbided...they died because when the terms changed, the other ones maybe where more patient.
Thats just no argument to prove the theorie of evolution wrong... give me a better one... you didn´t just base your view of the world on bees I guess...
There's no mockery here. Somebody said 'natural selection did all this' I'm saying that if there WAS a selective process, then it must have selected from some alternatives. That's the meaning of 'select'.
So what alternatives are there? Circle triangle ....
Since all bees and other insects that build nests and make honey use this hexagonal formation, then how did it arise? How did making honey arise? How did manufacturing wax arise? How did bees figure out that flowers had nectar? And pollen? And that they could use them in making honey? After all it isn't just a simple solution of sugar in water. It's a very complex chemical substance with some wonderful properties.
And it's prepared in a most remarkable way.
As I said, I don't think I could have figured all that out by myself, and then somehow stuck the info in my genes. I'm pretty sure the bees couldn't either. So who or what did?
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I'll be honest with you, I don't know the biochemistry involved - if I get chance, I'll look it up.
For now - Wax - a great many insects produce wax as a protective coating - humans produce a waxy substance (in the ear) as to many other animals. So the genetic precursor for producing wax is definitely there. It only takes a small mutation to produce lots of it, and if this produced an advantage (keeping larvae safe, food storage, better protection from predators) it would be selected for. So that's the wax angle covered.
As atrox has already explained, it's not that animals 'work it out' and then evolve. The animals with specific mutations that lead to advantageous behaviour are more likely to breed, and so these mutations will become more prominant in the population.
If you actually understood evolution, you wouldn't need to ask for the specific details.
Feel free to bring up your questions about the flowers.
Edit - In fact, you have a point. We should stop berating you. Please could you explain fully your understanding of evolution, so we can see where the root of our disagreements stems from.
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I didn't post evidence against evolution - atrox did, so don't blame me.
Sorry, but where did I post evidence? I posted a link to a side, which was trying to get arguments against evolution...but most of the arguments are everything else but evidence for a creator or against evolution..
You picked one out, you ignore my questions completely, you seem to ignore my answers to your question completely.
I asked you about the fish-thing, I asked you for other arguments, I gave you an possible explanation from the view of evolutionist how the bees evolved...but you just stick with nearly the same words again and again... thats not a discussion.
A bee never thought of "Yeah, I´m bored...maybe I try to make honey...and if it works, I will give that knowledge to my descentants" ...thats just not how evolution works. So it just doesn´t make any sence, to compare it to you, who maybe don´t know how to make honey and don´t know how to put that information in your genes...you dont have to know suchthings...
By the way, I don´t know how to built a car or how to sing...but other people do...unbelieveable, isn´t it?
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Sorry, but where did I post evidence? I posted a link to a side, which was trying to get arguments against evolution...but most of the arguments are everything else but evidence for a creator or against evolution..
Here you are atrox, your words:
lol...I read some very convincing articles and homepages and arguments of creationists... they convinced me, that I will never believe in ID.
My favourite: http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/ grin
I followed your link, read the stuff you're mocking, asked some intelligent questions - and hey presto, everybody's down my throat.
If you didn't want any discussions, then why did you post the link?
I asked first about the bees. Let's settle that point first, then move on to the others. There's plenty to go on, but one at a time.
Now, how did the bees figure out that the hexagon is the best way to do this, and then pass the info on to their offspring?
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I'll be honest with you, I don't know the biochemistry involved - if I get chance, I'll look it up.
OK. You'll be amazed that a bee with a brain the size of a pinhead can figure out that much biochemistry.
For now - Wax - a great many insects produce wax as a protective coating - humans produce a waxy substance (in the ear) as to many other animals. So the genetic precursor for producing wax is definitely there.
I know that many insects (and plants) and humans produce wax, or waxy substances. That's not the point. HOW did that ability evolve? From what? Every organism that produces wax does so for a reason. We produce wax in our ears to trap small insects and prevent them from reaching thw eardrum and damaging it. Bees and other hymenoptera produce wax to store honey. Plants produce wax to prevent dessication.
You notice, every one does so for a purpose. There is no chance involved here. And purpose indicates design - which is what you're trying to get away from, isn't it?
It only takes a small mutation to produce lots of it, and if this produced an advantage (keeping larvae safe, food storage, better protection from predators) it would be selected for. So that's the wax angle covered.
Sorry, no. It is most certainly NOT a small mutation.
To go from a wax-less insect to one that produces wax AND KNOWS HOW TO USE IT, is a gigantic step forward, and is a huge contributor to the success of those insects.
Consider: Bee which doesn't know how to make wax, all of a sudden, mutation, can. What does it say to its little self? Bzz bzz - now what the hell do I do with this gunge? It's making my wings stick together. I know, I'll use it to make some of these nice hexagonal cells - and what the hell do I put in 'em?
Oh yeah, honey! Damn, I gotta go collect nectar, swallow it, and puke it up again. That'll be honey! That'll do the trick.
That's tripe, and you know it. That bee had to a. know how to make wax b. know how to shape it c. know how to make honey d. know that honey was good for its babies and its pals e. would be useful over winter
How did all that lot arise in one go? Because the chain is no stronger than its weakest link - and if any of those is missing, then kaput. It's all over.
Here's a pic of a fossil bee:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsimg.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F42239000%2Fjpg%2F_42239348_bee_science_203.jpg&hash=24d191e1b27b9a79e5b3f679b548e394) and here's a modern one. Not too different, I would say:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.everythingabout.net%2Farticles%2Fbiology%2Fanimals%2Farthropods%2Finsects%2Fbees%2Fhoney_bee%2Fthree_types_of_bee_in_each_colony.jpg&hash=91d0b1d5da22d9ffe996466fbe957b63)
As atrox has already explained, it's not that animals 'work it out' and then evolve. The animals with specific mutations that lead to advantageous behaviour are more likely to breed, and so these mutations will become more prominant in the population.
The facts are that mutations are almost invariably damaging or neutral. Rarely beneficial. So how many mutations did it take to get this far, and what were the 'bees' doing in the meantime while waiting for the know-how? And just as important, what were the PLANTS doing which needed the bees to pollinate them?
If you actually understood evolution, you wouldn't need to ask for the specific details.
If you mean by 'understand evolution' that I'm prepared to swallow any old garbage that sounds good, then no, I don't understand evolution. I'm not prepared to swallow junk, however learned it may sound. If the 'explanations' don't cover the facts, then a a scientist, I feel entitled to ask all the nasty questions I can think of.
"Flowering plants are very important in the evolution of life," Poinar said. "They can reproduce more quickly, develop more genetic diversity, spread more easily and move into new habitats. But prior to the evolution of bees they didn't have any strong mechanism to spread their pollen, only a few flies and beetles that didn't go very far."
Poinar can't figure out the very simple point that without the bees angiosperm pollen isn't of much use!
Prior to the evolution of bees, angiosperms were dead ducks! No pollination, you see. So where did the angiosperms come from?
Did you know that there is absolutely NO explanation anywhere of the origin of flowering plants, the angiosperms?
Here's Arnold:
It has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years.
and again:
"[W]e have not been able to track the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present."
and Axelrod:
The ancestral group that gave rise to angiosperms has not yet been identified in the fossil record, and no living angiosperm points to such an ancestral alliance.
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I too believe in ID, but then again, I am a moron!
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Here you are atrox, your words: [...]
I know my words...thank you...again...where exactly did I post proof? I just see a side posting more than porous arguments.. there is just no proof there...
If you didn't want any discussions, then why did you post the link?
I´m very ok with discussions...but this ist just no one... you seem to avoid my answers and my questions all the time (no, I won´t repeat them AGAIN..)...thats no discussion at all
I asked first about the bees.
no, you didn´t ...I asked first abaout the fish...but you don´t seem to want to talk about that...why?
Now, how did the bees figure out that the hexagon is the best way to do this, and then pass the info on to their offspring?
You know, what´s the best?
They didn´t even have to figure that out, because the wax figured it out itself.
The hexagon has a high energy efficiency... many atoms try to reach these form...snowflakes have this form as well...
if you heat a pad of round waxcells to 40°C (sorry, dont know what that is in F) it will float automatically into the héxagonal form...amazing, isn´t it?.. but this is a pretty young theory...
Even if this one isn´t true, the hexagonal form yould beperfectly explained by evolution (no I won´t do this again...I did it earlier, just read it...)
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Sorry, no. It is most certainly NOT a small mutation.
I agree...not just a small mutation...but a lot of them..
Consider: Bee which doesn't know how to make wax, all of a sudden, mutation, can. What does it say to its little self? Bzz bzz - now what the hell do I do with this gunge? It's making my wings stick together. I know, I'll use it to make some of these nice hexagonal cells - and what the hell do I put in 'em?
again...why do you always use the word „sudden/suddenly...“ ??? ... no evolutionist would do!!
And also again: evolution is no intentional process! The bee didnt ever have to think anything!
How did all that lot arise in one go? Because the chain is no stronger than its weakest link - and if any of those is missing, then kaput. It's all over.
and yet another missunderstanding! It didn´t have to evolve in one step...and it surely didn´t do!
It´s like the example with the fish... creationists say., it´s impossible for the fish, to go suddenly out of the water an climb up the trees...well, we evolutionists agree...and all the living expamples of intermediates I listed above, too.
A bee didnt have to evolve honey out of a sudden or else die. More likely, the bees (or their former ancestors) got there step by step. .. the first ancestors maybe only ate green parts of the plants...later they went on to the flowers, the pollen, nectar ... and they still ate these things when they discovered honey, before the started to focus on the honey.
Also the wax-thing... bee were not damned to die, when they couldn´t produce wax... in fact, many wild bees still cant produce wax (or honey). Most likely they „invented“ wax as a waste product of the production of honey... not because they thought „Oh I need wax to build forms“. But because bees use many products (like wood, plants clay..) to built a nest, one bee maybe realised, that this waste product was very useful.....and so on... the rest is normal evolution everyone should understand (even if he/she doesn´t believe it) who ever really dealt with that subject.
The facts are that mutations are almost invariably damaging or neutral. Rarely beneficial.
Thats right. Mutations can be destructive, neutral...but also constructive. And if you don´t believe that the world is only a few thousand years old, there is a lot of space for neutral an constructive mutations...
We can see a lot of neutral and constructive mutations by looking at our economic plants and animals. ...of course in nature, this evolution takes much longer, because the individuals wont be selected that acurate there...but it´s the same principle...
So how many mutations did it take to get this far, and what were the 'bees' doing in the meantime while waiting for the know-how?
They didn´t wait for the evolution to happen...so there was never any „meantime“.
Look at wild bees, how they breed their offspring...thats what honeybees maybe did a long time ago, when they were no honeybees yet.. they used holes to lay their eggs in it and to store food in it.. and they used different materials to close it.
And just as important, what were the PLANTS doing which needed the bees to pollinate them?
And again...there is no such as a meantime. First plants used wind-pollination... than they coevoluted with the insects, which are collecting pollen and nectar. Getting pollinated by insects has some advantages... so it did make sence, to get more attractive for these insects, so that they would visit them more often... but step by step... they didn´t just switch the button and stopped using wind-pollination as well (in fact, there are still a lot of plants, spreading their pollen through wind and through insects!)
Poinar can't figure out the very simple point that without the bees angiosperm pollen isn't of much use!
as I wrote...coevolution...
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You'll be amazed that a bee with a brain the size of a pinhead can figure out that much biochemistry.
I don't know how to produce bile. I don't know how to metabolise energy from food. I don't know how to store energy as fat. I don't know how to make eggs, or sperm, or how to combine them in the right way to produce a child. My genes do. It has nothing to do with my understanding, I just let the programming in my genes do it, as do you, and everything else on earth.
I know that many insects (and plants) and humans produce wax, or waxy substances. That's not the point. HOW did that ability evolve? From what? Every organism that produces wax does so for a reason.
Okay, that's a good base to go on. The ancestor of bees produced wax for a reason that was beneficial to it, perhaps to prevent dessication. A small mutation, or series of them, could have led to this ancestor producing more wax than it needed for this purpose. If the extra wax was advantageous, as a place to store food or a protective casing for it's larvae for example, then this mutation would be selected for.
You don't seem to understand that the changes in the ancestor are the important ones, and instead think that a bee needs to come fully formed. This is why I think you don't understand evolution.
You notice, every one does so for a purpose. There is no chance involved here. And purpose indicates design - which is what you're trying to get away from, isn't it?
Another misunderstanding. 'Purpose' can change, as stated above.
That bee had to a. know how to make wax b. know how to shape it c. know how to make honey d. know that honey was good for its babies and its pals e. would be useful over winter
How did all that lot arise in one go? Because the chain is no stronger than its weakest link - and if any of those is missing, then kaput. It's all over.
And another misunderstanding. If the ancestor of bees produced wax, then a is invalid (also, as above, it doesn't need to know anything about it, just as you don't need to know how to convince your stomach to produce acid.
For point b - if it produced wax, and formed it into any shape that protected it's larvae, it would be an advantage. So the precursor to shaping it in hexagonal chambers was there. Those that produced the most efficent shape (unbeknownst to them) gave their larvae a greater chance of developing, and so those genes became more represented in the genepool of the population. So the genes which control wax-shaping behaviour were subject to selection.
For point c - again, no knowledge required. If you eat too much, your body produces fat in which to store the excess energy. You don't need to know how, as the bee didn't need to know how to make honey.
For point d - those mutants that produced honey and used it to feed their offspring, gave their offspring a better chance at life. hence these mutant genes becoming more abundant in the genepool.
And finally e - You really don't understand evolution if you feel this is a point worth making. If there was honey there, and it helped in surviving over winter, then the ones which produced honey are more likely to breed in the next season.
So as you can see, not a single weak point in what you think of as a chain. These didn't all have to happen in one generation.
Finally, there's no timeline implicated in any of this - perhaps an insect started producing honey, which it used as a food source for it's larvae. These larvae did well, so in the next generation there are more honey producing insects. One of these produced more wax than it required to keep itself waterproof, so left some wax with it's offspring as it fed it the honey. These ones did even better, so now honey producing, wax producing insects are more common in the population. Any mutation from then that improved the amount of honey/wax without overspending was then an advantage. This insect starts storing honey for a future larvae, again, increasing it's chances of survival. Over time, the most efficient way to store honey and protect larvae with the wax resources will be selected for.
So we have an ancestral insect which evolved to produce honey and wax, and store excess honey in the same wax hexagons that it protects it's larvae. It evolved to become a bee.
But enough of this. Until you explain your understanding of evolution, we're not even on the same page, and this will just go back and forth. It should be obvious that to my mind, the questions you ask and objections you put forward suggest you do not understand evolution. So once again, please could you explain fully your understanding of evolution, so we can see where the root of our disagreement stems from.
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I don't know how to produce bile. I don't know how to metabolise energy from food. I don't know how to store energy as fat. I don't know how to make eggs, or sperm, or how to combine them in the right way to produce a child. My genes do. It has nothing to do with my understanding, I just let the programming in my genes do it, as do you, and everything else on earth.
You're being deliberately obtuse.
I know you don't 'know' these things - just as the bee didn't. But these are highly efficient, and greatly beneficial processes, just like the bees themselves. Now if you're saying that highly efficient processes such as these, with the incredibly complex biochemistry involved, 'just happened', then I fear that you don't know a great deal about the world in which we live.
They do NOT just happen. They are in every case you can point to - in say the biochemical manufacturing industry extracting and modifying penicillin just as an example - highly complex processes REQUIRING intelligence and very critical design.
How then can you, or Dawkins, or anyone else for that matter, say that such processes are the product of blind, random mutation processes? Dawkins, for example, named his book the highly insulting term 'Blind Watchmaker'. It simply isn't possible on any evolutionary supposition anyone can make - and certainly there is no evidence to base such suppositions on. The fossil bee I posted a picture of looks very little different to modern ones - so there's no reason to suppose that they couldn't make honey, even then all those millions of years ago. They've actually found beehives 3000 years old:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20588417/
You are willing to suppose that the 'programming in your genes' performs all these almost miraculous processes - not one of which could possibly occur outside the body in a chemistry lab without highly intelligently designed experiments requiring any number of highly complex chemicals.
I am totally unwilling to make such a crass supposition. It's simply impossible. Therefore, Intelligent Design is an absolute necessity in order to make sense of the evidence before us, and dismissing the possibility with a sneer is not a reasonable thing to do.
You don't seem to understand that the changes in the ancestor are the important ones, and instead think that a bee needs to come fully formed. This is why I think you don't understand evolution.
I understand that SUPPOSED changes, un-evidenced changes, in the ancestors are absolutely, desperately important to the survival of any evolutionary theory of the origin of the phenomena we are discussing. You have no evidence. And more to the point, you cannot produce even a viable GUESS as to how and why those hexagonal shapes originated.
The ID supporter, on the other hand has no such problems. Intelligence is abundantly displayed in the whole series and sequence of processes in which the bees are involved. Without the bees, the angiosperms which depend on them for pollination would perish speedily. Without the angiosperms which produce the nectar and pollen on which the bees depend, the bees would perish. So they arose, or were created together, or not at all.
What are you going to make of this I wonder? The angiosperms have no evolutionary history in the fossils, and neither do the bees. One without the other would perish. So what then?
Look at how feeble your case really is, and how you beg the questions I am asking:
Okay, that's a good base to go on. The ancestor of bees produced wax for a reason that was beneficial to it, perhaps to prevent dessication.
You note how you can't escape the word 'reason'in your exposition. That alone puts your case out of court - because evolution is a random process depending on random mutations occurring and being selected from. 'Reason' is inadmissible for that very cause. So why did wax-production arise? As said before, it is a complex process requiring complex chemicals arranged and combined in a complex manner using complex enzymes to catalyse a complex series of biochemical reactions. The statistical improbability you are invoking beggars the imagination. And that is even without thinking about the construction of the enzyme proteins - which can't happen without other enzymes which are themselves proteins!
A small mutation, or series of them, could have led to this ancestor producing more wax than it needed for this purpose. If the extra wax was advantageous, as a place to store food or a protective casing for it's larvae for example, then this mutation would be selected for.
You cannot escape that easily, I fear. As I also said before, and you can verify this any time you like, mutations are either neutral or deleterious. How then can a mutation happen which results in so many beneficial effects? A mutation, in case you don't know, represents damage of various kinds to the plans for constructing an organism.
If the plans for a car were torn up, or rearranged randomly in some accident or something similar, then we wouldn't be too surprised to find the engine on the roof, and the steering wheel up the exhaust pipe! Not too good for the manufacturer.
So how can you possibly suppose that a 'mutation' would result in so many beneficial alterations in a bee's behaviour and biochemistry? I can't see it myself, because the improbability is too great.
I won't dissect the rest of your post, but do you see how many 'perhaps-es' and 'maybe-s' you've had to use in your 'explanation' of the impossible? Isn't that just what Professor Thompson said? '...fragile towers of hypotheses built upon hypotheses'? All completely un-evidenced, and the merest speculative guesswork.
Like the whole of evolution theory itself.
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wow...pretty impressive that you now managed to ignore my post not just only in parts, but in whole...
a lot of the question you ask in your latest post, are answered there....but not a single question I asked is answered somewhere in your posts...
Ok, at this point I have to admit, that I was right all the time...that is not a discussion... don´t know what I expected..
sorry about that, I think I will swallow my answers, you wont notice anyways and leave this pointless conversation now...
have fun with your creator (who ever created him...)
bye
aj
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Asyncritus, your little rant has not really addressed any of the points I made, and I notice you are still refusing to give us an explanation of your understanding of evolution. As you think there must be an intelligent designer involved somewhere (of which there never has been, never will be and never can be any evidence) then you clearly do not understand evolution.
As this is a topic you do not understand, and are unwilling to show any understanding of, why do you bother posting? Until you post an explanation of what you understand as evolution, so that together we can discuss where our differences arise, I, like atrox, see no point in continuing this discussion.
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Atrox
I'm sorry not to have replied to your post. Time - but I promise I will, but the truth is that all you've offered is guesswork, but I will detail that accusation as soon as I can.
Ben my understanding of what evolution is, and how it proceeds is as follows:
1 All the modern species are the result of gradually increasing complexity which began with some ancestor in the dim and distant past
2 The modern species have accumulated small changes over the millennia which changed them to what we see now
3 Those small changes are caused by natural selection acting on mutations which occur from time to time and are beneficial in one way or the other. If they are not beneficial in some way,they will be selected out.
4 Since those variations must be heritable, they must occur in the chromosomes or genes.
5 There is no other mechanism of evolution possible or available.
I'm sure you'll be able to pick holes in that ad hoc statement, but it's the best I can do in a hurry.
As you think there must be an intelligent designer involved somewhere (of which there never has been, never will be and never can be any evidence) then you clearly do not understand evolution.
Intelligence demonstrates the existence of an Intelligent Designer. After all, you don't need to meet the designer to know beyond any doubt that a Mercedes was intelligently designed, do you? How can you prove that it was intelligently designed? That's the proof of the pudding.
Now if you are totally unable to see intelligence in nature, then you must necessarily deny the existence of a Designer.
On the other hand, intelligence is everywhere demonstrated. Dawkins brain, for example, is an exhibition of intelligent construction - being misused for foolish ends, to be sure, but proof of intelligent design nonetheless.
Which raises Darwin's greatest bugbear.
If our minds are the product of the random movements of molecules etc etc, then the products of those minds must also be the products of the random movements of molecules,and cannot be depended upon.
Therefore evolution itself, which is the product of the random movements of molecules,is a nonsense.
Would you trust the scientific pronouncements of a donkey? I doubt it. But you listen to Dawkins - who is a product of the random movements of molecules, just like the donkey!!!!
You're being inconsistent, illogical and irrational if you deny that point.
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Asyncritus, thank you for finally explaining your understanding of evolution.
I shall not pick holes in your statement, as it's a pretty good summary of evolution.
I will pick holes in the rest of your post, however.
Intelligence itself is not evidence of a designer - many species are intelligent to a degree, and intelligence can clearly be seen as an advantageous adaptation to a challenging environment. In fact, as a very intelligent species, we have been able to adapt our environment to suit ourselves in such a way that we no longer rely on our wits for pure survival, and are able to think about philosophy as well.
You miss a huge point when you say:
If our minds are the product of the random movements of molecules etc etc, then the products of those minds must also be the products of the random movements of molecules,and cannot be depended upon.
As the brain evolved through several stages, as you pointed out with increasing complexity, the final product is not random. It has been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Therefore the actions prescribed by this organ are not random.
If a monkey was able to communicate a scientific idea to me, a testable hypothesis with experimental data, then yes, of course I would trust it, as I can apply my own logic to test the hypothesis. As it happens, apes and monkeys do not have the communicative skills to do so, but apes can be seen in the wild to adapt sticks into tools through a process of trail and error, and then pass info on to fellow apes - clearly the precursor to modern man's ability to make tools and share this knowledge.
I'm afraid that by describing evolution, and then by making the sudden and inexplicable jump to an intelligent creator, it is you who is being inconsistent and illogical.
Surely if you acknowledge that species evolve, your creator is merely filling in the gaps? And as we find more examples of evolution in action, and sequence more genomes, your creator shrinks and becomes irrelevant?
I understand you may feel the need to believe in a god, and that is fine by me. However you cannot use perceived gaps in evolution as an excuse to fit your god in - there is no evidence of intelligent design. If you wish to believe in the biblical creation myth, again, that's fine by me. But by doing so you opt out of rational discussion of evolution, having rejected reason in favour of an old story.
Furthermore - as many living things have throwbacks, such as vestigial organs, and that all species are prone to disease and parasitism, it would appear that your designer is actually not very good at designing anything.
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Intelligence itself is not evidence of a designer - many species are intelligent to a degree, and intelligence can clearly be seen as an advantageous adaptation to a challenging environment. In fact, as a very intelligent species, we have been able to adapt our environment to suit ourselves in such a way that we no longer rely on our wits for pure survival, and are able to think about philosophy as well.
So we're back to the question begging with a vengeance.
If intelligence is not evidence of a designer, then what is it evidence of?
It is an 'advantageous adaptation' you say. But it is not an adaptation.
We are struggling to create 'artificial intelligence' in computers. I don't know how far they've gone, but let's say pretty far. There is no adaptation involved. Computers have to be intelligently invented and constructed, intelligent programs written, huge memories created by intelligence,and that's just the beginning. Any number of intelligent researchers have to exist, intelligent people I might add, and one day they'll have an intelligent computer. Created by intelligent Designers and implementers.
We look at ourselves, and see the intelligence that can design and produce artificial intelligence. That is an inordinately higher degree of intelligence that the computers won't be able to mimic. Nor can they mimic the emotions, the feelings, and most important of all, life, and reproductive capacity.
Yet, say you, that is an advantageous adaptation. I say that is nonsense. The word 'adaptation' is a loaded term, which begs the question of whether evolution did or did not take place. Intelligence is not an adaptation, it is a cause of design and change.
I wonder if I can ask you: look at the cliff swallow for a moment. Let's leave out the questions of the origin of flight for a moment.
Those birds migrate from Goya in Argentina to Capistrano in southern California, a distance of about 7500 miles. The arrive there on March the 18th every year, give or take in a leap year. They fly up, on the 23rd October and make the return flight. Another 7500 miles. Those are specific dates, every year. Time has newsreel footage of it happening, and thousands of tourists go every year to watch.
I need a GPS to get me from London to Birmingham. Airline pilots have extremely complicated navigation systems to get them the same distances safely and correctly.
Now, are those GPS systems the products of intelligence, or not? Are those timing devices aboard the products of intelligence or not? Be careful what you say - they'll probably lock you up for libel if you say 'no'.
Now those things are relatively recent inventions. But birds have been doing those journeys for presumably millions of years.
How did they get the equipment to do so? And pack it all in a brain the size of a peanut? And not only that but the mechanisms which run all their life processes are in there too. This is microminiaturisation gone mad.
Any genius who could microminiaturise to that extent would receive a dozen Nobel prizes - yet here is a little bird having successfully done so millions of years ago. How? Without intelligent direction and design? Nonsense.
If a monkey was able to communicate a scientific idea to me, a testable hypothesis with experimental data, then yes, of course I would trust it, as I can apply my own logic to test the hypothesis. As it happens, apes and monkeys do not have the communicative skills to do so, but apes can be seen in the wild to adapt sticks into tools through a process of trail and error, and then pass info on to fellow apes - clearly the precursor to modern man's ability to make tools and share this knowledge.
Do you really believe that monkeys handing sticks on to one another is the precursor of producing the theory of relativity and Beethoven's Seventh? They've been passing sticks for millennia - where's the monkey music? Or physics?
And this illustrates another point which you will not be able to explain. Music. Now for music to be appreciated, the neural connections etc etc have to be present BEFORE music could ever be invented - otherwise the uncultured brutes across the river would pulverise the composers and players for disturbing their slumbers! The connections etc were obviously there BEFORE the need arose: if there ever was a need.
Those things were divinely implanted in us. Evolution is helpless to answer the problems of the origins of abstract thought. There's no need for it. Billions of animals live and die without it. So where did it come from? And why?
As the brain evolved through several stages, as you pointed out with increasing complexity, the final product is not random. It has been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Therefore the actions prescribed by this organ are not random.
Here you are begging questions galore again.
We are discussing whether or not evolution did or could have taken place. You may not therefore say that 'the brain evolved'. It quite obviously didn't. And to be fair, I shouldn't say that either. So that leaves us with the facts, and not the assertions, your or mine.
My logic cannot be faulted: Darwin himself saw this point:
"... But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
http://brainwagon.org/2006/01/16/intelligent-design-isnt-the-future/
Whether Dawkins can see it is a moot point.
"I understand you may feel the need to believe in a god, and that is fine by me. However you cannot use perceived gaps in evolution as an excuse to fit your god in - there is no evidence of intelligent design. If you wish to believe in the biblical creation myth, again, that's fine by me. But by doing so you opt out of rational discussion of evolution, having rejected reason in favour of an old story."
Logic tells me that intelligence cannot originate from muck and mire. Life can't either, as Pasteur proved irrevocably.
Whether I believe in a God or not, does not invalidate the facts. As as someone with a scientific frame of mind, I don't think you should hide behind such statements as 'having rejected reason'. That is an extremely unjust and irrational statement, reeking highly of prejudice and recognition of the weakness of evolution's case.
As the old saying goes, if you can't beat the case, beat the guy who's presenting it over the head. Nothing changes.
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We are struggling to create 'artificial intelligence' in computers. I don't know how far they've gone, but let's say pretty far. There is no adaptation involved. Computers have to be intelligently invented and constructed, intelligent programs written, huge memories created by intelligence,and that's just the beginning. Any number of intelligent researchers have to exist, intelligent people I might add, and one day they'll have an intelligent computer. Created by intelligent Designers and implementers.
So I take it you have heard nothing of the many AI projects in the making. Including the countless ones developing "learning computers".
Several question:
1.What benefit to mankind does this Intelligent Design theory hold?
2.What designed the designer?
3.Can we use Intelligent Design to suggest theories of a God and keep up this appauling sharade?
I think you will find all the answers to the above questions here:
1.None.
2.Um, another designer, it evolved.
3.Of course, why its already happening.
All I can see it doing is starting wars.
Personally I feel you are terrified of death and seek further meaning in your life. Why not discover something real, or do some charity work.
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<To everyone else on the forum, I apologise for the coming rant. I dearly hope this will be the last correspondence I have on this topic>
Asyncritus,
To boil down your arguement above - "Mankind isn't intelligent enough to design these things, so they couldn't possibly have evolved." You also suggest "Mankind has had to develop technology to copy the natural world, so it couldn't have evolved"
Evolution has had many millions of years to work on many billions of possible permutations - simply put, evolution is happening and producing some wonderful things, none of which require an intelligent designer.
I notice that once again you are bringing up tenuous examples that you feel show a weakness in evolution - everyone who understands evolution and thinks rationally about these things see them as a strength - It's amazing that cliff swallows have evolved to do what they do, but evolve they did.
I'm afraid each and every example you give is based on a simple logical failing - there is no evidence for your god, and no mechanism through which it can act. As I have stated before, evolution has been witnessed in the wild and in the lab, and predictions made by evolutionary theory happen.
I'm really sorry to inform you, but Darwin's Origin of the Species was written well over 100 years ago. That's 100 years of scientific development - so it doesn't matter which gaps Darwin couldn't fill. You are very unlikely to find a modern scientific book or paper on evolution that will cast any doubt on any aspect of evolution. It's accepted by the scientific world and a great deal of the world at large. You like to pick on Richard Dawkins, but I hope you realise he's not alone in his thoughts, merely more vociferous than many, who do not see this as a discussion worth having. Might I suggest you read his books, which are very good at explaining how evolution really works, and will answer some of your criticisms.
Logic tells me that intelligence cannot originate from muck and mire.
Then your logic is failed and wrong. Please tell me where intelligence can arise from, without referring to the god that there is no evidence of. There's lots of evidence for evolution, and we can follow a logical progression to the evolution of intelligence.
When you choose to believe in creationism, you opt out of reasoned debate on evolution - you have chosen belief over logic and evidence - there is no evidence for your god, yet you choose to believe in it. That's fine, but you can't then try to argue with the logic of, and evidence for, evolution, and expect to be taken seriously.
If I were to say that my garden was created by a fairy and a dragon, that would be my prerogative. However, this line of argument would not be applicable in a scientific debate. The only difference between this and your intelligent design is that more people have been dogmatised into believing in your god.
As the old saying goes, if you can't beat the case, beat the guy who's presenting it over the head. Nothing changes.
We've beaten the case - in fact, there is no case. You continue to return with poorly reasoned arguments and so we try to explain why you are wrong. This feels to me like banging my head against a brick wall, and I find your lack of ability to address the questions we put to you very frustrating. I shall repeat myself - a lack of specific evidence for a certain aspect of evolution is not evidence for an intelligent designer. You will find as much evidence for intelligent design as I could for my garden dragon.
On that note, I would prefer not to continue this conversation. I have every confidence that you will continue to evade the questions put to you by myself and atrox, and you will consistently fail to show any evidence for intelligent design.
I hope one day you will come to understand how evolution works, reject the ridiculous creationism notion and share in the wonder of the natural world - which never has, and never will need your designer.
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Remarks on the Rev. S. Haughton's Paper on the Bee's Cell, And on the Origin of Species
(S83: 1863)
http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S083.htm
Its a good read! [;)]
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So I take it you have heard nothing of the many AI projects in the making. Including the countless ones developing "learning computers".
Are these the products of Intelligent Design or not?
Several question:
1.What benefit to mankind does this Intelligent Design theory hold?
Quite simply, it's truth: something that unintelligent designers seem to care little about.
2.What designed the designer?
I don't know Carl Benz's parents. Do you?
3.Can we use Intelligent Design to suggest theories of a God and keep up this appauling sharade?
What appalling charade? I believe in God, and make no secret of it.
I think you will find all the answers to the above questions here:
1.None.
2.Um, another designer, it evolved.
3.Of course, why its already happening.
Pity I can't describe these answers in the same way as the design I see.
All I can see it doing is starting wars.
Ever heard of Social Darwinism?
Personally I feel you are terrified of death and seek further meaning in your life. Why not discover something real, or do some charity work.
Instead of making silly judgements on someone of whom you have no knowledge, why not go criticise answersingenesis or similar?
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observed speciations [::)]
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5
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Evolution has had many millions of years to work on many billions of possible permutations - simply put, evolution is happening and producing some wonderful things, none of which require an intelligent designer.
Have you totally ignored the palaeontological facts which innumerable workers have dug up? There is no evolution of anything. Species, even phyla, appear with breathtaking suddenness - as if they were created - and disappear the same way. Even such diehard evolutionists as Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge had to produce their punctuated equilibrium theory to account for this.
It was so near to creation that the establishment - people like you, I suppose - jumped down their throats, and Gould at least backtracked.
I notice that once again you are bringing up tenuous examples that you feel show a weakness in evolution - everyone who understands evolution and thinks rationally about these things see them as a strength - It's amazing that cliff swallows have evolved to do what they do, but evolve they did.
What a pity you can't stop question begging, Ben! How do you know they evolved? Because they evolved. Well, how much further forward are we? Zero. And this is typical of evolutionist arguments. They have no weight, and can point to no evidence whatsoever.
This is not a tenuous example - it is totally destructive of any evolutionary theory of its origin. I've never even heard of one single halfway decent theory, or any solid facts to support it.
I'm afraid each and every example you give is based on a simple logical failing - there is no evidence for your god, and no mechanism through which it can act. As I have stated before, evolution has been witnessed in the wild and in the lab, and predictions made by evolutionary theory happen.
I wonder what you'd call evidence. Can you give me an example? Use the cliff swallows - what would covince you that there is a Great Designer at the back of the phenomenon? You can see that they must have a navigation system which works perfectly. No that evolved by chance mutations - mutations of what, I ask you?
You can see they have a timing device or calendar that works precisely to the day. You've got one on your mobile. Did that come about by random mutations? No, ny Nokia. Is that phone intelligently designed? Of course it is. But the birds' calendar - that evolved by chance mutations. Like hell it did.
I'm really sorry to inform you, but Darwin's Origin of the Species was written well over 100 years ago. That's 100 years of scientific development - so it doesn't matter which gaps Darwin couldn't fill.
My dear fellow, he couldn't fill ANY gaps. All he showed was that evolution IS a great gap. I tell you again, look up the palaeontologists, and see what they say about the origin of ANY group you can think of. "We dunno" is the chorus. Don't take my word for it, go see for yourself. Google is the great destroyer of evolution. Ask Gould - he wrote several books like 'Ever Since Darwin'. Go read it, and you'll hear things like:
""The Cambrian explosion so disturbed Darwin that he wrote in the last edition of his Origin of Species 'The case must remain inexplicable, and may be truly be urged as a valid argument against the view here entertained' "
"Nonetheless, these exciting finds in the preCambrian palaeontology do not remove the problem of the Cambrian explosion, for they only include the simple bacteria and bluegreen algae" p120, 121
You are very unlikely to find a modern scientific book or paper on evolution that will cast any doubt on any aspect of evolution.
As the above shows very clearly, even the Origin cast doubt, and Gould, as only one example, expresses serious reservations. Punctuated equilibrium is the heaviest recent blow on evolution theory.
Here's more:
""The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design…has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.'1 "…The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change.'
Gould ridiculed the lack of fossil evidence pointing to gradualism. "The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record.'
"This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists."
-G. G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode of Evolution (N.Y.: Columbia Univ., 1944), p. 106
It's accepted by the scientific world and a great deal of the world at large.
Yes, their tenure depends on their doing so!
The scientific world at large once thought that the world was flat, that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that spontaneous generation took place everywhere.
You like to pick on Richard Dawkins, but I hope you realise he's not alone in his thoughts, merely more vociferous than many, who do not see this as a discussion worth having. Might I suggest you read his books, which are very good at explaining how evolution really works, and will answer some of your criticisms.
You've obviously never read Lewontin, famous Harvard geneticist, who said:
"Lewontin writes: "As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing. Carl Sagan's list of the "best contemporary science-popularizers" includes E.O.Wilson, Lewis Thomas and Richard Dawkins, "each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very centre of the stories they have retailed in the market.
I think that means 'lies', don't you?
Then your logic is failed and wrong. Please tell me where intelligence can arise from, without referring to the god that there is no evidence of. There's lots of evidence for evolution, and we can follow a logical progression to the evolution of intelligence.
Intelligence can only arise from intelligence. Every school teacher knows that, and so should you. You will never get a donkey producing a theory of relativity.
And just where is all this evidence for evolution? Bring it here so I can treat it justly.
When you choose to believe in creationism, you opt out of reasoned debate on evolution - you have chosen belief over logic and evidence
Sir Isaac Newton:
"This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
Was he an idiot too?
- there is no evidence for your god, yet you choose to believe in it. That's fine, but you can't then try to argue with the logic of, and evidence for, evolution, and expect to be taken seriously.
"This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
No evidence, huh? Try telling Newton that.
I shall repeat myself - a lack of specific evidence for a certain aspect of evolution is not evidence for an intelligent designer.
I will repeat myself too. There is not a single iota of evidence that can possibly show that intelligently designed things are not intelligently designed. Order does not come from chaos, nor intelligence from madness. Several Nobel winners said so too:
"I would rather believe in fairy tales than in such wild speculation. I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable. God cannot be explained away by such naive thoughts."
--Sir Ernst B. Chain, Nobel Laureate (Medicine, 1945),
"To improve a living organism by random mutation is like saying you could improve a Swiss watch by dropping it and bending one of its wheels or axis. Improving life by random mutations has the probability of zero."
-Albert Szent-Gyorgi, Nobel Laureate (Medicine, 1937).
"To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest."
-Sir Ernst B. Chain, Nobel Laureate (Medicine, 1945).
So the 'everybody accepts evolution' battle cry has become a pathetic wail, which will one day fade into the distant past.
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I never said you were an idiot, and the words of Newton (who died in 1727 - a long time before anyone had put forward the mechanism through which species change over time) are completely irrelevant in a discussion of evolution.
I was hoping not to come back to this discussion, but just to touch on a few final points...
I think it's first worth pointing out that we are approaching this discussion from different paradigms. As a believer in god, you base your arguments on the assumption that god exists. As I don't believe in god, I approach it with no such assumption. As such, we will struggle to find common ground, as your logic is based around a different premise to mine. This is why I would prefer to end this discussion here.
It only takes one piece of evidence for evolution to kill off the intelligent designer - it's illogical that an intelligent designer would work on everything except the examples we have evidence for, where we can see evolution to be the process. Any evidence of evolution kills creationism stone dead, so here's a particularly tidy one:
The rock pocket mouse lives in rocky outcrops in Mexico and New Mexico. They can have are several different coat colours - ranging from light to dark. One population has evolved to live on dark, basalt rock, where there is a high selection pressure to have a dark coat. (being darker on a dark substrate makes predation far less likely, and so the darker mice were more likely to breed, and pass on their genes to the next generation.)
There is a perfect association between different versions of the Melanocortin-1 receptor gene and coat colour.
The genome of the Rock Pocket Mouse has been sequenced, and so we can see that not only is there strong evidence that local populations have adapted by natural selection, but that the genes responsible have been identified.
In other words - different alleles (mutants) of the Melanocortin-1 receptor gene offer different selective advantage depending on environment, and correspondingly the populations on dark basalt are under strong selection pressure to have darker fur.
To simplify: Natural selection, acting on known variations in known genes, has resulted in genetic differences between one population and another in a different environment - evolution by natural selection, no intelligence required.
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"This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists."
-G. G. Simpson, Tempo and Mode of Evolution (N.Y.: Columbia Univ., 1944), p. 106
all your references are about 70 years old...impressive...
Oh, and I think I gave you some transitional forms, which are still existing on the fish thing (you are still ignoring perfectly)
and there is a bunch of transitional forms... for example a lot of human ancestors...homo habilis, australopitecus..
or just listen to this guy
and again, because you seem to missed this one by accident [::)]:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5
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I´m always wondering if lungfish, mudskipper and eels never read the "Why Transition From Water to Land
is Impossible"-part.
Maybe someone should tell them, that they will die within the next few Seconds, when they leave water..
Let me tear this nonsense to pieces atrox.
Have you ever read anything about how the mudskipper survives out of the water? I didn't think so.
Let me inform you then:
Mudskippers breathe through their skin and also through the lining of the mouth (the mucosa) and throat (the pharynx). This requires the mudskipper to be wet, limiting mudskippers to humid habitats. This mode of breathing, similar to that employed by amphibians, is known as cutaneous breathing.[This, btw, is tripe. Amphibians do breathe through their skins, BUT VERY MANY HAVE LUNGS]. They propel themselves over land on their sturdy forefins.[Did you hear that? The amphibian has legs. The fish does not - it has fins.
Therefore, they cannot live on dry land. They cannot be regarded as a transitional form, because they die if they dry out. They are called mudskippers for this very reason - they skip on MUD, which you may recall, is WET.
They are as much land dwellers as we are underwater dwellers. I don't see many gills on scuba divers.
Why does the eel not know, that its impossible for him, to cover the distance between two habitats, spending hours out of water without a propper sceletton or the right muscles?
The maximum length of time a mudskipper can survive out of water is 36 hours. That really gives it a lot of time to evolve into an amphibian! (And in any case it has to reproduce IN WATER.)It hasn't done so yet, and you can let me know when they find one doing so.
Why does the Mudskipper not know, that he will dry up immediately, when spending more time out of water (like all the amphibias do, which should have the same skin-problem as described).
If he stays out of the water for more than 36 hours, he'll find out all about it, I promise.
Why does the lungfish not know, that he wasn´t allowed to suddenly (all evolutionists know, that the fish ages ago jumped suddenly out of the water and started climbing the trees, eh?!...Thats what evolution ist all about, isn´t it??
Yes, that's right! That's evolution in a nutshell! Fish, who can only survive in water, suddenly started walking around on land, climbing trees and jumping off, in order to turn into birds.
Marvellous nonsense, isn't it?
For goodness sake atrox, THINK for a bit. IF A FISH COMES OUT OF WATER FOR ANY SIGNIFICANT TIME, IT DIES. Here's what one evolutionist author says:
http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/fos.news.html
"So why are lungfish or mudskippers not relevant? Because hundreds of millions of years have passed."
Not me, him. They are NOT RELEVANT. ie, nonsense in this argument. They haven't evolved, they're still there, and they're still mudskippers and lungfish.
"An impediment to understanding the fin-limb transition has been the nature of available evidence from the sister group of tetrapods. The closest living relatives of tetrapods -- lungfishes and coelacanths -- either lack homologous elements to distal limb bones or are so specialized that comparisons with tetrapods are uncertain."
What's that mean? I'll tell you: it means 'we dunno'.
) develop these organs for breathing which gave him his name?
Why the hell do some fish die, when you prevent them from taking the chance to breath air (Anabantoidei, Corydoradinae).
The anabantoidea, despite having the labyrinth organ - not a lung btw, also have to stay wet. Put them on the sand for a week, and they're dead. How does that help you?
"As a result, labyrinth fishes can survive for a short period of time out of water, as they can inhale the air around them, provided they stay moist."
The catfishes swallow air, which is then absorbed through their intestines - no lungs, mark you. They live in shallow streams, and in muddy swamps, they swallow air, because they can't get enough from the water. No help there, I'm afraid.
Maybe someone should go out an tell them, that they don´t exist... there are no transitional forms...nooo! lips sealed
Just in case you didn't notice, all the taxonomists call these animals 'fish'. Not amphibians. Not halfway between water dwelling and and land dwelling animals. Fish. Unless all these taxonomists are idiots?
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The rock pocket mouse lives in rocky outcrops in Mexico and New Mexico. They can have are several different coat colours - ranging from light to dark. One population has evolved to live on dark, basalt rock, where there is a high selection pressure to have a dark coat. (being darker on a dark substrate makes predation far less likely, and so the darker mice were more likely to breed, and pass on their genes to the next generation.)
There is a perfect association between different versions of the Melanocortin-1 receptor gene and coat colour.
My dear fellow, this is nothing else but the Kettlewell moth syndrome. The dark moths died out on light backgrounds, and the light ones died out on dark backgrounds.
BUT BOTH KINDS WERE PRESENT IN THE POPULATION. Natural selection can only act on WHAT'S ALREADY THERE. I fully agree that natural selection takes place, but that is not evolution into new species, phyla etc. It explains the SURVIVAL of the fittest, but not the ARRIVAL of the fittest.
And there evolution dies, because natural selection cannot account for the appearance of new characters. It merely selects from the existing pool of genes. What we are arguing about, is WHERE DID THE POOL COME FROM?
IL Cohen ( mathematician and researcher) said: “At that moment, when the the DNA/RNA system became understood, the debate between Evolutionists and Creationists should have come to a screeching halt. …the implications of the DNA/RNA were obvious and clear. Mathematically speaking, based on probability concepts, there is no possibility that Evolution was the mechanism that created the approximately 6,000,000 species of plants and animals we recognize today."
He was right.
But thank you for being willing to discuss with me.
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Wow, finally I got the privilege to see you answering my questions... [:o]
But I´m afraid...it just shows, that you really don´t have any glue what evolution is about.
It´s ok, if you don´t want to believe in evolution... but if you want to discuss it, than you should at least understand the mechanisms, as evolutionists believe in... otherwise thats all just senceless..
Have you ever read anything about how the mudskipper survives out of the water? I didn't think so.
Let me inform you then:
[...]
Therefore, they cannot live on dry land. They cannot be regarded as a transitional form, because they die if they dry out. They are called mudskippers for this very reason - they skip on MUD, which you may recall, is WET.
Noone ever said, that fish came out of the water, to live in deserts and never went back! They started with staying out of water for short periods... but that fish, which could stay longer out of water had an advantage and could use the many unused ressources there. So they had the best chances to reproduce (as the example with the bees)... and so they started to stay longer and longer out of water... btw Many amphibias need to be wet too
The maximum length of time a mudskipper can survive out of water is 36 hours. That really gives it a lot of time to evolve into an amphibian! (And in any case it has to reproduce IN WATER.)It hasn't done so yet, and you can let me know when they find one doing so.
You are really getting ridiculous. They don´t have to evolve in 36h, and you really should know that, if you did understand what the theorie is about...I hope that was just a poor joke. By the way...all the amphibians need to reproduce in water as well.. but most of them can live on solid ground the rest of the year...
Why does the Mudskipper not know, that he will dry up immediately, when spending more time out of water (like all the amphibias do, which should have the same skin-problem as described).
If he stays out of the water for more than 36 hours, he'll find out all about it, I promise.
Wow, 36h sounds a bit different than to claim, they would try up immediately... 36h is a lot of time...and maybe the next generation of mudskippers, that could have problems in finding food under water, could stay a bit longer out of water...and tha next generation stay again...and so on
Yes, that's right! That's evolution in a nutshell! Fish, who can only survive in water, suddenly started walking around on land, climbing trees and jumping off, in order to turn into birds.
Marvellous nonsense, isn't it?
Oh sorry, I need to read that again..."Yes, that's right! That's evolution in a nutshell! Fish, who can only survive in water, suddenly started walking around on land, climbing trees and jumping off, in order to turn into birds.
Marvellous nonsense, isn't it?"
Wow...Ben, now you know where the lack of understanding is... [::)]
Again...no suddenly in evolution.... why do you allways say something about an sudden evolution??! If someone should use that word, than creationist... you say, some higher beeing, coming out of nowhere (did it evolve maybe [::)] ) suddenly put the mamals on earth...
And as the examples show, it´s not that unlikely, that fishes started to go on land for several reasons..
For goodness sake atrox, THINK for a bit.
Oh, I did...but maybe you should start too...would make a discussion much easier...
They are NOT RELEVANT. ie, nonsense in this argument. They haven't evolved, they're still there, and they're still mudskippers and lungfish.
They are relevant, as they show you (wait...no...they should show ..but I´m sure you just have another "argument" against it), that these arguments of fish dieing the same hour or so, they leave water are just wrong! It is not that unbelieveable as the creationist would like it to be or make it to be...therefor they are relevant.
That is how the beginnings of landliving animals could look like... part-time-land-living.
Why did they not evolve? Because they didn´t have to...they are perfectly adapted to their environment. And if it didn´t change a lot, no other adaptation could conquer their niche.
But if there was another fish, just like the mudfish maybe, and the habitat did change...maybe they could now find much more food out of water than under water, than the adaptation, that could stay a bit longer out there had an advantage, and the biggest chance to reproduce, because it had the bigges chance to survive. An the adaptation, which could move a bit further on land, away from it´s collegues, to find food, where nobody else could go, than had the best chance to reproduce...and so on...I really shouldn´t need to explain that part, if you did understand what evolution is about...
The anabantoidea, despite having the labyrinth organ - not a lung btw, also have to stay wet. Put them on the sand for a week, and they're dead. How does that help you?
Of course they don´t have lungs...but you know...lungs needed to evolve... maybe through these organs...or comparable ones.. Many Amphians have to stay wet, too. But you won´t doubt, that most of them live on land for a pretty long period of their live...but if you put them on sand, they will be dead in a week, too ...so thats just anoter not-argument... it´s again an example of how transitional forms could look like... oh, by the way...there are also amphibians, which don´t have any lungs at all...breathing just trought their skin... so lungs are not a premise to take the first steps on dry land..
"As a result, labyrinth fishes can survive for a short period of time out of water, as they can inhale the air around them, provided they stay moist."
as I said...most ambhibians need to stay moist too...
Just in case you didn't notice, all the taxonomists call these animals 'fish'. Not amphibians. Not halfway between water dwelling and and land dwelling animals. Fish. Unless all these taxonomists are idiots?
Thank you so much for informing me... but now I really wonder, what you would expect from an transitional form? As I said, evolution comes in small steps... sometimes its only, that a fish could stay a bit longer out of water... therefor it would not be possible to draw an exact line between two species, which evolved from each other, if you would know all of the transitional forms...often you wouldn´t even notice, that one animal is different from the next form...
Take the great tit as an example.. There is a populationn livin in a race circle (east Europe)...if you go more to the east of Europe, the will change very slightly, you wont even really notice if you go step by step... but their is one place where the one end of the population meeds the other end and they behave like two different species...because these slight modulations did lead to two different species in seperated habitats... But you could not pick one of the birds and tell, that is an transitional form....
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Oh, and I really would be said, if I would take you the pleasure of reading that side (and me the plaesure of you surely scientific explanation, why these examples can´t be true ;-) )
...so, in case you didn´t see that
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5
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Hi Atrox
Let's discuss this business of a fish coming on to land, as you seem to think I don't understand what's going on.
Have you ever seen a fish on land after a fisherman has caught it? I have. I've caught many, dropped them on the bank - and they died. You know the expression - 'like a fish out of water'.
Now what makes you think there's any survival advantage in dying when the fish has dried out?
Look at it the other way. How long would you survive if you tried to live underwater? Not very long at all, unless you had diving equipment of some sort. Do you think, for example, that if somebody held your head underwater for 1 minute today, 2 minutes tomorrow, 3 mins the day after that, and so on, after a year like that you'd be able to live underwater? I very much doubt it, because you'd drown somewhere around 7 minutes.
Why do you think things would be different for a fish?
Here's the problem stated very nicely:
"In trying to decipher the evolution of tetrapods from fish, scientists face formidable problems. The transition from water to land occurred long ago, and various family trees suggested by the fossil record are so tangled that scientists acknowledge they may never be able to sort them out definitively".
For a fish to come out on to dry land - which is what we're talking about - it has to have breathing apparatus, like lungs. No fish has lungs - not even the lungfish. Their lungs are totally different to our lungs, and bear no relationship to them.
You ever heard about the coelacanth?
Well. once upon a time, in this sea far away, there lived a fish called Latimeria. Scientists thought that it was a very special fish which could walk out on to land and somehow breathe air! Hoo boy! This great fish was the ancestor of all the land animals or something. It got out and walked in swamps and such places.
And then you'll never guess what happened.
Evolutionists needed evidence to back up the supposed transition of vertebrates from the sea to dry land. For that reason, they took the fossil coelacanth, whose anatomy they believed was ideally suited to this scenario, and began using it for propaganda purposes. They interpreted the creature's fins as "feet about to walk," and a fossilized fat-filled swimbladder in its body as "a primitive lung." The coelacanth was literally a savior for evolutionists bedeviled by such a lack of evidence. Evolutionists had at last laid hands on "one" of the countless missing links that should have numbered in the millions.
Heh heh!
And then.... ta daaaa!
This evolutionist excitement was short-lived,when a living coelacanth specimen was captured by fishermen in 1938. This inflicted a terrible disappointment on evolutionists.
James Leonard Brierley Smith, an instructor in the Rhodes University Chemistry Department and also honorary director of various fish museums on the South Coast of England, expressed his astonishment in the face of this captured coelacanth:
"Although I had come prepared, that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if striken to stone. Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by bone, fin by fin, it was true Coelacanth."
The discovery of this imaginary missing link, once believed to have close links to man's alleged ancestors, in the form of a living fossil, was a most significant disaster for Darwinist circles.
The coelacanth, the greatest supposed proof of the theory of evolution, had suddenly been demolished.
The most important potential candidate in the fictitious transition from the sea to dry land turned out to be an exceedingly complex life form still alive in deep waters and bearing no intermediate-form characteristics at all. This living specimen dealt a heavy blow to Darwin's theory of evolution.
So back to the old drawing board and some more idiotic inventions.
Don't you see how stupid this whole thing is? You take any goldfish and drop him on the floor, then let me know what happens. If he gets up and walks off into the distance, you are the greatest scientific discoverer of all time, and you'll get 25 Nobel prizes for your discovery.
But I think you'll have a big pile of dead stinking goldfish on your floor before that happens. Try it, and see. Let me know how long he can survive out of water. [;D]
Here's another nice creationist site for you to laugh at: http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_05.php
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BTW Atrox
Fish have nostrils - but they are used for smelling. They aren't any lungs to attach to! And the gills don't need any nostrils.
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Asyncritus, your arguments are ridiculous. You are comparing modern organisms that are adapted to living in certain environments, to ancestral species that were adapted to living in intermediate environments, and expecting them to behave in the same manner. This is a logical fallacy.
Modern fish are adapted to their aquatic environments. You cannot fish them out and expect them to suddenly be able to survive for extended periods on dry land, because evolution occurs continuously over generally vast amounts of time, not over the period of a single lifetime. Individuals do not evolve. Populations do. It happens incrementally by many small steps, not big leaps. You ask where the variation in the gene pool comes from. The answer is through mutation, genetic drift, and genetic recombination.
If a fish is living near the shore and is using its fins as supports for its body as well as for better swimming, and over many generations it begins spending increasing amounts of time, from being totally submerged, to partially submerged, to staying on the shore, to living on land for finding food or for other reasons, it is easy to see how the transition from fish to amphibian can be made.
If by "there are no transitional forms" you mean that each species is a species in its own right, then yes, that's true. But to say that the fossil record does not show a sequence of organismal evolution is literally myopic.
For transitional forms, Wikipedia has a nice article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
Further, even without a shred of fossil evidence, there are other lines of evidence for evolution. This simple tutorial will help you with this. Genetics and developmental biology are particularly strong lines of evidence. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/lines/index.shtml
Look at amphibians themselves. The larvae and juveniles spend all their time aquatically, and then make the transition to partial or mainly terrestrial existence as adults. Consider toads, which have leathery skin adapted to conserving water, allowing them to spend the majority of their time on land, yet their offspring would die without water. The evolutionary history of these amphibians can be seen each time a tadpole metamorphoses into a toad.
The tetrapod lung is considered to be a homologue of the fish swim bladder. http://www.earthlife.net/fish/bladder.html
http://www.csupomona.edu/~dfhoyt/classes/zoo138/PRIM_FISH.HTML - This page also gives you a good run down on evolution.
The sad fact of the matter is that you don't understand how evolution works, and I doubt if you even want to. If you did, this thread would be obsolete.
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Asyncritus, your arguments are ridiculous. You are comparing modern organisms that are adapted to living in certain environments, to ancestral species that were adapted to living in intermediate environments, and expecting them to behave in the same manner. This is a logical fallacy.
You are displaying an unfortunate ignorance of the facts of both palaeontology and modern discoveries.
First, we have absolute proof of the fact that a 418 million year old fish was no different to its descendants.
Latimeria, the coelacanth, is found in fossil form 410 -418 mya. It was also found in 1938 and is no different to the ancestral forms. Brierley Smith in the above quoted statement said:
"Although I had come prepared, that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if striken to stone. Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by bone, fin by fin, it was true Coelacanth."
Now what happened when the fish was brought to the surface? It died. As I have been saying.
Now what proof do you have for this silly idea that ancient fishes could come on to land and survive? None. And here is absolute physical proof that the idea is useless and just plain wrong.
The second prong of proof comes from the fact that ancient fishes and modern ones hardly differ, and as proof of that statement, here are two sets of photographs which prove this beyond doubt:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harunyahya.com%2Fbooks%2Fdarwinism%2Fatlas_creation_II%2Fimages_atlasII%2F0097.jpg&hash=caa9d337fc97b07ace10ba0c12987893)
Those are flying fish - today found in quantity off the coast of Barbados, and being sold in the restaurants there. You can see the identity of the fossils and the modern fish.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harunyahya.com%2Fbooks%2Fdarwinism%2Fatlas_creation_II%2Fimages_atlasII%2F0103.jpg&hash=7ec31846bd5b66af5f0155fd46f5f875)
That's a sting ray - modern and fossil. No difference.
Here's a guitar fish, ancient and modern:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harunyahya.com%2Fbooks%2Fdarwinism%2Fatlas_creation_II%2Fimages_atlasII%2F0099.jpg&hash=2d389ba03af68e9423e36f11a746afb2)
Now with all that before us, how can you or anyone say that ancient fishes were somehow able to do things that modern fish can't? ie walk out on to land somehow and survive?
There's the killer point which nobody can gainsay. ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS CANNOT BE INHERITED.
For those who don't know what that means, here's an explanation: If a fish did manage to walk on land somehow, and it was the first such fish to do so, then although he can walk on land, his children cannot - because it isn't in the genes. That ability CAN'T GET THERE.
So no matter if a fish DID get out on to land and survive, its offspring couldn't do so. They couldn't inherit that ability, UNLESS IT WAS ALREADY THERE. And if it was alreadY there, HOW DID IT GET THERE?
So that leaves the theory high and dry - dead, and stinking, like the fish!
I had a look at those dubious specimens in your Wiki link. Here's what is says about Eryops:
"Several complete skeletons of Eryops have been found in the Lower Permian, but skull plates and teeth are the most common fossils. Although it had no direct descendants, it is the best-known Permian amphibian and a remarkable example of natural engineering."
What, I wondered, was 'natural engineering'? Luckily, the author of the article gave a link, which said this, and I call your attention particularly to the intelligent design features involved:
"“[T]he creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.”
Does that prove my point, or does it?
I hope you readers are beginning to see the sheer nonsense that evolution requires you to believe, and will write in and say so in no uncertain terms, and ask some very nasty questions - like exactly HOW did this happen? And when you get stupid answers, you say so plainly. Otherwise the truth will be held down forevermore if the scientific press has its way.
Here's a splendid source of information for you to look at:
http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_09b.php
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The tetrapod lung is considered to be a homologue of the fish swim bladder. http://www.earthlife.net/fish/bladder.html
http://www.csupomona.edu/~dfhoyt/classes/zoo138/PRIM_FISH.HTML - This page also gives you a good run down on evolution.
I don't know which joker said that the tetrapod lung is a homologue of the fishes' swim bladder - but he or she knew absolutely nothing about the anatomy of either a lung or a swim bladder apart from the fact that they both contain air. THERE IS NO SIMILARITY WHATSOEVER.
The sad fact of the matter is that you don't understand how evolution works, and I doubt if you even want to. If you did, this thread would be obsolete.
Oh, it isn't sad at all. It is my refusal to swallow nonsense uncritically that you're objecting to. I've put up my understanding of evolution and Ben couldn't pick holes in it. So I don't know where you're going with this.
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Hello again,
I didn't want to get back into this, but here we go...
Just to point out, if you think that ancient animals being identical to modern animals is evidence against evolution, you're wrong. If the conditions haven't changed, there would be no selective pressure to change, and so ancient species would be genetically close to identical to modern species. Evolution doesn't say everything should change, but if a mutation allows an individual to take advantage of a new niche, it will be selected for. This process has also been seen in the lab.
I think you've missed the point of the lungfish. We know that some fish can survive briefly out of water (lungfish, mudskippers etc.) If it's advantageous to be able to survive out of water, as it no doubt was, and still is in certain environments, then the ones capable of this would have been more likely to breed - but we're going over old ground here, you've acknowledged that you understand natural selection, and can see how that shapes every species around us. Your problem now is that you don't see how advantageous traits can arise to be selected. You've been told a number of times that these traits can arise by mutation, recombination, genetic substitution etc.
It may be worth you looking into the work of Richard Lenski, whose long running E. coli experiment has shown advantageous mutations to appear in bacterial colonies, and that these traits depend on a series of mutations before any phenotypic change is witnessed.
Certainly, sometimes we can speculate on how species have changed, simply by applying the rules of evolution as we know them to be. This means that although I'm not a biochemist, I can understand the process through which a certain protein has evolved. We know that DNA replication is not perfect, and so we know where mutations come from. To suggest that these changes are being controlled externally by an invisible, intangible intelligence is beyond speculation, and into pure fiction.
You're constantly criticising, and supplying what you believe to be evidence against evolution (which turn out to be evidence of your lack of comprehension of the rules of evolution). I'll now ask again for evidence for a creator. This would need to be evidence that species change with out natural selection, or genetic changes, or adaptations that are contrary to natural selection (i.e. an adaptation that couldn't have evolved, rather than one where you can't understand how it evolved.)
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Hi again Ben.
Just to point out, if you think that ancient animals being identical to modern animals is evidence against evolution, you're wrong.
If it was only one species, I would certainly agree with you.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds: they call them 'living fossils': that's the evolutionists' name for them. Here's a Wiki listing. You'll notice that these are only examples, not the whole lot.
:informally known as "living fossils".
[edit] Plants
* Amborellaceae
* Araucaria araucana the Monkey Puzzle tree
* Cycads
* Ginkgo tree (Ginkgoaceae)
* Horsetails Equisetum (Equisetaceae)
* Metasequoia Dawn Redwood (Cupressaceae; a borderline example, related to Sequoia and Sequoiadendron)
* Sciadopitys tree (Sciadopityaceae)
* Whisk ferns Psilotum (Psilotaceae)
* Welwitschia (Welwitschiaceae)
* Wollemia tree (Araucariaceae; a borderline example, related to Agathis and Araucaria)
[edit] Fungi
* Neolecta
[edit] Animals
* Vertebrates
o Mammals
+ Cypriot mouse (Mus cypriacus)
+ Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens)
+ Okapi (Okapia johnstoni)
+ Laotian Rock Rat (Laonastes aenigmamus)
+ Volcano rabbit (Romerolagus diazi)
+ Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi)
+ Monito del Monte (Dromiciops gliroides)
+ monotremes (the platypus and echidna)
+ Mountain Beaver (Aplodontia rufa)
+ Opossums
+ Przewalski's Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii, Equus przewalskii or Equus caballus przewalskii, classification is debated)
o Birds
+ Acanthisittidae (New Zealand "wrens")
+ Hoatzin (Ophisthocomus hoazin)
+ Broad-billed Sapayoa (Sapayoa aenigma)
+ Bearded Reedling (Panurus biarmicus)
+ Coliiformes (mousebirds, 6 living species in 2 genera)
+ Magpie-goose (Anseranas semipalmata)
o Reptiles
+ Pig-nosed turtle
+ Crocodilia (crocodiles, gavials and alligators)
+ Tuataras (Sphenodon punctatus and Sphenodon guntheri)
o Amphibians
+ Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis)
o Bony fish
+ Bowfin (Amia calva)
+ Coelacanth (the lobed-finned Latimeria menadoensis and Latimeria chalumnae)
+ Queensland lungfish (Neoceratodus fosteri)
+ Sturgeons and paddlefish (Acipenseriformes)
o Sharks
+ Frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus)
* Invertebrates
o Insects
+ Mantophasmatodea (gladiators; a few living species)
+ Mymarommatid wasps (10 living species in genus Palaeomymar)
+ Nevrorthidae (3 species-poor genera)
+ Notiothauma reedi (a scorpionfly relative)
+ Orussidae (parasitic wood wasps; about 70 living species in 16 genera)
+ Peloridiidae (peloridiid bugs; fewer than 30 living species in 13 genera)
+ Sikhotealinia zhiltzovae (a jurodid beetle)
+ Syntexis libocedrii (Anaxyelidae cedar wood wasp)
o Crustaceans
+ glypheoid lobsters (3 living species: Neoglyphea inopinata, N. neocaledonica, and Laurentaeglyphea neocaledonica)
+ Triops cancriformis (a notostracid crustacean)
o Molluscs
+ Nautilina (e.g. Nautilus pompilius)
+ Neopilina galateae, a monoplacophorid mollusc
+ Ennucula superba (Nut clam)
o Other invertebrates
+ crinoids
+ Horseshoe crabs (only 4 living species of the class Xiphosura, family Limulidae: Limulus polyphemus,Tachypleus gigas, Tachypleus tridentatus and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda)
+ Lingula anatina (an inarticulate brachiopod)
+ onychophorans
+ Valdiviathyris quenstedti (a craniforman brachiopod)
So what do we do with them?
I think Latimeria (the coelacanth) finished the argument 'that if conditions haven't changed, the fish wouldn't'. Do you really mean to say that conditions haven't changed in 418 million years? I very much doubt it.
This is terrible proof that evolution has not occurred. Remember, Stephen Hawkings remark: “…you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory”
Well, here are several hundreds of that kind of observation. What are you going to do with your theory? Still carry on with it, or abandon it?
I'd be interested to know what it would take to make you discard the theory. Tyre tracks in the PreCambrian? Well we have plenty of those. What else? A sting ray in the Cretaceous? We've plenty of those too.
Your problem now is that you don't see how advantageous traits can arise to be selected. You've been told a number of times that these traits can arise by mutation, recombination, genetic substitution etc.
JSTOR aticle records 66 advantageous mutations over 10,000 generations. That makes all of this a joke. There simply isn't the needed time for all 6,000,000 or so species to arise not mentioning the extinct ones. Where did they all come from, then?
And then there's the Cambrian explosion.
For those who may not know, it is the sudden 'explosive' appearance of thousands of new species, genera, orders and phyla in what is described as a geological blink of an eye.
"Cambrian Explosion: the term used to describe the very sudden appearance of a huge variety of fossil organisms with hard skeletons in the sedimentary rocks of the middle Cambrian."
http://www-sedgwick.esc.cam.ac.uk/education/glossary.html
Note the VERY SUDDEN; the HUGE VARIETY of hard skeletoned organisms.
If the hard skeletoned animals arose from soft tissued animals, then there's no evidence of them doing so. Also, the swiftness of their appearance is consistent with their having been created in a short period of time. They simply cannot have evolved by the usual mutations + selections therefrom mechanism, especially if 66 advantageous mutations arose in 10,000 generations. There simply isn't time for them to have done so.
Certainly, sometimes we can speculate on how species have changed, simply by applying the rules of evolution as we know them to be. This means that although I'm not a biochemist, I can understand the process through which a certain protein has evolved. We know that DNA replication is not perfect, and so we know where mutations come from. To suggest that these changes are being controlled externally by an invisible, intangible intelligence is beyond speculation, and into pure fiction.
Ben, assuming that the first organisms were the most complex genetically that there ever were, then the mutations etc route you are describing can only have been downhill all the way. Why? Because in general, mutations represent DAMAGE and DESTRUCTION of perfectly good genes/chromosomes.
They never represent improvements, really. Do you know how many generations of Drosophilas Dobzhansky and co. irradiated with gamma and Xrays? It was in the thousands. And guess what happened? Nothing as far as producing a new species is concerned. Red eyes changed to white eyes to no eyes at all. Wings were damaged, bodies deformed and so it went on. Why the society for the prevention of cruelty to dumb anmals didn't roast Dobzhansky and co, I don't know.
But we have had Chernobyl in recent years. It was probably the worst and most massive irradiation experiment ever performed. And guess how many new species have been formed in the locality? None. Similarly Hiroshima and Ngasaki.
Which I submit, leaves evolution high and dry - because unless a new characteristic can be inherited, it is valueless to the progress of evolution.
So where have we got to in the evolution of amphibians and reptiles from fish?
1 It couldn't have occurred.
2 The evidence shows that it didn't occur.
Since the Creator didn't choose to sign every cell with His Name, I can't supply that sort of evidence. What He did do,however, was to leave traces of His activity in the form of the extremely intelligent designs we see in the world around us. Michael Behe has described some of them in Darwin's Black Box.
That form of evidence is beautifully described by William Paley in his book on Natural Theology here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ucNMDAWWyLsC&dq=William+Paley's+Natural+Theology+online&pg=PP1&ots=xiS8Bb1RxT&sig=FOnTBepsqX4-dkuMYLXsTQZ6idA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA5,M1
I highly recommend that you read it with some degree of attention.
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BTW, I just found this last night.
For anyone who may be interested in living fossils, here's an amazing and extensive compendium of unchanged, living fossils.
http://www.fossil-museum.com
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Just because the form of some creatures has remained the essentially the same for millions of years does not disprove evolution: they have adapted to an environmental niche which has not changed, so their form has not changed, although their immune systems will have evolved in response to appearance new diseases. [You're now going to tell us that there are no new pathogens, because that would require evolution].
Evidence of the evolution of one species into another is sufficient to disprove creationism "intelligent design", the horse for example...
Fossil Evidence for Evolution – Transitional Fossils
The second line of fossil evidence for evolution concerns transitional fossils. Transitional fossils are fossils which are thought to document the evolutionary change, or transition, of one species into another. The orohippus, mesohippus, miohippus, merychippus, and pleshippus are all thought to be transitional fossils, documenting the evolution of the hyracotherium into the modern horse.
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/fossil-evidence-for-evolution-faq.htm
These transitional fossils along with rare atavisms* in modern horses are convincing evidence for evolution,
(to those who are susceptible to reason).
* Probably the most well-known atavism is polydactyly of modern horses ... This condition is similar to the extra toes found in many of the three-toed fossil horses including Archaeohippus, Parahippus, Merychippus and Neohipparion.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/ponyexpress/pony11_1/Pe111.html#Atavisms
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Just because the form of some creatures has remained the essentially the same for millions of years does not disprove evolution: they have adapted to an environmental niche which has not changed, so their form has not changed,
Don't you get tired of this nonsense? If they changed that's proof of evolution. If they haven't changed, that's proof of evolution. Marvellous.
although their immune systems will have evolved in response to appearance new diseases.
How do you know that?
[You're now going to tell us that there are no new pathogens, because that would require evolution].
Evidence of the evolution of one species into another is sufficient to disprove creationism "intelligent design", the horse for example...
The second line of fossil evidence for evolution concerns transitional fossils. Transitional fossils are fossils which are thought to document the evolutionary change, or transition, of one species into another. The orohippus, mesohippus, miohippus, merychippus, and pleshippus are all thought to be transitional fossils, documenting the evolution of the hyracotherium into the modern horse. [/size]
Haven't you read about Eldredge shoving that stupid lot of fossils downstairs in his museum, or do I have to go find the references?
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/fossil-evidence-for-evolution-faq.htm
These transitional fossils along with rare atavisms* in modern horses are convincing evidence for evolution,
(to those who are susceptible to reason).
Maybe they convince you, but it doesn't convince the palaeontologists who stata categorically that there are no transitional fossils. Here's Gould:
"(1)"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary states between major transitions in organic design, (2) indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, (3) has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution. St. George Mivart (1871), Darwin's most cogent critic, referred to it as the dilemma of "the incipient stages of useful structures" – (4) of what possible benefit to a reptile is two percent of a wing?"
Maybe he wasn't susceptible to reason either. But he was professor of invertebrate palaeontology at Harvard.
Simpson:
“Their absence is so nearly universal that it cannot, off hand, be imputed to chance, and does require some attempt at special explanation as has been felt by most paleontologists.”
Gould again:
I do not doubt the supreme importance of preadaptation, but the other alternative, treated with (6) caution, reluctance, disdain or even fear by the modern synthesis, now deserves a rehearing in the light of renewed interest in development: perhaps, in many cases, the intermediates never existed.
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I did not say that species whose form has remained the same for millions of years proves evolution, I said this constancy does not disprove evolution, it is entirely consistent with species having adapted to a niche which has remained constant for millions of years.
My reference to the immune systems was to point out that evolution has not stopped in these "living fossils". The immune systems of all animals are subject to evolutionary pressure by the emergence of new pathogens: those whose immune system can defeat the new virus/bacteria will survive and can have progeny who inherit this immunity, those whose immune system cannot defeat the new pathogen will perish and become an evolutionary dead-end.
You have acknowledged the existence of genes in similar threads Asyncritus.
If you acknowledge that members of a species are not genetically identical, and environmental conditions will favour the survival of those who posses certain genes over those whose do not, (like the immunity example I have given above), then you acknowledge evolution.
PS
I missed your comment on the appearance of new pathogens, (e.g. new viruses such as H571, SARS, AIDS).
PPS
perhaps, in many cases, the intermediates never existed.
Atavism proves that intermediates did exist and that modern creatures are descended from them.
The DNA of the intermediate must be carried by modern members of the species who exhibit atavistic traits.
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http://www.anatomyatlases.org/AnatomicVariants/SkeletalSystem/Images/19.shtml
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Just because the form of some creatures has remained the essentially the same for millions of years does not disprove evolution: they have adapted to an environmental niche which has not changed, so their form has not changed, although their immune systems will have evolved in response to appearance new diseases. [You're now going to tell us that there are no new pathogens, because that would require evolution].
This is pure nonsense. The coelacanths appeared 418mya. They've remained unchanged till today. You seriously mean to say that in 418my no environmental changes took place???????
Those fossil pics above are from various times between 100 and 50 mya. No environmental changes???? Tripe.
Evidence of the evolution of one species into another is sufficient to disprove creationism "intelligent design", the horse for example...
And what does evidence of no evolution prove?
Fossil Evidence for Evolution – Transitional Fossils
The second line of fossil evidence for evolution concerns transitional fossils. Transitional fossils are fossils which are thought to document the evolutionary change, or transition, of one species into another. The orohippus, mesohippus, miohippus, merychippus, and pleshippus are all thought to be transitional fossils, documenting the evolution of the hyracotherium into the modern horse. http://www.allaboutcreation.org/fossil-evidence-for-evolution-faq.htm
These transitional fossils along with rare atavisms* in modern horses are convincing evidence for evolution,
(to those who are susceptible to reason).
* Probably the most well-known atavism is polydactyly of modern horses ... This condition is similar to the extra toes found in many of the three-toed fossil horses including Archaeohippus, Parahippus, Merychippus and Neohipparion.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/ponyexpress/pony11_1/Pe111.html#Atavisms
[/quote]
Are you going to force me to find Eldredge's quote where he said he shoved that display downstairs in his museum? You ever heard of Eldredge, and know who he is? Try google.
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This is pure nonsense. The coelacanths appeared 418mya. They've remained unchanged till today.
It is often claimed that the coelacanth has remained unchanged for millions of years, but, in fact, the living species and even genus are unknown from the fossil record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth
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The name 'coelacanth'is the name of a group. It is known from fossils.
"Although I had come prepared, that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if striken to stone. Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by bone, fin by fin, it was true Coelacanth."
Unless, of course this guy knew nothing about it.
The nasty fact remains that they are not really different from their 410 myo ancestors. THEY ARE RECOGNISABLE. SO ALL THE WRIGGLING WILL DO YOU NO GOOD AT ALL.
Here are two pictures which demonstrate that:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harunyahya.com%2Fbooks%2Fdarwinism%2Fatlas_creation_II%2Fimages_atlasII%2F0044.jpg&hash=834a5c81983b4e7881cdf212b5a93dcc)
"A second coelacanth was found in later years. However, the fish died soon after being removed from the deep waters in which it lived and brought to the warm, shallow surface waters. Nonetheless it was still possible to examine its internal organs. The reality encountered by the investigating team, led by Dr. Jacques Millot, was very different to that which had been expected. Contrary to expectations, the fish's internal organs had no primitive features at all, and it bore no features of being an intermediate form, nor of a supposedly primitive ancestor. It had no primitive lung, as evolutionists had been claiming. The structure that evolutionist investigators imagined to be a primitive lung was actually a fat-filled swimbladder."http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_05.php
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The nasty fact remains that they are not really different from their 410 myo ancestors. THEY ARE RECOGNISABLE.
I agree with you Asyncritus: modern coelacanths are very similar to the fossils…
the form of some creatures has remained the essentially the same for millions of years
It is often claimed that the coelacanth has remained unchanged for millions of years but in fact the living species and even genus are unknown from the fossil record. However, some of the extinct species, particularly those of the last known fossil coelacanth, the Cretaceous genus Macropoma, closely resemble the living species.
http://www.lakestluciavillas.com/coelacanth.html
But "recognisable", "very similar", "essentially the same" and "closely resemble", are not sufficient for creationism:
If creatures were designed then modern species and fossils would be identical.
If the modern species has even slight changes from the fossil then it was not "designed", it has mutated, it has evolved.
Coelacanths and you and I are decendents of mutants who were better adapted to their environment than their contemporaries.
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It's amusing that you're using the Harunyahya book as a reference. It's so poorly written, and its contents grossly misrepresent the science it's attacking. Not only that, but the photos they've used aren't even accurate: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2833,UPDATED-Venomous-Snakes-Slippery-Eels-and-Harun-Yahya,Richard-Dawkins
You seem to think that every species must constantly be evolving no matter what in order for the theory to be correct. As other members have explained to you, species will only evolve significantly (i.e. aside from genetic drift) when the environmental pressures (natural selection) change to a certain extent in ways that act on the variation (due to mutation and recombination) in the population.
You also seem to think that the result of evolution must express itself in the species' external morphology. This is not necessarily the case. Most evolution occurs on the internal environment of the organism, and species can appear superficially unchanged, while their DNA has evolved dramatically. Take the Tuatara for example: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/cp-ttf032008.php
In case you're the kind of person who thinks that evolution is false because you can't see it happen before your eyes, there are many examples of that. This is just one off the top of my head: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
That evidence ALONE falsifies creationism.
Unfortunately, you ignore and reject the evidence that doesn't confirm your irrational ideologies. The only reason I can see for rebutting your nonsense is to prevent innocent readers looking for real science from being brainwashed by you. http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a great place to start.
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But "recognisable", "very similar", "essentially the same" and "closely resemble", are not sufficient for creationism:
If creatures were designed then modern species and fossils would be identical.
If the modern species has even slight changes from the fossil then it was not "designed", it has mutated, it has evolved.
My dear fellow, if we lived 410mya, we would probably see these very organisms swimming around. It's called variation. There are several genera in most families, and this is all you're describing. Variation.
So what happened to the coelacanth being the ancestors, so confidently proclaimed, of the tetrapods and us? That theory has been properly stuffed and mounted.
Coelacanths and you and I are decendents of mutants who were better adapted to their environment than their contemporaries.
Your faith is very touching. I'm saddened to see it. Because you really haven't thought it through.
Let's take hypothetical organism A in the preCambrian layers, which was the common ancestor of everything. It's functioning perfectly and doing well. Let's not bother too much about where it came from just yet.
It mutates. Now, do you know what a mutation is? Here's a definition from google:
"a mistake in the cell's DNA, produced by miscopying during cell reproduction, radiation damage, or environmental factors. ..."
Which is absolutely correct.
So we have perfect specimen A, with perfect genes, producing a damaged, miscopied, mistaken set of genes in its offspring B.
Is that E-volution, or DE-volution?
Do you seriously mean to tell me, that that represents progress? And for the next n generations the process is repeated. What would you expect after the nth generation? I personally would expect damage and destruction, and the possible extinction of the species.
But that's not what we find. We find, in the Cambrian stratum, about 100 new PHYLA - not species (they're unable to count those). That is a gigantic amount of improvement. So where did it come from?
What is worse from your POV, is that all these fossils are HARD-SKELETONed animals. Now they've no idea where all these have come from, and much scratching round in the preCambrian hasn't found anything much except cyanobacteria and other microbes.
So assuming microbial first organism, how did all these things arise, and from what?
Yahya documents 83 pages of fossils whose descendants haven't changed much since they were deposited. That's a lot of species. I listed above the 'living fossils' given by wiki.
Have a look, and let me know why you're sneering at the facts.
http://www.fossil-museum.com/
Now as a fairminded person, you've established a theory which says that organisms will change/ evolve over long periods of time. How many exceptions to that rule do you have to have before you discard the theory? 10? 20? 100? Yahya has got 83 PAGES full of them in the fossil-museum. Why haven't you discarded the theory yet?
So you've got a situation where:
1 Acquired characters can't be inherited. ie if fish C walks out on land, he can't pass those characters on to his offspring! They're stuck in the water.
2 Mutations are generally neutral or destructive. I read a JSTOR article which said that about 66 advantageous mutations occur in about 10,000 generations.
So if we say a human reproduces at 20 years, and that's a generation, then that's 66 beneficials in 200,000 years.Or so.
We aren't going to become supermen anytime soon, that's for sure.
So what have you got? You have a theory that can't work.
I see that the tuatara is being touted as an example of rapid DNA evolution. I don't know what he's on about, but I do know that it is one of the 'living fossils' listed by wiki. Hasn't changed for 230 million years! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil
It hasn't changed any since and is one of the species that forced Niles Eldredge to say:
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history"
Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate, [1995], phoenix: London, 1996
I'm amazed to see you quoting that stupid experiment by Lemski. There is a metabolic change in the organism over 40,000 generations while it was stuck in a refrigerator. Fantastic proof of evolution occurring! Now if it had evolved and changed into a shrimp or something (as they obviously needed to have done to account for the Cambrian explosion), I might have listened. I wonder who's paying the electricity bill for this guy to waste time so uselessly.
I see you are attributing unpleasant motives to me. Dawkins, of course does nothing of the sort! He's as pure as the driven snow. Please let's keep personalities out of this.
But here's a video you might not like:
http://www.harunyahya.com/new_releases/news/dawkins_challenge.php
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My dear fellow, if we lived 410mya, we would probably see these very organisms swimming around.
No fossil evidence to prove this Asyncritus,
the modern coelacanth are very similar, (but not identical), to cretaceous fossils, ~100 myr old.
It's called variation. There are several genera in most families, and this is all you're describing. Variation.
Yes, the kind of variation that would arise from evolution: variations on a theme: similar creatures evolved from a common ancestor.
Mutations are generally neutral or destructive.
True, but on rare occasions a mutation will be advantageous. Evolution is a slow accumulation of these beneficial mutations.
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wow, you still just don´t understand...
again, to understand what your adversaries believe in, doesn´t mean that you have to believe in it yourself. So why are you afraid of even try to understand what we think is a possible explanation of the diversity of species? Because if you would understand, you wouldn´t have to ask questions on general basics of evolution. But in fact, to convince someone of the opposition or even discuss the matter propperly you should understand the train of thoughts.
thats not an attack, just a suggestion to make a scientific discussions work...
I wont explain detailed, because I´m getting really tired of the way you use to respond without seeming to remember what any of us did try to explain.. so I would just give you a hint on mutations:
Take a look into sickle cell anaemia for example, how it is an adverse mutation at first sight, but how it make its way, when conditions change...for example when malaria appears...
Or, i think we agree, that there are a lot of neutral mutations, yes?
That doesn´t mean, that they are useless after all...that also depents on the environment. Lets take lactose tolerance...definitive not "normal" for humans(or in fact any other adult animal) as the common reaction of members of certain peoples, which didn´t cultivate milkproducing animals in their history before the globalisation, shows. Its a mutation, neutral, as long as you don´t need it. It wouldn´t affect you or your behaviour or your evolution until you try to drink milk. So if you have this mutation, you can drink milk (and when its invented all the products from milk), you can use the milk as an energy ressource, which is an advantage, so you are more likely to reproduce. Therefore, most indivuals of populations which use milk in any way, are tolerant against lactose, but only a small part of the individuals of nations which didn´t use milk the longest part of their history are.. like the asian nations...but some asian people are able to tolerate lactose as well...because it´s a sleeping mutation which just spread, when it´s an advantage in some environments..
I think most of the mutations had an effect through scenarios like this...
ok...I just wrote mor than I wanted to...take it or leave it, hmmm...I wonder if I bet right on what you will do.--. [::)]
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Hi Atrox
Thought you had disappeared.
Here, prove that you're listening to what I say. Comment on this:
Let's take hypothetical organism A in the preCambrian layers, which was the common ancestor of everything. It's functioning perfectly and doing well. Let's not bother too much about where it came from just yet.
It mutates. Now, do you know what a mutation is? Here's a definition from google:
"a mistake in the cell's DNA, produced by miscopying during cell reproduction, radiation damage, or environmental factors. ..."
Which is absolutely correct.
So we have perfect specimen A, with perfect genes, producing a damaged, miscopied, mistaken set of genes in its offspring B.
Is that E-volution, or DE-volution?
Do you seriously mean to tell me, that that represents progress? And for the next n generations the process is repeated. What would you expect after the nth generation? I personally would expect damage and destruction, and the possible extinction of the species.
True or false.
If false, why?
If true, isn't that the ruin of your nice theory?
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again yóu don´t seem to have read what I just explained...
I explained how mutations (even mutations that seem to be disadvantageous in first place, like the sickle cell anemia or neutral) can become advantageous... I gave you some examples, which would fit into the (our) theorie of evolution... so why do you again ask the same thing?
at your quote:
a big missunderstanding is, that no species is perfect. Thats just not possible...a species is adapted to its environment. Either its perfectly adapted to its very own environment...that means, that every change would be a big desaster to the species because the adaptations only work if nothing changes a lot (you can find species like this a lot on islands for example). Or the species is an all-rounder... could work with very different environments (like humans, foxes, rats, crows.... all the animals which live in the surroundings of humans for example). But than there is allways a possibility to be better adapted... and if an generalist would end up in an limited area, with an environment, that wouldn´t change a lot for a long time (say on an island), it is very likely that it would evolve to a species of the first kind over the time... so your scenario would just not work....
so it (the perfect species...the first kind of species I mentioned) would not de-evolve, it would evolve, when environment changes and the species wouldn´t be perfect anymore...
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I'm asking the same thing because you haven't read the quote I gave. Here it is again:
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history"
Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate, , phoenix: London, 1996
Mutations can't account for it, although you make a good case for sickle cell anaemia. However, that does not produce a new species of human being: only one that is more resistant to sickle cell disease.
So if mutations can't do it, what does?
Remember, it's all those thousands and thousands of species in the Cambrian that you're trying to explain.
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Believing that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that fossils aren't real is silly. I also wince when people call Evolution just a theory, simply because no one was around to witness it. Many of the ideas we accept with reasonable certainty in chemistry, physics, astronomy etc. can't be directly observed, so if evolution is a theory, than so is every explanation, even the engineering principles that hold up bridges and buildings. And actually, you can observe natural selection taking place with living things, like drug resistant bacteria.
On the other hand, I wouldn't dismiss anyone who uses the word intelligence as a nut, or even a believer in creationism. There is some interesting work in physics about intelligence and the universe. Check out Seth Llloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. This is a quote from him:
"OK, so life is the big one, the mother of all information processing revolutions. But what revolution occurred that allowed life to exist? I would claim that, in fact, all information processing revolutions have their origin in the intrinsic computational nature of the universe. The first information processing revolution was the Big Bang. Information processing revolutions come into existence because at some level the universe is constructed of information. It is made out of bits.
Of course, the universe is also made out of elementary particles, unknown dark energy, and lots of other things. I'm not advocating that we junk our normal picture of the universe as being constructed out of quarks, electrons, and protons. But in fact it's been known, ever since the latter part of the 19th century, that every elementary particle, every photon, every electron, registers a certain number of bits of information. Whenever two elementary particles bounce off of each other, those bits flip. The universe computes."
Of course believing that intelligence is woven into the fabric of the universe is not the same as believing in a creator, or that universe was designed specifically to generate you and me. It would seem like an awful lot of time and trouble just for us, not to mention the wasted space.
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"Whenever two elementary particles bounce off of each other, those bits flip."
He should stick to Mechanical Engineering.
Contrary to popular belief, real computers are not binary. They are probabilistic.
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They are Bible literalists who say the earth is six thousand years old, but the first verses of Genesis can be taken to mean the earth was already there before the six thousand years one counts in life times were. It was in chaos, covered in water, the plot is missed deliberately.
I did in my misfortune as a child amidst divorce, need more than I got, and thinking I was going to die, and a little belief in Jesus, and I turned around my life for justice and honour. I appreciated the highs it gave me, and the wisdom, to commit and correct myself from time to time. So I am not in prison like some others with little fathering.
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I just think that the best argument against intelligent design is how unintelligent the decisions it actually makes are. Neil Degrass Tyson at his oh so very awesome sums it up oh so very well:
Also if somebody wants to see evolution actually working (in a flash simulation):
http://boxcar2d.com/
And yeah, as you can see most mutations are pretty harmful, it's very true (lol).