Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: Asyncritus on 04/11/2008 17:49:31
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Just came across this article. Oh dear, will they never learn?
"Birds adapted to the diverse environments several distinct times because many birds that now live on water (such as flamingos, tropicbirds and grebes) did not evolve from a different waterbird group, and many birds that now live on land (such as turacos, doves, sandgrouse and cuckoos) did not evolve from a different landbird group.
Similarly, distinctive lifestyles (such as nocturnal, raptorial and pelagic, i.e., living on the ocean or open seas) evolved several times. For example, contrary to conventional thinking, colorful, daytime hummingbirds evolved from drab nocturnal nightjars; falcons are not closely related to hawks and eagles; and tropicbirds (white, swift-flying ocean birds) are not closely related to pelicans and other waterbirds.
Shorebirds are not a basal evolutionary group, which refutes the widely held view that shorebirds gave rise to all modern birds."http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080626141117.htm
Heh heh!
Are you getting the distinct impression that they really haven't a clue? I am.
"The most startling and unexpected finding of the study is that the closest living relative of the elegant flamingo, with its long legs built for wading, is not another long-legged species of wading bird but the squat grebe, with its short legs built for diving. The two species, whose genes surprisingly are more similar to each other's than to those of any other bird, otherwise show no outward resemblance, according to Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State."
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fspot.colorado.edu%2F%7Ehumphrey%2Ffact%2520sheets%2Fflamingo_caribbean%2Fimages%2Fflamingo_photo.jpg&hash=d4856b9f19939e1e3fb8fa9795a47799)
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.countryside-holidays.co.uk%2FGreat%2520Crested%2520Grebe.jpg&hash=ed32306d72dec80d4ffe88a71ba0f5d1)
This really calls into question the validity of genetic similarities for establishing anything, in my opinion. How anybody can look at a flamingo and say its closest living relative is the squat grebe, and do so with a straight face is beyond me. It's no wonder the author of the study said:
"We knew people might have a hard time accepting these results..." He wasn't kidding!
Austin Hughes was right. All this computerised genotypic simulation without reference to phenotypes makes a mockery of biology. Surely to goodness somebody must have looked at that and thought: you cannot be serious! Is common sense quite extinct in the groves of academia?
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Will you ever get to grips with the basics of evolution?
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As I and many others have stated before, common sense CANNOT be relied on in a scientific capacity, only factual, experimental data.
Many scientists have expected for quite a while that genetic mapping would lead to a large-scale shuffling of the current classification of living organisms. This doesn't seem strange to me at all, since the way in which organisms are similar to one another goes beyond outside appearance (a bit of common sense, in my opinion).
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Interestingly, Darwin's studies of fancy pigeons formed part of the basis of his ideas about evolution. He knew they were all related but they looked and in some instances, behaved very differently.
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As I and many others have stated before, common sense CANNOT be relied on in a scientific capacity, only factual, experimental data.
Many scientists have expected for quite a while that genetic mapping would lead to a large-scale shuffling of the current classification of living organisms. This doesn't seem strange to me at all, since the way in which organisms are similar to one another goes beyond outside appearance (a bit of common sense, in my opinion).
It seems that you completely fail to see the point.
Let's make the quite foolish assumption that this latest set of observations is indeed the correct set.
Then it follows that all the previous workers in the field, particularly the taxonomists and bird anatomists, were a pack of morons who would have been better off with their mouths shut.
It also follows that whatever the evolutionists said about the evolution of birds was plain nonsense, since they couldn't really distinguish a sparrow from a golden eagle - and even if they did, they were wrong anyway.
Therefore, any relationships already postulated are completely nonsensical and useless. So the support you may have offered to evolutionary theory on the basis of the information you had about the birds' relationships to one another, was completely misplaced. Wrong, in fact.
Therefore, any observed differences and/or similarities between birds were just plain nonsense.
The taxonomists who placed the grebes and the flamingos in different orders were basically a set of planks looking for a termite nest to let some daylight through their heads.
And if all this is true about the 10,000 or so species of birds, then it is entirely possible that all the relationships and evolutionary trees invented/postulated/hypothesised are all probably wrong too!
So who do you support, and why?
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Asyncritus, why are you back without having learned evolution properly?
Have you heard of divergence, convergence, genotype vs phenotype, and DNA? If not, look them up!
The fact is that phenotype does not always represent genetic heritage. As such, DNA evidence is required for a complete picture. This has been recognised by biologists for a very long time. It's sad that you think that this new evidence somehow weakens evolutionary theory when it actually strengthens it.
The whole point of science is to use new and better evidence to gain a more accurate understanding of the world. This is not a weakness. Disproving or modifying previous hypotheses is actually a good thing.
None of the findings of the research you mention disprove evolution. They only disprove previous thoughts on evolutionary relationships of specific species that were based on limited evidence. It replaces them with more accurate information. This is what will eventually be done for every species on the planet, if there are enough resources to do so.
Since you're back, and you clearly have not learnt anything since your last visit, where is your positive case for creationism? When have creationists ever collected any good data to support their claims? Even if evolution was false, which it is not, creationism would still not be a remotely good explanation.
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Yeah those damn biologists!
They EVEN think this
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IDIOTS!! They don't look the same at all!!!
(http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HS138, http://zims.isis.org/aark/Hi%20res%20YOTF%20images/Bufo%20bufo,%20Common%20Toad,%20Tadpoles,%20Aleksander%20Niwelinski.JPG, http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1212/589789587_db2bf559a0_o.jpg, http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/imag98/star1.jpg, http://busybee.mba.ac.uk/imgs/Species/Echinodermata/o_astrub.jpg)
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We are not discussing evolution at all, Stefan.
The point of the article I quoted is that the taxonomic relationships, which are well founded on observable features of birds in this case, are now claimed to be meaningless.
The taxonomists who created those orders, families, genera, and species were all wrong.
Now a great deal of evolutionary theory is based on perceived relationships, usually morphological ones. All classification systems till now were based on these - even cladistics.
Since all of these relationships, in the Aves, are now in question, then it follows that all of the evolutionary arguments based on those classifications are also wrong. And to say that A evolved from B is downright risky, not to mention stupid in the extreme.
So somehow, we have the quite comical situation where we have to explain how
1 All the people up till now didn't know a thing, really, and
2 Therefore all their evolutionary theories based on those classifications is now shown to be pure nonsense.
I ask you again, given that that is really (?) the case,
1 which bit of bird evolution do you NOW believe to be true and
2 Why?
3 How do we know that next month won't bring forth another article showing that all the evolutionary theory about reptiles becoming birds, the origin of the primates and so forth, are all rubbish too?
Huh?
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Yeah those damn biologists!
They EVEN think this
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IDIOTS!! They don't look the same at all!!!
(http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HS138, http://zims.isis.org/aark/Hi%20res%20YOTF%20images/Bufo%20bufo,%20Common%20Toad,%20Tadpoles,%20Aleksander%20Niwelinski.JPG, http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1212/589789587_db2bf559a0_o.jpg, http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/imag98/star1.jpg, http://busybee.mba.ac.uk/imgs/Species/Echinodermata/o_astrub.jpg)
Hey Spring
I missed your explanation of how that tadpole evolved into a frog, or how the larva evolved into an adult insect.
How about some kind of explanation then?
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Are you getting the distinct impression that they really haven't a clue? I am.
I have already got the distinct impression that you will question evolution at every step without even trying to understand it or give a reasonable and workable alternative.
You are a creationist, you will not change regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I see no point in entering into a debate with you.
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guys.. just don´t feed the troll ... [;)]
You know, there is just no will to understand our/ the evolutionists point ... and only that could be the basis of a discussion which is worth it (Not important wether you believe it is wrong or right)... anything else is just a waste of time...
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Are you getting the distinct impression that they really haven't a clue? I am.
I have already got the distinct impression that you will question evolution at every step..
Isn't that the proper scientific procedure?
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Asyncritus, you tell us that "We are not discussing evolution at all."
Then why did you mention it in the title of the thread?
Are you by any chance a complete idiot, or just a troll (I accept that the 2 are not mutually exclusive)
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Hey BC
I meant that I was not attacking evolution as directly as I normally do, by presenting those incontrovertible evidences of behaviour and structure that I have done previously.
I'm presenting the article, written by evos, concerning work done by evos, which raise some very serious questions in my mind.
I'm sorry if you haven't got the brain power to see that subtle point. But try re-reading the first post about 10 times. It should start to percolate through the density barriers which prevent you from seeing what I'm talking about - or rather, what THEY are talking about.
Now can we get off the personalities and get on with the discussion of their findings?
It is a clear demonstration of the shabbiness and threadbare nature of the theory if the slightest twitch of opposition raises hackles instead of provoking thought.
Such knee-jerk defensiveness is a demonstration of positional weakness, not strength.
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Such knee-jerk defensiveness is a demonstration of positional weakness, not strength.
I think it may be a reaction to you personally, as it's a case of 'here we go again...'
I'll say again, Religion and science are viewing the world from different paradigms, there is no sensible debate. This is a science forum, so we don't accept your alternative, non-science explanation.
However, you may have a point in that pure-genotype number-crunching may not be as illuminating as it could be. It is, though, a more useful technique that merely looking at external features. The more we understand about epigenetics, the more we can refine this technique.
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Here's Austin Hughes NAS:
"The comparison between these results and those inferred by commonly-used parsimony and Bayesian methods demonstrates that statistical tests of positive selection can be misleading without experimental support and that the molecular basis of spectral tuning in rhodopsins should be elucidated by mutagenesis analyses using ancestral pigments.
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Such knee-jerk defensiveness is a demonstration of positional weakness, not strength.
I think it may be a reaction to you personally, as it's a case of 'here we go again...'
Yes, 'here we go again'.
I have said my piece,
I have already got the distinct impression that you will question evolution at every step without even trying to understand it or give a reasonable and workable alternative.
You are a creationist, you will not change regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I see no point in entering into a debate with you.
I will say no more, I do want to 'go again' and again and again..............
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Have I missed this 'overwhelming evidence' somewhere?
Here is Hughes saying that all these fancy genetic models are pretty useless without experimental verification, and by gum, there are plenty of those!
There are the bird guys saying that the whole 'evolutionary tree' is wrong and has to be re-thought, and then producing the most stupid example imaginable of a flamingo being the closest relative of the squat grebe.
Is that what you describe as 'overwhelming evidence'? Well, I AM overwhelmed - and totally under-impressed by this rubbish.
Why not say something constructive about what THEY said, instead of flinging your hands up in despair? Though in my humble opinion, despair is probably right, listening to what they said.
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Asyncritus.
There are one or two things that you should know that might help you with your dilemma over bird taxonomy.
When it first began in the late eighteenth-century there were few tools available to the pioneers of this branch of science - in fact only the creature's appearance and life cycle/style were used. Over time, methods improved; for example, when I worked for the Wildfowl Trust in the 1960s, a favoured method for sorting out the Anatidae (ducks, geese and swans) was comparative tracheal anatomy. This resulted in the taxonomy undergoing some small changes and refinements.
This is how science progresses - theories are constantly being tested and adjustments made when found to be false.
Now we have DNA techniques that can tell us far more about a bird's evolutionary history than observation and comparative anatomy alone. This technique has resulted in a lot of adjustments, particularly among the Aves, and a good site to visit is:
http://jboyd.net/Taxo1/taxo1.html
This only confirms that scientific method is working - the fact that errors from the past have been uncovered doesn't mean that it's all been rubbish. The opposite is the case - we now know more and better than before. It's also likely that as DNA methods improve even more adjustments will need to be made; it's unlikely that this is the last word.
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You don't accept that DNA is THE strongest measure of how closely related organisms are?
I repeat: genotype does not equal phenotype. Get this through your skull.
The information is readily available to you. Leave your ideologies behind and go and learn something!
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"I was not attacking evolution as directly as I normally do, by presenting those incontrovertible evidences of behaviour and structure that I have done previously."
The evidence was not incontravertible, why pretend it was?
"I'm presenting the article, written by evos, concerning work done by evos, which raise some very serious questions in my mind"
It doesn't cause me any trouble; I know that science makes discoveries, learns, and moves on, better than it was before.
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Look, everybody knows how this is how science progresses - by questioning assumptions in the light of new data.
In this particular case, the claim is being made that the whole evolutionary tree has got to be redrawn.
That means, very clearly, that the PREVIOUS trees were worthless.
Given that, then all the books and articles supporting the theory of evolution of the birds have at one stroke, become meaningless, and wrong. Mistaken, if you like.
So all supporters of bird evolution are up a gum tree, and are now looking frantically for a way down.
That is a major claim, and I don't quite see how your theorists are going to recover from that blow.
The obvious question that even you must be asking, and remember that I didn't write the article, is, just how much of all evolutionary theory is true?
That would be a very fair question, because the birds are not an insignificant group of creatures (there are about 10,000 species, and billions of individuals).
So the assumption that the new data questions is not just taxonomical, but the far bigger question of whether or not evolution itself is dubious.
So far, they haven't rattled that particular cage, but as students (if that's what you all are) then you are in a unique position to do so in your own work. Your tenure and jobs don't depend on toe-ing any particular line.
Now's the time to stand up and think for yourselves.
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Evolutionary theory does not depend on the evolutionary relationships of specific species. In taxonomy the question is not whether the species has evolved, but how and from where, specifically. The new evidence only supports evolution.
Please actually know something about what you are criticising. If you understood evolution, biology, and the scientific method, you would not be saying such stupid things. The problem is not that you are saying stupid things, though. The problem is that you think you are right and are unwilling to learn.
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Asyncritus
I asked you once before what it was about evolution that made you feel so insecure - and you avoided answering the question.
Do you feel able to talk about it now?
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You don't accept that DNA is THE strongest measure of how closely related organisms are?
With these results in front of us, I would say that this is extremely strong reason to doubt it.
I think that this whole business of detecting relationships on the basis of genetic similarity is quite wrong. We have excellent reason to suppose that it does work WITHIN a species (as paternity tests etc prove conclusively).
It does not appear to me that extra-specific relationships are quite so correctly established.
As you know, much of evolutionary theory absolutely depends on one species, genus, family becoming another. "The ancestor of X was another species A B or C". That says that species barriers were crossed very frequently and in great number.
That, however, is impossible. All the practical evidence we have before us says that different species cannot interbreed in the wild and produce fertile offspring. It happens, but rarely.
So how are we going to determine whether the similarity of genetic material between species A and different species B means common descent or not?
It seems stupid to think so - and certainly the evidence to hand shows that it is impossible. GG Simpson said that it was a waste of time to look for intermediates above the family level - but here are people happily talking about evolution at phylum level!!! They know nothing about taxonomy if they can possibly think so.
I repeat: genotype does not equal phenotype. Get this through your skull.
The information is readily available to you. Leave your ideologies behind and go and learn something!
Phenotype is entirely dependent on genotype - and the nature vs nurture arguments have a part to play here. But by and large, genotype is the major determinant of visible characters.
In my opinion, it is asinine to say that a grebe is the nearest relative to a flamingo. Just try to reconstruct what happened.
Common ancestor of both experienced a mutation or a zillion mutations. One set produced pink feathers, long legs, bent beak etc and the other produced exactly the opposite.
It's ridiculous. Flamingos eat algae, small insects, and small crustaceans like shrimp. Larger grebes eat mostly fish. The digestive systems, and food acquisition systems must be totally different, and their origins hopelessly impossible to explain by mutations.
Yet, here are these people saying that they are very closely related! Do morphology, behaviour, and physiology count for nothing when determining relationships?
As a reasonable human being, I submit that you must be wondering about all this and how it could possibly have evolved.
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You've got hung up on the species thing again. Species are irrelevant to evolution, they're just arbitrary lines drawn by people. Usually we draw these lines along something sensible, like the ability to breed together, but they're still arbitrary lines. Try to stop thinking of species as separate, immutable, and more that all life on earth is a genetic continuum.
You accept that there is evolution within a species, well if you took two populations of that species and allowed them to evolve separately, you would eventually wind up with differences so strong that they could be defined as two different species. That's how easy it is for new species to form.
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BenV, blakestyger, BC and others, don’t get drawn into this argument.
Asyncritus has a one track mind. He displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the process of evolution and is determined to argue on the subject at every opportunity. I, for one, will not rise to his constant barrage of 'this disproves evolution' threads again. He has been indoctrinated with creationism and is only here to try to do the same to us. He fails to see that he is getting nowhere with his ridiculous arguments.
Asyncritus. Stop surfing the web for anti-evolution articles and posting them here. No matter how stupid some of us may act at times, we all have the intellect to be able to make our own decisions on the subject of evolution Vs creation. You are wasting your time and ours, and trying my patients into the bargain.
I am an atheist, but that does mean I go onto religious sites and denounce the creation. It would be rude and crass to do so. I am sure the people on such sites also have the intellect to decide on the matter of creation Vs. evolution, and have done so to their satisfaction. Take your posts to these sites, where they may be more appreciated.
Of course, you could, since this is a science forum, post something scientific but not related to evolution Vs. creation. Try it, you may find it enjoyable.
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... if you took two populations of that species and allowed them to evolve separately, you would eventually wind up with differences so strong that they could be defined as two different species. That's how easy it is for new species to form.
That's exactly what has happened to the wagtails across Europe.
Don_1 I agree, but at the same time I live in hope that something will eventually get through. This sort of attack does try everybody's patience so I will take your advice - he can be a bit abusive too.
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You've got hung up on the species thing again. Species are irrelevant to evolution, they're just arbitrary lines drawn by people. Usually we draw these lines along something sensible, like the ability to breed together, but they're still arbitrary lines. Try to stop thinking of species as separate, immutable, and more that all life on earth is a genetic continuum.
You accept that there is evolution within a species, well if you took two populations of that species and allowed them to evolve separately, you would eventually wind up with differences so strong that they could be defined as two different species. That's how easy it is for new species to form.
Ben,
I do fully accept that microevolution takes place. It's visible everywhere.
I do accept that a certain amount of speciation does, and has, taken place.
But GG Simpson, a heavyweight evolutionary palaeontologist, said that it is hopeless to try and find transitions at and above family level, and that is only 2 levels up from species.
To translate that into comprehensible terms, he is saying that the ostriches, the family Struthionidae, and the gulls, the family Laridae, are so far apart that it would be impossible to find transitions between them. And the same is true for all the families and taxons above that, and I'm only using the birds as a sample here.
There are 2 serious problems here, aren't there.
1 Not only new families, but whole phyla suddenly appear in the Cambrian. There is simply not enough time for the gradual process you describe to have occurred.
2 The article which I began this thread with, said words to the effect that the whole evolutionary tree had to be rejigged, so now, where are we?
If I was a chemist, and somebody came along and showed that the whole periodic table was wrong,with many elements in the wrong place, I would, I think, be in despair - because all of my learning, and teaching, would be badly mistaken, and I would have serious doubts about Mendeleev's brain power.
Doesn't this information cause you to at least flicker an eyelid?
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Asyncritus. Stop surfing the web for anti-evolution articles and posting them here. No matter how stupid some of us may act at times, we all have the intellect to be able to make our own decisions on the subject of evolution Vs creation.
The decisions ought to be made on the basis of information, not prejudice. When I arrived here first, everybody was having a go, deriding and mocking intelligent design. The first thread I joined was "Do intelligent design ideas make you wince?", and everybody was nodding sagely and saying yes, yes, what a stupid idea. Maybe my joining the forum has had a moderating effect on such attitudes. But I don't know. What's certain is that nothing else like it has been started since then.
When I started to question severely, immediately hackles were raised and so it has gone on.
Let me remind you that this is the Naked SCIENTIST Forum - and a scientist is someone who has some knowledge of the physical sciences. I certainly do, and I imagine others on the forum do so also.
A scientist really ought to have an open mind, and as Huxley said long ago, 'hold his theories with a light hand, and be prepared to abandon them in the light of new facts.'
That is not the attitude being displayed here.
Any questioning of evolution theory is being treated as heresy, and you react like priests hunting blasphemy. This is most reprehensible - because if the theory has any strength in it, it will be able to survive severe questioning and criticism from the knowledgeable.
If it can't then it is best abandoned, don't you think?
You are wasting your time and ours, and trying my patients into the bargain.
It depends on how you define time wasting. I note that the threads I have been involved in have total readers' views of over 7,000. The number of actual contributors is quite small, AND THEREFORE THERE IS CONSIDERABLE INTEREST IN WHAT GOES ON IN THEM.
I think it is my duty to inform such readers about facts which they would not otherwise know about. The fact that they keep coming shows much interest - whether favourable to my case or not I wouldn't know.
The quite disgraceful and continuing sort of comment like yours (above), must speak volumes to them. Why don't they answer his questions, they might be saying. Why are they reacting so violently, may be another. Don't they have an answer to that point? may be a third.
Never forget that there [:)]uncommitted readers - and your collective attitude must make them wonder about the strength of your case. Do it some credit, and answer seriously, as Ben is doing, to his credit.
I am an atheist, but that does mean I go onto religious sites and denounce the creation. It would be rude and crass to do so. I am sure the people on such sites also have the intellect to decide on the matter of creation Vs. evolution, and have done so to their satisfaction. Take your posts to these sites, where they may be more appreciated.
Exactly what I was just talking about. I would certainly join an atheistic forum very willingly - but I don't get the impression that this is one. Agnostic is probably more like the truth, and I would like those people to at least hear the other side, and not dismiss it as nonsense out of hand.
Because it isn't, as your difficulty in finding adequate answers is demonstrating quite convincingly.
Of course, you could, since this is a science forum, post something scientific but not related to evolution Vs. creation. Try it, you may find it enjoyable.
If cosmology is a science, then I fail to see how biology is not. The origin of the universe is what they consider, and the origin of species is what we are considering here.
Most people are concerned about, and interested in their possible origin and their certain end. I would be happy if I can help with regard to the first.
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Our hackles are being raised by your ignorance and stupidity. There's really no point wasting our time trying to teach you anything or explain the phenomena you question, because you don't listen. You're blinded by your ideologies.
It is extremely clear that you do not understand evolution or the scientific method. If you did, you would not be saying such stupid things. The sad thing is that the information is already available for you to learn, but you reject it off hand.
Creationism is not science.
Your ignorance is no basis to reject 150 years of scientific investigation.
Please stop wasting web space with your ideas and go actually learn something instead.
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Our hackles are being raised by your ignorance and stupidity. There's really no point wasting our time trying to teach you anything or explain the phenomena you question, because you don't listen. You're blinded by your ideologies.
I think that you have demonstrated absolutely no ability to refute/disprove the points I'm making.
In this last case I was merely quoting a very big reported study, and raising what seems obvious questions. If you can't see the logic, then that's your deficiency.
If you can see the logic, then reply like an intelligent human being instead of an intellectual porcupine.
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Arguments based on ignorance are invalid, dear "porcupine". If you knew anything, you wouldn't be making them so incessantly.
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Arguments based on ignorance are invalid, dear "porcupine".
Is that why you aren't raising any?
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Are you really that thick? Please return with some creationist arguments that are actually worth responding to. In other words, don't come back.
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Sorry pal, you can't get rid of truth that easily.
Why don't you stop reading my posts and go bury your head in the sand someplace?
Tricky, though. Leaves a dangerous part of the anatomy exposed.
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The first thread I joined was "Do intelligent design ideas make you wince?", and everybody was nodding sagely and saying yes, yes, what a stupid idea. Maybe my joining the forum has had a moderating effect on such attitudes. But I don't know. What's certain is that nothing else like it has been started since then.
This thread was started on October 22nd - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=17805.0
And I said there what I have said before, intelligent design is not a scientific hypothesis, it is a philosophy. There can be no sensible debate between ID and evolution.
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I think that you have demonstrated absolutely no ability to refute/disprove the points I'm making.
Odd that, I thought that your point was that an error in the science of taxonomy made a difference in how we should interpret a whole bunch of othre facts.
I also thought someone had pointed out thst science learns amd moves on. Finding an error, even a major one, in the taxonomy of birds doesn't mean that the whole of science is wrong. It proves that science as a whole is right. It seeks to find errors so it can correct them.
Science is still standing and taxonomy is a bit better than it was.
Just as soon as religion grows up and realises it has got some things utterly wrong then it will be reasonable to compare the two.
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Scanning through this long exchange, as it seems to get more acrimonious the longer it goes on, I fail to see anyone addressing the point originally raised. The diversity within a species as centered on the birds (beautiful flamingo pic) is being discussed from the perspective of evolution whereas most argumentation brought to the fore addresses what seems to me is adaptation. Evolution would discuss the coming about of birds prior to their existence, such as the era of the dinosaurs during which they reportedly did not exist.
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The first thread I joined was "Do intelligent design ideas make you wince?", and everybody was nodding sagely and saying yes, yes, what a stupid idea. Maybe my joining the forum has had a moderating effect on such attitudes. But I don't know. What's certain is that nothing else like it has been started since then.
This thread was started on October 22nd - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=17805.0
And I said there what I have said before, intelligent design is not a scientific hypothesis, it is a philosophy. There can be no sensible debate between ID and evolution.
Ernst Mayr:
"The basic framework of the theory is that evolution is a two-stage phenomenon: the production of variation and the sorting of the variants by natural selection. Yet agreement on this basic thesis does not mean that the work of the evolutionist is completed. The basic theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate and its application raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case. Populations, Species and Evolution (1970) p. 6
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And once selected, further variation occurs through adaptation.
And on intelligent design the following. All designing is apparent by being aware of the inherent intelligence of what has been designed. Inherent intelligence of organic molecules, absent in the inorganic variants of molecules.
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Quote from: Asyncritus on 10/11/2008 00:18:33
I think that you have demonstrated absolutely no ability to refute/disprove the points I'm making.
Odd that, I thought that your point was that an error in the science of taxonomy made a difference in how we should interpret a whole bunch of othre facts.
That is quite true. If there's got to be a re-vamping of the whole shoot, then to me that says there was something fundamentally wrong in the first place.
The question is: what?
As I said, the whole classification system was based on the concept that evolution did take place, notably cladistics (though even that is coming under fire nowadays).
If the whole thing has to be revamped, then that, IMHO, calls in question whether the evolution idea needs throwing overboard with all its offshoots, such as the classification system.
If the branches are dead, that is a strong indication that the root and trunk aren't in too good shape either. The death of a tree begins to be seen at the tips of the branches. Here are these guys saying that the whole tree needs rejigging.
I don't know how you guys think, but something as fundamentally wrong as this seems to be, should be ringing very loud alarm bells in your heads. There's little point in repainting a ceiling when the leak in the system hasn't been repaired. Maybe a new tank is needed.
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This is an excellent ectract from Harun Yahya's team
http://harunyahya.com/en/Makaleler/3381/The_myth_of_bird_evolution
"The Unique Structure of Avian Lungs
Another factor demonstrating the impossibility of the reptile-bird evolution scenario is the structure of avian lungs, which cannot be accounted for by evolution.
Land-dwelling creatures have lungs with a two-directional flow structure. Upon inhaling, the air travels through the passages in the lungs (bronchial tubes), ending in tiny air sacs (alveoli). The exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place here. Then, upon exhaling, this used air makes its way back and finds its way out of the lung by the same route.
In birds however, air follows just one direction through the lungs. The entry and exit orifices are completely different, and thanks to special air sacs all along the passages between them, air always flows in one direction through the avian lung. In this way, birds are able to take in air nonstop. This satisfies birds' high energy requirements. Michael Denton, an Australian biochemist and a well-known critic of Darwinism, explains the avian lung in this way:
This one-directional flow of air is maintained in breathing in and breathing out by a complex system of interconnected air sacs in the bird's body, which expand and contract in such a way as to ensure a continuous delivery of air through the parabronchi… The structure of the lung in birds, and the overall functioning of the respiratory system, are quite unique. No lung in any other vertebrate species in any way approaches the avian system. Moreover, in its essential details it is identical in birds. (6)
The important thing is that the reptile lung, with its dual-direction air flow, could not have evolved into the bird lung with its single-direction flow, because it is not possible for there to have been an intermediate model between them. In order for a living thing to live, it has to keep breathing, and a reversal of the structure of its lungs with a change of design would inevitably end in death. According to evolution, this change must happen gradually over millions of years, whereas a creature whose lungs do not work will die within a few minutes."
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Will you ever get to grips with the basics of evolution?
I am assuming you know that Natural Selection is not the only method for advancement. Origin of species was written in 1859, and Darwin did not know about DNA, RNA, Genetic coding, etc. DNA was not discovered until 1869, and they did not begin to realize it stored information until 1927, and even still in 2012 scientists are still finding out so many new discoveries about it.
You see, organisms evolve by the following means.
Natural Selection
Migration ( Genetic Flow )
Genetic Drift
and my person favorite -
Mutations.. ( No way Darwin knew about these )
Mutations can be spontaneous or induced. they include, but are not limited to the following.
germline mutation / somatic mutation / somatic hypermutation / mutagenesis / small and large scale mutations /
cladogenesis / anagenesis /
there are 6 types of mutations
harmful / beneficial / neutral / deleterious / advantageous / nearly neutral.
scientists are still learning so much from this process, that to draw specific conclusions until all of the evidence is found, is premature.