Evolution: the Facts.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Yes, I have made the claim they are not what evo theory aka Neo Darwinism would predict, but since you don't even know what ND is after pages of trying to explain it to you, why waste any more time trying to explain it to you.

Because you would unequivocally demonstrate that your point is true and is based on science. Everybody in this thread would have no choice but to agree with you and admit that you're right. Not to mention all the lurkers who could be open to be persuaded by your evidence if only you'd present it, who must at the moment be thinking that you can't actually support it with evidence because you've thus far proven yourself to be utterly incapable of doing so.

Why wouldn't you want to prove that you're right?

As far as wasting your time goes, you've spent several days and many pages dancing around the question, pretending that you have already answered it or making excuses for why you're not going to answer it. Think how much less effort making one single post actually is. And that's all you'd have to do, just make one post in which you actually post the evidence.

And that's not to mention the more than a week and several hundred posts you've thus far made shouting into the aether, trying to persuade people that your point of view is both right and supported by the evidence. Again, you can accomplish everything you're trying to achieve with just one post. Just one.

So, once more, why wouldn't you want to make that post? What possible reason could you have for not wanting to?

And, again, for clarity's sake - your evidence is your evidence. My, or anybody else's, understanding of evolution is entirely irrelevant to that evidence.

 

[randman]

The fact what was thought to be junk DNA turned out to be highly conserved is evidence FOR evolution, not against evolution theory.

So evos argue any result is FOR evolution. What else is new? They definitely argued non-functional DNA being highly preserved was very strong evidence for evolution. They were wrong, but hey, it's all still the same. The data doesn't matter, eh? Just the theory.

 

[Sideroxylon]

So evos argue any result is FOR evolution. What else is new? They definitely argued non-functional DNA being highly preserved was very strong evidence for evolution. They were wrong, but hey, it's all still the same. The data doesn't matter, eh? Just the theory.

Wasn't it more a case of junk DNA was a strike against creation (In a debate that takes place outside of normal scientific discourse)?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Kotsatu, are you just an idiot? I gave the data, specifically saying the nature of all trees. Why is that such a difficult concept for you to grasp?

Not one tree or any tree, but the nature of how all the trees fit together, and cited:

general irreversibility

the lack of macroevolution in a very long time

bacteria not evolving any new non-bacterial forms over 500 million years

nor anything else evolving itself into bacteria

the fact macroevolution appears to occur burts or pulses but no longer doing so today, etc, etc,.....

If you don't like the evidence, fine, but do not pretend I have no answered.

None of these things are evidence that phylogenic groupings are not what evolutionary theory would predict. That is the claim you made, and that is the statement that you have been asked to provide evidence for. Changing the subject and hand-waving are not the same thing as supporting your assertion with evidence.

 

[randman]

Wasn't it more a case of junk DNA was a strike against creation (In a debate that takes place outside of normal scientific discourse)?

It was published in peer-reviewed journals but yes, it was really just a strike against creationism or ID, though they didn't say that or didn't likely (didn't read it all) because they want to suggest ID is not debated among them when it actually is as the discussions of Axe's paper show.

 

[randman]

None of these things are evidence that phylogenic groupings are not what evolutionary theory would predict.

In order for you to make that claim, you'd have to actually understand what evolutionary theory is and as such, it's a fallacious statement.

 

[randman]

Kot....

However, even an isolated subgroup which has a reduced genetic variation compared to the mother population will be subject to random point mutations and other mechanisms that will serve to increase variation (supposing no extinction occurs) over time. This is called a bottle neck, and is known to have happened in a great many still extant taxa.

But where have evos shown these mechanisms increase genetic variation over the loss through sub-group isolation and natural selection too, I might add? It may not affect the next speciation sequence if it occurs but if the general pattern is losing genetic variation as it appears to be, you have a problem whether evos want to admit or not.

Ironically, a curious ally on this point may be YECers who more acutely and correctly, at least some do, see the problem. They recognize existing Darwinian mechanisms don't work to increase genetic variation due the loss in the process and since the process is roughly the same, adding millions of years to the process doesn't change that. Yet they claim genetic variation increases surprisingly much and give the examples of dog breeds to wolves. The reason they are more keen to this issue is they advocate hyper-microevolution. In this context microevolution is above the species level and could be closer even to the family level.

I don't really want to talk about YECers but just showing how some are working to address this issue.

 

[A'isha]

In order for you to make that claim, you'd have to actually understand what evolutionary theory is and as such, it's a fallacious statement.

This is the funniest thing you've posted yet!

 

[Sideroxylon]

It was published in peer-reviewed journals but yes, it was really just a strike against creationism or ID, though they didn't say that or didn't likely (didn't read it all) because they want to suggest ID is not debated among them when it actually is as the discussions of Axe's paper show.

Right, so it wasn't actually "very strong evidence for evolution" but rather bad news for creation or ID. Therefore any discovery of functionality in what may have been once seen as "junk" DNA has no effect on the truth value of evolution (As someone else pointed out earlier).

 

[randman]

No, it isn't. The common ancestor is the node where two lineages converge. This is always present, or you wouldn't have a tree. You would have a bunch of parallel lines.

It's present in the imagined tree, not in real data.

 

[A'isha]

But where have evos shown these mechanisms increase genetic variation over the loss through sub-group isolation and natural selection too, I might add? It may not affect the next speciation sequence if it occurs but if the general pattern is losing genetic variation as it appears to be, you have a problem whether evos want to admit or not.

Start with Ohno and work your way through Rodin.

This is the fourth time I've told you.

 

[randman]

Right, so it wasn't actually "very strong evidence for evolution" but rather bad news for creation or ID. Therefore any discovery of functionality in what may have been once seen as "junk" DNA has no effect on the truth value of evolution (As someone else pointed out earlier).

It was expressed as very strong evidence for evolution. Of course, no fact can disagree with evolution by definition it seems so it's a moot point.

But I never said it was definitive proof against evolution but merely indicative of how evos rely on overstating things, claiming they are facts when they are not, and making wildly premature, dogmatic arguments not based in a careful examination of what we do know from the data and do not.

 

[Paulhoff]

There are so many poor designs in just the human body that show that it is anything but designed.






Paul

 

[jimbob]

There are so many poor designs in just the human body that show that it is anything but designed.






Paul

http://www.theshrubbery.com/udn/
Hasn't randman used the highlighted argument?

We believe creation scientists and the members of SEAO have presented the case for a creator fairly well. They point out, for example, that there are large gaps in the fossil record, that it is a theory and not a fact, and that some Phd's have even begun to doubt it. "If evolution is true," they might say, "then why can't we observe it today, huh?" They might then go on to add, "and don't even bring up all the different breeds of dogs that all came from the same origins, or other examples of animals adapting to an environment by natural selection, be cause that's all just a theory. And all that genetic 'evidence' that you need to go to college to understand, that stuff's not fair."

But instead of being swayed by either side, we at UDN, Inc. have found a theory that effectively merges the strengths of the two theories without the weaknesses. The intelligent design people say there are too many holes in the fossil record, and that evolution is only a theory; the scientists say there's not enough evidence of intelligent design. So we say, instead, that life has indeed been designed, just not very well.

Miller himself, a biologist, states on of our best illustrations. There have been 23 elephant-like animals in history, and yet only two survive today (and we add, they're not doing very well). Clearly, this is the mark of an all-powerful creator who is stuck on the same stupid idea and can't figure out why the hell they keep dying off. Hmm, perhaps it's because giant, big-eared mammals with huge, prehensile noses are ridiculous? I mean, WTF? A giant, powerful, grasping… nose? It looks like something a preschooler would make up.

ETA: and from the FAQ:

Is Unintelligent Design the same as Creationism?

No, but it is compatible with it. The God of the Bible, especially the old testament, readily admits he is jealous and his temper tantrums are similar to those of a child's. Also, there are numerous examples of God doing mean things and regretting it, or just plain changing his mind, not qualities we associate with supreme intelligence. Ex. 32:14. And the Lord repented of the evil which he had thought to do unto his people. (Gen. 6:6; Jonah 3:10; Sam. 2:30-31; II Kings 20:1-6; Num. 16:20-35) (http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/tcont.htm)

Why can't you prove your theory through normal scientific channels, like journals?

You see, scientific journals have a racist process called "peer review," whereby they weed out the vast majority of contributions to get down to the few that are rigorous, groundbreaking, and unique enough to be printed. This completely Jim Crows all Unintelligent Design literature out of journals because our stuff tends to be inappropriate.

Science is completely biased toward a "naturalistic" explanation of everything. We seek to teach origins science objectively, including what we like to call "unnaturalistic" explanations as well.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

In order for you to make that claim, you'd have to actually understand what evolutionary theory is and as such, it's a fallacious statement.

Oh, come on. You're not even trying any more, are you?

Now, enough with the obfuscating, how about posting that evidence to support your statement that phylogenic groupings aren't what the theory of evolution would predict them to be? The protocols are still there waiting for you to use them.

Remember, this is your chance to silence all your critics and leave everybody no choice but to agree with you. It's a fantastic opportunity, and you should jump at the chance.

 

[ThunderChunky]

It's simple. Evos had arguments based on DNA being non-functional, and they were wrong just as IDers and others predicted, and no, the arguments don't work any more now that they are functional.

Another failed evo prediction.....as expected.

Pseudogenes being nonfunctional was never an "evo prediction" it was a prediction based on the fact that they do not code for protein...that is still true, but it was discovered that a sub class of pseudogenes that are transcribed into RNA are functional. There are still nonfunctional forms of DNA and there are of course of numerous other types of vestigiality observed in many organisms. You can now cross one subclass of pseudogenes off of the vestigiality list...not in the smallest way a failure of evolution.

 

[ThunderChunky]

The LCA is now predicted to be genetically complex. I was agreeing that based on evo theory it was not expected, and that's what I am trying to get at; that it was not predicted and there are clear reasons why.

No, it is not. It is not predicted to be as genetically complex as worms, insects, or vertebrates. It is now predicted to have some genes that it was previously predicted not to have. This is because the previous prediction was based off very few data points, it was not some limit of expected complexity, it was just based off of the data that was available. We now have a new data point, so the predictions are revised.

One of them you mention which is functionality. More functions in general would require a more complex genome. Genetics are connected to function and so novel genes are (or rather were) thought to arise along with novel function through Neo Darwinian means, selectionism basically.

So you wouldn't expect the LCA to be so genetically complex, but that's what molecular studies are indicating.

Like I have told you numerous times, the studies do not indicate LCA was "so genetically complex." You are reading the studies without understanding them, you probably need more education.

The LCA for plants and animals is thought to have more types of genes than are available to plants and animals today for example, which is an extraordinary conclusion. There are a number of studies showing these things, not just the one paper.

You really do not know what you are saying. The one paper you cited has nothing to do with plants. Plants diverged from the animal lineage long before animals themselves diverged.

 

[yomero]

But homology is a concept initially defined for morphology, and which works perfectly well if you consider only morphological data, and which still makes Davison's paper look like the scientific equivalent of the result of a Goodenough-Harris test.

Consider the following, for instance. Following what passes for his logic, the wings of a hummingbird and those of a bumblebee are similar, and thus they are expressions of the same preserved genes that were present in their last common ancestor. However, penguins don't have wings, they have fins, so these would have to originate in another part of the DNA that codes for fins. This would be the same region that codes for fins in seals, perches, thecosomates, plesiosaurs, and shrimp. But wait! There are several groups of birds -- like the Diving-petrels -- that use their front extremities both for flying and for diving, so by Davison's logic, we only have two choices: either wings and fins are expressed in the same way in all animals, or these birds have a mixture of both of them; put in another way, either the genes that make things that function as a wing and those that make things that function as a fin are the same, or both are expressed in the Diving-petrels, without that resulting in them having two pairs of front appendages.

This is pure insanity, but this is exactly what Davison proposes in this paper. He argues that if some part of an animal has the same function as a part of another animal, this is evidence that the genetic information for making these two parts are the same, and have been fed into the ancestral animal by God in long-lost days and remained there unmutated until they were needed several million years later. If you do not see that this is the same thing, then it is you who do not understand the implications of his paper.

You don't know what analogous organs are in biology? And you lecture other people on their need to learn evolutionary theory? Really, Randman, you could at least have read up and concealed your ignorance.

If Davison is correct, then we would see lineages revert to ancestral taxa all the time, because the descendant taxon would still contain all the genetic data needed to make the ancestral taxon. All it would take would be a small change in what genes were expressed during development, and my kids would turn into monkeys. And their kids, if randomness struck again, could turn out to be frogs, or cats, or fruit flies, or velvet worms, or acorns, or bacteria, because they would all contain all the genes needed to develop all these organisms, and all it would take is a change in what genes are expressed and when.

I hope Randman's obstinacy won't discourage you fromcontinuing to post. Perhaps your interventions won't sway Randman's opinions, nevertheless they are valuable to me and probably to others. To illustrate:

In post 1071 I wondered how the presence in epidinium of ''esophagus'', ''skeleton'', ''rectum'', and ''nervous system'' could relate to those same ''organs'' in multicellular organisms. Now it is clear that those structures are analogous but not homologous. The genetic information for their structure is entirely different. Those organs did not develope in multicellular organisms because the genetic information was preformed in protozoan genome, but rather a different DNA pathway was developed.

 

[Dinwar]

general irreversibility

the lack of macroevolution in a very long time

bacteria not evolving any new non-bacterial forms over 500 million years

nor anything else evolving itself into bacteria

the fact macroevolution appears to occur burts or pulses but no longer doing so today, etc, etc,.....

I wanted to explore this a bit. Not because randman's right, but because why he's wrong is actually somewhat informative here.

What he's complaining about is essentially the fact that evolution does not produce a nice, neat cone of increasing diversity--instead we get fits and starts, with long periods of stasis in between. And this is true; evolution, and in particular speciation, does not appear to be a continuous process. Why is that?

Well, organisms can only adapt so much at a time (with that amount varying from adaptation to adaptation and from species to species). And most changes, as has been noted, are going to at least temporarily lower one's fitness. In an open environment without competition (or at least, not much) this is fine, you can do weird things and get by because there's nothing to out-compete you. But if there's 50,000 other species trying to live in the same environment you have serious problems if you're not at a local fitness-space high.

Think of it this way: If you're a small company, but there's no competition, you can do somewhat stupid things and still get by. Even a Fortune 500 company in a highly competitive business market can't afford to make many mistakes, though.

What does that mean for life? Well, let's take the idea that bacteria hasn't evolved multicelular organisms in the past, let's say, 500 million years (this is likely completely false, but just run with it). That means that for the past 500 million years multicellular life has evolved to exploit every niche it could find, and is pretty well entrenched in those niches. Any new multicellular organism would have to compete with things which have been honed by half a billion years of selection for exactly the part of fitness-space real estate the new guy wants. Not much chance of the new guy succeeding. And after 500 million years, I doubt there's many new niches to exploit.

This also means that most radiation is likely to occur when competition is reduced. And guess what we see? On a large scale (and small, but I'm more familiar with the large scale) exactly this. Remember that geologic time was first defined via biostratigraphy--after mass extinction events new suites of life arise. Sometimes you get an oddball (Avis, for example), but by and large you get bursts of speciation after massive death and the shut-down of ecology.

What does this mean for macroevolution? Are we seeing it? Peter Ward argues (in Future Evolution, which you can get for <$20 ) that we're seeing it now, and I agree. Every breed of dog is the start to a new species--which means that Cannis is in the early stages of a MAJOR speciation event. Same with any other domestic animal. Same with any other domestic plant. Sure, the cause is humanity, but that means nothing in terms of species definitions (randman insists on using the biological species concept, and by that definition MinPins and GSDs are a separate species already).

The reason we don't see it as what randman is calling macroevolution is that we're looking at a very thin window of time. We see the Cambrian Explosion as sudden because we have the benefit of being 500 million years after the event. If we'd been there it would have looked painfully slow.

The nail in the coffin of randman's attempted argument is that every one of these concepts was first established by scientists studying evolution--Darwin, Gould, Eldritch, Ward, Sepkoiski, etc. Sure, Punctuated Equilibrium (look at the references in the Wiki page--they link to some of the classic papers in PDF form) caused some stir in evolutionary thought, but the simple fact is that evolutionary theory could accept these ideas randman considers to be devastating to it. A simple understanding of the history of science is all you need to see that evolution is far more advanced than he's portraying it as.

 

[randman]

What he's complaining about is essentially the fact that evolution does not produce a nice, neat cone of increasing diversity--

Nope. Since you failed to grasp another's argument, your whole line of reasoning falls apart.

Every breed of dog is the start to a new species--which means that Cannis is in the early stages of a MAJOR speciation event.

Delusions of grandeur by evos.....everyone knows pure-bred dogs suffer negative effects from in-breeding but I commend you here to taking a stand. The problem is in-breeding does not increase fitness in the long run as you guys claim.