"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

Simon39759 said:
Bacteria ARE prokaryotes.



You have offered no explanation other than it didn't happen which we already know. What mechanism was there to stop it?
What's to stop microevolution here from adding up to major new life forms? Certainly, there's been enough time.
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Actually, no.
Bacteria appeared at least 4 billions years ago. The first eukaryotes appeared at least 2 billion years ago. So it would have taken about 2 billion years for the first bacteria to produce the first eukaryotes (very, very, rough estimate).
So, no, no "certainly, there's been enough time".

Also, I did say it twice, but let make it a third time (not like I was expecting you to actually take note of it):
When the first eukaryotes appear, there was nothing similar anywhere on earth so they had a whole ecological niche opened with no direct competition in it.
If such neo-eukaryotes were to appear now, they would face competition from the already entrenched eukaryotes in such niche, that have a 2 billion years headstart spend being fine-tuned by evolution to out-compete similar organisms.
That is a major freaking difference.


Now, I am done repeating myself. Good night.
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So given the complexity of an organism's genome and the fact with more biota, there are more potential niches to be filled, who is to say it would be a neo-eukaryote? The simple reality is competitive pressures is not a good answer because there are more opportunities now with more biota.

Pierre Grasse points out some similar things as I have done in the quotes in my prior post above.
 
randman said:
So microevolution is not really evidence of macroevolution then. Because you guys always use bacterial adaptation as evidence for evolution but we never see bacteria evolving major new life forms.
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Why do you expect to see that today? The circumstances of today are far, far different than they were when it originally happened billions of years ago. Why should the same things occur?

Just saying it didn't happen doesn't cut it. You offer no explanation as to why, just that "why should it."
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Evolution isn't directed. It's responsive. When something evolves, it's evolving in response to something (environmental, competitive, whatever), and that response has to be beneficial and/or advantageous in some way, otherwise it tends to end rather badly.

What would bacteria today be responding to that would cause evolving into larger, more complex forms to be a beneficial response? What competitive advantage against not just other bacteria, but against existing "larger animals", exists that would provide selective pressure towards that?

My answer is, well I don't know, since you guys always use them as examples and evidence for macroevolution, maybe we ought to see actual major new life forms? You know, the evidence should be connected to the results you have claimed.
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This is a classic strawman. You assert something that the theory of evolution most definitely does not (bacteria today should be evolving into larger, "higher" organisms), and say that the fact that it doesn't happen means that evolutionary theory is wrong.
 
randman said:
The question is silly.
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If nothing else, randman has a career in comedy. He keeps posting perfect responses to his own questions. :D
 
ehcks said:
Just gonna stop you here for a moment. Bacteria didn't "evolve from" prokaryotes. Bacteria ARE prokaryotes.

I thought we went over that enough by now. A species does not evolve out of its taxonomic grouping, because we invented taxonomy and that's how it works. Bacteria didn't evolve from prokaryotes. Birds didn't evolve from lizards. Humans didn't evolve from apes.

Those organisms are still part of the grouping their ancestral species were in. Humans are still eukaryotes, along with every other taxonomic grouping our direct ancestors were a part of.

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_taxonomy
Our full taxonomic classification is so long that it's against the rules to post here.
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Maybe it will be easier to hear this from someone else.

Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!

What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect.
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http://bevets.com/equotesg3.htm
 
randman said:
So given the complexity of an organism's genome and the fact with more biota, there are more potential niches to be filled, who is to say it would be a neo-eukaryote? The simple reality is competitive pressures is not a good answer because there are more opportunities now with more biota.

Pierre Grasse points out some similar things as I have done in the quotes in my prior post above.
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These new niches being types filled perfectly by bacteria, living in and on those larger organisms. Especially in the realms of parasites (diseases), mutualists (gut flora), and decomposers. If they got larger, they couldn't do any of that.
 
ANTPogo said:
Bevets?! You're quoting from Bevets' web page?!
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I am quoting Pierre Grasse. You will note the citations from his writings. The web page doesn't matter.

Are you claiming Pierre Grasse did not write these things?
 
ANTPogo said:
Why do you expect to see that today? The circumstances of today are far, far different than they were when it originally happened billions of years ago. Why should the same things occur?



Evolution isn't directed. It's responsive. When something evolves, it's evolving in response to something (environmental, competitive, whatever), and that response has to be beneficial and/or advantageous in some way, otherwise it tends to end rather badly.

What would bacteria today be responding to that would cause evolving into larger, more complex forms to be a beneficial response? What competitive advantage against not just other bacteria, but against existing "larger animals", exists that would provide selective pressure towards that?



This is a classic strawman. You assert something that the theory of evolution most definitely does not (bacteria today should be evolving into larger, "higher" organisms), and say that the fact that it doesn't happen means that evolutionary theory is wrong.
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Yea, men like Pierre Grasse were and are idiots. They just don't understand biology.....:rolleyes:
 
randman said:
I am quoting Pierre Grasse. You will note the citations from his writings. The web page doesn't matter.

Are you claiming Pierre Grasse did not write these things?
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No, I'm claiming that anything you find on Bevets' ("Evolution is the tinfoil atheists wear to keep God out of their brains") webpage is inherently untrustworthy, since he has a long, long history of misquoting, selective quoting, and just plain making up quotes.
 
To ANT and some others.....quote from Pierre Grasse below.

We repeatedly hear that chance is all-powerful. Statements are insufficient. Evidence must be produced. I do not consider the spontaneous appearance of resistance to an antibiotic in a nonresistant population of bacteria as evidence. Neither structures nor fundamental functions are involved here. This is so true that variations of this kind, although repeated millions of times, have left bacteria practically unchanged. Evolution of Living Organisms (1977) p.107

Let us not confuse creative evolution with variations in the composition of a population through circumstances. They are two distinct things, and any attempt to connect them is purely specious. Evolution of Living Organisms (1977) p.111
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http://bevets.com/equotesg3.htm

You ought to take some time to learn what a man like Pierre Grasse has to say and listen to your critics. You might learn something.
 
ANTPogo said:
No, I'm claiming that anything you find on Bevets' ("Evolution is the tinfoil atheists wear to keep God out of their brains") webpage is inherently untrustworthy, since he has a long, long history of misquoting, selective quoting, and just plain making up quotes.
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You can find the same quotes elsewhere. Anyone familiar with the evo debate should know what Pierre Grasse has stated in general and is likely familiar with these quotes already.

Unfortunately, most evos have never looked at their beliefs critically and so have never learned why an esteemed scientist like Pierre Grasse would disagree with them on proposed microevolutionary means via mutation adding up to major new life forms.

If you were interested in truth, science and learning, you'd take the time to learn what a man like Grasse has to say and why he says it.
 
randman said:
If you were interested in truth, science and learning, you'd take the time to learn what a man like Grasse has to say and why he says it.
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He was a Lamarckist. Which pretty much means he was a kook, although, not nearly as kooky as a creationist or IDiot.
 
Tony said:
He was a Lamarckist. Which pretty much means he was a kook, although, not nearly as kooky as a creationist or IDiot.
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No, that's a misrepresentation of him and a character smear put forward by evos because they didn't like him calling them on the carpet so much.

The truth in today's terms he was an ID theorist and also an incredible scientist. You guys like to smear IDers but that's just because you don't like people forcing evos to think critically about the underpinnings of their theory.

Any living thing possesses an enormous amount of 'intelligence'... Today, this 'intelligence' is called 'information,' but it is still the same thing... This 'intelligence' is the sine qua non of life. If absent, no living being is imaginable. Where does it come from? This is a problem which concerns both biologists and philosophers, and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it. Evolution of Living Organisms (1977) p.2
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randman said:
No, that's a misrepresentation of him and a character smear put forward by evos because they didn't like him calling them on the carpet so much.

The truth in today's terms he was an ID theorist and also an incredible scientist.
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Either way, he was a kook.
 
randman said:
You can find the same quotes elsewhere. Anyone familiar with the evo debate should know what Pierre Grasse has stated in general and is likely familiar with these quotes already.

Unfortunately, most evos have never looked at their beliefs critically and so have never learned why an esteemed scientist like Pierre Grasse would disagree with them on proposed microevolutionary means via mutation adding up to major new life forms.

If you were interested in truth, science and learning, you'd take the time to learn what a man like Grasse has to say and why he says it.
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Yes, all those papers listed on PubMed are wrong, but Grasse's book from the 70's has it all right.
 
randman said:
If you were interested in truth, science and learning, you'd take the time to learn what a man like Grasse Gould, Darwin, Dawkins, Eldrich, Feldmann, Watson, Crick, Jefferson, Lindsay, Valentine, Prothero, Seilacher, etc. ad nauseumhas to say and why he says it.
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Fixed that for you.
 
ANTPogo said:
Yes, all those papers listed on PubMed are wrong, but Grasse's book from the 70's has it all right.
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Show me a paper even addressing, much less proving anywhere the man was wrong.

So far, you seem unable to understand even what the issues are and so present papers that address different questions.

Take the time to learn at least the right question being put forward and then maybe you can find something that answers it.
 
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