"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

[randman]

Did I say there are no fish in colder waters? I'm talking about niches which are pretty irrelevant anyway but you brought it up.


Also you keep trying to have evolution be an answer. You are looking at it backwards. It is important for you to recognize these two flaws in your approach to the topic.

For example you say that these observations point to "DIRECTED" evolution. WHY?

Why? Because you are looking at it as an answer. A predicted "answer" to what is going on with natural life, instead of just the observation of the path evolution took.

Why did whales become the largest animals in the ocean? Because they DID. Why is fun and interesting but it's got nothing to do with observing the fact that they DID.

You were the one claiming whales filled a predetermined niche, not me. It's clear once the dinosaurs were gone, so were the niches by definition. If you are talking about apex predators as a description of a niche, which you did do, then contrary to your claims, whales came in to compete with sharks over that niche.

You have no evidence for your claims that organisms filling niches prevent other organisms from evolving to coexist beside them. The opposite is actually the case. The more organisms and niches, the more opportunity for more niches to develop.

 

[truethat]

You were the one claiming whales filled a predetermined niche, not me. It's clear once the dinosaurs were gone, so were the niches by definition. If you are talking about apex predators as a description of a niche, which you did do, then contrary to your claims, whales came in to compete with sharks over that niche.

You have no evidence for your claims that organisms filling niches prevent other organisms from evolving to coexist beside them. The opposite is actually the case. The more organisms and niches, the more opportunity for more niches to develop.

I did not claim whales competed with sharks.
I did not claim anything about niches.
I also never said anything about organisms filling niches preventing other organisms.


THIS IS ABOUT THE FIFTH TIME YOU'VE ACCUSED ME OF SAYING SOMETHING I DID NOT SAY. If you can't keep who said what straight, then don't reply!




I simply answered a question you asked someone else.

I am not talking about whales as apex predators, and wouldn't because baleen whales sucking down shrimp doesn't really come across as an apex predator, rather as someone else said "a part of an ecosystem."

 

[Reality Check]

You make me laugh a bit here....

You make me laugh a lot here....

Just look at a wiki article, for example

But if you trust Wiki so much: Recapitulation theory

Darwin's view, that early embryonic stages are similar to the same embryonic stage of related species but not to the adult stages of these species, has been confirmed by modern evolutionary developmental biology.

So you were wrong about the later editions of Darwin's book:

• It is not Haeckel's theory (which has been shown to be invalid).
• It is supported by evidence.

On the rest, it was evos not creationists still using Haeckel's data, and they acted surprised to learn it was false, and not just for textbooks, Richardson said in 1997 they all believed it essentially.

Citation?
Michael Richardson et al, Anatomy and Embryology, 196(2):91–106, 1997 pointed out that the drawings that were already known to be faked were even more faked that was already known.

 

[Perpetual Student]

A major point here (that randman has chosen to ignore when brought up) is that in order to scientifically accept ID, there must be evidence of an IDer. Since there is no evidence whatsoever for an IDer (whatever that may mean), evolution through natural selection of random genetic change is the only scientific explanation for the diversity of life.
First tell us what (or who) a designer may be and show the world that there exists one iota of evidence for such a "designer," then perhaps we could consider the possibility of a competing theory to explain the diversity of life.

 

[randman]

I did not claim whales competed with sharks.
I did not claim anything about niches.
I also never said anything about organisms filling niches preventing other organisms.


THIS IS ABOUT THE FIFTH TIME YOU'VE ACCUSED ME OF SAYING SOMETHING I DID NOT SAY. If you can't keep who said what straight, then don't reply!




I simply answered a question you asked someone else.

I am not talking about whales as apex predators, and wouldn't because baleen whales sucking down shrimp doesn't really come across as an apex predator, rather as someone else said "a part of an ecosystem."

You jumped into an argument kotsu and Ant were making. If you disagreed with them, you should have said so and informed them as well.

Perhaps you should go back a couple of pages and see what the discussion is about.

 

[randman]

A major point here (that randman has chosen to ignore when brought up) is that in order to scientifically accept ID, there must be evidence of an IDer. Since there is no evidence whatsoever for an IDer (whatever that may mean), evolution through natural selection of random genetic change is the only scientific explanation for the diversity of life.
First tell us what (or who) a designer may be and show the world that there exists one iota of evidence for such a "designer," then perhaps we could consider the possibility of a competing theory to explain the diversity of life.

That's a different thread. Not this one. Forum rules prevent derailing of threads into off-topic stuff.

Please note though: I have already fully answered these questions on other threads.

 

[randman]

You make me laugh a lot here....


But if you trust Wiki so much: Recapitulation theory

So you were wrong about the later editions of Darwin's book:

• It is not Haeckel's theory (which has been shown to be invalid).
• It is supported by evidence.

Citation?
Michael Richardson et al, Anatomy and Embryology, 196(2):91–106, 1997 pointed out that the drawings that were already known to be faked were even more faked that was already known.

No, Darwin advocated adult form recapitulation and said that was Haeckel's theory. I don't agree Haeckel really argued that but he was wrong anyway on what he did argue, and evos have been wrong on it ever since.

Also, Richardson does not say they were already known by evos in 1997. He admits that it was known in the 1800s but also says it was largely unknown before his study.

Of course, plenty of scientists and others knew they were faked. Evos just didn't want to listen.

 

[randman]

btw, this is what the wiki article you cited says:

Haeckel formulated his theory as "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". The notion later became simply known as the recapitulation (OED: 'a summing up or brief repetition') theory. Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (shape change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species. Haeckel's recapitulation theory claims that the development of advanced species passes through stages represented by adult organisms of more primitive species.[7] Otherwise put, each successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the adult forms that appeared in its evolutionary history.

As you can see, evos still claim Haeckel's theory involved adult form recapitulation, contrary to what you stated.

I think you just don't know much about the history of this theory and are not taking the time to get your facts straight.

 

[Reality Check]

So you admit I was right then. Whales competed with sharks and fish, and without sharks and fish filling their niche, whales would not be there, right?

No - you were wrong. There is no such thing as a "top predator" niche. Whales did not compete with sharks and fishes for this non-existent niche.
Whales and sharks and fish competed for various niches and ended up filling the niches that they fill today.

The evidence is that land mammals evolved to become whales. During this evolution the animals occupied various ecological niches. The K-T extinction meant that there were lots of open niches and not as many species competing for them. Cetaceans out-competed there animals for these niches. Eventually the various species of cetaceans out-competed the various other species for the various niches that whales occupy.

So it's wrong to claim once a niche is filled, nothing else can come in and create a new niche.

That is hogwash.
Once a niche is filled by one species, another species does not generally evolve to fill that niche.

A species filling a niche does not create a new niche except in a few situations (e.g. parasitic wasps) which allows the speciation known as cascading or sequential speciation.

 

[A'isha]

Also, Richardson does not say they were already known by evos in 1997. He admits that it was known in the 1800s but also says it was largely unknown before his study.

No he doesn't. He cites Lillie (1919), de Beer (1951), and Raff (1996), in addition to Sedgwick (1894), as all pointing out that Haeckel's diagrams were inaccurate.

EDIT: He also notes that the idea of conserved phylogenetic stages only resurged as an idea "in recent years", and the only papers he cites as referencing Haeckel are from 1991 or later.

 

[Dinwar]

By the time mammals are supposed to have evolved, dinosaurs did not exist and so they were not the apex predators. Other organisms were and so mammals came in to fill that niche already occupied. The niche of the dinosaurs no longer existed because they no longer existed.

The ignorance here is painful.....

First, mammals evolved in the Triassic, making us just as old as the dinosaurs. In fact, one could make a good argument that we're OLDER than dinosaurs, in that some of the Permian mammal-like reptiles were more mammal like than reptile.

Second, dinosaurs (specifically therapods) continue to this day, and in fact were top predators until fairly recently.

Third, there are no aquatic dinosaurs known. There are large aquatic lizards, but anyone who calls them dinosaurs doesn't know enough to hold an opinion here.

Fourth, after the K/Pg mass extinction there was a recovery period. The same niche (large aquatic predator), a niche made possible by the continued existence of complex marine ecosystems (reefs in Europe show that the extinction wasn't as harsh in oceans as we previously thought) and the fact that large fish existed, which had previously been occupied by ictheosaurs, pleseosaurs, mosesaurs, etc became occupied by cetaceans. The dinosaurs (or, to be accurate, the REPTILES) didn't make the niche, they simply filled it. The food web made the niche.

Fifth, WHAT other animals? Between the K/Pg and the rise of truly marine cetaceans I'm not aware of any vertebrate apex preditors of equal size. Sharks were around (they've been around for a long, long time), but they never reached similar size.

Sixth, "occupied" does not mean "full" in terms of niches. Multiple worms occupy the same niche in North America (soil burrowers), yet because the resources are so rich in that niche they can all coexist. So even if there were other animals (and I'm sure there were--giant squid and the like) it wouldn't matter. Oceans were rich sources of nutrients and biomass, and could support multiple apex predators.

 

[truethat]

You jumped into an argument kotsu and Ant were making. If you disagreed with them, you should have said so and informed them as well.

Perhaps you should go back a couple of pages and see what the discussion is about.

Perhaps you should apologize to me for attributing comments to me that I didn't make.

You do this a LOT on this site. Not just with posters but also your attempts to quote scientists. This does not bode well for your professionalism in your debates.

In addition not all people who disagree with you think the same way. Some people disagree and say things I disagree with as well.

I do not agree with "niches" the way you guys are discussing them, especially using whales as some sort of a apex predator. The whale suits a spot in the ecosystem.

It isn't necessarily competing with sharks but one reason it can survive the shark is that it can go into climates that are too cold for most sharks to survive in. The Greeland Shark survives in freezing waters, but others would not.

 

[randman]

No - you were wrong. There is no such thing as a "top predator" niche. Whales did not compete with sharks and fishes for this non-existent niche.
Whales and sharks and fish competed for various niches and ended up filling the niches that they fill today.

The evidence is that land mammals evolved to become whales. During this evolution the animals occupied various ecological niches. The K-T extinction meant that there were lots of open niches and not as many species competing for them. Cetaceans out-competed there animals for these niches. Eventually the various species of cetaceans out-competed the various other species for the various niches that whales occupy.


That is hogwash.
Once a niche is filled by one species, another species does not generally evolve to fill that niche.

A species filling a niche does not create a new niche except in a few situations (e.g. parasitic wasps) which allows the speciation known as cascading or sequential speciation.

more confusion from the evo camp....

No - you were wrong. There is no such thing as a "top predator" niche. Whales did not compete with sharks and fishes for this non-existent niche.

You do realize I was responding to you guys, or not? Note this comment from the evo side here.

The role of medium to large meso and apex predators in the oceans, replacing those aquatic animals which previously occupied those niches prior to the K-T Event.

You do know what those were, don't you?

My point which is entirely correct is that the top predators when mammals evolved were sharks and fish. There was no other niche because dinosaurs went extinct and had been for a very long time before whales emerged.

The evidence is that land mammals evolved to become whales. During this evolution the animals occupied various ecological niches. The K-T extinction meant that there were lots of open niches and not as many species competing for them.

Not really. The niches no longer existed because the creatures did not exist. There are no predetermined niches. Mammals faced an entirely different oceanic and aquatic biota in that regard. They couldn't be filling a niche occupied millions of years prior because it no longer existed.

They faced whales and fish as competitors.

More to the point, kotsu claimed it was harder for differing taxa to emerge when a similar niche has already been filled. That's clearly not the case. Of course, technically there is no such thing is filling a niche. Niches are created with the emergence of new organisms. But getting past semantics, clearly it was the fact fishes and sharks had emerged that enabled whales to emerge, according to evos, and so that disproves Kotsu's claims of overcrowding.

Once a niche is filled by one species, another species does not generally evolve to fill that niche.

That means nothing as technically every new species occupies a new niche. If you are talking of something like the position of top predator or whatever, then of course, new species can come in and fill that all the time. Either way, your statement shows a profound lack of thought about what the evidence indicates.

 

[randman]

No he doesn't. He cites Lillie (1919), de Beer (1951), and Raff (1996), in addition to Sedgwick (1894), as all pointing out that Haeckel's diagrams were inaccurate.

EDIT: He also notes that the idea of conserved phylogenetic stages only resurged as an idea "in recent years", and the only papers he cites as referencing Haeckel are from 1991 or later.

Yea, and he also says despite this, they didn't know in 1997.

Why is that?

 

[truethat]

more confusion from the evo camp....

You'll notice that every time you can't argue a point, you use the line above or something similar to it.


That is a NON argument.

 

[Resume]

Are you unable to google. I did and this was the first thing that came up that shows he's available among others to present his slide-show and talk about the evidence.

http://www.tasc-creationscience.org/content/creation-presentations-available-0

This isn't your idea of serious scholarship is it? "Evidence for the Worldwide Flood." "Evidence for a Young Earth." From The Triangle Society for the Science of Creation.

Everyone who wants a good chuckle should check out this link. I think the near whole of Randman's arguments can be found here.

 

[A'isha]

You still have no idea what a niche is, do you? A niche isn't an animal. A niche is what that animal does, and how it does it, in relation to the other organisms around it.

Plesiosaurs and pliosaurs (which weren't dinosaurs, by the way) occupied a niche that fed on fish (using particular adaptations and behaviors). Fish that, as you note, still existed after the extinction of the plesiosaurs and pilosaurs in K-T. In other words, the niche still existed, but the animals that filled that niche no longer did (and it wasn't the shark niche...they had their own niche, and still filled it both before and after K-T. They still fill it now, in fact).

That's why mammals were able to evolve adaptations and behaviors that allowed them to occupy that old niche (or close enough...some of the specifics of the niche changed as the overall environment changed, but enough of them remained the same).

 

[A'isha]

Yea, and he also says despite this, they didn't know in 1997.

Why is that?

Quote him where he says that.

EDIT: Richards even points out that Richardson's 1997 paper, far from being something new and shocking to evolutionists, actually "gave
dramatic support for Gould’s many efforts to discredit Haeckel (see, e.g., Gould 1977, 1980, 1985, 1989, 2003)."

 

[A'isha]

This isn't your idea of serious scholarship is it? "Evidence for the Worldwide Flood." "Evidence for a Young Earth." From The Triangle Society for the Science of Creation.

Everyone who wants a good chuckle should check out this link. I think the near whole of Randman's arguments can be found here.

I got a particular kick out of how the guy randman says pointed out Haeckel's errors in a presentation back in the 80's now apparently cribs solely from Wells' 2000 book (and Wells only knows about Haeckel because of Richardson!).

 

[Dinwar]

As you can see, evos still claim Haeckel's theory involved adult form recapitulation, contrary to what you stated.

At the point where a poster can be proven wrong by citing a Mr. Deity episode that poster should admit defeat....

My point which is entirely correct is that the top predators when mammals evolved were sharks and fish. There was no other niche because dinosaurs went extinct and had been for a very long time before whales emerged.

Right--which OPENED THE NICHE. It remained open because there was nothing to fill it. Then cetaceans evolved and filled it. Which is exactly what evolution predicts.