"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

[A'isha]

Randman also seems to misunderstand what a "top" or apex predator is.

It's merely a predator that has no predators of its own. There can be multiple top predators in the same environment, as long as they don't have each other in their respective food chains.

Orcas and Great White sharks, for instance, are both apex predators, because nothing eats them (including each other).

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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

No you didn't. You flapped around a bit, mumbled some stuff about front-loading and evos being stupid, then ran away. But the threads are still there if you would care to provide some scientific evidence for your claims. It'd be lovely if you could.

 

[Perpetual Student]

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.

That is untrue! Your answer to this question on another thread was:

ID is not about specifying all the details of a creating identity but about detecting intelligence within design. Take the example of a brick wall or pile of rocks carefully stacked up to one another. There are natural designs of rocks that can appear to be intelligently placed there but at some point in the way the design appears, it's clear forensically that an intelligent agent was involved; the brick wall would be an example.

We wouldn't have to know who specifically built the wall to detect it was intelligently designed.

Your inability to cite any scientific evidence for your IDer bankrupts your arguments. If you do have any meaningful response to this question feel free to respond on that other thread.

 

[Belz...]

ID scientists

Oxymoron.

ID has a much better track record than evolutionism.

You mean it has led to many laboratory results and explains much of the fossil record and currently observed biodiversity on Earth ?

Oh, wait. ID explains NOTHING. They have never actually published a detailed theory of ANYTHING. Prove me wrong.

 

[Belz...]

Thanks for saying I am correct but we don't see only one kind of flying organism, one kind of swimming organism and one kind of walking organism.

I think your sarcasm detector is broken.

Take the niche of swimming and being an aquatic creature. There were already sharks and fish in the ocean when evos say mammals evolved and filled that same niche.

No. That's not a niche. But then, you don't understand evolution.

 

[Belz...]

In my defense, the distinction does get blurred as you move back in time, during the early years of life.

Yeah, happens to me all the time.

Wait, you mean life in general, don't you ?

 

[Belz...]

Your thinking is way too linear and simplistic.

So says the bible-thumper.

BY definition then, bacteria evolving into something new would not be restricted by an existing niche because, by definition, they would be something new and so a new niche. So if we are going to be technical, your argument fails.

No, that's just you, not understanding evolution.

In case you're now thinking "*********** annoying Belz..., shut up already!", I'll be repeating that until it sinks in.

AND NOW, pay attention: I'd like to point out tha the BANANA we all know and love was modified BY US following a process very very similar to natural evolution -- artificial selection -- in order to be edible. Refute this, if you can.

 

[Belz...]

I may or may not.

How generous of you.

Name one single dishonest thing I have posted.

You want me to quote all of your 1321 posts so far ???

Oh, wait, here's one:

Wrong. Darwin even included the more extreme adult form recapitulation as evidence in a later edition of The Origin of the Species.

And you call that science.

You understand nothing of science, Rand. You're not in a position to tell whether something is or is not science.

 

[Belz...]

Wrong: It took 130 years for creationists (and some textbook writers!) to relaize that evos have known that the drawings were faked since 1868 (L. Rutimeyer) and the later letter from Wilhelm His, Sr (1880s).

I haven't seen anyone beign so consistantly wrong at everything, and being so adamantly pig-headed about it, since Christophera's dreaded "realistice" thread.

Here's another gem:

What you guys don't realize because you have not carefully considered it is that you are arguing for directed evolution. This is easily shown by several facts. First, a niche is simply a description of what some organisms occupy in living biota. Second, once the large marine dinosaurs went extinct, there was no niche there, or are you really claiming as Grasse and others do that there is a predetermined niche, directed evolution?

In other words Randman understands not only nothing of evolution and science, but he also understands nothing of the posts he purports to read.

That...

You really believe that?

...and arguments from incredulity is all he has.

 

[Belz...]

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.

more confusion from the evo camp....

"Just-so" arguments don't fly here, remember ?

 

[Halfcentaur]

This thread is really about natural selection and whether microevolutionary processes add up to major new life forms, not ID. As you know, I've been willing to talk about ID but I started this thread to be more narrow so there could be some understanding among many evos that have never heard of how natural selection reduces genetic variation, didn't really understand microevolution that well, etc,....

So I might entertain your question on a different thread but believe I already answered you or someone else on the exact same question. Go and read the threads discussing this topic.

The awesome aspect of this thread is how much better my understanding of these concepts are with you guys trying to explain these concepts to him.
While he may be a brick wall of religious dogma, there are great benefits to others.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Name one single dishonest thing I have posted.

And think carefully about it before you respond. You are making a specific charge here. Prove it or retract the statement.

If only he could play by his own rules.

 

[truethat]

On just this page he admits to dishonestly saying that I said something I didn't. He's done this regularly on several different threads.

 

[A'isha]

On just this page he admits to dishonestly saying that I said something I didn't. He's done this regularly on several different threads.

Yeah, he's done that to me multiple times. His bizarre reticence about using the Quote function probably has a lot to do with that.

 

[randman]

Randman also seems to misunderstand what a "top" or apex predator is.

It's merely a predator that has no predators of its own. There can be multiple top predators in the same environment, as long as they don't have each other in their respective food chains.

Orcas and Great White sharks, for instance, are both apex predators, because nothing eats them (including each other).

You don't even seem to realize your comments are evidence against your basic argument that once a niche is filled, it cannot easily be filled by something else, and spare me the technicalities of niche. You were the one that defined niche in relationship to an apex predator. if you used the term incorrectly, that is your fault.

But clearly niches being filled by biota did not restrict whales from emerging according to evos to fill their own niche.

Same with all sorts of things. So the claim that bacteria were restricted by the environment from evolving major new life forms is baseless, as your post quoted above demonstrates. The fact something else is there does not mean a new organism cannot evolve and move in to a similar role.

 

[A'isha]

You don't even seem to realize your comments are evidence against your basic argument that once a niche is filled, it cannot easily be filled by something else, and spare me the technicalities of niche.

The "technicalities of niche" are why you don't understand the concept, and are basically resorting to strawmen and misunderstandings.

You were the one that defined niche in relationship to an apex predator. if you used the term incorrectly, that is your fault.

No, I quite clearly specified mesopredators as well as apex predators. Dolphins, for instance.

But clearly niches being filled by biota did not restrict whales from emerging according to evos to fill their own niche.

No, whales didn't emerge until the plesiosaurs and pliosaurs had vanished from those niches.

Sharks never changed from the niches they occupied.

Same with all sorts of things. So the claim that bacteria were restricted by the environment from evolving major new life forms is baseless, as your post quoted above demonstrates.

Nope, sorry. My post quoted above was an attempt to show you how plesiosaurs/pliosaurs/whales and sharks occupied different niches, despite your claims otherwise.

And that's a different matter entirely from bacteria evolving major new life forms, which is even more unlikely than what you say below, because in the course of their new hypothetical development, they have to compete not just with the occupants of the niche you think they're trying to occupy (ie, whales), but all the intermediate niches as well, from basic multicellular organisms on up.

That's why bacteria didn't take the place of plesiosaurs and pliosaurs, and whales did.

I guess I'm not surprised that you either don't understand it, or do understand it and are choosing to ignore it.

The fact something else is there does not mean a new organism cannot evolve and move in to a similar role.

It just makes it massively more unlikely.

 

[Halfcentaur]

You don't even seem to realize your comments are evidence against your basic argument that once a niche is filled, it cannot easily be filled by something else, and spare me the technicalities of niche. You were the one that defined niche in relationship to an apex predator. if you used the term incorrectly, that is your fault.

But clearly niches being filled by biota did not restrict whales from emerging according to evos to fill their own niche.

Same with all sorts of things. So the claim that bacteria were restricted by the environment from evolving major new life forms is baseless, as your post quoted above demonstrates. The fact something else is there does not mean a new organism cannot evolve and move in to a similar role.

It's as if he doesn't understand that environmental factors in one region are not universal the world over.

 

[randman]

How generous of you.



You want me to quote all of your 1321 posts so far ???

Oh, wait, here's one:





You understand nothing of science, Rand. You're not in a position to tell whether something is or is not science.

For those that fail to recognize Darwin's embrace of Haeckel's idea and perhaps a misunderstanding and exaggeration of haeckel's recapitulation theory.

In any case, the NCSE critique is mistaken: Darwin actually embraced Haeckel's original idea that modern embryos resemble the adults of their ancestors. The NCSE critique appeals to the authority of some "prominent Darwin scholars," but Darwin's actual words contradict those scholars:

"With some animals the successive variations may have supervened at a very early period of life, or the steps may have been inherited at an earlier age than that at which they first occurred. In either of these cases, the young or embryo will closely resemble the mature parent-form." (The Origin of Species, 6th edition, p. 393)
"It is highly probable that with many animals the embryonic or larval stages show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state." (op. cit., p. 395)
"As the embryo often shows us more or less plainly the structure of the less modified and ancient progenitor of the group, we can see why ancient and extinct forms so often resemble in their adult state the embryos of existing species of the same class." (op. cit., p. 396)
"Embryology rises greatly in interest, when we look at the embryo as a picture, more or less obscured, of the progenitor, either in its adult or larval state, of all the members of the same great class." (op. cit., p. 396) [6]

http://www2.exploreevolution.com/ex...bate/2009/02/haeckel_darwin_and_textbooks.php

Unfortunately, I don't expect any evos here to appreciate educating them on the historical truth of how evolutionary theory developed.

Darwin also lauded Haeckel in his later editions of his work and pointed to embryology as second to one in importance as evidence for his theory. Of course, he was wrong as the facts were not what he thought they were, but since the idea took hold very early, evos have had a hard time excorcising themselves from the myth of recapitulation.

 

[randman]

The "technicalities of niche" are why you don't understand the concept, and are basically resorting to strawmen and misunderstandings.



No, I quite clearly specified mesopredators as well as apex predators. Dolphins, for instance.



No, whales didn't emerge until the plesiosaurs and pliosaurs had vanished from those niches.

Sharks never changed from the niches they occupied.



Nope, sorry. My post quoted above was an attempt to show you how plesiosaurs/pliosaurs/whales and sharks occupied different niches, despite your claims otherwise.

And that's a different matter entirely from bacteria evolving major new life forms, which is even more unlikely than what you say below, because in the course of their new hypothetical development, they have to compete not just with the occupants of the niche you think they're trying to occupy (ie, whales), but all the intermediate niches as well, from basic multicellular organisms on up.

That's why bacteria didn't take the place of plesiosaurs and pliosaurs, and whales did.

I guess I'm not surprised that you either don't understand it, or do understand it and are choosing to ignore it.



It just makes it massively more unlikely.

How does it make it more likely? The very fact oceanic niches evolved created the opportunity for whales, right?

You have no evidence, nada, for your claims and have not presented any.

 

[A'isha]

How does it make it more likely?

I said unlikely, not likely.

The very fact oceanic niches evolved created the opportunity for whales, right?

No, the fact that niches that had been successfully occupied were suddenly emptied via methods that had nothing to do with any evolutionary mechanism created the opportunity for whales.

To return to my soda analogy, let's say that the demand for cola doesn't peter out and vanish due to market pressure. Instead, the PepsiCo and Coca-Cola factories are suddenly swallowed by a series of sinkholes and asteroid strikes.

Someone is going to start making and marketing colas to fill the empty market niche created by the disappearance of Coke and Pepsi.

You have no evidence, nada, for your claims and have not presented any.

The fossil and genomic evidence for the evolution of whales has already been shown to you. If you choose to plug your ears and close your eyes and shout "Nanananana! Not listening!", then that's your problem.

It's certainly not a problem with evolutionary theory.