Wholly Natrualistic Alternative To Neo-Darwinism?

[Patrick1000]

Well, in terms of real evidence, I see selection providing only limited results.

You are making an argument from ignorance here...

What is your proposed test to show the simple, demonstrable and obvious mechanisms are restricted from allowing evolutionary change over deep timescales?

Well, in terms of real evidence, I see selection acting on random mutation as providing only limited results.

As I am fond of saying, just because one can soar quite high in a hot air balloon, that does not mean one can climb on and ride the balloon to the moon.

When people are asked to provide convincing evidence for the truth in neo-Darwinism's purported mechanism, more often than not, someone will point out some phenomenon like bacteria previously sensitive to penicillin becoming penicillin resistant when exposed to the antibiotic. Or perhaps someone will point out the sickle cell gene "evolving" in some populations and then being maintained despite its harm as it confers some protection against malaria.

These types of examples are of course not proof that birds came from dinosaurs by way of similar mechanisms, a series of undirected mutations. Simply because one is able to demonstrate natural selection to be at work upon said populations of bacteria, or humans living in malaria endemic regions, does not mean the same underlying mechanism so responsible for the biologic informal change resulting in PCN resistance or malarial resistance has the requisite creative power to take some "common ancestor" and turn it into both a whale and a bat.

It may well be the case that a whale and a bat and Nancy Reagan all share a common ancestor, but that does not mean one is entitled to conclude this occurred by way of a series of random and unrelated mutations over the course of millions of years simply because selection pressures acting on random occurrences of informational change, brings about penicillin resistance in a previously penicillin sensitive population of bacteria.

As I am fond of saying, just because you have a functional hot air balloon, that doesn't mean one can ride it to the moon.

 

[Krikkiter]

Since I was a grade school boy during the 1960s, I have enjoyed biology, and was actually exposed to "evolution" very early on, wandering over to San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park all by myself and spending hours in there. This, from the time I was about 8 years old.

From the time I first got a handle on neo-Darwinism, age 11 or 12, 1970ish, I always felt convinced that there was good evidence for common ancestry, especially the fact that all living things shared the very same genetic code. BOY! that really seemed convincing.

Yet, I could never buy into the mechanism for change, as at least I understood it to be presented. Many many many mutations, unintended, undirected, with their affects on the phenotype accreting over time. It seemed, and still seems absolutely implausible to me.

Living things seem far too complicated for biological systems, their information, to have effectively changed in this manner to bring about new living systems and so forth and so on through time.

Anyone else share my skepticism?

I am an atheist by the way. So God was and is not a "way out" for me. Intelligent design? Seems like God all over, is it not?

How very disingenuous of you.

Allow me to paraphrase:

I've always understood "evolution", the thing is, I just don't buy it.

I'm an atheist but Intelligent Design seems much more plausible than no god at all.

Gimme a break.

 

[jj]

As I am fond of saying, just because one can soar quite high in a hot air balloon, that does not mean one can climb on and ride the balloon to the moon.

This is an absurd comparison.

The evidence for natural selection is extensive and easily discovered either in books or on the net.

Until you can provide some evidence, other than your personal unwillingness to actually accept the documented evidence, there really is no problem here except your willingess to put your argumentum ad ignorantum meum before the evidence.

 

[Sideroxylon]

There are well understood barriers to a balloon reaching the moon and no evidence of it ever occurring. On the other hand we have a mechanism for microbes to man and evidence of it having occurred in the fossil and genetic records.

 

[Patrick1000]

I believe you are missing the point and making mine

This is an absurd comparison.

The evidence for natural selection is extensive and easily discovered either in books or on the net.

Until you can provide some evidence, other than your personal unwillingness to actually accept the documented evidence, there really is no problem here except your willingess to put your argumentum ad ignorantum meum before the evidence.

Present your molecular evidence for birds from dinosaurs. Show us the EVIDENCE that a dinosaur became a bird over time by way of a series of random, undirected, unrelated mutations. Show us how an informational change came about that resulted in the creation of an avian cardiopulmonary system from that of a reptile.

neo-Darwinism makes the claim this to be the case and as "science" must provide a way to test/confirm/falsify the claim. If it cannot provide/suggest such a test, then the theory, the hypothesis, is meaningless.

My point, what I am suggesting, is that this is indeed the case. The ball is not in my court, it is in yours.

 

[Patrick1000]

The point of contention is not THAT biologic systems evolved but about HOW

The point of contention is not THAT biologic systems evolved but about HOW they evolved.

I think there is tremendous evidence for common ancestry. There is little or no evidence that common ancestry owes to a series of unrelated, undirected, unintentional mutations.

 

[Sideroxylon]

How very disingenuous of you.

Allow me to paraphrase:

I've always understood "evolution", the thing is, I just don't buy it.

I'm an atheist but Intelligent Design seems much more plausible than no god at all.

Gimme a break.

I think we are now seeing the mask coming off and the YEC script being unfurled. Another case of being disingenuous for Jesus.

ETA: Or maybe not ...

 

[PixyMisa]

Well, in terms of real evidence, I see selection acting on random mutation as providing only limited results.

Why?

When people are asked to provide convincing evidence for the truth in neo-Darwinism's purported mechanism, more often than not, someone will point out some phenomenon like bacteria previously sensitive to penicillin becoming penicillin resistant when exposed to the antibiotic.

That's one good point, yes.

Or perhaps someone will point out the sickle cell gene "evolving" in some populations and then being maintained despite its harm as it confers some protection against malaria.

That's another good point.

These types of examples are of course not proof that birds came from dinosaurs by way of similar mechanisms, a series of undirected mutations.

You're ignoring natural selection, timescales, fossil evidence, and molecular evidence. That's a lot of ignoring.

Simply because one is able to demonstrate natural selection to be at work upon said populations of bacteria, or humans living in malaria endemic regions, does not mean the same underlying mechanism so responsible for the biologic informal change resulting in PCN resistance or malarial resistance has the requisite creative power to take some "common ancestor" and turn it into both a whale and a bat.

Yes. Yes it does.

It may well be the case that a whale and a bat and Nancy Reagan all share a common ancestor, but that does not mean one is entitled to conclude this occurred by way of a series of random and unrelated mutations over the course of millions of years simply because selection pressures acting on random occurrences of informational change, brings about penicillin resistance in a previously penicillin sensitive population of bacteria.

That is the process we actually observe happening. Observed mutation rates and selection pressures are demonstrably sufficient to account for observed diversity.

As I am fond of saying, just because you have a functional hot air balloon, that doesn't mean one can ride it to the moon.

And just because you can catch a train to work, doesn't mean you can catch a train across the entire country.

Oh, wait.

 

[bjornart]

Present your molecular evidence for birds from dinosaurs. Show us the EVIDENCE that a dinosaur became a bird over time by way of a series of random, undirected unrelated mutations. Show us how an informational change resulted in the creation of an avian cardiopulmonary system from that of a reptile.

neo-Darwinism makes the claim this to be the case and as "science" must provide a way to test/confirm/falsify the claim. If it cannot provide/suggest such a test, then the theory, the hypothesis is meaningless.

My point, what I am suggesting, is that this is indeed the case. The ball is not in my court, it is in yours.

Are you aware that we don't only have trees showing the interconnectedness of different lifeforms, we also have more and more trees showing the interconnectedness of the variying biochemistry of those lifeforms? That these differing trees match up. That we have corresponding knowledge of the exact mutations that cause those elements of biochemistry.

The cardiopulmonary system is a complex structure involving a lot of genes, but geneticists are unraveling these mysteries bit by bit and they match up with the hypothesis.

Alle resonable tests of the darwinian hypothesis have so far come up supporting the underlying idea. Your objection is the trite old "irreducable complexity" and completely uninteresting to anyone actually understanding the evidence for evolution. I suggest you read Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and come back to us once you've understood the evidence he puts forth.

 

[Krikkiter]

I think we are now seeing the mask coming off and the YEC script being unfurled. Another case of being disingenuous for Jesus.

ETA: Or maybe not ...

Yup. And as could have been predicted - "Please present ALL evidence for "evolution" on this interwebz forum otherwise you're wrong."

Next will come a long list of logical fallacies and projections based on fundamental knowledge gaps and willful ignorance, followed by the OP knocking the pieces off the board, claiming victory and flying away to another thread start all over again.

 

[PixyMisa]

Present your molecular evidence for birds from dinosaurs.

Compare bird DNA with reptile DNA. Case closed.

Show us the EVIDENCE that a dinosaur became a bird over time by way of a series of random, undirected, unrelated mutations.

You're ignoring natural selection again.

Oh, and archaeopteryx, anyone?

Show us how an informational change came about that resulted in the creation of an avian cardiopulmonary system from that of a reptile.

Mutations.

neo-Darwinism makes the claim this to be the case and as "science" must provide a way to test/confirm/falsify the claim. If it cannot provide/suggest such a test, then the theory, the hypothesis, is meaningless.

Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian.

My point, what I am suggesting, is that this is indeed the case. The ball is not in my court, it is in yours.

Our point is that you are at best entirely ignorant of evolutionary science, and at worst, dishonest.

 

[Patrick1000]

I don't buy in

How very disingenuous of you.

Allow me to paraphrase:

I've always understood "evolution", the thing is, I just don't buy it.

I'm an atheist but Intelligent Design seems much more plausible than no god at all.

Gimme a break.

You miss the point. There is good evidence for common ancestry. That does not necessarily mean common ancestry is a FACT, but because sharks, Obama, sunflowers, E.Coli, Ghandi, Kentucky Derby winners and giant sequoias all share the same coding system, it does suggest they came from the same grandpa.

However, that said, it does not mean we have a good explanation for why this is so. How this came about. How one animal became another over time.

If you can show us all convincing evidence of evolution's exact mechanism, I imagine you would become very very very famous.

So can you show us Krikkiter, your outline for fame?

 

[jj]

There is little or no evidence that common ancestry owes to a series of unrelated, undirected, unintentional mutations.

There are entire libraries and museums full of the evidence of natural selection via mutation. You insistance on 'undirected' ignores natural selection, and your attempt to claim that something easily found does not exist only shows your own ignorance, willful or not.

 

[PixyMisa]

However, that said, it does not mean we have a good explanation for why this is so. How this came about. How one animal became another over time.

We have observed speciation, you know that? Many times, in nature and in the laboratory.

 

[Lowpro]

Present your molecular evidence for birds from dinosaurs. Show us the EVIDENCE that a dinosaur became a bird over time by way of a series of random, undirected, unrelated mutations. Show us how an informational change came about that resulted in the creation of an avian cardiopulmonary system from that of a reptile.

neo-Darwinism makes the claim this to be the case and as "science" must provide a way to test/confirm/falsify the claim. If it cannot provide/suggest such a test, then the theory, the hypothesis, is meaningless.

My point, what I am suggesting, is that this is indeed the case. The ball is not in my court, it is in yours.

You've asked this, it's been answered and you've been told that you're asking for something retarded as far as molecular evidence goes for dinosaurs since tissues from dinosaurs are mostly lost.

However you've been shown skeletal homology. Bird cardiovascular systems (4 chambered hearts) are homologous to crocodilians (hell, they're homologous to mammals too!), which are modified 3-chambered hearts to function as a 4 chambered...explain THAT without evolution... . We don't have dinosaur tissue so we have to speculate their physiology specifically when they evolved to be endothermic, what their cardiovascular system was like because some dinosaurs were REALLY big. You may also not appreciate evolution without understanding...dinosaurs had about, what 150 million years of selection pressures throughout their continued existence to account for the many phenotypic changes. That's just dinosaur's blink-of-the-eye time on this Earth...

The mechanism is explained; descent with modification. The modification comes through genetic change, which then undergoes selection pressures on the organism that has the change with the overall necessity to be fit, or at least fit enough. That's the SIMPLEST explanation for a VERY complicated theory and I highly recommend again that you buy Evolutionary Analysis to have more material to read on it.

 

[jj]

The ball is not in my court, it is in yours.

The ball is entirely in your court, you have claimed, incorrectly and repeatedly, that "no evidence exists".

A visit to any natural history museum worth its salt proves otherwise. The burden of proof is 100% on you to show that each and every bit of the libraries full of evidence is wrong.

If there is a SINGLE bit of evidence you can not convincingly dismiss, your claim fails.

If you don't start looking, and stop trying to disingeniously shift the blame, then I will have to presume you can't prove your claim, and will have to point that out each time you make an invalid appeal to ignorance.

 

[Roboramma]

Present your evidence then MG1962. I find there to be none. There is no evidence, no empiric confirmation for the neo-Darwinian mechanism as proposed.

Your post basically said: "I understand that the evidence for common descent is overwhelming, but I don't accept the mechanism of natural selection because I personally find it implausible".

Why you find it implausible, you fail to include. This forum doesn't seem to have any word limits on posts, so I don't know why you left that out.

As for evidence for natural selection being the driving force of evolution, perhaps you have a better explanation of the sex ratio in seals?
Perhaps you can offer another mechanism whereby antibiotic resistance could have evolved over the last several decades?

 

[Krikkiter]

You miss the point. There is good evidence for common ancestry. That does not necessarily mean common ancestry is a FACT, but because sharks, Obama, sunflowers, E.Coli, Ghandi, Kentucky Derby winners and giant sequoias all share the same coding system, it does suggest they came from the same grandpa.

However, that said, it does not mean we have a good explanation for why this is so. How this came about. How one animal became another over time.

If you can show us all convincing evidence of evolution's exact mechanism, I imagine you would become very very very famous.

So can you show us Krikkiter, your outline for fame?

No, I think I got your point - allow me to paraphrase again:

I think I understand "evolution" and I think it's fundamentally flawed. Therefore "Of Pandas and People."

Regarding the highlighted text, I think this is your problem. You really want there to be a "why" but nature doesn't concern itself with why's. There is no intelligent direction - unless of course you can provide evidence that there is.

Not interested in being famous. Maybe you are but I'm just happy to identify gaps in my knowledge and work on filling them.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Since I was a grade school boy during the 1960s, I have enjoyed biology, and was actually exposed to "evolution" very early on, wandering over to San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park all by myself and spending hours in there. This, from the time I was about 8 years old.

From the time I first got a handle on neo-Darwinism, age 11 or 12, 1970ish, I always felt convinced that there was good evidence for common ancestry, especially the fact that all living things shared the very same genetic code. BOY! that really seemed convincing.

Yet, I could never buy into the mechanism for change, as at least I understood it to be presented. Many many many mutations, unintended, undirected, with their affects on the phenotype accreting over time. It seemed, and still seems absolutely implausible to me.

Living things seem far too complicated for biological systems, their information, to have effectively changed in this manner to bring about new living systems and so forth and so on through time.

Anyone else share my skepticism?

I am an atheist by the way. So God was and is not a "way out" for me. Intelligent design? Seems like God all over, is it not?

There are two issues that strike me here. One, as others have tried to point out to you, is the "argument from incredulity" (I can't understand this, therefore it must be wrong."
That argument, which seems to be your only one, is not a good reason for what you call your scepticism.

Let me give you an example that might fit me:-

I can't understand mathematics, or relativity. Therefore the GPS system can't possibly work as claimed.

That conclusion is fallacious. The truth is I can't understand mathematics, therefore if I want to understand how GPS works, I need to study more.

The second issue is that you appear to have nothing to offer beyond incredulity. You have had an active interest in the subject for 40 years, yet still seem not to understand that mutation is just one source of variation in genotype. (Others are sex and plasmid exchange). The other part of natural selection is interaction with the environment- selection- culling. You accept (I hope) that humans have bred the various edible brassicas from a common ancestor in a few centuries? You accept that St.Bernards and Chihuahuas are all descended from wolves, through simple artificial selection of parental characteristics? You are aware of some of the chemistry of embryology. You accept that genes do code for proteins and do build bodies, yet you do not accept that the mechanisms involved allow for cumulative change?
This is inconsistent.
Either the neo Darwinist view of evolution is correct, or something very like it must be, unless you know of some entirely unrelated mechanism.

If you do, can you inform us about what that is and how you think it might operate?

 

[The Norseman]

These types of examples are of course not proof that birds came from dinosaurs by way of similar mechanisms, a series of undirected mutations. Simply because one is able to demonstrate natural selection to be at work upon said populations of bacteria, or humans living in malaria endemic regions, does not mean the same underlying mechanism so responsible for the biologic informal change resulting in PCN resistance or malarial resistance has the requisite creative power to take some "common ancestor" and turn it into both a whale and a bat.

It may well be the case that a whale and a bat and Nancy Reagan all share a common ancestor, but that does not mean one is entitled to conclude this occurred by way of a series of random and unrelated mutations over the course of millions of years simply because selection pressures acting on random occurrences of informational change, brings about penicillin resistance in a previously penicillin sensitive population of bacteria.

Two things: one; how better does Intelligent Design explain the facts as we know them today and also, one part which you seem to be forgetting is that a theory also has predictive power; please predict how a current organism will change without reference to natural selection or any related science and only use Intelligent Design.