Evolution: the Facts.

[Dr Adequate]

Heh. And D'oh!

If I can remember my login I'll edit in my list of potential falsifications in the next few days and we'll see how they are received.

To relate the notion of chimeras to the theme of bogus creationist arguments, you'd need to refer to their idiocy about the [swiki]Platypus[/swiki].

 

[joobz]

Neat picture.

that's very very good.

I would like to present that picture and then ask someone to draw the line between the microevolution events and the macroevolution event.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have no idea how you guys are organizing this info but this is definitely relative: Don't toss those old texts on Lamarckism just yet.

Child abuse permanently modifies stress genes in brains of suicide victims

I don't think they've shown this also occurs in the sperm or ovum genetics, but it opens up the possibility.

 

[Darkhole]

Evolution, the facts.

 

[Dr Adequate]

On with the geology ... [swiki]Rivers[/swiki]. With a bit of creationism-debunking thrown in for free.

 

[Dr Adequate]

And a bit on [swiki]Glaciers[/swiki]. Sorry for the delay, I haven't been well.

Blimey, there's a lot of physical geology, isn't there?

Have patience ... you can't rush geology.

 

[Dr Adequate]

(1) A bit of creationist debunking: [swiki]Fine Tuning of the Earth's Orbit[/swiki].

(2) Interesting paper here. A little technical. However, what it boils down to is that if you have a gene sequence and you don't know what the protein that the gene makes does, but you know the functions of similar proteins in other organisms, you can predict the protein function better by exploiting your knowledge of the evolutionary relationships between the organisms than by just assuming that genes that look similar do similar things. This has been known for some time; now here's a program that automates the technique.

From the introduction:

The post-genomic era has revealed the nucleic and amino acid sequences for large numbers of genes and proteins, but the rate of sequence acquisition far surpasses the rate of accurate protein function determination. Sequences that lack molecular function annotation are of limited use to researchers, so automated methods for molecular function annotation attempt to make up for this deficiency. But the large number of errors in protein function annotation propagated by automated methods reduces their reliability and utility [1–3].

Most of the well-known methods or resources for molecular function annotation, such as BLAST [4], GOFigure [5], GOtcha [6], GOblet [7], OntoBlast [8], GeneMine [9], PFUNCTIONER [10], PEDANT [11], MAGPIE [12], GeneQuiz [13], the COGs database [14], and HOVERGEN/HOBACGEN [15], rely on sequence similarity, such as a BLAST E-value, as an indicator of homology. A functional annotation is heuristically transferred to the query sequence based on reported functions of similar sequences.

SIFTER (Statistical Inference of Function Through Evolutionary Relationships) takes a different approach to function annotation. Phylogenetic information, if leveraged correctly, addresses many of the weaknesses of sequence-similarity-based annotation transfer [16], such as ignoring variable mutation rates [17,18].​

And here's an article explaining why phylogenomic methods should work better.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Here's an article on the [swiki]Applications of Evolution[/swiki].

---

OK, back to the geology. Next ... deserts. With some remarkably pretty pictures.

BTW, I stumbled across a cool website: the Earth Science World Image Bank. Lots of useful pictures with informative captions.

 

[Dr Adequate]

[swiki]Deserts[/swiki]. As promised.

 

[Tranca]

TalkOrigins.org

I have no time to point to specific articles in it, right now, but everything you are looking for is in there.

I stopped being a creationist right there. I was a creationist for a few months, so it didn't hurt...

 

[Dr Adequate]

Added a piece on [swiki]Vestigial DNA[/swiki].

 

[six7s]

[swiki]Vestigial DNA[/swiki]

they still have broken remnant of the genes for making alpha-globin

they still have a broken remnant of the genes for making alpha-globin

or

they still have broken remnants of the genes for making alpha-globin




---------

ETA

Everything else makes sense to me (a non skyentist)

Bravo!

 

[Dr Adequate]

Thanks, fixed it.

Aren't axolotls cute?

 

[Dr Adequate]

The [swiki]Appearance of Evolution[/swiki].

It's funny 'cos it's true.

 

[sphenisc]

The [swiki]Appearance of Evolution[/swiki].

It's funny 'cos it's true.

Hi,

The first paragraph of the discussion ends abruptly.

I realise this piece is more light-hearted than some of the others, but what the hell, you've bunged it on here for comment...


"...in sharp distinction to the dolphin..."

"Hence, the most economical explanation of why a dolphin looks like something that evolved is therefore that it is something that evolved. "

One of "Hence" and "therefore" is superfluous.

"When we look at the deeper anatomy of a dolphin, we find that its body plan is plainly an adaptation of the basic mammalian body-plan, which is just what we would expect on evolutionary principles."

Our expectation based on evolution is that the dolphin's body plan should be an adaptation of a pre-existing body plan, and importantly, only on one of the contemporaneous body plans. It's not until we've looked at the anatomy that we can conclusively assign it to the mammalian one.

"This is exactly what we would expect on the theory that the dolphin is a product of evolution: it is not a prediction of unscientific alternative hypotheses..."

You're contrasting a "theory" with "alternative hypotheses" which seems to confuse the two concepts.

"...unscientific alternative hypotheses, such as that the dolphin was intelligently designed. "

There is a distinction between "Intelligently Designed" and "intelligently designed".

If it's scientific to hypothesise that submarines are intelligently designed, then presumably the same is true of the hypothesis that dolphins are.


"By contrast, when we look at the submarine we do not find that its basic design is an adaptation of an automobile. "

The point here is that submarine shows evidence of memetic evolution - it combine good ideas drawn from a number of independent pre-existing plans - some from boats, some from planes, Gutenberg's periscope etc. Most of its features are adaptations of previous good ideas, but they are drawn from disparate sources.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Thanks. I've tidied up the language and restored the end of that paragraph.

I'll think about making the argument more detailed, but I'm not certain that it would help. The facts that dolphins lactate would be sufficient to predict mammalian anatomy prior to looking at the anatomy; and I'm not sure that I need to go to great lengths to prove that submarines didn't evolve. I do plan to write an article on chimerism eventually, but I think it requires a separate article to explain it properly.

Oh, and it is, damnit, "distinction from", not "distinction to". You do not distinguish one thing to another, you distinguish one thing from another. So there.

 

[Dr Adequate]

An article on the [swiki]Argument from Undesign[/swiki].

 

[steenkh]

An article on the [swiki]Argument from Undesign[/swiki].

A very useful article. I had seen these arguments before, but I had never connected them under a single title. I find the concluding remarks particularly useful to remember.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I've added an article on [swiki]the Creationist Bedding Blunder[/swiki], which explains the existence of some of the stranger creationist arguments.

 

[Dr Adequate]

OK, back to the real geology.

[swiki]Deltas[/swiki].