Fossil and Evolution

[mijopaalmc]

Try this thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78430

I still think you're thinking about time scales in a counter-productive way. (Again, think of spatial scales, and the utter meaninglessness of the fact that I can cover the state of Missouri with my thumb.)

The thread above has lots of info about speciation on a much quicker time scale than you might think.

My contribution concerned one mechanism of variation that has nothing to do with point mutations: polyploidy in plant speciation. In one generation you can literally get a new species (defined by the fact that backcrossing to the parent species results in infertile offspring).

Small point of correction: polyploidy deals with whole genome duplication and not point mutation.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Small point of correction: polyploidy deals with whole genome duplication and not point mutation.

Please re-read my post.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Sorry, my bad.

 

[delphi_ote]

My contribution concerned one mechanism of variation that has nothing to do with point mutations: polyploidy in plant speciation. In one generation you can literally get a new species (defined by the fact that backcrossing to the parent species results in infertile offspring).

Plant genomics? Rock!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Mijo, you seem to have completely ignored my last couple of posts as well. And you claim punctuated equilibrium doesn't address your question of the gaps being too wide or whatever it is you are asking.

I'm still trying to take your word for it you have some questions about the processes of evolution and not some hidden agenda of creationism or intelligent design or irreducible complexity. All of the mechanisms of evolution are fairly well understood, including changes in species and the time scale for any number of different species which represent different reproduction rates.

There are no unexplained pieces of the overall theory of evolution to my knowledge. Like I said, that was 2 decades ago. Now we are not only well aware of the intricacies of how evolution occurs, we've gone beyond that and are looking specifically at how the DNA code results in different proteins, how those proteins fold, (which is an important issue), what turns genes on and off, and what does all the DNA in between genes do? We see it is highly conserved meaning it must matter for some reason.

So what is your issue?

The Genetic Code

DNA & RNA Codons

Performing [the] original search, codons, in PubMed will retrieve 25,686 citations.

Performing [the] original search, intron, in PubMed will retrieve 32,685 citations.

Performing [the] original search, protein folding, in PubMed will retrieve 23,798 citations.

Performing [the] original search, proteomics, in PubMed will retrieve 10,402 citations.

Performing [the] original search, allele, in PubMed will retrieve 96,228 citations.

Performing [the] original search, bioinformatics, in PubMed will retrieve 15,766 citations.

Performing [the] original search, genome, in PubMed will retrieve 582,216 citations.

I bring this to your attention because it reflects on where research is currently being conducted. It isn't as if your question is about some mystery as of yet unexplained. Your question is merely something you personally don't understand.

 

[Mojo]

All these various arguments seemed to be extraneous to me because they focused on they fossils and not the "gaps" between them (I can hear articulett getting ready to pounce), which was again what was important to me. The "gaps" themselves just seemed too big to permit a representation of evolution as continuous. However, that in itself may have an artifact of the scaling system I was using which did not take into account what constitutes an acceptable time frame in which an evolutionary event of a given magnitude occurs.

Why do you want to focus on the gaps? Nobody denies that they exist: fossilisation is a comparatively rare event, finding the resulting fossils is also a comparatively rare event, so there are gaps in the record. But the idea that the gaps are a problem for evolution is the result of a creationist strawman. As Dr. A. posted in the very first response on this thread:

It's not so much that "continuity of evolution [...] is claimed to be demonstrated by the fossil record", as that the fossil record shows us exactly what we would expect to see if:

(a) Evolution happened just as we think it did.
(b) We had an incomplete fossil record of the process.

And why do you want to consider the fossil record in isolation? There is a wealth of other evidence for evolution by natural selection. Wouldn't it be better to look at the whole picture rather than focussing on something that has (wrongly) been identified by creationists as a problem for evolution? Why choose to argue their strawman?

And why choose that particular analogy? Again, it plays into the hands of creationists by reducing the interval considered to one (1.92 seconds!) on which most things are not visibly going to change. See JoeTheJuggler's comment abut maps, Missouri and his thumb.

In conclusion, I guess I would ask what materials I should consult to develop a deeper understanding of differing evolutionary time frames?

What materials have you already consulted?

 

[Dancing David]

It wasn't really a good question. It was similar to asking "How far to the end of the earth...?" It was a question used to make a statement that there is "discontinuity" in the fossil record. It reminds me of a common creationist tactic asking "how does information get added to the genome"-- that doesn't really mean anything. Are they talking about adding DNA?, Genes, Function, promoter regions? It's not like more is necessarily better. It's a question asked so that when one attempts to explain, the listener will say--"see, even science can't answer this question."--"scientists can't answer this question; therefore I can assert whatever I want instead."

Notice the statements and information and questions the OP ignored. Why would anyone actually curious about what is and isn't in the fossil record ignore that information and then claim he was ABSOLUTELY certain no-one answered his question. Why, despite repeated asking, did he never clarify with examples--except for his original candle example. Why did he seemingly ignore the many examples given regarding his poorly worded first question. Why did he repeatedly assert things that no one said--he boiled things down to "pat answers", "the fossil record isn't evidence", and "no one answered him". That's what he picked up out of all these pages. That's it. And he's done the same on other threads now while, admonishing them just as he's done here.

He's twisted careful explanations into sound bites that support what he believes.

Here's why it is a bad question. A fossil record is a clue to morphology--but it was carefully explained that a single point mutation can cause a very large morphological change, and huge DNA changes can leave the morphology as seen by fossils--totally in tact. Plus, with fossils, we have to take what we can find--no intelligent designer left us any clues of where to look. We've had to amass the data ourselves...and invent radiometric dating. So what was he really asking? He never clarified. What discontinuity was he referring too--He had great examples--so many...and he didn't rephrase his question with the new knowledge--he dismissed all answers because they weren't what he wanted to hear.

Creationists do this kind of crap all the time. And then they pretend that science is a good ol' boys club that doesn't want to listen to what they have to offer (nothing so far.) Anyone who was actually interested in the topic--would be tripping on all the cool information coming out, and presumably, marveling in the links provided, like I was--because it's really heady stuff. He didn't even seem to know about it. He's blind to both his ignorance and his arrogance.

He got stuck on his one question (every creationist has their lynchpin conundrum that makes evolution untrue for them--and then they insert their god--even Francis Collins who doesn't doubt evolution--for him it is (was) abiogenesis.) And when their lynchpin is explained--they just can't hear the answer. Like Kleinman and EV and Hewitt and oscillating data and Behe and irreducible complexity. No answer is the right answer, because to them it's important to say, "science can't explain this." What they really mean is, "I can't understand it, therefore, my alternate hypothesis could still be the truth."

The OP went to the Kleinman thread to ask about EV the old "point mutation" model. Why would someone wallow in this model when, now that we see DNA; we see that point mutation is but a small part in the evolution of genomes. Why that and not show the slightest interest in the myriad of information on that thread as well as links upon links upon links. When you answer a question for a creationist, they just don't hear the answer--they don't address the link or argument or explanation--they just completely ignore it. As if, NOTHING was offered. See the Behe Dover transcript if you want to see the denial in full fledged egotistical display.

I am always curious in creationist logic, but they ignore the questions. For example, they would agree, I'm sure, that all humans have a common ancestor--and Scientists put that ancestor back less than 100,000 years ago.
They may not agree on the age, of course, but because of the exponential number of grandparents we accumulate as we go back through time, they would understand that you wouldn't need to go very many generations back before you had more ancestors than people that ever existed. Hence, all humans, have a common ancestor. But here is what is really cool (to me)--behind that ancestor, every single one of our ancestors are the exact same--and when you meet up with the common ancestor of your pets--behind that line, all the ancestors are the same. So there is a direct line back through time for humans--but we are just a spring in the family tree as ancestors of all the other twigs and branches come together in the backward march through time. And we can SEE this in the DNA. And so of all the myriad of steps toward our evolution--each step forward only had to happen once amongst all the replication going on all around through the eons.
One step forward--the same step forward for all of us--all through time--with various branches moving out and making more branches and dying out and growing in complexity--lit all evolved just like our brains and the internet and cities and human knowledge and language.

How can someone not marvel at that?--Marvel at how obvious and simple and elegant and profound and true that all is? And WE humans figured it out--and the evidence keeps piling in and giving us more details and clues.

And how can one not appreciate how cool it is to be on this website and learn from such knowledgeable friendly people from all over the world eager to share a little bit of the discovery no matter what area of science or what area of the world you might be interested in? How cool is it it see a piece of the puzzle fall into place and understand the world in a way that humans in past eons could not understand it. Like Neil Tyson or Carl Sagan, and Caroline Porco (all astronomers), I feel amazing awe to know this...to understand it...to be able to communicate it--to find out more or fill in gaps from brilliant, honest, people on this forum. There are no divine truths or high priests in science--there's just information that is available to anyone who looks for it.
And it's true whether someone believes it or not. You can prove it to yourself or doubt it or use it or add to it or revel in it or reject it or deny it. Just like the earth was spherical and tilted on it's access long before humans existed and figured things out.

So often skeptics are called arrogant--so often I've watched people spend careful and detailed time crafting careful explanatory answers or indulging some mentally ill guy's math problem only to be insulted repeatedly for not giving the right answers, or being "arrogant", or being "pat", or part of the "system". These people indulge in the gifts brought by scientists--longer lives, ready answers, forensic testing, computers, airplanes --the internet--while disparaging scientists and skeptics and praising themselves, invisible gods, charlatans, and those who give them nothing but delusions.

Just as Randi is demonized by the woos because he brings them the message that they are fooling themselves (rather than taking advantage of their naivte as he could readily do), those of us in the life science have gotten to learn some very fascinating things and we are repeatedly insulted by those who pretend to seek this knowledge.

To me, this forum is a haven in a world where the majority have been lead to believe that faith is a good way to know things and that doubters deserve dismissal. Dr. A. defended the OP, and the OP repaid this "benefit of the doubt" from a very knowledgeable member by completely ignoring his explanation (and everyone else's) and then claiming that absolutely no one answered his question!!

And so there are bad questions--or at least misleading questions...questions that aren't really questions. And I admire the patience and seemingly endless goodwill of forum members that freely educate again and again despite such deception. It's nice to know that people are learning from the responses even if the OP did not.

Gee someone got up on the wrong side of the rock this morning!

I don't know why you didn't rant quote that. I just made a simple statement, and the motives of the other poster are easy to discern, but it is easier ti attract flies with honey.

I also notice the double 'aa' in the poster's name, hmmmm. Where have I seen that before.

Thanks I haven't had enough spleen vented on me this morning before i go to the middle school, at least you didn't tell me to shut up!

 

[Dancing David]

Upon further thought and deep consideration, I concede. I think someone somewhere, amid the intermittent personal attacks, did answer my question.

I did think about evolution more deeply and came to the conclusion that evolution itself (and no, despite what articulett says I am not and never was a creationist) occurs in discrete (which to means something diferent that what "discontinuous" would convey, two terms that I used a little more interchangeably than I should have) in so far as you can not have a fractional generation. I think my main problem is that I don't have an intuitve sense of what constitutes an acceptable time frame for evolutionary change to happen over. That is why I don't know what kind of processes in everday life with which to compare it when I use the day scaling analogy.

The scale is what? Hmmm, that things at the bottom of a map in the legend? Why should the inability of a human construct be your hang up. It might be like complaining that screws set with a hammer come out of the wall.

It seems to be a fault of a desire to hang on to one thought construct over antother.

At the risk of drawing flack two weeks in a row. All thoughts are equaly true and equaly false , some have greater observational validity than others.

For instance, if set a room temperature kettle of water on the stove and turned around 1.92 seconds later to to see it boiling, I would question the knowledge I have about the specific heat of water (or probably more reasonably the wattage of my stove) and my wisdom in using such a device. However, if, in the same siutation, I turned around and 3 minute and 12 seconds later I saw that the water was boiling I would be slightly less perturbed. With evolution, on the other hand, I have no such reference frame for what to expect.

The process of evolution is blind , you will not find a convinient time frame to support or refute the theory of natural selection. There seems to be the usual hang up on 'progressivism and determinism' when you approach natural selection. this is a standard hang up just like QM and classic physics. Natural selection is wierd and not deterministic because there is the change in the genome and the change in the enviroment. The first can not see the later, nor can it see the reproductive success. Therefore you can't reverse engineer it like you can a computer chip.

I therefore went to the example of the day scaled world to see if evolutionary events would at least appear continuous in the sense that they would appear close enough together to trick the human eye, much like watching butter melt in a hot skillet. Needless to say, they did not. Thus, in abscence of an intuitive (whether innate or acquired) sense of acceptable evolutionary time frames, evolution appeared discoutinuous.

A map is a map, should the map terrain be pleasing to your aesthetic sense or should it try to follow the terrain?

I must say that the reason I held off on responding to most of the posts here though was I felt that they where answering questions I hadn't asked.

Sometimes the answer is there but we don't understand it. Hanging on to the notion that our a priori concepts must be right is a block to learning. You will not get the answer to the time scale question because you aren't seeing the answer, it is being repeated to you. Let go of the time scale.

Some posters seemed to assume that I was denying evolution because of perception of a "gappy" fossil record and therefore countered with alternative evidence for evolution. Others seemed to assume that I was denying the existence of intermediate forms and countered me by demonstrating that they in fact existed. Still others seemed to assume that I was positing gradualism and countered with punctuated equilibrium. All these various arguments seemed to be extraneous to me because they focused on they fossils and not the "gaps" between them (I can hear articulett getting ready to pounce), which was again what was important to me.

If you ask a question, then it helps to not presume the answer. the question is mistaken in the sense that you have answers, you may not like them aestheticaly but they are there.

You seem to ignore answers and that could make you look like a troll.

The "gaps" themselves just seemed too big to permit a representation of evolution as continuous.

And just like QM again, you can not reconcile QM if you hang onto notions like continutity. Is your paycheck continuos. Is growth or an organsism actualy continuos?

However, that in itself may have an artifact of the scaling system I was using which did not take into account what constitutes an acceptable time frame in which an evolutionary event of a given magnitude occurs.

Step away from the scale. Your statement is couched in the language of creationism, perhaps you don't intend that.

In conclusion, I guess I would ask what materials I should consult to develop a deeper understanding of differing evolutionary time frames?

There are none, you will not find them, natural selection is not continous, it is blind. Read SJ Gould, especialy the Mismeasure of Man.

 

[Dancing David]

Small point of correction: polyploidy deals with whole genome duplication and not point mutation.

Hang up on having the answer meet your needs? This is what makes you look like a creationsit. Step away from the concept , read the answers.

 

[Dancing David]

Mijo, you seem to have completely ignored my last couple of posts as well. And you claim punctuated equilibrium doesn't address your question of the gaps being too wide or whatever it is you are asking.

I'm still trying to take your word for it you have some questions about the processes of evolution and not some hidden agenda of creationism or intelligent design or irreducible complexity. All of the mechanisms of evolution are fairly well understood, including changes in species and the time scale for any number of different species which represent different reproduction rates.

There are no unexplained pieces of the overall theory of evolution to my knowledge. Like I said, that was 2 decades ago. Now we are not only well aware of the intricacies of how evolution occurs, we've gone beyond that and are looking specifically at how the DNA code results in different proteins, how those proteins fold, (which is an important issue), what turns genes on and off, and what does all the DNA in between genes do? We see it is highly conserved meaning it must matter for some reason.

So what is your issue?

The Genetic Code

DNA & RNA Codons

Performing [the] original search, codons, in PubMed will retrieve 25,686 citations.

Performing [the] original search, intron, in PubMed will retrieve 32,685 citations.

Performing [the] original search, protein folding, in PubMed will retrieve 23,798 citations.

Performing [the] original search, proteomics, in PubMed will retrieve 10,402 citations.

Performing [the] original search, allele, in PubMed will retrieve 96,228 citations.

Performing [the] original search, bioinformatics, in PubMed will retrieve 15,766 citations.

Performing [the] original search, genome, in PubMed will retrieve 582,216 citations.

I bring this to your attention because it reflects on where research is currently being conducted. It isn't as if your question is about some mystery as of yet unexplained. Your question is merely something you personally don't understand.

Stop making sense, making sense, making sense.

 

[Dancing David]

The order Foraminiferida are interesting, they fossilise very well.

Tony Arnold and Bill Parker compiled what may be the largest, most complete set of data on the evolutionary history of any group of organisms, marine or otherwise. The two scientists amassed something that their land-based colleagues only dreamed about: An intact fossil record with no missing links.

"It's all here--a virtually complete evolutionary record," says Arnold. "There are other good examples, but this is by far the best. We're seeing the whole picture of how this group of organisms has changed throughout most of its existence on Earth."

...

As he speaks, Arnold shows a series of microphotographs, depicting the evolutionary change wrought on a single foram species. "This is the same organism, as it existed through 500,000 years," he says. "We've got hundreds of examples like this, complete life and evolutionary histories for dozens of species. *

[qimg]http://razd.evcforum.net/Pictures/CvE/foram_work.gif[/qimg]

Say is that a time scale? Now we can get into Xenoss paradox, the arrows will never hit those turtles!(Thanks Terry Pratchet)

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Instead of "humans write stuff", to me it is more general to say "minds write stuff" or "minds create stuff". Now, I don't claim to know what a "mind" is, and science is not able to define it. But I have evidence "from the inside" that minds exist and cosciousness exists. My inside evidence is as good, no... better, than any external world experiment can reveal. So I know "creation of stuff" exists, at least, in the "mind" .... whatever that is.

I guess I really should respond to this and not simply call it irrelevant and create a whole new storm.

I think it much more proper to say that humans write stuff. That is my experience and that is my theory -- humans write stuff. I have plenty of experience with non-human minds and have never encountered any of them writing stuff. Most humans write very little and most do not write books, but every book I have ever encountered was written by a human. So, I'm sticking with humans write stuff as my theory until proven otherwise. Then I will amend or diassemble my theory (if proven otherwise).

 

[mijopaalmc]

I also notice the double 'aa' in the poster's name, hmmmm. Where have I seen that before.

Extraneous personal detail #378:

The derivation of my forum name is explained here.

I am wary of giving out personal details online in general as there are unscrupulous people out there (not necessarily on this site, but those who would data mine this site, if that is possible). Thus I will not give you the exact series of five names, but I am sure that you could come up with many examples. Needless to say the resemblance to a previous troublemaker's forum name is purely coincidental.

I know you have no reason to trust my above explanation, especially since I am responding directly to an implication that I may be a sockpuppet (or some other creationist machination), but keep in mind that I had no reason to lie on the other thread even though it did originate from my overly paranoid assumption that the reversed poster names on April Fools' Day were some sort of cryptic sign that I was about to banned. After all, none of the responses I got were from people who hadn't yet posted on this thread at all.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Oh, and mijo ...

... welcome to the forams!

 

[geoman]

Oh, and mijo ...

... welcome to the forams!

Mods, please move this thread to the Bad Geological Puns subforum.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Happy Birthday, Dr. A.

 

[articulett]

Gee someone got up on the wrong side of the rock this morning!

I don't know why you didn't rant quote that. I just made a simple statement, and the motives of the other poster are easy to discern, but it is easier ti attract flies with honey.

I also notice the double 'aa' in the poster's name, hmmmm. Where have I seen that before.

Thanks I haven't had enough spleen vented on me this morning before i go to the middle school, at least you didn't tell me to shut up!

Sorry--I didn't mean to vent at you. I was just venting at the OP. I feel that people have gone out of their way to give careful and detailed answers which he promptly dismissed while declaring that no one answered his question.

I'm overly sensitive. I teach biology, and this sort of deceptive questioning is a maddening bugaboo. Moreover, it's THE wedge strategy advocated by the Discovery Institute--raise doubts about evolution and muddy the waters so that School children don't question their faith. It is sinister.

I actually enjoy your posts quite a bit. I think you are one of the people who bent over backwards to be nice and specific with the OP with nary a response. I was actually indignant of behalf of you, skeptic girl, Dr. A. and the many others who made repeated careful attempts at explaining only to dismissed as ABSOLUTELY not answering the question. The question was designed not to be answered in my opinion.

 

[delphi_ote]

The question was designed not to be answered in my opinion.

If that's the case, it wasn't very intelligently designed. *rim shot*















... I'm really sorry for that.

 

[Tanstaafl]

I also notice the double 'aa' in the poster's name, hmmmm. Where have I seen that before.

I resemble that remark!

 

[cbish]

I'm overly sensitive. I teach biology, and this sort of deceptive questioning is a maddening bugaboo. Moreover, it's THE wedge strategy.......... The question was designed not to be answered in my opinion.

I too have taught biology for 17 years. The OP is nothing new, is easily researched, and easily answered. The candle story has been around for decades. In short, nothing to see here. I was immediatley skeptical of the OP as well.

You know, I haven't really heard anything new in the 'dismissal of evolution' camp lately. Has anyone heard of anything since ID?