Are you saying that if cornered by a King snake a Rattler wouldn't attack?
Is Natural Selection Stymied by this tactic?
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Are you saying that if cornered by a King snake a Rattler wouldn't attack?
SteveGrenard
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I don't bother at all with creationist arguments. They give me a headache. But I know you like them so please if you can provide me with a reference on this one.
First I would have to know it was a creationist argument and I freely admit I haven't heard this one. Reference please. Thank you.
Let's pretend we can go back 10K years ago to a large plain populated by
Hog nosed snakes. One spring millions of toads start climbing out of the lakes
and ponds around them. An embarassment of riches, food for all. But these
toads have evolved a particularly deadly digitalis like glandular poison that if
swallowed caused cardiac standstill and death and it can best only be thwarted
by countering it with adrenalin which speeds up the heart and raises the
blood pressure. Some of these snakes have inherited a trait of having a particularly
large adrenal gland that produces an abundance of adrenalin and they easily
survive the toad's deadly poison. Others are, forgive the expression, not so lucky and die. Before long all that are left are snakes with enlarged adrenals that easily can adapt to eating these deadly toads without any ill effect. Now you expect me to say this
was gods's plan or the work of an intelligent designer? Piffel.It was pure chance.
Sure it was natural selection but was still based on the chance existence of a gene
which produces an enlarged adrenal gland. Now all Hog nosed snakes have this gene
and they can all eat toxic toads with impunity. In fact it is now their primary diet
of choice. Neither a god nor an intelligent designer had anything to do with it.
SteveGrenard
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Yup. You should see the footage. You almost feel sorry for the rattlesnake as the King snake wraps itself around the rattler, constricts it and then starts to swallow it.
It's good to be King.
I cant say rattlesnakes never put up any sort of defense but its bite is totally harmless to the king snake. And its bite is all its got. I think rattlers sense this because they avoid king snakes. Even their poop and "musk" has been used as a rattler deterrent.
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(Not as admin)
Folks there is a long thread all about whether it is accurate to describe evolution as random or not - why not contribute to that thread rather than send this one down the same path? It's called "What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?"
Folks there is a long thread all about whether it is accurate to describe evolution as random or not - why not contribute to that thread rather than send this one down the same path? It's called "What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?"
I find it remarkable that the Rattler doesn't even attempt to bite the King snake. That's a pretty extreme behaviour to have developed, you usually see even the most out classed prey trying anything to escape or harm the predator.
Certainly.
Whoa. That's not natural selection. That's an example of how some traits can occur.
How these traits are passed on - if at all - is quite another issue.
Are you saying that all traits are due to pure chance?
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Now wait a gol derned minute there. There are aspects of evolution that completely based upon random processes, such as the enviroment. Because there is a causal relationship in how something may interact does not mean that randomness does not exist.
Luck has a lot to do with a trait being expressed in an enviroment that leads to reproductive success.
There is random when it comes to the placement of an individual with an unexpressed trait in a given enviroment. That is the 'luck' part.
Perhaps this is another word that can argued over endlessly. Like the mijopaalmc thread.
Give an example.
SteveGrenard
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The defense by the rattler is to try and escape. If the king goes left, the rattler tries right but the king is too quick. This behavior only applies to rattlesnake interaction with king snakes. So yes, they try and escape but realize trying to harm the king snake is useless.
The only cue I can think of that the king snake emits may be some sort of odor which the rattlesnake uses to base its behavior.
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SteveGrenard
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Thanks for the reference. It is a primo reason why creationists give me migraines. It is typical propaganda using non-creationist arguments and skillfully intertwining them with creationist ones.
Reminds me of the agnostic argument that god created us and
then left us alone to devlop as we might. Wrong. The first basis for life was not made by god, it was made by the random or chance admixture of chemicals and electrical energy (lightening perhaps?) to form amino acids, which then combined to form peptides, which then combined to form polypeptides which then combined to form proteins, ...... well you get the picture.
Reminds me of the agnostic argument that god created us and
then left us alone to devlop as we might. Wrong. The first basis for life was not made by god, it was made by the random or chance admixture of chemicals and electrical energy (lightening perhaps?) to form amino acids, which then combined to form peptides, which then combined to form polypeptides which then combined to form proteins, ...... well you get the picture.
Give an example- CFL
A bloody big rock falls from the sky.
You are under it or not.
Maybe it's a starsign thing?
Steve's earlier example was that some snakes have larger adrenal glands, for some reason of genetic contingency. They did not "evolve" the gland to make them immune to toxic toad anymore than birds "evolved" feathers to get on top of power lines. The fact that feathers are useful for getting on top of power lines, is good luck for things with feathers, in countries and centuries where power lines happen to exist.
A bloody big rock falls from the sky.
You are under it or not.
Maybe it's a starsign thing?
Steve's earlier example was that some snakes have larger adrenal glands, for some reason of genetic contingency. They did not "evolve" the gland to make them immune to toxic toad anymore than birds "evolved" feathers to get on top of power lines. The fact that feathers are useful for getting on top of power lines, is good luck for things with feathers, in countries and centuries where power lines happen to exist.
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Is that not an example of natural selection being "stymied"?
It is exactly what you have argued.
That's not an agnostic argument. Agnostics don't posit that god created us.
The amino acids that are used in life, like most other aspects of living things, are very likely not the product of chance.
Are you saying that all traits are due to pure chance?
Meteorites obey gravity and Newton's Laws. Neither are random.
Returning to the OP.
If the snakes can smell when the toxin decays, then presumably the lifetime of the toxin is irrelevant to those particular snakes. So even if the frogs develop a longer lived toxin, the snakes will just wait longer.
What the frogs need is a new territory with less advanced snakes, or a poison that kills the snake as it bites, or better , a toxin the snakes "think " will kill them when they bite.
If there exists a frog whose toxin does kill these snakes, then mimicry (by look or scent) of those frogs might work.
If what the authors meant was that this particular arms race has been ended by the snakes' senses outmanouevering the frog defences, then they would seem to be correct. In the arms race metaphor it's as if , after the invention of the bullet, one country persisted in developing ever better chain mail...
It's not that evolution is stymied here , but that further evolution in the particular direction of slower toxins is no longer a viable frog option. They need a different kind of toxin. If indeed frogs get their toxins from their food, then an isolated population eating a somewhat different diet may well develop a different kind of toxin.
If the snakes can smell when the toxin decays, then presumably the lifetime of the toxin is irrelevant to those particular snakes. So even if the frogs develop a longer lived toxin, the snakes will just wait longer.
What the frogs need is a new territory with less advanced snakes, or a poison that kills the snake as it bites, or better , a toxin the snakes "think " will kill them when they bite.
If there exists a frog whose toxin does kill these snakes, then mimicry (by look or scent) of those frogs might work.
If what the authors meant was that this particular arms race has been ended by the snakes' senses outmanouevering the frog defences, then they would seem to be correct. In the arms race metaphor it's as if , after the invention of the bullet, one country persisted in developing ever better chain mail...
It's not that evolution is stymied here , but that further evolution in the particular direction of slower toxins is no longer a viable frog option. They need a different kind of toxin. If indeed frogs get their toxins from their food, then an isolated population eating a somewhat different diet may well develop a different kind of toxin.
No, dinosaurs aren't extinct because Newton planned it. Newton didn't plan his laws, he described them, based on observations and experiments of celestial bodies.
My point is that you cannot call meteorites random. When you call them random, you are ultimately describing the trajectories needed for the moon landings as random.
They are anything but. We send probes to other planets based on the predictability of Newton's laws - with a pinch of Einstein for flavor.
Claus- you seem to have wandered from the point of the thread, which is a discussion about how evolution works.
Dancing David said-" Luck has a lot to do with a trait being expressed in an enviroment that leads to reproductive success."
You requested an example.
I gave you one. If a bolide drops on your head, whatever principles govern it's trajectory, you are dead.
Being a long way away from the impact point is pure damn luck- unless you are suggesting crocodiles had radar?
When the rock falls is random as far as a tree is concerned. Unpredictable.
But a tree which happened to be both fire resistant, blast tolerant and far enough away has a far better chance of surviving than one closer in.
Same goes for trees in war zones and all manner of situations anyone here can imagine in which blind luck plays a part.
Dancing David said-" Luck has a lot to do with a trait being expressed in an enviroment that leads to reproductive success."
You requested an example.
I gave you one. If a bolide drops on your head, whatever principles govern it's trajectory, you are dead.
Being a long way away from the impact point is pure damn luck- unless you are suggesting crocodiles had radar?
When the rock falls is random as far as a tree is concerned. Unpredictable.
But a tree which happened to be both fire resistant, blast tolerant and far enough away has a far better chance of surviving than one closer in.
Same goes for trees in war zones and all manner of situations anyone here can imagine in which blind luck plays a part.
Sure. But is it random?
Ah, but it isn't. It may be unexpected, but unpredictable? No.
If you want to call bolides in trajectory "random", then you have to call Newton's Laws "random".
I don't think you want to do that. And, whether crocs can detect falling bolides has nothing to do with whether falling bolides are random or not.
But that is the question: What is "blind luck"? When you look closer, it may not be after all.
Have you read Wiseman's "The Luck Factor"?
Unalienable
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Thanks. I had an idea in might how it might get started, and then flourish. It's based on two simple facts:
1. A gene doesn't just make a single change, it can do several things at once. A new poison might smell different, or make the skin a different color.
2. It is wrong to think of evolution doing what's "best for the organism", just like it's wrong to think of it doing what is "best for the species", or the phylum, or the kingdom. Evolution takes place at the gene level.
Suppose you are a gene, a new mutation, which makes the poison have a really long shelf life, so long that your body would decompose before the poison does. This is the gene that outsmarts the snake's waiting game.
Maybe this gene also does other things, like gives you a scent that makes the female frogs think is sexy. But for whatever reason, this new mutation becomes popular among a specific population of frogs, maybe due to some other advantage or maybe just by luck.
Given the above, the gene is poised to explode throughout the frog population. Snakes who eat the oddly scented frogs either get sick, or die. Soon the snakes are exhibiting behavior to avoid that scent at all costs. As the "avoid the scent" gene becomes popular in the snake population, the "odd scent" gene becomes popular in the frog poplulation.
However the above scenario would only work if these gene lasted in the frog population long enough for the snakes to exhibit the scent-avoidance characteristic. If the gene conferred no particular advantage it might make one snake really pissed off, but the frog and its special new gene would be dead. However, if the gene was tied to some other advantageous function, like a sexy scent, then it might just hang around in the population long enough.
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Claus,
I think you are chasing red herrings up the creek without a paddle here.
We could argue the meaning of "random " forever. That's philosophodictionarypiffle.
Environment and genome interact. A creature results, with characteristics adapted to that environment.
Environment then changes for any of a million reasons . Some adaptations are now less well fitted. One or two may be better fitted. By chance. Possessor of same just had a lucky break.
Prediction. (See coral reef thread). Some colonial corals will do better in warmer water than they do now. Some will do less well. Right now, those which are well adapted to current sea temperature are doing well.
You can view this two ways.
1. Corals best adapted to today's sea temperatures are the fittest and therefore do well. Environment change is therefore a problem. (Too many ecologists seem to have this view, IMO).
2. All corals have an optimum temperature range. Some are lucky enough to be living at a time when actual sea temperatures are in that range- ie nothing in their genome created the present climate (unless you're into Gaia).
If global warming is real, some of those corals are about to run out of luck. Others are going to be favoured by the new temperatures. In 200 years the distribution of species building reefs will be different.
I have not read Wiseman's book. If the argument is that nothing is truly down to "chance" because there is always an underlying cause, (quantum stuff aside), well that's true, but tautological and totally irrelevant to the argument that luck affects survival.
A more personal example:-
Last year in Scotland, a girl and her father left home in two cars. He turned right at a junction, she went straight on. A truck , behind both, also went straight on. At the next junction, the truck rear ended her and killed her, the truck driver having fallen asleep at the wheel.
At one level, she died because she drove away ahead of her father rather than behind him. Is that the cause of death? What if her father had gone for a newspaper the night before and parked differently? If he had bought a new car the week before? If the truck driver's mother had been ill that week and he went to visit? How ridiculous does the causal chain have to be before we call it "chance"?
Of course there is a chance element in evolution.Call it luck, call it random , call it fate. Same difference. The creationist error is to wildly overestimate it (often wilfully) to neglect the mechanism of variation and to ignore the idea of differential selection , so creating a straw man to burn. But we are just as wrong if we pretend chance is not a factor. I have to say, I don't see Steve Grenard making that sort of error. Whatever his views on the afterlife, his views on neoDarwinism seem pretty orthodox.
I think you are chasing red herrings up the creek without a paddle here.
We could argue the meaning of "random " forever. That's philosophodictionarypiffle.
Environment and genome interact. A creature results, with characteristics adapted to that environment.
Environment then changes for any of a million reasons . Some adaptations are now less well fitted. One or two may be better fitted. By chance. Possessor of same just had a lucky break.
Prediction. (See coral reef thread). Some colonial corals will do better in warmer water than they do now. Some will do less well. Right now, those which are well adapted to current sea temperature are doing well.
You can view this two ways.
1. Corals best adapted to today's sea temperatures are the fittest and therefore do well. Environment change is therefore a problem. (Too many ecologists seem to have this view, IMO).
2. All corals have an optimum temperature range. Some are lucky enough to be living at a time when actual sea temperatures are in that range- ie nothing in their genome created the present climate (unless you're into Gaia).
If global warming is real, some of those corals are about to run out of luck. Others are going to be favoured by the new temperatures. In 200 years the distribution of species building reefs will be different.
I have not read Wiseman's book. If the argument is that nothing is truly down to "chance" because there is always an underlying cause, (quantum stuff aside), well that's true, but tautological and totally irrelevant to the argument that luck affects survival.
A more personal example:-
Last year in Scotland, a girl and her father left home in two cars. He turned right at a junction, she went straight on. A truck , behind both, also went straight on. At the next junction, the truck rear ended her and killed her, the truck driver having fallen asleep at the wheel.
At one level, she died because she drove away ahead of her father rather than behind him. Is that the cause of death? What if her father had gone for a newspaper the night before and parked differently? If he had bought a new car the week before? If the truck driver's mother had been ill that week and he went to visit? How ridiculous does the causal chain have to be before we call it "chance"?
Of course there is a chance element in evolution.Call it luck, call it random , call it fate. Same difference. The creationist error is to wildly overestimate it (often wilfully) to neglect the mechanism of variation and to ignore the idea of differential selection , so creating a straw man to burn. But we are just as wrong if we pretend chance is not a factor. I have to say, I don't see Steve Grenard making that sort of error. Whatever his views on the afterlife, his views on neoDarwinism seem pretty orthodox.
SteveGrenard
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Thanks for the reference, however. I would have preferred a reference from a neo-Darwinian authority rejecting random mutation rather than a creationist website claiming it as evidence of your contention. I think you have been snookered(*) by creationist discussions that claim random mutation for themselves when in fact they are lifting it from neo-Darwinian theory. In turn this has caused a reaction in you that by claiming random mutation one is, therefore, a creationist or for some mysterious reason is following part of a creationist creed... The intended purpose of this piffle was achieved. Or perhaps Claus could be thinking about directed mutation theory rather than random?
Although the evidence for that remains controversial to non-existent.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/259/5092/188
(*)Slang Snookered
a. To lead (another) into a situation in which all possible choices are undesirable; trap.
b. To fool; dupe: "Snookered by a lot of malarkey about drilling costs, a Texas jury ... added $3 billion of punitive damages" New Republic.
Although the evidence for that remains controversial to non-existent.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/259/5092/188
(*)Slang Snookered
a. To lead (another) into a situation in which all possible choices are undesirable; trap.
b. To fool; dupe: "Snookered by a lot of malarkey about drilling costs, a Texas jury ... added $3 billion of punitive damages" New Republic.
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