Oh God, here we go again - micro/macro evolution

[dogjones]

retarded chimps that made stone tools
interesting

Ah, but given enough time, retarded chimps could also write Hamlet. Making stone tools is far less arduous.

 

[dogjones]

Thanks all for the great info, BTW.

 

[Eric D]

retarded chimps that made stone tools
interesting

Those stone tools were just malformed monkey turds...I mean....well people exsisted then! They made the tools!

This here do-hickey is what they used to make brontoburgers. Retarded chimps musta stole it. Crafty buggers.

 

[rwp]

I was once more ignorant of the science of Evolution than I am today. I found the talkorigins.org website to be very enlightening, particularly the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution article by Douglas Theobald, Ph.D. Perhaps it will increase your understanding as well.

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You might ask him why biologists haven't yet discovered the mechanism that prevents a series of microevolutionary changes from becoming a macroevolutionary change, for whatever definitions of micro- and macro- he cares to name.

If that gets boring, ask him where objective moral truths came from in his worldview.

~~ Paul

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

The idea that DNA contains information is only an analogy. A useful analogy, to be sure (I use it myself, sometimes), but like all analogies, it does not completely tell the full story.

This is just a semantic argument, but that seems to be taking it a step too far. It might be better said that DNA is not only information. But it most certainly contains information. Perhaps the key trait of information is that the storage substrate is irrelevant. The data on your computer can be stored in a variety of ways--on a magnetic surface, within memory chips, as a printout, or even as punchcards. As long as you use an appropriate coding, the information can be moved to different substrates without loss. Of course, your JPG file is only displayable when it exists within your system RAM, but how it got there, and where it was stored previously, is irrelevant.

Likewise with DNA. It is simply a quaternary code, easily expressible in binary. One could, in principle, extract the DNA from one of your cells, read it into a computer, synthesize a new strand with the same coding, and inject it back into the cell--and in the end, the cell would operate exactly as before.

Of course, as you point out, DNA does more things than just store information, and in the beginning may not have had much to do with information storage anyway. But that does not change the fact that DNA (as used by modern life) does store information, and in a way completely equivalent to how computers store it.

- Dr. Trintignant

PS: The rest of your post is well-taken; I just had to quibble at this bit.

 

[Wowbagger]

One could, in principle, extract the DNA from one of your cells, read it into a computer, synthesize a new strand with the same coding, and inject it back into the cell--and in the end, the cell would operate exactly as before.

How does that make DNA special from just about anything else?

You wouldn't normally think of...say... a cleaning sponge as information. One could, in principal, extract the holes in a sponge, read it into a computer, synthesize a new sponge with the same holes, and inject it back into a sponge maker--and in the end, the sponge would operate exactly as before.

And, I just used cleaning sponges as my example, because I happened to be looking at one as I wrote this.

 

[Dr. Trintignant]

How does that make DNA special from just about anything else?

You wouldn't normally think of...say... a cleaning sponge as information. One could, in principal, extract the holes in a sponge, read it into a computer, synthesize a new sponge with the same holes, and inject it back into a sponge maker--and in the end, the sponge would operate exactly as before.

And, I just used cleaning sponges as my example, because I happened to be looking at one as I wrote this.

Because if you rearrange the holes in a sponge, you still end up with a sponge. The holes carry information, sure, but it's useless--random and irrelevant.

But if you rearrange the base pairs on a strand of DNA, you get something fundamentally different. DNA that codes for humans or bacteria is made of the same stuff, just in a different order.

You could of course use your sponge to carry information, perhaps by arranging the holes to spell out a poem. But now you have a very different thing--the interesting part (the poem) has nothing to do with it being a sponge. The sponge is just a substrate for the information.

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[Nosi]

A friend of mine is slowly descending into religiosity. He is a smart chappie but cannot handle the implications of "materialism", "naturalism", etc - namely, that objective moral truths cannot exist within this worldview. Fine, I have a good time debating him philosophically over a few glasses of indifferent Malbec.

Unfortunately though, he is now straying into the realm of attempting to debunk evolution. Not, of course, 'micro' evolution, but 'macro'. His main thing appears to be "evolution cannot explain augmentation of DNA by external information/stimuli alone". I'm not sure even he knows what this means. I guess I would take it to mean that:

1. Evolution successfully describes changes in already existing DNA ("microevolution").
2. But some species have more DNA than others, and possibly this should be the definition of "species".
3. There is no evidence for how this 'creation' of new DNA ("macroevolution") comes about by purely naturalistic processes.
4. Therefore it is reasonable to 'doubt' macroevolution.

Oh yeah, and also the fossil record is incomplete and provides no evidence of said macroevolution.

Um. Help!?

Macroevolution is the result of a whole lot of microevolution goin' on. The same way a whole lot of teeny rocks make a sandy beach.

 

[dogjones]

Because if you rearrange the holes in a sponge, you still end up with a sponge. The holes carry information, sure, but it's useless--random and irrelevant.

But if you rearrange the base pairs on a strand of DNA, you get something fundamentally different. DNA that codes for humans or bacteria is made of the same stuff, just in a different order.

You could of course use your sponge to carry information, perhaps by arranging the holes to spell out a poem. But now you have a very different thing--the interesting part (the poem) has nothing to do with it being a sponge. The sponge is just a substrate for the information.

- Dr. Trintignant

I think I see the point. DNA contains information which should be thought of as only affecting itself and how it replicates. Humans/bacteria/slugs emerge from this but are not strictly the 'point' of the code.

Other things contain information, such as sponges. The random noise that the holes on a sponge code for is, in a certain sense, analogous to humans/bacteria/slugs, in that it is only emergent. The difference is that said noise doesn't feed back upon the structure/behaviour/replicability of the sponge. (Unless a certain hole structure led to a tangibly more absorbent sponge, thereby causing the manufacturer to investigate, determine this was the case and then make all of their sponges exactly the same... but IDers would probably latch on to this... the manufacturer is GOD!)

 

[macdoc]

(Unless a certain hole structure led to a tangibly more absorbent sponge, thereby causing the manufacturer to investigate, determine this was the case and then make all of their sponges exactly the same...

see Ivory soap

http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/ivory.asp

Interesting parallel as this was a random "mutation" and the selective force was soap buyers preference

 

[Wowbagger]

Because if you rearrange the holes in a sponge, you still end up with a sponge. The holes carry information, sure, but it's useless--random and irrelevant.

For human purposes, yes. But, the natural world of physics and such does not make such automatic distinctions.

And, as dogjones sort-of points out: The holes in the sponge might not be so random. Some arrangements could be more efficient at absorption than others, and the optimum arragement might even be different for different substances.

If, for some reason, it ever became useful to store the holes in a sponge as information, for humans we would ("Sponginformatics"?). It happens that it is not useful, so we normally don't. For DNA, it current is. (Though, the whole point of my exercise is to show that it is not the only way to view DNA. This idea of viewing other things as information seems to be a side-track.)

Unless a certain hole structure led to a tangibly more absorbent sponge, thereby causing the manufacturer to investigate, determine this was the case and then make all of their sponges exactly the same... but IDers would probably latch on to this... the manufacturer is GOD!

What if the more efficient hole structure wasn't calculated by humans, but instead by computer, using an evolutionary selection algorithm... Nervermind, the IDers would probably latch on to that one, as well, claiming "the computer program was designed with that specific purpose!"

 

[Wudang]

There's a lot of very accessible material put out by the National center for Science Education. I have them as a friend on facebook to stay abreast
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/evolution.ncse?ref=mf

 

[truethat]

I am a person who says I accept microevolution but have doubts about macroevolution. I still fail to see why we have to accept both. I understand that at times we can prove that a lineage is the way science suggests but at the same time I don't think it is infallible.

I've seen what I consider leaps in theories that later turn out to be wrong. So why should be accept any theory about this?

Someone explain this to me because I'm tired of being treated like an idiot for what seems like common sense to me.

 

[Wowbagger]

I still fail to see why we have to accept both.

Well, one (macro) is simply the result of lots of the other (micro), according to theory.
Do you have another plausible hypothesis?

I understand that at times we can prove that a lineage is the way science suggests but at the same time I don't think it is infallible.

Science is not infallible. That much is true.

I've seen what I consider leaps in theories that later turn out to be wrong. So why should be accept any theory about this?

Because it's the most informative, useful, and productive theory for explaining what we do find. Individual, specific ideas may be shown to be wrong. But, nothing has contradicted the general theory, yet. (Not even the findings that disproves those more specific ideas.)

If you are a professional scientist tasked with the responsibility to develop reliable, innovative aspects of knowledge about biology: Which framework of thinking are you going to prefer? Evolution, or maybe you have something better in mind?

Someone explain this to me because I'm tired of being treated like an idiot for what seems like common sense to me.

No, you're not an idiot. Science is non-intuitive. No humans understand much of it, for most of their lives. It often goes against the grains of our innate, emotional heritage - one that was shaped for millions of years without the aid of the scientific method.

 

[godless dave]

I am a person who says I accept microevolution but have doubts about macroevolution. I still fail to see why we have to accept both. I understand that at times we can prove that a lineage is the way science suggests but at the same time I don't think it is infallible.

I've seen what I consider leaps in theories that later turn out to be wrong. So why should be accept any theory about this?

Macroevolution isn't a leap. There's no conceptual difference between microevolution and macroevolution, and the distinction between the two is pretty arbitrary.

We have fossils of the progression from land animals to whales. If that's not macroevolution, what is?

I don't think you're an idiot. I think you've been lied to, a lot, about what evolution is and how much evidence there is.

 

[Dr Adequate]

The SkepticWiki article on [swiki]Mutations and Information[/swiki] may be relevant to the OP.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I've seen what I consider leaps in theories that later turn out to be wrong. So why should be accept any theory about this?

You could say that about anything. In a sense, you'd be right to say it about anything. Why say it about evolution in particular?

 

[Damien Evans]

A friend of mine is slowly descending into religiosity. He is a smart chappie but cannot handle the implications of "materialism", "naturalism", etc - namely, that objective moral truths cannot exist within this worldview. Fine, I have a good time debating him philosophically over a few glasses of indifferent Malbec.

Unfortunately though, he is now straying into the realm of attempting to debunk evolution. Not, of course, 'micro' evolution, but 'macro'. His main thing appears to be "evolution cannot explain augmentation of DNA by external information/stimuli alone". I'm not sure even he knows what this means. I guess I would take it to mean that:

1. Evolution successfully describes changes in already existing DNA ("microevolution").
2. But some species have more DNA than others, and possibly this should be the definition of "species".
3. There is no evidence for how this 'creation' of new DNA ("macroevolution") comes about by purely naturalistic processes.
4. Therefore it is reasonable to 'doubt' macroevolution.

Oh yeah, and also the fossil record is incomplete and provides no evidence of said macroevolution.

Um. Help!?

try showing him this and asking him to explain it

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, “Rhodesia man,” 300,000 – 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

was it Gods practice attempts ?
if so how come these werent mentioned in the babble

if hes using the outdated "missing link" belief, then perhaps you should also explain to him what a "transitional fossil" is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil
Transitional fossils (popularly termed missing links) are the fossilized remains of intermediary forms of life that illustrate an evolutionary transition. They can be identified by their retention of certain primitive (plesiomorphic) traits in comparison with their more derived relatives, as they are defined in the study of cladistics. Numerous examples exist, including those of primates and early humans.

According to modern evolutionary theory, all populations of organisms are in transition. Therefore, a "transitional form" is a human construct of a selected form that vividly represents a particular evolutionary stage, as recognized in hindsight. Contemporary "transitional" forms may be called "living fossils", but on a cladogram representing the historical divergences of life-forms, a "transitional fossil" will represent an organism near the point where individual lineages (clades) diverge.

And now for my nitpicks!

1. It should be Homo Neanderthalensis, not Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis.
2. The Dmanisi cranium isn't Homo Erectus, it's Homo Georgicus. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Homo_georgicus
3. Ergaster isn't "early erectus", indeed given all Ergaster bones have been found in Africa and the near east and all definitively Erectus bones (that is, those whose species is not in dispute) come from East Asia it's difficult to see how this idea even came to exist.

None of which changes the substance of anything you were saying, I was just in a nitpicky mood.

 

[shadron]

At the level of the semi-educated layman (no slur intended), the evidence and non-evidence all boil down to "Who do you believe?" Appeal to authority is all you have, because the basis for understanding anything deeper is simply not there. Most people (yea, even most people here, including yours truly) depend upon authority for their stands on almost anything that is not in their specialty, if they have one.

So, you are faced with resolving an argument over physical biology held between the majority of biological scientists and that held by evangelistic churchman and a very thin veneer of biologists. Which expert are you going to choose from? Because that is the decision.

It's either that or get more educated, both of you.