Why is ID so successful?

[bug_girl]

(underlining mine)

The need for an individual to represent a species is a function of the Linnaean system. Your example is spot-on in demonstrating that the real action is in population variability, and behavioral, morphological, and genetic differences resulting in the separation of two populations into what we may call separate species.

I don't know if there is any movement toward a new classification system that does not depend on a prototype. Perhaps Bug_Girl might know this.

I hear your summons......
Oddly enough, it is quite a mixed bag taxonomically. There is still an emphasis on a "holotype", or the ideal representative of a species.
However, with the advent of DNA technologies, this is now combined with the taking of samples from multiple specimens, for a combined morphological/biochemical/genetic description. Also, because sampling for enzymes and DNA is destructive, the individuals sampled are often NOT the holotype, and sometimes not paratypes.
It's all rather muddled.
It sounds to me like you guys could benefit from a discusson of cladistics and phylogeny--I swear we went over this once in the past....let me see if I can find that.....

(BTW, I only can comment on multicellular organisms. For Protists, Monerans, and all the other odds and ends, I have no idea what they are doing.)

 

[hammegk]

.... Please, hammegk, could you give one more try to elaboration? Perhaps an entire paragraph, so I don't have to attempt to read your mind? What is the example? What is the problem with it? Is it a problem recognised within the evolutionary biology community, or a strawman from the ID side? Please flesh out your bones here. I would much rather agree or disagree with you once I actually know what you are saying.

Would the statement: 'Some find the process of Evolution to be no more random (given its' incredible complexity) than is the periodic chart of atoms' help you to see my position?

As I've asked previously, how many "common ancestors" -- let's say one per abiogenesis event -- is the correct number?

 

[Mercutio]

It's only remarkable in the sense that virtually all scientists today operate within a certain Enlightenment-era materialism. Someone like Gauss, Fresnel, or Alexander Gurwitsch (discoverer of biophotonic radiation) are more in the Renaissance tradition that tends to deny materialism in favour of a kind of geometric approach. Thus, Darwinians can swim around in their fishbowl forever and never find the answer.

I would argue that scientists are merely being pragmatic. Where the evidence leads, they will follow--and rush to be the first and the best to explore the new territory.

Thus far, your belief that there must be something else there is based wholly on an argument from ignorance. You have concluded that natural selection alone cannot account for the evidence you see. All well and good, but then you posit "some principle of nature equivalent to magnetism or gravity or optics or what-have-you - that is being overlooked". You do this in the absence of any positive evidence for this overlooked something.

Find the first bit of positive evidence, and the pragmatic scientists will beat a path to your door. Until then, I don't think it is their ignorance that keeps them from holding your view.

 

[Mercutio]

Would the statement: 'Some find the process of Evolution to be no more random (given its' incredible complexity) than is the periodic chart of atoms' help you to see my position?

The process of evolution is not random. Natural selection imposes an order (based on reproductive success) on random variation.

I think the statement you give, if it helps me to see your position, shows me that your position misunderstands natural selection.

As I've asked previously, how many "common ancestors" -- let's say one per abiogenesis event -- is the correct number?

The correct number would, I think, be indicated by the appropriate evidence. To the best of my knowledge, the current surviving critters on the planet, when subjected to DNA analysis, can be traced to one common ancestor (I believe this is even the case for the steam-vent bacteria and such--but again, I defer to any evolutionary biologists with better information than I have). This does not mean, of course, that there was only one abiogenesis event. There could have been several, perhaps conditions at one point were fairly conducive to it. We have no fossil record of that time, so it may turn out to be literally impossible to know. Perhaps there were many competing lines, all killed off when that damned poisonous oxygen started being produced in serious quantities. All it took was for one strain to survive.

 

[Iacchus]

All it took was for one strain to survive.

As if that happened by chance? No.

 

[Mercutio]

As if that happened by chance? No.

Argument from ignorance noted.

Do you have any positive evidence to support your claim?

 

[hammegk]

The process of evolution is not random. [/B]

Here we have a semantic problem. What part of the environment that is/was available to impinge on a given lifeform at a given time is/was not "random chance"?

Conversely, feel free to aver that the formationand life-span of what we perceive as physical stuff -- quarks, leptons, etc -- is also "random".

 

[Iacchus]

Here we have a semantic problem.

Indeed, I was about to accuse someone of speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

 

[Mercutio]

Here we have a semantic problem. What part of the environment that is/was available to impinge on a given lifeform at a given time is/was not "random chance"?

At the level of analysis that you are speaking of here, you are correct. In that there was no guiding hand, blueprint, long-term goal, whatever, the interaction of the environment with any given organism is random. However, with the introduction of replication, we have a means by which to build on random successes. Whether in natural selection, individual operant learning, or scientific publication, the ability to build on what works is a potent tool.

Also, I doubt that even you will argue that one's environment is completely random. The very idea of an energy source to exploit (whether solar radiation or the chemical breakdown of matter) which is fairly stable (the sun's presence has been more or less a constant during our evolutionary history, I think you will agree) means that if an organism is capable of reproducing, and if its offspring are similar to their parent(s), then differential abilities to exploit that energy source will be selected for.

So, whether or not the existence of the sun itself is the result of random chance is irrelevant for the purposes of natural selection. What is important is that it has dumped energy into our system fairly consistently over the course of our evolutionary history. Over the appropriate time-span by which to analyze this, it is not random, but constant. And it is part of the environment which has impinged on the evolving populations.

 

[Mercutio]

Indeed, I was about to accuse someone of speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

And you'd have been wrong. Yet again. Go read some Dawkins and come back when you understand the material.

 

[Iacchus]

And you'd have been wrong. Yet again. Go read some Dawkins and come back when you understand the material.

Again, what you call random, is merely a result of a lack of understanding. So, does evolutionary change occur at random? Yes or no?

Let me give you just a little hint ...

The process of evolution is not random.

Could there be something I missed here?

 

[Iacchus]

So, whether or not the existence of the sun itself is the result of random chance is irrelevant for the purposes of natural selection.

Wow! And perhaps the sun just wooshed itself into place out of nowhere?

 

[wollery]

Wow! And perhaps the sun just wooshed itself into place out of nowhere?

No, it formed under gravity from a cloud of Hydrogen, Helium and a few traces of heavier elements.

How did you think it got there?

 

[Upchurch]

Wow! And perhaps the sun just wooshed itself into place out of nowhere?

Did you not understand what Merc just said?

 

[Iacchus]

Did you not understand what Merc just said?

What, in trying to sort through his double-speak?

 

[bug_girl]

Again, what you call random, is merely a result of a lack of understanding. So, does evolutionary change occur at random? Yes or no?

You are making the mistake of thinking there is only one mechanism by which evolution happens.
there are many.

natural selection is not random.
mutation and genetic drift are random.

All three are ways that genetic change can hapen--and genetic change -is- evolution.

 

[Iacchus]

No, it formed under gravity from a cloud of Hydrogen, Helium and a few traces of heavier elements.

How did you think it got there?

Well, I must admit, you know a bit more about it than I do ... at least in this respect.

 

[Iacchus]

mutation and genetic drift are random.

No, I believe you are speaking of the effects the environment has on change, which is still not random.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, I must admit, you know a bit more about it than I do ... at least in this respect.

At the risk of repeating myself...Go read up on it and come back when you know a bit about what you are saying. At this point, any competent high school science student knows a bit more about it than you do...at least in every respect.

 

[Mercutio]

Wow! And perhaps the sun just wooshed itself into place out of nowhere?

Suppose that it did. Would that make one iota of difference in my explanation? No. Suppose that it formed under gravity from a cloud of Hydrogen, Helium and a few traces of heavier elements. Would that matter? No. Suppose some god sneezed the sun out of his middle nostril. Would that make any difference? No.

There is positive evidence for the explanation wollery gave, which makes it a better explanation, but for the purposes of providing the energy which life exploits, it is irrelevant.

Which, as Upchurch implies, you should have understood if you had actually understood my post. If you honestly believe that I am engaging in "double-speak", please by all means point it out. I know that logic is not your strong point...nor evidence...nor consistency...hmmm....

Oh, and if you are going to correct bug_girl about her own scientific area, please have the courtesy to cite published papers supporting your notions. It would be, after all, the form she is accustomed to.