Whoa! Whoa! dhw take notice!!! (The limitations of science)

by David Turell , Monday, April 21, 2014, 05:42 (3868 days ago) @ xeno6696


> Matt: But we can point to the fact that we've never seen adaptation happen without an environmental cause. Just like we can point to the fact that the sun will rise tommorrow.-I don't know how you can claim that. A new predator is in a sense environmental but really a new organism on the block, to be fought with. New oganisms are new challenges. And how do you know that some species don't arrive de novo without a challenge?- 
 
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> This here is a problem for you because you desire to see a purpose for everything. Romansh's paper demonstrates that multicellularity *just happened.* -The yeast are sort of multicellular, as they are single celled bunched together. It is a simplistic form of some sort of multicellular beginning with a large stretch of imagination.
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> >And we still don't know how speciation is created, so your demonstration is wanting. Certain weird developments like mammals taking to water look like deliberate changes with n o obvious cause. 
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> Madtt: And if I recall, speciation happens when a subgroup can no longer create viable offspring with its parent group.-You are quoting pure speculation. 
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> Matt; Could you do better to explain what you mean by discrete jumps, because every time you bring this up, you always make me think you're talking about the fossil record, and the canned explanation "we don't have a fossil for every form in-between!"-I can parphrase Gould. The palentologist's guarded secret is that all we have got is the tips and nodes of branches of the trees.