Evolution (Evolution)
The discussion on knowledge, belief and agnosticism for some reason cut short a nascent discussion on evolution (see The Real Alternative to Design), and left me wanting more. But the more that I want comes down again to origins and beliefs. I have no problem at all believing in the principle of natural selection. I can quite see that a green caterpillar on a green leaf in a green forest will have a better chance of survival than a red, white and blue one. And I can quite see that a longer beak will be better than a shorter beak at grubbing insects out of nooks and crannies. That existing organs will gradually undergo improvements and refinements is well within my grasp of comprehension. But what eludes me is how organs originated. - "Mutations" is a great sounding word, and it makes the process sound simple: a couple of strands change places, and hey presto, you have the start of a new system. But when you go back to that first hereditary molecule and you look at what has "evolved" out of it, credibility (for me) is stretched way beyond breaking point. I don't want to go into the "designer" theory here ... that creates different but equally insoluble problems ... but only into the chance theory. Because I'm struggling to understand how people can have a belief, an inner conviction that unconscious matter by means of random change can create totally new, immensely complex machines out of but also within itself. - The problem in a nutshell is that I cannot convince myself that the following happened: chance brought together the ingredients to form a living, self-replicating molecule (abiogenesis). Chance then reshuffled the component parts in such a way that it created (even over millions of years) the brand new concepts and mechanisms of a nervous system with sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell; sexual reproduction; heart, blood, lungs; a digestive system with organs like liver, kidneys etc; limbs for locomotion; and a brain which eventually enabled matter to become conscious of itself (maybe the most astonishing advance of them all). Each one a new "invention", depending on new, random and functioning mutations. It all happened somehow, because here we are, and so there has to be an explanation, but whatever explanation you come up with beggars belief. And if it beggars belief, how do you believe in it?
Evolution
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Saturday, March 22, 2008, 16:52 (6088 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Because I'm struggling to understand how people can have a belief, an inner conviction that unconscious matter by means of random change can create totally new, immensely complex machines out of but also within itself. - Two points here. First I personally don't have an "inner conviction" about evolution. I have a fully conscious "outer conviction". I am convinced by Darwin's "one long argument", and by the enhancements made to it (principally genetics) over the last 150 years. It also satisfies me for aesthetic reasons in that it explains so much from so little, which is what good explanations do. - Second, possibly the incredulity you have arises because you have difficulty in divesting yourself of the athropomorphic or 'elan vital' way of thinking. You speak of "unconscious matter" that "can create" new things "within itself", as if it had a "self", was "conscious" and had a creative will or life force of it's own, urging it on to evolve. None of this is the case.
Evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, March 22, 2008, 17:12 (6088 days ago) @ dhw
" Each one a new "invention", depending on new, random and functioning mutations. It all happened somehow, because here we are, and so there has to be an explanation, but whatever explanation you come up with beggars belief. And if it beggars belief, how do you believe in it?" - I believe evolution occurred, because I accept that DNA/RNA is a very complex multi-layered coding system, filled with information, able to, at a simple level, manufacture strings of amino acids into protein molecules, but also construct a fetus into a living being. I don't accept that inorganic material could make a complex code of that magnitude. Imagine a rock or a pile of sand or even a mix of methane, nitrous oxide, hydroxide radicals, and some simple sulfur compound combining together and the mass of information pops up. The issue is information. Where did it come from? My answer is from intelligence. Only an intelligence can make a code.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, March 23, 2008, 12:26 (6087 days ago) @ David Turell
David Turell: The issue is information. Where did it come from? My answer is from intelligence. Only an intelligence can make a code. - But then where did the intelligence come from in the first place? Only evolution can make intelligence. Your argument is circular. - What is a "code" anyway in this context? It is just a correspondence. You could say that the elements of the periodic table are coded by the atomic number, which is the number of protons, or positive charges, in the nucleus. As fusion reactions occur under the extreme conditions within stars the higher elements are built up. - Why, in an analogous way, is it not possible to visualise components of cellular "machinery", in the form of complex organic molecules, being built up into more complex structures in a suitable environment?
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, March 23, 2008, 16:17 (6087 days ago) @ George Jelliss
George Jelliss: "What is a "code" anyway in this context? It is just a correspondence. You could say that the elements of the periodic table are coded by the atomic number, which is the number of protons, or positive charges, in the nucleus. As fusion reactions occur under the extreme conditions within stars the higher elements are built up. Why, in an analogous way, is it not possible to visualise components of cellular "machinery", in the form of complex organic molecules, being built up into more complex structures in a suitable environment?" - George, if I may address you this way, yes, it is perfectly possible to visualize a gradual build up of complex molecules. Fusion reactions are fairly straight forward. No where near as complex as making the first RNA or DNA. The real issue is whether it could possibly happen by chance. I believe it requires as much faith on your part to accept chance as I have developed on my part. DNA/RNA contains billions and billions of bits of information. David Foster, in "The Philosophic Scientists", 1985, estimated that DNA was equal to about 20,000 rather long books in English. Foster started by discussing the conclusions of the 1930's Cambridge Club lead by Sir Arthur Eddington. The Wistar Institute Symposium of 1967 had leading mathematicians conclude that, given the rate of mutation, there has not been enough time to get to where evolution is now. Many other mathematicians since then, David Berlinski to name just one, have reached the same conclusion. - Your view seems to require catalytic or enzymatic help in the process. And the huge leaps in the fossil record suggest something of the sort. No Darwinist has explained the Cambrian Explosion. My view has to prove a negative, which is very difficult to do, but the mathmatical odds against chance and the scientists failure over 70 years to developed any cogent theory of an origin of life support my view.
Evolution
My thanks to George Jelliss and David Turell for two interesting answers. - George thinks I have difficulty divesting myself of the "anthropomorphic or 'élan vital' way of thinking", speaking of matter as if it "had a 'self', was 'conscious' and had a creative will or life force of its own, urging it on to evolve. None of this is the case." - I agree totally that this is not the case, and that is precisely the problem. Since matter has no consciousness, no creative will, no urge to evolve, how could it spontaneously, randomly, accidentally transform itself in such a way that new, complex and functioning organs are created within it? Natural selection ... which I too find convincing and aesthetically pleasing ... works on what exists; it doesn't create anything new. It therefore provides no explanation. To believe in the creativity of random mutations requires absolute faith in unconscious chance to achieve wonders far beyond the scope of even our most brilliant inventors. - David's response takes us back to the very beginning, with an initial coding system that would allow for all these changes. "The issue is information. Where did it come from? My answer is from intelligence. Only an intelligence can make a code." The concept of an intelligence designing that initial self-replicating molecule with its hugely versatile programme, allowing for an infinite range of variations and developments, certainly gets rid of the need to trust in chance as an explanation of origins. Creation by mutation would be built into the programme. George asks: "Where did the intelligence come from in the first place? Only evolution can make intelligence. Your argument is circular." David is arguing for an outside intelligence (i.e. a deity), and George's statement ("Only evolution....") is simply atheist belief masquerading as fact. - However, George's question ("Where...?") is only one of many that arise from the intelligence theory. What is its nature? Is it still around? What is/was its motivation? And despite its explanatory value in relation to life on Earth, doesn't it simply replace one mystery with another which, if anything, is even further removed from our capability of knowing? How can one actually believe, with inner conviction (by which I mean emotionally as well as intellectually) in something so nebulous, so remote, so unfathomable? Religion offers answers, but they are so confused, fantastic and contradictory that they require the same irrational faith needed by those who believe in chance.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, March 24, 2008, 15:24 (6086 days ago) @ dhw
"However, George's question ("Where...?") is only one of many that arise from the intelligence theory. What is its nature? Is it still around? What is/was its motivation? And despite its explanatory value in relation to life on Earth, doesn't it simply replace one mystery with another which, if anything, is even further removed from our capability of knowing? How can one actually believe, with inner conviction (by which I mean emotionally as well as intellectually) in something so nebulous, so remote, so unfathomable? Religion offers answers, but they are so confused, fantastic and contradictory that they require the same irrational faith needed by those who believe in chance." - My response to dhw first starts with a deliberate avoidance of any religious stories or concepts. Start with what we know scientifically: life appeared, evolution happened and consciousness was the final supreme step, so far. Sentient beings could now ponder the universe. All of this came from inorganic matter and the energy that makes matter. But basic energies are quanta, and there is an area of quantum existence that is hidden from us. It is my conclusion that a universal intelligence is part of the universe and lies in that unknowable area, probably within and without the universe. That makes me a panentheist. Einstein and Spinoza generally thought like I do now, but I was unaware of their thought patterns until I arrived at my conclusion, and then did the research to see where I stood in relation to philosophic thought, having had no formal training in philosophy. In doing all this, I followed the precepts of Mortimer J. Adler, reach conclusions when the evidence takes you "beyond reasonable doubt". All of the material I have studied from many deeply thinking authors lead me to my current position, but like Antony Flew, I will still follow the evidence with an open mind. Philosophically, I find I am a realist, I guess because of my medical scientific background. Thoughts like Berkeley Idealism are foreign to me, but my thanks to whitecraw for pointing it out. I looked it up and learned about one philosopher and his 'contribution', whatever it is worth.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 13:10 (6084 days ago) @ David Turell
David wrote: /// George, if I may address you this way, yes, it is perfectly possible to visualize a gradual build up of complex molecules. Fusion reactions are fairly straight forward. No where near as complex as making the first RNA or DNA. The real issue is whether it could possibly happen by chance. I believe it requires as much faith on your part to accept chance as I have developed on my part. DNA/RNA contains billions and billions of bits of information. David Foster, in "The Philosophic Scientists", 1985, estimated that DNA was equal to about 20,000 rather long books in English. Foster started by discussing the conclusions of the 1930's Cambridge Club lead by Sir Arthur Eddington. The Wistar Institute Symposium of 1967 had leading mathematicians conclude that, given the rate of mutation, there has not been enough time to get to where evolution is now. Many other mathematicians since then, David Berlinski to name just one, have reached the same conclusion. /// - Not being familiar with any of the works quoted I delayed replying before checking them out. There is a review of Foster's work here: - http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho15.htm - Quote: The problem with Foster's calculation is that he assumes that (1) the whole protein must be created in one step out of nothing, and (2) that the total sequence is unique and has no repeated units and (3) that each amino acid is specific and irreplaceable. These assumptions are wrong. - The Wistar Institute Symposium was a gathering of "Intelligent Design" proponents, adversely reviewed here: - http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/02/id-intelligent.html - David Berlinski is a fellow of the Discovery Institute, another bastion of "Intelligent Design" creationists. - Other creationists argue, on the opposite tack, that mutation rates are too fast! As here: - http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htm - I am grateful to several BCSE members, more knowledgeable than myself, for help in elucidating these issues.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 15:50 (6084 days ago) @ George Jelliss
George: The only reason I quoted Foster was to give an reasoned estimate of the amount information in DNA. There is probably more than the estimate given, considering the current research. I am aware of the errors in Foster. The Wistar Institute is a part of the U. of Pennsylvania and is independent of "Intelligent Design", a term that did not exist to my knowledge in 1967. The mathematics presented impressed Ernst Mayr who said, and I paraphrase, "we needn't be concerned, we know evolution occurred". I know evolution occurred, I am only questioning the method. I don't believe Darwin's theory. I have a copy of the Wistar Symposium so I know the Mayr comment. Berlinski was invited to join the Discovery Institute after presenting many mathematical objections to Darwin. I have read a number of his papers. I suggest you search out original sources rather than judge opinions thru the filter of Darwinist websites. That is the only way to make a judgement based on rival opinions.
Evolution; chicken mutation rates
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 00:19 (3313 days ago) @ George Jelliss
The mutation rate in chickens seems faster than thought:-http://phys.org/news/2015-10-chicken-reveals-evolution-faster-thought.html-"A new study of chickens overturns the popular assumption that evolution is only visible over long time scales. By studying individual chickens that were part of a long-term pedigree, the scientists led by Professor Greger Larson at Oxford University's Research Laboratory for Archaeology, found two mutations that had occurred in the mitochondrial genomes of the birds in only 50 years. For a long time scientists have believed that the rate of change in the mitochondrial genome was never faster than about 2% per million years. The identification of these mutations shows that the rate of evolution in this pedigree is in fact 15 times faster. In addition, by determining the genetic sequences along the pedigree, the team also discovered a single instance of mitochondrial DNA being passed down from a father. This is a surprising discovery, showing that so-called 'paternal leakage' is not as rare as previously believed. -"Using a well-documented 50-year pedigree of a population of White Plymouth Rock chickens developed at Virginia Tech by Professor Paul Siegel, the researchers reconstructed how the mitochondrial DNA passed from mothers to daughters within the population. They did this by analysing DNA from the blood samples of 12 chickens of the same generation using the most distantly related maternal lines, knowing that the base population had started from seven partially inbred lines. A selective mating approach within the population started in 1957, resulting in what is now an over tenfold difference in the size of the chickens in the two groups when weighed at 56 days old.-"Senior author Professor Larson said: "Our observations reveal that evolution is always moving quickly but we tend not to see it because we typically measure it over longer time periods. Our study shows that evolution can move much faster in the short term than we had believed from fossil-based estimates. Previously, estimates put the rate of change in a mitochondrial genome at about 2% per million years. At this pace, we should not have been able to spot a single mutation in just 50 years, but in fact we spotted two.'"-Comment: Still no speciation. Still the same chickens with 'surprise' mutations. Note the growth in size is due to selective breeding, not evolution.
Evolution; chicken mutation rates
DAVID: The mutation rate in chickens seems faster than thought:-http://phys.org/news/2015-10-chicken-reveals-evolution-faster-thought.html-David's comment: Still no speciation. Still the same chickens with 'surprise' mutations. Note the growth in size is due to selective breeding, not evolution.-Thank you for this very important comment. The article doesn't set out to prove common descent, so what follows is not directed at the article itself but is meant as a general observation to elaborate on your comment. Scientists often point to minor changes and adaptations that leave species intact, and tell us this is evolution at work. They are right, but they gloss over the real problem, which is innovation: not how we get different types of chicken, but how we get chickens, snakes, elephants, mosquitoes, dinosaurs and humans from the single cells with which the whole process began. Innovation as such has not been observed during the modern age, and remains unexplained, and although I am a firm believer that evolution happened, it is another common kind of misrepresentation (often inadvertent, I'm sure), as if one can take the part as representative of the whole.
Evolution; chicken mutation rates
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 17:06 (3312 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:Innovation as such has not been observed during the modern age, and remains unexplained, and although I am a firm believer that evolution happened, it is another common kind of misrepresentation (often inadvertent, I'm sure), as if one can take the part as representative of the whole.-Until we understand speciation, the underlying method of evolution remains unknown.
Evolution
by Kyuuketsuki , Kent, UK, Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 20:58 (6085 days ago) @ dhw
"Atheists, sometimes unwittingly, place their faith in the ability of chance to generate a mechanism that we can still scarcely comprehend." - This was said on the very first page of this site and I have to point out that, whilst evolution has randomness as a means of generating mutations it is not a theory of chance ... that is only one part of the theory. - To quote Richard Dawkins, "It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism was really a theory of chance, it could not work."
Evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 23:13 (6085 days ago) @ Kyuuketsuki
"whilst evolution has randomness as a means of generating mutations it is not a theory of chance ... that is only one part of the theory. > > To quote Richard Dawkins, "It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism was really a theory of chance, it could not work." - Quoting Dawkins doesn't help me understand how Darwinism is not a passive theory: chance mutations, that's what 'randomness' means, and then a chance to see if natural selection will select you. I know it is all supposed to be purposeless, which means 'chance' to me. - Darwin was working in a time of great ignorance, compared to now, when we see and barely understand the very complex machinery of a single cell. My belief is if Darwin could have lived 'til now he would have repudiated his own theory as presented.
Evolution
Kyuuketsuki quotes me: "Atheists, sometimes unwittingly, place their faith in the ability of chance to generate a mechanism that we can still scarcely comprehend." K. comments: "Whilst evolution has randomness as a means of generating mutations it is not a theory of chance...that is only one part of the theory." - You are quite right. The other part of the theory of evolution is natural selection, which does not depend on chance at all. However, there are two points that some atheists overlook ... perhaps yourself included, though I don't know what your beliefs/disbeliefs are. Firstly, natural selection works on existing material. It doesn't generate anything. Secondly, the mechanism of evolution depends on the original life form containing within itself the ability to reproduce, mutate, adapt, and pass on its mutations and adaptations. Atheists believe that the original life form (which Dawkins calls "the first hereditary molecule") came about by chance, and so they have faith in the ability of chance to generate a mechanism that we can still scarcely comprehend.
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, March 30, 2008, 18:41 (6080 days ago) @ dhw
dhw says: " The other part of the theory of evolution is natural selection, which does not depend on chance at all. However, there are two points that some atheists overlook ... perhaps yourself included, though I don't know what your beliefs/disbeliefs are. Firstly, natural selection works on existing material. It doesn't generate anything." - I thoroughly disagree. Natural selection is not magical and is totally passive. It does depend on chance in 'working on existing material'. I suggest reading David Raup, "Extinction; Bad Genes or Good Luck", 1991, in which he makes the point that many magnificently 'fit' organisms were done in by bad luck. Pity the poor dinosaurs! And how about 250 million years of trilobites, and their mysterious disappearance? The comment that we know who the 'fittest' are because of their survival is circular reasoning, and out the window, based on his book.
Evolution
Randomness is certainly a factor in evolution, but there are also non-random evolutionary mechanisms. Random mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation in nature (as opposed to the laboratory). However natural selection, the process by which some variants survive and others do not, is not random but is determined by the environment in which the competition among individuals to survive and reproduce takes place. - For example, individuals within populations of some aquatic animals are more likely to survive and reproduce if they can move more quickly than their fellows through water. Speed helps them to capture prey and to escape danger. Given this situation, individuals with more streamlined bodies are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less streamlined bodies. Individuals that survive and reproduce better in their environment will tend to have more offspring (displaying the same traits) in the next generation. Natural selection, unlike mutations in DNA sequences, which occur entirely by accident in nature and according to no rule or method but entirely by mistake, is thus a non-random process. To say that evolution happens 'by chance' ignores half the picture.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, March 31, 2008, 02:27 (6080 days ago) @ whitecraw
Whitecraw stated: "Natural selection, unlike mutations in DNA sequences, which occur entirely by accident in nature and according to no rule or method but entirely by mistake, is thus a non-random process. To say that evolution happens 'by chance' ignores half the picture." - I'm afraid I disagree. Any competition that has participants chosen by chance or at random is not a top rate competition, in any area. The problem is presented by my comments on Haldane's Dilemma in the "Quote from Darwin" thread, dated 3/29/08. Since beneficial mutations are in a minority, individuals in a species may survive, but survival of the species may be in doubt because the quality of the individuals presented for 'selection' may actually decline over time. Natural Selection is a competition it is true, but unless top-notch competitors appear, the species may disappear. And there is no guarantee from random mutation, that top-notch organisms will be there to compete. No capitalist corporation would chose its upper officers by a method that has its board pick from candidates that had never been evaluated prior to their presentation. That would be asking for chaos. What is amazing is that evolution has proceeded from simple to complex despite the passivity of the process. Remember 99% of species are extinct.
Evolution
David Turell "thoroughly disagrees" with my statement that natural selection does not depend on chance. Whitecraw agrees with me. - In fact, I don't think there is any real disagreement at all between us, but simply a problem of how far back we go in the chain of events. In my response to Kyuuketsuki I divided evolution into two factors: random mutation (chance) and natural selection (not chance). I take natural selection to mean the survival of those organisms best suited to cope with their environment. I took the third factor ... the environment ... for granted, but perhaps I should have added that the environment may also change by chance. Of course the three factors are interdependent, so David is right, but natural selection only comes into operation once the chance factors are in place, and then it works logically and not randomly, so whitecraw and I are also right. - David mentions the extinction of the dinosaurs and the trilobites. It is widely assumed that the dinosaurs (along with countless other species) were wiped out by a meteor. That was "bad luck" as David says, but in terms of our three evolutionary factors, it meant that dinosaurs were no longer suited to cope with their environment. Whether trilobites died out because of a meteor, climate change, an increase in predators etc. we don't know, but the same process applies: chance changes are followed by non-chance consequences. The current worry over the health of bees may serve as an illustration. The disease may have struck by chance, but the consequences will not be random: those plants dependent on bees will die out, insects dependent on those plants will die out, and everything else along the food chain will be in trouble. Let's hope it won't happen.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, March 31, 2008, 16:26 (6079 days ago) @ dhw
Without quoting from dhw, I wish to note that he avoided the point I alluded to that evolution appears to move in the direction of more complexity by developing more superior organisms. Considering the chance development of variation from chance mutation, and the fact that beneficial mutations are roughly only 1/3 of all mutations, I still don't understand why evolution (using the Darwin mechanisms, including natural selection) accomplished that directionality. To me the Darwin Theory is primarily a passive Theory, despite the activity of competition in Natural Selection. The explanation might lie in current research in the DNA/RNA mechanism which shows that certain RNA's increase complexity by exerting control of networks of gene expression. But this now brings up another issue I have mentioned. There is an enormous amount of information coded into this mechanism. Watson-Crick DNA code for amino acids is child's play compared to what must really undlie the whole process.
Evolution
'Since beneficial mutations are in a minority, individuals in a species may survive, but survival of the species may be in doubt because the quality of the individuals presented for 'selection' may actually decline over time. Natural Selection is a competition it is true, but unless top-notch competitors appear, the species may disappear. And there is no guarantee from random mutation, that top-notch organisms will be there to compete. No capitalist corporation would chose its upper officers by a method that has its board pick from candidates that had never been evaluated prior to their presentation. That would be asking for chaos. What is amazing is that evolution has proceeded from simple to complex despite the passivity of the process. Remember 99% of species are extinct.' - This is all true. But it assumes: a) that the competition for survival, which determines which individuals within a population survive to pass on their characteristics to subsequent generations, is a 'top-notch' competition; and b) that natural selection is a progressive or directional process, proceeding from simple to complex. Both of these assumptions are false. - a) The survival of a species is always in doubt, since the 'quality' of the individuals that make up its populations is always relative to the conditions of life that obtain at any time. 'Top-notch' competitors in one environment can quickly become lame ducks when that environment changes, and vice versa. Darker coloured variants within a species of moth might be advantaged in the competition for survival over lighter coloured variants in a sooty environment, since they are less conspicuous to predators; but take away the dark satanic mills and the lighter coloured variants will suddenly gain the upper hand. In other words, there are no such things as 'beneficial' and 'deleterious' variations in any sort of absolute sense; there are only qualitatively neutral variations which either 'fit' variant individuals to the fickle conditions of life that obtain or not, and which sometimes do and sometimes don't. - b) The random mutations that occur all the time in DNA sequences and give rise the tremendous fecundity of variation within species do not indeed guarantee progressive evolution and, in particular, evolution in the direction of greater complexity. But evolution is not a progressive process. It does not proceed in any particular direction or towards any particular end, let alone in the direction/towards the end of greater complexity. Species do indeed disappear as a result of environmental changes for which they are not 'fitted' in any of the individual variations they encompass in their classification; but species of complex organisms are just as susceptible to extinction as species of simple organisms. Indeed, in this respect, it is species of simpler organisms that are more resilient and thus must be judged more successful in evolutionary terms, for no other reason than that they have been around the longest. In purely evolutionary terms, it's survival that is the gold standard, and not complexity or intelligence or consciousness; and in evolutionary history, it is the simplest organisms that have proven themselves to be the greatest survivors, which gives them the greatest claim to being top of the evolutionary league. I bet that long, long after we become extinct following our brief efflorescence as a special life-form, there will still be thread-like tubes having sex in the darkness of the ocean floor, just as there were long, long before even the first sponge ... now that's an evolutionary success story.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 02, 2008, 02:46 (6078 days ago) @ whitecraw
" I bet that long, long after we become extinct following our brief efflorescence as a special life-form, there will still be thread-like tubes having sex in the darkness of the ocean floor, just as there were long, long before even the first sponge ... now that's an evolutionary success story." - I really enjoyed that final statement, but I feel Whitecraw misses the point I am trying to establish. I agree that individuals in a species can adapt; moths, finches, guppies all have their own stories of adaptation. My point is that all that Darwin has established is that species respond to challenges in nature. Some fail and some survive, but there is nothing in the fossil record to show that an earlier species changes into a later one. The gaps in the fossil record are huge. Yes there are transitional forms, but never the step by step approach Darwin calls for. Darwin does not explain the Cambrian Explosion, The Plant Bloom, or the earlier Avalon explosion of Ediacarans. So you can remind me about the moths that I know about, but it proves nothing. AT THIS POINT IN RESEARCH NO ONE KNOWS HOW EVOLUTION WENT FROM SIMPLE FORMS TO VERY COMPLEX.
Evolution
'My point is that all that Darwin has established is that species respond to challenges in nature.' - No they don't. That would have been something like Lamarck's position. All that Darwin established was a theory that explains in non-teleological terms how properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual change through time. According to Darwinian theory properly understood, such changes do not take place in response to the challenges of nature; they take place as a result of the competition between variant individuals for survival in a given environment, with those individuals whose physical variations disadvantage them in that competition being less successful reproductively than others who are not so disadvantaged, with the further consequence that those disadvantageous variations tend to die out of the population. What is 'disadvantageous' is of course relative to the environment in which the competition to survive and reproduce takes place; so that environmental changes, as well as random mutation in DNA sequences, impact on which variations are 'selected' over others and can indeed accelerate the process of change. But the point is that the process of change is driven by purely natural events, and there is no need (if the theory works) to postulate any non-natural agency in seeking an explanation of that process. - 'Some fail and some survive, but there is nothing in the fossil record to show that an earlier species changes into a later one. The gaps in the fossil record are huge. Yes there are transitional forms, but never the step by step approach Darwin calls for. Darwin does not explain the Cambrian Explosion, The Plant Bloom, or the earlier Avalon explosion of Ediacarans.' - There are indeed huge gaps in the fossil record. That's the nature of the evidence. But the job of Darwin's theory is to explain what evidence there is. What the fossil evidence shows is that the properties of populations of organisms change through time. Species appear and disappear. What Darwin's theory does is propose an explanation of how this change occurs. That explanation isn't falsified by whatever evidence there is, it is more economical than any alternative theory that has so far been proposed (all it needs for its explanation to work is variation, differential reproduction, and heredity), and it has great heuristic value in that it has generated a whole host of further problems that require ongoing investigation and research. All told, it's a damned good theory as scientific theories go. - 'AT THIS POINT IN RESEARCH NO ONE KNOWS HOW EVOLUTION WENT FROM SIMPLE FORMS TO VERY COMPLEX.' - It's a bit of an urban myth that 'evolution went from simple forms to very complex' forms. This myth even has a name in evolutionary science: it's called the 'ladder of progress' myth. Evolutionary scientists point out that evolution doesn't move in any direction. Certainly, random mutations in DNA sequences have resulted in the appearance over time of more and more complex physical structures, and these properties have survived within populations where they have not at any point in their growth been positively disadvantageous to their bearers. But there is no inexorable ascent or tendency to greater complexity. It is true that individuals that are unfit in a particular situation are 'weeded out' by natural selection; but 'good enough' is good enough. For example, many taxa have changed relatively little over great expanses of time; and the most successful life-forms, in terms of 'survivability', are the simplest. Life is not marching up a ladder of progress. Rather, if it is fit enough to survive and reproduce in whatever form it takes, complex or simple, that's all that's necessary to ensure it continues. Other taxa may have changed and diversified a great deal, and grown increasingly complex. But that doesn't mean they became 'better'. What works 'better' in one environmental context might not work so well in another. Survivability is linked to environment, not complexity.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 02, 2008, 18:32 (6077 days ago) @ whitecraw
" But the point is that the process of change is driven by purely natural events, and there is no need (if the theory works) to postulate any non-natural agency in seeking an explanation of that process." I accept the proviso, 'if the theory works'. - "That explanation isn't falsified by whatever evidence there is, it is more economical than any alternative theory that has so far been proposed (all it needs for its explanation to work is variation, differential reproduction, and heredity), and it has great heuristic value in that it has generated a whole host of further problems that require ongoing investigation and research. All told, it's a damned good theory as scientific theories go." 'Economy of a theory' is an interesting concept. Occam would applaud, but that doesn't mean that it really explains anything. It is a very educated guess as to how one species 'might' become another, and has not shown any sign of proof so far. "It's a bit of an urban myth that 'evolution went from simple forms to very complex' forms." - London went from a tiny Roman colony to a hugh metropolis. Is that an urban myth? The evidence is that evolution proceeded from very simple to very complex for no good reason as based on the passivity of the Darwin Theory.
Evolution
'"Economy of a theory" is an interesting concept. Occam would applaud, but that doesn't mean that it really explains anything. It is a very educated guess as to how one species "might" become another, and has not shown any sign of proof so far.' - Well, like it or not, economy is one of the criteria by which the relative merits of rival scientific theories are evaluated. Explanatory power is another. Scientific theories (unlike mathematical and logical theorems) are not susceptible to proof. - This hasn't always been the case. In the good old days, the only issue was whether or not a theory is true; and the only problem was how this could be determined. But by the early 20th century, comparative evaluation of scientific theories became an increasingly important issue for working theoretical scientists. The 20th century saw the development of a number of new scientific theories with unexpected characteristics, which broke ontologically and methodologically with earlier theories and which revealed just how problematic the determination of the truth-value of a theory is. This was most notable in the case in physics. - In part as a consequence of the perceived methodological and ontological breaks between theories, a number of relativistic theses arose within the science. On the one hand, the variation in the content of scientific theories in the history of science led to the denial of scientific realism, and even of the progress of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, given the variation of the norms of scientific method, it was denied that there may be any rational grounds for the judgement that one theory is objectively better than another. A number of different approaches were proposed in response to these radically sceptical theses, and these approaches lead to non-foundationalist and non-realist accounts of scientific methodology. The debate about these issues continues to be very lively. - Basically, during the course of the 20th century, the pre-modern 'naïve realist' or 'intellectualist' view of scientific theory (that it strives to represent faithfully in ideas the way things 'really' are, quite apart from and independent of the linguistic resources we employ in making that representation) was superseded by a succession of more 'functional' views, which generally hold that scientific theories are technological devices that help us make our way in the world, and that their 'truth' resides in their usefulness rather than in their correspondence to objective reality, the measurement of which correspondence is problematic. - The bottom line is that the best of a bunch of rival theories is nowadays the one which: - a)	is falsifiable, but which has not yet been falsified by experiment; b)	can account for everything it is proposed to account for ... i.e. 'works'; c)	has the potential to account for other things besides; d)	is the simplest (in conceptual terms) of the range of theories available; e)	generates further problems and, with them, ongoing programmes of research. - 'The evidence is that evolution proceeded from very simple to very complex for no good reason as based on the passivity of the Darwin Theory.' - I'll refrain from pointing out for a third time the erroneous nature of the assumption that evolution is progressive.
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, April 03, 2008, 16:03 (6076 days ago) @ whitecraw
" The bottom line is that the best of a bunch of rival theories is nowadays the one which: > > a)	is falsifiable, but which has not yet been falsified by experiment; > b)	can account for everything it is proposed to account for ... i.e. 'works'; > c)	has the potential to account for other things besides; > d)	is the simplest (in conceptual terms) of the range of theories available; > e)	generates further problems and, with them, ongoing programmes of research. > - > > I'll refrain from pointing out for a third time the erroneous nature of the assumption that evolution is progressive." - Whitecraw's view seems to make evolutionary 'progress' an illusion or accidental in its appearance. As I am still convinced that evolution shows directionality, I can refer to two differing competing theories of evolution by Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris. Gould declared that humans are a "glorious accident', and paraphrasing him, said that evolution was a series of congencies and that if the tape of evolution were re-run it was very unlikely that humans would show up again. In his defense, he based this on the Burgess Shale findings only with only one vertebrate animal, a fish. And his view, using his theory of repetative contingency, is reasonable. The odds mathematically are enormous against humans appearing. On the other hand Simon Conway Morris has done much more research on Chinese shale and has found a number of differing fish in the Cambrian Explosion. There is not a single line of contingency, but multiple lines of convergence, and Conway Morris states that humans are 'inevitable'. That certainly does reduce the odds for humans appearing. I think Gould jumped to his conclusion, and that Conway Morris appears to have the proper theory at the moment based on his discoveries. This conflict fits Whitecraw's discussion of what is scientific truth , at least for this moment in time.
Evolution
An admirable example of rival theories, and it would be interesting to examine their respective merits along with Dawkins' and Dennett's adaptionism (the assumption that all or most traits are optimal adaptations ... Gould calls this sort of view the 'Panglossian paradigm' ... which lends evolution its supposed directionality or progressiveness) and Gould's 'spandrelism' (the observation that, contra-adaptionism, many physical traits evolve coincidentally to those favoured by natural selection). - I heard Morris at last year's Gifford Lectures; and he seems to believe that the palaeontological evidence can only be satisfactorily explained on the assumption of an inevitability to evolutionary history that the theory of evolution by natural selection denies. The implication that he draws from this is that we can only explain the evolution of human beings and intelligence on the assumption that it is towards this end-point that evolutionary history 'converges'; which is a version of the anthropic principle, and restores us to the pinnacle of creation. - Whether or not evolutionary change can be explained without the assumption of 'convergence' is, of course, a moot point and one which evolutionary scientists have yet to settle. Therefore I remain agnostic on the matter. But, during Morris' Gifford Lectures, I was reminded of the classic problem with the doctrine of predestination generally, whether in its religious or secular forms. It is essentially retrospective. Prospectively, however, the future course of history is indeterminate. Wandering aimlessly in the hills, I can stop and look back on the route I have taken and see how it inevitably leads to where I stand. But that does not make my wandering any less aimless. Retrospectively, it may seem that evolution has inevitably led to us; but it will hardly end with us, and prospectively who can tell what future changes there will be in the physical properties of populations of organisms? In hindsight, history may appear an inexorable march to where we happen to be, but as it unfolds the story is literally unpredictable.
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, April 04, 2008, 02:53 (6076 days ago) @ whitecraw
" But, during Morris' Gifford Lectures, I was reminded of the classic problem with the doctrine of predestination generally, whether in its religious or secular forms. It is essentially retrospective. Prospectively, however, the future course of history is indeterminate. Wandering aimlessly in the hills, I can stop and look back on the route I have taken and see how it inevitably leads to where I stand. But that does not make my wandering any less aimless. Retrospectively, it may seem that evolution has inevitably led to us; but it will hardly end with us, and prospectively who can tell what future changes there will be in the physical properties of populations of organisms? In hindsight, history may appear an inexorable march to where we happen to be, but as it unfolds the story is literally unpredictable." - I envy whitecraw's chance to be at a lecture with Morris, but I don't view the evolutionary process (joining with Morris) as aimless, as whitecraw does. But certainly the future is unpredictable, although I am aware vaguely of a book that predicts evolution ends with us. Unless we blow ourselves up in atomic war, I doubt that comment.
Evolution joke
by Cary Cook , Monday, May 26, 2008, 00:27 (6024 days ago) @ dhw
If you didn't see the 1998 movie, COLORS, with Robert Duvall & Sean Penn, this joke will make no sense to you. - These two amino acids were swimming around in the primordial soup one day. Younger amino acid looks down and says, "Wow! Free electrons! Let's run down there and eat one of them." Older amino acid says, "No son. Let's get organized, and eat 'em all."
Evolution joke
by Neil , Monday, May 26, 2008, 17:14 (6023 days ago) @ Cary Cook
Reminds of of the joke about two bulls at the top of the field looking down on a herd of cows. The younger says to the older lets run down the hill and have our wicked way with one of those cows, the older says, no son, lets walk and have our wicked way with all of them.... - Not really related to the discussion, but couldn't resist..... - Neil Web Site Co-ordinator
Evolution joke
by David Turell , Monday, May 26, 2008, 17:24 (6023 days ago) @ Neil
For this Texan, that is a very, very old joke, but it sure fits the earlier one.
Evolution joke
by Cary Cook , Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 00:25 (6023 days ago) @ Neil
Right. That's the joke I was referring to in the movie, Colors.
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, November 09, 2008, 16:04 (5856 days ago) @ dhw
I have found a wonderful essay found in Metanexus Spiral by Neil Broom, Professor of Material Sciences at U. Auckland, N.Z. Here is a bone fide scientist to please Carl especially, whose very literate discussion exceeds any of my abilities to suggest that mere chance cannot explain evolution: http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10438/Default.aspx I enjoyed the way he demolishes Dawkins and Dennett. Computer models are only as good as the programmer, proving nothing.
Evolution
David's link was a bit long for me to read in detail, but it seemed to have two main points. One is that Dawkins is a dipstick, which I will not argue with. The other is the unending quest by ID proponents to show that life is so complicated that a miracle must have occurred. The last point gets to the question of plausibility. And what David finds plausible is different from what George would find plausible. The likelihood of physical evidence strong enough to persuade either party to abandon their position is small.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, November 10, 2008, 18:56 (5855 days ago) @ Carl
Read my book. The evidence in it convinced me.
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, January 11, 2009, 14:35 (5793 days ago) @ David Turell
George will be pleased at the latest lab results following the theory of an RNA world preceding the DNA world. Intelligent scientists have found an RNAzyme that will accurately replicate itself. Of course they used rather complicated organic molecules, and cannot answer the question of how they might have risen from an inorganic world. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090109173205.htm
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, January 11, 2009, 16:31 (5793 days ago) @ David Turell
This is indeed fascinating - Quote from the article: The replicating system actually involves two enzymes, each composed of two subunits and each functioning as a catalyst that assembles the other. The replication process is cyclic, in that the first enzyme binds the two subunits that comprise the second enzyme and joins them to make a new copy of the second enzyme; while the second enzyme similarly binds and joins the two subunits that comprise the first enzyme. In this way the two enzymes assemble each other — what is termed cross-replication. To make the process proceed indefinitely requires only a small starting amount of the two enzymes and a steady supply of the subunits. - Is this chance or law? It looks quite mechanical to me.
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, January 11, 2009, 17:03 (5793 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> Is this chance or law? It looks quite mechanical to me. - This is the first article I have seen in five years with this kind of an advance. The previous work found an RNAzyme that replicated with 95% accuracy, totally unsatisfactory for the theory. My problem in thinking about this as an encouraging sign for an RNA world theory is that it takes two molecules, very complex organic molecules, that have to form in steps from inorganic material and then find each other in order to work together. I come back to probability odds against this by chance. But as Stuart Kauffman contends, perhaps self-organization is built in by law.
Evolution
David and George have been corresponding about the latest lab results "following the theory of an RNA world preceding the DNA world." - George comments: "Is this chance or law? It looks quite mechanical to me." David comments: "Of course they used rather complicated organic molecules, and cannot answer the question of how they might have risen from an inorganic world." - If I may follow on from these remarks, it seems to me that our use of language constantly reduces the colossal scale of realities we are asked to believe in. "Chance or law", "mechanical" ... such words bring the matter within our grasp. "Ribonucleic acid", "deoxyribonucleic acid" sound complex, but nicely scientific and unified ... again, a graspable concept. In the same way, "God" enables people to make a conceivable unit out of something absolutely unimaginable. - Can we for a moment dispense with such language and instead imagine a scenario. I am a living, conscious, fairly intelligent being. You have put me in a vast laboratory with all the ingredients necessary to create life and reproduction (the two are inseparable if life is to go on). But you have also given me lots of other ingredients that are irrelevant. So there I am, with all I need. I just have to select which thingummies to put together, and there will be life and reproduction. - I am not, however, a scientist. I am ignorant of science. I don't know which material is which. I don't know which of the thingummies are needed, let alone how to put them together. There is no-one to teach me. And there is a vast variety of thingummies, and an infinite number of possible combinations. Would you be prepared to bet that one day I, dhw, non-scientist and ignoramus, would find the right materials and the right combination to create life and reproduction? - The laboratory, of course, is the Earth. But if I follow the atheist line of thinking, I am not there. There is not even a living, conscious, highly intelligent scientist there. There is nobody there at all. Only the ingredients, and they know nothing. They may be blown around in the wind or swirled around in the water, but no-one is trying to put them together. - Here, then, is my personal situation: I do not believe that, left in my ignorance even for billions of years, I would ever be able to select and combine the ingredients and thereby create life and reproduction (not to mention, in due course, sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, consciousness). How, then, can I believe that a non-living, non-conscious, non-intelligent mass of materials, which don't even know there is such a thing as life, reproduction etc., could float round the otherwise empty laboratory to find the combination I don't think I could ever find? - That is one reason why I am not an atheist. But please don't argue that this makes me a theist. A non-belief in (a) does not lead to a belief in (b). You need much more than a negative to lead you to a positive.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 00:01 (5791 days ago) @ dhw
I would love to see the Darwinist answer to this article: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/1/24.full.pdf+html The advance of evolution by chance mutation and natural selection should be rather slow and steady. 'Punctuated Equilibrium' is a wonderful name for it, but just a worthless name
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 02:29 (5791 days ago) @ dhw
That is one reason why I am not an atheist. But please don't argue that this makes me a theist. A non-belief in (a) does not lead to a belief in (b). You need much more than a negative to lead you to a positive. - But what you have described is a very positive scenario. The only way life could have started as you describe the situation is by intelligent guidance. That is what your whole supposition is requesting. With what we now know life is exceedingly more complicated than Darwin imagined. And his theory starts only if there is life to work with. His theory never tried to describe how life started. The Darwinists have attempted to use it in that area of research, and so far nothing they have tried in the lab has worked. They are no further ahead than 60 years ago. And one of their own, Robert Shapiro, says the RNA world is the wrong approach. He has described as a theoretical starting point an energy producing cycle of inorganic molecules. At least he understands the great unlikelihood of an immediate jump from inorganic to organic.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 09:18 (5789 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: Can we for a moment /// imagine a scenario. I am a living, conscious, fairly intelligent being. You have put me in a vast laboratory with all the ingredients necessary to create life and reproduction (the two are inseparable if life is to go on). But you have also given me lots of other ingredients that are irrelevant. So there I am, with all I need. I just have to select which thingummies to put together, and there will be life and reproduction. > > I am not, however, a scientist. I am ignorant of science. I don't know which material is which. I don't know which of the thingummies are needed, let alone how to put them together. There is no-one to teach me. And there is a vast variety of thingummies, and an infinite number of possible combinations. Would you be prepared to bet that one day I, dhw, non-scientist and ignoramus, would find the right materials and the right combination to create life and reproduction? - The main problem with this scenario is that you work in a limited, linear manner. You envisage yourself putting the "thingummies" together one at a time. Nature on the other hand conducts what I think is called "parallel processing". In nature many things can be happening at the same time in lots of different places and under many different conditions. - Also, the number of combinations is not in fact truly "infinite". Combinatorics can lead to very large numbers, but the result is not a mathematical infinity unless you start with an infinity to begin with. The number of chemical elements involved in phenomena of life is quite limited, as are the ways in which they can combine together. DHW: The laboratory, of course, is the Earth. But if I follow the atheist line of thinking, I am not there. There is not even a living, conscious, highly intelligent scientist there. There is nobody there at all. Only the ingredients, and they know nothing. They may be blown around in the wind or swirled around in the water, but no-one is trying to put them together. - There is a sense in which nature "knows" more than we do. Natural objects obey the laws of nature, even those laws that we have not yet discovered. As Heinrich Hertz put it, referring to Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism: - "One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them." - DHW: Here, then, is my personal situation: I do not believe that, left in my ignorance even for billions of years, I would ever be able to select and combine the ingredients and thereby create life and reproduction (not to mention, in due course, sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, consciousness). How, then, can I believe that a non-living, non-conscious, non-intelligent mass of materials, which don't even know there is such a thing as life, reproduction etc., could float round the otherwise empty laboratory to find the combination I don't think I could ever find? - The first part of your statement is correct, but the second part is wrong. This is because nature does not work in the linear way that you imagine.
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, January 16, 2009, 00:44 (5789 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> Also, the number of combinations is not in fact truly "infinite". Combinatorics can lead to very large numbers, but the result is not a mathematical infinity unless you start with an infinity to begin with. The number of chemical elements involved in phenomena of life is quite limited, as are the ways in which they can combine together. - In my just previous post I have pointed out that replicating RNA molecules can be found if hundreds of trillions are searched by computer. The above statement that the elements involved in the phenomena of life is quite limited is wrong. I agree the types of inorganic elements used from inorganic chemistry are small in number (92), and only a small number are used to make rudimentary organic molecules, but life requires very complex organic molecules, allowing trillions of combinations, which according to George are supposed to appear by chance, find each other and work together to create life.
Evolution
George has responded to the image of me in my ignorance trying to combine the ingredients for life in a laboratory, followed by the image of the ingredients trying to combine themselves without me. - Firstly, my thanks for a thoughtful and in many ways attractive response. That nature works in lots of different places and under many different conditions is clear, and I don't think there can be much doubt that "natural objects obey the laws of nature", whatever they may be. I like the reference to "even those laws that we have not yet discovered", which leaves lots of doors wide open, including possible explanations for the phenomena we now regard as "paranormal". It may well be that we have barely scratched the surface of nature's powers. - The Hertz quotation is equally rich: "One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, and they are wiser than we are...etc." You yourself will have realized how close the language is taking us to the concept of design, but I see that as a genuine step forward in our attempts to find some kind of common ground. Since life exists, no-one will deny that something was responsible for bringing it about, and as David keeps telling us, what we have to do, at least initially, is stop attributing qualities to the force that made us. For you as an atheist, the power is impersonal and can be subsumed under the heading 'the laws of nature'. David will speak for himself, but his panentheism seems to me to come extraordinarily close to the same concept, since the refusal to attribute qualities to that power brings us simply to a name: call it 'laws of nature', call it 'God', call it 'X'. For a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, that same power has very definite attributes, and that is the point at which we all go our separate, speculative ways. - The point I'm suggesting here, in the light of the Hertz quote, is that what appears to be a radical clash of absolute opposites (theism v. atheism, while we agnostics hum and haw in between) is no such thing, once we dispense with the linguistic pigeonholes we impose on ourselves. We agree that there is a power, and we only disagree about the nature of that power. The name doesn't matter. - Of course we shall carry on disagreeing about virtually everything, because the nature of the power is at the heart of our discussion, but I think your post can help us push some of the linguistic debris out of the way.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, January 19, 2009, 10:36 (5785 days ago) @ dhw
DHW wrote: Since life exists, no-one will deny that something was responsible for bringing it about, and as David keeps telling us, what we have to do, at least initially, is stop attributing qualities to the force that made us. For you as an atheist, the power is impersonal and can be subsumed under the heading 'the laws of nature'. David will speak for himself, but his panentheism seems to me to come extraordinarily close to the same concept, since the refusal to attribute qualities to that power brings us simply to a name: call it 'laws of nature', call it 'God', call it 'X'. For a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, that same power has very definite attributes, and that is the point at which we all go our separate, speculative ways. - I don't think our differences are just linguistic. The use of phrases like "something was responsible", "the force that made us", "the power is impersonal", envisage a "something" that exercises responsibility, something that has conscious purpose, something that exercises power, an intelligence. All of these I reject. I take the view that what happens just happens. Like an avalanche happens, like a tsunami happens, like a hurricane builds up and disperses, like supernovas explode and planets form. They are natural occurrences, not "Acts of God".
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, January 19, 2009, 14:34 (5785 days ago) @ George Jelliss
All of these I reject. I take the view that what happens just happens. Like an avalanche happens, like a tsunami happens, like a hurricane builds up and disperses, like supernovas explode and planets form. They are natural occurrences, not "Acts of God". - I view this as an example of absolute faith in 'chance'. We all have some kind of faith.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, January 19, 2009, 16:32 (5785 days ago) @ David Turell
I agree with the following entry in a blog I keep track of. My thoughts exactly, just better expressed. For those who do not know the lingo, 'saltation' is sudden appearance of new forms. - The big mistake in Origin that Darwinists won't admit is gradualism. Darwin explained that according to his theory we should expect to observe a continuum of living species each with only the slightest of variations between them. He postulated that we don't observe this because the fittest species take over and the insensibly slight variants die off leaving species that are fully characteristic of their kind which then makes possible taxonomic classification by those characters. It's in the full title in the latter half "The Preservation of Favored Races". - That left Darwin with explaining the fossil record which is indisputably a record of saltation. Species in the fossil record appear abruptly fully characteristic of their kind, persist unchanged for an average of about 10 million years, then disappear as abruptly as they appeared. Darwin explained this away by saying the fossil record was incomplete and that when it was more fully explored the insensibly small variations that cumulatively led to the emergence of new species would be apparent. One hundred fifty years of fossil hunting later has not revealed what Darwin thought it would reveal. Some still say the fossil record in incomplete. Stephen Gould's candid admission ("the trade secret of paleontology" is that it fails to support the very theory it is based upon) and formation of the theory of punctuated equilibrium is perhaps the most famous attempt to salvage gradualism. - No Darwinists I know or read give saltation any credence. The reason why is because saltation implies front loading. How would one species change in just a few generations to something taxonomically different? All the new characters that distinguish the new species must have been present in the predecessor if they were expressed that quickly. Random mutation & natural selection, through a tedious trial and error process, takes a very long time to generate novel characters. Indeed this insufficiency is at the very core of Intelligent Design. Haldane's Dilemma is alive and well. Only an intelligent agent has the capacity to plan for the future. Intelligent agency is proactive and that proactivity is what distinguishes it from RM+NS. RM+NS is reactive in that it can "learn" from past experience but it can't plan for future contingencies which have not been experienced in the past. - My position, which has remained unchanged for several years, is that phylogenesis was a planned sequence. Common descent from one or a few ancestors beginning a few billion years ago has overwhelming evidence in support of it. Gradualism however does not have overwhelming evidence. Gradualism in evolution survives to this day because the only alternative to it is intelligent design. Gradualism doesn't survive by the weight of the evidence but rather by the tightly held belief in philosophic naturalism held by an overwhelming number of the practioners of evolutionary biology. As Richard Dawkins famously wrote "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." These people are clinging to gradualism like religious dogma because to say it's wrong is tantamount to giving up their religion.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 10:20 (5784 days ago) @ David Turell
DT's quote is from "Uncommon Descent" which is "Serving the Intelligent Design Community" (and was originally set up by William Dembski). I think DT should be open about this: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwins-big-mistake-gradualism/ - This just rehashes the old arguments arising from the Gould/Eldridge paper on punctuated equilbrium. The modern view of most biologists is expressed in this Wikipedia entry: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletic_gradualism - Quote: << Phyletic gradualism has been largely deprecated as the exclusive pattern of evolution by modern evolutionary biologists in favor of the acceptation of occurrence of patterns such as those described on punctuated equilibrium, quantum evolution, and punctuated gradualism. >> - << Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuated equilibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that "Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." >>
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 14:11 (5784 days ago) @ George Jelliss
edited by unknown, Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 14:35
DT's quote is from "Uncommon Descent" which is "Serving the Intelligent Design Community" (and was originally set up by William Dembski). I think DT should be open about this: > http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwins-big-mistake-gradualism/&#... - George knows I accept intelligent Design. I've been open about it.His comment comes across as pejorative: the article expressed my views in an excellent way. George is correct about the source. I follow it. I have met and conversed with Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells. They don't have horns. Behe, especially, and I agree that evolution occurred and appears to have been pre-planned. Many of us who think Intelligent Design is a reasonable conclusion, do not push Christianity as the Discovery Institute is said to do. - > << Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuated equilibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that "Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." >> - This quote simply supports the 'accusation' of saltation, as a distinct problem for Darwinism. Of course, many species are deadends. But with those that are not and one can see homologous advances in the fossil record, Darwin does not explain the huge jumps in complexity (Cambrian, Avalon, Ediacaran, etc.) The above quote just talks around it because they have no explanation.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 14:11 (5783 days ago) @ George Jelliss
<< Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuated equilibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that "Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." >> - It is marvelous if quotes are cherry-picked, the wrong impression can be given. Just today the following story appeared: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090120144508.htm The true import of this story, that Homo floresiensis, the "Hobbit" (human?) found in 2003 in Indonesia is a 1,500,000 year old Darwinian dead end. There are, I believe, over 20 branches of 'our' ancestors, ones that lived with us like the Neanderthals or the Hobbits, but none found so far to show a gradual change to us. Darwin does not explain the HUGE jump in the function of our brain, or why 'we' suddenly appeared. The Neanderthals have been shown to have simple religious functions, but nothing else to indicate their thinking capacity was anything close to ours. The important philosophic book to read is "The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes", by Mortimer J. Adler, in which he shows clearly that 'we' are different in kind, not degree as Darwin proposes. The moral is: an open mind can learn a great deal, and earlier conclusions changed.
Evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, January 24, 2009, 17:14 (5780 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> << Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuated equilibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that "Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." >> - Here is Gould in his own words. Note the first complete paragraph on page 263, describing the fossil record as it truly exists: http://books.google.com/books?id=yfXJhKmp1wUC&pg=PA263&lpg=PA264&ots=lcqAoi...
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, January 26, 2009, 13:54 (5778 days ago) @ David Turell
Here is another example of the intricate biochemistry that runs our body and its probable evolution. Remember that living nerve cells conduct electrical impulses along 'axons' (living wires) almost as fast as along copper wire. Sodium and potassium 'fluxes' back and forth along the axon sequentially push electronic impulses down our 'wires'. Part of this (sodium) suddenly appeared in the Cambrian Explosion, clearly mentioned in this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121122834.htm - Actually the sodium/potassium balance across all cell membranes is carefully controlled, but most carefully in the kidney filtering system, as one might imagine.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 10:11 (5777 days ago) @ David Turell
This article discusses possible causes of the Cambrian explosion - http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&... - Nicholas Butterfield thinks that the appearance of sex and predation and multicellularity led to increased competition. - QUOTES: Until sexual reproduction and violence (in the form of predation) appeared, Butterfield says, life was constrained to a very simple world, defined largely by the physical environment. That's the Precambrian world. /// it was the inevitable encounters of the predator-prey relationship that provided an inexhaustible source of new environments. At the advent of the Cambrian, which led to most of the major groups of animals still around today, the fossil record suddenly reveals wonderful beasts, with claws and shells, /// These defining features all [have to] do with other organisms. Suddenly, to survive, creatures have to move, have to see - what they would like to eat, and what would like to eat them. - "I don't know what caused sex in the first place," he adds, "but one possible explanation for why it persisted was that it allowed the evolution of multicellular organisms. There was a "niche" in the Proterzoic world for large multicellular organisms that had yet to be exploited." And when the multicellular organisms appear on the stage, "this sets up a positive feedback loop whereby organisms respond to new environments" presented by other organisms, "by evolving new morphologies, and those new morphologies introduce new environments which induce newer morphologies. Multicellular organisms can do this," Butterfield says, because there is an essentially inexhaustible supply of new morphology: size, shape, and, by extension, behavior. Asexual eukaryotes and prokaryotes simply can't play this game, because they can't build differentiated multicellular structures."
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 14:29 (5777 days ago) @ George Jelliss
This article discusses possible causes of the Cambrian explosion > http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&... > Nicholas Butterfield thinks that the appearance of sex and predation and multicellularity led to increased competition. Good article. I had not seen the theory that preceding snowball earth events might have caused (in some way) The Cambrian Explosion. Snowball events are widely accepted. Butterfield's conjectures that sex led to more competition by providing more complex organisms to compete with is clearly a valid point. Just the appearance of sex is a huge jump in evolution. Bruce Runnegar's comment is certainly to the point: [ He is] "director of the Center for Astrobiology at UCLA and an expert on the fossil record at the Cambrian threshold, [he]says that Butterfield's argument, that ecological complexity in and of itself fueled further complexity, is a hard hypothesis to disagree with, but how would you test it? We don't understand the phenomenon well enough to have one unique explanation." - The moral still is: Darwinian just-so stories don't advance understanding at all. One cannot look at morphology and truly understand how it got that way. If we only could get at the DNA of those Cambrian fossils. - One other exact note: The Cambrian produced 36 of the current 37 animal families. However, that came from diverse forms that numbered close to 100.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 14:41 (5776 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 14:57
Here is an article I read yesterday that now is in Science Daily. It shows there are mechanisms in DNA to control the speed and direction of evolution other than chance mutation and natural selction, Natural selection cannot play a role as this paper implies since areas of DNA control the changes from within DNA: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090126203207.htm - Here is the link to the PLoS journal itself, not easy reading in the research part: http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjourna... - The third article, again PLoS, concerns possible ancient relationships on 'the tree of life': one point in the article is a second development of a nervous system, not just once as some scientists think. This supports Simon Conway Morris' theory of covergence, that allows the same development in different places at different times. ('Life's Solution' and 'The Crucible of Creation' are his very accessable books) http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090126/full/news.2009.55.html
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 16:56 (5776 days ago) @ David Turell
In the past I have alluded to the use of information theory, that is, looking at some functionality and determining the number of information 'bits' necessary to create function or organ functionality, or the origin itself. That terrible website (in George's view)Uncommon Descent has today a video that discusses a math approach to the issue of origin of life, natural/chance or intelligently guided, by a Ph.D. candidate at the U. of Guelph: http://www.uncommondescent.com/
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, January 30, 2009, 13:53 (5774 days ago) @ David Turell
It may be that Lemarkism may be alive and well in a sense as shown in this article studying epigenetic influences in plants. Simple changes in DNA, adding a methyl group at a prescribed point allows for changes required by environmental challenges. Purposeful, not random. Not exactly how Darwin imagined it, but he couldn't have at his point in time. http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090129/full/news.2009.67.html - This just reinforces the point I have made in the past that small segments of RNA are the workhorses of DNA regulation.
Evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, January 31, 2009, 16:42 (5773 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Saturday, January 31, 2009, 16:48
In my citing articles on the complexity of DNA, I have attempted to convince followers of this website to understand just how complicated this coding system is. As a thought experiment follow this reasoning: DNA, as cells divide or sperm and egg get together, must be preserved as carefully as possible. Major and even many minor errors in transcription can be fatal. Copies must be as close to 100% accurate as possible. Yes, some mutations are due to error, and are rarely beneficial, many neutral, and some deleterious. This exactness of copy process had to be protected from the beginning of sexual reproduction (however that got started) by repair mechanisms, if there were remedial mistakes. That mechanism is now well-shown in the following study: http://www.physorg.com/news152453220.html - And to finish the thought experiment: It would appear that it is logical to conclude that DNA sexual reproduction had to appear simultaneously with its very complex repair mechanism. This repair system is only partially uncovered. There have to be all sorts of biochemical feedback loops to control it. All living biochemistry requires those loops, much more complexity than shown so far. Note that the repair molecules must be eventually removed from the fixed- up DNA and that aspect of the process is not fully discovered as yet. More complexity. So my question is: how does Darwin's chance mechanism of evolution accomplish this? This is not chicken or egg and which came first? It must be chicken and chicken or egg and egg simultaneously. Any thoughts?
Evolution
Many thanks to David Turell for a succession of interesting references. You asked, in relation to the complexities of DNA, and in particular sexual reproduction and its repair mechanisms, "how does Darwin's chance mechanism of evolution accomplish this? This is not chicken or egg and which came first? It must be chicken and chicken or egg and egg simultaneously. Any thoughts?" - My thoughts go back to: how about cock and chicken, sperm and egg, and all the relevant connections simultaneously? - As always, the great question mark lies over the creative ability of chance (though not, in my view, the developments that follow on from the new combinations). However, people keep talking about evolution as if it was a single block of thought which you either accept or don't. This was highlighted by a letter in today's Guardian from Professor Nicholas J. Radcliffe of Edinburgh University, commenting on an opinion poll and rightly criticizing the newspaper's misleading headline that only 25% of Britons believe Darwin's theory of evolution: - "You report that 25% say evolution is "definitely true" and another quarter say it is "probably true". But it is a basic tenet of science that theories can be disproved but not proved; no matter how great the evidence, or how personally convinced, many scientists would balk at saying evolution is "definitely true". Perhaps your respondents understand more than their interrogators." - Shades of the greatly missed whitecraw on this website! But the point I'm making is a slightly different one. Clearly the question the pollsters asked did not include the possibility that people might believe some parts of the theory and not believe others. Nor could they have made allowances for what people understand by evolution, since in so many minds it is now associated with atheism. Darwin himself was scrupulous in confronting the problems (see Chapter 6 of The Origin, "Difficulties on Theory"), all of which require separate analysis, and any one of which could undermine the theory. It shouldn't be presented to the reading public, TV audiences or schoolchildren as a scientific package deal.
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 17:46 (5769 days ago) @ dhw
Clearly the question the pollsters asked did not include the possibility that people might believe some parts of the theory and not believe others. Nor could they have made allowances for what people understand by evolution, since in so many minds it is now associated with atheism. It shouldn't be presented to the reading public, TV audiences or schoolchildren as a scientific package deal. - There are so many degrees of belief about evolution that you are absolutely correct. The pollsters ask silly incomplete questions, just as they do for politics. - Just a review: 1) 'young earth creationists': Genesis is correct and the Earth is 10,000 years old or less, no evolution at all. 2) 'old earth creationists': the Earth is about as old as science says (13.7 byo), the Hebrew word "yom" means any interval of time, not just a day, but God created all, no evolution. 3) 'Deism': God started it in motion, evolution occurred, but God is not active now. 4)'Theistic evolution': God coded evolution to happen, and He is still around to tweak it, and be available for human prayer. I interpret this as the Catholic position, according to Pope John Paul. 5) 'Theism' as a term covers the previous entries, and an endless variety of others. 6) 'Atheism': It all happened by chance, the universe, life, and evolution. 7) 'Agnosticism': It all happened, but they don't know how or why. 8)'Intelligent design': it is all too complicated to occur by chance. An intelligent force is behind all of it, perhaps imbedded within everything we observe. 8) 'David Turell': Intelligent Design is a reasonable way to look at everything. The Big Bang is a creation until proven otherwise.The universe was coded by physical laws to evolve as it continues to do so. Life could not have started by chance. It is much too complicated. DNA/RNA was coded from the beginning to create Homo sapiens. Religions have no idea about what the intelligent force is. They anthropomorphize. And all this is 'beyond a reasonable doubt' if thoroughly studied.
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, February 05, 2009, 01:24 (5769 days ago) @ David Turell
I know that Darwinists keep explaining that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is essential to all scientific endeavors. As far as I am concerned nothing could be further from the truth. Medical School had nothing to do with Darwin; neither did my two years of research cardiology fellowship; nor my medical practice. But the following article is a fascinating example of how paleontology can relate to today's issues: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7230/edsumm/e090205-08.html - We are having hysteria about global warming led by the "Goracle" as the Washington Post calls AL GORE. This article shows that 60 million years ago a fossil snake lived a warmer tropical climate than we have today. The past has been shown to be much warmer and much colder ('snowball Earth' periods, severe cold). One science helps another. Many sciences support research into evolution. In my view Darwin developed an interesting and provocative theory at a time when little science of life was known. The various scientific fields in place today would be doing the same work now with or without him. His importance is created by the drive by secularists and materialists to conquer religion. Fat chance. And remember, I don't think much of organized religion. This discussion group knows as much about ultimate reality as they do.
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, February 05, 2009, 05:20 (5768 days ago) @ David Turell
Science is not letting Darwin rest. The 'Tree of Life' is being uprooted by DNA studies. It looks as if there is a jungle out there, not just a simple vertical tree of life. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-... Don't blame Darwin. He was quite brilliant and forward-looking. His theories fit the knowledge of his time. He just had no idea what reeally underlay his discussions of living matter, how elegantly complex it has turned out to be.
Evolution
Once again, many thanks to David for these references. The snake hit the front page of today's Guardian, and then spread itself out on page 3. - The Tree of Life article is fascinating, but somewhat confusing. At one point Graham Lawton says the project (building a tree of life) "lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded." However, on page 4 he says: "Nobody is arguing ... yet ... that the tree concept has outlived its usefulness in animals and plants. While vertical descent is no longer the only game in town, it is still the best way of explaining how multicellular organisms are related to one another ... a tree of 51 per cent maybe. In that respect, Darwin's vision has triumphed: he knew nothing of micro-organisms and built his theory on the plants and animals he could see around him." - He also says that both Bapteste and Doolittle "are at pains to stress that downgrading the tree of life doesn't mean that the theory of evolution is wrong ... just that evolution is not as tidy as we would like to believe." (I wonder who he means by "we".) And yet later he talks of "the uprooting of the tree of life". Downgrading and uprooting are not the same thing at all, and expressions like "torn to pieces" and "onslaught of negative evidence" smack of fundamentalism when set against the statement on page 2: "The debate remains polarised today." Clearly there is no consensus. - The whole kerfuffle seems to be about the discovery of horizontal gene transfer, and some scientists now prefer the metaphor of the web as opposed to the tree. Well, if the argument is just about horizontal and vertical, with vertical still the best way of explaining animals and plants, maybe Darwin simply drew the wrong tree. How about a cedar?
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, February 05, 2009, 13:49 (5768 days ago) @ dhw
"Nobody is arguing ... yet ... that the tree concept has outlived its usefulness in animals and plants. While vertical descent is no longer the only game in town, it is still the best way of explaining how multicellular organisms are related to one another ... a tree of 51 per cent maybe. In that respect, Darwin's vision has triumphed: he knew nothing of micro-organisms and built his theory on the plants and animals he could see around him." > The whole kerfuffle seems to be about the discovery of horizontal gene transfer, and some scientists now prefer the metaphor of the web as opposed to the tree. Well, if the argument is just about horizontal and vertical, with vertical still the best way of explaining animals and plants, maybe Darwin simply drew the wrong tree. How about a cedar? - The whole issue is homologous vs. analagous. Using morphology, in Darwin's time if it looked alike then it was related. That is analogous. Homologous means one can show true descent and relationship as parts are modified and changed. The key to the tree is DNA/RNA studies. Homologous changes, despite gene transfer, will truly outline how much of a real tree there is. The other way is to study biochemistry. Follow the development of myoglobin or hemoglobin, for example, and see how they relates in various species, etc. Cytochrome C, an enzyme in energy production, is another excellent marker to follow. One can look at the pattern of amino acid sequences in this method. - The trees around our house are mainly post oaks. When they lose leaves in the winter, as now, they look like monster trees out of a Tim Burton movie. Perhaps that is the kind of tree it really is? Science will find out.
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, February 05, 2009, 14:03 (5768 days ago) @ David Turell
The organisms created by evolution have given us fascinating advances by bio-engineering, copying what nature shows us is already designed by that process: http://brainz.org/15-coolest-cases-biomimicry/. Intelligent design, anyone?
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, February 06, 2009, 01:18 (5768 days ago) @ David Turell
The following report indicates that humans have only 20,000 genes, and that 1 gene in 200 can be made inactive and it doesn't matter. I suspect that this finding is consistent with my prediction that RNA will continuously be found to be more and more important as research delves further in to what was 'junk' DNA. Further indication of more complexity than we ever imagined in our genetic makeup. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205133740.htm
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, February 06, 2009, 14:05 (5767 days ago) @ David Turell
This article shows epigenetic influences in action, as insect populations modify to a new fruit (apples) that appeared in their environment. The research scientists assume new species will emerge a'la Darwin. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205161109.htm
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, February 08, 2009, 16:03 (5765 days ago) @ David Turell
I know that Darwinists keep explaining that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is essential to all scientific endeavors. As far as I am concerned nothing could be further from the truth. Medical School had nothing to do with Darwin; neither did my two years of research cardiology fellowship; nor my medical practice. But the following article is a fascinating example of how paleontology can relate to today's issues: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7230/edsumm/e090205-08.html 
... > We are having hysteria about global warming led by the "Goracle" as the Washington Post calls AL GORE. This article shows that 60 million years ago a fossil snake lived a warmer tropical climate than we have today. The past has been shown to be much warmer and much colder ('snowball Earth' periods, severe cold). One science helps another. Many sciences support research into evolution. In my view Darwin developed an interesting and provocative theory at a time when little science of life was known. The various scientific fields in place today would be doing the same work now with or without him. His importance is created by the drive by secularists and materialists to conquer religion. Fat chance. And remember, I don't think much of organized religion. This discussion group knows as much about ultimate reality as they do. - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4550448/Charles-Darwin-... - It appears that my opinion is shared by others. The above column from the UK should be carefully read and absorbed. Shocked at those of us who doubt global warming? Follow 'Climate Audit' and 'Watts Up With That' like I do. Only intellectual lemmings let their opinions be led around by their nose in so-called majority opinions in newsprint, radio and TV. True scientific established results are not found by a vote of a majority. Science as a religion is 'scientism'. Darwinism is scientism. Read Thomas Kuhn. Never lose your doubt.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, February 08, 2009, 19:36 (5765 days ago) @ David Turell
Christopher Booker is a journalist who specialises in being sceptical or ornery about scientific controversies: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Booker - Quote from wikipedia: Via his long-running column in the UK's Sunday Telegraph, Booker has claimed that man-made global warming was "disproved" in 2008[1], that white asbestos is "chemically identical to talcum powder" and poses a "non-existent risk" to human health[2], that "scientific evidence to support [the] belief that inhaling other people's smoke causes cancer simply does not exist"[3] and that there is "no proof that BSE causes CJD in humans"[4]. He has also defended the theory of Intelligent Design, maintaining that Darwinians "rest their case on nothing more than blind faith and unexamined a priori assumptions".[5] - DT writes: "The above column from the UK should be carefully read and absorbed." - I would say it should be treated as the ignorant rambling, and deliberate stirring up of controversy, that it probably is. - DT asks: "Shocked at those of us who doubt global warming?" - No. I've long been undecided on these issues, but I'm more persuaded by the recent PCCC reports (just as David Attenborough has been). But in any case "Global Warming" is an oversimplified statement of the problem, and a misleading label, deliberately seized upon by controversialists, of which I fear DT is becoming one. "Climate Change" is a better term, and covers the study of climate over millennia, during which there have been enormous changes, ice ages, magnetic reversals, tectonic plate movements, Milankovitch cycles, etc. etc. - DT writes: "Only intellectual lemmings let their opinions be led around by their nose in so-called majority opinions in newsprint, radio and TV. True scientific established results are not found by a vote of a majority. Science as a religion is 'scientism'." - I've recently been reading "Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea" by Christine Garwood: - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-History-Infamous-Idea/dp/140504702X - And exactly these kinds of arguments were used by the leading Flat Earther, "Parallax" (Samuel Birley Rowbotham) to promote his "Zetetic Astronomy". - http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/index.htm - "Zetetic" doesn't mean "Flat Earth" it means "Sceptical", "Investigative", "Doubting", meaning believing the evidence of your own eyes and not being taken in by those scientific frauds like the Astromomer Royal (George Biddell Airey at the time) and Alfred Russel Wallace (who took up a wager placed by one of Parallax's followers, but lived to regret it). - DT concludes: "Darwinism is scientism." Like "Global Warming" the term "Darwinism" is a simplistic term used by propagandists, or has so become. The scientific subject is "Biological Evolution" to which Charles Darwin was a just one of the major contributors, not the fount of all wisdom. Parallax attacked "Newtonianism" in the same way.
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, February 09, 2009, 01:35 (5765 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Christopher Booker is a journalist who specialises in being sceptical or ornery about scientific controversies: - > Quote from wikipedia: - > DT writes: "The above column from the UK should be carefully read and absorbed." - I still think Booker's column is important. Darwin's importance is being overblown as I stated in a previous entry. The quote from Wikipedia, which generally I don't trust, is right on the mark: Chrysoltile in 'white asbestos' and it is dangerous. Years ago it was thought not to be. > DT asks: "Shocked at those of us who doubt global warming?" - > No. I've long been undecided on these issues[;].... But in any case "Global Warming" is an oversimplified statement of the problem, and a misleading label, deliberately seized upon by controversialists, of which I fear DT is becoming one. "Climate Change" is a better term, and covers the study of climate over millennia, during which there have been enormous changes, ice ages, magnetic reversals, tectonic plate movements, Milankovitch cycles, etc. etc. - I am in absolute agreement with you except in one sense. In view of the past enormous range of temperatures on Earth, the current furor about CO2 is uncalled for. The current models, faced with so many variables, known and unknown, are inadequate to predict the future, but careful study of ways to reduce CO2 emissions must be performed and in an orderly fashion, not in panic, which is the way it is approached now by Gore and many others. The World Economy cannot tolerate drastic approaches. (And by the way do you know if Malankovitch cycles have been fully proven regarding both axis and orbit? I have seen nothing recently.) - > DT writes: "Only intellectual lemmings let their opinions be led around by their nose in so-called majority opinions in newsprint, radio and TV. True scientific established results are not found by a vote of a majority. Science as a religion is 'scientism'." - I fully stand by the above statement
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, February 09, 2009, 20:40 (5764 days ago) @ George Jelliss
DT concludes: "Darwinism is scientism." Like "Global Warming" the term "Darwinism" is a simplistic term used by propagandists, or has so become. The scientific subject is "Biological Evolution" to which Charles Darwin was a just one of the major contributors, not the fount of all wisdom. Parallax attacked "Newtonianism" in the same way. - I have found that Darwinism is a relatively ancient term, and I have an ally in G. K. Chesterton: http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Doubts_About_Darwinism.html - Just who is a propagandist, us thinking folks, or the Darwinists? This is a column that should be read in its entirety.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 10:20 (5763 days ago) @ David Turell
It strikes me as a bit desperate if you have to go back to citing a 1920s Catholic propagandist like Chesterton against evolution! Whoever the "Darwinians" were that he knew they were pretty feeble if they couldn't "explain" how the rhinoceros got his horn or the camel his hump! The idea that a partial horn or partial hump is of no use for thumping rivals or storing some nutrition is obviously not so. A small one serves the purpose, one too big also serves the purpose, and the optimum is evidently between the two extremes, and so is likely to survive. - The first to use the term Darwinism was probably Alfred Russel Wallace who wrote a book with that title, but he intended it to honour Darwin. Subsequent propagandists use it disparagingly. Like a political term such as "Thatcherism" or "Marxism". (Even Marx said he was not a Marxist!)
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 20:34 (5763 days ago) @ George Jelliss
It strikes me as a bit desperate if you have to go back to citing a 1920s Catholic propagandist like Chesterton against evolution! > > The first to use the term Darwinism was probably Alfred Russel Wallace who wrote a book with that title, but he intended it to honour Darwin. - Perhaps in the UK -ism and -ist are now perjorative. Here those suffixes are used more as identifiers. Marxism is perfectly acceptable. What is not acceptable to me is purposely identifying Chesterton as a "Catholic propagandist", sounding almost like an epithet in its disparaging meaning. In public I am certainly politically correct, although I abhore political correctness for its mealy- mouthed approach to everything in general. I have observed some beliefs, which in my privately considered opinion are truly 'nutty', but those opinions remain private. In the US there are Chesterton Societies giving full exhibit to his highly approved writing abilities, whence came what I put on this website. My underlying point is: here it is 90+ years later and there are still many of us with exactly the same feelings about Darwin's proposal, humps, horns, and elongated necks to reach the acacia tree leaves accounted for.
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, February 13, 2009, 01:33 (5761 days ago) @ David Turell
The following op-ed piece in the Wall Street J. by a professor who studies human reactions, concerns his interpretation of the Darwin Theory. It involves a discussion of 'perfect' design vs. 'optimal' design. One of the arguments used against the Intelligent Design Theory is that what is seen in evolution isn't perfect, as religious interpretations of the attributes of God would imply. The ID folks respond by saying that 'design' is one that completes the requirement at hand in an optimal fashion, utilizing cost-benefit analysis, compromises, and therefore, the best design is always a compromise that works adequately for the need at hand. Now read this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431527821470987.html#printMode - The professor is saying design is the same in Darwin's approach and ID's approach, it seems to me.
Evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 15:23 (5756 days ago) @ David Turell
The following is a book review using DNA data to show the present speed of human evolution by finding localized changed in genes in various populations. As the reviewer points out, some of the conclusions of the authors are quite controversal. (As a disclosure, since my racial subtype is mentioned in this review, I am an Ashkenazic Jew): http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126952.400-review-the-10000-year-explosion-by-g...
Evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, February 22, 2009, 14:00 (5751 days ago) @ David Turell
Genetic discovery marches on and, as I predicted, is changing the earlier concepts of Darwinian evolution. There is now evidence that a simple tree of life does not exist and Simon Conway Morris' theory of multiple attempts at various organs (especially the eye) is on the mark. Below is a summary of a genetic approach to the 'tree': http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/gkp089v1
Evolution
by BBella , Monday, February 23, 2009, 20:09 (5750 days ago) @ David Turell
Genetic discovery marches on and, as I predicted, is changing the earlier concepts of Darwinian evolution. There is now evidence that a simple tree of life does not exist and Simon Conway Morris' theory of multiple attempts at various organs (especially the eye) is on the mark. Below is a summary of a genetic approach to the 'tree': http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/gkp089v1 - David, - Is Darwin's evolution concept of the simple tree of life that all genes come from one beginning? Is the above findings saying genes come from many beginnings? I read the summary but could not understand what their findings have found. Could you explain in layman terms? - Thanks
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, February 23, 2009, 22:02 (5750 days ago) @ BBella
Is Darwin's evolution concept of the simple tree of life that all genes come from one beginning? Is the above findings saying genes come from many beginnings? I read the summary but could not understand what their findings have found. Could you explain in layman terms? The original idea of a tree of life is that a number of the same single-celled organisms appeared, and from that life branched out from the common ancestor. All the article is saying is that there were probably several origins and a rather complicated branching system like a bunch of shrubs all growing together. Part of the problem is sorting all of this out is that there has been lateral transfer of genes and also viral genes added after infections. Also the early classifications have been from appearance. Homologous means true descent, and analogous means 'looks alike' but not descended. Some of this is still being sorted out, both in outward characteristics and in specialized protein molecules, i.e., hemoglobin, or Cytochrome C (energy production) from species to species.
Evolution
by David Turell , Monday, February 23, 2009, 22:48 (5750 days ago) @ David Turell
Here is another example of studies related to DNA dynamics showing that the tree of life is not from one simple ancestor. http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/gkp032v1
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 01:00 (5749 days ago) @ David Turell
Here is another Christopher Booker column, citing support for my contention that Darwin's Theory is really not relevent for current research. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4623686/Why-do-people-t...
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 14:32 (5643 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 14:43
Just a new evolutionary note: more evidence that birds did not descent from dinosaurs, but perhaps a common ancestor. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm What is most interesting to me with my backgroud in exercise physiology (my fellowship) is that arm work in humans costs three times more blood flow than leg work, implying three times more oxygen consumption. Did we get this from the birds?
Evolution
George doesn't think our differences are linguistic. Of course they're much more fundamental (you have definite beliefs and I don't), but language may create differences that are not there. For instance you say that phrases such as "something was responsible", "the force that made us" etc. envisage an intelligence. It is very difficult to avoid such language. In your post of 15 January at 09.18 you wrote "Nature conducts...what I think is called "parallel processing"". And: "There is a sense in which Nature "knows" more than we do". As part of your argument you quoted Hertz, who actually uses the word "intelligence". - There are really two problems that arise from your comment. One is linguistic, and I'm simply looking for a starting-point acceptable to all. How about: "Life is the result of a process caused by an unknown force"? You as an atheist will finish up by saying the force was chance plus the laws of Nature. A theist will finish by saying it was God. An agnostic will say it was a "Dunno". The point of finding such a definition is that we can rid ourselves of all associations and start the inquiry from an area of common ground. At present, you shift from "natural occurrences" to "Acts of God", as if one must choose between one or the other. Similarly, I get the impression (maybe wrongly) that in discussing the paranormal, you feel the alternatives are total dismissal versus belief in God. There are many intermediate stages, and it may well be that by shedding certain linguistic loads we can all go a bit further together before the paths divide. - The second part of the discussion does move us a stage further on. You wrote: "I take the view that what happens just happens. Like an avalanche happens, like a tsunami happens...etc." I take this to mean that once chance has brought about the necessary combination, the laws of nature take over. All the examples you choose ... avalanche, tsunami, hurricane, supernovas, planets ... relate to inorganic matter. Is there no difference in principle between these inorganic processes on the one hand and life, reproduction, organs, senses, consciousness on the other? If there is a difference, what is it?
Evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 16:14 (5783 days ago) @ dhw
> There are really two problems that arise from your comment. One is linguistic, and I'm simply looking for a starting-point acceptable to all. How about: "Life is the result of a process caused by an unknown force"? You as an atheist will finish up by saying the force was chance plus the laws of Nature. A theist will finish by saying it was God. An agnostic will say it was a "Dunno". - > [/i] I take this to mean that once chance has brought about the necessary combination, the laws of nature take over. All the examples you choose ... avalanche, tsunami, hurricane, supernovas, planets ... relate to inorganic matter. - I'd like to jump in and help with the semantics. Chance is passive. It may happen or it may not. Nothing drives it. Chance is luck. Either the dice roll a 7 or they don't. Chance implies no control. There is no 'force'. When a chance event occurs, then Laws take over. Laws do not advance anything. They simply are the rules by which a chance event can proceed, an algorithm that must be rigidly followed. And that can be in inorganic chemistry or organic. Neither is chaotic, although even chaos has its own rules.
Evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, January 22, 2009, 11:08 (5782 days ago) @ dhw
DHW asks: All the examples you choose ... avalanche, tsunami, hurricane, supernovas, planets ... relate to inorganic matter. Is there no difference in principle between these inorganic processes on the one hand and life, reproduction, organs, senses, consciousness on the other? If there is a difference, what is it? - No there is no difference, in principle. This whole argument goes back to Friedrich Wohler's synthesis of urea in 1828. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_W%C3%B6hler - And Henri Bergson's ideas of an "elan vital". - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_vital - Of course it is usually possible to distinguish living things from non-living, though there are grey areas. Are viruses living things? There was a radio programme by Jonathan Miller recently discussing life and death, which touched on this question. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gdyxv - It's only there for another ten hours to listen again!
--
GPJ
Evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, January 22, 2009, 15:36 (5782 days ago) @ George Jelliss
Of course it is usually possible to distinguish living things from non-living, though there are grey areas. Are viruses living things? - It depends on how you define 'life'. Viruses are alive, but parasitic on animals and plants. If there were no animals or plants there would be no viruses. Therefore, the definition of life must include or exclude the word 'independent'. I've always considered viruses 'conditionally'alive. In considering the origin of life, researchers have always looked at the simplist bacteria, pleuropnemonia organisms and such, independently able to stay alive, by producing their own endogenous energy, and reproduce.
Evolution
by BBella , Friday, January 23, 2009, 18:58 (5781 days ago) @ dhw
There are really two problems that arise from your comment. One is linguistic, and I'm simply looking for a starting-point acceptable to all. How about: "Life is the result of a process caused by an unknown force"? - As for me, I believe the quote above is acceptable, as long as it is taken into consideration that, not only is life the result of the process by the unknown force, but life IS the unknown force as well. After all, how can something come from something without being that which it comes from? Everything may look different during it's different processes, if there is an onlooker, but, everything is still the unknown force as well as being from the unknown force. How can it be other wise? > The second part of the discussion does move us a stage further on. You wrote: "I take the view that what happens just happens. Like an avalanche happens, like a tsunami happens...etc." I take this to mean that once chance has brought about the necessary combination, the laws of nature take over. All the examples you choose ... avalanche, tsunami, hurricane, supernovas, planets ... relate to inorganic matter. Is there no difference in principle between these inorganic processes on the one hand and life, reproduction, organs, senses, consciousness on the other? If there is a difference, what is it? - Again, I would think there are differences in organic and non organic, however so unclear it can barely be named, just as there are differences in air and land, yet again, all are a result of the unknown force as well as of it.
Evolution
by BBella , Saturday, January 24, 2009, 00:46 (5781 days ago) @ BBella
Again, I would think there are differences in organic and non organic, however so unclear it can barely be named, just as there are differences in air and land, yet again, all are a result of the unknown force as well as of it. - The last sentence clarified: "yet, again, not only is ALL that IS the result of the unknown force, ALL is the unknown force as well.
Evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, January 24, 2009, 01:29 (5781 days ago) @ BBella
> The last sentence clarified: "yet, again, not only is ALL that IS the result of the unknown force, ALL is the unknown force as well. - Sounds alot like Einstein and Spinoza
Evolution
by David Turell , Friday, January 16, 2009, 00:35 (5789 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> Quote from the article: The replicating system actually involves two enzymes, each composed of two subunits and each functioning as a catalyst that assembles the other. The replication process is cyclic, in that the first enzyme binds the two subunits that comprise the second enzyme and joins them to make a new copy of the second enzyme; while the second enzyme similarly binds and joins the two subunits that comprise the first enzyme. In this way the two enzymes assemble each other — what is termed cross-replication. To make the process proceed indefinitely requires only a small starting amount of the two enzymes and a steady supply of the subunits. > > Is this chance or law? It looks quite mechanical to me. - I think we can all agree that chance events are passive. Yes they actively appear and may cause advances or regression, but as George has pointed out they are not purposeful and represent no plan. In no way is this understanding an active process. Also, Laws of nature cannot do anything by themselves; they describe ways in which matter may act or interact, and unless specific substances try to act, nothing happens. Laws are also passive. - The first RNAzyme that was found that could replicate itself did so at a 95% efficiency, but only after a computer search of several hundred trillions of RNA molecules were considered.
Evolution: Does oxygen level hold the key
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 03, 2015, 16:46 (3306 days ago) @ David Turell
Evolution was slow or non-existent for a billion years early on:, with very low oxygen levels:-https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-fascination-earths-boring-billion-"Earth's long history starts with an epic preamble: A collision with a Mars-sized space rock rips into the young planet and jettisons debris that forms the moon. Over the next few billion years, plot twists abound. The oceans form. Life appears. Solar-powered microbes breathe oxygen into the air. Colossal environmental shifts reshape the planet's surface and drive the evolution of early life.-"After this wild youth of rapid change, things slowed down. About 1.8 billion years ago, the climate stabilized. Oxygen levels steadied. Evolution seemingly stalled. For around a billion years, not a lot changed on planet Earth. Scientists called this interval the dullest time in Earth's history. It came to be known as the “boring billion.”-***- "The planet's first whiff of oxygen came more than 3.2 billion years ago, following the evolution of the earliest photosynthetic microbes, cyanobacteria (SN Online: 9/8/15). These bacteria churn out oxygen into the environment. When the microscopic critters die, however, their remains decay and consume oxygen. Normally the life and death of a cyanobacterium would result in no net oxygen gain. Luckily for oxygen-loving life, accumulating sediments can bury the decaying organic matter under the seafloor and halt the drawdown of oxygen.-"Before the boring billion, around 2.4 billion to 2.3 billion years ago, cyanobacteria flooded Earth's atmosphere with oxygen (SN: 10/10/09, p. 11). This oxygen rise, nicknamed the Great Oxidation Event, permanently altered the planet's chemical portfolio and purged the surface of nearly all oxygen-intolerant life.-"The breath of oxygen ultimately spurred the evolution of complex life-forms called eukaryotes, with distinct cell nuclei and organelles. Early eukaryotes — the forebears of animals and plants — appeared at the start of the boring billion, 1.8 billion years ago. During their first few hundred million years, single- and multicelled eukaryotes eked out a marginal existence while bacteria and archaea unequivocally ruled Earth's ecosystem."-Comment: no question oxygen is needed for today's complex animals, but much more than oxygen is required to advance evolution.
Evolution: Finding the first lower jaw bone in a fish
by David Turell , Saturday, October 22, 2016, 15:25 (2952 days ago) @ David Turell
The modern vertebrate jaws are a very special arrangement. The upper jaw is a fusion of two bones and with no fusion in the fetus a cleft palate results, just to illustrate the point. The lower jaw is the only bone like itself, having two joints, one at either end. Chinese fossils to the rescue, the first fish with this is found:
http://www.nature.com/news/fish-fossil-upends-scientists-view-of-jaw-evolution-1.20848
"A fossil fish found in Yunnan, China, has filled in a gaping hole in how researchers thought the vertebrate jaw evolved.
"The 423-million-year-old specimen, dubbed Qilinyu rostrata, is part of an ancient group of armoured fish called placoderms. The fossil is the oldest ever found with a modern three-part jaw, which includes two bones in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw.
***
"Qilinyu has bones halfway between an ancient placoderm jaw and a modern jaw. “They contribute to the face, but the bits inside the mouth look suspiciously like” placoderm jaw bones, says Ahlberg. This rewrites the previous understanding that placoderm jaws and modern jaws evolved completely independently
***
"This view of jaw evolution was first suggested, although not entirely confirmed, by the 2013 report2 of Entelognathus primordialis. That specimen is a 419-million-year-old placoderm with bony-fish-like jaws, which was found at the Xiaoxiang fossil site in Yunnan. Qilinyu was discovered at the same site, by the same team — led by palaeontologist Min Zhu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. The fossil is older than Entelognathus, and its jaw is more clearly intermediate between ancient placoderms and modern bony fish.
"Qilinyu was about 20 centimetres long and looked like a catfish, with a flat pointy bit sticking out of its snout. “It reminded me of a platypus, having this big snout with a flat bill,” says John Long, a palaeontologist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
"Zhu and his colleagues found several specimens of Qilinyu. The most complete fossil, which was used to describe the new species, was uncovered from Xiaoxiang’s muddy limestone in 2012, but was missing its lower jaw. Early in 2016, Zhu’s group found a lower jaw from another specimen, then four more, providing a complete picture of the animal’s jawbones.
***
“'It confirms what the scientific consensus has been leaning toward” since Zhu’s group found Entelognathus, says Sam Giles, a palaeobiologist at the University of Oxford, UK. The find also shows how early placoderms filled very different ecological niches, she says. Qilinyu’s mouth is on its underside, indicating that it was probably a bottom-feeder, whereas Entelognathus’s forward-facing mouth suggests a different style of feeding.
"Xiaoxiang is “a spectacular site”, says Giles. “Before this locality, everyone thought there wasn’t much going on in this period.” But it has turned out to be incredibly diverse, she notes."
Comment: The three-bone jaw had to start at some point. Once again intermediate forms are present, but represent large changes in form or the typical gap or jump in the fossil record, more consistent with saltation than a series of tiny modifications that chance Darwinism would suggest.
Evolution: more on finding jawed fish
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 28, 2022, 22:26 (785 days ago) @ David Turell
A huge find in China:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fish-fossils-china-jaws-vertebrates
"A newfound treasure trove of ancient fish fossils unearthed in southern China is opening a window into the earliest history of jawed vertebrates — a group that encompasses 99 percent of all living vertebrates on Earth, including humans. The fossil site, dated from 439 million to 436 million years ago, includes a revealing variety of never-before-seen small, toothy, bony fish species.
"The diversity of the fossils at this one site not only fills a glaring gap in the fossil record, but also highlights the strangeness that such a gap exists, researchers report September 29 in Nature.
"Genetic analyses had previously pointed to this time period, known as the early Silurian Period, as an era of rapid diversification of jawed vertebrates. But the toothy fishes seemed to have left few traces in the fossil record. Instead, as far as the fossil record was concerned, jawless fishes appeared to rule the waves at the time. And what jawed fishes have been preserved were rarely bony; most have been chondrichthyans, ancient cartilaginous ancestors of modern sharks and rays.
"The Chongqing Lagerstätte — paleontologists’ word for a rich assemblage of diverse species all preserved together at one site — “fundamentally changes that picture,” write paleontologist You-an Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and colleagues in the study. The site is teeming with toothy, bony fishes, particularly armored placoderms, but bears just one chondrichthyan.
***
"Here’s a closer look at a few of the newly discovered fishy denizens of the Chongqing Lagerstätte.
"About 20 separate specimens of a little fish that the researchers have called Xiushanosteus mirabilis were found at the Chongqing site. Those finds make the animal the most abundant type of fish in that fossil assemblage.
X. mirabilis was only about 30 millimeters long, about the length of a paper clip, but it bears a strong resemblance to larger armored placoderms to come in the future: It had a broad, bony head shield and a body covered in small, diamond-shaped scales.
***
"Two types of jawed fish arose around 450 million years ago — and both make an appearance at the Chongqing site. The new site is remarkable for its diversity of osteichthyans, bony jawed fishes like X. mirabilis. But cartilaginous Shenacanthus vermiformis also spent some time in this environment.
***
"Thanks to these close relatives, the researchers pieced together how paired fins in the jawless fish evolved in stages to become separate pectoral and pelvic fins in their jawed cousins. Such fins are the precursors of arms and legs in later tetrapods. "
'
Comment: irritating gaps get filled, but the general big picture is clear.
Evolution: Findings before oxygen
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 01, 2017, 01:09 (2851 days ago) @ David Turell
Metabolism with nitrogen and iron, in a lake now showing metabolism equal to that of at least two billion years old:
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-african-lake-clues-ancient-marine.html
"New research shows there may have been more nitrogen in the ocean between one and two billion years ago than previously thought, allowing marine organisms to proliferate at a time when multi-cellularity and eukaryotic life first emerged.
"UBC researchers travelled to Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because of its similar chemistry to the oceans of the Proterozoic eon, some 2.3 to 0.5 billion years ago. The deep waters of part of the lake have no oxygen and are one of the few places on Earth where dissolved iron is present at high concentrations.
"'This is the first time that we have observed microbes recycling nitrogen by reacting it with iron in such a body of water," said Céline Michiels, lead author of the study and PhD student at UBC. "While these reactions have been observed in the lab, their activity in Lake Kivu gives us confidence that they can play an important role in natural ecosystems and allows us to build math models that can describe these reactions in oceans of the past."
"Michiels and her colleagues found that when microorganisms from Lake Kivu react iron with nitrogen in the form of nitrate, some of this nitrogen is converted to gas, which is lost to the atmosphere, but the rest of the nitrogen is recycled from nitrate to ammonium, which remains dissolved and available for diverse microorganisms to use as a nutrient.
"'It's really exciting that we can use information recovered from modern environments like Lake Kivu to create and calibrate math models that reconstruct chemistry and biology from almost two billion years ago," said Sean Crowe, senior author of the study and Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Geomicrobiology at UBC. "With these models and clues from rocks, we're learning more and more about how evolving life in the ancient oceans shaped Earth's surface chemistry over long stretches of early history.'"
Comment: These organisms are like the extremophiles using alternative mechanisms of metabolism without oxygen. Original life had to have this type of metabolism.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Friday, February 10, 2017, 15:11 (2841 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Friday, February 10, 2017, 15:32
Which came first, speciation or environmental changes requiring adaptation? Environmental changes!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/horse-study-reins-in-evolutionary-orthodoxy?utm_sour...
"The history of the horse family may hold the key to one of evolution’s classic conundrums: what comes first, new traits or a new environment?
"In the journal Science, Juan Cantalapiedra from the Humboldt Museum in Germany and colleagues in Spain and Argentina present evidence for the latter.
"They studied the body size and tooth morphology of 138 species of horses, all but six of them extinct, with the oldest dating from 18 million years ago, along with the rate at which the horse lineages diverged into separate species.
"They found that migration patterns and changes in environment drove the development of new traits. This is the opposite of the prevailing theory of evolution, which holds that new traits – such as bigger teeth or a thicker pelt – develop first, allowing species to then move into new environmental niches.
"Using fossils to gauge the body and teeth size of the specimens gave the researchers clues to the kinds of food the horses ate. Longer teeth and bigger body size, for instance, hinted that new grub was on the menu.
***
"They found that speciation bursts – comparatively rapid branch-splitting, resulting in multiple new species – did not correlate with the physical changes that were taking place in the animals at the time.
"This suggests strongly that evolution was driven by “extrinsic factors – such as geographical dispersals, increased productivity, or habitat heterogeneity – that release diversity limits and promote speciation”, they write.
"In other words, new traits and new species evolved because environmental changes allowed greater genetic diversification. This contradicts the idea of “adaptive radiation”, which holds that the evolution of new traits allowed species to move into previously unoccupied environments.
***
"None of the early stage speciation spikes were associated with a burst in body size or change of tooth structure. In fact, branches of the horse family that underwent fast speciation actually showed slower rates of tooth evolution.
"So how was speciation occurring without notable physical changes in these horses? A possible explanation is what the horses ate changed before physiological adaptions caught up.
“'We’d always thought you can only really become species-rich by adapting to new environments, but here it seems that the new species comes first, and then the anatomy changes later,” comments evolutionary biologist Alistair Evans from Monash University in Australia, who was not involved in the research.
"But, Evans adds, “there is much more to a species than just how big it is [and] how big its teeth are”.
"The complex evolutionary history of horses is far from being a closed case, with research in the area continuing to grow."
Comment: This finding seems logical to me. Move to a new area with better food and then adapt to the other environmental issues. Epigenetics play a role. However the varieties are all still horses and can interbreed. see below:
Another view: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/10/claim-climate-change-made-the-
modern-horse-of-course/
"Changing environments and ecosystems were driving the evolution of horses over the past 20 million years. This is the main conclusion of a new study published in Science by a team of palaeontologists from Spain and Argentina. The team analysed 140 species of horses, most of them extinct, synthesising decades of research on the fossil history of this popular group of mammals.
"According to the new results, these evolutionary changes could have been much slower than previously assumed. In fact, Cantalapiedra and colleagues were able to show that all these newly evolved species of horses were ecologically very similar. Thus, rather than a multiplication of ecological roles, the new results point to external factors, such as increasing environmental heterogeneity, as the main evolutionary force."
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
DAVID: Which came first, speciation or environmental changes requiring adaptation? Environmental changes!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/horse-study-reins-in-evolutionary-orthodoxy?utm_sour... .
DAVID’s comment: This finding seems logical to me. Move to a new area with better food and then adapt to the other environmental issues. Epigenetics play a role. However the varieties are all still horses and can interbreed. see below:
Your comment is right on the button. This is not speciation in the broad sense at all, but adaptation, and I must confess, I never knew there was any controversy! Since the whole point of adaptation is to cope with change, I find the reverse procedure totally illogical. Innovation is required for speciation in the broad sense, and as my own hypothesis relies on the same mechanism (the innovative as well as adaptive intelligence of cell communities), again I see it as only logical that the trigger will be environmental change offering opportunity (as opposed to threat). I think you disagree on this, though, as you have suggested that your God prepared the fish before it stepped out onto the land.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Saturday, February 11, 2017, 15:24 (2840 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Which came first, speciation or environmental changes requiring adaptation? Environmental changes!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/horse-study-reins-in-evolutionary-orthodoxy?utm_sour... .
DAVID’s comment: This finding seems logical to me. Move to a new area with better food and then adapt to the other environmental issues. Epigenetics play a role. However the varieties are all still horses and can interbreed. see below:
dhw: Your comment is right on the button. This is not speciation in the broad sense at all, but adaptation, and I must confess, I never knew there was any controversy! Since the whole point of adaptation is to cope with change, I find the reverse procedure totally illogical. Innovation is required for speciation in the broad sense, and as my own hypothesis relies on the same mechanism (the innovative as well as adaptive intelligence of cell communities), again I see it as only logical that the trigger will be environmental change offering opportunity (as opposed to threat). I think you disagree on this, though, as you have suggested that your God prepared the fish before it stepped out onto the land.
We are pretty much in agreement. The 'controversy' is that Darwinists propose theories with no research proof. Now science is cleaning out the rubbish.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
DAVID: Which came first, speciation or environmental changes requiring adaptation? Environmental changes!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/horse-study-reins-in-evolutionary-orthodoxy?utm_sour... .
DAVID’s comment: This finding seems logical to me. Move to a new area with better food and then adapt to the other environmental issues. Epigenetics play a role. However the varieties are all still horses and can interbreed. see below:
dhw: Your comment is right on the button. This is not speciation in the broad sense at all, but adaptation, and I must confess, I never knew there was any controversy! Since the whole point of adaptation is to cope with change, I find the reverse procedure totally illogical. Innovation is required for speciation in the broad sense, and as my own hypothesis relies on the same mechanism (the innovative as well as adaptive intelligence of cell communities), again I see it as only logical that the trigger will be environmental change offering opportunity (as opposed to threat). I think you disagree on this, though, as you have suggested that your God prepared the fish before it stepped out onto the land.
DAVID: We are pretty much in agreement. The 'controversy' is that Darwinists propose theories with no research proof. Now science is cleaning out the rubbish.
Which Darwinists propose that organisms adapt to a different environment before they find themselves in it? As I mentioned, that was your own theory regarding the fish that left the water.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Sunday, February 12, 2017, 16:00 (2839 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We are pretty much in agreement. The 'controversy' is that Darwinists propose theories with no research proof. Now science is cleaning out the rubbish.
dhw: Which Darwinists propose that organisms adapt to a different environment before they find themselves in it? As I mentioned, that was your own theory regarding the fish that left the water.
You did not read the article carefully:
"In other words, new traits and new species evolved because environmental changes allowed greater genetic diversification. This contradicts the idea of “adaptive radiation”, which holds that the evolution of new traits allowed species to move into previously unoccupied environments."
'Adaptive radiation' has been a standard part of Neo-Darwinism for years.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
DAVID: You did not read the article carefully:
"In other words, new traits and new species evolved because environmental changes allowed greater genetic diversification. This contradicts the idea of “adaptive radiation”, which holds that the evolution of new traits allowed species to move into previously unoccupied environments."
'Adaptive radiation' has been a standard part of Neo-Darwinism for years.
According to Wikipedia: “In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, creates new challenges, or opens new environmental niches.[1
I can’t see how this means that organisms change first and then find a suitable environment. They diversify when they are confronted by change. However, in certain environments birds with longer beaks may survive better than birds with shorter beaks, so by natural selection the longer beaked version will finish up as the surviving “species” (narrow sense). That’s Darwinian. Nothing to do with a brand new organ preceding a search for a suitable environment in which to use it. Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Monday, February 13, 2017, 16:40 (2838 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
Land and sea are always different, no environmental change at the shoreline. What is your fish point? The green grass on land attracted the fish?
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
dhw: Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
DAVID: Land and sea are always different, no environmental change at the shoreline. What is your fish point? The green grass on land attracted the fish?
The environment is always changing. We don’t know why fish first came onto the land, but whatever may have been their reason, you insisted that your God had already prepared them beforehand, whereas I suggested they began the process of adaptation once they had emerged from the water. We needn’t go through all the details again. My point is that environmental changes require adaptation and also offer opportunities for new forms of life. I do not believe organisms adapt or innovate BEFORE the environmental change and then go looking for ways to use their adaptations/innovations, and your article appears to confirm this view.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 14:25 (2837 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
DAVID: Land and sea are always different, no environmental change at the shoreline. What is your fish point? The green grass on land attracted the fish?
dhw: The environment is always changing. We don’t know why fish first came onto the land, but whatever may have been their reason, you insisted that your God had already prepared them beforehand, whereas I suggested they began the process of adaptation once they had emerged from the water. We needn’t go through all the details again. My point is that environmental changes require adaptation and also offer opportunities for new forms of life. I do not believe organisms adapt or innovate BEFORE the environmental change and then go looking for ways to use their adaptations/innovations, and your article appears to confirm this view.
The article does confirm this view. I still think fish tried out land and changed adaptably though God's guidance.
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by BBella , Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 20:27 (2837 days ago) @ David Turell
dhw: Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
DAVID: Land and sea are always different, no environmental change at the shoreline. What is your fish point? The green grass on land attracted the fish?
dhw: The environment is always changing. We don’t know why fish first came onto the land, but whatever may have been their reason, you insisted that your God had already prepared them beforehand, whereas I suggested they began the process of adaptation once they had emerged from the water. We needn’t go through all the details again. My point is that environmental changes require adaptation and also offer opportunities for new forms of life. I do not believe organisms adapt or innovate BEFORE the environmental change and then go looking for ways to use their adaptations/innovations, and your article appears to confirm this view.
The article does confirm this view. I still think fish tried out land and changed adaptably though God's guidance.
In what detailed way do you think God guided them?
Evolution: Horses, speciation and environment
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 00:23 (2837 days ago) @ BBella
dhw: Anyway, clearly the latest research proposes environmental change first and adaptation second, in contrast to your fish adaptation first, exploration of dry land second.
DAVID: Land and sea are always different, no environmental change at the shoreline. What is your fish point? The green grass on land attracted the fish?
dhw: The environment is always changing. We don’t know why fish first came onto the land, but whatever may have been their reason, you insisted that your God had already prepared them beforehand, whereas I suggested they began the process of adaptation once they had emerged from the water. We needn’t go through all the details again. My point is that environmental changes require adaptation and also offer opportunities for new forms of life. I do not believe organisms adapt or innovate BEFORE the environmental change and then go looking for ways to use their adaptations/innovations, and your article appears to confirm this view.
The article does confirm this view. I still think fish tried out land and changed adaptably though God's guidance.
BBella: In what detailed way do you think God guided them?
I think speciation is God's action. He changes DNA and all the other layers of control.
The gaps between types is too large for chance to ever work.
Evolution: sex for pleasure
by David Turell , Monday, January 10, 2022, 19:15 (1046 days ago) @ David Turell
It is certain present in others than humans, dolphins:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2303662-what-dolphins-reveal-about-the-evolution-o...
"We know that dolphins have sex all the time. They have sex for social reasons, not just for reproduction. It makes sense that the clitoris would be functional [and give pleasure when stimulated].
"Are dolphins really having sex all the time? Are they more sexually active than other animals?
"We don’t really know if they are having more sex than other marine mammals. It’s really hard to study sexual behaviour in cetaceans because they’re out there [in the ocean]. But bottlenose dolphins live close to the shore, where scientists can go out on their boats and study them. They see them having sex year-round, even when the females are not receptive, so not ready to get pregnant and have babies.
"And not only do they have sex all the time, they have a lot of homosexual sex as well. The females will rub each other’s clitorises with their snouts and their flippers really often. It’s not like every once in a blue moon you’ll see females stimulating each other, it’s actually pretty common. Females also masturbate.
"If they’re out there seeking all these sexual experiences, it’s likely that it’s probably feeling good.
"The males, for sure, have lots of homosexual sex. The males will have anal sex, they’ll insert their penises into each other’s blowholes. Bottlenose dolphins are really hypersexual animals.
***
"There is this hypothesis out there that, because penises and clitorises share the same developmental pathway, the clitoris is just a mini penis. It’s not really designed for anything and it doesn’t necessarily have a function. It’s just there because males have a penis.
"There is debate whether even human female orgasms are functional or just a byproduct. It’s one of those things that just refuses to die.
***
"We can show that this is more than a mini penis; this is actually a fully functional organ that’s serving some kind of purpose. It’s probably evolutionarily a good idea because it makes you seek out sex more often."
Comment: Research has shown that chimps and bonobos are similar. It is logical that pleasure is present to encourage sex. Visual pornography arouses only humans which means our consciousness plays a different sex role in us.
Evolution: rhinoceros from?
by David Turell , Monday, June 19, 2023, 14:39 (521 days ago) @ David Turell
An abstract of very long article:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/06/what-do-we-know-about-the-origin-of-rhinos/
"We are delighted to direct readers to a new paper by geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Origin and Evolution of the Rhinos (Family Rhinocerotidae): What Do We Really Know?” What follows is the paper’s Abstract:
"Some rhinoceroses, including the square-lipped Ceratotherium simum of the African savanna, weigh more than three tons and thus represent the largest land mammals after the African elephant. After an extensive revision of the family Rhinocerotidae, presently some 21 genera have been found to be valid. Most of those, however, do not exist anymore. Just four genera are still extant.
"Although they are not the handsomest or most graceful creatures in the animal kingdom, the Rhinocerotoidea (superfamily) are a fascinating group for research due not only to an extraordinarily rich fossil record1 but also to many striking anatomical and physiological characteristics.
"Intriguingly, according to the geological time table, many of the past and present forms have lived contemporaneously for millions of years. Also, all families and genera of the rhinocerotoids appear abruptly in the fossil record. Contrary to Darwinian expectations, none of them is linked to any other by a series of “infinitesimally small changes,” “infinitesimally slight variations,” “insensibly fine steps,” etc. Hence, the fossil record is in full agreement with the statement of the eminent evolutionary biologist Donald R. Prothero, paleontologist and leading rhino researcher, that “the most striking thing about the overall pattern of rhinocerotid evolution is that of stasis.” Even at the species level he notes that “although some limited examples of gradual change can be documented in the rhinocerotids, the overwhelming pattern is one of stable species which show no measurable change over long periods of time, consistent with the predictions of Eldredge and Gould (1972). (my bold)
"So, what do we really know about their origin and evolution? The entire fossil series of the family of the rhinos starts with a rhinoceros (Teletaceras) and ends with rhinoceroses. The viewpoint of natural selection of random or accidental or haphazard DNA mutations can be — except for microevolution — excluded for many scientific reasons, as will be shown below. Intelligent design is definitely the scientifically superior explanation." (my bold)
comment: a seeming abrupt appearance, as in the Cambrian explosion. The broad range of ancient fossils would seem to preclude there is something missing.