The Theory of Evolution

[Cecilie1200]

Metal doesn't self replicate.

Argument refuted.

It's like we've heard this one before.

Evolution would be a lot more believable if it's proponents didn't so often have to resort to such deliberate obtuseness to avoid addressing points.

No, its deliberately obtuse (or absurd) to make an analogy between material that doesn't self replicate and things that do.

Especially when self replication is the cornerstone of evolutionary theory.

Now I suspect you are being deliberately obtuse.

Sorry, but the analogy wasn't talking about metal replicating, and you know it. It was talking about looking at something clearly engineered and concocting a theory about it being created by random accident. And we both know it, so running off down a "metal doesn't replicate" tangent is just cowardly avoidance of the point.

 

[geauxtohell]

I'm tempted to call Poes Law on Cecile again

Since no one else has asked, I will. What is Poe's Law?

 

[☭proletarian☭]

and by the way, ID doesn't require any supernatural entity at all. It doesn't even address the supernatural. THAT actually comes more from its detractors.

So the intelligence in ID is natural? Were we made by aliens? How does ID explain the aliens?

Are you always this stupid?

ID doesn't purport to explain who or what the intelligence is. It merely points out that some things encountered in nature show clear signs of having been designed, rather than random. Any desire to jump to conclusions and put labels on things originates with YOU, not ID.

The worst thing I can imagine is being anything that a mouthbreather like you would consider "intelligent".

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_nqySMvkcw[/ame]

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Speciation is defined as "The evolutionary formation of new biological species, usually by the division of a single species into two or more genetically distinct ones." The last time I checked, MRSA, while having adapted to be resistant to antibiotics, is still a bacteria. It didn't become a different species. So if you wouldn't mind, could you please tell me when was the last time we observed speciation, ie. the development of a completely new and genetically distinct species, in bacteria? And please provide documentation.

Thanks.

It would be more appropriate to say "MRSA" is still Staph. aureus.

MRSA is genetically distinct from MSSA. I am not sure what more you want.

I want it to be something other than a bacteria.

So you want it to jump domains? Evolution predicts no such thing. You'd pretty much need your god for that

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I'm tempted to call Poes Law on Cecile again

Since no one else has asked, I will. What is Poe's Law?

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

Poe's Law - RationalWiki

 

[geauxtohell]

I want it to be something other than a bacteria. A Chihuahua is genetically distinct from a German Shepherd, but it's still a dog.

You don't even accept that things evolve into new species, and now you want things to evolve beyond the level of species?

You'll understand if I don't jump at the task of performing a fool's errand.

Oh, and by the way, adaptation in a species triggered by human activity, ie. the action upon the species of an outside intelligence, doesn't exactly help the argument for evolution.

It doesn't hurt it either. You would have a point if only humans caused adaptation.

 

[geauxtohell]

Sorry, but the analogy wasn't talking about metal replicating, and you know it. It was talking about looking at something clearly engineered and concocting a theory about it being created by random accident. And we both know it, so running off down a "metal doesn't replicate" tangent is just cowardly avoidance of the point.

If you don't understand why self replication (and metal's inability to do it) is central to this issue, you are truly lost.

 

[Cecilie1200]

We can look at bacteria, which pass their DNA on in a matter of hours, and readily observe speciation.
I.e. MRSA.

Speciation is defined as "The evolutionary formation of new biological species, usually by the division of a single species into two or more genetically distinct ones." The last time I checked, MRSA, while having adapted to be resistant to antibiotics, is still a bacteria. It didn't become a different species. So if you wouldn't mind, could you please tell me when was the last time we observed speciation, ie. the development of a completely new and genetically distinct species, in bacteria? And please provide documentation.
Thanks.

then youve got to define species. with bacteria, if youll be satisfied with some redefined ideas of speciation which account for bacteria being non sexual, its been observed that they will 'reject' specific genetic 'info' such that certain traits cannot be passed/altered by a 'mate' while others can. that would require breaking speciation down to these partial segments that selectively fail to replicate. im down with that. such failures would stop humans and primates reproducing despite 99-some% success.

*begrudgingly starts digging for documentation*

Seriously? You seriously need me to define species for you as it pertains to organisms which don't reproduce sexually? Really?

Okay, fine, but only because you seem to be trying hard to be sincere.

"Species" is defined as "Subdivision of biological classification composed of related organisms that share common characteristics and can interbreed." Because single-celled organisms like bacteria and protozoa do not reproduce sexually, a further clarification is added for those organisms: members of the same species share a gene pool, or a total sum of genes. MRSA still shares the gene pool of staphylococcus aureus, despite having a mutation of being antibiotic resistant. In other words, it adapted within its species, but it didn't change species.

And as I keep pointing out, changes brought about by the agency of intelligent human activity hardly proves random evolution.

 

[geauxtohell]

I'm tempted to call Poes Law on Cecile again

Since no one else has asked, I will. What is Poe's Law?

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

Poe's Law - RationalWiki

Thanks. I don't know why that didn't come up when I googled it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

define 'entirely different'

observed speciation - Google Search

So from what I can see after digging through your source's long-winded and boring digressions, your proof of speciation - which is supposed to support the theory of evolution from one species to another by random mutation - is some guy deliberately cross-breeding flowers? And at that, he produced a sterile hybrid, so it wasn't really a species, since it couldn't replicate itself.

When are you ignoramuses going to learn that the intelligently-directed breeding activities of human beings cannot, by definition, prove random evolution? It embarrasses me to even have to utter that painfully, blindingly obvious sentence to someone.

lol


are you always this dishonest?

In the 1940's a fertile species was produced through chromosome
doubling (allopolyploidy) in a hybrid of two primrose species. The
new species was Primula kewensis. The story is recounted in:

Stebbins, G. L. 1950. Variation and Evolution in Plants.
Columbia University Press. New York

Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences.

(Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.)

Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292.

http://www.evolutionslehrbuch.com/Kutschera+Niklas3.pdf

5.2.3 Speciation as a Result of Selection for Tolerance to a Toxin: Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus)

At reasonably low concentrations, copper is toxic to many plant species. Several plants have been seen to develop a tolerance to this metal (Macnair 1981). Macnair and Christie (1983) used this to examine the genetic basis of a postmating isolating mechanism in yellow monkey flower. When they crossed plants from the copper tolerant "Copperopolis" population with plants from the nontolerant "Cerig" population, they found that many of the hybrids were inviable. During early growth, just after the four leaf stage, the leaves of many of the hybrids turned yellow and became necrotic. Death followed this. This was seen only in hybrids between the two populations. Through mapping studies, the authors were able to show that the copper tolerance gene and the gene responsible for hybrid inviability were either the same gene or were very tightly linked. These results suggest that reproductive isolation may require changes in only a small number of genes.

Canine parovirus, a lethal disease of dogs, evolved from feline parovirus in the 1970s.

Muntzig, A, Triticale Results and Problems, Parey, Berlin, 1979. Describes whole new *genus* of plants, Triticosecale, of several species, formed by artificial selection.

N Barton Ecology: the rapid origin of reproductive isolation Science 290:462-463, Oct. 20, 2000. Science/AAAS | Science Magazine: Sign In Natural selection of reproductive isolation observed in two cases. Full papers are: AP Hendry, JK Wenburg, P Bentzen, EC Volk, TP Quinn, Rapid evolution of reproductive isolation in the wild: evidence from introduced salmon. Science 290: 516-519, Oct. 20, 2000. and M Higgie, S Chenoweth, MWBlows, Natural selection and the reinforcement of mate recognition. Science290: 519-521, Oct. 20, 2000
ECOLOGY: African Elephant Species Splits in Two -- Vogel 293 (5534): 1414 -- Science

chluter, D. and L. M. Nagel. 1995. Parallel speciation by natural selection. American Naturalist. 146:292-301.




and someone was saying mutation is necessarily bad?

Biologists Discover Why 10 Percent Of Europeans Are Safe From HIV Infection
CCR5-delta32 mutation-protective against HIV, but bad for hepatitis C virus?

Thank you for wasting everyone's time cutting and pasting quotes about yet more deliberate human intelligent activity as proof of completely random evolution.

And no, dumbfuck, I never said mutation was "necessarily bad". I said the vast majority of random genetic mutations are fatal to the owner, and they are. How are you supposed to debate something coherently when you can't even quote ME correctly from one post to another?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yes it is. Adaptation or failure to adapt is part of evolution.

You don't have to believe in evolution, but you don't get to claim fiat on the matter.

Espeically when there are mountains of evidence that support it.

Sorry, but the debate is not whether or not things change. The debate is whether or not things change INTO OTHER THINGS ENTIRELY, and changing within a species does NOT prove change between species, so that tired smokescreen of "evolution is just change over time" ain't gonna work.

Show me a "mountain of evidence" in favor of change between species. Hell, I'll settle for a foothill, or even a speed bump, of evidence. Let's see it.

Since you don't accept the fossil record, I doubt there is much point.

Things change, the changes are passed on. Saying you accept microevolution but not macoevolution is like saying you believe in pennies but not dollars.

Accept the fossil record? Accept WHAT about the fossil record? Please point out to me this apocryphal fossil evidence for evolution. So far, all I've seen is you saying, "The fossil record proves it. There, it exists." Your word for it just about constitutes proof that you believe it, in my eyes. It doesn't prove jack in the way of actual truth.

Things change, ergo things change into other things. Is that your idea of "mountains of evidence"?

Microevolution and macroevolution are not two parts of the same thing. They're two totally different things, and if I had seen pennies and merely been told by doofuses on the Internet that dollars exist - doofuses who couldn't give me one shred of a reason to believe them - you're damned right I'd say that I believe in pennies and not in dollars.

You're gonna have to do better than this or stop claiming there are "mountains of evidence". If a mountain exists, you should at least be able to show it to me on a map, if not produce some pictures of you on vacation there.

 

[Cecilie1200]

We can't watch evolution occur.

Really? We never see the effects of interracial marriages? We never observed generations of flies? We don't have a new flu shot every year? Blue genes don't mutate and locusts aren't becoming immune to our pesticides?

Interracial marriage? Hey, I don't know if you got this news bulletin from the 21st century, Klan Boy, but black humans and white humans are THE SAME SPECIES. And so are their offspring. Show me a marriage between two humans producing a kitten or a coupling between a human and a pony producing something entirely new, and you'll have something. Otherwise, all you're showing me is one species propagating itself, and your own shocking ignorance and prejudice.

As for locusts and immunities, see my last post on this subject re: I didn't become another species when I developed an immunity to chickenpox. I'm still human.

 

[Maple]

Among those who negate the validity of Darwin and the science communities' theories on the evolution of man and our fellow critters, where is the point of contention? Is it heredity that seems unrealistic? Is it the natural selection (survival of the fittest) mechanism that seems like hogwash? Maybe the time over which it is claimed to take effect? I'm new to this board, but like the responsiveness of this community, and would appreciate some help understanding where the theory has gone wrong.

It is a theory and not a fact. That's all you need to know. Men are arrogant creators and often unable to answer all of the universal questions no matter how much they might attempt to, we are humans, we are fallable and we just don't know everything. God does.

 

[geauxtohell]

Among those who negate the validity of Darwin and the science communities' theories on the evolution of man and our fellow critters, where is the point of contention? Is it heredity that seems unrealistic? Is it the natural selection (survival of the fittest) mechanism that seems like hogwash? Maybe the time over which it is claimed to take effect? I'm new to this board, but like the responsiveness of this community, and would appreciate some help understanding where the theory has gone wrong.

It is a theory and not a fact. That's all you need to know. Men are arrogant creators and often unable to answer all of the universal questions no matter how much they might attempt to, we are humans, we are fallable and we just don't know everything. God does.

Addressed on this thread time and time again.

 

[rdean]

Some interesting reading.

Horner, who acted as an advisor on the Jurassic Park films, made a remarkable discovery while his team were excavating a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in Montana.

The site was so remote, the skeleton had to be removed by helicopter — the operation led to a huge thighbone splitting in two.

Horner gave a piece of the bone to one of his students, palaeontologist Mary Schweitzer.

Examining it, she noticed a strange structure inside the hard outer case.

It resembled a pattern found only in the bones of pregnant birds.

Puzzled, she asked her research assistant, Jennifer Wittmeyer, to dissolve the outer mineral layer.

Six hours later, there was a knock on the door.

‘Jennifer ran into the room saying, “You’re not going to believe this,”’ recalls Schweitzer.

‘When she picked up a small piece, it stretched and moved all over the place.

'So we knew we had something pretty unusual.’

The magnitude of the discovery was immediately apparent to the Montana University team — the material appeared to be well preserved flesh from a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Horner says: ‘It’s unimaginable to find soft tissue. It was just assumed that everything had been fossilised.’
More extraordinary yet, was the next find in neighbouring parts of the dinosaur bone.
‘Out popped the blood vessels,’ says Schweitzer.

‘I said, “I don’t believe it, that’s not possible”. It was one of those goose bump moments.’
Horner and his team knew that blood vessels should not exist in fossilised bone.
Many scientists believed organic matter from a living thing could not survive more than 100,000 years — let alone 68 million years.
Next came the team’s attempt to salvage DNA from other bones kept in the university storerooms.

They put the samples they collected under a powerful microscope.
Magnified 4,000 times, tiny structures unlikely to be mineralised fossil material were apparent.

They seemed to be the microscopic cells that built dinosaur bones — called osteocytes.
So far, so good.

But Horner came to believe that his team needed to turn their work on its head if they were to unleash the dinosaur.
Amazing as the discovery of ‘living’ dinosaur tissue was, he feared that constructing a complete DNA map from it would be a never ending task.
So he embarked on a new strategy: retro-engineering a bird.

It is generally accepted by palaeontologists that birds are descended from a class of theropod dinosaurs called raptors.
‘If we want to see a dinosaur in our lifetime, we need to start with a bird and work backwards,’ says Horner.

‘As long as birds exist, we have the ability to reach back to dinosaurs.’
In the 1990s, scientists discovered dinosaurs in China buried in a fine ash.

They were preserved in remarkable detail and bird-like features, including claws and feathers, were recognisable.
Horner believes that a modern bird’s DNA contains a genetic memory that could be ‘switched on’ again, resurrecting long-dormant dinosaur traits.
To make such a creature, he would start with the genome (the whole hereditary information encoded in the DNA) of an emu.

‘Emus have all the features we need in order to make a Velociraptor-sized dinosaur,’ he says.

‘If I were to make a dinosaur, that is where I’d start.’

Far-fetched as this sounds, his work is supported by other leading academics.
Sean Carroll, a geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, says: ‘The inventory of genes in a bird would be very similar to the inventory of genes in a dinosaur.
‘It is differences in the decision-making that takes during development that make the difference between a chicken and a tyrannosaurus.’

Hans Larsson, a palaeontologist at McGill University in Canada, conducted an experiment in November 2007 into the evolution from dinosaurs’ long tails into birds’ short tails more than 150 million years ago.
Looking at a two-day-old chicken embryo, he made an unexpected discovery.

Expecting to see between four and eight vertebrae present in the developing spine, his microscope instead picked out 16 vertebrae — effectively a reptilian tail.

As the embryo developed, the ‘tail’ became shorter and shorter, until the young bird hatched with only five vertebrae.
Larsson says of the significance of the find: ‘For about 150 million years, this kind of a tail has never existed in birds.

'But they have always carried it deep inside their embryology.’
So, the blueprint for a dinosaur remained locked inside the modern-day bird.

Larsson decided to move from theory to reality.
He wanted to see if he could make a chicken grow a dinosaur’s tail, turning the clock back millions of years.
Manipulating the genetic make-up, he was able to extend the tail by a further three vertebrae.

Larsson had pinpointed a method for turning on dormant dinosaur genes.

If birds retained a dormant tail imprint, did they still retain a memory of dinosaur teeth?
In 2005, Matt Harris and John Fallon, developmental biologists at the University of Wisconsin, noticed something strange while researching mutant chickens.
Harris says: ‘Looking at an embryonic 14-day-old head, I came across the beak and these structures that were not supposed to be there.’
Could they really be teeth? Peeling away the beak in this tiny, mutant bird, the academics revealed sabreshaped formations almost identical to embryonic alligator teeth.
Next, Harris and Fallon attempted to trigger the formation of teeth in a normal chicken, by injecting the embryo with a virus designed to ‘turn on’ the relevant gene.
It was a long shot.

‘Making a tooth is complex,’ says Harris. ‘So the idea of turning on one gene that might be able to do this in an animal that hasn’t made teeth in over 70 million years, was somewhat of a stretch.’
Examining the growing embryo two weeks later, he called colleagues to look at what had happened.

‘You could see very clearly paired structures on the lower jaw.

'And so, a normal chicken can actually grow teeth.’
This was unexpected. Furthermore, the teeth had the same curved shape as dinosaur
fangs.

Following this, Harris and Fallon began to find other dinosaur traits in the DNA of birds, such as scales.
They looked at an ancient Chinese breed of chicken called a Silkie.

It has primitive plumage similar to that believed to grow on some dinosaurs.
By activating a dormant gene, Harris and Fallon attempted to ‘trick’ the chicken’s leg into growing feathers instead of scales.

It worked — they had uncovered the genetic changes that had taken place as the dinosaur evolved into a bird.

Link back on page 8.

 

[antagon]

Since you don't accept the fossil record, I doubt there is much point.

Things change, the changes are passed on. Saying you accept microevolution but not macoevolution is like saying you believe in pennies but not dollars.

there's some great quotes here... i mean, asshelmet!?! im using that in traffic.

there's extremists on both ends, having seen majik and celine at work. im not out to claim fact, but science, like life, requires the ability (or willingness) to see probability in plausability.

 

[geauxtohell]

Sorry, but the debate is not whether or not things change. The debate is whether or not things change INTO OTHER THINGS ENTIRELY, and changing within a species does NOT prove change between species, so that tired smokescreen of "evolution is just change over time" ain't gonna work.

Show me a "mountain of evidence" in favor of change between species. Hell, I'll settle for a foothill, or even a speed bump, of evidence. Let's see it.

Since you don't accept the fossil record, I doubt there is much point.

Things change, the changes are passed on. Saying you accept microevolution but not macoevolution is like saying you believe in pennies but not dollars.

Accept the fossil record? Accept WHAT about the fossil record? Please point out to me this apocryphal fossil evidence for evolution. So far, all I've seen is you saying, "The fossil record proves it. There, it exists." Your word for it just about constitutes proof that you believe it, in my eyes. It doesn't prove jack in the way of actual truth.

Things change, ergo things change into other things. Is that your idea of "mountains of evidence"?

Microevolution and macroevolution are not two parts of the same thing. They're two totally different things, and if I had seen pennies and merely been told by doofuses on the Internet that dollars exist - doofuses who couldn't give me one shred of a reason to believe them - you're damned right I'd say that I believe in pennies and not in dollars.

You're gonna have to do better than this or stop claiming there are "mountains of evidence". If a mountain exists, you should at least be able to show it to me on a map, if not produce some pictures of you on vacation there.

The fossil record provides an "A to B" map of evolution. You reject it, that's fine. The overwhelming majority of scientists, let alone biologists, disagree with you.

You keep saying "show me this" and "show me that" and when posters actually take the time to cite articles, you flippantly dismiss them. Again, you'll understand if I am not eager to do a fool's errand. I know you already have your mind made up on the matter and are not going to change it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Speciation is defined as "The evolutionary formation of new biological species, usually by the division of a single species into two or more genetically distinct ones." The last time I checked, MRSA, while having adapted to be resistant to antibiotics, is still a bacteria. It didn't become a different species. So if you wouldn't mind, could you please tell me when was the last time we observed speciation, ie. the development of a completely new and genetically distinct species, in bacteria? And please provide documentation.

Thanks.

'Bacteria' is not a species, genius.it's a domain

Oh, Christ. Wikipedia again. This is what education has come to in America. I swear, you are proof that humans are DEVOLVING rather than evolving. Any minute now, your opposable thumbs are going to disappear.

If you really, desperately need me to use specific genera and species every single time I refer to MRSA to prevent you from hairsplitting and word parsing, I will, but you're going to be even more fucking confused than you were when you started, which might actually require a radical rethinking of the laws of physics.

But fine. Just because methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus is methicillin-resistant does not mean it is not still staphylococcus aureus.

Happy now?

 

[Cecilie1200]

The gene comes out different, on a much smaller more chemical level than say your hand gets blasted by the x-ray machine. I'd also venture to say it usually comes out inferior. But when it does SOMEHOW work to the advantage of the specimen that specimen is more likely to reproduce than its competitors with the normal gene.

Yes, it usually comes out inferior. The vast majority of genetic mutations are fatal to the owner, if I remember correctly, and some percentage of the non-fatal ones are not passed on to the offspring. So assuming millions of random, non-fatal, hereditary mutations in the direction of increasingly more complex and diverse species is . . . reaching.

Which is why the process is continuous and has been occurring for millions of years.

The mutation for sickle cell anemia is a change of one amino acid on the heme beta globulin gene. That is the change of a single base pair.

People that are homozygous for the gene have the disease. People that are heterozygous for the gene are more resistant to malaria.

Therefore, there is a selective pressure to retain the gene.

. . . And they're still humans.

Oh, sorry. For the sake of Prole, they're still homo sapiens. Generic terms appear to inflame his two brain cells, huddling together in the center of the vacuum between his ears, trying to generate warmth.

 

[Cecilie1200]

So the intelligence in ID is natural? Were we made by aliens? How does ID explain the aliens?

Are you always this stupid?

ID doesn't purport to explain who or what the intelligence is. It merely points out that some things encountered in nature show clear signs of having been designed, rather than random. Any desire to jump to conclusions and put labels on things originates with YOU, not ID.

The worst thing I can imagine is being anything that a mouthbreather like you would consider "intelligent".

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_nqySMvkcw[/ame]

Ooh, YouTube. THAT puts me in my place even better than Wikipedia, you mad scientific genius, you.