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Actually they are. Mutations occur all the time and evolution has been shown in many creatures in the here and now. Natural selection is not about creating the critter that will fill this niche.
Natural selection is about all these critters are being mutated all the time and every now and then one of those mutations gives one particular critter a massive advantage over his competitors. That critter prospers and the rest die out. That is an evolutionary step. The Galapagos Islands are a miniature lab of evolution. They are closely tied in geography but each island has species of finches that have evolved to take advantage of whatever that particular island has to offer.
You miss his point.There are no laboratory demonstrations of speciation, millions of fruit flies coming and going while never once suggesting that they were destined to appear as anything other than fruit flies.
More than six thousand years of breeding and artificial selection, barnyard and backyard, have never induced a chicken to lay a square egg or persuade a pig to develop wheels on ball bearing.
In a research survey published in 2001, the evolutionary biologist Joel Kingsolver reported that in sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. Important issues about selection, he remarked with some understatement, remain unresolved. selection exists at all. Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. . . . Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline Computer Life Form Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World.
The above from Berlinski's "Devil's Delusion," p. 189-190
So, do you ever use your own words, or do you just rely on other people to argue for you? Let's begin.
Funny, there actually has been lots of laboratory evidence of speciation and evidence of speciation out in the wild. Google 'Richard Lenski.' He's been doing an experiment with e. coli bacteria for the past two decades. It's still ongoing, and he's had some utterly fascinating discoveries. Some of the non-harmful (to humans) e. coli colonies acquired the ability to process citrate, something with demarcates them from the harmful e. coli.
And oh, the fruit fly thing again, hm? Cute. The experiment was over... 600 generations I believe? Lenski's experiment it took 30,000 generations to produce the trait I spoke of above. Evolution takes time.
I don't think you have enough knowledge of biology to know how funny this is. Seriously. Go try looking at pictures of what domesticated animals and plants looked like before humans started controlling their breeding and suiting it to own purposes. They don't look like what they do now, so his assertion that there hasn't been evolution is just silly.
Also, his examples of what evolution should have happened? Now he's just being retarded.
In a research survey published in 2001, the evolutionary biologist Joel Kingsolver reported that in sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. Important issues about selection, he remarked with some understatement, remain unresolved. selection exists at all.
Ah, the old creationist tactic of quoting from biologists themselves, and trying to appeal to their authority. Someone's new at this game.
They've clipped his quotes right up. We don't know what the survey was about, how it was conducted, or even what the result was. To begin with, all we can get from this paragraph is that specific traits by themselves don't increase or decrease chances of reproduction or survival. But the author of the paragraph tries to make it mean natural selection is false. Which doesn't work when we don't what Kingsolver was even testing for. It's also interesting to note that he probably tested humans (i.e., individuals), and if he did, than the point is moot. Civilization tends to have a negating effect on natural selection.
So, anyone got a link to the research survey? Citation pleeeeease?
Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. . . . Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline Computer Life Form Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World.
So how is Thomas Ray not honest? How do they fall apart if they are honest? What constitutes an honest computer simulation? This excerpt you've quoted makes a lot of unbacked and uncited statements.
"He and you don't understand ...(forgive me but my paleontology is weak)"
So, horses have remained horses?
No new species, huh?
So....where is the 'evolution'?
You're not another zombie who has fallen under the sway of concepts that he doesn't quite understand are you?
But...I'm perfectly happy to have you believe whatsoever you choose to...just realize that you are accepting based on faith.
But, to help you in your search for knowledge......
. ". . . no human has ever seen a new species form in nature." Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73.
"There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like, . . . Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred." Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library (New York: Time Incorporated, 1962), pp. 14-15
"Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation." Austin H. Clark, "Animal Evolution," Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.
"When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution]." Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898), p. 210
"But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group or that." [emphasis in original] Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong(New Haven Ct,:Ticknor and Fields, 1992) p. 19. (See my articleThe Coelacanth, Living Fossils, and Evolution).
There is no fossil record establishing historical continuity of structure for most characters that might be used to assess relationships among phyla." Katherine G. Field et al., "Molecular Phylogeny of the animal Kingdom," Science, Vol. 239, 12 February 1988, p. 748.
"And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field." Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.
". . . there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world." G.R. Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, ( N.Y: Harper and Row, 1983) p. 60.
". . . the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing." David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.
"Gaps at a lower taxonomic level, species and genera, are practically universal in the fossil record of the mammal-like reptiles. In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another." Thomas S. Kemp,Mammal-like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals (New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 319.
All species are transitional species.
So how is this evidence for human macro-evolution ?
We all can agree that information in DNA contains a lot of information the burden of proof is on you to show humans contain information of living organisms that we descended from.
Remember similarity is not proof of ancestry.
This is just evidence the designer of life used the same substances to create but he managed to make the genes of parents vastlt different.
Percentage of genetic similarity between humans and animals
What is your evidence that all living organisms are transitional ?
None of that verifies the existence of transitional species. NONE OF IT. It's just supposition and assumption based upon what is most comfortable for you, personally, to believe.
"Brilliant minds" also argue against you, you know.
You just think your preferred beliefs have more validity because you believe them.
"Brilliant minds" also argue against you, you know.
You just think your preferred beliefs have more validity because you believe them.
Yes brilliant minds do argue against me.
More often than not though, it's a brilliant person educated in something besides biology, telling a biologist they're wrong about biology.
And I repeat, speciation is observable, there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature.
"...transformation of one species into another and, consequently, the origin of higher taxa. Because it is so well supported scientifically,..."
Bogus.
Do you know the definition of species?
As I said...there is no example of speciation.
Watch the video that Loki posted. It is quite enlightening.
Based on your reaction to the Brit accent in the silly vid, I bet you've purchased a whole bunch of 'As Seen on TV' cookware, huh?
Instead, check out the following from the bulletin of the Chicago Museum of Natural History:
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Chicago, 50:22-29)
Again?
" By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."
Westy, stop behaving like a martinet of the ideology, the creation myth of our time, and consider what the lack of evidence implies.
"Brilliant minds" also argue against you, you know.
You just think your preferred beliefs have more validity because you believe them.
Yes brilliant minds do argue against me.
More often than not though, it's a brilliant person educated in something besides biology, telling a biologist they're wrong about biology.
And I repeat, speciation is observable, there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature.
"...there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature."
OMG...Al Gore is back!
"Gore has refused to debate time and time again. In fact, he has been forced
to use the tired term "The Debate Is Over" so many times, he may as well
have it stamped to his head."
Archived Blog: Al Gore Ducks Warming Debate (Updated)
Westwall and Drock continue to insist that what they KNOW is irrefutable, DESPITE the lack of evidence.
Berlinski can't tie his own shoes.You miss his point.There are no laboratory demonstrations of speciation, millions of fruit flies coming and going while never once suggesting that they were destined to appear as anything other than fruit flies.
More than six thousand years of breeding and artificial selection, barnyard and backyard, have never induced a chicken to lay a square egg or persuade a pig to develop wheels on ball bearing.
In a research survey published in 2001, the evolutionary biologist Joel Kingsolver reported that in sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. Important issues about selection, he remarked with some understatement, remain unresolved. selection exists at all. Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. . . . Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline Computer Life Form Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World.
The above from Berlinski's "Devil's Delusion," p. 189-190
So, do you ever use your own words, or do you just rely on other people to argue for you? Let's begin.
Funny, there actually has been lots of laboratory evidence of speciation and evidence of speciation out in the wild. Google 'Richard Lenski.' He's been doing an experiment with e. coli bacteria for the past two decades. It's still ongoing, and he's had some utterly fascinating discoveries. Some of the non-harmful (to humans) e. coli colonies acquired the ability to process citrate, something with demarcates them from the harmful e. coli.
And oh, the fruit fly thing again, hm? Cute. The experiment was over... 600 generations I believe? Lenski's experiment it took 30,000 generations to produce the trait I spoke of above. Evolution takes time.
I don't think you have enough knowledge of biology to know how funny this is. Seriously. Go try looking at pictures of what domesticated animals and plants looked like before humans started controlling their breeding and suiting it to own purposes. They don't look like what they do now, so his assertion that there hasn't been evolution is just silly.
Also, his examples of what evolution should have happened? Now he's just being retarded.
Ah, the old creationist tactic of quoting from biologists themselves, and trying to appeal to their authority. Someone's new at this game.
They've clipped his quotes right up. We don't know what the survey was about, how it was conducted, or even what the result was. To begin with, all we can get from this paragraph is that specific traits by themselves don't increase or decrease chances of reproduction or survival. But the author of the paragraph tries to make it mean natural selection is false. Which doesn't work when we don't what Kingsolver was even testing for. It's also interesting to note that he probably tested humans (i.e., individuals), and if he did, than the point is moot. Civilization tends to have a negating effect on natural selection.
So, anyone got a link to the research survey? Citation pleeeeease?
Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not. Thomas Ray has for years been conducting computer experiments in an artificial environment that he has designated Tierra. . . . Sandra Blakeslee, writing for the New York Times, reported the results under the headline Computer Life Form Mutates in an Evolution Experiment: Natural Selection Is Found at Work in a Digital World.
So how is Thomas Ray not honest? How do they fall apart if they are honest? What constitutes an honest computer simulation? This excerpt you've quoted makes a lot of unbacked and uncited statements.
1. "So, do you ever use your own words, or do you just rely on other people to argue for you?"
It's my argument, but Berlinski does such a nice job of tying you in knots, I think I'll keep using his words.
They bring evidence and valid logic; you are the superstitious one.Westwall and Drock continue to insist that what they KNOW is irrefutable, DESPITE the lack of evidence.
Yes brilliant minds do argue against me.
More often than not though, it's a brilliant person educated in something besides biology, telling a biologist they're wrong about biology.
And I repeat, speciation is observable, there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature.
"...there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature."
OMG...Al Gore is back!
"Gore has refused to debate time and time again. In fact, he has been forced
to use the tired term "The Debate Is Over" so many times, he may as well
have it stamped to his head."
Archived Blog: Al Gore Ducks Warming Debate (Updated)
I've already provided proof though, I'm not avoiding anything. I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what you're insinuating.
If you'd like more proof through observable speciation, I'd be happy to provide it. It's up to you.
I got his point quite well. He and you don't understand the basics of evolutionary theory. Critters don't suddenly become some other critter for no apparent reason. 55 million years ago horses evolved from some other critter (forgive me but my paleontology is weak) and they were tiny little dudes the size of a cat. Through time they split into many different types of horse and grew in size because that gave them a competative edge.
Horses today are basically the same as horses from 55 million years ago genetically. However, the species has grown in complexity and size to where they are today. They will remain horses until they die out due to some horrendous catastrophe or some other critter comes along that out competes them and they go the way of the Moa.
"He and you don't understand ...(forgive me but my paleontology is weak)"
So, horses have remained horses?
No new species, huh?
So....where is the 'evolution'?
You're not another zombie who has fallen under the sway of concepts that he doesn't quite understand are you?
But...I'm perfectly happy to have you believe whatsoever you choose to...just realize that you are accepting based on faith.
But, to help you in your search for knowledge......
. ". . . no human has ever seen a new species form in nature." Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73.
"There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like, . . . Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred." Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library (New York: Time Incorporated, 1962), pp. 14-15
"Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation." Austin H. Clark, "Animal Evolution," Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.
"When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution]." Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898), p. 210
"But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group or that." [emphasis in original] Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong(New Haven Ct,:Ticknor and Fields, 1992) p. 19. (See my articleThe Coelacanth, Living Fossils, and Evolution).
There is no fossil record establishing historical continuity of structure for most characters that might be used to assess relationships among phyla." Katherine G. Field et al., "Molecular Phylogeny of the animal Kingdom," Science, Vol. 239, 12 February 1988, p. 748.
"And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field." Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.
". . . there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world." G.R. Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, ( N.Y: Harper and Row, 1983) p. 60.
". . . the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing." David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.
"Gaps at a lower taxonomic level, species and genera, are practically universal in the fossil record of the mammal-like reptiles. In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another." Thomas S. Kemp,Mammal-like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals (New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 319.
All species are transitional species.
"...there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature."
OMG...Al Gore is back!
"Gore has refused to debate time and time again. In fact, he has been forced
to use the tired term "The Debate Is Over" so many times, he may as well
have it stamped to his head."
Archived Blog: Al Gore Ducks Warming Debate (Updated)
I've already provided proof though, I'm not avoiding anything. I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what you're insinuating.
If you'd like more proof through observable speciation, I'd be happy to provide it. It's up to you.
Did you say proof?
Sure.
1. In The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution, 2007, Koonin writes Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity .do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution.
So .you're was wrong? Pretty much.
"In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. Did you get that? Intermediate forms are ..imaginary.
Again?
'No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms.'
And you said..."And I repeat, speciation is observable,,,"
You're sounding like..what...an empty barrel?
See, this guy is a real 'Doc.'
Wanna see?
2. Eugene V. Koonin (born October 26, 1956) is a Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health[1], Bethesda, MD, USA . He is a recognised expert in the field of evolutionary andcomputational biology.
Koonin gained a Master of Science in 1978 and a PhD in 1983 in Molecular Biology from Department of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. Eugene Koonin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And your expertise is.....?
I've already provided proof though, I'm not avoiding anything. I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what you're insinuating.
If you'd like more proof through observable speciation, I'd be happy to provide it. It's up to you.
Did you say proof?
Sure.
1. In The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution, 2007, Koonin writes Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity .do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution.
So .you're was wrong? Pretty much.
"In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. Did you get that? Intermediate forms are ..imaginary.
Again?
'No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms.'
And you said..."And I repeat, speciation is observable,,,"
You're sounding like..what...an empty barrel?
See, this guy is a real 'Doc.'
Wanna see?
2. Eugene V. Koonin (born October 26, 1956) is a Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health[1], Bethesda, MD, USA . He is a recognised expert in the field of evolutionary andcomputational biology.
Koonin gained a Master of Science in 1978 and a PhD in 1983 in Molecular Biology from Department of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. Eugene Koonin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And your expertise is.....?
My expertise is being able to post links that show those with expertise in biology telling us about observable speciation and proving speciation happens.
I didn't get an answer, would you like MORE proof than the proof already provided for speciation?
"...there is no debating whether or not it happens in nature."
OMG...Al Gore is back!
"Gore has refused to debate time and time again. In fact, he has been forced
to use the tired term "The Debate Is Over" so many times, he may as well
have it stamped to his head."
Archived Blog: Al Gore Ducks Warming Debate (Updated)
I've already provided proof though, I'm not avoiding anything. I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what you're insinuating.
If you'd like more proof through observable speciation, I'd be happy to provide it. It's up to you.
Did you say proof?
Sure.
1. In The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution, 2007, Koonin writes Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity .do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution.
So .you're was wrong? Pretty much.
"In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. Did you get that? Intermediate forms are ..imaginary.
Again?
'No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms.'
And you said..."And I repeat, speciation is observable,,,"
You're sounding like..what...an empty barrel?
See, this guy is a real 'Doc.'
Wanna see?
2. Eugene V. Koonin (born October 26, 1956) is a Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health[1], Bethesda, MD, USA . He is a recognised expert in the field of evolutionary andcomputational biology.
Koonin gained a Master of Science in 1978 and a PhD in 1983 in Molecular Biology from Department of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. Eugene Koonin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And your expertise is.....?
