Darwinist's Dilemma (Are I.D. Biologists Legit?)

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Lots of uncertainty in biology, nothing much to be dogmatic about, right James R?

 

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It's not being dogmatic, just being in agreement with most of the evidence.

 

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dude, havent you ever watched "csi: miami"? the evidence ALWAYS leads to some crazy twist or another, and in the end was just a plot device to keep us guessing.

myuu made me.



(seriously though, i believe in ID, and dont find it in contradiction with any scientific findings, really. the very fact that most of these folks in my camp cant reconcile what stares us in the face with their personal beliefs makes me sad. it makes all of us look bad.)

 

Wow - that was a revelation, if you'll excuse the pun. Well, I disagree with you man, but as the Yanks say I'll fight...well not to the death, but maybe until I got a paper-cut or a bruise or something...for your right to say it. I don't agree with ID, but I don't think it delegitimizes a biologist to examine it, or even to believe in it.

 

OK, to borrow Lenny Flanks question:

What is the scientific theory of ID?
How do you test it?
What experiments regarding ID have been carried out, and what were the results?
Are you employed by the Discovery Institute?

 

i dont see whats funny.
im jewish.

as to the other comments: this isnt an area of expertise for me, so im not going to fall into some sort of word trap. im not an idiot.

 

Like most everything else they say, the IDer's assertion that evolution has never been tested is false. (At least the central idea of "selection of the fittest" has been both accidentally tested many times and tested in some controlled experiments.)

As example of the accidental test:
This is rather well known, so briefly: In England a white moth live before coal was extensively used. It became dark gray for about 150 years, but now that the air is not soot filled, it is white again. As there was no "control" group, this could have been just a strange coincidence, due to natural genetic variations.

One controlled experiment was done in Brazil, in the wild, using a stream with waterfall. Below the falls were two types of fish, the bigger ate the smaller, which sexually matured rapidly and as still small, laid few eggs and had few females surviving (on average one) to reproduction age to make the next generation.

Neither of these fish existed in the stream about the waterfall, but some of the small ones were captured and placed there. - Simple, low cost experiment. About 30 years later, the experimenters returned and caught some of the fish from Above the falls, "group A." (and some of the small ones from Below the falls also as "group B" controls.) Both groups of captured fish were then separately raised in tanks with the same stream water flowing thru them for several years. The size at sexual maturity in group B was still just as it was observed 30 years earlier, but group A was much larger at sexual maturity and this sexual maturity was delayed by more than a year in group A, just as Darwinian selection would suggest.

Without any danger of being eaten by the larger fish, the fish above the falls had evolved, selected themselves for delayed sexual maturity when they were much larger and could produced many more eggs.

As I recall sexual maturity age occurred a couple of years later in group A, than in group B, which did not have any changed in the environment to adapt to. In that new environment above falls, Darwin was at work, evolving the fish in group A.

Only difference between the two groups was that the environment of Group A had radically changed and they generically selected for the new environment. THIS IS A CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION of Darwinian evolution's "selection of the fittest" (to the environment).

 

Fish are fish, and moths are moths, that is not Darwinian evolution, that is genetic variation within those two respective syngameons, obviously, no Darwinian mumbo jumbo needed.

 

No. The fish experiment had a control group that did not exhibit the "genetic variation"

I do not expect to persuade you but at least try to understand the concept of a "controlled demonstration."

 

It is not any kind of syngameon when the new group is functionally unable to breed with the old. That is speciation.

 

But they can interbreed, biologically possible, in the lab if necessary, you can't say the same about fish with moths.

 

he got served.

 

Why has this not been blasted from the rooftops as proof that Darwinian evolution is true?

 

NO. That's exactly the point: they can't breed and don't breed. Reproductive isolation.

 

The term syngameon is just as ill-defined as species. By your reasoning, we should also give up any classification system based on syngameon. This ambiguity proves the evolutionary origin of diversity. Species are always changing. As a consequence, they are essentially only a somewhat arbitrarily defined point along an evolutionary line.

Ideally, this dispute could be settled by breeding experiments--if two organisms can mate and produce fertile offspring, they are probably members of the same species. However, we must be careful because members of very closely related species can sometimes produce offspring together, and a small fraction of those may be fertile. This is the case with mules, which are the product of mating between female horses and male donkeys. About one out of 10,000 mules is fertile. Does this mean that horses and donkeys are in the same species? Whatever the answer may be, it is clear that species are not absolutely distinct entities, though by naming them, we implicitly convey the idea that they are.

Breeding experiments are rarely undertaken to determine species boundaries because of the practical difficulties. It is time consuming and wild animals do not always cooperate. Using this kind of reproductive data for defining species from the fossil record is impossible since we cannot go back in time to observe breeding patterns and results. Comparisons of DNA sequences are now becoming more commonly used as an aid in distinguishing species. If two animals share a great many DNA sequences, it is likely that they are at least closely related. Unfortunately, this usually does not conclusively tell us that they are members of the same species. Therefore, we are still left with morphological characteristics as the most commonly used criteria for identifying species differences.

 

"If two organisms can mate and produce offspring, they are probably members of the same species." Wow, how generous, we can sure see where you're coming from.

 

Bold from post 168, which is rapidly being pushed down as too embarising to the IDers.

the IDer's assertion that evolution has never been tested is false......

(A 30+ year controlled experiment with two groups of fish is describe here inpost 168.)

Only difference between the two groups was that the environment of Group A had radically changed and they generically selected for the new environment. THIS IS A CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION of Darwinian evolution's "selection of the fittest" (to the environment).

 

Sure it is.

 

I'm sure you can explain, then, why domestic sheep cannot interbreed with wild sheep, their ancestors?