Evolution is wack;God is the only way that makes sense!

@Aqueous,
There is evidence using Darwins own words that the islands may not be able to be treated in isolation and that at some stage they may have been connected to the Americas. Given the significant amount of siesmic and tectonic activity, this actually seems quite plausable to me.

 

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The most serious issue in my opinion for me is that of the transitional evolution required to evolve such diversity.... I mentioned the issue of partial genome earlier. This for me is a signifcant area of concern....How can a partial evolution occur and allow the resultant organism to survive the process...of evolving from one state to another. [ the "always" missing link ]
Example: How did the Finches eat if their beeks where not as they are now. [given the supposed specialty of their diet]

 

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Every species is a link between it's ancestors and whatever it's descendants are/will be. Your parents are a transition from your grandparents to you and your siblings. Homo Erectus was a transition from earlier mammals to us. Could Homo Erectus not possible have existed just because it was part of the way between us and our more distant ancestors? When something is a link between (for instance) dinosaurs and modern birds that doesn't mean it had the head of a bird and the legs of a dinosaur and thus some horrific chimera which couldn't function but rather it was some reptile-like creature with downy hair and more developed arms muscles. If a species cannot survive due to being unable to get enough food or killed of by something then it will have no descendants. The fact life exists now shows it's ancestry is filled with functioning species who managed to survive well enough to breed.

This "How did things half way between these two species survive?" line of reasoning is a fundamentally flawed one as it assumes current species are somehow the conclusion of something, that current species are 'fully formed' and anything species in the past part of the way to becoming current species must have been flawed. The current state of life isn't a 'conclusion', everything is transitioning. We have finger nails because we haven't quite lost the claws we used to have. We have various vestigial body parts because we haven't lost them yet. Whales still have tiny hind legs under their skin because they haven't lost them yet. They are still evolving and may be in the future (if we don't kill them all) their descendants will have no leg bones left. That doesn't make whales a 'partial species', they clearly excel at the environment niche they are in. At every stage in the ancestry of life on Earth such species have been, tautologically, successful because they survived long enough to breed. Saying "They are only partly evolved" is a complete straw man, too often wheeled out by overly religious people who think of current life as 'the conclusion', as if evolution is supposed to have been heading towards us and current species and everything else has been half baked. It is drawing an imaginary and completely unjustified line in the sand to say such things.

 

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maybe you fail to see my point...

try this extreme dialectic thought experiment:

we have found the remains of an extinct Homo Disectus.
It is found to have 5 fingers and one thumb on both hands, Yet it shares similar genome to Homo Sapiens.

It is found though other means that it is indeed our ancestor. [ presume it ok]

The questions are:
At what point did 5 fingers become 4?
Was there a stage where there was 4 1/2 fingers?
Or did the Homo Disectus suddenly make a quantum leap instanteously developing in to a homosapien with 4 fingers and a thumb?


Now apply the same rational to the issue of Darwins Finches.
At what point in their evolution did they acquire the special features to suit their environment?
How did they survive prior to developing and during that development if their only food supply was unavailable to them? Remembering that evolution is a very slow process normally
This is what I mean by partial genome......just thoughts you know, just thoughts

 

How do you eat if your teeth are not strong enough? Answer, slowly and not quite enough, but you may survive. The finches ate whatever they could, but evolved to exploit their environment better.

Really, your opinions do not serve as evidence.

Hans

 

Look at your hand. Are all the fingers the same size? Even better, look at your toes. Would you be at a disadvantage if your little toe became smaller and smaller?

There are plenty of animals where the number of toes has been reduced (all vertebrates originate from 5 toed forms).

You can't apply a hypothetical scenario to the real world (and expect it to make sense).

Who says their only food source was unavailable?

Try to make that "Their best food source was difficult to exploit".

Obviously, those with minor changes that helped them eat better had an advantage. Soon their descendants dominated the (relatively small) population, but ... this goes on: The best suited keeep having an advantage, till such time as they are perfectly adapted.

Of course, the Galapagos finches had some advantages: Few natural enemies, and little competition. The meant that even if initially poorly adapted, they could still survive.

Hans

 

You still have it backwards. The ones that had features suited to their environment survived. The features arise by random mutation and the ones best suited to the environment are preserved from generation to generation by natural selection.

 

There is no such thing as a partially evolved life form. At every stage along the way, there is a gradual advantage to change. The difference in variations isn't necessarily something that would prevent an animal from surviving, but when considered as a whole, there must be a small degree of difference in survival or reproduction rates.

 

Actually it can be thought of this way, I agree. Evolution is only slightly more "intelligent" than pure randomness. I give it an IQ of about 1, and that's all it takes.

 

for the theory of evolution as it stands today... yep I agree...

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[sorry I could not resist the invite...]

 

@ Hans

really? truly? sincerely? are you sure?

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:bawl:

 

I'm trying to agree with you, mister!

 

Sorry if I read you incorrectly I was expecting a visitor [daughter] at any time when I posted on the fly.
Yes you can look at it in many different ways once the belief in the existing theory is managed better.

It does not mean that that theory is threatened it simply means it can be appreciated more for it's merit than would be other wise possible.
I personaly feel the basic rational of the current theory is actually excellent. [ Not that I know it that intimately ] But more as a logical paradigm than serving it's purpose regarding evolution.
in other words it is good thinking but we can do a lot better if we are able to shift perspectves a little.

 

This is not about me. At the moment I am attempting to engage you in the science, nothing more. I'm asking you to drop the ancillary comments and address this one question as objectively as possible.

Don't worry about accuracy. What are the options? Just say how you might reason this out. That's all I'm asking.

Table this for a moment. I wasn't looking for textbook knowledge. I'm just asking you to put on your thinking cap and walk me through the options and your reasons for or against any particular explanation.

Again: you know there are about a dozen species, closely related in what biologists call a family. They exist no where on earth except on the Galapagos islands. You also know they came into existence after the volcanoes rose out of the sea floor and created the islands. You know that birds were flourishing on the mainland at the time the volcanoes were erupting.

I am asking you to walk through the possible explanations of how these species came into existence, using just these facts and whatever knowledge, experience and reasoning faculty you choose to apply, in order to explain to me how you think these birds may have come into existence.

C'mon: give it a shot.

 

So you immediately jumped to food and chewing. What made you think of that?

 

Firstly I am dubious for the facts presented as being correct. However given the siesmic activity I would be inclined to consider that the birds migrated from the mainland in search of their appropriate niche environment.

As to why they don't exist any where else possibly has more to do with a dependancy issue to do with that enviroment unique flora for example, that can be requitted no where else in the world.
The birds survival may be dependant on that which only the islands can fulfill [ including temperature of the ground]. Due to a lack of information one can only guess as to what that may be.

If the islands are new as you state then they MUST have arrived via migration...of some sort. [ the time span is way too short to evolve from a supposed starting point]
The fact that the volcanos have probably erupted numerous times also means extinction may have been possible so they appear to be a fairly recent or contemporary migrant....[last 800 years or so]
Flora regeneration after volcanic wipe out would be a lot quicker than evolving an entire family of birds.

To me a key piece of scientific evidence is that the islands are situated directly above a Mantle Plume. This is a rather interesting factor to the uniqueness of the islands population.

whats you answer?
I do not intend to study all the various explanations that have been offered as this entire issue of Darwins Finches wil not be resolved no matter which way you take it. IMO As I said the significant local seismic activity precludes any solid theorising.
It is really a matter of effective time use. and knowing what to invest into.
So, for me, unless the seismic issue is neutraised empirically then I see no point to "chasing the wind"..

 

Every member of all the various species migrated? :bugeye:

 

If the islands were not so unstable [ seismic activity] one could imagine that the flora [food source] and the birds evolved together. As the food source changed over milions of years so to did the birds specialised beeks and foraging methods.
However the islands are NOT stable and are relatively new so the above is impossible due to time restraints involved.

 

How old are the islands do you think?
How old is the habitat we are talking about?
Have the islands been there long enough to evolve not only the flora but the fauna as well with out migration?

 

Is 8 million to 90 million years long enough to evolve according to the theory of evolution an entire family of flora and fauna to the state they evolved to? [from scratch?]
On islands that would be constantly erupting in their earlier phases...and probably unable to sustain vegetation over long or uninterupted periods.
Well think about it...
fish to bird in under 90 mill...

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the Cretaceous period would have been occuring at the time the volcano's surfaced which ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 65 million years ago.

So migration is the only answer....

Now do you see why I am hesitant about taking theory too seriously?

And who was it that said "Nothng new ever gets achieved with online forum posting"