Evolution

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by garbonzo, Feb 20, 2015.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    The hyaenas were a given.

    And solitary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_animal. Tigers, bears and wolverines, oh my. Solitary being merely another point on the distribution of social structure.

    One wonders whether other categories in this this semi-ordinal distribution - solo, pack, herd - can be readily identified for mammals. Cetacean pods probably won't do - roughly ten individuals which is as good as pack, really. A preference for duos would certainly be different. This implies long-term monogamy and being on the K side of r/K selection but actually I don't think it really requires it. Then again, you could argue that some of the solitary Carnivora do this, serially. Also prairie voles. Does a transient association for mating count? Seems like cheating. Gibbons? No, looks like family groups, so... pack, essentially. Some big birds, anyway.

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    No, not this big bird.
     
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  3. garbonzo Registered Senior Member

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    Erhm, before I go respond to the latest responses I feel I need to go back and respond to some prior responses.

    What's the threshold?

    Prove.

    I did not say it doesn't fit well within the concept that we are all based on the same ancestor. I said it fits equally wellwith any creation narrative, be it evolution, creationism, panspermia, or any other narrative you can think of.

    Or that we had a creator with deep understanding of engineering principles who used the most efficient method known to man (replaceable parts) to engineer all of life's diversity.

    As I said, it is evidence of nothing.

    You are begging the question.

    Quite the opposite. The original theory of evolution as coined by Darwin rejected the concept of DNA, discovered by Gregory Mendel. It was only accepted by the evolutionary theory around 1930, well after Darwin's death, because they had no choice. All of their own theories got proven wrong over and over, and all evidence was piling up in favor of DNA.

    Indeed, but what is your point exactly. While panspermia doesn't contradict evolution, it also doesn't support it. It could have happened with or without evolution. So, this is a moot point.

    Yes, the original challenge was to find a complex animal like any mammal or something. And it was found, so the evolutionists had to double down and ask for an earlier one. Sincerely, I always took the rabbit demand on the cambrian the same lines, that is, any complex animal would do.

    I stopped believing in the pseudo-science of evolution when I stopped giving cursory glances on the subjects of my study. You should try, sometime.

    Get every animal listed on the line. Check all data known or speculated about it; size, location, diet, age of appearance, age of disappearance, living environment, habits, anything. Table it. If there any changes of location, see if there is a real possibility of migration from one area to another. If there was any change of diet, see if makes sense. Check the ages for gaps. Check everything. Do a scientist's work. Know what you are saying.
     
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  5. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    [double post as I thought my internet went down]
     
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  7. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

    Mendel discovered dominant and recessive traits but obviously had no knowledge of DNA.

    I'm pretty sure Darwin was unaware of the existence of DNA either. Because DNA wasn't even discovered until about 10 years after the publication of Origin of Species.

    The discovery of DNA reinforced Darwin's hypothesis about inheritance and provided a workable mechanism for traits to be inherited by.
     
  8. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The idea of Blood Lines, due to reproduction and mother and father, had already been known since ancient times. Some of these blood lines are even recorded in the bible and show genetic lines. The concept is old, with the DNA a way to narrow the concept down to a molecule.

    The theory of blood lines was already there and Darwin was knowledgeable of that tradition. The idea of selection was not new either, since a royal blood line would give you selection in any culture. Even Jesus was anticipated to be from a certain royal genetic or blood line. The change due to Darwin's thesis was really about time scale, changing this from 6000 years to farther back.

    One aspect of the ancient tradition, which Darwin did not include, was the idea of what today is called; nature versus nurture or DNA/blood line versus the impact of the environment. Jesus was among the first to address this, by breaking down the blood line boundaries between cultures and rich and poor. The royal blood line had all the privileges, and could even suppress the smart poor blood line, less they rise up. This would create a self filling blue blood line only argument.

    I have used the example of comparing the hypothetical inferences of Darwin, if he had gone to Yellowstone after a forest fire (quick changing environment) versus Galapagos (very slow change environment) to show how nurture would make the inference different, for each location, even with the same nature or DNA/blood line. Galapagos helps to zero out nurture more than Yellowstone so genetic change is on top. With Yellowstone adaptation skills is better suited than genetic changes to the environment.

    Darwin may have been biased, by the blood line or DNA approach, due to his favored position in life as a well off British Citizen of the Empire. Yellowstone would implied, the native American backwoods man, was more an artifact of his environment, and not his human DNA, which would mean Darwin was socially propped up, and not of higher blood/DNA.

    Jesus would say we are all equal because he stressed a social environment of love where all could be equal in spite of blood/DNA. While others attached Jesus to the bloodline of David and Solomon to give more credibility to his place in history of selection. Natural selection was spun from that.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2015
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Which reminds me of William Bateson(father of Gregory) and the clash between mendelians and darwinians of a century ago.

    Oft cited as a clash between evolutionists and statisticians...
     
  10. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    One thing that the ancient models of selection contained; both in the bloodline, and the nature and nurture models, was what was called, divine intervention. For example, Jesus was part of a bloodline of David, but he had another layer called divine, that was not common to the entire bloodline, since all members of the bloodline did not have this extra feature. It existed separate from the DNA, yet had a connection to the bloodline/DNA.

    This would analogous to the modern concept of mind over matter, where consciousness, via the brain, can impact the body down to its chemistry. The blood line gives the genetics for the brain, from which our consciousness will appear. Consciousness can become more than the sum of it's underlying genetic parts. This allows it to apply hierarchical pressure to the body, via the brain, all the way to the DNA. Not all the bloodline could apply this pressure but it needed consciousness to be more than the sum of its genetic parts.

    This aspect of the ancient selection model is still beyond science, which had to start simple with bloodlines, and then nature versus nurture but limited first to humans. Next, selection will be mind over matter. The rise in obesity has changed the human body and is connected to mind over matter.

    If we found samples of so many overweight people in fossils, say 100,000 years from now, and did not know the social conditions of this time, we would assume a random genetic change led to this selection. Maybe the earth's gravity had gotten less and the heavier people evolved to stay grounded easier. But in reality the mind had changed into a compulsion to eat beyond the needs of the body/DNA. This can lead to natural selection based on the blood lines that can maintain this extra weight with fewest health problems; Mind leading natural selection
     
  11. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Looking only at the 100kyr old bones, how would you know that the people were overweight?
     
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Indeed. Once a mammal reaches late adolescence, its bones stop growing.

    This is one of the many reasons that obesity has so many second-order effects. If a skeleton has the size and strength to carry a 150-pound body, but it is pressed into service to carry a 250-pound body, that puts tremendous stress on the bones and other connecting tissue.
     
  13. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Well, I'd say that bats and flighted birds being hugely unrelated to each other compared to other mammals and other, flightless birds would be a key. Bats, being mammals, are more related to other mammals and birds to other birds. Common ancestry.

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    There's lots of birds, and they currently dominate the aerial niche. Bats don't.

    It only fits with creationism if God recycles parts. Does He? Why? Surely each immutable, unchangeable organism should be perfectly adapted to its environment and built from the nucleotide up. Why do bats share so much DNA with other mammals? Was that just a lucky happenstance when God was creating everything? Seems very unlucky.

    He engineered all of life's diversity with flying mammals instead of just making more birds? Why is their DNA so similar to that of flightless mammals? Your interpretation is a 'just-so' story.

    There is no such thing as "accepted by the evolutionary theory".

    But how much better to inquire of the expert where he has obtained his suppositions! If even a casual look illustrates the flaws in your objections, what's left to say? Maybe you should try giving your arguments more than a cursory statement. That is, if there's anything there worth looking at.

    Precisely. And I found, from that cursory glance, that there was no support for your assertion that the line of horse evolution was disrupted geographically. So... back at you. Get every animal listed on that line. Check - and demonstrate - that these are actually called in that line. Check their location, age of appearance and disappearance, probable environment, anything. Table it. Show me.

    Or, more directly: Do your own damn work. Don't pass off half-assed and unfounded arguments in the hope that something will stick: you, yes, you who claims to respect my opinion. Am I supposed to vet your ambiguous assertions? Isn't the falsification of evolution supposed to be your argument? Am I supposed to do your job for you? You realise, maybe, that I have more important things to do than entertain the meanderings of an avowed creationist, and here you are, cowarding up and proclaiming your insight into an area where you clearly haven't bothered to do any work.

    Frankly, that fact - your laziness or cowardice - gives the lie to your claims. Anything left to try?
     
  14. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    And - for the love of that God - can we have an end to the nonsense about Jesus and David and God? These are examples of the air: can any of them be supported? Then why are they being cited in some bizarre new invocation of some gestalt nonsense about evolution? Get this crap off B&G.
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There is evidence for the existence of King David as a real historical person, but not enough to accept the hypothesis uncritically.

    Jesus's alleged existence is much more recent. Considering that many of the deeds attributed to him were astounding, and considering that the Romans were noted for their recordkeeping, it's difficult to understand why there is only one reference to his existence in their records, by Josephus, a Jewish man who more-or-less assimilated to Rome because he was a scribe.

    As for God, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of his existence, at least none that comes even close to satisfying the Rule of Laplace: "Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before we are obliged to treat them with respect."
    Well yes! Whatever it might be, it has nothing to do with biology, even tangentially.

    We have two subfora for religion. "Comparative Religion" is for scholarship. "Religion" is for the ridiculous crackpottery that defines religion.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    So does every other successful scientific theory ever established and employed. Being very useful in unexpected ways is evidence for, not against, evolutionary theory.

    Even that bogus version of the "original challenge" has never been met.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2015
  17. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    What the hell does that even mean, "a complex animal like any mammal"? Common ancestor?
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes -- I don't understand this either. Could you [garbanzo] please elaborate?

    There are multiple discussions going on here. Sometimes it's difficult to follow them. Sorry.
     
  19. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Not quite true. Bats dominate the air at night; birds in the day. Kinda like moths and butterflies.

    I don't usually comment much on these types of threads, as there is an abundance of evidence supporting evolution, and we keep finding more that fits right in. It is so predictive to be astounding.
     
  20. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Humans are apes, just like Gorillas.

    Humans and Gorillas are simians, just like Monkeys.

    Humans, Gorillas and Monkeys are primates, just like Lemurs.

    Humans, Gorillas, Monkeys and Lemurs are mammals, just like Cats and Dogs.

    Humans, Gorillas, Monkeys, Lemurs, Cats and Dogs are vertebrates, just like Fish.

    Humans, Gorillas, Monkeys, Lemurs, Cats, Dogs and Fish are all animals.
     
  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't need to support it directly, since all Panspermia is doing is extending the parameters of evolution and supporting position that the Universe because of stars and fusion, was built for universal evolution and along with the default position then supports Abiogenesis.
    We were all born in the belly of stars makes far more sense than any other mythical story telling.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    No, it doesn't. Because creation narratives have said things that are impossible given biology as we understand it. Evolution does not. Thus evolution fits better.
    To argue that, you have to argue that he was so brilliant that he decided to reuse parts, but so abysmally stupid that he built the human eye backwards - as just one simple example. That logic doesn't work.
    No, it is merely that you do not understand it. If we had several completely incompatible means of storing genetic information, that would be strong evidence of no common ancestors. Having the same method of storing genetic information means there is strong evidence of a common ancestor.

    Let's take a simple example. Let's say you are a red-haired, green-eyed tall man with very pale skin. Both your parents were red-haired, green-eyed and tall with fair skin. You are trying to decide whether you are their child, or are the child of the black couple down the street or the Arab couple across the street. What does the evidence suggest?
    No, he didn't. In fact he explicitly stated that there must be a means of inheriting traits.
    It does, however, strongly contradict creationism, which was one of the "alternatives" you presented for evolution.
     
  23. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Owls managed fine at night and are more thermodynamically efficient flyers. Why didn't God build bats using bird DNA - or better yet, just make more birds? Why do bats resemble mammals more than birds? Garbonzo claims that 'common descent is debunked' - so he's trying to push special creation. Utter nonsense.
     

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