Denial of Evolution VI.

[wellwisher]

I don't deny that fossils show us examples of how some aspects of life changed with time.

However, drawing a curve through data points can become different depending on how much data you choose to plot. If we had a sine wave of possible data points but only plotted the data points for the peaks but not for the troughs, the curve would no longer define a sine wave. It would still be good data points and the best possible fit of these points, but the final conclusion would be wrong.

Politics does this all the time, where they stack the deck with favorable data point so the plot looks like they want. The data is good and the plot through the data is correct, but plot leaves out other data, that would pull the curve in an unfavorable way.

Fossil data is bits and pieces of data and not all the possible data. By default this plot will be discontinuous. You can never make a continuous curve with bits and pieces of data, even it was originally continuous. There is a plotting illusion. When we plot human data (census), we have millions of data points, within a few square miles in dense cities, that reflect a moment in time. This extremely dense plot does not show many of the accepted assumptions of evolution, because those assumptions are based on leaving out 99.99% of the data. I don't deny evolution, but only question the mechanism inferred from the current plot using partial data.

Life evolved in water. No solvent other than water will allow life on earth to operate. This has been tried with the hope that other solvents would also work. The logical inference is, water plays a significant role in life or else it would easy to replace. You can't leave out the water data and get a real curve for the mechanisms of life. The lack of the water variable, is the basis for the random assumption; the mystery variable called water is approximated with random, when data shows it is not random at all.

Since life had to evolve in water, from scratch, water would have shaped the very foundations of life. It not coincidence that the molecules of life and water are both based on hydrogen bonding. Or lipids form a bilayer shell. Or the most used configuration of DNA or beta DNA, has the most hydrated water bound to it. This is not random but based on cause and effect. Proteins in water form unique folds, which eliminates all the randomness that had been predicted before the technology existed to make these observations. The existing model still can't explain this especially since the energy for this unique fold is so low; equal to the energy of 2-3 hydrogen bonds, which should allow it to randomize within the thermal energy available. But it oddly does not.

 

[Rav]

Fossil data is bits and pieces of data and not all the possible data. By default this plot will be discontinuous. You can never make a continuous curve with bits and pieces of data, even it was originally continuous. There is a plotting illusion.

This isn't an arbitrary process because fossils get dated. All by itself this fact significantly limits the number of ways a curve can be drawn. Further, why are you pretending that fossil data is the only data called upon? I'm sure you'd like us to just ignore phylogenetics and all the fields that it in turn calls upon, but we're just not going to do that. Instead we're gonna remind you of all the useful information that is continually bubbling up from the springs of many different disciplines that collectively sheds substantial light on how this curve of yours should be drawn. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot more robust than you'd like to believe it is.

 

[wellwisher]

The misunderstanding is there are only two ways to explain life. Either life evolved or it was created. There is another group of scientists that look for a logical explanation of life, instead of blindly accepting a random assumption like it is a religion. I logically infer creation, as being an aspect of evolution, being connected to the human mind, which develops choice and will and begins to leave the path of natural selection. Our unconscious bodies may still follow evolution but our conscious minds don't have to.

Water is the best path in terms of life and logic. The problem is existing theory is too dogmatic and prefers random. It then equates anything not with the program as Creationists to avoid logical discussions.

 

[Rav]

The misunderstanding is there are only two ways to explain life. Either life evolved or it was created. There is another group of scientists that look for a logical explanation of life, instead of blindly accepting a random assumption like it is a religion. I logically infer creation, as being an aspect of evolution, being connected to the human mind, which develops choice and will and begins to leave the path of natural selection. Our unconscious bodies may still follow evolution but our conscious minds don't have to.

Water is the best path in terms of life and logic. The problem is existing theory is too dogmatic and prefers random. It then equates anything not with the program as Creationists to avoid logical discussions.

And hardly anyone is going to take you seriously because:

1) almost all your attacks on evolution are actually attacks on a straw man you've built in its place (the quoted paragraph above being yet another example)

2) a lot of the time you're either barely making any sense or saying things that are beyond absurd, such as (and this is one of my favourites):

Animals do not have religion. Religion is a purely human behavior since humans are the only species that do this. As such, atheists must be somewhere between animals and human, since they lack that purely human behavior called religion.

This intermediate area of evolution could explain the animal standard used for atheist behavior (closer to the animals). This is often in conflict with those who attempt higher forms of human behavior that are characteristic of the purely human.

Just as it may not be possible to convince a dog or monkey that God exists, because the atheist is somewhere between monkey and human, it might be difficult for them to understand anything that is purely human.

and 3) you don't have any evidence that even begins to approach the caliber of that which you claim to oppose but quite obviously choose to just ignore instead.

In the context of this discussion I actually have no problem with people invoking God as the force that put the universe in motion. But what's your justification for insisting that he wasn't smart enough to create a universe in which life could evolve without him having to micromanage the process?

 

[rpenner]

I'm not sure if leopold understands that evolution applies at the fork of a clade - not across distal ends - and how this has no bearing on the validity of any theory as much as it does understanding basic biology - if not just a light treatment of morphology and cladistics.

The lack of special creation in the history of life, the relative lack of horizontal gene transfer and single-generation speciation (which happens only in asexual and parthenogenetic species), the discrete nature of genetic information leads to a description of the history of life as a tree.

The tree structure is common throughout discrete mathematics, computer science, library science and biology (even before Darwin). You have nodes and children, analogous to a family tree where you consider only one gender. (Both sex and horizontal gene transfer complicated the detailed picture beyond that of a simple tree but because evolution happens at the level of populations, not individuals, and because horizontal gene transfer is quite rare in modern animals, we can largely ignore them in getting the basic picture of a tree.) Scientific classification of lifeforms into species, genera, families, orders, etc already formed a tree structure before Darwin. But notably only the distal ends of this tree (the species) form breeding populations subject to the forces of evolution and a higher node (genera, families, etc) cannot be said to go extinct until all its children do. But a classification tree is just a bunch of human names given to lifeforms to separate life with one set of traits from life with another set; so in addition to the classification tree we must also keep in minds the historical tree caused by speciation events and genetic drift. This is called systematics.

So having evolutionary history inform scientific classification is of benefit because makes the memorization of names have more scientific value than the original Linnaean names. "... although in many cases, Linnaean classification reflects actual phylogenetic relationships, in many other cases, the original groupings posed by Linnaeus do not represent evolutionary lineages."

okay, in my opinion:
assumption, a rat turns into a dog.
this rat varies around the norm for a certain length of time, it will always remain a rat just different varieties.
some event happens that turns this rat into a dog.

"Rat" and "Dog" are not Platonic ideals (there is no striving of rats towards rat-ness and dogs towards dog-ness) -- they are human-given names chopping up the tree of life into reasonable size chunks to make generalizations about. Because they are human-given names, humans made the decision where to make the cut, rightly or wrongly -- a pattern which applies at all levels and is part of the reason why "species" itself is a term which seems fuzzy at times.

A "rat" is an individual of the genus Rattus which is of order Rodentia. A dog is an individual of a subspecies Canis lupus familiaris of order Carnivora. Thus their closest common ancestor -- the nodal population in the history of life that has as children nodes that eventually give rise to all dogs and all rats, is of class Mammalia. Since millions of generations separate current rats or dogs from that common anscestor, there is no expectation that a rat will transmogrify into a dog, neither will a rat give birth to a dog.

To suggest such a thing as a hypothetical is operating outside of any theory of biology, evolution or taxonomy. In short, you betray your ignorance and unreason and thus are sad, mad or bad.

That's your first and most important mistake.

there is no doubt i bring it up often in discussions about evo.
the process i outlined IS evo albeit a broad one.

No it isn't. Why? Because Evolution does not predict rats turning into dogs. It also does not predict the existence of Rat-Dog hybrids.

As Trippy and others point out, small scale laboratory experiments achieve their goal of speciation in hundreds (flies) or thousands (bacteria) of generations. New traits do arise, and are fixed in the population. Only a comic misunderstanding of all of biology would predict what you claim. Your argument boils down to "I can't see that minute hand move on the clock, therefore I assert that it doesn't move." When presented with evidence that it has moved from right of "6" to left of "6" you change the goalposts and claim that there is no evidence that it will reach "12". When pointed out that the bell that rung earlier summoning you to class was indeed caused by that hand reaching "12" in the past, you proceed to hold your breath as long as you can and when the hand still hasn't reached "7" by the time you give up, you claim this is proof that there is a barrier to the clock ever reaching "12".

Sad, mad, or bad -- you are not seriously talking about any history of life on this planet or biological theory of evolution. It appears you are taking only information from widely-reprinted creationist distortions of biology and then lying about the sources of your constant misinformation. It appears you are the laziest person on Earth because you don't bother to read even one book on the subject you are publicly airing opinions on. Even when such information has been codified in good websites like these:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

 

[billvon]

The misunderstanding is there are only two ways to explain life. Either life evolved or it was created.

It's not a choice between one or the other. Evolution does not work until there are genes. Free your mind and realize that there are more options than have been presented to you by your religion.

There is another group of scientists that look for a logical explanation of life .. . .

RNA world is a pretty logical explanation of early life.

I logically infer creation

No, that's a religious concept. You can believe in creationism if you like, of course; plenty of people do.

 

[Aqueous Id]

there is no doubt i bring it up often in discussions about evo.
the process i outlined IS evo albeit a broad one.

Requiring large rapid changes in fractions of the time it happens in nature is a narrowing of the definition.

how you failed to see that is an astounding mystery.
right, you were too busy "prosecuting the creationist".

To his credit, since creation 'science' is a wart on human intellect, no? Those are the only educational materials that need to be banned.

the complaint i voiced about fruitflies was they haven't shown macroevolution.

They do. They mutate before your very eyes.

you know, the concept of some sort of "barrier" first mentioned by spidergoat.

Yes, there is a barrier. Different species can't interbreed. Genetic mutation, as in the fruitfy, shows this. It also shows a systemic barrier--that speciation is a fork, not a leap across branches. Add natural selection, and you have another barrier. Together they form a working theory.

 

[leopold]

The misunderstanding is there are only two ways to explain life.

wrong.
it's a mistake to assume a creator if evo is proven false.
scientists formulated the scientific law of biogenesis long ago which states life comes from life.
taken at face value this implies that life has ALWAYS existed, it is infinite, this in turn implies the universe is too.

another BIG misunderstanding is all the "clouding" that goes on regarding this subject (evo).

I logically infer creation, as being an aspect of evolution, being connected to the human mind, which develops choice and will and begins to leave the path of natural selection.

there iis no logic at all in the concept of a creator in regards to life.
OTOH since when has logic been infallible, there has never been a NEED for god in any of the other sciences, and there is ZERO evidence to suggest such an "entity" exists.
come to your own conclusions.

 

[leopold]

"Rat" and "Dog" are not Platonic ideals . . .

To suggest such a thing as a hypothetical is operating outside of any theory of biology, evolution or taxonomy. In short, you betray your ignorance and unreason and thus are sad, mad or bad.

i fail to believe you misunderstood the concept being portrayed in my post.

 

[leopold]

They do. They mutate before your very eyes.

this is an example of the "clouding" i mentioned earlier.
the reply above was to my oservation that fruitflies haven't demonstrated macroevolution.
i'm sure that aqueous knows what macroevolution is.
i will not however hold my breath waiting for any lab verifications from aqueous verifying fruitfly macroevolution, because there simply aren't any.

Yes, there is a barrier. Different species can't interbreed. Genetic mutation, as in the fruitfy, shows this. It also shows a systemic barrier--that speciation is a fork, not a leap across branches. Add natural selection, and you have another barrier. Together they form a working theory.

a barrier that prevents one lifeform from turning into another different lifeform.
awaits further clouding.

 

[Aqueous Id]

scientists formulated the scientific law of biogenesis long ago which states life comes from life.
taken at face value this implies that life has ALWAYS existed, it is infinite, this in turn implies the universe is too.

That was before Pasteur responding to the older theory of spontaneous generation, but operating in a vacuum of the work by Lamarck, Mendel, Lyell, Darwin, Watson & Crick, Miller & Urey, or more recent work such as self-replicating RNA

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5918/1229.abstract

another BIG misunderstanding is all the "clouding" that goes on regarding this subject (evo).

I think the more we avoid talking about actual biology that cloud will just hang there.

 

[Aqueous Id]

this is an example of the "clouding" i mentioned earlier.
the reply above was to my oservation that fruitflies haven't demonstrated macroevolution.
i'm sure that aqueous knows what macroevolution is.
i will not however hold my breath waiting for any lab verifications from aqueous verifying fruitfly macroevolution, because there simply aren't any.

Sure - it's the long term effect of basic evolutionary processes, e.g. mutation (fruit flies), on larger types of diversity (clades/phyla) over countless speciation events (fruit flies). I didn't think you were expecting macroevolution to take place in a lab since that generally takes millions of years.

a barrier that prevents one lifeform from turning into another different lifeform.
awaits further clouding.

You can begin by saying 'phylum' or 'clade' rather than 'lifeform'. Then I would suggest pulling up a cladogram - and comparing it to the phylogentic tree in order to remove the cloud alluded to by rpenner in reply to my recent post. Without any technical direction, that cloud will just hang there.

 

[leopold]

It appears you are taking only information from widely-reprinted creationist distortions of biology and then lying about the sources of your constant misinformation.

appearances can be deceiving rpenner and in your case it's quite true.

It appears you are the laziest person on Earth because you don't bother to read even one book on the subject you are publicly airing opinions on.

you are correct in this regard.
i haven't read the entire book "bones of contention".
i only read the chapter on piltdown man.

 

[Aqueous Id]

"... although in many cases, Linnaean classification reflects actual phylogenetic relationships, in many other cases, the original groupings posed by Linnaeus do not represent evolutionary lineages."

That says it perfectly. Now - if leopold were to address this . . .

 

[Trippy]

the reply above was to my oservation that fruitflies haven't demonstrated macroevolution.

You're wrong here as well.

To be clear, we accept that macroevolution deals with evolution at or above the species level.

A Species is described as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding AND producing FERTILE offspring.
Speciation is described as the process by which new species arise.

Dobzhansky and Pavlovsky (1971) reported a speciation event that occurred in a laboratory culture of Drosophila paulistorum sometime between 1958 and 1963. The culture was descended from a single inseminated female that was captured in the Llanos of Colombia. In 1958 this strain produced fertile hybrids when crossed with conspecifics of different strains from Orinocan. From 1963 onward crosses with Orinocan strains produced only sterile males. Initially no assortative mating or behavioral isolation was seen between the Llanos strain and the Orinocan strains. Later on Dobzhansky produced assortative mating (Dobzhansky 1972).​

Source

So, in 1958 mating between the Laboratory and Orinocan strains produced fertile offspring - they were capable of interbreefing AND producing FERTILE offspring.
Then, in 1963 matinge between the Laboratory and Orinocan strains produced infertile offspring - they were capable of interbreeding, NOT producing FERTILE offspring.

In 1958 they met the definition of being the same species.
In 1963 they no longer met the definition of being the same species.

Between 1958 and 1963 a speciation event occured, evolution occured at the species level, therefore macroevolution has, in fact, been demonstrated among fruit flies.

 

[leopold]

That says it perfectly. Now - if leopold were to address this . . .

i've been told that the biological classification of life is somewhat subjective, some instances are arbitrarily chosen.
don't ask what or how because i didn't press that person for answers.

 

[leopold]

You're wrong here as well.

To be clear, we accept that macroevolution deals with evolution at or above the species level.

A Species is described as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding AND producing FERTILE offspring.
Speciation is described as the process by which new species arise.

Dobzhansky and Pavlovsky (1971) reported a speciation event that occurred in a laboratory culture of Drosophila paulistorum sometime between 1958 and 1963. The culture was descended from a single inseminated female that was captured in the Llanos of Colombia. In 1958 this strain produced fertile hybrids when crossed with conspecifics of different strains from Orinocan. From 1963 onward crosses with Orinocan strains produced only sterile males. Initially no assortative mating or behavioral isolation was seen between the Llanos strain and the Orinocan strains. Later on Dobzhansky produced assortative mating (Dobzhansky 1972).​

Source

So, in 1958 mating between the Laboratory and Orinocan strains produced fertile offspring - they were capable of interbreefing AND producing FERTILE offspring.
Then, in 1963 matinge between the Laboratory and Orinocan strains produced infertile offspring - they were capable of interbreeding, NOT producing FERTILE offspring.

In 1958 they met the definition of being the same species.
In 1963 they no longer met the definition of being the same species.

Between 1958 and 1963 a speciation event occured, evolution occured at the species level, therefore macroevolution has, in fact, been demonstrated among fruit flies.

okay.
what plant or animal did this fruitfly turn into? a rose? an ant?
or was it still a fruitfly?
can you provide a scientific name of result of this alleged macroevolution?

 

[Trippy]

okay.
what plant or animal did this fruitfly turn into? a rose? an ant?
or was it still a fruitfly?
can you provide a scientific name of result of this alleged macroevolution?

Fruit flies are a family - Drosophilidae, or a genus Drosophila not a species.
To put things in perspective, there are 1450 described species in the genus Drosophila.

The article reports the emergence of a new species of fruit fly from an old species of fruit fly.
The event described meets the definitions of speciation and macroevolution and is enough to prove your assertion wrong.
I provided you with the definitions of macroevolution and species that I was using so you could dispute them if you wanted to.

 

[arfa brane]

leopold: you seem to be saying something like "a bird is a bird, even if birds developed into different species they're still birds". Do you really understand what a species is? It's just, it looks like you don't.

How do new species evolve? From old species who are then the common ancestor. In the Drosophila genetic experiments, they determined that new species had developed, but then the definition of species had changed somewhat (but it's still defined by the ability to reproduce). You don't seem to be reading (or perhaps understanding) what Trippy posted.

 

[Trippy]

leopold: you seem to be saying something like "a bird is a bird, even if birds developed into different species they're still birds". Do you really understand what a species is? It's just, it looks like you don't.

How do new species evolve? From old species who are then the common ancestor. In the Drosophila genetic experiments, they determined that new species had developed, but then the definition of species had changed somewhat (but it's still defined by the ability to reproduce). You don't seem to be reading (or perhaps understanding) what Trippy posted.

Even reading the source I linked to would be a good start.