Denial of Evolution VI.

[Aqueous Id]

aqueous
it is wrong of you to imply darwins finches has solved the riddle of evolution, and certainly wrong in implying it has solved the riddle of life

here is a paper from gould that explains why this is so:
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/20/10750.full

Yes I've seen this article before, and read some of the criticisms against Gould that followed. My earlier remark was that the riddle of life was solved by Watson & Crick in their 1953 discovery of DNA. The Darwin's finches did not solve a riddle, they posed one. In the words of the wiki author "these birds were to play an important part in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection". And that's where the riddle was at first solved. Watson & Crick's discovery perfected the theory. (Darwin himself did not classify them as new species--this was the work of another naturalist coincidently named Gould.)

The solution to the riddle of origins is natural genetic modification as culled out under the pressures of natural selection. That's a pretty concise and accurate way to say the riddle has been solved.

gould also introduced PE.
both spandrels and PE was introduced because darwins finches and the inferred method of propagation does not explain evolution.

It's the other way around - the theory of evolution explains Darwin's finches. The inferred method of propagation is descent with modification. It works whether you assume PE or not. In fact PE is immaterial to this. Genetic modification means more today than it did in Darwin's era, since folks like Mendel and Watson & Crick have expanded its meaning. But Darwin's work is still good in the regard, since he uses the more general term "variation". Without understanding either genetics or molecular biology, Darwin did correctly assess the laws of nature by observing the Darwin's finches. Even that is not in controversy by anything Gould ever wrote. Of that I'm reasonably certain from sampling his works.

Gould is more interested in mincing the word "gradualism", which is another category of inquiry. His approach was not to dismantle gradualism, but to expand it in such a way that dismantles uniformitarianism. There is some history needed here--uniformitarianism was an earlier rebuttal to catastrophism, which allows God to suspend the laws of nature in order to have creatures appear out of thin air. Uniformitarianism teaches that things progress linearly. It gives the false impression that within a stratum everything is homogeneous. It's now understood that this can't be true, that geological processes which disturb layers prevent uniform fossilization and stratification. Furthermore, fossils are chance occurrences with typically no less than 10,000 years between samples.

Keep in mind that oil exploration has invested heavily in geophysical sciences, that the search for seams which typically produce fossil fuels involves deeper knowledge of what processes led to these formations in the first place, and that this is a field that has grown entirely since Darwin first published.

Before treating PE as a topic in biology, all of the geological non-linearity has to be removed. For math oriented folks, I would compare this to what is known as deconvolution. The idea is that whenever different data sets are merged into one, there are sometimes valid techniques for separating them into their independent original forms. For audiophiles, this something like recovering stereo from mono. In many cases it's next to impossible. This is one reason why you can see so much excruciating detail in articles on paleontology and geology. They can tend to get quite mathematical in their treatments of data for reasons like this.

The riddle of life is one thing. The riddle of how the strata were laid down is quite another. It has been convolved with the riddle of fossilization. The result is that there may appear to be a stretching or compressing of the rate of evolution, when clearly the only thing for certain is that the sample rate is aperiodic. I can't think of how Gould can overlook this, and I assume that he hasn't. It remains to be seen if and when he will give a clear treatment of this, or, if he already has, maybe you or someone else can post a link. In the mean time we have to regard PE as plausible, provided we remove all bias and hyperbole and stay mindful of the caveats. I don't think anyone has ever said that speciation occurs at some fixed rate. It never was a principle of evolution to begin with, so PE changes nothing about the answer to the riddle--unless you are specifically interested in some particular speciation event which still is explained by the same theory.

PE does not contradict the Theory of Evolution, other than to clarify what "gradualism" evidently means. So nothing has really been overturned since the discovery or Darwin's finches. PE might apply to them, but since the theory is was never concerned with the nonlinearity of gradualism, or the anisotropy of the strata, it really doesn't matter too much one way or the other. The fact of genetic modification acted on by natural selection is in no way affected. You might say that the riddle of life is affected, but only if you started out as a uniformitarian, which is probably not the case for most folks who have given it more than a passing thought.

 

[Aqueous Id]

What would you like me to do? Accept darwinian evolution as true?
jan.

It might help to say how you think the Darwin's finches came into existence by any means other than the explanation Darwin gave, an explanation that has withstood the test of time since the era when Victoria was just handed the crown.

What wrong with people accepting evolution but believing God was behind it?

For one thing it has no bearing on the answer to the preceding question.

 

[rpenner]

One of the symptoms of "Lying for Jesus" (or possibly some other bloke) seems to be a lack of engagement past parroting from the authorized script. There's a limited amount of squinting for gotchas like typos and "evasive action" goal shifting. But when I try to actually engage intellectually there is nothing there. This is evidence of the vacuity and the sterility of their "skepticism" (denialism).

In science, the best defense against bad ideas is a good offense with better ideas. Better ideas in science are communicable, useful, precise predictive descriptions of phenomena. In astronomy and geology, evidence for the consistency of physical law for billions of years would require new extraordinary, unevidenced phenomena to make the Earth less than 10,000 years old.

Similarly, in biology, evidence for the consistency of common descent with modification (and a little horizontal gene transfer) for hundreds of millions of years would require extraordinary, unevidenced phenomena to make any two organisms on Earth not related to each other in a family tree sense.

The main contender is some sort of "barrier" between laboratory-demonstrated ongoing "microevolution" of changes in allele frequencies in populations and point-like mutations in individuals, and "macroevolution" as seen in the fossil record and comparative study of genomes. But no example of such a barrier survives the laugh test in the face of evidence -- only people ignorant of or willfully blind to the evidence assert this. That's the value of transitional forms/fossils as they demonstrate that there are/were populations of organisms with traits intermediate between distant clades and so the pattern of the tree of common descent is strongly evidenced by both new and old evidence. Likewise with genomic studies that shows that plants and animals have shared traits and also share traits with single-celled Eukaryotes. Thus no evidence of a present or historical barrier to "macroevolution" has been demonstrated. Speciation has been demonstrated on the lab and in historical times. Larger changes have well-documented transitions. The model is predictive in that some transitional forms have predictable locations in the fossil record, notably: Tiktaalik.

At the genetic and biochemical level, no evidence of any mechanism to prevent "macroevolution" exists and a very good understanding of the mechanisms exists. The mechanisms of "microevolution" are fully capable of being responsible for the historical pattern of "macroevolution" without any form of special intervention required or evidenced.

 

[billvon]

Biology is able to give a more indepth explanation of a process we already know (even if we aren't aware of the details), IOW the truth is already known to us.

Nonsense. Until it was discovered we had no idea what DNA is or how it worked. Most people have no idea what their pituitary is and what it does. Most people have no idea that we recently discovered an entirely new kingdom of life, or that our cell membranes have tiny pumps that pump ions against a gradient. Those "truths" are not known to most people; you can't just sit and think about your pituitary and come to any accurate conclusions about it. Fortunately such things are easy to learn.

I think, not learning biology means it will be very hard to understand the biological detail that biology provides.

Agreed!

That's not whining. I'm showing you how crap systems work.

And which crap systems would those be? Schools? Colleges? Online courses? Books? Websites?

Ordinarily it would surprise me that you can't see how exact your attitude is compared to a ''fundamental'' religious organisation, but I've got a good idea of how this psychology works now. Maybe you should relax from biology for a while and study some psychology.

True! That way you could accuse me of being a fundamentalist elitist student of psychology.

That there is no proof, is a given, for ANY kind of belief (I hope I don't have to spoonfeed you the reasons why).

That is true for any religious belief - which is why you have to have faith.

People express their ''belief'' in biology by seeking the advice of someone who is knowledgable of biology, namely a doctor/physician.

Good thing those doctors went to school to learn about the biology of the body, eh?

Not everyone has access to that body of knowledge (for various reasons)

Actually, yes, everyone does. You can, of course, choose to not avail yourself of that body of knowledge. Your decision.

so it's makes sense to train people that do, to help the people that don't. This is the mark of an intelligent society.

Another mark of an intelligent society is the intelligence of the individual people in that society.

For example, if you can't swim, but have knowledge of the mechanics of how a body floats and moves through water, that knowledge may not be sufficient in the event of your boat capsizing. The best knowledge one could have for survival is knowing how to swim.

Exactly. By learning (there's that word again) how to swim you are going to be better off than someone who never bothered to learn to swim.

 

[leopold]

Yes I've seen this article before, and read some of the criticisms against Gould that followed. My earlier remark was that the riddle of life was solved by Watson & Crick in their 1953 discovery of DNA.

the riddle of life is its origins, how did it get here.
one of the discoverers, watson or crick, had doubts about evolution after finding the molecules structure.

There is some history needed here--uniformitarianism was an earlier rebuttal to catastrophism, which allows God to suspend the laws of nature in order to have creatures appear out of thin air. Uniformitarianism teaches that things progress linearly. It gives the false impression that within a stratum everything is homogeneous. It's now understood that this can't be true, that geological processes which disturb layers prevent uniform fossilization and stratification. Furthermore, fossils are chance occurrences with typically no less than 10,000 years between samples.

sounds like great reading.

For audiophiles, this something like recovering stereo from mono. In many cases it's next to impossible.

it IS impossible.
there is no way you can recover a stereo image from a mono recording of an orchestra.
correction: yes, you can, but it would be highly unlikely the image will place the instruments correctly.

ediut:
maybe you CAN get a stereo image but you would need to know the size of the room and the placement of the microphone.
by using echoes from the instruments you might be able to employ some kind of doppler effect.

 

[billvon]

the riddle of life is its origins, how did it get here.
one of the discoverers, watson or crick, had doubts about evolution after finding the molecules structure.

As well he should. Nowadays it looks like DNA wasn't the first molecule used for genetic coding. If that proves out - then he was right.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Likewise with genomic studies that shows that plants and animals have shared traits and also share traits with single-celled Eukaryotes.

It's the constant corroboration of facts like these that unifies all of science under the baseline drawn by Darwin, with the the refinements that followed. It's beyond comprehension that a person can look at a news flash corroborating what you just said - for example, genetically linking humans to the banana plant, or yeast cells - and then walk away from that either convinced that a conspiracy is afoot, or else inventing some new reason that God chose to allow lifeforms to carry this embedded riddle, knowing in His infinite wisdom that the the polymerase chain reaction would be invented, as well as the newer parallel processing methods for reading DNA quickly. It's just one of many weird twists of logic that creationism demands. It's this repetitive denial and deferral of investigation that is so bizarre. It brings to mind the gambler who can be convinced that just one more quarter in the slot machine, just one more stack of chips at the poker table, and that payoff is bound to come. But the ante just keeps going up and up without them ever drawing a trump card. It makes me think the religious denial of evidence is somehow related to the underlying causes of a gambling addiction. Impaired judgment seems the operative term. Another that comes to mind is sunk cost.

Thus no evidence of a present or historical barrier to "macroevolution" has been demonstrated. Speciation has been demonstrated on the lab and in historical times. Larger changes have well-documented transitions. The model is predictive in that some transitional forms have predictable locations in the fossil record, notably: Tiktaalik.

Something the creationists won't comprehend is that this transitional form was predicted since the early days of evolutionary biology. It was already evident from living species of fish that can dig and perambulate in the mud with their fins (among more essential general kinds of evidence) that such a form necessarily preceded the advent of the first true tetrapods. Since macroevolution has little meaning to them - or else it's merely a point of contention from which to launch another attack - they will ignore the many times you and others have brought this up, in the manner of the chump who yet again drops another quarter in the machine and pulls the handle (this machine is obviously rigged since all along the Tiklaatik actually existed no matter how often they used to bet against it) with the same losing result - Tiklaatik, Tiklaatik, Tiklaatik. Yet another win for Darwin's casino, at the expense of the average intelligence of the population at large.

At the genetic and biochemical level, no evidence of any mechanism to prevent "macroevolution" exists and a very good understanding of the mechanisms exists. The mechanisms of "microevolution" are fully capable of being responsible for the historical pattern of "macroevolution" without any form of special intervention required or evidenced.

leopold is dissatisfied with the idea that macroevolution considers the accumulation of change over many occurrences of genetic modification, apparently simply because, per Gould, the rate of change is not linear, or fit to some contour that leo prefers. This may make it hard for him to conform his thinking to what you just said. For folks like jan, it's not clear if they are able to wrap their minds around the last part. They apparently are having difficulty accepting the ways that change can accumulate, even at the level of the most cursory way of looking at the appearance of common animals--most of which, in most cases, are only known to them through the media or possibly an occasional trip to the zoo. I think there is a deeper psychological fear - on the level of disgust over what they may consider a morbid curiosity of what bodies actually are, what they are made of; that their skin crawls to hear that humans can carry the same blood - emit the same odors (or chemically similar ones) - as common animals, which are known them to stink, to be filthy, to rut, and so forth. Ironically the connection you made earlier to our common genetic fingerprint with plants ought to be a refuge from this (assuming I have it right) in that plants are neutral in this regard, passive, pleasant looking, and often succulent and fragrant. But you will rarely encounter a creationist that is even mentions the human connection with plants and fungi, much less the human cellular commonality with primitive eukaryotes. They are almost exclusively frantic to escape from what seems to be the assumed morbid aspects of comparing humans and common animals. This has to be not only personally offensive to them, but a seeming contradiction to their view that humans are all that matter when it comes to the biology; all other life forms are automatons of one sort or another, while the human form is in the image of God, and exempt from any such comparison. Otherwise it would require lowering God to the level of a mud snorkeling, dung-pawing animal. I would classify this view as something related to narcissism, recast as "not at bad as", followed by a laundry list of the animals they would least want to have for cousins or ancestors.

 

[Aqueous Id]

the riddle of life is its origins, how did it get here.

Biological evolution answers the origins of everything except the single cell to which creationists can ascribe the androgynous name Adam-Eve. All other life are in the tree of descent from the single cell, so the riddle is effectively solved.

one of the discoverers, watson or crick, had doubts about evolution after finding the molecules structure.

Presumably he did not yet formulate the notion of genetic mutation as it applies to DNA and the intricate operations of gene expression, transcription, etc., inside a cell. He would need time to come to grips with the full impact of their discovery as it relates to understanding that Darwin's "variation" is implemented (primarily) as genetic modification through mutation. He would need to digest the rest of the science that came after him to fully feel the impact of the discovery in the way it corroborated Darwin.

there is no way you can recover a stereo image from a mono recording of an orchestra.
correction: yes, you can, but it would be highly unlikely the image will place the instruments correctly.

For the same reason, it can be very difficult for Gould to assess the timing of speciation events on the left with geological nonlinearities on the right simply by playing the fossil record on a monophonic turntable. He needs to rely on geologists to first decipher the geologic record, then subtract that data from the sum to get his true rendering of trends in fossil rates of change (figuratively speaking). That's the bull he needs to take by the horns.

 

[leopold]

leopold is dissatisfied with the idea that macroevolution considers the accumulation of change over many occurrences of genetic modification, apparently simply because, per Gould, the rate of change is not linear, or fit to some contour that leo prefers.

my biggest "beef" with evolution is that it proceeds fast, slow, or not at all.
something must explain this.

I think there is a deeper psychological fear - on the level of disgust over what they may consider a morbid curiosity of what bodies actually are, what they are made of; that their skin crawls to hear that humans can carry the same blood - emit the same odors (or chemically similar ones) - as common animals, which are known them to stink, to be filthy, to rut, and so forth.

it might also be they are bringing their philosophies on life to the table too.
trust me, i understand the need for a god on the grand social order of things but this is not the place for it.

 

[origin]

my biggest "beef" with evolution is that it proceeds fast, slow, or not at all.
something must explain this.

That would be environmental pressures. For instance 15,000 years ago in North America there were at least 3 specieis of elephants, multiple species of bison, short faced bears, several species of giant ground sloths, several large cats (NA lions, NA cheetahs, and saber toothed tigers) and many others. When the ice age ended the ecology change resulted in the mass exctinction of these fauna from NA. This left a large hole in the ecosystem that will be filled given enough time by new animal species, without human intervention.

 

[spidergoat]

That would be environmental pressures. For instance 15,000 years ago in North America there were at least 3 specieis of elephants, multiple species of bison, short faced bears, several species of giant ground sloths, several large cats (NA lions, NA cheetahs, and saber toothed tigers) and many others. When the ice age ended the ecology change resulted in the mass exctinction of these fauna from NA. This left a large hole in the ecosystem that will be filled given enough time by new animal species, without human intervention.

And it's never "not at all".

 

[Aqueous Id]

If the person who takes biology ends up being closer to the truth because of his/her taking biology, then I would agree with you, but that is clearly not the case.

If we are speaking about the truth of whether creatures evolve by modification with common descent, then biology is the core body of knowledge to establish that truth. Obviously genetics and molecular biology are important in their cross-correlation and explanations of mechanisms. Chemistry is another crucial part of science that's needed.

It also implies that people who take biology are closer to the truth than people who don't, therefore everyone who studies biology knows more truth than those that don't.

Assuming we're still talking about the truth of descent with genetic modification, here it would just boil down to whether someone has actual knowledge of this truth, or whether it's a passing knowledge, by some cursory knowledge of science, such as the elementary school or junior high level. But both both kinds of people will be closer to this truth.

The first thing one must understand is that ''truth'' must experienced, otherwise it is second hand information.

That's why accredited courses in science always are accompanied by lab work.

The second thing is that, if there is a ''Creator-Diety'' (upper signifies person?), then that person, like any other person, has a purposeful intention behind their actions.

However, that hypothesis does not enter into the truth of evolution. What is evident is that certain forces in nature which create pressure (struggle to survive) are in part deterministic (e.g., it will be warm in the tropics; the species that needs shade from the sun will not thrive there) coupled with random ones (this species can survive if the average sunlight does not exceed x; on average the sunlight in this region of the the world does not exceed x; this species will thrive here). Once we isolate the causes for evolution to factors that combine both the deterministic and random precursors, there is nothing left that needs the God hypothesis to further the truth of evolutionary cause and effect. It's simply a matter of what already exists, and what is going to randomly change from time to time.

It's knowledge, even if the person only recalls the conclusions. Apparently they remember that the logic was sound, even if they're unable to repeat it.

You're just playing sides. Sticking up for your side.

I might agree with you if I did not also have the minimum requisite knowledge to say with certainty that this is not the case.

The reality is, like you, and everybody else, they don't know. They have simply chosen something that relates to their current world view and lifestyle.

For people educated in science this is not a current world view, but one that began when they were young, from the early days when evolution and related fields of science and history were first explained to them. Nothing but bias could interfere with that, and most young people have no bias to overcome other than the religious programming they may get through their families' religious affiliations.

How about knowledge - facts, evidence, and the valid logic that assembles them into a truthful conclusion.

Intellectually? Maybe. But how many people live their moment to moment life in this mode.

If all people were purely rational beings, then everyone would. Clearly that's not the case, but it's widely recognized as the human weakness that most needs to be addressed candidly, without the hyperbole that often ensues, so that we can come to operate in the highest state of rational thinking possible given our tendency to relapse into the irrational side of our selves.

Faith and belief are constantly working, up/downgrading as new experiences/data comes in, consciously as well as subconsciously.

Subconscious belief sounds dangerous to me, because this brings to mind the delusions of people who suffer grave mental illnesses. Subconscious activity would include instinctive behavior - particularly motivation (urges) which also can be dangerous, but when managed are crucial to accomplishing goals. Conscious belief can be either rational or irrational. The subconscious may plague the person with some primal fear and it may convert a belief into feelings of persecution. Or let's say the subconscious is driven by gratification, and the belief produces a "warm fuzzy". This is good and healthy, and serves as a vehicle for inspiration and creativity. Faith is in another realm, one that combines belief with hope, and usually in regard to the most irrational of ideas a person can imagine. I do think the subconscious plays heavily in the development of faith, since it seems to involve a number of base instincts from fear to gratification. But who can argue that if all we are after is truth, then the best faculty for delivering it is knowledge. This is why I would place knowledge at the top tier, recognizing that some of the positive assets of the subconscious mind can lead is to knowledge, such as creative inspiration. But it's knowledge itself that defines our grip on the truth of a matter. However, we can only perceive this to the extent we are able to remain in the rational state of mind.

To think of them in the block terms you say, is not in real time.

Hopefully my elaboration above puts that back into real time. The only thing we need to wind us up is the recognition that we are all in a fluid state, constantly rocked back and forth by things that happen to us (including moods, which can be purely chemical events) and this makes it difficult to remain rational as the clock ticks. We all know that tick by tick there is eventually going to come some next shock "that the flesh is heir to" which will drive us back to the irrational state like puppets on strings. But tick by tick, we can (if we are strong enough) resist the impulses of the negative subconscious side of our selves and remain in the higher state of consciousness, the one that clearly distinguishes between what we know, what we feel or think we know, what we are unsure of but believe, what (or who) we have faith in, because there is ample rational reason to trust the thing or person, and what what we rationally doubt but nevertheless have faith in because of deeper psychological reasons that cause us to yield in the face of rational doubt.

 

[Aqueous Id]

my biggest "beef" with evolution is that it proceeds fast, slow, or not at all.
something must explain this.

That would be environmental pressures. For instance 15,000 years ago in North America there were at least 3 specieis of elephants, multiple species of bison, short faced bears, several species of giant ground sloths, several large cats (NA lions, NA cheetahs, and saber toothed tigers) and many others. When the ice age ended the ecology change resulted in the mass exctinction of these fauna from NA. This left a large hole in the ecosystem that will be filled given enough time by new animal species, without human intervention.

And it's never "not at all".

Exactly. That pressure is always there, leopold, and the critters origin mentioned are just one example - a very tangible one, especially for anyone who has seen the specimens from the tar pits or at a museum. Clearly the fossil record Gould is trying to explain is chock full o' events like origin mentioned. And that particular one is evidently entirely a consequence of natural climate change. (We might try to ascribe some of it to early human activity but that's hard to imagine. Besides, it remains unknown what caused ice age in the first place.) All we know for certain is that the pressure is always there, regardless of how many forms it takes.

I do finally understand that your whole objection is based on rates. While it's interesting for the reasons origin gave to understand the complexities that cause extinction or speciation, it also speaks to the way things can be in stasis and then suddenly change. It's not clear to me why or how this matters, not as a reason for having a 'beef' with evolution. Isn't it normal in our common experience to see long days of fair weather interrupted by a storm? How is the natural progress of biology any different, if we note that pressures of one form predominate for long periods of time, followed by disruption in pressures, extinction and speciation, followed by a new age with a new set of pressures?

 

[Randwolf]

Darwinian evolution includes what is termed ''microevolution'' which is proven to be true, and is accepted by every single person.

Yes, Darwinian evolution includes "microeveolution". I have my doubts about that concept being "accepted by every single person" but the consensus (or lack thereof) is not really germane to this discussion. More to the point, I would ask for your personal take on the differentiation between "micro" and "macro" evolution. How do you (jan) differentiate between the two? Where is the boundary, exactly? I'm simply trying to establish some common definitions from which to proceed...

So yes it contains truth which can be amplified through the study of biology.

This is a promising start, we both acknowledge that biology "contains truths". Let's see if we can pinpoint where our opinions diverge on what constitutes the "facts" that biology illustrates versus the "falsehoods" that you may perceive. Again, am I correct that you are trying to make a distinction with a difference among varying rates or degrees of "evolution"?

But the truth of the matter is not purely a biology find, meaning we can come to that conclusion without studying biology.

How can we (or more specifically you) come to a conclusion about biological function without studying biology? I'm genuinely interested in your answer to this question...

 

[leopold]

then how do you explain the "creature" that jumped on board "kon-tiki" on its voyage?
this fish was thought to have went extinct millions of years ago.
yet it showed almost no sign of "evolution".

 

[leopold]

How is the natural progress of biology any different, if we note that pressures of one form predominate for long periods of time, followed by disruption in pressures, extinction and speciation, followed by a new age with a new set of pressures?

the bad part is we also need to integrate human consciousness into the equation.
but is that really true?
biology should be about life, how it arose, how it spread.
human consciousness is a different matter in my opinion.
which in itself presents some interesting questions.

 

[billvon]

yet it showed almost no sign of "evolution".

The key word there is "almost." Since it was well adapted to its environment, there was no need for rapid evolution. Thus the slow genetic drift of any species was the only evolutionary driver, and its fairly static environment selected against any more radical change.

Thus it evolved very slowly, which is why it shows almost no change.

 

[Randwolf]

then how do you explain the "creature" that jumped on board "kon-tiki" on its voyage?
this fish was thought to have went extinct millions of years ago.
yet it showed almost no sign of "evolution".

Which creature in particular leopold? The phosphorescent jellyfish type? Or what? Actually, it doesn't matter. The answer to your implied question invites us to another ride on the merry-go-round.

You're looking for stasis and punctuated equilibrium. Did you forget this concept over the last seven hundred posts or so?

As long as environmental pressures do not destroy or significantly alter a niche the pressure for evolution lessens on that particular species. Note "lessens" does not imply "stops". I realize that distinction will probably be lost on you, but hey...

 

[Aqueous Id]

the bad part is we also need to integrate human consciousness into the equation.
but is that really true?
biology should be about life, how it arose, how it spread.
human consciousness is a different matter in my opinion.
which in itself presents some interesting questions.

It brings to mind Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden which I thought made a very plausible case for the biological causes of the human mind. A long time after I read it I happened to be taking a life sciences course and came upon some of the fresher ideas regarding the origins of sentience, and the higher forms of 'mind' that are overlaid on top of brain stem functions. It was strongly reinforcing the principles that Sagan speaks of, and I've been convinced for a while now that biology completely defines all of the ingredients for consciousness.

You can blow your mind on this by watching an amoeba engulf a food particle almost in the way a slow moving vertebrate might (compare to the sloth for example). But the amoeba has no brain. It can't possibly 'know' the food particle is there. But it behaves as if it does know.

While I wouldn't presume to have it figured out, consciousness can be explained as the overlap of base instinctual functions at what Sagan calls the hindbrain with those of mid brain and forebrain. Take for example the parietal lobe that gives us our sense of space. We can define consciousness as a sense of existing in space, and we can sense this (theoretically) even in a sensory deprivation chamber. Obviously we can do geometry and think in abstractions about shapes, and move in and out of spaces, walk, and hear sound (as you mentioned above) in a spatial panorama and so on, and apparently we owe this to the parietal lobe.

Just as Sagan traces the origins of human intelligence from the apes, no doubt we can do the same with our understanding of the causes of consciousness. Watching apes in motion, there is no question that they have a heightened sense of space. We might say the same for some birds, particularly the ones that seem able to solve certain problems, such as a crow using a tool in a way that requires a kind of consciousness we might have thought was only human.

I tried this experiment with sparrows who learned to swoop down from a high perch and catch a breadcrumb I was tossing. They would catch it in midair, by attacking it the way soccer player barrels his way through a crowd and gains control of the ball. It intrigued me that they could 'calculate' so well, so I tried different sizes, densities and speeds of crumbs, but they always got me. But I was determined, so I took some white rice and balled it up the same as crumbs and they wouldn't even leave their perch for it. With a handful of morsels that looked identical to me, these common birds could distinguish which one I was tossing, in plenty of time to swoop or not, always catching the bread in mid-air and remaining perched when I tossed the identically shaped and colored rice 'crumb'. Obviously brain size does not matter. We could say the same for the ornate weaving of a web by the tiny brain of a spider, or the way small insects will navigate (ants or bees, for example) better than the best of us.

Another perspective is the one that says consciousness is just a faculty like any other, it just seems very profound to us because we happen to be using it to look into itself when we entertain the question. But we know it's composed of white and gray matter, and we can come very close to understanding it in those terms. We just can't get much further with the explanation due to our limited insight, so it hangs there as a perpetual mystery.

But not as far as its origins. They are unmistakably rooted in the evolution of consciousness among all vertebrates, all primates, all apes. If understanding consciousness begins with understanding sentience then it all begins with understanding afferent and efferent pathways and the cells that generate sensations (such as tactile sensors). It's a first step toward realizing that these are all adaptations from ancestral forms that preceded H. sapiens sapiens.

 

[rpenner]

then how do you explain the "creature" that jumped on board "kon-tiki" on its voyage?

Which creature in particular leopold? The phosphorescent jellyfish type? Or what?

The Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947 is not famous because it discovered new fish, although some will find Thor Heyerdahl's description of flying fish and encounters with phosphorescent creatures (none of which leaped, to the best of my knowledge) enchanting.

this fish was thought to have went extinct millions of years ago.

It is likely leopold is discussing fish of the order Coelacanthiformes -- such as the two species of genus Latimeria -- or coelacanths, first described by science from one found among a fisherman's catch in 1938.

yet it showed almost no sign of "evolution".

The key word there is "almost." Since it was well adapted to its environment, there was no need for rapid evolution. Thus the slow genetic drift of any species was the only evolutionary driver, and its fairly static environment selected against any more radical change.

Thus it evolved very slowly, which is why it shows almost no change.

Which creature in particular leopold? The phosphorescent jellyfish type? Or what? Actually, it doesn't matter. The answer to your implied question invites us to another ride on the merry-go-round.

You're looking for stasis and punctuated equilibrium. Did you forget this concept over the last seven hundred posts or so?

As long as environmental pressures do not destroy or significantly alter a niche the pressure for evolution lessens on that particular species. Note "lessens" does not imply "stops". I realize that distinction will probably be lost on you, but hey...

Indeed, Wikipedia editors, in the introductory paragraphs of the relevant article, write:

Traditionally, the coelacanth was considered a “living fossil” due to its apparent lack of significant evolution over the past millions of years;[4] and the coelacanth was thought to have evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago.[6] However, several recent studies have shown that coelacanth body shapes are much more diverse than is generally said.[7][8][9] In addition, it was shown recently that studies concluding that a slow rate of molecular evolution is linked to morphological conservatism in coelacanths are biased on the a priori hypothesis that these species are ‘living fossils’.[10]

[4] Forey, Peter L (1998). History of the Coelacanth Fishes. London: Chapman & Hall. ISBN 978-0-412-78480-4.
[5] Lavett Smith, C.; Rand, Charles S.; Schaeffer, Bobb; Atz, James W. (1975). "Latimeria, the Living Coelacanth, is Ovoviviparous". Science 190 (4219): 1105–6. Bibcode:1975Sci...190.1105L. doi:10.1126/science.190.4219.1105.
[6] Johanson, Z.; Long, J. A; Talent, J. A; Janvier, P.; Warren, J. W (2006). "Oldest coelacanth, from the Early Devonian of Australia". Biology Letters 2 (3): 443–6. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0470. PMC 1686207. PMID 17148426.
[7] Friedman, Matt; Coates, Michael I.; Anderson, Philip (2007). "First discovery of a primitive coelacanth fin fills a major gap in the evolution of lobed fins and limbs". Evolution & Development 9 (4): 329–37. doi:10.1111/j.1525-142X.2007.00169.x. PMID 17651357.
[8] Friedman, Matt; Coates, Michael I. (2006). "A newly recognized fossil coelacanth highlights the early morphological diversification of the clade". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273 (1583): 245–50. doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3316. JSTOR 25223279. PMC 1560029. PMID 16555794.
[9] Wendruff, Andrew J.; Wilson, Mark V. H. (2012). "A fork-tailed coelacanth,Rebellatrix divaricerca, gen. Et sp. Nov. (Actinistia, Rebellatricidae, fam. Nov.), from the Lower Triassic of Western Canada". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32 (3): 499–511. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.657317.
[10] Casane, Didier; Laurenti, Patrick (2013). "Why coelacanths are not 'living fossils'". BioEssays 35 (4): 332–8. doi:10.1002/bies.201200145. PMID 23382020.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth
See also: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/20/coelacanths-are-unexceptional-products-of-evolution/

Thus, neither morphology nor genetics supports the claim that the coelacanths are unchanged over millions of years. Just that they haven't changed very much. It's a branch on the tree of life that did not end where thought it ended (because we have not cataloged every individual and species on the planet even in 2013, and certainly not in 1938) and compared to other tree branches, this one grew fairly, but not exceptionally, straight.