does evolution exsist

[leopold]

The requested information was already provided in sciforums post 83 link given, but here is a quote of it again for your convenience:

" ... They are now a new species (Cavia Intermedia) but closely related to Cavia Magna of the main island. They are about the size and shape of a small rat, but with a face that looks much like a monkey, or even human, and fur covered (except the feet) with no tail. ..."

post 83 is from RAV and contains no links.

AFAIK, there are no journal articles in English. There are only 40 to 42 of these new animals existing in all the world, all on a tiny Brazilian island, which AFAIK only have been studied by Pontifica Universidade Católic under leadership of Sandro Bonatto. Others do not have access to them, so of course there are no papers on them in English.

and do you really consider that as scientifically valid?

They are so newly discovered that I don't think their scientific name, Cavia Intermedia, has official standing yet. Fact that they cannot mate with the species they evolved from, Cavia Magna, even via artificial insemination, establishes that they are a new species.

actually it doesn't.
from a quick search i find there are only 42 of these animals on the planet.
this in no way proves macroevolution.

by your own admission the scientific name isn't officially recognized.

 

[leopold]

How is it, that after all this time, and after all the effort that everyone has put into explaining that this is not how evolution works, you persist with this straw man bullshit?

Evolution doesn't posit that dogs give birth to anything other than dogs. Every single creature on this planet gives birth to those of it's own kind.

if this is true then macroevolution is impossible.
why you fail to acknowledge that is a mystery.
the only other possibility is by "punctuated equilibria" which the fossil record seems to support.
it must be pointed out that science has never witnessed or documented such a case.

 

[Rav]

if this is true then macroevolution is impossible.
why you fail to acknowledge that is a mystery.

The only mystery is how you are unable to conceive that gradual change (microevolution, speciation) over millions of years results in major change (macroevolution). The only thing that is stopping you from appreciating this is your apparent unwillingness to actually put the requisite mental energy into it. I'll admit that it isn't necessarily easy for the average person to comprehend the time scales involved, but unless you try, it wont start to make sense to you.

the only other possibility is by "punctuated equilibria" which the fossil record seems to support.

Punctuated Equilibrium still features microevolution and speciation. The only real difference is that in this model significant environment pressures force natural selection to occur more rapidly, but still a lot more slowly than you seem able to comprehend.

 

[Billy T]

Note the tiny flat face with forward looking eyes and still unchanged hair growth pattern with old eye location so evident that many fail to even notice the tiny (small as a thumb nail) flat face with close spaced eyes on first glance. Nose is now just a vertical slit on the center line, not two slightly separated nostrils which also provide some information about predator’s direction of approach as seen in your photo below this one.

Note the very different eye locations of the animal in your photograph below, which look from the sides of the head for nearly 360 vision to spot approaching predators:

Your animal also clearly is not on a tiny island that is 90% rocks barely above sea level at high tide.

Your animal is, however identified as “cavia-intermedia” so probably the first photograph’s animal has no scientific name yet. Neither I nor the newspaper reported who first broke the news of the Preá’s existence to the public are experts in scientific nomenclature. My photo comes from his article as does most of the information I have posted, after translating it into English. If you can read Portuguese, here is link to that now 2 year old article: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ciencia/ult306u536537.shtml My sciforum posts very likely are the first reports in English.

Regardless of the scientific name, (or lack thereof) these are photos of two very different animals and the differences in size, hind leg shape, eye location are all exactly what one would expect evolutionary pressure on the tiny 90% rock island to produce when many even slightly genetically less well adapted animals in any generation starve to death due to over breeding* and lack of food for more than 40 or 42 animals being the only control (no predators) on population.

To reverse Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name is still a rose.” Note that the guinea pig (2nd photo) and the Preá (1st Photo) are different animals /species, even if still called the same name. Just as dog and cats would be even if both were if called “cadogs.” Different names do not different species make. – lack of fertile interbreeding possibility does that.

-------------
*female can make 4 or more offspring at least three times each year, so during summer rainy season population may swell to 60 or so, but most will die - Mainly only those with slight genetic advantage live for an entire year. Fantastically strong evolutionary selective pressure continuously applied for 8000 years made the new specie in record setting time for a mammal. (Bacterial can do that in 24 hours - why you must keep taking your anti-biotic for 10 days even if you feel "well" after three.)

 

[Rav]

Your animal is, however identified as “cavia-intermedia” so probably the first photograph’s animal has no scientific name yet.

My search also turned up an entry for the Cavia intermedia on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The information there seemed to correlate with the species you've described.

Anyway, I guess more information will come to light eventually.

 

[Billy T]

My search also turned up an entry for the Cavia intermedia on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The information there seemed to correlate with the species you've described. ...

Yes that is them, their location, so it does seem like they still have the same scientific name as different specie they evolved from.

I don't know how long it takes or minimum number of animals that must exist before a new scientific name is created. Probably some committee must meet and review the evidence first, etc.

later by edit:
I reread the original Portuguese newspaper article more carefully:

Cavia intermedia is, it seems, the scientific name of the endangered species of guinea pigs that live on the big off shore island called Santa Catarina. (shown in 2nd photo of post 284)
Cavia magna is the scientific name of the guinea pigs that live on the mainland shore region of Brazil.

The new species with about 40 members total, live on the tiny rocky island 8 km for Santa Catarina towards the open ocean does not have their own distinct scientific name yet. They are on the edge of extinction much more than those on Santa Catarina island. A single cat left on their tiny rocky island would eat them all in less than two months!

I think "guinea pig" is like "monkey" in that it includes many different species but I know little about scientific names (and could care less).

I had not read the original Portuguese article carefully enough and had this wrong in prior posts.

 

[leopold]

The only mystery is how you are unable to conceive that gradual change (microevolution, speciation) over millions of years results in major change (macroevolution). The only thing that is stopping you from appreciating this is your apparent unwillingness to actually put the requisite mental energy into it. I'll admit that it isn't necessarily easy for the average person to comprehend the time scales involved, but unless you try, it wont start to make sense to you.

i understand what you are talking about, the posts by HR and james drive home the point quite well.
it does not however prove macroevolution.
are you really willing to accept a theory with no proof ?
such a "theory" is only a hypothesis, a educated guess.

Punctuated Equilibrium still features microevolution and speciation. The only real difference is that in this model significant environment pressures force natural selection to occur more rapidly, but still a lot more slowly than you seem able to comprehend.

this hypothesis made its appearance long ago as "the hopeful monster" scenario and was was laughed out on the next train. steven gould snatched it up, gave it a scientific sounding name and viola.
the originator even proposed a bird hatched from a reptile egg because of what he found in the fossil record.

 

[Billy T]

... are you really willing to accept a theory with no proof ? ...

There is proof. You just ignore it.

Do you really think the fact that the new species shown in photographs in post 266, 284 (and earlier ones) does not exist? or is "falsified" by fact it as yet* does not have a different scientific name (as your post 267 implies)

Can you not see, even with them being pointed out to you in post 284 comparison of the two photos, that these are different animals? That they are different species come from lack of possibility of fertile inter breeding, (even via artificial inseminations, which solves their size differences.)

I.e your best reply to facts and photographs is "they still have same name" LOL

--------------
* The English speaking world has only known they exist for about a year. They probably will not get a new different official scientific name for a decade more. Perhaps never if some fisherman's cat eats them all in less than two months of being stranded on their tiny island. (Assuming the cat does not die of thirst first. - There is no fresh water on that tiny rock island.)

 

[spidergoat]

The Theory of Evolution is a theory of what you are calling macroevolution, it explains the origin of species from a single common ancestor, probably a single celled organism. The proof is in the fossil record and supported by DNA.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

yeah, well i'm on drugs at the moment. call back tomorrow.

i might need to retract that james because on the outside evolution makes sense and its mechanisms seem sound. when you start thinking about it though you start asking for the evidence, the tests, which prove it and you find there simply isn't any. the fossil record does not prove evolution. this is why "punctuated equilibria" was introduced. some evolutionists even claim a bird was hatched from a reptile egg. how crazy is that?

Look - it's been explained in this thread and several others that you have participated in on many occasions that THAT IS NOT WHY PE WAS INTRODUCED.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2682084&postcount=68


so once for for the hard of thinking.....

The PE is an explanation for why large numbers of fossil sequences (ALL of which support evolution) have a tendency to mostly show the broad-scale transitions between species and higher taxonomical levels, and not the fine-scale transitions that Darwin predicted.

The reasoning is simply that evolution takes place at a much faster rate than sediments are laid down (along with their associated fossils), so a short distance in the geological column can demostrate relatively dramatic changes (because it represents a long time) but still preserves the overal direction that evolution has taken.

Of course PE is a generalisation - there are plenty of fossil sequences that are remarkably complete and show the transitions between clades in tremendous detail.

There are no fossils whatsoever that contradict evolution.

So in the spirit of intellectual honesty leopold, can you now finally confirm for us in writing that you now understand that PE is not some kind of fudge dreamed up to take account of some or all of the fossil record contradicting or failing to support evolution.

 

[leopold]

There is proof. You just ignore it.

Do you really think the fact that the new species shown in photographs in post 266, 284 (and earlier ones) does not exist? or is "falsified" by fact it as yet* does not have a different scientific name (as your post 267 implies)

i just found a new bug in my house, one i have never seen before.
i cannot find any reference to it anywhere, science has never seen it before.
now, according to you i can say "well looky here i'm famous for finding a bug that evolved from another bug".
this is EXACTLY what i am saying, there is no, none, nada, zip, nil, demonstrated test which proves evolution.

 

[spidergoat]

One can falsify evolution easily, just find a rabbit bone in the a Cambrian fossil layer.

 

[Billy T]

... So in the spirit of intellectual honesty leopold, can you now finally confirm for us in writing that you now understand that PE is not some kind of fudge dreamed up to take account of some or all of the fossil record contradicting or failing to support evolution.

DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!

Leopold99 is immune to facts that contradict his unfounded opinions. I have demonstrated that in posts 266 & 284.

 

[leopold]

Look - it's been explained in this thread and several others that you have participated in on many occasions that THAT IS NOT WHY PE WAS INTRODUCED.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2682084&postcount=68

really?
in my post that referenced talk origins it stated two things about PE:
1. stasis
and
2. sudden appearance

In order to explain these two facts within the theory of evolution, Gould and Eldredge proposed that living species came about not through a series of small changes, as Darwin had maintained, but by sudden, large ones.

This theory was actually a modified form of the "Hopeful Monster" theory put forward by the German paleontologist Otto Schindewolf in the 1930s. Schindewolf suggested that living things evolved not, as neo-Darwinism had proposed, gradually over time through small mutations, but suddenly through giant ones. When giving examples of his theory, Schindewolf claimed that the first bird in history had emerged from a reptile egg by a huge mutation-in other words, through a giant, coincidental change in genetic structure.

So in the spirit of intellectual honesty leopold, can you now finally confirm for us in writing that you now understand that PE is not some kind of fudge dreamed up to take account of some or all of the fossil record contradicting or failing to support evolution.

see above.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

before someone starts throwing out stuff like the grants finches:

A conference of scientists at the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) in October, 1980,
was convened to thrash out the issues of Darwinian evolution. The meeting considered whether the
mechanisms of micro-evolution (mutation and natural selection) gradually produced enough change to
cause macro-evolution. Their final analysis was "NO!".
-science, vol. 210 no. 4472 pp: 883-887

let me also point out that the law of biogenesis was established long ago by thousands of scientists all across the globe. to my knowledge this law has not been refuted.

remember happeh?
remember how he made some observations and pointed out to us his conclusions?
we thought he was a cornball. why?
because he didn't provide the scientific evidence of what he was saying

That sounds like a fake quote.

yep - once again a completely fabricated quote from leopold

that's the second time he's been caught flat-out lying in this thread alone

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/1749917/8-25-science-evolutionary-theory-under-fire-pdf?dn=y

 

[Billy T]

... this is EXACTLY what i am saying, there is no, none, nada, zip, nil, demonstrated test which proves evolution.

Strictly speaking that is true. Nothing can be proven outside of the realm of mathematics, not even that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Science only can dis prove theories, and has done so for several. When one has thousands of confirmations of a theory's predictions and not one detail is disproven, a reasonable person accepts them as fact.

I.e. I accept as fact that the sun will rise tomorrow, but if consistent you do not as it has not been proven that it must. (For example it could explode by processes we don't understand or grow dark.)

 

[synthesizer-patel]

really?
in my post that referenced talk origins it stated two things about PE:
1. stasis
and
2. sudden appearance

In order to explain these two facts within the theory of evolution, Gould and Eldredge proposed that living species came about not through a series of small changes, as Darwin had maintained, but by sudden, large ones.

This theory was actually a modified form of the "Hopeful Monster" theory put forward by the German paleontologist Otto Schindewolf in the 1930s. Schindewolf suggested that living things evolved not, as neo-Darwinism had proposed, gradually over time through small mutations, but suddenly through giant ones. When giving examples of his theory, Schindewolf claimed that the first bird in history had emerged from a reptile egg by a huge mutation-in other words, through a giant, coincidental change in genetic structure.

see above.

I'm right - you're wrong - deal with it.

Philosopher Kim Sterelny claimed that Eldredge and Gould's "hypothesis has been misunderstood in two important ways. In some early discussions of the idea, the contrast between geological and ecological time was blurred. Hence, Gould and Eldredge were interpreted as making a very radical claim: species originate more or less overnight, in a single step. [But] Gould and Eldredge agree that the new structures are almost always assembled over a number of generations, rather than all at once by macromutation...So by 'rapidly', they mean rapidly by geologist's standards". So with a coarse and incomplete fossil record, "a speciation that took 50,000 years would seem instantaneous", relative to the several million years of a species' existence

Sterelny, Kim (2007). Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest. Cambridge, U.K.: Icon Books. p. 95. ISBN 1-84046-780-0. Also ISBN 978-1840467-80-2

 

[leopold]

yep - once again a completely fabricated quote from leopold

that's the second time he's been caught flat-out lying in this thread alone

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/1749917/8-25-science-evolutionary-theory-under-fire-pdf?dn=y

nice try but the page is not accessible.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

nice try but the page is not accessible.

works fine on my PC - its probably your acrobat plugin not working

go here then select the third link down (after the the sponsored links)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q="E...s=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

 

[leopold]

works fine on my PC - its probably your acrobat plugin not working

go here then select the third link down (after the the sponsored links)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q="E...s=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

or read this:

Still, if evolution is gradual, there should be a fossilized record of small, incremental changes on the way to a new species. But in many cases, scientists have been unable to find most of these intermediate forms. Darwin himself was shaken by their absence. His conclusion was that the fossil record was lacked these transitional stages, because it was so incomplete.

That is certainly true in many cases, because the chances of each of those critical changing forms having been preserved as fossils are small. But in 1972, evolutionary scientists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed another explanation, which they called "punctuated equilibrium." That is, species are generally stable, changing little for millions of years. This leisurely pace is "punctuated" by a rapid burst of change that results in a new species and that leaves few fossils behind.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/5/l_035_01.html