Denial of evolution II

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Hercules Rockefeller, Mar 9, 2009.

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  1. Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    Here is a much more detailed set of information that may help you understand;

    http://www.ucl.ac.uk/biology/

    I'm not a biologist, but I have an understanding of evolutionary biology.
     
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  3. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I know as much as anyone. What was your question?

    Oh, this question.
    It isn't, unless the female dung beetle, or one of the males which would have successfully mated with her had a dangerous recessive gene.
    Otherwise the situation can be summed up, appropriately, with the aphorism. "Shit happens."

    Next question.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2009
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  5. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I don't have a problem with understanding what "they" say, where I have the problem is ...how "they" know what "they" claim to know.

    Darwin's finches are a good example. "They" claim that the finches on the two different islands were, at one time thousands of years ago, were the same finches. How can "they" know that? Where's the proof of it?

    The basis of the Galapagos Island finch evolutionary event rests almost entirely on that supposition/assumption. If the finches were actually two different type of finches, then all the assumptions fall to shit. So ....where's the proof? Ditto for Billy T's little monkey thingies on the two islands.

    Speculation is NOT proof. Wild fairy tales are NOT proof. Thousands of books on the subject are NOT proof ...it's just one more biologist (or whatever) getting in on the act and making a buck or two. Hell, even Disney "stole" the stories of Snow Fuckin' White and Cinderella for his movies ....which is just what the numerous authors do ...try to make a buck on an old fairy tale - evolution.

    Baron Max
     
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  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Good to see you having so much fun with those who think you could be so dumb as to ask that. I know you are actually above average intelligence (for your species, that is.)

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  8. Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, right now the Field Museum of Chicago is working on a huge project with the Guggenheim Museum of Frankfurt to breakdown and sequence hundreds of thousands of sample species from their own archives in an effort to breakdown the DNA and form a more complete understanding of evolution.

    There are demonstrable lines of species as studied by anthropological biologists throughout the last hundred years or so that have advanced and better defined the Theory of Evolution greatly. A lot of the actual scientific data is posted in the links I posted above if you had bothered to look. But since you are just going to waste my time and not even attempt to look at what I had to offer, I think we're done here. There is plenty of proof that your willful refusal to read does make disappear.

    I really don't care if you want to believe in your fairy tales, I'm not going to fight you on it. If you can't bother to read, I'm not going to bother to waste my time to discuss.
     
  9. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I know this will come as a suprise to you, Liebling, but this is a ....discussion .....site! It's not a site where we list websites and just say, "Go read it if you want ....otherwise I ain't talkin' to you!"

    But I'm glad you're out of it ...your posts were mostly boring and senseless anyway.

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    Baron Max
     
  10. Liebling Doesn't Need to be Spoonfed. Valued Senior Member

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    If you actually cared to discuss, instead of just repeat your same assertions even though there is plenty of evidence you never read anyway, I might spend some time but I think you and I have been on this earth and on these forums long enough to know that's not going to happen. Surely I'm not the first, and won't be the last to tell you this.

    I cited a lot of things, none of which you even attempted to discuss, obviously because the truth bores you. As others have already pointed out, it's a waste of time. You don't know how to discuss, you just know how to be willfully ignorant. Repeat ad naseum.
     
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, but there is an important difference with my little rat/monkey/rabbit things (The perá of post 83). Unlike the always separated Galapagos Island which could have always had slightly different finches (instead of the accepted Darwinian POV that strong wind, drift wood etc carried a few to the newer island from the older one for them to then diverge on different Islands) we know that during the last ice age the little island of the Preá, which is only 8km from the big island was NOT a separate island, but part of the bigger island. (Sea level was lower with all that ice on land.)

    Thus, we know that the distant ancestors of what are now the preá on the little island were interbreeding with the larger similar animals on the bigger island. We are, I admit, assuming that almost all of the now present divergence (a new species) was made by the little island preá - The production of a separate species in only 8000 years in the large gene pool (thousands of animals under little environmental stress) of the big island animals is not possible. Evolution cannot work that fast, except under the very unusual conditions of the tiny (foot ball field size with 90% just bare rocks) island preá.

    The food supply limits the preá to only about 40 animals now and when first separated by the rising sea level 8000 years ago probably to only about 20 animals as then they were twice as big. Since these preá are not now distinguishable, one from another, by standard DNA paternity testing we also strongly suspect that on several occasions (probably after bad storms) the population fell to a few females and one or two males. {I suspect a full DNA sequencing would still show differences between various preá.}

    Until the preá were discovered and carefully studied by PUC University it was though that such a small isolated population would die out in less and 1000 years just by inbreeding damage accumulating or natural disasters. Surely many of the incestuous mating in the first few 100 years did have off springs that were disadvantaged for the limited food supply (as were all that were normal size instead of smaller than their parents). But the preá got lucky and formed DNA that could be incestuous with no apparent harm. In fact all mating effectively are incestuous now since all preá have the same DNA, at least as measured in Brazil’s DNA for paternity testing.

    SUMMARY: To reject this evidence for evolution of a new species, you will need to find a different argument. Perhaps you can invent one like the people insisting that Iron boats could not float - therefore must have long legs hidden below the water line to walk across the Atlantic. Perhaps some now dead fanciers of smaller animals secretly breed the preá (like man has done to make all sorts of different dog breeds, some very tiny.) The tiny preá were being shipped to England to be sold as pets, but the ship captin ran the boat into the rocks of the tiny preá island and with humans not able to survie on only the grass that covers only 10% of the island these breeders of preá all died or killed each other. They stayed on the broken ship; however for shelter and their ship (and bodies) were swept away into the deep with the big storm that came a few months later.

    Make up a more plausible alternative if you can - or accept the plausible Darwinian explanination as to where the new preá species came from and why it could happen in only 8000 years. (Very small population, completely isolated, under extreme stress for 8ooo years.)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2009
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Billy, I will admit to being somewhat fascinated by your little monkey thingies and the conditions on the island. I'd like to read more about it if you can find something that is NOT so overly technical and thus extremely boring for someone as ignorant as me! ..something of the level of Dr. Seuss might be helpful.

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    However, I'd also like to point out, in the grand scheme of things, that even if that island situation were completely true, it's being so isolated and without any other conflicting species, it's not, repeat NOT, a good example of the contitions of the planet at large.

    I would also like to point out that the "new species" might well have been caused by the incestuous inbreeding instead of the generally accepted ideals of evolution. A little bit tainted evidence, if you will.

    Baron Max
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps if it could be limited to a thread now and again, at month intervals?

     
  14. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    for you I am seaching (i rarely do that) here is the first find - it essentially agrees with what I read in the newspaper (they are not always correct)

    See: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/136520

    I will try some more - would really like to find photo of the preá. I just learned they are closely related to the guine pigs. My kids had some of those when pre teens. The body of the preá is quite like that of a guine pig, but the face is much more cute.

    The link above has a world map, but you can click on the square of it and get map below:

    The tiny red dot is where the preá are found (all 40 or 42 of them). The much larger island just north of their island is what I called the "bigger island." The "preá island" was connected to the bigger island until about 8000 yeras ago. In Portugues it is called: "lha de Florianopolis." (City of flowers island) I have spent a few days there - it is a tourist industry island with pretty bridge to mainland - not very far separated - with the suspension cables covered with lights at night. I have photo of bridge at nite with wife in foreground, but I never can get photos to up load.

    Here is a photo of the the animal the preá evolved from:

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    The preá look somewhat like that but imagine that the face were flat (Nose snout pushed back. Nose and mouth directly under the eyes - more human like) with mouth, nose and eyes all closer together in tiny hairless spot and much more facial hair expaning outward especially to the sides. Perhaps their whiskers increased more than 100 fold in number and some emerge very close to the eyes. The face looks like the animal had stuck its tiny face thru a little window in mass of hair that completely hides its ears. I am just speculating of course, but perhaps that facial hair IS many whiskers - that would be useful for crawling thru natural tunnels or spaces between and under the rocks quickly in the dark without hitting your head. Most of their island is rocks. thus the two main adaptaions externally visible are be smaller (to eat less) and have more hard contact sensors around your face.

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    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2009
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    We've even got two independent sets of "clear marks" that corroborate each other: fossils and DNA. People are convicted of murder and sent to the gas chamber on the principle of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" for a whole lot less convincing evidence than that.

    Evolution has been proven "true beyond a reasonable doubt" by the standards of the American legal system.

    Which, I suppose, means that anyone who doubts evolution should not be allowed to sit on a jury.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Three, counting embryology.

    Four, counting geographical distribution - that's the one that turned the light on in Wallace's head.
     
  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Max:

    There are clear indications of common ancestry, both in physical anatomy and in DNA.

    But, if you won't believe the science, you need to provide an alternative explanation. Where did two species of finch come from, if not from a prior ancestor species? What's your alternative explanation?

    Plant material is often lifted by winds and carried long distances. In fact, many plants take advantage of that very fact to propagate themselves, by making seeds that float easily in the air. As for animals, some can swim, some can catch a ride on floating debris, some take advantage of falls in sea level (remember we're talking geological time here) to migrate between what are now islands.

    It is known because it has been directly observed.

    Because if a storm, let us say, is required to carry birds from one island to the next, and the prevailing winds are such that the reverse seldom if ever happens, and this in any case is a rare event, there is only one conclusion a scientist can draw.

    Yes. The fossil record provides the best evidence. In it, we find fossils of species that are intermediate between two modern species. The DNA of the modern species also shows unmistakable signs of common ancestry.

    That's right. So, prove me wrong - if you can.

    This is the beauty of science. It is self-correcting. If you can produce a better theory than the theory of evolution, then evolution will be dead and gone.

    So, can you in fact provide a better explanation for Darwin's finches than he did? (You say you've read the original.) Or is this just the usual Maxwell posturing and mindless bluster?

    Yes. Where is your proof?
     
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    PS Max - as you will be aware from your reading, you don't have to explain just two different species of finch on the Galapagos, but all of the many species of finch that are there. Keep that in mind.
     
  19. codanblad a love of bridges Registered Senior Member

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    is there genetic proof? perhaps near identical DNA between finches. we're not going to find a family tree or home video.

    won't natural selection remain a sound theory regardless of the truth about the finches? are you saying 'if you can't find evidence, then you're wrong'?
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2009
  20. codanblad a love of bridges Registered Senior Member

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    i didn't see the sun rise this morning, so i guess it can't possibly have happened.
     
  21. Meursalt Comatose Registered Senior Member

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    Naturally. I enjoy showing off.

    The only way this would be a justifiable claim to make at all is to add the qualifier "... around here" to the end of this sentence.

    Not quite. Shit does, indeed, happen. I asked you why.
    This kind of shit is theoretically explainable if you approach evolutionary theory from a slightly different direction.

    James R asked if I "already knew the answer". My answer to that is no (disregarding my somewhat tongue in cheek response to him above).

    I do, however, know of a theory which is receiving widespread attention among those interested in evolutionary theory, and has provided a paradigm for the study of it.

    Most people will tend to approach Darwin's theory with an incomplete understanding of the dynamics.
    For example, as I used to have when very young, with some vague romantic idea (admitted or not) that "Mother Nature" somehow had a hand in the proceedings, making conscious decisions on what was beneficial and what was not.

    Later, I began to see things differently, began to understand the accidental nature of evolution and shifted my thinking towards what was beneficial to the species and what was not. Even then, as the anti-Darwinists often point out, there are anomalies in this line of thinking that aren't easily explained. Or, as Ophiolite has described above, dismissed as "accidents" of an otherwise successful propagation method. Not that I'm going to dismiss that answer entirely, because there are often accidents of this nature which are just that - accidents.

    How is it beneficial to the species if a female dung beetle is drowned in shit during an intensive mating competition?

    Or, for a probably more cogent example :
    How is it beneficial to the praying mantis to have the female eat the male during copulation?

    The short answer, on the surface, is that it isn't. Surely a female insect could find other sources of food, thereby leaving the male to copulate with another female and potentially produce more offspring. Other species do that. Right? So why is a praying mantis a relatively successful species?

    The answer is to look at evolution from the viewpoint of a gene, not the species. A gene doesn't have it's own brain. It is not a thinking, conscious, organism. It has one purpose only - to propagate itself via any means possible.

    The male praying mantis, above, could have evolved to disengage from the female when she got that look in her eye, and scarper before she did anything about it. Much like human males do when faced with the prospect of marriage before they're ready. Whether or not the consequences for the mantis are any more extreme than for the human male is a matter of debate, and... off topic. My pardons.
    The male Praying Mantis, however, continues to inseminate the female even while being eaten.
    What does he gain from this?
    It's fairly simple, really. The female receives his sperm, and only his sperm. The species be damned, they have nothing to do with it. Swans and humans have nothing on the male praying mantis when it comes to monogamy. This guy dies for his children. Literally. He fertilises the female, and makes sure she has enough nutrients to feed them during gestation.
    The most important thing about all of this is that no other male gets a shot at her. She gets pregnant, goes torpid, and bears his children.
    It's all him.

    It's a similar thing with the dung beetles. Those males, uncaring about the female, uncaring about their species, uncaring about everything but this :
    It will be either his sperm in her, or none.
    Human males are often witnessed displaying somewhat similar behaviour, are they not?

    This has nothing to do with the survival of the species. It has nothing to do with advantageous reproduction methods.
    It is a display of extreme selfishness - and it works.

    See, Darwin was a great man. A fantastic scientist, a man with an idea, inspiration, and a theory which led to a whole new understanding of nature.
    But to consider the "Origin of the Species" the definitive work on the theory is to commit a grave error. Rather like discarding Galileo because Copernicus had all the answers.
    But neither should it open the door to discarding Copernicus because Galileo refined and completed his work.

    Darwin opened the doors, paved the way for a new era in science. But his theory was, and still is, only the beginning of understanding. And, like Copernicus, there are new names which will begin to make clear in the future what was only dimly understood to begin with.

    One of those names is Richard Dawkins.
    Check him out, Ophiolite. You might pick something up.

    And I apologise in advance to anyone who actually does make the effort to read up on this - I've simplified things deliberately both due to the fact that I have no time to explain it fully, because my understanding of it is fresh and I'm only just beginning to see the possilbities, and because... well, damned if I'm going to write a book which has already been written. It's not something easily explained in a forum post.

    A much more cogent explanation has already been presented, in Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". I can not recommend it highly enough to anyone interested in the subject, and desirous of a fresh outlook to clear up those little "anomalies" we often have laid out as proof of Darwin's erroneous thinking.

    There ya go, James. Y'all happy laddie now aye?
    Or am I still unwelcome in your domain?

    Damned if I don't sound like a windy advertisement.
     
  22. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    That one is easy and obvious. She will never get any other meal with so little expenditure of energy. He is continuing to help his genes propagate by being digested - supplying her proteins and energy. There are other examples in the insect kingdom that are slightly harder to explain. For example, the drone honey bee also mates only once and it is fatal to him also, but the new soon-to-be queen of a new hive does not eat him. He just has too much ripped out to live and soon dies. The queen mates only once in her life, (stores* zillions of sperm in her body for several years of egg laying (more than 100 /day when more bees are needed) so there is no more need for that drone. I do not know the drone/ worker ratio of typical hive but bet it is less than 1 to 300.

    Drones are just a cost to the hive as they do eat, but do nothing useful, except one (the strongest flier) will mate with a virgin female high in the sky. Thus it is efficient to kill them in the process. If bees were carnivores, I am sure the mating drone would be eaten too.

    The reason bees collect pollen is because that is their ONLY source of protein. In early spring, when hive** population needs to rapidly expand, the bees are much more interested in collecting pollen than nectar to build the bodies of new bees. They stuff the little pouches on the hind legs full of pollen and come back with no nectar, usually. The two pollen balls in the pouches are about as big as their head.

    Another thing interesting about bees is they have zero ability to repair wounds of minor damage. During peak nectar collection time they work themselves to death with a life expectancy once they start collecting of only two weeks. During winter, most survive until spring flowers bloom and they start to work again.
    --------------
    * I am not 100% sure of this "storage." - Possibly the queen keeps attached or internalizes his sperm production equipment. I am about 90% sure it gets ripped out in the mating process.

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    ** I am strongly of the opinion that one should regard the hive as the living organism and the bees as the separable, but not unconnected cells, of this organism. Just like the cells in your body, the hive cells (bees) exchange chemical signals to control the functions of the various cells. I.e. the bees are not the organism; they cannot survive alone, and like human cells do have specialized tasks to perform for the hive organism and they do their jobs until they die, only to be replaced by other cells (bees). They work for the good of the hive, and not themselves.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2009
  23. Meursalt Comatose Registered Senior Member

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    And the genes of which male honey bee are propagated, Billy?
     
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