James Shapiro on evolution

Never heard that. References please.

 

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Yes, please.

 

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Hmmm... this sounds like a bias to me.

Well, it's mindless. Not a "Force" though, again, this strikes me as an issue of semantics.
What you have is a bird eats moths that don't have wings that resemble Owl Eyes. This leads to an advantage for those moths that do- thus, evolution.
Would you call that a "force?"
I wouldn't.

So if you disagree with the wording, fine. But that's not the same as saying it never happened.

In the meantime, one other question, for the I.D. types etc: WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG? Evolution, I mean. Why the hell does it take so long for something to happen?

The articles you're trying to discuss here sound a hell of a lot more "creative force-like" to me! Maybe you can explain why they take so long? Why has 99% of species that ever existed ended up extinct? Stress induced evolution a little slow to kick in, or what?
These non-selective "alternatives" must have a reason why they don't, you know, --- work.

 

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You have never heard of it becuase you never read any of their books most likely.. i could be wrong maybe u missed it. I don't have their books on me at the moment but Richard Dawkins defines natural selection in the God delusion as a creative force and so do the others as a "guiding" force, I will type all the quotes in the next 24 hours. Also see Gould:

Stephen J. Gould (Natural History, 77, p.28)

And of course theres no evidence Darwinian theories can create the fit and that is what the whole debate is about. "creative force" is the darwinist God. not science.

 

I have no comments on most of the posts to this thread, although I pretty much accept Darwinian evolution. Note that epigenetics adds some cogent concepts which extend & seem compatible with basic Darwin concepts.

I do have an opinion relating to Rupert Sheldrake. He is a crackpot & his morphic resonance concept is utter nonsense. Discussion of his ideas is off topic for this thread. If somebody wants to defend him, please start another thread.

 

What are you- a book salesman?

 

darryl

Actually he called Evolution a creative force. Which it is, it creates all the traits we see in any lifeform. Natural Selection is the test of the survival of new traits caused by mutations, reproduction provides the test subjects(with their various traits)and the survivors determine the direction(they direct)Evolution goes in.

And of course that is a complete and utter falsehood, a flat out lie through either ignorance or intent.

The bird eats every bug it sees. If the brighter bug is easier to see it gets eaten more often so the BUGS WITH LESS BRIGHT SHELLS ARE CHOSEN TO SURVIVE by having the trait of less noticable shell color. It creates bugs with duller shells. The bird could be a frog, or a lizard or a frickin' shark with a laser beam that only shoots the brightly colored bugs...it is part of the environment(Nature)that selects(Natural Selection)the bugs that survive(by eating or zapping the ones who don't)because their traits(dull shells)are better in allowing them to survive and reproduce. The next generation will have fewer bright bugs and more dull ones. Several generations later there will be few or no bright shell bugs. This is not belief, it is well established fact(well, a highly simplified version thereof for the benefit of ...slow learners).

So you refuse to understand something so simple even grade school children can understand and choose to believe in an invisible freind when most of those same children gave up theirs years ago. You have no clue what science is, you're a Creationists who believes in magic.

Grumpy

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First off, you hve no idea what I may or may not have read. But, so far, it sounds like an issue of semantics.

The concept of evolution is a simple one that, to me, is fairly obvious. Things change. (Random mutation.) Changes which are not harmful survive and reproduce. Those which are harmful, die off. Those which are advantageous to their particular environment may spread more rapidly than those which are neutral. (Natural selection.) It can't get much simpler than that. :shrug:

 

The subject was camouflage. I did not create the scenario. It was created by a technical illustrator on a university biology page. And the reason I cited the page was to show that your claim (that natural selection is ill-defined) came from your use of unauthoritative sources.

I picked a page with an illustration specifically because you were mincing words. In the picture, in the description, and in my own words it was pointed out to you several times that the green and brown bugs were in a woody brown habitat.

Your statements above create the pretense that I said the bird can't see brown, while completely evading the subject, which was camouflage.

It would seem to me that if you are stuck on the question of camouflage, there are only two explanations. One is that you are trolling. The second is that for some reason you really don't understand camouflage.

I find that very hard to believe. Do you mean that you expect the readers here to believe that you have never noticed that the military spends a fortune hiding its personnel and equipment under camouflage?

:shrug:

Now who's being silly?

 

I think trolling and, as the thread is based on discredited and bogus pseudo-science it would better be placed in the pseudo-science subforum. It's obvious daryll didn't come here to learn anything, he ignores or distorts those arguments he fails to understand(willfully, it seems)and demonstrates no ability or will to engage in logical debate. Thus troll.

Grumpy

 

Add my two bits: Looks like distortion, intellectual dishonesty and trolling to me too.

 

False. Not long ago I reviewed a recent college text on zoology which covers Margulis' work in a chapter on evolution. It all fits together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, not as a "square pin in the round hole" controversy as you and ID folks imagine.

Margulis explained how primitive cells evolved organelles, thus extending the reach of Darwin's theory into the dawn of life itself. Since the days of Lynn Margulis, Darwin's principles have been shown to reach back into the prebiotic period.

Your cites do not discredit Darwin's theory as you think. This is just manufactured controversy. All your sources are saying is that there are more ways for variation to occur than by mutation alone. Here's your flaw: no one is claiming mutation alone accounts for variation.

If you remove that bogus assumption, Shapiro and the rest of your sources are perfectly in tune with Darwin.

One of the things I notice about people who attack Darwin is that they seem to know little about him or what he actually said. For example, few people even know the name of his book, the one that fired the shot heard 'round the world. Here it is:

On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life

Just from the title alone, he gives you a pretty good idea of what natural selection is.

Instead of claiming what Darwin did or did not say about variation, why don't we just go to the source and find out what the problem is? Here he is at the opening of Chapter V (The Laws of Variation):

I HAVE hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations—so common and multiform in organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree in those in a state of nature—had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.​

after which he goes into an exhaustive treatment of the subject, by referencing the various laws known to influence variation. After that, he concludes (p. 170):

Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring from their parents—and a cause for each must exist—it is the steady accumulation, through natural selection, of such differences, when beneficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important modifications of structure, by which the innumerable beings on the face of this earth are enabled to struggle with each other, and the best adapted to survive.​

Notice, none of your sources have any problem with Darwin's conclusions about variation.

That's because no such controversy exists.

 

Hi Grumpy & Neverfly. I was off reading Darwin, just tripping out on his experiences and how he found himself (by 1859) to be this walking library on natural history. I looked up and time had flown.

Yeah, too bad for darryl. He just doesn't know what he's missing out on.