Dandelion nectar
Adam Marczyk
ReMine's _The Biotic Message_, that dandelions produce nectar even though
they don't need it to attract insects, since they reproduce asexually.
However, in researching this claim, I came across several sites that say
dandelions do indeed have pollen and so could benefit from insect
pollination. Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
that this is another creationist blunder?
--
And I want to conquer the world,
give all the idiots a brand new religion,
put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil,
promote equality in all of my decisions...
--Bad Religion, "I Want to Conquer the World"
Sverker Johansson
>
> http://www.trueorigin.org/biotic.asp makes the claim, apparently lifted from
> ReMine's _The Biotic Message_, that dandelions produce nectar even though
> they don't need it to attract insects, since they reproduce asexually.
> However, in researching this claim, I came across several sites that say
> dandelions do indeed have pollen and so could benefit from insect
> pollination. Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
> that this is another creationist blunder?
I'm not a botanist, but IIRC only some dandelion species are asexual,
others are sexual. And it's pretty clear that asexuality is the
derived condition, so it's not terribly strange that asexual
dandelions have vestigial sexual paraphernalia, leftovers from their
sexual ancestor. In an evolutionary framework,
it is not strange at all -- but of course, in a creationist
framework the dandelions were created asexual, and there is no
sane reason for them having fake vestigial sexual organs.
So I really wonder why _creationists_ would bring up vestigial
nectar?
There are other similar cases of vestigial sexuality among
asexuals. For example, there are poecilid fishes who
reproduce parthenogenetically -- but it's not strictly
virgin birth, because these females still need to get laid.
IIRC their eggs won't grow until poked at by sperm, even
though the DNA of the sperm is discarded. So they need to
seduce males of a related species.
BTW: why just wonder about the nectar? The whole gaudy flower
is unnecessary for an asexual dandelion -- would be better to build
the seeds safely and stealthily, and not extend the stalk and open
the bud until it's time to release the seeds.
--
Best regards, HLK, Physics
Sverker Johansson U of Jonkoping
----------------------------------------------
Definitions:
Micro-evolution: evolution for which the evidence is so
overwhelming that even the ICR can't deny it.
Macro-evolution: evolution which is only proven beyond
reasonable doubt, not beyond unreasonable doubt.
Bobby D. Bryant
<l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> I'm not a botanist, but IIRC only some dandelion species are asexual,
> others are sexual. And it's pretty clear that asexuality is the
> derived condition, so it's not terribly strange that asexual
> dandelions have vestigial sexual paraphernalia, leftovers from their
> sexual ancestor. In an evolutionary framework, it is not strange at
> all -- but of course, in a creationist framework the dandelions were
> created asexual, and there is no sane reason for them having fake
> vestigial sexual organs. So I really wonder why _creationists_ would
> bring up vestigial nectar?
If you can bear a bit of topic drift...
Today I read about the giraffe. It has a nerve that connects the brain
to the larynx. The larynx is a few inches away from the brain. The
nerve runs from the brain, all the way down the neck, under an artery,
back all the way *up* the neck, and finally to the larynx.
We should be able to turn Design Inference on its head with this one:
the probability that an all-powerful being would design a giraffe that
way is surely below Dembski's cut-off point for what he's willing to
believe.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Gavin Tabor
What makes you think that?
Gavin
>
> Bobby Bryant
> Austin, Texas
--
Dr. Gavin Tabor
School of Engineering and Computer Science
Department of Engineering
University of Exeter
Sverker Johansson
There is no such thing as a design too improbable for a creationist
to believe. Likewise, there is no such thing as an evolutionary
process probable enough for a creationist to believe. The cut-off
points are arbitrarily close to zero and infinity.
Of course, to any sane and rational person, the wiring of
the giraffe's neck is ludicrously dumb. IOW, proof of
an omniincompetent designer.
TomS
Sverker stated..."
The Argument From Design presumes that we can detect the
purpose behind a design. It might say, for example, that the
neck of the giraffe is so long, so as to enable the giraffe
to eat leaves high off the ground.
The question is, why not just make the leaves close to the
ground? Or, does the designer of plants have different purposes
than the designer of giraffes?
The standard reply is that we don't know the reasons that
the Lord acts as He does. That is fine by me. But if we don't
know His reasons, then we can't claim to know them in the
Argument From Design.
Tom S.
mel turner
[Adam Marczyk] wrote...
>
>http://www.trueorigin.org/biotic.asp makes the claim, apparently lifted from
>ReMine's _The Biotic Message_, that dandelions produce nectar even though
>they don't need it to attract insects, since they reproduce asexually.
The asexual forms of dandelions are recently derived from sexual,
outcrossing immediate ancestors [via events such as hybridization
between two sexual forms of different ploidy levels]. There are
several sexual _Taraxacum_ species known, as well as their more
abundant asexual derivatives.
>However, in researching this claim, I came across several sites that say
>dandelions do indeed have pollen and so could benefit from insect
>pollination.
The asexual ones still form nectar and pollen, but pollination
isn't necessary for seed formation. [The pollen might still
play an occasional role in the formation of new hybrids and new
[mostly-]asexual forms]
>Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
>that this is another creationist blunder?
It could be blunder for them to see this as supporting their
case. Why should an Intelligent Designer have made these
asexual forms look just like very recent derivatives of
extant sexual immediate progenitors, with evident retention of
what is now 'functionless', 'vestigial' pollen and nectar?
cheers
Adam Marczyk
news:9pbr6r$r42$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
This *needs* to be added to the t.o. FAQ on jury-rigged design. I'll add it
to my own page, too, if you'd be kind enough to supply a reference.
Dunk
turner) wrote:
<snip>
>>Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
>>that this is another creationist blunder?
>
>It could be blunder for them to see this as supporting their
>case. Why should an Intelligent Designer have made these
>asexual forms look just like very recent derivatives of
>extant sexual immediate progenitors, with evident retention of
>what is now 'functionless', 'vestigial' pollen and nectar?
>
>
>cheers
Why would an incredibly intelligent designer take billions of years to
do it?
Ans. Lazy, let evolution do the work.
Dunk
Bobby D. Bryant
<ebon...@hotmailnotexcite.com> wrote:
> This *needs* to be added to the t.o. FAQ on jury-rigged design. I'll
> add it to my own page, too, if you'd be kind enough to supply a
> reference.
I read it in a CS dissertation on genetic algorithms by a guy named
-- get this -- Darwen.
He cites Dawkins, _The Extended Phenotype_, p. 39 (Oxford UP, 1982), and
Mark Ridley, _Evolution_, pp. 343-344 (Blackwell Scientific, Boston,
1993).
I have not read either of those books.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
mel turner
wrote...
>On 2 Oct 2001 11:04:26 -0400, mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu (mel
>turner) wrote:
>
><snip>
>>>Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
>>>that this is another creationist blunder?
>>
>>It could be blunder for them to see this as supporting their
>>case. Why should an Intelligent Designer have made these
>>asexual forms look just like very recent derivatives of
>>extant sexual immediate progenitors, with evident retention of
>>what is now 'functionless', 'vestigial' pollen and nectar?
>Why would an incredibly intelligent designer take billions of years to
>do it?
>Ans. Lazy, let evolution do the work.
Entertainment? Maybe the journey itself is the thing?
["Getting there is half the fun"]
Or, for the same reason an expert gardener might prefer to
grow his own prize plants from seed rather than buy
already-grown ones from a nursery?
cheers
John Wilkins
A blind, stupid *and* drunk watchmaker, in fact. No wonder it takes him
so long to get anything finished...
--
John Wilkins at home
<http://www.users.bigpond.com/thewilkins/darwiniana.html>
Bob Pease
John Wilkins <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
news:1f0p0tu.ob1mi1beihwaN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
I have been successful playing the Devil's advocate against Deism in favor
of special creation...
Basically it's this .
If you postulate "God" as the blind, stupid, and drunk watchmaker, this
means that God is not even NEEDED and just being the guy who bought the
parts does not constitute much of a God for anybody.
THUS
Belief in Deism and evolution as compatible simply eliminates the need for
God at all.
Making Evolution INDEED a sure path to ATHIESM.
As a logical positivist, I see the question as moot, since any concept of
"God" in fact DOES lead to peculiar contradictions about nature and science.
But the Fundies DO have a point in declaring Empiricism and its offshoots as
being mutually exclusive with a belief in Jehovah .
My main point.
Any concept of "God" compatible with "Science" is , in fact, too weak to be
very useful.
Blind Watchmaker indeed!!
My faith:
I hope that there IS a God, but not the one described by any Human religion
we can think of.
It's like..there IS a meaning to all this, but we wouldn't ( Couldn't)
understand it because we lack the language skills at this stage of the
Teleology ( if any)
John Wilkins
If that's all that is being accounted for. But Deists (of which I am not
one) think that existence itself has to be accounted for, and so a God
(not necessarily a personal god, as my 11 year old daughter informs me)
is required for that.
> THUS
> Belief in Deism and evolution as compatible simply eliminates the need for
> God at all.
> Making Evolution INDEED a sure path to ATHIESM.
I see you got the misspelling correct :-)
>
> As a logical positivist, I see the question as moot, since any concept of
> "God" in fact DOES lead to peculiar contradictions about nature and science.
No. Really? A logical positivist in this day and age? No wonder you have
problems with deism. What's your opinion on the existence of universals?
;-)
>
> But the Fundies DO have a point in declaring Empiricism and its offshoots as
> being mutually exclusive with a belief in Jehovah .
Jehovah as described in the Authorised Version of 1611 and interpreted
by dissenting Protestantism perhaps. But Tillich or Bonhoeffer or Kung
or Rahner or Spong would all have no trouble with empiricism, I'm sure.
>
> My main point.
> Any concept of "God" compatible with "Science" is , in fact, too weak to be
> very useful.
> Blind Watchmaker indeed!!
Useful for what, exactly? Not useful for doing science of course, but
that is question begging and circular. Useful for other things? Well as
a logical positivist (really?) you have no truck with metaphysics, but
many do (myself included) and as to the usefulness of the concept of God
in metaphysics, it's not a knockdown argument that God is useless.
>
> My faith:
> I hope that there IS a God, but not the one described by any Human religion
> we can think of.
> It's like..there IS a meaning to all this, but we wouldn't ( Couldn't)
> understand it because we lack the language skills at this stage of the
> Teleology ( if any)
<Parse error. Redo from start>
Bob Pease
> Bob Pease <bobp...@concentric.net> wrote:
> > > A blind, stupid *and* drunk watchmaker, in fact. No wonder it takes
him
> > > so long to get anything finished...
> > > --
> > > John Wilkins at home
> > > <http://www.users.bigpond.com/thewilkins/darwiniana.html>
RP
> > I have been successful playing the Devil's advocate against Deism in
favor
> > of special creation...
> > Basically it's this .
> > If you postulate "God" as the blind, stupid, and drunk watchmaker, this
> > means that God is not even NEEDED and just being the guy who bought the
> > parts does not constitute much of a God for anybody.
>
> If that's all that is being accounted for. But Deists (of which I am not
> one) think that existence itself has to be accounted for, and so a God
> (not necessarily a personal god, as my 11 year old daughter informs me)
> is required for that.
>
> > THUS
> > Belief in Deism and evolution as compatible simply eliminates the need
for
> > God at all.
> > Making Evolution INDEED a sure path to ATHIESM.
>
> I see you got the misspelling correct :-)
it's Sic City time folks.
> > As a logical positivist, I see the question as moot, since any concept
of
> > "God" in fact DOES lead to peculiar contradictions about nature and
science.
>
> No. Really? A logical positivist in this day and age? No wonder you have
> problems with deism. What's your opinion on the existence of universals?
> ;-)
One can characterize oneself only by broad categorizations.
I have no knowledge of any Credo one must follow.
Logical positivist fits more nearly to my very syncretic profile than, for
example, Christiann Science would.
In rough accord with A.J Ayer,
I deem it sufficient to declare that MOST postulates concerning religion are
meaningless in any universal sense. In that case any Universals I know about
are those which I choose to SHARE meaning with others of a similar outlook
to myself.
The obvious objection is that this list should be kept rather small to avoid
solipsy or
So-What mental masturbation societies.
> > But the Fundies DO have a point in declaring Empiricism and its
offshoots as
> > being mutually exclusive with a belief in Jehovah .
>
> Jehovah as described in the Authorised Version of 1611 and interpreted
> by dissenting Protestantism perhaps. But Tillich or Bonhoeffer or Kung
> or Rahner or Spong would all have no trouble with empiricism, I'm sure.
I have read Kung , Rahner rather carefully. the others only cursively.
Kung is empirical enough to make statements like
(Paraphrased)
"We find the physical reality of the Miricles of Christ to be somewhat
problematic"
It really seems to me that they practice the Jesuit/Lewis Carroll concept of
making words mean what you want them to mean at the time. also inventing
Neologisms for vague ramblings about a personal World.
The Authors you cited are fodder for AJ Ayer's categorization of Tomes of
nonesense about nothing in particular ( or about SOMETHING in particular,
but you don't know what it is.)
> > My main point.
> > Any concept of "God" compatible with "Science" is , in fact, too weak to
be
> > very useful.
> > Blind Watchmaker indeed!!
>
> Useful for what, exactly? Not useful for doing science of course, but
> that is question begging and circular. Useful for other things? Well as
> a logical positivist (really?) you have no truck with metaphysics,
I would not be posting here if I had no truck with metaphysics.
It sure looks to me like metaphysics leads practically nowhere except to
making yourself feel good that you have given it a good shot. Actually,
that's OK!! Better than restricting your universe to The Denver Broncos,
Although I might be hard pressed to offer a UNIVERSAL proof of that ,
either.
As for Useful, I guess anything is Useful.
I have indicated a belief in some sort of Teleology.
A Borderline Logical Positivist need not be a Nihilist as well.
> many do (myself included) and as to the usefulness of the concept of God
> in metaphysics, it's not a knockdown argument that God is useless.
Try saying something about God that is REALLY interesting without offending
someone's belief system.
for example
"God will kill you if I pray the right prayers to Him" is very interesting
but somewhat offensive
but
"God is Love" begs Please define " Love for me" and really says nothing ,
although it frequently gets people off of the Big Guy IN THe Sky
I find the Concept of " God" quite useful myself.
But as soon as it becomes anything more than a "Higher Power" (Why is High
better than Low??)//we need to watch out.
It it seems that a lot of folks find it SO useful that they want to deprive
anyone not toeing to their particular God of their civil liberties.
> >
> > My faith:
> > I hope that there IS a God, but not the one described by any Human
religion
> > we can think of.
> > It's like..there IS a meaning to all this, but we wouldn't ( Couldn't)
> > understand it because we lack the language skills at this stage of the
> > Teleology ( if any)
>
> <Parse error. Redo from start>
The program you are using for parsing needs redoing from the start.
In reality, both you and I have no really BASIC difference in belief.
Most people are threatened by a positivist viewpoint on them, because they
have the emotional response of
"how the fuck does this old fat fart get off telling ME that everything I
believe in is Bullshit??"
This hardly sets a tone for much interchange.
I usually refer to say "How about them Broncs !!" to anyone whom I don't
know rather well who attempts to engage me in a tete-a-tete of this sort.
The Teachings of J.R.Dobbs seem refreshing, amusing, and having much more
content than the usual gang of dank Christian philosophers discussed in
musty Berkeley Coffee houses by the Graduate Theological Union bunch.
Been there
done that
Bob Pease
Bob Pease <bobp...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:9pe8qb$p...@dispatch.concentric.net...
replying to my own post.
Gates wonderful program did not execute a spell check ..
It also deleted
my sig which flavors the tone of my post more that somewhat
Pope Bobby II
69th Clench of the Stark Fist of Removal
Reformed Church of the Subgenius
John Wilkins
> John Wilkins <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:1f0pc30.rq1muulhqfcN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
> > Bob Pease <bobp...@concentric.net> wrote:
>
...
> > > Making Evolution INDEED a sure path to ATHIESM.
> >
> > I see you got the misspelling correct :-)
>
> it's Sic City time folks.
I meant that - I thought you were mocking creationist-speling[tm]
>
> > > As a logical positivist, I see the question as moot, since any concept
> of
> > > "God" in fact DOES lead to peculiar contradictions about nature and
> science.
> >
> > No. Really? A logical positivist in this day and age? No wonder you have
> > problems with deism. What's your opinion on the existence of universals?
> > ;-)
>
> One can characterize oneself only by broad categorizations. I have no
> knowledge of any Credo one must follow. Logical positivist fits more
> nearly to my very syncretic profile than, for example, Christiann Science
> would. In rough accord with A.J Ayer,
Well, that's logical positivist alright (or at least it is if you mean
_Language Truth and Logic_ Ayer).
> I deem it sufficient to declare that MOST postulates concerning religion
> are meaningless in any universal sense. In that case any Universals I know
> about are those which I choose to SHARE meaning with others of a similar
> outlook to myself.
That's Locke. But I meant it rather more directly. Some positivists like
David Armstrong deny the reality of universals in favour of a nominalist
position - there are only names under which we gather individuals.
Positivists who eschew metaphysics often reject the existence of classes
for that reason.
> The obvious objection is that this list should be kept rather small to
> avoid solipsy or So-What mental masturbation societies.
Err, yeah. OK.
>
>
> > > But the Fundies DO have a point in declaring Empiricism and its
> offshoots as
> > > being mutually exclusive with a belief in Jehovah .
> >
> > Jehovah as described in the Authorised Version of 1611 and interpreted
> > by dissenting Protestantism perhaps. But Tillich or Bonhoeffer or Kung
> > or Rahner or Spong would all have no trouble with empiricism, I'm sure.
>
> I have read Kung , Rahner rather carefully. the others only cursively.
> Kung is empirical enough to make statements like
> (Paraphrased)
> "We find the physical reality of the Miricles of Christ to be somewhat
> problematic"
In the wake of the Bultmannian entmythologisierung program, that is an
entirely reasonable comment to make :-)
Bonheoffer was the originator of the "God of the gaps" metaphor. Tillich
accepted the correctness of modern science over any mythology. Spong,
well, his reputation precedes him ;-)
>
> It really seems to me that they practice the Jesuit/Lewis Carroll concept of
> making words mean what you want them to mean at the time. also inventing
> Neologisms for vague ramblings about a personal World.
Unlike, say, biologists? [Throws big biological dictionary to one side]
Seriously, I do not think that technical language or subjective debate
is ipso facto evidence of nonsense. At least, it is a conclusion to be
argued for not assumed. I talk about my mood with others - I'm not
talking nonsense.
> The Authors you cited are fodder for AJ Ayer's categorization of Tomes of
> nonesense about nothing in particular ( or about SOMETHING in particular,
> but you don't know what it is.)
>
> > > My main point.
> > > Any concept of "God" compatible with "Science" is , in fact, too weak to
> be
> > > very useful.
> > > Blind Watchmaker indeed!!
> >
> > Useful for what, exactly? Not useful for doing science of course, but
> > that is question begging and circular. Useful for other things? Well as
> > a logical positivist (really?) you have no truck with metaphysics,
>
> I would not be posting here if I had no truck with metaphysics.
> It sure looks to me like metaphysics leads practically nowhere except to
> making yourself feel good that you have given it a good shot. Actually,
> that's OK!! Better than restricting your universe to The Denver Broncos,
> Although I might be hard pressed to offer a UNIVERSAL proof of that ,
> either.
>
> As for Useful, I guess anything is Useful.
I'm a pragmatist, so I think that the meaning of a concept *is* it's
usefulness.
>
> I have indicated a belief in some sort of Teleology.
Never mind. We can cure that.
> A Borderline Logical Positivist need not be a Nihilist as well.
Of course not. Nihilism is a whole nother philosophy...
...
> > > I hope that there IS a God, but not the one described by any Human
> religion
> > > we can think of.
> > > It's like..there IS a meaning to all this, but we wouldn't ( Couldn't)
> > > understand it because we lack the language skills at this stage of the
> > > Teleology ( if any)
> >
> > <Parse error. Redo from start>
>
> The program you are using for parsing needs redoing from the start.
>
> In reality, both you and I have no really BASIC difference in belief.
I C. But Pascal would have a different view Ada assume.
...
> I usually refer to say "How about them Broncs !!" to anyone whom I don't
> know rather well who attempts to engage me in a tete-a-tete of this sort.
Oh, I won't discuss religion with true believers, so I leave sports
alone.
>
> The Teachings of J.R.Dobbs seem refreshing, amusing, and having much more
> content than the usual gang of dank Christian philosophers discussed in
> musty Berkeley Coffee houses by the Graduate Theological Union bunch.
Is that Dr Dobbs, of database fame?
> Been there
> done that
TomS
<1f0plpu.1by1bt1211qbnN%wil...@wehi.edu.au>, wil...@wehi.edu.au stated..."
[...snip...]
>Bonheoffer was the originator of the "God of the gaps" metaphor.
Do you have a reference for that?
Tom S.
Bob Pease
> Bob Pease <bobp...@concentric.net> wrote:
Snip informative dialogue.
Thanks for some insights for more study!!
> >
> > The Teachings of J.R.Dobbs seem refreshing, amusing, and having much
more
> > content than the usual gang of dank Christian philosophers discussed in
> > musty Berkeley Coffee houses by the Graduate Theological Union bunch.
>
> Is that Dr Dobbs, of database fame?
No.
Actually it's The writings of J.R.Dobbs, of Subgenius fame.
See the Book of the Subgenius by Ivan Stang.
He's the guy with the dazed smile and the PIPE
(Ceci n'est pas un pipe!)
John Wilkins
As it happens, thanks to Tom Scharle, I do:
"Weizsaeker's book _The World-View of Physics_ is still keeping
me very busy. It has again brought home to me quite clearly how
wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our
knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed
further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then
God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in
retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't
know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems
but in those that are solved."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
letter to Eberhard Bethge, 29 May 1944
pages 310-312 (quotation from page 311)
Letters and Papers from Prison
The Enlarged Edition, 1st Touchstone edition
ed. Eberhard Bethge
New York : Simon & Schuster, 1997
Translation of "Widerstand und Ergebung"
Author: Thomas Scharle
Email: sch...@ubiquity.cc.nd.edu
Date: 1998/11/16
Forums: talk.origins
Message-ID: <1998111615...@ubiquity.cc.nd.edu>
science
"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message
news:3bb94...@bingnews.binghamton.edu...
> http://www.trueorigin.org/biotic.asp makes the claim, apparently lifted
from
> ReMine's _The Biotic Message_, that dandelions produce nectar even though
> they don't need it to attract insects, since they reproduce asexually.
> However, in researching this claim, I came across several sites that say
> dandelions do indeed have pollen and so could benefit from insect
> pollination. Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just assume
> that this is another creationist blunder?
My book does indeed cite the dandelions, but not in the manner suggested
above. Rather, I follow my usual practice of quoting my opponents to
document my points. In this case of the dandelions, I accurately quote
Douglas Futuyma from his anti-creationary book, _Science on Trial_. I do
especially enjoy quoting from leading anti-creationists to make my points.
If you ever object to the facts I employ, you will (in all cases I can
recall) be objecting to what an EVOLUTIONIST has written, and I will be sure
to remind you of it.
Futuyma offers a particular test of natural selection theory (on page 123 of
his book). Then merely four pages later he (apparently unknowingly) gives a
counter-example: the dandelions. Most species of dandelions are sexual, but
not the common species that grows in everyone's lawn. This particular
species has flower and nectar, which they have no use for - which may be
taken as falsification of his test! I discuss this matter further, and
argue that his "test" of natural selection theory (while not falsified
outright) is NOT really a test after all. My book does that likewise with
various other so-called "tests" of natural selection theory.
-- Walter ReMine
Fellow with Discovery Institute
_The Biotic Message_
http://www1.minn.net/~science
TomS
<1f0qust.1kvc81r1q15nviN%wil...@wehi.edu.au>, wil...@wehi.edu.au stated..."
<blush>
My excuse is that I was looking for the exact phrase "God of the
gaps".
Tom S.
Andrew Glasgow
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote:
If most species of dandelions are sexual, and one is not, the asexuality
is probably a relatively recently derived trait, and not all adaptations
associated with it will have been selected away yet.
Aren't there parthenogenic lizards where the females mount each other to
stimulate ovulation?
--
| Andrew Glasgow <amg39(at)cornell.edu> |
| SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are *fundamental technical |
| reasons* why it is necessary to sacrifice a young goat |
| to your SCSI chain now and then. -- John Woods |
Adam Marczyk
news:amg39.REMOVETHIS-FE...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
Cneidophorus, I believe. They're in the t.o. FAQ on jury-rigged design.
Adam Marczyk
news:9ph5dn$50k$1...@hydra.bigsky.net...
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@hotmailNOTexcite.com> wrote in message
> news:3bb94...@bingnews.binghamton.edu...
> > http://www.trueorigin.org/biotic.asp makes the claim, apparently lifted
> from
> > ReMine's _The Biotic Message_, that dandelions produce nectar even
though
> > they don't need it to attract insects, since they reproduce asexually.
> > However, in researching this claim, I came across several sites that say
> > dandelions do indeed have pollen and so could benefit from insect
> > pollination. Anyone know anything more about this? Or should I just
assume
> > that this is another creationist blunder?
>
> My book does indeed cite the dandelions, but not in the manner suggested
> above. Rather, I follow my usual practice of quoting my opponents to
> document my points. In this case of the dandelions, I accurately quote
> Douglas Futuyma from his anti-creationary book, _Science on Trial_. I do
> especially enjoy quoting from leading anti-creationists to make my points.
Creationist quote-mining? Why am I not surprised?
> If you ever object to the facts I employ, you will (in all cases I can
> recall) be objecting to what an EVOLUTIONIST has written, and I will be
sure
> to remind you of it.
And your point is what, exactly? Are you implying that no one who supports
evolution should disagree with anyone else who supports evolution? Of course
scientists disagree and debate among themselves. That's how you know
evolution is a vigorous, healthy science - debate is ongoing and it's
continually being further refined and developed. It's only the creationists,
as you yourself said above, who prey on this healthy debate by seizing
quotes where scientists disagree about minor evolution-related matters and
blow them out of proportion in an attempt to make it seem as if evolution
itself is in question, when in reality nothing could be farther from the
truth.
If, instead, all scientists pulled together into a uniform, monolithic
group, never disagreed in public, signed pledges promising that they would
never allow themselves to doubt evolution regardless of the evidence, only
published papers about how strong a theory evolution is, and spent most of
their time evangelizing and attempting to pass laws forcing evolution to be
taught in public schools - *that's* when I would grow suspicious that maybe
evolution isn't good science after all. Hmm, that description sounds
suspiciously like another group whose name escapes me at the moment...
> Futuyma offers a particular test of natural selection theory (on page 123
of
> his book). Then merely four pages later he (apparently unknowingly) gives
a
> counter-example: the dandelions. Most species of dandelions are sexual,
but
> not the common species that grows in everyone's lawn. This particular
> species has flower and nectar, which they have no use for - which may be
> taken as falsification of his test!
Unless they are only recently descended from a species that did have a use
for it, as several people have pointed out.
> I discuss this matter further, and
> argue that his "test" of natural selection theory (while not falsified
> outright) is NOT really a test after all.
Then he should have worded it more carefully, that's all.
> My book does that likewise with
> various other so-called "tests" of natural selection theory.
Has it perhaps occurred to you that the reason most modern tests of natural
selection aren't really tests at all, is because natural selection has
*already* passed all the simple tests for falsification, and thus it would
be difficult if not impossible to think of something that could discredit it
now, since it's already been seen to operate so many times?
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
--
Herb Huston
Adam Marczyk <ebon...@excite.com> wrote:
}Andrew Glasgow <amg39.RE...@cornell.edu.INVALID> wrote in message
}news:amg39.REMOVETHIS-FE...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
}>
}> stimulate ovulation?
}
}Cneidophorus, I believe.
_Cnemidophorus_. Commonly known as racerunners or whiptails. There are
about 20 species.
--
-- Herb Huston
-- hus...@radix.net
-- http://www.radix.net/~huston
science
"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:truc3nn...@corp.supernews.com...
> Creationist quote-mining? Why am I not surprised?
My book accurately and appropriately quoted Futuyma's book. I am unashamed
of that.
>....
> And your point is what, exactly?
This thread began with someone suggesting my book had made an error about
the sexuality (or not) of dandelions. My post pointed out that there is no
error, my book gets the point correct, and accurately cites an evolutionist
on the fact. If you ever object to the facts I employ, you will (in all
cases I can recall) be objecting to what an EVOLUTIONIST has written, and I
will be sure to remind you of it.
> Are you implying that no one who supports evolution should
> disagree with anyone else who supports evolution?
No. This thread began with an attempt to blame some error onto my book. My
point is that the facts employed in my book come from EVOLUTIONISTS.
Also, in the case at hand, the issue is not one evolutionist disagreeing
with another. It is about one evolutionist contradicting himself. In his
anti-creation book, Futuyma offers a test of natural selection theory (which
I quote in my book), then merely four pages later he (apparently
unknowingly) gives a counter-example in his discussion of the dandelions
(which I also quote in my book). In other words, I quote Futuyma to show
his self-contradiction. I show that in the end, his "test" is not a test.
> .... It's only the creationists, ...
No, there are now many evolutionists who express doubts about natural
selection theory.
> .... who prey on this healthy debate by seizing
> quotes where scientists disagree about minor
> evolution-related matters and blow them out of
> proportion
The testability, or not, of natural selection theory is not a "minor"
evolution-related matter. It is major. Indeed the issue is big enough to
appear in Futuyma's anti-creation book. Do not attempt to get around this
matter by belittling it.
> ... in an attempt to make it seem as if evolution
> itself is in question, when in reality nothing could
> be farther from the truth.
Adam Marczyk misrepresented me backwards from what I said. I did not say
Futuyma's test calls evolution into question. Quite the opposite. Rather, I
pointed out how Futuyma's "test" is NOT a test.
> Has it perhaps occurred to you that the reason most
> modern tests of natural selection aren't really tests at all,
> is because natural selection has *already* passed all the
> simple tests for falsification, ...
That's double-speak. In the case of natural selection theory, there exists
no "simple test of falsification." (If there were, then evolutionists would
have offered it by now.)
> ... and thus it would be difficult if not impossible to think
> of something that could discredit it now, ...
In other words, natural selection theory is unfalsifiable.
> ... since it's already been seen to operate so many times?
On the other hand, I am willing to accept the power of natural selection *to
the extent* it can be experimentally demonstrated. But such demonstrations
SYSTEMATICALLY fail to bridge the many morphological/design gaps in life's
pattern. It is this TWO-FOLD failure -- failure to be testable, and failure
to demonstrate its major claims -- that marks natural selection theory as a
non-scientific explanation of macro-evolution.
David Jensen
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote in <9po5uq$nu7$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>:
>Also, in the case at hand, the issue is not one evolutionist disagreeing
>with another. It is about one evolutionist contradicting himself. In his
>anti-creation book, Futuyma offers a test of natural selection theory (which
>I quote in my book), then merely four pages later he (apparently
>unknowingly) gives a counter-example in his discussion of the dandelions
>(which I also quote in my book). In other words, I quote Futuyma to show
>his self-contradiction. I show that in the end, his "test" is not a test.
I think you misrepresent Futuyma.
>> .... It's only the creationists, ...
>
>No, there are now many evolutionists who express doubts about natural
>selection theory.
Specifics, sure, until we know everything there is to know about
evolution there will be questions about the mechanisms. That is good.
In general, I doubt it.
>
>> .... who prey on this healthy debate by seizing
>> quotes where scientists disagree about minor
>> evolution-related matters and blow them out of
>> proportion
>
>The testability, or not, of natural selection theory is not a "minor"
>evolution-related matter. It is major. Indeed the issue is big enough to
>appear in Futuyma's anti-creation book. Do not attempt to get around this
>matter by belittling it.
What is untestable about natural selection?
>On the other hand, I am willing to accept the power of natural selection *to
>the extent* it can be experimentally demonstrated. But such demonstrations
>SYSTEMATICALLY fail to bridge the many morphological/design gaps in life's
>pattern. It is this TWO-FOLD failure -- failure to be testable, and failure
>to demonstrate its major claims -- that marks natural selection theory as a
>non-scientific explanation of macro-evolution.
>
>-- Walter ReMine
>Fellow with Discovery Institute
>_The Biotic Message_
>http://www1.minn.net/~science
Are we talking about natural selection or variation and natural
selection?
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:truc3nn...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > Creationist quote-mining? Why am I not surprised?
>
> My book accurately and appropriately quoted Futuyma's book. I am unashamed
> of that.
>
> >....
> > And your point is what, exactly?
>
> This thread began with someone suggesting my book had made an error about
> the sexuality (or not) of dandelions. My post pointed out that there is
no
> error, my book gets the point correct, and accurately cites an
evolutionist
> on the fact. If you ever object to the facts I employ, you will (in all
> cases I can recall) be objecting to what an EVOLUTIONIST has written, and
I
> will be sure to remind you of it.
And, as I already stated, merely because someone else accepts evolution does
not obligate me to agree with them. In fact, many evolutionists disagree
with each other, and it is precisely this process of healthy debate that
makes evolution a thriving science. Creationists, on the other hand, seem
interested in nothing more than stifling dissent within their own ranks and
presenting a monolithic front to the public. That's why creationist
organizations such as the ICR and Answers in Genesis flat-out require their
members to sign statements affirming that they will never allow themselves
to be swayed from their view of absolute Biblical inerrancy, regardless of
what the evidence says. Just imagine how creationists would shriek about
bias if, to get an article published in Nature, you had to sign a statement
affirming your belief in the inerrancy of Darwin.
> > Are you implying that no one who supports evolution should
> > disagree with anyone else who supports evolution?
>
> No. This thread began with an attempt to blame some error onto my book.
My
> point is that the facts employed in my book come from EVOLUTIONISTS.
>
> Also, in the case at hand, the issue is not one evolutionist disagreeing
> with another. It is about one evolutionist contradicting himself. In his
> anti-creation book, Futuyma offers a test of natural selection theory
(which
> I quote in my book), then merely four pages later he (apparently
> unknowingly) gives a counter-example in his discussion of the dandelions
> (which I also quote in my book). In other words, I quote Futuyma to show
> his self-contradiction. I show that in the end, his "test" is not a test.
Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts doubt on the validity
of all of evolution.
> > .... It's only the creationists, ...
>
> No, there are now many evolutionists who express doubts about natural
> selection theory.
Gee - does anyone else notice how this statement is relevant to the one of
mine quoted immediately below?
> > .... who prey on this healthy debate by seizing
> > quotes where scientists disagree about minor
> > evolution-related matters and blow them out of
> > proportion
>
> The testability, or not, of natural selection theory is not a "minor"
> evolution-related matter. It is major. Indeed the issue is big enough to
> appear in Futuyma's anti-creation book. Do not attempt to get around this
> matter by belittling it.
I fully intend to address it; see below.
> > ... in an attempt to make it seem as if evolution
> > itself is in question, when in reality nothing could
> > be farther from the truth.
>
> Adam Marczyk misrepresented me backwards from what I said. I did not say
> Futuyma's test calls evolution into question. Quite the opposite. Rather,
I
> pointed out how Futuyma's "test" is NOT a test.
Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake. What's your point?
If it would make you feel better, allow me to propose a corrected version.
Natural selection could be falsified if we found a species with an
altruistic adaptation that does it no good *and never did*. Now, I'm sure I
know what your response will be - that's a test that's impossible to fail,
because no matter what truly altruistic structures we found we could always
just claim they served some unspecified purpose in an ancestral organism.
Fair enough. However, as several posters pointed out it's pretty clear that
in dandelions the sexual species are primitive and the asexual species are
of recently derived stock; it's no mystery why asexual dandelions have
flowers or nectar. There just hasn't been enough time to select them out
yet. Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with no hint of
ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem. But if we saw this all over the
place - lots of different species with altruistic adaptations which confer
their possessors with no obvious advantages - then we would have to start
seriously questioning evolution.
This is fully in accord with the way science works; theories stand or fall
on the overall weight of the evidence, not on one simplistic "silver bullet"
fact. If it were otherwise - if the creationist's view of science as naive
falsificationism were true - then Newton's law of gravity should have been
instantly rejected, even though it united a broad range of phenomena under a
single consistent heading and explained many observed facts, because of the
slight deviations in the orbit of Mercury which it could not explain. And in
much the same way that general relativity explained this and several other
anomalies while still yielding the same results as Newtonian gravity in more
prosaic circumstances, evolution enjoys such wide support and corroboration
from a broad range of fields, and unites so many observations under one
heading, that even if it *were* falsified its replacement would necessarily
have to be very like it. Creationism is already dead in the water; it is
simply not a candidate for any possible successor to evolution. Not only
does it disqualify itself as science right out of the gate by rejecting the
principle of methodological naturalism, it so completely fails to explain so
much evidence and so many facts it is almost comical.
> > Has it perhaps occurred to you that the reason most
> > modern tests of natural selection aren't really tests at all,
> > is because natural selection has *already* passed all the
> > simple tests for falsification, ...
>
> That's double-speak. In the case of natural selection theory, there
exists
> no "simple test of falsification." (If there were, then evolutionists
would
> have offered it by now.)
Sure there is. The simple test of falsification for natural selection would
be to see if every creature experienced the exact same reproductive success
(not an unreasonable proposition in the creationist worldview of "created
kinds"). Perhaps the reason you've never heard such a proposition being
offered before is that it's so obvious no one thought it needed to be
mentioned.
> > ... and thus it would be difficult if not impossible to think
> > of something that could discredit it now, ...
>
> In other words, natural selection theory is unfalsifiable.
Unfalsified, not unfalsifiable. The distinction is an important one.
> > ... since it's already been seen to operate so many times?
>
> On the other hand, I am willing to accept the power of natural selection
*to
> the extent* it can be experimentally demonstrated.
Well, it's been experimentally demonstrated that it can produce new genes
performing new functions, that it can effect drastic morphological change,
and that it can bring forth new, reproductively isolated species. How's
that?
> But such demonstrations
> SYSTEMATICALLY fail to bridge the many morphological/design gaps in life's
> pattern.
Such as?
> It is this TWO-FOLD failure -- failure to be testable, and failure
> to demonstrate its major claims -- that marks natural selection theory as
a
> non-scientific explanation of macro-evolution.
As I stated above, it is testable, and I think the power of selection and
the plasticity of life has been more than adequately demonstrated. How much
like a wolf is a chihuahua? How much like wild grass is maize? How much like
the wild type are some of the goldfish varieties breeders have created? If
human-guided selection can do that much in only a few hundred or thousand
years, is it really such a big leap to believe that natural selection can do
even more over eons? (If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your skepticism. The
therapsid series, for example, is extremely good. And how about those new
whale fossils?)
science
> Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts
> doubt on the validity of all of evolution.
That once again misrepresents my point. Here it is again: Futuyma offered
a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is not a test. It is a phony.
There exists no "silver bullet", because there is no test. My position is
opposite of how Adam Marczyk keeps pretending it to be.
> .... Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake.
Thanks, we agree then. And Futuyma's phony "test" is the same one offered
by many evolutionists, starting with Darwin.
******
> ....
> But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
> species with altruistic adaptations which confer
> their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
> we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here is
Darwin:
"If it could be proved that any part of the structure
OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
Yes, that's definitely a retreat from Darwin.
******
> .... The simple test of falsification for natural selection
> would be to see if every creature experienced the exact
> same reproductive success ...
That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology would be
to see if every human has the exact same personality." As many philosophers
of science (including Popper) have pointed out, if one has to go to such
EXTREMES to conjure up a "test", then a theory is not really testable after
all. It's like saying Newtonian mechanics must be tested "by seeing whether
planets move in squares instead of ellipses" -- that too is not a test, for
no one operating without benefit of those theories would make such
unrealistic predictions anyway. Thankfully, unlike astrology and natural
selection, Newtonian mechanics offers serious tests.
In other words, Adam Marczyk's above "test" of natural selection is another
phony test. It does not put the theory at risk.
******
Adam Marczyk sells the notion that experimental demonstrations of biological
change can be extrapolated virtually without end:
>....
> If human-guided selection can do that much in only a
> few hundred or thousand years, is it really such a big
> leap to believe that natural selection can do even more
> over eons?
In truth, the fitness terrain has contour, with hills and valleys, mountains
and deep crevasses. Under these circumstances, our experiments concerning
it cannot be extrapolated. Natural selection theory itself indicates this.
> If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
> plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your
> skepticism. The therapsid series, for example,
> is extremely good. And how about those new
> whale fossils?
Even in the evolutionist's best selected examples of macroevolution, the
morphological gaps between life forms DWARFS our experimental demonstrations
of biological change. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
mel turner
>> Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts
>> doubt on the validity of all of evolution.
>
>That once again misrepresents my point. Here it is again: Futuyma offered
>a "test" of natural selection theory,
Namely? Is it supposed to be a test of "natural selection theory",
or merely a test of possible cases of natural selection as an
explanation of specific features?
What is the "natural selection theory" that is to be tested? A theory
that all evolutionary change is mediated by NS? That's not only tested,
it's false. A theory that at least some evolutionary change can be
effected by NS? That's testable and demonstrably true.
>but it is not a test. It is a phony.
That sounds moderately interesting. Care to describe just how it's
"phony"?
>There exists no "silver bullet", because there is no test. My position is
>opposite of how Adam Marczyk keeps pretending it to be.
Your position is what, exactly?
>> .... Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake.
Or perhaps he was misrepresented? ;-)
>Thanks, we agree then. And Futuyma's phony "test" is the same one offered
>by many evolutionists, starting with Darwin.
Again, how is it "phony", exactly?
[snip]
>> But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
>> species with altruistic adaptations which confer
>> their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
>> we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>
>Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here is
>Darwin:
>
> "If it could be proved that any part of the structure
> OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
> exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
> ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
Note the "had been formed for the exclusive good of another species"
bit. That's why the dandelion example doesn't fit. Presumably you
understand why. The facts do falsify any possible hypothesis that
natural selection had worked to produce nectaries and pollen _in the
asexual forms of dandelions_; in fact they're just formerly-functional
features retained from their sexual immediate ancestors.
Anyway, Darwin is clearly incorrect here. The hypothetical finding of
some species with some "altruistic" features that couldn't be
explained by natural selection doesn't "annihilate" natural selection
theory, it merely says that there must be more to it than just natural
selection-- it's evidence that there is something else at work. It
seems to me that to "annihilate" it would require strong evidence that
evolution by natural selection doesn't occur.
>Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
>species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
No, it would just suggest that there was more going on than natural
selection. Why would it challenge evolution?
>Yes, that's definitely a retreat from Darwin.
How so? Was he even invoking Darwin? Is there anything wrong with
disagreeing in part with something Darwin wrote? I just did.
>> .... The simple test of falsification for natural selection
>> would be to see if every creature experienced the exact
>> same reproductive success ...
Actually, no. That'd just be a demonstration that the
necessary conditions for natural selection weren't present
in that case. To falsify NS would be to show that something
somehow prevents differential reproductive success among
genetically-varying individuals from producing evolutionary
changes in their population. Something like Zoe's mystical
"limits" to evolution,perhaps.
[Lots of other imaginable things could have falsified evolution
in general and/or natural selection in particular, e.g.:
1] all mutations impossible, or DNA repair is perfect, or some
other form of genetics/reproduction such that parental variations
aren't ever passed on to offspring;
2] no nested hierarchies of groups of groups of species of
organisms. [If creationism was correct there'd be no reason to
expect groups at all]
3] YEC timetable is correct; not enough time for much evolution.
>That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology would be
>to see if every human has the exact same personality."
Which would do it, as an imaginary very simple test. Another
would be to show that there is no correlation between
personality and horoscope.
As many philosophers
>of science (including Popper) have pointed out, if one has to go to such
>EXTREMES to conjure up a "test", then a theory is not really testable after
>all.
Who said one has to go to such extremes? Again, what is the theory
that you'd like to test? That NS ever works? Readily demonstrated in
experimental studies. That it's the only evoluionary mechanism?
Readily shown to be false. That it explains particular features of
particular cases? That clearly has to be addressed case-by-case. The
asexual dandelion nectar example fails, for example. It's not the
result of current selection on the asexual dandelions, but is just
inherited baggage.
It's like saying Newtonian mechanics must be tested "by seeing whether
>planets move in squares instead of ellipses" -- that too is not a test, for
>no one operating without benefit of those theories would make such
>unrealistic predictions anyway. Thankfully, unlike astrology and natural
>selection, Newtonian mechanics offers serious tests.
>In other words, Adam Marczyk's above "test" of natural selection is another
>phony test. It does not put the theory at risk.
What theory is to be put at risk? That differential reproductive
success among individual genotypes could ever cause a population's
gene pool to change over generations? How can you falsify that
which is observed to occur?
>Adam Marczyk sells the notion that experimental demonstrations of biological
>change can be extrapolated virtually without end:
Nah, just far enough to account for the diversity of life on
earth. So, what notions are you selling?
>> If human-guided selection can do that much in only a
>> few hundred or thousand years, is it really such a big
>> leap to believe that natural selection can do even more
>> over eons?
>
>In truth, the fitness terrain has contour, with hills and valleys, mountains
>and deep crevasses. Under these circumstances, our experiments concerning
>it cannot be extrapolated. Natural selection theory itself indicates this.
Yes, it's complex. So is biology.
>> If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
>> plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your
>> skepticism. The therapsid series, for example,
>> is extremely good. And how about those new
>> whale fossils?
>
>Even in the evolutionist's best selected examples of macroevolution,
"Selected" may be an unfortunate choice of words?
the
>morphological gaps between life forms DWARFS our experimental demonstrations
>of biological change.
Depends on whether dogs, corn and goldfish count as "experimental".
Those are rather "macro" morphological changes.
Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
>SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
If that's a claim that there are no gradual species-level transitions
in the fossil record [or similar clinal or ring-species gradations
among extant forms, it's wrong.
cheers
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:trvk5v...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> > Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts
> > doubt on the validity of all of evolution.
>
> That once again misrepresents my point. Here it is again: Futuyma
offered
> a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is not a test. It is a
phony.
> There exists no "silver bullet", because there is no test. My position is
> opposite of how Adam Marczyk keeps pretending it to be.
I gave two perfectly good tests in my previous reply. Would you like me to
repeat them?
> > .... Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake.
>
> Thanks, we agree then. And Futuyma's phony "test" is the same one offered
> by many evolutionists, starting with Darwin.
No, his test is not "phony," merely in error. The former is an entirely
unjustified ad hominem attack that speaks to Futuyma's motives, as if you
could somehow know whether he was being deliberately dishonest. The latter
is a simple mistake. I posted a corrected version.
> ******
>
> > ....
> > But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
> > species with altruistic adaptations which confer
> > their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
> > we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>
> Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here
is
> Darwin:
>
> "If it could be proved that any part of the structure
> OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
> exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
> ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
>
> Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
> species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
> Yes, that's definitely a retreat from Darwin.
No, it's not. Here, allow me to requote my previous reply:
Natural selection could be falsified if we found a species with an
altruistic adaptation that does it no good *and never did*. Now, I'm sure I
know what your response will be - that's a test that's impossible to fail,
because no matter what truly altruistic structures we found we could always
just claim they served some unspecified purpose in an ancestral organism.
Fair enough. However, as several posters pointed out it's pretty clear that
in dandelions the sexual species are primitive and the asexual species are
of recently derived stock; it's no mystery why asexual dandelions have
flowers or nectar. There just hasn't been enough time to select them out
yet. Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with no hint of
ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem. But if we saw this all over the
place - lots of different species with altruistic adaptations which confer
their possessors with no obvious advantages - then we would have to start
seriously questioning evolution.
This is perfectly in accord with Darwin's test above. The nectar of
dandelions was *not* formed for the exclusive good of another species - it
evolved in sexual dandelion species that *do* derive a benefit from insect
pollination. When cross-breeding caused an asexual species of dandelion to
emerge, the nectar and flowers became vestigial structures serving no good
purpose that have not yet been selected out. But they did not form in the
first place for the exclusive good of another species; they originally
formed for the benefit of the dandelions. Make sense?
> ******
>
> > .... The simple test of falsification for natural selection
> > would be to see if every creature experienced the exact
> > same reproductive success ...
>
> That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology would
be
> to see if every human has the exact same personality." As many
philosophers
> of science (including Popper) have pointed out, if one has to go to such
> EXTREMES to conjure up a "test", then a theory is not really testable
after
> all. It's like saying Newtonian mechanics must be tested "by seeing
whether
> planets move in squares instead of ellipses" -- that too is not a test,
for
> no one operating without benefit of those theories would make such
> unrealistic predictions anyway. Thankfully, unlike astrology and natural
> selection, Newtonian mechanics offers serious tests.
>
> In other words, Adam Marczyk's above "test" of natural selection is
another
> phony test. It does not put the theory at risk.
Perhaps the problem is on your end. Natural selection is an observed and
obvious fact; asking what would falsify it is rather like asking what would
falsify gravity. That's why one would have to go to such ludicrous extremes
to derive a true test. And, as I pointed out, predicting that every creature
would experience the exact same reproductive success would not be an
unrealistic expectation in a creationist worldview of immutable created
kinds.
> ******
>
> Adam Marczyk sells the notion that experimental demonstrations of
biological
> change can be extrapolated virtually without end:
>
> >....
> > If human-guided selection can do that much in only a
> > few hundred or thousand years, is it really such a big
> > leap to believe that natural selection can do even more
> > over eons?
>
> In truth, the fitness terrain has contour, with hills and valleys,
mountains
> and deep crevasses. Under these circumstances, our experiments concerning
> it cannot be extrapolated. Natural selection theory itself indicates
this.
Our experiments (such as producing chihuahuas from wolves, or maize from
wild grass) can indeed be extrapolated because we know such changes do occur
in nature. That is what transitional fossil series and genetic nested
hierarchies tell us - they provide indisputable evidence that life has
undergone broad change over time. I'm not necessarily saying all of this
change must have been mediated by natural selection, but as I'm sure you'll
agree, we're not arguing whether natural selection can produce such drastic
changes - we're arguing whether such changes have occurred at all.
> > If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
> > plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your
> > skepticism. The therapsid series, for example,
> > is extremely good. And how about those new
> > whale fossils?
>
> Even in the evolutionist's best selected examples of macroevolution, the
> morphological gaps between life forms DWARFS our experimental
demonstrations
> of biological change. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
> SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
Pure denial that completely avoids addressing the evidence. Let's see, Dr.
ReMine, if you can answer a question every creationist I've ever known has
dodged.
Let's take, as an example, the reptile-to-mammal transitional series, the
cynodont therapsids. If this series does not convince you, why not? If you
do not accept it as a true transitional series, what would have to be
different about it for you to accept it as such? What's missing, in other
words? Will you answer this question honestly, or have you, like the
creationists at the ICR and Answers in Genesis, already made up your mind
and refuse to be swayed by any evidence, no matter how compelling?
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
--
Adam Marczyk
news:9ps8s0$i86$1...@news.duke.edu...
> In article <9prkpa$1gs$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>, sci...@minn.net [science]
wrote...
> >"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> >news:trvk5v...@corp.supernews.com...
[snip]
> >> But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
> >> species with altruistic adaptations which confer
> >> their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
> >> we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
> >
> >Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here
is
> >Darwin:
> >
> > "If it could be proved that any part of the structure
> > OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
> > exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
> > ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
>
> Note the "had been formed for the exclusive good of another species"
> bit. That's why the dandelion example doesn't fit. Presumably you
> understand why. The facts do falsify any possible hypothesis that
> natural selection had worked to produce nectaries and pollen _in the
> asexual forms of dandelions_; in fact they're just formerly-functional
> features retained from their sexual immediate ancestors.
>
> Anyway, Darwin is clearly incorrect here. The hypothetical finding of
> some species with some "altruistic" features that couldn't be
> explained by natural selection doesn't "annihilate" natural selection
> theory, it merely says that there must be more to it than just natural
> selection-- it's evidence that there is something else at work.
Keep in mind that Darwin didn't know about genetic drift or symbiosis - when
he proposed his theory, natural selection was the only mechanism he knew of
by which evolution could work. I think you and I are saying the same thing,
just phrasing it in different ways - a truly altruistic adaptation would not
necessarily be evidence that evolution never occurs (maybe God uses
evolution as his mechanism but is dropping a few hints about his existence
by placing anomalies in nature), but it would be evidence that we're missing
out on some important mechanism. IOW, I think, it *would* falsify the
current evolutionary model; but as I said, evolution is such a successful
theory that any possible successor would necessarily have to be very similar
to it, just as general relativity gives the same predictions as Newtonian
mechanics under most circumstances.
[snip]
howard hershey
----------
In article <9prkpa$1gs$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>, "science" <sci...@minn.net>
wrote:
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:trvk5v...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
>> Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts
>> doubt on the validity of all of evolution.
>
> That once again misrepresents my point. Here it is again: Futuyma offered
> a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is not a test. It is a phony.
> There exists no "silver bullet", because there is no test. My position is
> opposite of how Adam Marczyk keeps pretending it to be.
>
>> .... Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake.
>
> Thanks, we agree then. And Futuyma's phony "test" is the same one offered
> by many evolutionists, starting with Darwin.
>
> ******
>
>> ....
>> But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
>> species with altruistic adaptations which confer
>> their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
>> we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>
> Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here is
> Darwin:
>
> "If it could be proved that any part of the structure
> OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
> exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
> ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
>
> Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
> species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
> Yes, that's definitely a retreat from Darwin.
>
> ******
Rather, it is a recognition that single anomalies do not ordinarily
annihilate an explanation or observation that has massive support aside from
the anomaly in science; rather the explanation might have to be modified or
be seen to have limited applicability. For example, Mendelian genetics did
not initially encompass sex-linkage and non-Mendelian patterns in plasmid
and bacterial genomes. Natural selection is an observation of nature that
has been seen many times in many different ways. But there are certainly
also cases where natural selection does not occur and has been observed not
to occur (there are many selectively neutral traits, for example). At best,
one could explain the conditions under which 'natural selection' does not
happen and conditions where it does happen (selection requires two
phenotypes that are more or less, but not equally, able to reproduce in a
defined environment relative to each other). To *falsify* 'natural
selection' (or at least find the conditions where the expectations of
natural selection can be observed not to occur), one would have to regularly
observe events like antibiotic sensitive (rather than resistant) strains
growing in antibiotic media; that is, cases where the phenotype that
demonstrably is, in net, better would consistently do worse than the
phenotype that is, in net, demonstrably worse. Most such anomalies seen
(with the exception of chance seen below) are 'apparent anomalies' due to
traits that have multiple effects where there is a balance between these
effects. For example, some traits that one might, if one were superficial,
think would lead to greater reproductive success, like greater aggression or
longevity, when actually studied show the exact opposite (the greater
longevity often comes with the cost of slower reproduction rates and, for
organisms that are likely to die by accident or predation, longevity under
ideal conditions is not a favorable trait wrt reproductive success in
nature). Other traits are beneficial only to the extent that they are rare.
But that is a matter of defining the terms of natural selection more
accurately.
That said, there are some conditions where the role of natural selection is
quite limited and counterintuitive results can occur. Specifically, pure
chance plays a significant role in cases where the selective value of a
phenotypic difference is small and the population size is also small and
these conditions can result in events that would not be expected solely by
using the ideas of natural selection. But I don't think that 'pure chance'
is the alternative explanation you were looking for.
Aside from such random events in small populations (founder effects, etc.),
it is quite clear that natural selection occurs and is of major import in
biology. It is also quite clear that no example of completely altruistic
traits has been described and, thus, if such do exist, they would require
some as-yet-unecessary alternative explanation *for that trait*. That
anomaly would not eliminate the fact that such altruistic traits are
currently a non-existent category and most certainly are rare to the
vanishing point.
To truly have an alternative explanation to substitute for 'natural
selection' you would need to have an alternative theory that could explain
all the evidence that 'natural selection' occurs and also explains it
better.
>
>> .... The simple test of falsification for natural selection
>> would be to see if every creature experienced the exact
>> same reproductive success ...
>
> That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology would be
> to see if every human has the exact same personality."
The simple direct test for falsification of astrology is to show that there
is no correlation between personality and the astrological sign one is born
under (controlled for confounding factors such as self-knowledge of the way
individuals born under a particular sign should behave).
The simple direct test for falsification of natural selection would be to
show that there is no correlation between phenotype and reproductive success
in a particular environment. And, indeed, there are many phenotypes for
which this lack of correlation is the case (they are called selectively
neutral traits and undergo random drift). But there certainly are also many
phenotypic differences that show differential reproductive success in
particular environments. Are you saying that there isn't?
It is simply a direct observation of nature, equivalent to seeing oval
orbits for planets, that natural selection occurs.
> As many philosophers
> of science (including Popper) have pointed out, if one has to go to such
> EXTREMES to conjure up a "test", then a theory is not really testable after
> all. It's like saying Newtonian mechanics must be tested "by seeing whether
> planets move in squares instead of ellipses" -- that too is not a test, for
> no one operating without benefit of those theories would make such
> unrealistic predictions anyway. Thankfully, unlike astrology and natural
> selection, Newtonian mechanics offers serious tests.
>
> In other words, Adam Marczyk's above "test" of natural selection is another
> phony test. It does not put the theory at risk.
Rather, it points out (by the observed absence to date of any such
completely altruistic trait) the lack of necessity to posit a teleological
goal rather than necessarily selfish local reproductive success to explain
traits seen in organisms. Only a teleological purpose could explain such a
truly altruistic trait precisely because such a trait runs counter to the
selfish goal of natural selection.
>
> ******
>
> Adam Marczyk sells the notion that experimental demonstrations of biological
> change can be extrapolated virtually without end:
>
>>....
>> If human-guided selection can do that much in only a
>> few hundred or thousand years, is it really such a big
>> leap to believe that natural selection can do even more
>> over eons?
>
> In truth, the fitness terrain has contour, with hills and valleys, mountains
> and deep crevasses. Under these circumstances, our experiments concerning
> it cannot be extrapolated. Natural selection theory itself indicates this.
I agree. Natural selection has no teleological goal, but is limited to
local success in local environments. Do you see this as a problem for
natural selection?
>
>> If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
>> plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your
>> skepticism. The therapsid series, for example,
>> is extremely good. And how about those new
>> whale fossils?
>
> Even in the evolutionist's best selected examples of macroevolution, the
> morphological gaps between life forms DWARFS our experimental demonstrations
> of biological change. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
> SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
Rather, the right question is whether the rate of phenotypic change observed
today under the control of natural selection is consistent with the amount
of phenotypic change observed between fossils *given the time available* for
such change. It is.
science
> A theory that at least some evolutionary change
> can be effected by NS? That's testable ...
No, that's like saying "AT LEAST SOME human personalities are affected by
the astrological position of planets." That's more ambiguous, more evasive,
and not any more testable than before. Same with natural selection theory.
> Anyway, Darwin is clearly incorrect here.
Correct. Darwin offered a 'test' of his theory, but it's not a test.
> No, it would just suggest that there was more going
> on than natural selection. Why would it challenge evolution?
That misrepresents me again, opposite of what I said. I said Futuyma (and
Darwin) offered a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is NOT a test,
it does NOT put the theory at risk.
> How so? Was he [Futuyma] even invoking Darwin?
Yes, indeed Futuyma was invoking Darwin.
> To falsify NS would be to show that something
> somehow prevents differential reproductive success among
> genetically-varying individuals from producing evolutionary
> changes in their population.
That says nothing about which organisms survive. The fit? The unfit? The
bluest? The reddest? If it doesn't do that, then it doesn't even minimally
explain adaptations. Here is an evolutionist attempting show how natural
selection is testable by shifting to something that completely LEAVES OUT
the explanatory goal of natural selection -- adaptations.
The fact of biological variation was known long before Darwin's theory, and
does not test Darwin's theory.
> Something like Zoe's mystical "limits" to evolution,perhaps.
Natural selection theory does not say large-scale change is even possible.
Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not a prediction of
natural selection theory.
>>That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology
>>would be to see if every human has the exact same personality."
>
> Which would do it, as an imaginary very simple test.
> Another would be to show that there is no correlation
> between personality and horoscope.
In other words, an evolutionist is defending ASTROLOGY as testable -- in an
effort to likewise show that natural selection is testable.
The answer is, whose horoscope do you test? Whose Darwinian just-so story
do you test? There are in infinitude of these just-so stories, so many that
they contradict each other. The theory is not put at risk.
> If that's a claim that there are no gradual species-level transitions
> in the fossil record [or similar clinal or ring-species gradations
> among extant forms, it's wrong.
That's not what I said. Here it is again: Gradual change (of the kind
demonstrable today) is SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
-- Walter ReMine
science
> When cross-breeding caused an asexual species of
> dandelion to emerge, the nectar and flowers became
> vestigial structures serving no good purpose that have
> not yet been selected out. But they did not form in the
> first place for the exclusive good of another species;
> they originally formed for the benefit of the dandelions.
> Make sense?
That isn't, and never was, the issue raised by me. The issue, once again,
is that Futuyma (following Darwin) gave a "test" of natural selection
theory. But it isn't a test. It is a phony test. It does not put natural
selection theory at risk.
> Perhaps the problem is on your end. Natural selection
> is an observed and obvious fact; asking what would falsify
> it is rather like asking what would falsify gravity.
That's quite wrong. The naturalist origin of large-scale change is not an
"observed and obvious fact". Yet that is the key thing natural selection is
claimed to explain.
The comparison with gravity is false. Gravity is a fact, regardless of what
explains it. Quite differently, natural selection is a theory of
causation -- an EXPLANATION. And Futuyma's test of it is not a test.
> That's why one would have to go to such ludicrous
> extremes to derive a true test.
Indeed, if one has to go ludicrous extremes to find something risky for
natural selection theory, then the theory is not really testable. It is
like claiming "astrology would be falsified if all the planets stopped
moving and everyone's personality remained the same". Such ludicrous tests
are not tests at all.
> And, as I pointed out, predicting that every creature
> would experience the exact same reproductive success
> would not be an unrealistic expectation in a creationist
> worldview of immutable created kinds.
That's ridiculous. I know of no creationist, of any country, of any era,
who has proposed such a thing.
> Our experiments (such as producing chihuahuas from wolves,
> or maize from wild grass) can indeed be extrapolated because
> we know such changes do occur in nature.
That's mistaken. The fitness terrain has contour, and the contour can
PREVENT evolution. Natural selection theory itself indicates this. So we
cannot legitimately extrapolate our experiments.
The issue in this thread was whether Futuyma's so-called "test" of natural
selection is really a test at all. The rest of Adam Marczyk's post attempts
to change the issue. The questions he asks are already addressed in my
book.
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts3h95e...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > When cross-breeding caused an asexual species of
> > dandelion to emerge, the nectar and flowers became
> > vestigial structures serving no good purpose that have
> > not yet been selected out. But they did not form in the
> > first place for the exclusive good of another species;
> > they originally formed for the benefit of the dandelions.
> > Make sense?
>
> That isn't, and never was, the issue raised by me. The issue, once again,
> is that Futuyma (following Darwin) gave a "test" of natural selection
> theory. But it isn't a test. It is a phony test. It does not put
natural
> selection theory at risk.
You continue to ignore the perfectly good corrected version I posted. Shall
I repeat it again?
> > Perhaps the problem is on your end. Natural selection
> > is an observed and obvious fact; asking what would falsify
> > it is rather like asking what would falsify gravity.
>
> That's quite wrong. The naturalist origin of large-scale change is not an
> "observed and obvious fact". Yet that is the key thing natural selection
is
> claimed to explain.
Please stop twisting my words. I did not say that anyone has directly
observed large-scale change of life (although I could make a plausible
argument along those lines, if I so chose, by recourse to results of
artificial selection). I did say that natural selection itself - the
environmentally-caused selective pressure leading to differential success of
varying alleles - is an observed fact. Do you care to dispute that?
> The comparison with gravity is false. Gravity is a fact, regardless of
what
> explains it. Quite differently, natural selection is a theory of
> causation -- an EXPLANATION. And Futuyma's test of it is not a test.
Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue that the success
of darker peppered moths was due to divine providence. And I did post a
corrected version of the test. Why are you continuing to ignore that fact?
> > That's why one would have to go to such ludicrous
> > extremes to derive a true test.
>
> Indeed, if one has to go ludicrous extremes to find something risky for
> natural selection theory, then the theory is not really testable. It is
> like claiming "astrology would be falsified if all the planets stopped
> moving and everyone's personality remained the same". Such ludicrous
tests
> are not tests at all.
And again, as I pointed out, natural selection is unfalsified, not
unfalsifiable. You have no grounds on which to dispute its occurrence; the
only thing you're disputing is that it can cause large-scale change, and
I've been addressing that point and will continue to do so.
> > And, as I pointed out, predicting that every creature
> > would experience the exact same reproductive success
> > would not be an unrealistic expectation in a creationist
> > worldview of immutable created kinds.
>
> That's ridiculous. I know of no creationist, of any country, of any era,
> who has proposed such a thing.
Because it flies in the face of evidence even a creationist can't deny. But
that does not make it an unreasonable prediction of the creationist
worldview. Is it or is it not true that once, creationists denied even the
occurrence of microevolution? To do that would indeed be to deny the
principle of differential reproductive success.
> > Our experiments (such as producing chihuahuas from wolves,
> > or maize from wild grass) can indeed be extrapolated because
> > we know such changes do occur in nature.
>
> That's mistaken. The fitness terrain has contour, and the contour can
> PREVENT evolution. Natural selection theory itself indicates this. So we
> cannot legitimately extrapolate our experiments.
Clarify your statement, please. How exactly does the contour of the fitness
terrain prevent evolution? Does it do so in all cases? Explain your
arguments, don't just make sweeping generalizations.
> The issue in this thread was whether Futuyma's so-called "test" of natural
> selection is really a test at all.
No, it's not. I agree that Futuyma made an error. I've given a corrected
version of his test. You have repeatedly ignored it.
> The rest of Adam Marczyk's post attempts
> to change the issue. The questions he asks are already addressed in my
> book.
No answer, huh? No answer to why it is that all creationist organizations
force their members to sign statements affirming they will not allow the
evidence to sway them? No answer to what changes you would need to see in
the therapsid series to accept it as a true example of transition? No answer
to my corrected version of Futuyma's test for natural selection? I'm
saddened, but not surprised. Show that you have the intellectual integrity
to at least try to respond honestly to these things, and then I'll see if
your book addresses them in any greater detail (which I severely doubt).
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
--
Adam Marczyk
>
> "mel turner" <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote in message
> news:9ps8s0$i86$1...@news.duke.edu...
>
> > A theory that at least some evolutionary change
> > can be effected by NS? That's testable ...
>
> No, that's like saying "AT LEAST SOME human personalities are affected by
> the astrological position of planets." That's more ambiguous, more
evasive,
> and not any more testable than before. Same with natural selection
theory.
I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but that's
an issue you'll have to take up with your creator-deity of choice. Face it,
living things are messy and complicated. This isn't simple Newtonian
physics, where you throw a ball up into the air and it travels in a
parabolic arc and falls back down. This is the biodiversity of planet Earth.
Clearly, genetic drift, symbiosis, and other mechanisms are sometimes
required. Just as clearly, natural selection is indeed the driving force
behind much evolutionary change, and it is indeed testable.
[snip]
> > To falsify NS would be to show that something
> > somehow prevents differential reproductive success among
> > genetically-varying individuals from producing evolutionary
> > changes in their population.
>
> That says nothing about which organisms survive. The fit? The unfit?
The
> bluest? The reddest? If it doesn't do that, then it doesn't even
minimally
> explain adaptations. Here is an evolutionist attempting show how natural
> selection is testable by shifting to something that completely LEAVES OUT
> the explanatory goal of natural selection -- adaptations.
>
> The fact of biological variation was known long before Darwin's theory,
and
> does not test Darwin's theory.
Is it or is it not true that creationists once denied even the occurrence of
microevolution?
> > Something like Zoe's mystical "limits" to evolution,perhaps.
>
> Natural selection theory does not say large-scale change is even possible.
Clearly you are operating under a non-standard definition of natural
selection.
> Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not a prediction
of
> natural selection theory.
This claim is so blazingly false I can't believe you're expecting to get
away with it. How could an evolutionary "arms race" or positive feedback
spiral *not* produce sustained, large-scale change over long periods of
time?
> >>That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology
> >>would be to see if every human has the exact same personality."
> >
> > Which would do it, as an imaginary very simple test.
> > Another would be to show that there is no correlation
> > between personality and horoscope.
>
> In other words, an evolutionist is defending ASTROLOGY as testable -- in
an
> effort to likewise show that natural selection is testable.
Astrology is testable. Wrong, but testable. Do you have some problem with
that?
> The answer is, whose horoscope do you test? Whose Darwinian just-so story
> do you test?
All of them, and discard the ones that are not consistent with the evidence.
It's called science.
> There are in infinitude of these just-so stories, so many that
> they contradict each other. The theory is not put at risk.
I'm amazed you have the audacity to bring this up. Creationism is, from
start to finish, one long "just-so" story. Or does your hypothesis add up to
anything more than "some mysterious unevidenced being acting in ways we
can't comprehend somehow did something to bring new organisms into existence
miraculously"?
> > If that's a claim that there are no gradual species-level transitions
> > in the fossil record [or similar clinal or ring-species gradations
> > among extant forms, it's wrong.
>
> That's not what I said. Here it is again: Gradual change (of the kind
> demonstrable today) is SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
And that claim is false.
science
"howard hershey" <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:9pso8a$1u1$1...@jetsam.uits.indiana.edu...
> Natural selection is an observation of nature that
> has been seen many times in many different ways.
The key claim, the claim under dispute, is whether natural selection theory
explains large-scale, higher adaptations in a testable way. It does not.
It does not even predict that large-scale evolution is possible.
(Regardless of allowing vast amounts of time.) That claim is made by
evolutionists themselves, not by natural selection theory.
> To *falsify* 'natural selection' (or at least find the conditions
> where the expectations of natural selection can be observed
> not to occur), one would have to regularly observe events like
> antibiotic sensitive (rather than resistant) strains growing in
> antibiotic media; that is, cases where the phenotype that
> demonstrably is, in net, better would consistently do worse
> than the phenotype that is, in net, demonstrably worse.
That example is a tautology, and tautologies are not testable. The above
says the traits that are "demonstrably better" will do better than those
that are "demonstrably worse." In other words, the survivors survive. It
is not falsifiable, or testable.
> Most such anomalies seen (with the exception of chance seen
> below) are 'apparent anomalies' due to traits that have multiple
> effects where there is a balance between these effects. For
> example, some traits that one might, if one were superficial,
> think would lead to greater reproductive success, like greater
> aggression or longevity, when actually studied show the exact
> opposite (the greater longevity often comes with the cost of slower
> reproduction rates and, for organisms that are likely to die by
> accident or predation, longevity under ideal conditions is not a
> favorable trait wrt reproductive success in nature). Other traits
> are beneficial only to the extent that they are rare. But that is a
> matter of defining the terms of natural selection more accurately.
Hershey offers a flurry of features, factors, terms, and definitions --
which just distracts from the central issue. Natural selection theory is
structureless, and no amount of "defining the terms" can supply structure to
it, nor make it testable. Quite the contrary. The more conflicting
complicating factors you add, the more obvious it is that it doesn't
comprise a testable theory.
> ....
> It is also quite clear that no example of completely altruistic
> traits has been described and,
As already stated, the flower and nectar of the common dandelion (i.e.
asexual) is "completely altruistic", serving only other species. My point
is that natural selection theory is immune even to this so-called "test".
> ....
> To truly have an alternative explanation to substitute for 'natural
> selection' you would need to have an alternative theory that could explain
> all the evidence that 'natural selection' occurs and also explains it
> better.
The issue is not whether evolutionists can devise just-so stories to
"explain" things. The issue is whether natural selection theory is
testable. As this thread has shown, the theory offers no tests of its
central subject -- the origin of higher adaptations, especially on the
large-scale claimed by evolutionists.
> The simple direct test for falsification of natural selection
> would be to show that there is no correlation between phenotype
> and reproductive success in a particular environment.
No. A correlation between phenotype and long-term survival was observed
long before Darwin, just as the motion of planets was observed long before
astrology. That doesn't make them testable.
The interesting claim, the point of dispute, is whether natural selection
can produce large-scale, higher adaptations. The theory itself does not
claim it can, and is untestable, and such large-scale change has not been
experimentally observed.
science
> I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but ...
The issue isn't whether life is "neat and simple". The issue is that the
central evolutionary claims for natural selection theory are not testable.
> Is it or is it not true that creationists once denied even
> the occurrence of microevolution?
Creationists believed in variation long before Darwin's time, and cited many
examples of it. Rather, the terminology itself has drifted in meaning. The
term "species" is the latin word for 'kind', and was used as such by early
creationists. However, the term "species" itself no longer means what it
did then. Rather, the term has drifted into numerous (and conflicting)
definitions used by evolutionists, most typically nowadays it incorporates
the notion of reproductive isolation. That is, though creationists once
believed in the 'fixity of species', that is no longer true, if only because
the word "species" has drifted.
>> Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not
>> a prediction of natural selection theory.
>
> This claim is so blazingly false I can't believe you're
> expecting to get away with it. How could an evolutionary
> "arms race" or positive feedback spiral *not* produce
> sustained, large-scale change over long periods of time?
Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can PREVENT
large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms that evolutionists embrace can
PREVENT evolution. For example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a
local fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
>> The answer is, whose horoscope do you test? Whose Darwinian
>> just-so story do you test?
>
> All of them, and discard the ones that are not consistent
> with the evidence. It's called science.
Precisely! "Natural selection theory" is not a theory. It is merely a
structureless repository for all the just-so stories that haven't yet been
discarded. It's not a unified, or structured, or testable theory. If
evolutionists said science is RESEARCHING the causes of survival (an lack of
survival), then that would accurately reflect what is taking place. But
that isn't what evolutionists claim, they claim they possess a unified,
structured, testable theory that explains higher adaptations over a
large-scale. That claim is untrue.
>> There are in infinitude of these just-so stories, so many that
>> they contradict each other. The theory is not put at risk.
>
> I'm amazed you have the audacity to bring this up.
> Creationism is, from start to finish, one long "just-so" story.
You apparently aren't familiar with biotic message theory, which makes many
highly risky, scientifically testable predictions about the things we should
see, and the things we should not see in biology.
It's worth repeating. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life. It is not missing just a
little, nor just here-or-there in a piecemeal way. Rather, the absence of
gradualism (while not total) is SYSTEMATICALLY placed throughout the pattern
of life, and amounts to one of life's great patterns. This absence was a
key reason why Gould and Eldredge proposed punctuated equilibria (in an
attempt to 'explain' the absence).
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4f78d...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but ...
>
> The issue isn't whether life is "neat and simple". The issue is that the
> central evolutionary claims for natural selection theory are not testable.
That's not an issue, that's your assertion. And it's false.
> > Is it or is it not true that creationists once denied even
> > the occurrence of microevolution?
>
> Creationists believed in variation long before Darwin's time, and cited
many
> examples of it.
Evidence, please. Not variation, but microevolution - the small-scale change
of life over time. Can we see some pre-Darwin creationists agreeing that
this happens?
> Rather, the terminology itself has drifted in meaning. The
> term "species" is the latin word for 'kind', and was used as such by early
> creationists. However, the term "species" itself no longer means what it
> did then. Rather, the term has drifted into numerous (and conflicting)
> definitions used by evolutionists, most typically nowadays it incorporates
> the notion of reproductive isolation. That is, though creationists once
> believed in the 'fixity of species', that is no longer true, if only
because
> the word "species" has drifted.
>
> >> Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not
> >> a prediction of natural selection theory.
> >
> > This claim is so blazingly false I can't believe you're
> > expecting to get away with it. How could an evolutionary
> > "arms race" or positive feedback spiral *not* produce
> > sustained, large-scale change over long periods of time?
>
> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can PREVENT
> large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms that evolutionists embrace can
> PREVENT evolution. For example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a
> local fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
> Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
And do you claim that this occurs in every instance?
> >> The answer is, whose horoscope do you test? Whose Darwinian
> >> just-so story do you test?
> >
> > All of them, and discard the ones that are not consistent
> > with the evidence. It's called science.
>
> Precisely! "Natural selection theory" is not a theory. It is merely a
> structureless repository for all the just-so stories that haven't yet been
> discarded. It's not a unified, or structured, or testable theory. If
> evolutionists said science is RESEARCHING the causes of survival (an lack
of
> survival), then that would accurately reflect what is taking place. But
> that isn't what evolutionists claim, they claim they possess a unified,
> structured, testable theory that explains higher adaptations over a
> large-scale. That claim is untrue.
Your claim is the one that is untrue. You have empty assertions, nothing
more. If you'd like to prove me wrong, let's get into discussing those
therapsids.
> >> There are in infinitude of these just-so stories, so many that
> >> they contradict each other. The theory is not put at risk.
> >
> > I'm amazed you have the audacity to bring this up.
> > Creationism is, from start to finish, one long "just-so" story.
>
> You apparently aren't familiar with biotic message theory, which makes
many
> highly risky, scientifically testable predictions about the things we
should
> see, and the things we should not see in biology.
"Highly risky"? Please. Has your "biotic message theory" made any
predictions of phenomena which were unknown at the time you proposed it?
> It's worth repeating. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
> SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life. It is not missing just a
> little, nor just here-or-there in a piecemeal way. Rather, the absence of
> gradualism (while not total) is SYSTEMATICALLY placed throughout the
pattern
> of life, and amounts to one of life's great patterns. This absence was a
> key reason why Gould and Eldredge proposed punctuated equilibria (in an
> attempt to 'explain' the absence).
You can repeat this hollow assertion as many times as you like. It won't
become any more true. I'll repeat my challenge: what changes in the
therapsid series would you have to see for you to accept it as showing an
example of true evolutionary transition? Will you try to honestly answer
this or will you merely keep dodging it?
As for Gould and punctuated equilibrium:
"Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of
their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to
buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am for
I have become a major target of these practices.
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibria largely to provide a
different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we
argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but
must arise from the differential success of certain kinds of species. A
trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuation and
stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.
Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of
punctuated equilibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard
Goldschmidt, a great early geneticist.
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating
to be quoted again and again by creationists, whether through design or
stupidity I do not know, as admitting that the fossil record includes no
transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species
level, but they are *abundant between larger groups.*"
--Stephen Jay Gould, _Hen's Toes and Horse's Teeth_, p.258-260 (my emphasis)
Clearly, we see, you are wrong. Gould and Eldredge did not propose PE to
explain away some hypothetical lack of transitionals; they proposed it to
explain the pattern of transitionals we do find. Do you plan to retract your
claim?
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
--
Adam Marczyk
[snip]
> > ....
> > It is also quite clear that no example of completely altruistic
> > traits has been described and,
>
> As already stated, the flower and nectar of the common dandelion (i.e.
> asexual) is "completely altruistic", serving only other species. My point
> is that natural selection theory is immune even to this so-called "test".
I don't know why you're trying so hard to ignore the corrected version of
the test I've posted multiple times. Here, let me help you out:
Natural selection could be falsified if we found a species with an
altruistic adaptation that does it no good *and never did*. Now, I'm sure I
know what your response will be - that's a test that's impossible to fail,
because no matter what truly altruistic structures we found we could always
just claim they served some unspecified purpose in an ancestral organism.
Fair enough. However, as several posters pointed out it's pretty clear that
in dandelions the sexual species are primitive and the asexual species are
of recently derived stock; it's no mystery why asexual dandelions have
flowers or nectar. There just hasn't been enough time to select them out
yet. Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with no hint of
ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem. But if we saw this all over the
place - lots of different species with altruistic adaptations which confer
their possessors with no obvious advantages - then we would have to start
seriously questioning evolution.
Does your "biotic message theory" predict we should see such things? If not,
why not?
And I'm still waiting to hear you discuss the therapsids in any substantive
way.
[snip]
John Segerson
> > would be to show that there is no correlation between phenotype
> > and reproductive success in a particular environment.
>
> No. A correlation between phenotype and long-term survival was observed
> long before Darwin, just as the motion of planets was observed long before
> astrology. That doesn't make them testable.
>
> The interesting claim, the point of dispute, is whether natural selection
> can produce large-scale, higher adaptations. The theory itself does not
> claim it can, and is untestable, and such large-scale change has not been
> experimentally observed.
Let's take this in the reverse direction. First
of all, large scale change has, most exquisitely,
been observed in the fossil record. The sequence
of specimens, in both age and morphology, is
extensive and compelling in support of the theory
of evolution. (There is no "theory of natural
selection.") Next, the mechanism of evolution,
which includes natural selection as a factor, most
definitely and defensibly explains large scale
change in species phenotype. Finally, this is a
testable claim, since specimens that are out of
place -- in time, place, or morphology -- clearly
falsify it.
J
Nathan McKaskle
the Acanthostega gunnari, really cool stuff.
"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:ts4ohbt...@corp.supernews.com...
science
> You continue to ignore the perfectly good corrected
> version I posted. Shall I repeat it again?
> ....
> I agree that Futuyma made an error. I've given a
> corrected version of his test.
Adam Marczyk already agrees that Futuyma (and Darwin) made a mistake. He
believes (mistakenly) that he has corrected Futuyma's (and Darwin's)
mistake. If he truly believes that, then he should publish it somewhere.
The drunken barroom known as talk.origins doesn't count. It's amazing that
evolutionists allow OTHER evolutionists' errors to thrive for so long.
> I did say that natural selection itself - the environmentally-caused
> selective pressure leading to differential success of varying alleles
> - is an observed fact. Do you care to dispute that?
Evolutionists often defend natural selection by shifting it to (what I call)
a Lame formulation. In this case, he calls it "differential success".
Notice there is no reference whatever to fittest, nor to adaptation -- which
are essential features of the real natural selection theory. For example,
if a theory doesn't mention adaptation, then it cannot explain adaptation.
In other words, Marczyk defends by offering us an imposter theory, not the
real McCoy.
> Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue
> that the success of darker peppered moths was due to
> divine providence.
Notice he uses a two-model approach, which evolutionists rail against on
other occasions. According to him, if it's not "divine providence", then
natural selection must be a "fact".
He happens to choose an example, the peppered moths, which is a scandalous
example of bad science still present in the textbooks many decades after it
was known to be false. (See Jonathon Wells' book, _Icons of Evolution_.)
> .... Show that you have the intellectual integrity to at least
> try to respond honestly to these things, and then I'll see if
> your book addresses them in any greater detail (which I
> severely doubt).
My book addresses his issues at length.
John Wilkins
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4f78d...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but ...
>
> The issue isn't whether life is "neat and simple". The issue is that the
> central evolutionary claims for natural selection theory are not testable.
>
>
> > Is it or is it not true that creationists once denied even
> > the occurrence of microevolution?
>
> Creationists believed in variation long before Darwin's time, and cited many
> examples of it. Rather, the terminology itself has drifted in meaning. The
> term "species" is the latin word for 'kind', and was used as such by early
> creationists. However, the term "species" itself no longer means what it
> did then. Rather, the term has drifted into numerous (and conflicting)
> definitions used by evolutionists, most typically nowadays it incorporates
> the notion of reproductive isolation. That is, though creationists once
> believed in the 'fixity of species', that is no longer true, if only because
> the word "species" has drifted.
I do not normally respond to Walter's comments, but this deserves one.
"Creationists" did not believe in variation much at all, unless you want
to count Aristotle as a creationist. Variation began to be discussed in
a biological context only in the 17th century - prior to that species
were defined as essences - and all members of a species had the complete
set of whatever predicates and properties were definitive of the
species. Monsters were divergences from the species and could end up not
members of the species if they varied in essential, as opposed to
accidnetal, characters.
John Locke was the first one to deal with this (a deist, IIRC) and he
was the first to say that descendency not essences were what made
something part of its species. He influenced John Ray and Willoughby,
and through them Buffon and Lamarck. The death knell to the
essentialistic account of species was given by Swiss botanist
Augustus-Pyramus de Candolle in his _Elements of the Philosophy [or
Theory] of Plants_ 1813 where he showed that variation was universal,
and this influenced Darwin directly (His sone Alphose de Candolle also
originated the "war of all against all" metaphor in biology). Both de
Candolles were not transmutationists, but they immediately preceded the
triumph of evolution in biology.
Variationism, I suppose you could call it, was adopted by many of the
late neo-Platonists like Leibniz, Cudworth and others, as part of what
Leibniz called the Law of Completion, in which everything that could
exist did. Linnaeus had a similar view but it was more to do with genera
than species.
>
> >> Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not
> >> a prediction of natural selection theory.
> >
> > This claim is so blazingly false I can't believe you're
> > expecting to get away with it. How could an evolutionary
> > "arms race" or positive feedback spiral *not* produce
> > sustained, large-scale change over long periods of time?
>
> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can PREVENT
> large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms that evolutionists embrace can
> PREVENT evolution. For example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a
> local fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
> Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
But that "forever" is bunkum, unless you can assume that the fitness
landscape (which is just the sum of the interactions of organisms and
their environment) is held stable over long periods, which we know it
isn't except in rare cases (eg, thermophilic bacteria).
--
John Wilkins
Head Communication Services, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of
Medical Research, Melbourne Australia
Personal page: <http://users.bigpond.com/thewilkins/darwiniana.html>
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4eqqi...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > You continue to ignore the perfectly good corrected
> > version I posted. Shall I repeat it again?
> > ....
> > I agree that Futuyma made an error. I've given a
> > corrected version of his test.
>
> Adam Marczyk already agrees that Futuyma (and Darwin) made a mistake. He
> believes (mistakenly) that he has corrected Futuyma's (and Darwin's)
> mistake. If he truly believes that, then he should publish it somewhere.
> The drunken barroom known as talk.origins doesn't count. It's amazing
that
> evolutionists allow OTHER evolutionists' errors to thrive for so long.
Actually they dont thrive long do to their being ERRORS. Why would an error
need to thrive? If it doesn't fit the evidence (which creationists lack so
very much of) then its an error. Simple as that.
>
> > I did say that natural selection itself - the environmentally-caused
> > selective pressure leading to differential success of varying alleles
> > - is an observed fact. Do you care to dispute that?
>
> Evolutionists often defend natural selection by shifting it to (what I
call)
> a Lame formulation. In this case, he calls it "differential success".
> Notice there is no reference whatever to fittest, nor to adaptation --
which
> are essential features of the real natural selection theory. For example,
> if a theory doesn't mention adaptation, then it cannot explain adaptation.
> In other words, Marczyk defends by offering us an imposter theory, not the
> real McCoy.
You only attack one part of the theory, and not very well at that. You
forget mutation (succesful), genetic drift, etc.. You obviously know
nothing of the theory. Natural Selection is what happens when one mutation
succeeds and the other fails and it is dependant on environmental conditions
as well as the effectiveness of reproduction.
>
> > Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue
> > that the success of darker peppered moths was due to
> > divine providence.
>
> Notice he uses a two-model approach, which evolutionists rail against on
> other occasions. According to him, if it's not "divine providence", then
> natural selection must be a "fact".
>
> He happens to choose an example, the peppered moths, which is a scandalous
> example of bad science still present in the textbooks many decades after
it
> was known to be false. (See Jonathon Wells' book, _Icons of Evolution_.)
'
And credit to Dave Thomas I'll quote a rebuttle to that "scandalous"
example.
Pictures of peppered moths are not used as evidence of natural selection,
but to illustrate the camouflage differences between the pale and dark forms
of the peppered moth on various backgrounds. While some pictures are staged
many are not. The staged photographs are representative of what is actually
seen in the wild, which is their purpose as an illustration.
Though the story of the peppered moth is known to be more complex than it is
generally portrayed, the idea is nonetheless very simple. The normal
coloration of the moth is pale and mottled, and during the day it rests on
trees that are either covered with pale colored mottled lichen or have pale
colored mottled bark. The pale, mottled body color against a pale, mottled
background makes good camouflage, so the moths tend to escape predators that
hunt primarily by vision, such as birds. Occasionally, however, some moths
would undergo a spontaneous mutation that turned their body color dark.
These moths tended to stand out against the background and thus fell as easy
prey to predators like birds. As such, populations of these moths were
predominantly pale colored and mottled.
During the industrial revolution, soot and smoke from factories coated the
trees and turned them dark. Now the pale, mottled coloration stood out
against the new darker background, making these moths easier to see and be
eaten. The dark mutation, however, was now harder to see, and so tended to
escaped detection. As a result, over time the populations shifted from pale
and mottled to dark, in accordance with natural selection. When factories
stopped producing thick clouds of soot and smoke, the trees lost their dark
stain, and the moth populations shifted from dark back to pale and mottled
again.
Again, this version of the story has been simplified. The central role of
natural selection as the cause of the shift in proportion of pale and dark
moths in the population, with predation by birds being the major, if not the
sole, agent of selection, was determined by observation and experiment. When
explaining these findings, pictures showing a pale and a dark moth, first
against a pale background, then a dark background, vividly illustrate the
differences in effectiveness of each form of camouflage against each type of
background. However, this is all they are illustrating, they are not used as
proof that selection occurs (this comes from observations of predation in
the wild and experimental predation studies), or that moths rest on tree
trunks (this comes from direct observations of moths resting places)
Peppered moths rest on a variety of places on a tree, including tree trunks
(about 25% of the time according to the best study so far). What matters is
not where they rest, but whether they are camouflaged where they rest.
Pollution blackened trees are dark all over, trunks, branches, even leaves,
and the dark moths are effectively camouflaged in all these places. Again,
the staged pictures are meant to illustrate camouflage, not resting place,
and camouflage is just as important on a branch as it is on a trunk. So the
pictures do not mislead, despite Wells's claims to the contrary.
Finally, there is nothing unethical about staged photographs, as long as
they accurately depict what is being illustrated; since the pictures in
question illustrate camouflage and not resting place, they are accurate.
Many nature photographs are staged; often it's the only way to get the
picture you want. Plants and animals are notorious for being uncooperative
models. So long as the staged photograph accurately represents what is seen
in the wild, this is acceptable.
wf...@ptd.net
>
>"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
>news:ts4f78d...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>> I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but ...
>
>The issue isn't whether life is "neat and simple". The issue is that the
>central evolutionary claims for natural selection theory are not testable.
really?
god, i hope no one tells francis ayala that. he has a description of
his work in experimental evolutionary biology on his webpage at UC
irvine. guess he didnt know you were gonna say that.
>
>
>
>Precisely! "Natural selection theory" is not a theory. It is merely a
>structureless repository for all the just-so stories that haven't yet been
>discarded. It's not a unified, or structured, or testable theory. If
>evolutionists said science is RESEARCHING the causes of survival (an lack of
>survival), then that would accurately reflect what is taking place.
see the above cite
and that one cite is 1 more than all creationists are doing in
researching creationism.
science
>> The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can
>> PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
>> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
>> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local
>> fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
>> Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
>
> And do you claim that this occurs in every instance?
Evolutionists claim there are no barriers -- all the way from molecules to
man. Anything short of that is creation.
> If you'd like to prove me wrong, let's get into discussing
> those therapsids.
The therapsids are dead, and can't be experimented with. More importantly,
the morphological/design gaps within and surrounding this group DWARF our
experimental demonstrations in their closest organisms today.
The therapsids themselves are a paraphyletic group, a group not united by
possession of a common feature, but rather by the ABSENCE of a feature.
Paraphyletic groups are large conglomerates, or repositories, for scraps,
leftovers, and organisms that do not easily classify in the usual way.
Invertebrates are an example, as they are described by the ABSENCE of
vertebra. Paraphyletic groups, (being large repositories of otherwise
disassociated organisms), are highly diverse and do not form a narrow
lineage.
> Has your "biotic message theory" made any predictions
> of phenomena which were unknown at the time you
> proposed it?
Yes. It makes very risky predictions.
> I'll repeat my challenge: what changes in the therapsid series
> would you have to see for you to accept it as showing an
> example of true evolutionary transition? Will you try to
> honestly answer this or will you merely keep dodging it?
My book discusses it at length. My book cannot run, hide, or dodge -- and
no, I won't repeat it for you.
The "therapsid SERIES" is a term evolutionists use to create the
impression -- a false impression -- that the organisms form a lineage, with
real, clear, identified ancestors. I acknowledge that large-scale lineages
would be extremely important evidence if they clearly existed. But they do
not. One can document the point merely by quoting evolutionists.
> Gould and Eldredge did not propose PE to explain away some
> hypothetical lack of transitionals;
Adam Marczyk misrepresents me. My posts didn't say anything about
"transitionals" (that is a term often mis-defined and mis-used by
evolutionists). Rather, I spoke specifically of GRADUALISM. Punk-ek was
proposed (in part) to "explain" the systematic absence of gradualism.
Nathan McKaskle
> The "therapsid SERIES" is a term evolutionists use to create the
> impression -- a false impression -- that the organisms form a lineage,
with
> real, clear, identified ancestors.
Why is it false? You fail to explain.
I acknowledge that large-scale lineages
> would be extremely important evidence if they clearly existed. But they
do
> not. One can document the point merely by quoting evolutionists.
You are so wrong here. CLICK THE LINK AND READ
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#tran
Ah not gonna click eh? Well here cut and pasted for ya.
PART 1
1. Introduction
What is a transitional fossil?
The term "transitional fossil" is used at least two different ways on
talk.origins, often leading to muddled and stalemated arguments. I call
these two meanings the "general lineage" and the "species-to-species
transition":
"General lineage":
This is a sequence of similar genera or families, linking an older group
to a very different younger group. Each step in the sequence consists of
some fossils that represent a certain genus or family, and the whole
sequence often covers a span of tens of millions of years. A lineage like
this shows obvious morphological intermediates for every major structural
change, and the fossils occur roughly (but often not exactly) in the
expected order. Usually there are still gaps between each of the groups --
few or none of the speciation events are preserved. Sometimes the individual
specimens are not thought to be directly ancestral to the next-youngest
fossils (i.e., they may be "cousins" or "uncles" rather than "parents").
However, they are assumed to be closely related to the actual ancestor,
since they have intermediate morphology compared to the next-oldest and
next-youngest "links". The major point of these general lineages is that
animals with intermediate morphology existed at the appropriate times, and
thus that the transitions from the proposed ancestors are fully plausible.
General lineages are known for almost all modern groups of vertebrates, and
make up the bulk of this FAQ.
"Species-to-species transition":
This is a set of numerous individual fossils that show a change between
one species and another. It's a very fine-grained sequence documenting the
actual speciation event, usually covering less than a million years. These
species-to-species transitions are unmistakable when they are found.
Throughout successive strata you see the population averages of teeth, feet,
vertebrae, etc., changing from what is typical of the first species to what
is typical of the next species. Sometimes, these sequences occur only in a
limited geographic area (the place where the speciation actually occurred),
with analyses from any other area showing an apparently "sudden" change.
Other times, though, the transition can be seen over a very wide geological
area. Many "species-to-species transitions" are known, mostly for marine
invertebrates and recent mammals (both those groups tend to have good fossil
records), though they are not as abundant as the general lineages (see below
for why this is so). Part 2 lists numerous species-to-species transitions
from the mammals.
Transitions to New Higher Taxa
As you'll see throughout this FAQ, both types of transitions often result
in a new "higher taxon" (a new genus, family, order, etc.) from a species
belonging to a different, older taxon. There is nothing magical about this.
The first members of the new group are not bizarre, chimeric animals; they
are simply a new, slightly different species, barely different from the
parent species. Eventually they give rise to a more different species, which
in turn gives rise to a still more different species, and so on, until the
descendents are radically different from the original parent stock. For
example, the Order Perissodactyla (horses, etc.) and the Order Cetacea
(whales) can both be traced back to early Eocene animals that looked only
marginally different from each other, and didn't look at all like horses or
whales. (They looked rather like small, dumb foxes with raccoon-like feet
and simple teeth.) But over the following tens of millions of years, the
descendents of those animals became more and more different, and now we call
them two different orders.
There are now several known cases of species-to-species transitions that
resulted in the first members of new higher taxa. See part 2 for details.
Why do gaps exist? (or seem to exist)
Ideally, of course, we would like to know each lineage right down to the
species level, and have detailed species-to-species transitions linking
every species in the lineage. But in practice, we get an uneven mix of the
two, with only a few species-to-species transitions, and occasionally long
time breaks in the lineage. Many laypeople even have the (incorrect)
impression that the situation is even worse, and that there are no known
transitions at all. Why are there still gaps? And why do many people think
that there are even more gaps than there really are?
Stratigraphic gaps
The first and most major reason for gaps is "stratigraphic
discontinuities", meaning that fossil-bearing strata are not at all
continuous. There are often large time breaks from one stratum to the next,
and there are even some times for which no fossil strata have been found.
For instance, the Aalenian (mid-Jurassic) has shown no known tetrapod
fossils anywhere in the world, and other stratigraphic stages in the
Carboniferous, Jurassic, and Cretaceous have produced only a few mangled
tetrapods. Most other strata have produced at least one fossil from between
50% and 100% of the vertebrate families that we know had already arisen by
then (Benton, 1989) -- so the vertebrate record at the family level is only
about 75% complete, and much less complete at the genus or species level.
(One study estimated that we may have fossils from as little as 3% of the
species that existed in the Eocene!) This, obviously, is the major reason
for a break in a general lineage. To further complicate the picture, certain
types of animals tend not to get fossilized -- terrestrial animals, small
animals, fragile animals, and forest-dwellers are worst. And finally,
fossils from very early times just don't survive the passage of eons very
well, what with all the folding, crushing, and melting that goes on. Due to
these facts of life and death, there will always be some major breaks in the
fossil record.
Species-to-species transitions are even harder to document. To demonstrate
anything about how a species arose, whether it arose gradually or suddenly,
you need exceptionally complete strata, with many dead animals buried under
constant, rapid sedimentation. This is rare for terrestrial animals. Even
the famous Clark's Fork (Wyoming) site, known for its fine Eocene mammal
transitions, only has about one fossil per lineage about every 27,000 years.
Luckily, this is enough to record most episodes of evolutionary change
(provided that they occurred at Clark's Fork Basin and not somewhere else),
though it misses the rapidest evolutionary bursts. In general, in order to
document transitions between species, you specimens separated by only tens
of thousands of years (e.g. every 20,000-80,000 years). If you have only one
specimen for hundreds of thousands of years (e.g. every 500,000 years), you
can usually determine the order of species, but not the transitions between
species. If you have a specimen every million years, you can get the order
of genera, but not which species were involved. And so on. These are rough
estimates (from Gingerich, 1976, 1980) but should give an idea of the
completeness required.
Note that fossils separated by more than about a hundred thousand years
cannot show anything about how a species arose. Think about it: there could
have been a smooth transition, or the species could have appeared suddenly,
but either way, if there aren't enough fossils, we can't tell which way it
happened.
Discovery of the fossils
The second reason for gaps is that most fossils undoubtedly have not been
found. Only two continents, Europe and North America, have been adequately
surveyed for fossil-bearing strata. As the other continents are slowly
surveyed, many formerly mysterious gaps are being filled (e.g., the
long-missing rodent/lagomorph ancestors were recently found in Asia). Of
course, even in known strata, the fossils may not be uncovered unless a
roadcut or quarry is built (this is how we got most of our North American
Devonian fish fossils), and may not be collected unless some truly dedicated
researcher spends a long, nasty chunk of time out in the sun, and an even
longer time in the lab sorting and analyzing the fossils. Here's one
description of the work involved in finding early mammal fossils: "To be a
successful sorter demands a rare combination of attributes: acute
observation allied with the anatomical knowledge to recognise the mammalian
teeth, even if they are broken or abraded, has to be combined with the
enthusiasm and intellectual drive to keep at the boring and soul-destroying
task of examining tens of thousands of unwanted fish teeth to eventually
pick out the rare mammalian tooth. On an average one mammalian tooth is
found per 200 kg of bone-bed." (Kermack, 1984.)
Documenting a species-to-species transition is particularly grueling, as
it requires collection and analysis of hundreds of specimens. Typically we
must wait for some paleontologist to take it on the job of studying a
certain taxon in a certain site in detail. Almost nobody did this sort of
work before the mid-1970's, and even now only a small subset of researchers
do it. For example, Phillip Gingerich was one of the first scientists to
study species-species transitions, and it took him ten years to produce the
first detailed studies of just two lineages (see part 2, primates and
condylarths). In a (later) 1980 paper he said: "the detailed species level
evolutionary patterns discussed here represent only six genera in an early
Wasatchian fauna containing approximately 50 or more mammalian genera, most
of which remain to be analyzed." [emphasis mine]
Getting the word out
There's a third, unexpected reason that transitions seem so little known.
It's that even when they are found, they're not popularized. The only times
a transitional fossil is noticed much is if it connects two noticably
different groups (such as the "walking whale" fossil reported in 1993), or
if illustrates something about the tempo and mode of evolution (such as
Gingerich's work). Most transitional fossils are only mentioned in the
primary literature, often buried in incredibly dense and tedious "skull &
bones" papers utterly inaccessible to the general public. Later references
to those papers usually collapse the known species-to-species sequences to
the genus or family level. The two major college-level textbooks of
vertebrate paleontology (Carroll 1988, and Colbert & Morales 1991) often
don't even describe anything below the family level! And finally, many of
the species-to-species transitions were described too recently to have made
it into the books yet.
Why don't paleontologists bother to popularize the detailed lineages and
species-to-species transitions? Because it is thought to be unnecessary
detail. For instance, it takes an entire book to describe the horse fossils
even partially (e.g. MacFadden's "Fossil Horses"), so most authors just
collapse the horse sequence to a series of genera. Paleontologists clearly
consider the occurrence of evolution to be a settled question, so obvious as
to be beyond rational dispute, so, they think, why waste valuable textbook
space on such tedious detail?
science
"John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
>> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour
>> can PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
>> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
>> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local fitness
>> peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest. Nothing
>> about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
>
> So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY AUDIENCES
by popularizers of evolution. Rather, they sell a version I call "naive
natural selection", a version every academic evolutionist knows is untrue.
They do not do it maliciously. But neither does the point warrant yawning
at. It is indeed a key issue central to the debate over natural selection,
and evolutionists ought never have been kept it from the public.
> But that "forever" is bunkum, unless you can assume that the
> fitness landscape (which is just the sum of the interactions of
> organisms and their environment) is held stable over long periods,
> which we know it isn't except in rare cases (eg, thermophilic bacteria).
The fitness terrain has contour. It is complex terrain. Natural selection
theory itself indicates our experimental demonstrations cannot be
extrapolated.
If you allow (as the John Wilkins does above) that the fitness terrain warps
and deforms, then that doesn't necessarily eliminate all the barriers to
evolution. Just as importantly it adds yet another layer of untestability
to natural selection theory (which is the subject of this thread).
As I've said all along, by the time evolutionists add all their evasions and
just-so stories, they have a structureless mess that makes no coherent
predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. Their natural selection
theory is untestable.
My book discusses the matter at length.
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
>
> >> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour
> >> can PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
> >> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
> >> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local fitness
> >> peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest. Nothing
> >> about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
> >
> > So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>
> The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
> to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY
AUDIENCES
> by popularizers of evolution. Rather, they sell a version I call "naive
> natural selection", a version every academic evolutionist knows is untrue.
> They do not do it maliciously. But neither does the point warrant yawning
> at. It is indeed a key issue central to the debate over natural
selection,
> and evolutionists ought never have been kept it from the public.
What part of your ass did you pull this one from? LOL You take part of a
theory and add an adjective expressing your anger towards the idea. So
you're saying that scientists are keeping this "PREVENTION" a secret? Thats
some seriously blatant denial of all reason if I ever heard it. So explain
this prevention again. It didn't make any sense before when you barely
glazed over that topic, lets see if it does this time.
>
> > But that "forever" is bunkum, unless you can assume that the
> > fitness landscape (which is just the sum of the interactions of
> > organisms and their environment) is held stable over long periods,
> > which we know it isn't except in rare cases (eg, thermophilic bacteria).
>
> The fitness terrain has contour. It is complex terrain. Natural
selection
> theory itself indicates our experimental demonstrations cannot be
> extrapolated.
Natural Selection has been demonstrated many times in present day species.
You just refuse to accept it. You completely distort the theory with
incorrect statements about the theory itself, all in a fit of denial.
>
> If you allow (as the John Wilkins does above) that the fitness terrain
warps
> and deforms, then that doesn't necessarily eliminate all the barriers to
> evolution. Just as importantly it adds yet another layer of untestability
> to natural selection theory (which is the subject of this thread).
>
> As I've said all along, by the time evolutionists add all their evasions
and
> just-so stories,
heh "just-so stories" = theory that fits evidence and observation
they have a structureless mess
Ah the common creationist argument (degrade and denial), break it down by
calling it a "sturctureless mess" first
>that makes no coherent
> predictions
All sounds coherent to me, and they're predictions, so I'm guessing this is
where the denial part is
>in favor of large-scale evolution.
right so far....
> Their natural selection
> theory is untestable.
doh, once again the denial. Its been repeatedly observed in nature, and
there is physical evidence to boot. I posted a more detailed explanation of
the peppered moth, but there are many other examples.
John Wilkins
> "John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
Walter, you snipped out my erudition (which I worked hard for) and so I
confidently claim that you have MISREPRESENTED me.
So, Walter, did creationists always accept variation or not? Want to
trade citations? I give you Linnaeus, to begin with, sixth edition.
>
> >> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour
> >> can PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
> >> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
> >> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local fitness
> >> peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest. Nothing
> >> about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
> >
> > So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>
> The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
> to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY AUDIENCES
> by popularizers of evolution. Rather, they sell a version I call "naive
> natural selection", a version every academic evolutionist knows is untrue.
> They do not do it maliciously. But neither does the point warrant yawning
> at. It is indeed a key issue central to the debate over natural selection,
> and evolutionists ought never have been kept it from the public.
Well I'm sorry to do this to you, but I mention it in a forthcoming
article in RNCSE on defining evolution. It even has a figure. Of course,
this is just a publication being sent to science teachers... oops.
>
> > But that "forever" is bunkum, unless you can assume that the
> > fitness landscape (which is just the sum of the interactions of
> > organisms and their environment) is held stable over long periods,
> > which we know it isn't except in rare cases (eg, thermophilic bacteria).
>
> The fitness terrain has contour. It is complex terrain. Natural selection
> theory itself indicates our experimental demonstrations cannot be
> extrapolated.
How? In any experiment, we must hold some variables constant in order to
determine what the causes are. It's called ANOVA. It doesn't mean that
we are invalidly inferring anything.
>
> If you allow (as the John Wilkins does above) that the fitness terrain warps
> and deforms, then that doesn't necessarily eliminate all the barriers to
> evolution. Just as importantly it adds yet another layer of untestability
> to natural selection theory (which is the subject of this thread).
Sorry? The fact that a fitness landscape deforms is what? Some days,
Wlater, you are so opaque even a dedicated evilutionist cannot
misrepresent you properly.
In fact, deforming fitness landscapes - not under that name - have
always been part of the idea of selection. It is the recognition that
landscapes do not remain constant that makes selection one of the
evolutionary forces, and not merely a stabilising force. Check out
Sewall Wright's initial formulations of fitness landscapes (which, in
case you hadn't noticed, are a *metaphorical representation*, not an
absolute hyperspace).
If you want to claim otherwise, you need to show me that fitness
landscapes remain constant. If they did, *then* I'd agree that selection
would hold things stable. But they do not and cannot be shown to be.
>
> As I've said all along, by the time evolutionists add all their evasions and
> just-so stories, they have a structureless mess that makes no coherent
> predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. Their natural selection
> theory is untestable.
>
> My book discusses the matter at length.
Not the bits I read. Ian showed me that execrable chapter on
classification. I may mention it as an egregious example of
misunderstanding the issues of cladism and classification in my thesis.
Then again, nobody would know who or what I was referring to, since it
is a piece of self-published tripe, so maybe I won't.
>
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
Gosh, now *there's* a surprise.
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4ohbt...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> >> The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can
> >> PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
> >> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
> >> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local
> >> fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
> >> Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
> >
> > And do you claim that this occurs in every instance?
>
> Evolutionists claim there are no barriers -- all the way from molecules to
> man. Anything short of that is creation.
Straw man. Of course creatures can evolve "too far" and get stuck in a
niche; that's probably why the vast majority of all species that have ever
lived are now extinct. But this fact simply has no bearing whatsoever on the
claim that natural selection, under the right circumstances, is indeed
capable of producing gross morphological change.
> > If you'd like to prove me wrong, let's get into discussing
> > those therapsids.
>
> The therapsids are dead, and can't be experimented with.
"Experimented with"? Are you arguing for the silly notion that we have to be
able to directly observe living therapsids before we're entitled to draw any
conclusions? In that case, show me someone who was directly observed your
creator at work.
> More importantly,
> the morphological/design gaps within and surrounding this group DWARF our
> experimental demonstrations in their closest organisms today.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Are you implying that the
change from a wolf to a chihuahua was greater than the change from a reptile
to a mammal?
> The therapsids themselves are a paraphyletic group, a group not united by
> possession of a common feature, but rather by the ABSENCE of a feature.
You make a lot of assertions without supporting details. What absent feature
unites the therapsids?
> Paraphyletic groups are large conglomerates, or repositories, for scraps,
> leftovers, and organisms that do not easily classify in the usual way.
Yes, exactly what we would expect if evolution were true. How does your
"biotic message theory" handle the existence of animals that defy such
simple classification, but rather seem to possess a mix of features from
several groups?
> Invertebrates are an example, as they are described by the ABSENCE of
> vertebra. Paraphyletic groups, (being large repositories of otherwise
> disassociated organisms), are highly diverse and do not form a narrow
> lineage.
Again, what absent feature unites the therapsids? You've asserted that there
is one, but haven't said what. And absolutely nothing of anything you've
said above speaks to the validity of the therapsid series as transitional.
In fact, the therapsids as a paraphyletic group is exactly what we'd
expect -- reptiles and mammals are very dissimilar organisms, so although
there is a smooth continuum of change connecting the earliest therapsids to
the latest ones, there is no single common feature that all of them share.
> > Has your "biotic message theory" made any predictions
> > of phenomena which were unknown at the time you
> > proposed it?
>
> Yes. It makes very risky predictions.
Such as? This habit of yours of asserting without providing supporting
details is very irritating.
> > I'll repeat my challenge: what changes in the therapsid series
> > would you have to see for you to accept it as showing an
> > example of true evolutionary transition? Will you try to
> > honestly answer this or will you merely keep dodging it?
>
> My book discusses it at length. My book cannot run, hide, or dodge -- and
> no, I won't repeat it for you.
How very convenient for you. Are you saying that your book discusses in
detail exactly what changes you would need to see in the therapsid series
before you would accept it as truly transitional? I just want to be sure of
this.
> The "therapsid SERIES" is a term evolutionists use to create the
> impression -- a false impression -- that the organisms form a lineage,
with
> real, clear, identified ancestors. I acknowledge that large-scale
lineages
> would be extremely important evidence if they clearly existed. But they
do
> not. One can document the point merely by quoting evolutionists.
No, one cannot, because science does not work by the logical fallacy of
argument from authority. Address the evidence. Why is the impression of a
therapsid lineage false? Because we can't know for absolute certain that any
given species is the ancestor of any other given species? This is both true
and entirely irrelevant.
> > Gould and Eldredge did not propose PE to explain away some
> > hypothetical lack of transitionals;
>
> Adam Marczyk misrepresents me. My posts didn't say anything about
> "transitionals" (that is a term often mis-defined and mis-used by
> evolutionists). Rather, I spoke specifically of GRADUALISM. Punk-ek was
> proposed (in part) to "explain" the systematic absence of gradualism.
Still waiting for you to address that evidence. Your refusal to explain what
the therapsid series is lacking seems nothing more than pettiness to me.
> -- Walter ReMine
> Fellow with Discovery Institute
> _The Biotic Message_
> http://www1.minn.net/~science
--
Adam Marczyk
>
> "John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
>
> >> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour
> >> can PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
> >> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
> >> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local fitness
> >> peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest. Nothing
> >> about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
> >
> > So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>
> The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
> to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY
AUDIENCES
> by popularizers of evolution.
Those dirty crooks. Tell us, do popularizers of creationism generally
mention to lay audiences the fact that they've signed pledges promising not
to doubt the Bible regardless of the evidence? Have *you* signed such a
pledge?
> Rather, they sell a version I call "naive
> natural selection", a version every academic evolutionist knows is untrue.
> They do not do it maliciously. But neither does the point warrant yawning
> at. It is indeed a key issue central to the debate over natural
selection,
> and evolutionists ought never have been kept it from the public.
>
> > But that "forever" is bunkum, unless you can assume that the
> > fitness landscape (which is just the sum of the interactions of
> > organisms and their environment) is held stable over long periods,
> > which we know it isn't except in rare cases (eg, thermophilic bacteria).
>
> The fitness terrain has contour. It is complex terrain. Natural
selection
> theory itself indicates our experimental demonstrations cannot be
> extrapolated.
Hark! Do I hear the sound of handwaving?
> If you allow (as the John Wilkins does above) that the fitness terrain
warps
> and deforms, then that doesn't necessarily eliminate all the barriers to
> evolution. Just as importantly it adds yet another layer of untestability
> to natural selection theory (which is the subject of this thread).
I fail to see how.
> As I've said all along, by the time evolutionists add all their evasions
and
> just-so stories, they have a structureless mess that makes no coherent
> predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. Their natural selection
> theory is untestable.
If natural selection is untestable, I hate to think about biotic message
theory. Since we can't know the mind of the creator, it is impossible to say
with certainty whether or why he would or would not do anything - a point
I'm sure your book conveniently glosses over. Creationism is not science
because it is compatible with any imaginable state of affairs.
[snip]
Mark VandeWettering
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4ohbt...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>> The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour can
>>> PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
>>> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
>>> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local
>>> fitness peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest.
>>> Nothing about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
>>
>> And do you claim that this occurs in every instance?
>
> Evolutionists claim there are no barriers -- all the way from molecules to
> man. Anything short of that is creation.
Don't be silly. Of course there are barriers. For instance, as useful
as it might be to reach a new fitness plateau where (for instance) we have
bones made out of diamond or steel, it doesn't seem like vertabrates have
the necessary genome flexibility to accomadate such a radical change.
Mark
--
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"\"M\"{D(pD y%%Uy\\(z)O\35*b6Ib3M)zMt4GgN(fE#a2C'y/_(|P)kMy0AzN*bNb,W)zWq-P(k."
"F t1Ut\\(p5@)rRz6I*bI\35+w!@\37mark@%s\35*~@\37http://%s\33\3",p,p);}
science
> Natural selection could be falsified if we found a
> species with an altruistic adaptation that does it
> no good *and never did*.
Adam Marczyk claims he has corrected the test of natural selection by
including the phrase "and never did". But that would require us to know the
ancestors (perhaps even a great many of them). But isn't a test. Why?
Because clear-cut ancestors do not exist (over a large-scale). They are
SYSTEMATICALLY missing. The great shift of the past thirty years is that
evolutionists used to at least TRY, or PRETEND, to identify ancestors.
Whereas modern evolutionists tend to avoid even making an attempt, as they
know the history of such attempts has been a dismal failure.
Among other important things, this key maneuver adds yet another way that
natural selection theory gets around any serious test. One can readily make
up just-so stories about who the ancestor was, the traits it supposedly
possessed, and (especially) the functions it supposedly served. There is no
test. Just a framework for just-so story-telling.
> ....
> Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with
> no hint of ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem.
> But if we saw this all over the place [SNIP....] then we
> would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
Ancestors are SYSTEMATICALLY missing, not just for the flowering plants, and
not just in a piece-meal way. This is a key pattern of life. And I say it
is a generally unrecognized reason why punk-ek was proposed. This
pattern -- the systematic absence of clear-cut ancestors over a
large-scale -- gives punk-ek theory most of its structure. (See my book for
details.)
In this light, Marczyk's above statement is something of a funny joke. For
the very reason he points to, evolution ought already be in serious doubt.
> Does your "biotic message theory" predict we should see
> such things?
Biotic message theory predicts all of life's major patterns, and a fair
number of its minor patterns.
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4eqqi...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > You continue to ignore the perfectly good corrected
> > version I posted. Shall I repeat it again?
> > ....
> > I agree that Futuyma made an error. I've given a
> > corrected version of his test.
>
> Adam Marczyk already agrees that Futuyma (and Darwin) made a mistake. He
> believes (mistakenly) that he has corrected Futuyma's (and Darwin's)
> mistake. If he truly believes that, then he should publish it somewhere.
> The drunken barroom known as talk.origins doesn't count.
Simply incredible. Are you arguing that my corrected version of Futuyma's
test is invalid for no other reason than that I haven't submitted it to a
peer-reviewed scientific journal?
> It's amazing that
> evolutionists allow OTHER evolutionists' errors to thrive for so long.
Sheesh, you're just lucky I decoupled my irony meter before reading that.
Please describe even one example, ever, of one creationist demonstrating how
another creationist was mistaken about something.
> > I did say that natural selection itself - the environmentally-caused
> > selective pressure leading to differential success of varying alleles
> > - is an observed fact. Do you care to dispute that?
>
> Evolutionists often defend natural selection by shifting it to (what I
call)
> a Lame formulation. In this case, he calls it "differential success".
> Notice there is no reference whatever to fittest, nor to adaptation --
which
> are essential features of the real natural selection theory. For example,
> if a theory doesn't mention adaptation, then it cannot explain adaptation.
> In other words, Marczyk defends by offering us an imposter theory, not the
> real McCoy.
Yawn. Well, do you dispute it or not?
> > Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue
> > that the success of darker peppered moths was due to
> > divine providence.
>
> Notice he uses a two-model approach, which evolutionists rail against on
> other occasions. According to him, if it's not "divine providence", then
> natural selection must be a "fact".
Have I missed a third option? If so, please, by all means enlighten me. What
caused the success of darker peppered moths over lighter ones, in your
expert opinion?
> He happens to choose an example, the peppered moths, which is a scandalous
> example of bad science still present in the textbooks many decades after
it
> was known to be false. (See Jonathon Wells' book, _Icons of Evolution_.)
Wells' argument is the one that is bad science and false. Moths are not
necessarily cooperative photo subjects; they were glued to the trees so that
good pictures could be taken. This does not in any way affect the story as
usually told, which is still true.
> > .... Show that you have the intellectual integrity to at least
> > try to respond honestly to these things, and then I'll see if
> > your book addresses them in any greater detail (which I
> > severely doubt).
>
> My book addresses his issues at length.
Okay, let me repost those issues:
1. No answer to why it is that all creationist organizations force their
members to sign statements affirming they will not allow the evidence to
sway them?
Is this topic referenced in your book?
2. No answer to what changes you would need to see in the therapsid series
to accept it as a true example of transition?
Is this topic referenced in your book? If so, please give us a brief
summary, for those who haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
3. No answer to my corrected version of Futuyma's test for natural
selection?
Now I *know* that one isn't addressed in your book, because I just described
it a day or two ago.
science
"John Segerson" <sem...@olywa.net> wrote in message
news:3BC26578...@olywa.net...
John Segerson writes:
> Let's take this in the reverse direction. First
> of all, large scale change has, most exquisitely,
> been observed in the fossil record.
No. Change can only be observed today. It must be inferred (however
correctly or incorrectly) in the fossil record. Changes we can observe
today become the MEASURING STICK of morphological/design gaps in the fossil
record. As I've said before, natural selection theory makes no coherent
predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. "Change" within the fossil
record must be inferred by finding a favorable comparison with change we can
experimentally demonstrate today. This is accurate, at least as a first
pass at a methodology.
>....
> There is no "theory of natural selection."
That's a fair statement. At least, there is no coherent, TESTABLE theory of
natural selection, testable in the manner evolutionists routinely employ in
their story-telling.
> The sequence of specimens, IN BOTH AGE
> AND MORPHOLOGY, is extensive and compelling
> in support of the theory of evolution. .... Next, the
> mechanism of evolution, which includes natural
> selection as a factor, most definitely and defensibly
> explains large scale change in species phenotype.
> FINALLY, THIS IS A TESTABLE CLAIM, SINCE
> SPECIMENS THAT ARE OUT OF PLACE -- IN
> TIME, PLACE, OR MORPHOLOGY -- CLEARLY
> FALSIFY IT. (Emphasis added)
That's classic illusion-making. It sounds so impressive. So convincing.
You've heard it before.
It reality, it is a phony test. It does not put evolutionary theory at
risk. Why? Because for two fossils to be "out-of-sequence" one must FIRST
identify that they have an ancestor-descendant relationship. Then evolution
predicts the ancestor should occur lower in the fossil record. Meanwhile,
modern evolutionists (especially starting about thirty years ago) strongly
tend to avoid identifying real ancestors. This neatly reverses the roles
between an evolutionist and anti-evolutionist -- for the ANTI-evolutionist
must now identify clear-cut ancestor-descendant relationships in order to
employ this test! Since such a pattern does not exist (particularly over a
large-scale of macroevolution), it insulates evolutionary theory from this
test.
The test is phony. It is bluster, spoken by evolutionists who do not yet
recognize the hollowness of evolutionary theory.
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4opq...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> > Natural selection could be falsified if we found a
> > species with an altruistic adaptation that does it
> > no good *and never did*.
>
> Adam Marczyk claims he has corrected the test of natural selection by
> including the phrase "and never did". But that would require us to know
the
> ancestors (perhaps even a great many of them). But isn't a test. Why?
> Because clear-cut ancestors do not exist (over a large-scale). They are
> SYSTEMATICALLY missing. The great shift of the past thirty years is that
> evolutionists used to at least TRY, or PRETEND, to identify ancestors.
> Whereas modern evolutionists tend to avoid even making an attempt, as they
> know the history of such attempts has been a dismal failure.
Oh really? I do? I didn't know that. Actually, its been quite a great
success.
>
> Among other important things, this key maneuver adds yet another way that
> natural selection theory gets around any serious test. One can readily
make
> up just-so stories about who the ancestor was, the traits it supposedly
> possessed, and (especially) the functions it supposedly served. There is
no
> test. Just a framework for just-so story-telling.
Do you know how all this is determined? Its not made up. Its done by taking
impressions of the brain casing etc.. of fossils, and other structural
features that are common in living species today, and comparing the two. For
instance, the vulture's powerful sense of smell vs the Tyrannosaur. Both
scavengers, both very similar anatomy. They look at bone structure, mass,
and many other known features you learn in any anatomy class.
>
> > ....
> > Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with
> > no hint of ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem.
> > But if we saw this all over the place [SNIP....] then we
> > would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>
> Ancestors are SYSTEMATICALLY missing, not just for the flowering plants,
and
> not just in a piece-meal way. This is a key pattern of life. And I say
it
> is a generally unrecognized reason why punk-ek was proposed. This
> pattern -- the systematic absence of clear-cut ancestors over a
> large-scale -- gives punk-ek theory most of its structure. (See my book
for
> details.)
>
> In this light, Marczyk's above statement is something of a funny joke.
For
> the very reason he points to, evolution ought already be in serious doubt.
>
> > Does your "biotic message theory" predict we should see
> > such things?
>
> Biotic message theory predicts all of life's major patterns, and a fair
> number of its minor patterns.
I'll have to look more into this "book" of yours and that link you posted
tomorrow, off to bed.
John Wilkins
> "John Segerson" <sem...@olywa.net> wrote in message
> news:3BC26578...@olywa.net...
>
>
> John Segerson writes:
>
> > Let's take this in the reverse direction. First
> > of all, large scale change has, most exquisitely,
> > been observed in the fossil record.
>
> No. Change can only be observed today. It must be inferred (however
> correctly or incorrectly) in the fossil record. Changes we can observe
> today become the MEASURING STICK of morphological/design gaps in the fossil
> record. As I've said before, natural selection theory makes no coherent
> predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. "Change" within the fossil
> record must be inferred by finding a favorable comparison with change we can
> experimentally demonstrate today. This is accurate, at least as a first
> pass at a methodology.
I'd agree with this. All inference of change is inference. They call
this a tautology, true by definition. Of course, for suitable values of
"inference" I infer change today. In fact if you really want to be
Pyrrhonian about it, you can doubt that you are posting to and reading
this very newsgroup. What you observe happened, if physical theory is
correct, some little time ago. Gosh. That's a bit like inferring the
existence of change in the past, isn't it?
Nevertheless, if phylogenies were wildly inconsistent with each other,
nobody would accept common descent, would they?
Nathan McKaskle
> natural selection theory gets around any serious test. One can readily
make
> up just-so stories about who the ancestor was, the traits it supposedly
> possessed, and (especially) the functions it supposedly served. There is
no
> test. Just a framework for just-so story-telling.
Another example of the process is determining how fast a species can move,
such as the Tyrannosaurus. In quick moving species such as the cheetah, or
the velociraptor, the femur bone is much shorter than the fibula. In the
Tyrannosaurus the femur is somewhat longer, this indicates the Tyrannosaurus
was very slow moving. Also due to its skeletal structure, if it were to
walk more upright as Hollywood depicts, it would be crushed under its own
weight, therefore it actually walks with its head much lower to the ground.
The Tyrannosaur is a scavenger, not just because of its elongated frontal
lobe indicating fantastic sense of smell (known by comparison to the
vulture, hmm ancestoral link?), but due to its tiny immovable arms, unable
to rip and tear into flesh as most predators can do.
So the stories aren't "Just so". Get your facts straight about how things
are studied before you go assuming things are just made up. The functions
of a species are evident in the anatomy. Skeletal structure can tell many a
story, you ever seen all Discovery forscenic science and FBI files programs
that are on almost too often? How they determine a person was killed even
several millenia after their death? Its this kind of science that tells us
how a creature lived even in past geological eras. This is called
paleontology.
science
>> Adam Marczyk already agrees that Futuyma (and Darwin)
>> made a mistake. He believes (mistakenly) that he has
>> corrected Futuyma's (and Darwin's) mistake. If he truly
>> believes that, then he should publish it somewhere.
>> The drunken barroom known as talk.origins doesn't count.
>
> Simply incredible. Are you arguing that my corrected version
> of Futuyma's test is invalid for no other reason than that I
> haven't submitted it to a peer-reviewed scientific journal?
No, I was simply calling Adam's bluff. Talk.origins is renowned for
bluffing and empty posturing. Adam's so-called "test" of natural selection
is no improvement over Futuyma's (and Darwin's) mistaken version. I doubt
Adam will even go through the trouble of publishing it.
>> ....
>> In other words, Marczyk defends by offering us an imposter
>> theory, not the real McCoy.
>
> Yawn. Well, do you dispute it or not?
Egads. He wants me to dispute an imposter theory. ...
>>> Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue
>>> that the success of darker peppered moths was due to
>>> divine providence.
>>
>> Notice he uses a two-model approach, which evolutionists rail against on
>> other occasions. According to him, if it's not "divine providence", then
>> natural selection must be a "fact".
>
> Have I missed a third option? If so, please, by all means enlighten me.
A number of evolutionists argue for third options that would enlighten Adam.
A number of evolutionists specifically argue against using a two-model
approach (at least, when creationists use it!).
> What caused the success of darker peppered moths over
> lighter ones, in your expert opinion?
The decades-long emphasis on peppered moths, finch beaks, sickle-cell
anemia, and the like, merely show the poverty of evolutionary change among
living organisms. These changes are vastly too small to justify the large
morphological/design gaps within the pattern of life.
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts5067h...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> >> Adam Marczyk already agrees that Futuyma (and Darwin)
> >> made a mistake. He believes (mistakenly) that he has
> >> corrected Futuyma's (and Darwin's) mistake. If he truly
> >> believes that, then he should publish it somewhere.
> >> The drunken barroom known as talk.origins doesn't count.
> >
> > Simply incredible. Are you arguing that my corrected version
> > of Futuyma's test is invalid for no other reason than that I
> > haven't submitted it to a peer-reviewed scientific journal?
>
> No, I was simply calling Adam's bluff. Talk.origins is renowned for
> bluffing and empty posturing. Adam's so-called "test" of natural
selection
> is no improvement over Futuyma's (and Darwin's) mistaken version. I doubt
> Adam will even go through the trouble of publishing it.
Care to explain why it's no improvement, or is this just another
substanceless assertion?
> >> ....
> >> In other words, Marczyk defends by offering us an imposter
> >> theory, not the real McCoy.
> >
> > Yawn. Well, do you dispute it or not?
>
> Egads. He wants me to dispute an imposter theory. ...
Do you? What force, in your opinion, caused the shift of allele frequencies
in the peppered moths?
> >>> Natural selection is also a fact, unless you plan to argue
> >>> that the success of darker peppered moths was due to
> >>> divine providence.
> >>
> >> Notice he uses a two-model approach, which evolutionists rail against
on
> >> other occasions. According to him, if it's not "divine providence",
then
> >> natural selection must be a "fact".
> >
> > Have I missed a third option? If so, please, by all means enlighten me.
>
> A number of evolutionists argue for third options that would enlighten
Adam.
You really need to break this bad habit of asserting without giving
supporting details. Please tell me what the third option is, if there is
one.
> A number of evolutionists specifically argue against using a two-model
> approach (at least, when creationists use it!).
>
> > What caused the success of darker peppered moths over
> > lighter ones, in your expert opinion?
>
> The decades-long emphasis on peppered moths, finch beaks, sickle-cell
> anemia, and the like, merely show the poverty of evolutionary change among
> living organisms. These changes are vastly too small to justify the large
> morphological/design gaps within the pattern of life.
Your repetitive pounding of the same drum is growing quite monotonous. How
much like a wolf is a chihuahua?
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4opq...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> > Natural selection could be falsified if we found a
> > species with an altruistic adaptation that does it
> > no good *and never did*.
>
> Adam Marczyk claims he has corrected the test of natural selection by
> including the phrase "and never did". But that would require us to know
the
> ancestors (perhaps even a great many of them). But isn't a test. Why?
> Because clear-cut ancestors do not exist (over a large-scale). They are
> SYSTEMATICALLY missing. The great shift of the past thirty years is that
> evolutionists used to at least TRY, or PRETEND, to identify ancestors.
> Whereas modern evolutionists tend to avoid even making an attempt, as they
> know the history of such attempts has been a dismal failure.
And yet you continue your determined effort to avoid addressing the
transitional nature of the therapsids in any substantive way. "It's
explained in my book" is not a substantive reply. "Therapsids are a
paraphyletic group" is not a substantive reply. Why do you keep dodging my
questions? What are you trying to hide?
> Among other important things, this key maneuver adds yet another way that
> natural selection theory gets around any serious test. One can readily
make
> up just-so stories about who the ancestor was, the traits it supposedly
> possessed, and (especially) the functions it supposedly served. There is
no
> test. Just a framework for just-so story-telling.
This was addressed later on in my proposed test. Would you mind reading the
whole thing before you rush to judgment on it?
> > ....
> > Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with
> > no hint of ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem.
> > But if we saw this all over the place [SNIP....] then we
> > would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>
> Ancestors are SYSTEMATICALLY missing, not just for the flowering plants,
and
> not just in a piece-meal way. This is a key pattern of life. And I say
it
> is a generally unrecognized reason why punk-ek was proposed. This
> pattern -- the systematic absence of clear-cut ancestors over a
> large-scale -- gives punk-ek theory most of its structure. (See my book
for
> details.)
>
> In this light, Marczyk's above statement is something of a funny joke.
For
> the very reason he points to, evolution ought already be in serious doubt.
While you keep asserting that ancestors are missing, you continually fail to
address the existence of these very ancestors when they're pointed out to
you. This is very disappointing; I had expected more from you. What changes
would you need to see in the therapsid series to accept them as
reptile-to-mammal transitions? Answer that and then we can discuss the other
transitional series you claim don't exist.
> > Does your "biotic message theory" predict we should see
> > such things?
>
> Biotic message theory predicts all of life's major patterns, and a fair
> number of its minor patterns.
What a surprise. In reality, "biotic message theory" predicts nothing and is
non-falsifiable. Anything we find, that's the will of the designer. Anything
we don't find, well, that's also the will of the designer. Unless you claim
to know the mind of God, it is logically impossible to derive a single
coherent prediction from your hypothesis; it is equally impossible to
falsify it, for the same reason. Is not the thrust of your argument that God
has deliberately left us clues that species were separately and
intelligently created? Then why do we find genetic continuity over various
taxa -- why is everything the same at the ultimate molecular level? Why do
we find vestigial and poorly designed structures throughout nature? Well,
because that's the way God wanted it, for mysterious reasons of his own.
Your hypothesis isn't science - it can duck and weave to avoid any possible
test for falsification. It predicts everything and explains nothing.
science
> ....
> Of course creatures can evolve "too far" and get stuck
> in a niche;
Natural selection theory makes no such prediction.
> .... natural selection, under the right circumstances, is
> indeed capable of producing gross morphological change.
Again, natural selection theory makes no such prediction.
>> More importantly, the morphological/design gaps within
>> and surrounding this group DWARF our experimental
>> demonstrations in their closest organisms today.
>
> I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Are you
> implying that the change from a wolf to a chihuahua was
> greater than the change from a reptile to a mammal?
The transition from reptile to a mammal requires significant
morphological/design changes. This dwarfs a change from, say, wolf to
chihuahua. This point is not complicated. (In case you've forgotten, the
wolf and chihuahua can directly interbreed, they're that close.) The
biological changes demonstrateable today are minuscule compared to the
design gaps that must be explained.
>> Paraphyletic groups are large conglomerates, or repositories,
>> for scraps, leftovers, and organisms that do not easily classify
>> in the usual way.
>
> Yes, exactly what we would expect if evolution were true.
No. Classical Darwinism expected lineages, with identifiable real
ancestors. Paraphyletic groups do not form a lineage. For example,
invertebrates (a paraphyletic group) are not a lineage leading to
vertebrates -- there is way too much diversity to identify a narrow lineage.
> How does your "biotic message theory" handle the
> existence of animals that defy such simple classification,
> but rather seem to possess a mix of features from several groups?
It's in the book. And no, I won't read it to you.
> In fact, the therapsids as a paraphyletic group is exactly
> what we'd expect -- reptiles and mammals are very dissimilar
> organisms, so although there is a smooth continuum of change
> connecting the earliest therapsids to the latest ones, there is no
> single common feature that all of them share.
Wrong. Classical Darwinism expected real, identifiable lineages, and used
paraphyletic groups (falsely) to create the illusion that an "ancestor" had
been found. That illusion took over 100 years to collapse. Paraphyletic
groups were dis-recognized and dismantled by the cladists, who correctly
recognized that paraphyletic groups are artificial, created arbitrarily by
humans, not natural groups. This left the classical Darwinists without
their key illusion. The punctuationists too kicked aside this illusion.
Take an example of organisms that you know -- invertebrates, a paraphyletic
group. Do they form a "continuum"? In a sense, though the morphological
design gaps are HUGE compared to what we can demonstrate today. Gradualism
is systematically absent. Well on the other hand, do they form a lineage?
No, their vast diversity thwarts the attempt to impose a lineage onto them.
They are related by design (as from a common designer) -- not by
gradualism, nor by lineage. This occurs all over the place, systematically,
it is a good description of the data. This two-fold observational failure,
plus the theoretical failure of natural selection theory to be testable,
marks macroevolution as a non-science.
>> This habit of yours of asserting without providing
>> supporting details is very irritating.
It's in my book, and I won't read it to you. Adam may have to apply some of
the scholarship he demands from his opponents, and go to the library.
> > I'll repeat my challenge: what changes in the therapsid series
> > would you have to see for you to accept it as showing an
> > example of true evolutionary transition? Will you try to
> > honestly answer this or will you merely keep dodging it?
>
> My book discusses it at length. My book cannot run, hide, or dodge -- and
> no, I won't repeat it for you.
> No, one cannot, because science does not work by the
> logical fallacy of argument from authority.
I use the authority of my opponents to document my points. That's fair
play. And effective. Adam calls that a "logical fallacy"! Wowsers!
> Address the evidence. Why is the impression of a therapsid
> lineage false? Because we can't know for absolute certain that any
> given species is the ancestor of any other given species? This is
> both true and entirely irrelevant.
I never demanded certainty. Merely clarity. A pattern of "lineage"
attempts to provide evidence for evolution WITHOUT relying on any experiment
demonstrations. That is, a "lineage" relies completely on PATTERN. To be
excused from the usual scientific requirements of experimental
demonstrations, that pattern must be CLEAR. If the pattern is not clear, it
is conveys virtually no evidence for evolution.
I acknowledge that large-scale lineages, if they were found, would be
powerful evidence for evolution. But this pattern is SYSTEMATICALLY
missing, and I show that by quoting evolutionists themselves.
science
"Nathan McKaskle" <zil...@zillien.com> wrote in message
news:3bc28ba3$0$13462
> Another example of the process is determining how
> fast a species can move, such as the Tyrannosaurus.
> In quick moving species such as the cheetah, or
> the velociraptor, the femur bone is much shorter
> than the fibula. .... So the stories aren't "Just so".
> Get your facts straight about how things are studied
> before you go assuming things are just made up.
I didn't say EVERYTHING was made up. Rather, natural selection theory (and
evolutionary theory too) is so flexible it can be readily adapted to
whatever data is at hand. The theory is structureless. In my wording, the
theory adapts to data like fog adapts to landscape. There is no serious
testability. That's the issue, not where or how evolutionists get their
data.
science
> What force, in your opinion, caused the shift of
> allele frequencies in the peppered moths?
Adam keeps (mis-)casting natural selection theory as 'differential
reproductive success' or a "shift of allele frequencies" and so forth.
Those formulations are LAME because they do not mention fitness or
adaptation, therefore they cannot explain adaptation.
This shift -- to a Lame formulation -- is a classic tactic used by
evolutionists to defend natural selection (i.e. to get around the tautology
objection, and to show some kind of testability). But such a formulation
cannot explain the things that natural selection is CLAIMED to explain --
the abundance of higher adaptation. It is Lame.
> Your repetitive pounding of the same drum is growing
> quite monotonous. How much like a wolf is a chihuahua?
They are very much alike, indeed, they can even directly interbreed.
science
> What a surprise. In reality, "biotic message theory" predicts
> nothing and is non-falsifiable. Anything we find, that's the will
> of the designer. Anything we don't find, well, that's also the
> will of the designer. Unless you claim to know the mind of
> God, it is logically impossible to derive a single coherent
> prediction from your hypothesis; it is equally impossible to
> falsify it, for the same reason.
My book is scientific. It never mentions "God". (Except when I am quoting my
opponents and THEY refer to "God". Evolutionists do that often, as they
often use a two-model approach -- 'If it's not God, then it must be
evolution.' In these arguments they do claim to falsify the idea of "God"
as creator.) Rather, I refer uniformly to a "designer" and go where the
evidence leads.
My theory is driven by the data, and makes no claim whatever to know the
"mind of God". It is like coming across the body of Nicole Brown Simpson.
That data speaks clearly about the EXISTENCE of a designer who designed her
death. The data goes further and tells us many capabilities and
characteristics of that designer. Such evidence is not flimsy. We often
execute murderers based on precisely such evidence. It is the same with my
theory. It is driven by the data. It coherently explains the data, and
predicts the patterns would should see, and should not see. It makes risky
predictions.
Everything Adam said above is false.
> .... Would you mind reading the whole thing
> before you rush to judgment on it?
That's fair advice. Unfortunately Adam doesn't take his own advice when it
comes to books he hasn't read.
mel turner
>"mel turner" <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote in message
>news:9ps8s0$i86$1...@news.duke.edu...
>> A theory that at least some evolutionary change
>> can be effected by NS? That's testable ...
>
>No, that's like saying "AT LEAST SOME human personalities are affected by
>the astrological position of planets." That's more ambiguous, more evasive,
>and not any more testable than before. Same with natural selection theory.
It's testable and easily demonstrable that differential
reproductive success among individuals of different genotypes
can indeed affect changes to a population's gene pool. What
do you want "natural selection theory" to be? A theory that
it necessarily always causes change? A theory that it causes all
evolutionary changes, that there are no other mechanisms? That's
a "misrepresentation" of evolutionary biology.
>> Anyway, Darwin is clearly incorrect here.
>
>Correct. Darwin offered a 'test' of his theory, but it's not a test.
It's a test of his theory's applicability to specific cases; it
describes imaginable cases that selection couldn't possibly explain.
We know of no examples of anomalies fitting his hypothetical
case.
>> No, it would just suggest that there was more going
>> on than natural selection. Why would it challenge evolution?
>
>That misrepresents me again, opposite of what I said.
Nope, I didn't "misrepresent" you at all. Look again in context. Are
you confused by your own unmarked snips? You wrote:
">Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
>species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
and I followed that with:
"No, it would just suggest that there was more going on than natural
selection. Why would it challenge evolution?"
That was plainly in response to your quote of what _Marczyk_ had said,
not to any "misrepresentation" of your own position, whatever it may
be.
>I said Futuyma (and
>Darwin) offered a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is NOT a test,
>it does NOT put the theory at risk.
Fine. Does it test the applicability of the theory to individual
cases? At this point, putting a well-substantiated theory at risk
would be rather like looking for tests that invalidate the atomic
theory or the germ theory of disease. It's easy to find diseases
that aren't caused by microorganisms, but that doesn't falsify the
germ theory in general [unless the theory were to be phrased as
"germs cause all diseases"]. Similarly, finding organismal features
that selection theory can't explain won't falsify the theory in
general, but it will indeed falsify its application in those
instances.
>> How so? Was he [Futuyma] even invoking Darwin?
>
>Yes, indeed Futuyma was invoking Darwin.
Ooh, ooh, I'm a victim! You're misrepresenting me! Help! ;-)
Ahem. Sorry. I actually was asking "Was he [Adam Marczyk] even
invoking Darwin?" I didn't see him citing Darwin in his earlier
posts in the thread.
>> To falsify NS would be to show that something
>> somehow prevents differential reproductive success among
>> genetically-varying individuals from producing evolutionary
>> changes in their population.
>
>That says nothing about which organisms survive.
It's something of a popular misconception that natural selection is
"about which organisms survive". It's about successful reproduction,
not survival. So, does my comment really say nothing about "which
organisms reproduce"?
>The fit? The unfit? The
>bluest? The reddest? If it doesn't do that, then it doesn't even minimally
>explain adaptations.
It does do that, but it depends in each case on the specific
interactions between the individual members of the population and
their particular environment. Natural selection is essentially an
automatic "pump" transferring "information" about the selecting
environment into the population's gene pool.
>Here is an evolutionist attempting show how natural
>selection is testable by shifting to something that completely LEAVES OUT
>the explanatory goal of natural selection -- adaptations.
Those "evolutionary changes in their population" are the adaptations.
That's what "adaptations" are: any evolutionary changes mediated by
natural selection.
>The fact of biological variation was known long before Darwin's theory, and
>does not test Darwin's theory.
Are you misrepresenting me again? Did I ever claim that biological
variation [including new mutations] was previously unknown, and
somehow constitutes a test of selection theory?
>> Something like Zoe's mystical "limits" to evolution,perhaps.
>
>Natural selection theory does not say large-scale change is even possible.
Actually right. Natural selection theory is merely about small scale
changes [microevolution, changes within populations within one
species]. Those larger-scale changes that it explains, it explains
only indirectly; they are always the accumulation of small-scale
changes.
>Large-scale change is merely a *claim* of evolutionists, not a prediction of
>natural selection theory.
No, larger-scale changes [speciations, etc.] are observed, and
larger-still-scale changes are conclusions from abundant evidence,
not just "claims". Yes, they don't necessarily follow from natural
selection theory [except that the effects of small adaptive changes
will be likely to accumulate in an evolving lineage].
>>>That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology
>>>would be to see if every human has the exact same personality."
>>
>> Which would do it, as an imaginary very simple test.
>> Another would be to show that there is no correlation
>> between personality and horoscope.
>
>In other words, an evolutionist is defending ASTROLOGY as testable -- in an
>effort to likewise show that natural selection is testable.
Of course astrology is testable. It's also patently false, and only
pseudoscientists and the gullible defend it. Natural selection is
testable, but it passes the tests. It's observed to occur. A claim
that it accounts for all organismal features would be false, as would
a claim that it always causes change to occur, or that it only causes
change. "Stabilizing selection" is well-known to anyone who's taken
introductory biology...
>The answer is, whose horoscope do you test?
Any and all, or a scientifically-chosen random sample in some sort of
rigorously elaborate double-blind study. Do you really think it's
untestable in principle?
>Whose Darwinian just-so story
>do you test?
Any. All. Do you really think all natural selection-based explanations
are "just so stories"? [One might be tempted to see creationism as
largely a collection of kneejerk "ain't-so" stories...]
>There are in infinitude of these just-so stories, so many that
>they contradict each other. The theory is not put at risk.
The theory is at risk as an explanation for each particular case.
That was my point about Darwin's hypothetical case. It would only
falsify a selectionist explanation _for that case_ [but of course
will also falsify a claim that selection explains any and all
cases].
>> If that's a claim that there are no gradual species-level transitions
>> in the fossil record [or similar clinal or ring-species gradations
>> among extant forms, it's wrong.
>
>That's not what I said. Here it is again: Gradual change (of the kind
>demonstrable today) is SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
And that claim is false, unless I don't understand what you mean by
"SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life". If it's
demonstrable today, doesn't that mean it exists in the "pattern of
life"? Anyway, again, there are indeed gradual species-level
transitions known both in the fossil record and among extant forms.
cheers
Dunk
>
>"howard hershey" <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
>news:9pso8a$1u1$1...@jetsam.uits.indiana.edu...
>
>> Natural selection is an observation of nature that
>> has been seen many times in many different ways.
>
>The key claim, the claim under dispute, is whether natural selection theory
>explains large-scale, higher adaptations in a testable way. It does not.
>It does not even predict that large-scale evolution is possible.
>(Regardless of allowing vast amounts of time.) That claim is made by
>evolutionists themselves, not by natural selection theory.
Nonsense on all counts. [ If I sound impatient, it is because you are
by no means a first-time nonsense monger ].
First, what is under dispute is whether you made any sense about the
dandelions. You didn't.
Second, you know that natural selection is not all there is to
evolution, and you also know that NS has in fact been tested many
times.
Third, you understand ( I hope) that general principles _by
Themselves_ do not predict specific facts. The laws of motion by
themselves do not predict the present position and velocity of the
moon. You also have to know where it was before, and what forces have
affected it in the meanwhile, for instance. The general principles by
themselves merely allow for a great variety of possibilities, but not
others, depending on particular conditions.
>> To *falsify* 'natural selection' (or at least find the conditions
>> where the expectations of natural selection can be observed
>> not to occur), one would have to regularly observe events like
>> antibiotic sensitive (rather than resistant) strains growing in
>> antibiotic media; that is, cases where the phenotype that
>> demonstrably is, in net, better would consistently do worse
>> than the phenotype that is, in net, demonstrably worse.
>
>That example is a tautology, and tautologies are not testable. The above
>says the traits that are "demonstrably better" will do better than those
>that are "demonstrably worse." In other words, the survivors survive. It
>is not falsifiable, or testable.
No. In the example, the meaning of "demonstrably better" , antibiotic
resistance, is understood independently of the result.
And in general, NS is just a mater of differential reproductive
success correlated with heritable characters.
>> Most such anomalies seen (with the exception of chance seen
>> below) are 'apparent anomalies' due to traits that have multiple
>> effects where there is a balance between these effects. For
>> example, some traits that one might, if one were superficial,
>> think would lead to greater reproductive success, like greater
>> aggression or longevity, when actually studied show the exact
>> opposite (the greater longevity often comes with the cost of slower
>> reproduction rates and, for organisms that are likely to die by
>> accident or predation, longevity under ideal conditions is not a
>> favorable trait wrt reproductive success in nature). Other traits
>> are beneficial only to the extent that they are rare. But that is a
>> matter of defining the terms of natural selection more accurately.
>
>Hershey offers a flurry of features, factors, terms, and definitions --
>which just distracts from the central issue. Natural selection theory is
>structureless, and no amount of "defining the terms" can supply structure to
>it, nor make it testable. Quite the contrary. The more conflicting
>complicating factors you add, the more obvious it is that it doesn't
>comprise a testable theory.
Garbage. You specifically know that NS has been tested many times,
therefore it is testable.
>> ....
>> It is also quite clear that no example of completely altruistic
>> traits has been described and,
>
>As already stated, the flower and nectar of the common dandelion (i.e.
>asexual) is "completely altruistic", serving only other species. My point
>is that natural selection theory is immune even to this so-called "test".
That something else eats it implies no altruism on the flower's part,
any more than altruism on your part is implied if a hyena devours
every part of you.
>> ....
>> To truly have an alternative explanation to substitute for 'natural
>> selection' you would need to have an alternative theory that could explain
>> all the evidence that 'natural selection' occurs and also explains it
>> better.
>
>The issue is not whether evolutionists can devise just-so stories to
>"explain" things. The issue is whether natural selection theory is
>testable. As this thread has shown, the theory offers no tests of its
>central subject -- the origin of higher adaptations, especially on the
>large-scale claimed by evolutionists.
Evolution, which as you know is more than just NS, indeed makes
adaptation ('higher' or otherwise) possible.
>> The simple direct test for falsification of natural selection
>> would be to show that there is no correlation between phenotype
>> and reproductive success in a particular environment.
>
>No. A correlation between phenotype and long-term survival was observed
>long before Darwin, just as the motion of planets was observed long before
>astrology. That doesn't make them testable.
Get serious. That something was observed in a general way before you
were born certainly does not make it untestable.
>The interesting claim, the point of dispute, is whether natural selection
>can produce large-scale, higher adaptations. The theory itself does not
>claim it can, and is untestable,
Same garbage as above.
>... and such large-scale change has not been
>experimentally observed.
More word games. The distant past has not been 'experimentally
observed'. Surprise! experiments are in the present.
Have you heard that some humans are able to make inferences about the
past? I don't even recall being born, but I infer that I was. I also
have not witnessed whole mountain ranges rising and then eroding away.
Since this large scale change cannot be done is a laboratory in a
short time, geology is untestable! You'd better tell them.
Have a nice day
Dunk
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts55t9h...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > What force, in your opinion, caused the shift of
> > allele frequencies in the peppered moths?
>
> Adam keeps (mis-)casting natural selection theory as 'differential
> reproductive success' or a "shift of allele frequencies" and so forth.
> Those formulations are LAME because they do not mention fitness or
> adaptation, therefore they cannot explain adaptation.
>
> This shift -- to a Lame formulation -- is a classic tactic used by
> evolutionists to defend natural selection (i.e. to get around the
tautology
> objection, and to show some kind of testability). But such a formulation
> cannot explain the things that natural selection is CLAIMED to explain --
> the abundance of higher adaptation. It is Lame.
Once again, he reverts back to his attack on Natural Selection.
Quote from Laurence Moran:
We have learned much since Darwin's time and it is no longer appropriate to
claim that evolutionary biologists believe that Darwin's theory of Natural
Selection is the best theory of the mechanism of evolution. I can understand
why this point may not be appreciated by the average non-scientist because
natural selection is easy to understand at a superficial level. It has been
widely promoted in the popular press and the image of "survival of the
fittest" is too powerful and too convenient.
During the first part of this century the incorporation of genetics and
population biology into studies of evolution led to a Neo-Darwinian theory
of evolution that recognized the importance of mutation and variation within
a population. Natural selection then became a process that altered the
frequency of genes in a population and this defined evolution. This point of
view held sway for many decades but more recently the classic Neo-Darwinian
view has been replaced by a new concept which includes several other
mechanisms in addition to natural selection. Current ideas on evolution are
usually referred to as the Modern Synthesis which is described by Futuyma;
"The major tenets of the evolutionary synthesis, then, were that
populations contain genetic variation that arises by random (ie. not
adaptively directed) mutation and recombination; that populations evolve by
changes in gene frequency brought about by random genetic drift, gene flow,
and especially natural selection; that most adaptive genetic variants have
individually slight phenotypic effects so that phenotypic changes are
gradual (although some alleles with discrete effects may be advantageous, as
in certain color polymorphisms); that diversification comes about by
speciation, which normally entails the gradual evolution of reproductive
isolation among populations; and that these processes, continued for
sufficiently long, give rise to changes of such great magnitude as to
warrant the designation of higher taxonomic levels (genera, families, and so
forth)."
- Futuyma, D.J. in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates, 1986; p.12
This description would be incomprehensible to Darwin since he was unaware of
genes and genetic drift. The modern theory of the mechanism of evolution
differs from Darwinism in three important respects:
1.. It recognizes several mechanisms of evolution in addition to natural
selection. One of these, random genetic drift, may be as important as
natural selection.
2.. It recognizes that characteristics are inherited as discrete entities
called genes. Variation within a population is due to the presence of
multiple alleles of a gene.
3.. It postulates that speciation is (usually) due to the gradual
accumulation of small genetic changes. This is equivalent to saying that
macroevolution is simply a lot of microevolution.
In other words, the Modern Synthesis is a theory about how evolution works
at the level of genes, phenotypes, and populations whereas Darwinism was
concerned mainly with organisms, speciation and individuals. This is a major
paradigm shift and those who fail to appreciate it find themselves out of
step with the thinking of evolutionary biologists. Many instances of such
confusion can be seen here in the newsgroups, in the popular press, and in
the writings of anti-evolutionists.
(End Quote)
Now it explains here basically that a combination of mutation,
recombination, gene flow, genetic drift, as well as natural selection, are
all a part of what explains adaption. Let me see if I can get this right if
I put it in lay terms:
If a species is dying out due to changes in the environment, there may be a
small chance that a genetic mutation in its otherwise doomed offspring might
have a better chance to reproduce and survive in the new environment than it
would have if the environment had not changed. Therefore once the offspring
with the mutation reproduces all of its offspring would inherit similar
traits, thus the offspring with the new mutation succeeds where the old
mutation fails and dies off. This is just one example though.
Nathan McKaskle
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote in message
news:9pu7p2$974$1...@hydra.bigsky.net...
>
> "Nathan McKaskle" <zil...@zillien.com> wrote in message
> news:3bc28ba3$0$13462
>
> > Another example of the process is determining how
> > fast a species can move, such as the Tyrannosaurus.
> > In quick moving species such as the cheetah, or
> > the velociraptor, the femur bone is much shorter
> > than the fibula. .... So the stories aren't "Just so".
> > Get your facts straight about how things are studied
> > before you go assuming things are just made up.
>
> I didn't say EVERYTHING was made up.
Of course you did, what else would a "just so story" indicate?
Rather, natural selection theory (and
> evolutionary theory too) is so flexible it can be readily adapted to
> whatever data is at hand.
Once again natural selection is just part of the equation. But yes, science
is flexible depending on if it fits the data at hand. This is the
scientific meathod. This is what science is all about. If you call this
structureless then you can dismiss any other area of science as well.
Theory must fit the evidence and what is observed, if new evidence arises
and contridicts a theory, the theory must be re-evaluated in light of the
new evidence. Evidence is studied and interpreted using commonly known
irrefutable facts.
The theory is structureless. In my wording, the
> theory adapts to data like fog adapts to landscape. There is no serious
> testability. That's the issue, not where or how evolutionists get their
> data.
No, the issue IS where and how the data is retrieved and what the data tells
us given common sense and established facts. What you say here goes against
the very foundation of science.
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts56e3p...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > What a surprise. In reality, "biotic message theory" predicts
> > nothing and is non-falsifiable. Anything we find, that's the will
> > of the designer. Anything we don't find, well, that's also the
> > will of the designer. Unless you claim to know the mind of
> > God, it is logically impossible to derive a single coherent
> > prediction from your hypothesis; it is equally impossible to
> > falsify it, for the same reason.
>
> My book is scientific. It never mentions "God". (Except when I am quoting
my
> opponents and THEY refer to "God". Evolutionists do that often, as they
> often use a two-model approach -- 'If it's not God, then it must be
> evolution.' In these arguments they do claim to falsify the idea of "God"
> as creator.) Rather, I refer uniformly to a "designer" and go where the
> evidence leads.
Creationists say if its not evolution it must be God, and not just any god,
their god. The evidence however leads to evolution.
>
> My theory is driven by the data, and makes no claim whatever to know the
> "mind of God". It is like coming across the body of Nicole Brown Simpson.
> That data speaks clearly about the EXISTENCE of a designer who designed
her
> death. The data goes further and tells us many capabilities and
> characteristics of that designer. Such evidence is not flimsy. We often
> execute murderers based on precisely such evidence. It is the same with
my
> theory. It is driven by the data. It coherently explains the data, and
> predicts the patterns would should see, and should not see. It makes
risky
> predictions.
The evidence we base the evolutionary theory on is not flimsy either. The
same way we find data from the evidence at a murder scene, is the same way
data is looked at to explain evolution. Risky? In what way? How is it
risky? Is it risky because it might piss you off?
>
> Everything Adam said above is false.
Once again, no explanation supporting this claim.
>
> > .... Would you mind reading the whole thing
> > before you rush to judgment on it?
>
> That's fair advice. Unfortunately Adam doesn't take his own advice when
it
> comes to books he hasn't read.
Fair enough, I'll be reading your "book" asap.
David Jensen
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote in <9pu8n5$99r$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>:
>
>"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
>news:ts55t9h...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>> What force, in your opinion, caused the shift of
>> allele frequencies in the peppered moths?
>
>Adam keeps (mis-)casting natural selection theory as 'differential
>reproductive success' or a "shift of allele frequencies" and so forth.
>Those formulations are LAME because they do not mention fitness or
>adaptation, therefore they cannot explain adaptation.
How do you think adaptation works?
>This shift -- to a Lame formulation -- is a classic tactic used by
>evolutionists to defend natural selection (i.e. to get around the tautology
>objection, and to show some kind of testability). But such a formulation
>cannot explain the things that natural selection is CLAIMED to explain --
>the abundance of higher adaptation. It is Lame.
>
>> Your repetitive pounding of the same drum is growing
>> quite monotonous. How much like a wolf is a chihuahua?
>
>They are very much alike, indeed, they can even directly interbreed.
You are kidding.
Nathan McKaskle
Hmm seems I have to order it. Would this book be in a Library or a Barnes
and Noble?
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts4vg1c...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > ....
> > Of course creatures can evolve "too far" and get stuck
> > in a niche;
>
> Natural selection theory makes no such prediction.
That was *your* prediction. "Local peaks in the fitness landscape,"
remember?
[snip - points already addressed]
> >> More importantly, the morphological/design gaps within
> >> and surrounding this group DWARF our experimental
> >> demonstrations in their closest organisms today.
> >
> > I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Are you
> > implying that the change from a wolf to a chihuahua was
> > greater than the change from a reptile to a mammal?
>
> The transition from reptile to a mammal requires significant
> morphological/design changes. This dwarfs a change from, say, wolf to
> chihuahua. This point is not complicated. (In case you've forgotten, the
> wolf and chihuahua can directly interbreed, they're that close.)
How do you know this? Have there been any experiments done recently?
If you don't intend to back up your claims, don't make them.
All this obscurantism of yours systematically fails to address the point.
You haven't even tried to explain why the therapsids aren't transitional,
other than an obvious straw man of comparing them to invertebrates as a
whole as if there was an equal amount of diversity in either group. Whether
they're paraphyletic or not has no bearing whatsoever on their transitional
status. The therapsid series is a clear lineage and does demonstrate gradual
change. Why do you keep running from this?
Adam Marczyk
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts56e3p...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > What a surprise. In reality, "biotic message theory" predicts
> > nothing and is non-falsifiable. Anything we find, that's the will
> > of the designer. Anything we don't find, well, that's also the
> > will of the designer. Unless you claim to know the mind of
> > God, it is logically impossible to derive a single coherent
> > prediction from your hypothesis; it is equally impossible to
> > falsify it, for the same reason.
>
> My book is scientific. It never mentions "God".
Uh-huh. Who are you trying to fool?
> (Except when I am quoting my
> opponents and THEY refer to "God". Evolutionists do that often, as they
> often use a two-model approach -- 'If it's not God, then it must be
> evolution.' In these arguments they do claim to falsify the idea of "God"
> as creator.) Rather, I refer uniformly to a "designer" and go where the
> evidence leads.
>
> My theory is driven by the data, and makes no claim whatever to know the
> "mind of God". It is like coming across the body of Nicole Brown Simpson.
> That data speaks clearly about the EXISTENCE of a designer who designed
her
> death.
Except that, before we ever discovered her body, we knew for a fact that
humans existed, that they were capable of committing murders, and that there
were naturalistic mechanisms by which they could do this. Your situation is
not at all analogous and it's disingenuous to compare the two as if they
were. Yours is more like finding a body with a broken neck at the bottom of
the stairs and arguing to the jury that the evidence clearly points to the
conclusion that invisible elves tripped him.
> The data goes further and tells us many capabilities and
> characteristics of that designer. Such evidence is not flimsy. We often
> execute murderers based on precisely such evidence. It is the same with
my
> theory. It is driven by the data. It coherently explains the data, and
> predicts the patterns would should see, and should not see. It makes
risky
> predictions.
But if those predictions are falsified, you can simply claim oops, guess the
designer decided not to do things that way after all, and generate a whole
new set of random predictions. "Biotic message theory" is impossible to
falsify. As I said, creationism is not science because it is compatible with
any imaginable state of affairs. Whatever we find, that's God's will.
An example: A review I read of your book online suggests that the best way
for a designer to send an unequivocal message that life was specially
created would be to give each species its own genetic code. This would make
common descent a completely untenable explanation. Why did the designer not
do this? Can you give any answer other than "that's just the way he wanted
it"? Of course not - you can speculate and offer just-so stories, but you
can't come up with any solid, testable explanation. There is no imaginable
evidence which "biotic message theory" could not explain.
[snip]
Ferrous Patella
>
>
>"John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
>
>> So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>
>The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
>to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY AUDIENCES
>by popularizers of evolution.
>
>Walter ReMine
I personally got "niche ecology" in 9th grade biology.
--
Ferrous Patella
Please note all spellings are corrected to Oxford & Webster Solar Dictionary,
3rd ed, (c)MMCCXII
howard hershey
----------
In article <ts3h95e...@corp.supernews.com>, "Adam Marczyk"
<ebon...@excite.com> wrote:
> science <sci...@minn.net> wrote in message
> news:9prkpa$1gs$1...@hydra.bigsky.net...
>>
>> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:trvk5v...@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>>
>> > Okay, so Futuyma made an error. So? That hardly casts
>> > doubt on the validity of all of evolution.
>>
>> That once again misrepresents my point. Here it is again: Futuyma
> offered
>> a "test" of natural selection theory, but it is not a test. It is a
> phony.
>> There exists no "silver bullet", because there is no test. My position is
>> opposite of how Adam Marczyk keeps pretending it to be.
>
> I gave two perfectly good tests in my previous reply. Would you like me to
> repeat them?
>
>> > .... Fair enough. I agree with you - Futuyma made a mistake.
>>
>> Thanks, we agree then. And Futuyma's phony "test" is the same one offered
>> by many evolutionists, starting with Darwin.
>
> No, his test is not "phony," merely in error. The former is an entirely
> unjustified ad hominem attack that speaks to Futuyma's motives, as if you
> could somehow know whether he was being deliberately dishonest. The latter
> is a simple mistake. I posted a corrected version.
>
>> ******
>>
>> > ....
>> > But if we saw this all over the place - lots of different
>> > species with altruistic adaptations which confer
>> > their possessors with no obvious advantages - then
>> > we would have to start seriously questioning evolution.
>>
>> Notice how Adam Marczyk retreats far backwards from Darwin's test. Here
> is
>> Darwin:
>>
>> "If it could be proved that any part of the structure
>> OF ANY ONE species had been formed for the
>> exclusive good of another species, IT WOULD
>> ANNIHILATE MY THEORY ..." (Darwin, emphasis added)
>>
>> Marczyk says if we saw it "all over the place" in "lots of different
>> species", then we would have to "start seriously questioning evolution."
>> Yes, that's definitely a retreat from Darwin.
>
> No, it's not. Here, allow me to requote my previous reply:
>
> Natural selection could be falsified if we found a species with an
> altruistic adaptation that does it no good *and never did*. Now, I'm sure I
> know what your response will be - that's a test that's impossible to fail,
> because no matter what truly altruistic structures we found we could always
> just claim they served some unspecified purpose in an ancestral organism.
> Fair enough. However, as several posters pointed out it's pretty clear that
> in dandelions the sexual species are primitive and the asexual species are
> of recently derived stock; it's no mystery why asexual dandelions have
> flowers or nectar. There just hasn't been enough time to select them out
> yet. Now, if only the asexual dandelions existed in nature with no hint of
> ancestors, that would be a puzzling problem. But if we saw this all over the
> place - lots of different species with altruistic adaptations which confer
> their possessors with no obvious advantages - then we would have to start
> seriously questioning evolution.
>
> This is perfectly in accord with Darwin's test above. The nectar of
> dandelions was *not* formed for the exclusive good of another species - it
> evolved in sexual dandelion species that *do* derive a benefit from insect
> pollination. When cross-breeding caused an asexual species of dandelion to
> emerge, the nectar and flowers became vestigial structures serving no good
> purpose that have not yet been selected out. But they did not form in the
> first place for the exclusive good of another species; they originally
> formed for the benefit of the dandelions. Make sense?
>
Moreover, this would certainly even be the case if you regard dandelions
(the entire group) as a created 'kind' rather than looking solely at the
"degenerate" asexual member of this created 'kind'. Or does the definition
of 'kind' narrow into a species at this point, with the asexual dandelion
being "special created" separately from the other dandelions? If so, the
definition of 'kind' seems to be quite elastic enough to cover whatever
distortions you want to ascribe to it.
>> ******
>>
>> > .... The simple test of falsification for natural selection
>> > would be to see if every creature experienced the exact
>> > same reproductive success ...
>>
>> That's like saying "the simple test of falsification for astrology would
> be
>> to see if every human has the exact same personality." As many
> philosophers
>> of science (including Popper) have pointed out, if one has to go to such
>> EXTREMES to conjure up a "test", then a theory is not really testable
> after
>> all. It's like saying Newtonian mechanics must be tested "by seeing
> whether
>> planets move in squares instead of ellipses" -- that too is not a test,
> for
>> no one operating without benefit of those theories would make such
>> unrealistic predictions anyway. Thankfully, unlike astrology and natural
>> selection, Newtonian mechanics offers serious tests.
>>
>> In other words, Adam Marczyk's above "test" of natural selection is
> another
>> phony test. It does not put the theory at risk.
>
> Perhaps the problem is on your end. Natural selection is an observed and
> obvious fact; asking what would falsify it is rather like asking what would
> falsify gravity.
That said, selective pressure on particular phenotypes relative to another
(which is how relative fitness is determined) ranges from strongly positive
to strongly negative and there are many examples that exhibit 0 or
effectively 0 (selection has minimal effect relative to chance fluctuations)
relative fitness. In these cases, there is no effect of 'natural selection'
and pure chance fluctuations (random walk) is the major factor on the
relative frequencies of the phenotypes.
> That's why one would have to go to such ludicrous extremes
> to derive a true test.
It is so obvious that natural selection occurs in the real biosphere that
you have to hypothesize patently riduculous results or conditions to claim
that natural selection does not occur. For example, if there were no
natural selection *at all* in nature, you would expect to see *all*
different phenotypes, no matter how grotesque and apparently unviable,
having exactly the same level of reproductive success. That is, in a world
without natural selection, *all* phenotypes might behave like selectively
neutral phenotypes relative to each other. It is a fact that in the real
biosphere *some* but not *all* phenotypes are selectively neutral wrt each
other.
Another way that one could have a biosphere that did not exhibit natural
selection would be to have species that exhibit no phenotypic variation
among members and that have no mechanism for generating such variation.
That is because measuring and observing selection requires a comparison of
different phenotypes in a particular local environment. If there were no
different phenotypes, there can be no differential selection of phenotypes.
However, in the real world we not only can observe differences in phenotype,
we know of observed mechanisms for generating phenotypic variation (sex,
mutation) within species.
Yet another way that one could have a biosphere without natural selection
would be to do without reproduction (both asexual or sexual). Eternal,
unchanged or non-reproducing organisms would not undergo natural selection.
They might die (but that would be extinction), but they would not
differentially reproduce.
Those are the key underlying assumptions of natural selection: that there be
phenotypic variation in species and that this variation difference sometimes
have an effect on reproductive success. When the difference does have a
differential effect on reproductive success, you have natural selection.
When it doesn't, you don't.
> And, as I pointed out, predicting that every creature
> would experience the exact same reproductive success would not be an
> unrealistic expectation in a creationist worldview of immutable created
> kinds.
>
>> ******
>>
>> Adam Marczyk sells the notion that experimental demonstrations of
> biological
>> change can be extrapolated virtually without end:
>>
>> >....
>> > If human-guided selection can do that much in only a
>> > few hundred or thousand years, is it really such a big
>> > leap to believe that natural selection can do even more
>> > over eons?
>>
>> In truth, the fitness terrain has contour, with hills and valleys,
> mountains
>> and deep crevasses. Under these circumstances, our experiments concerning
>> it cannot be extrapolated. Natural selection theory itself indicates
> this.
>
> Our experiments (such as producing chihuahuas from wolves, or maize from
> wild grass) can indeed be extrapolated because we know such changes do occur
> in nature. That is what transitional fossil series and genetic nested
> hierarchies tell us - they provide indisputable evidence that life has
> undergone broad change over time. I'm not necessarily saying all of this
> change must have been mediated by natural selection, but as I'm sure you'll
> agree, we're not arguing whether natural selection can produce such drastic
> changes - we're arguing whether such changes have occurred at all.
>
>> > If you still find yourself incredulous, there are
>> > plenty of transitional fossil series to soothe your
>> > skepticism. The therapsid series, for example,
>> > is extremely good. And how about those new
>> > whale fossils?
>>
>> Even in the evolutionist's best selected examples of macroevolution, the
>> morphological gaps between life forms DWARFS our experimental
> demonstrations
>> of biological change. Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
>> SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
>
> Pure denial that completely avoids addressing the evidence. Let's see, Dr.
> ReMine, if you can answer a question every creationist I've ever known has
> dodged.
>
> Let's take, as an example, the reptile-to-mammal transitional series, the
> cynodont therapsids. If this series does not convince you, why not? If you
> do not accept it as a true transitional series, what would have to be
> different about it for you to accept it as such? What's missing, in other
> words? Will you answer this question honestly, or have you, like the
> creationists at the ICR and Answers in Genesis, already made up your mind
> and refuse to be swayed by any evidence, no matter how compelling?
>
>> -- Walter ReMine
>> Fellow with Discovery Institute
>> _The Biotic Message_
>> http://www1.minn.net/~science
>
John Segerson
quotations.
science wrote:
>
> "John Segerson" <sem...@olywa.net> wrote in message
> news:3BC26578...@olywa.net...
>
> John Segerson writes:
>
> > Let's take this in the reverse direction. First
> > of all, large scale change has, most exquisitely,
> > been observed in the fossil record.
>
> No. Change can only be observed today. It must be inferred (however
> correctly or incorrectly) in the fossil record. Changes we can observe
> today become the MEASURING STICK of morphological/design gaps in the fossil
> record. As I've said before, natural selection theory makes no coherent
> predictions in favor of large-scale evolution. "Change" within the fossil
> record must be inferred by finding a favorable comparison with change we can
> experimentally demonstrate today. This is accurate, at least as a first
> pass at a methodology.
I'll grant you the quibble that "inferred" is not exactly "observed,"
but that doesn't really weaken my point. I'll restate my claim that
large scale change is robustly inferred by the fossil record. Your
insistence that large scale change must be experimentally demonstrated
today in order to infer it in the larger time intervals of the fossil
record is simply a canard, a rhetorical trick. The tactic is to
arificially create an insurmountable, albeit unnecessary, bar to clear.
The evidence in the fossil record was persuasive a hundred years ago,
and has been reinforced by the evidence since then.
> >....
> > There is no "theory of natural selection."
Out of sequence, out of context. Showing your stripes.
> That's a fair statement. At least, there is no coherent, TESTABLE theory of
> natural selection, testable in the manner evolutionists routinely employ in
> their story-telling.
More word games. Natural selection is a process, a demonstrable part of
the theory of evolution.
> > The sequence of specimens, IN BOTH AGE
> > AND MORPHOLOGY, is extensive and compelling
> > in support of the theory of evolution. .... Next, the
> > mechanism of evolution, which includes natural
> > selection as a factor, most definitely and defensibly
> > explains large scale change in species phenotype.
> > FINALLY, THIS IS A TESTABLE CLAIM, SINCE
> > SPECIMENS THAT ARE OUT OF PLACE -- IN
> > TIME, PLACE, OR MORPHOLOGY -- CLEARLY
> > FALSIFY IT. (Emphasis added)
Why do you need to add "emphasis" here? Do you need to make it look
like I'm shouting? Why don't you just respond to it as I wrote it?
> That's classic illusion-making. It sounds so impressive. So convincing.
> You've heard it before.
Oh, I see. You need to be derisive.
> It reality, it is a phony test. It does not put evolutionary theory at
> risk. Why? Because for two fossils to be "out-of-sequence" one must FIRST
> identify that they have an ancestor-descendant relationship. Then evolution
> predicts the ancestor should occur lower in the fossil record. Meanwhile,
> modern evolutionists (especially starting about thirty years ago) strongly
> tend to avoid identifying real ancestors. This neatly reverses the roles
> between an evolutionist and anti-evolutionist -- for the ANTI-evolutionist
> must now identify clear-cut ancestor-descendant relationships in order to
> employ this test! Since such a pattern does not exist (particularly over a
> large-scale of macroevolution), it insulates evolutionary theory from this
> test.
>
> The test is phony. It is bluster, spoken by evolutionists who do not yet
> recognize the hollowness of evolutionary theory.
And the above is nonsense ... bluster on your part. Ancestor-descendent
relationships are not so hard to infer, and it is often done with a
preponderance of several lines of evidence. Creationists usually insist
(another rhetorical trick) that ancestor-descendent relationships are
unproven unless the descendent individual is found issuing directly from
the ancestor. With this logic, they can deny even the obvious up to
that level.
John Segerson
science
> Of course creatures can evolve "too far"...
Natural selection theory makes no such prediction.
******
> The therapsid series is a clear lineage and does
> demonstrate gradual change.
The morphological/design gaps in the therapsid series are HUGE by comparison
to anything we can experimentally demonstrate today. For example,
jaw-joints supposedly moving to form a middle ear -- we can demonstrate no
such thing today. In an effort to span the gaps, evolutionists extrapolate
(i.e. exaggerate) our experimental demonstrations today, but natural
selection theory itself indicates that such extrapolation is not justified.
Also, it's not a clear lineage if the ancestors are unclear. Evolutionists
do not even agree among themselves on the ancestors in the therapsid
"series", and generally leave the ancestors unidentified. Evolutionists
rarely even attempt to identify ancestors anymore, rather, they rely on
various dendrograms (cladograms and phenograms) where no real ancestors are
identified.
Typically, there are too many diverse "candidate ancestors" to choose
from -- in other words, the ancestors are not clear. The illusion of
lineage is frequently created (as in this case) by LEAVING OUT (obscuring,
avoiding, not mentioning) the large DIVERSITY of the various organisms in
the vicinity of the so-called "lineage". A clear-cut lineage requires an
ABSENCE or void of organisms orthogonal to the lineage. In the case of
therapsids (and elsewhere) those void regions are filled with organisms.
This diversity thwarts the attempt to identify ancestors and lineage. This
is the case with therapsids, and elsewhere.
> You haven't even tried to explain why the therapsids
> aren't transitional, other than an obvious straw man
> of comparing them to invertebrates as a whole as
> if there was an equal amount of diversity in either group.
> Whether they're paraphyletic or not has no bearing
> whatsoever on their transitional status.
Therapsids and invertebrates are both paraphyletic groups -- which are
highly diverse groups. Therapsids are not as diverse as invertebrates, but
then again, the so-called therapsid "lineage" doesn't have as far to span as
an invertebrate lineage would. The point is that in both cases the
diversity is too great to identify a lineage. It would be like pointing at
a cloud of data points and claiming to see a clear lineage therein. That is
what evolutionists are doing with therapsids (and elsewhere).
******
> If you don't intend to back up your claims, don't make them.
My claims are documented in my book. And no, I won't read it to you.
science
"Ferrous Patella" <mail1...@pop.net> wrote in message
news:3bc31463$0$11213
>>> So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>>
> >The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of
>> natural selection to PREVENT large-scale evolution
>> is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY AUDIENCES
>> by popularizers of evolution.
>
> I personally got "niche ecology" in 9th grade biology.
Mere "niche ecology" is not the issue. The point is that natural selection
theory contains everything it needs to PREVENT large-scale evolution, and
this point is not mentioned to lay audiences by popularizers of evolution.
Rather, they sell the illusion I call "naive natural selection", the notion
that large-scale evolution is simple, obvious, unavoidable, and fast. This
is a key point in the debate over natural selection, yet evolutionary
popularizers routinely ignore it.
Noelie S. Alito
news:3bc2fb5b$0$13455$39ce...@nnrp1.twtelecom.net...
>
Don't fall for his line of crap. If he can't defend his *ideas*
in a public forum, and insists on people going out to find
an obscure vanity press book (or paying $45+ and waiting
4-6 weeks to get it through something like Amazon), you
should feel no obligation to read it.
Think about it. When was the last time you encountered
someone who had an innovative idea, yet wouldn't want
to discuss or defend it? He just uses the book as a fallback
excuse to whine that people "misrepresent" him.
Noelie, regretting her past purchase of 2 copies of _tBM_
science
> It's testable and easily demonstrable that differential
> reproductive success among individuals of different
> genotypes can indeed affect changes to a
> population's gene pool. What do you want "natural
> selection theory" to be?
For starters, I want the evolutionists' CLAIMS about natural selection
theory to match reality. They claim natural selection theory is a testable
explanation of higher adaptation. It isn't.
Notice above, his version of natural selection theory doesn't mention
fitness or adaptation, therefore it cannot possibly explain adaptation.
That is what I call a Lame formulation, for it cannot take evolutionists
where they wish to go.
Evolutionists often shift natural selection to a Lame formulation, in order
to avoid the tautology objection and to create an illusion of testability.
Natural selection theory is like a three shell-game at the carnival.
Evolutionists shift it in order to meet any SINGLE line of objection, then
they shift again to meet the next objection, and so forth. It's a fun
process to watch in action. I don't think evolutionists are even aware
they're doing it.
> At this point, putting a well-substantiated theory
> at risk would be rather like looking for tests that
> invalidate the atomic theory or the germ theory of
> disease.
No, atomic theory and germ theory have structure, and make risky
predictions. Natural selection is STRUCTURELESS, and makes no risky
predictions.
"Natural selection theory" -- as the term is often used by evolutionists --
amounts merely to a research program into the causes of long-term survival
(or lack thereof). In this sense, it is an area of research (like physics
or psychology), not a theory. And WHATEVER is found is taken to support and
further that body of research. No observation could put it at risk, because
it makes no predictions. It is not a theory -- it is an area of research.
The above writer uses the term in that way. This is one of the many shifts
that evolutionists make in their attempt to defend natural selection theory.
> Natural selection is essentially an automatic "pump"
> transferring "information" about the selecting
> environment into the population's gene pool.
Once again, the above writer characterizes natural selection without
mentioning fitness or adaptation. If a theory doesn't mention adaptation,
then it cannot explain adaptation. The above theory speaks of "pumping
information" but makes no attempt to identify what KIND of information. Fit
information? Bad information? Worthless information? Since it doesn't
identify that, it cannot explain adaptation.
This again is a common move by evolutionists. That is, they shift natural
selection to a Lame formulation, in order to avoid the tautology objection
and create the illusion of testability.
> Those "evolutionary changes in their population"
> are the adaptations. That's what "adaptations"
> are: any evolutionary changes mediated by
> natural selection.
That's circular. He defines "adaptations" as the 'things created by natural
selection' -- whatever those are. Therefore, when natural selection is used
to 'explain' adaptations it is circular reasoning.
He arrived at this by shifting first to a Lame formulation (in an attempt to
avoid the tautology objection and create the illusion of testability). Then
I said that is Lame at explaining adaptations, he now shifts back to
creating a tautology with circular reasoning. (He does that by re-defining
"adaptation".)
The shell-game continues ...
>> Natural selection theory does not say large-scale
>> change is even possible.
>
> Actually right. Natural selection theory is merely about
> small scale changes [microevolution, changes within
> populations within one species].
> .... ....
We agree.
>> Gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today)
>> is SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life.
>
> And that claim is false, unless I don't understand
> what you mean by "SYSTEMATICALLY missing
> from the pattern of life". If it's demonstrable today,
> doesn't that mean it exists in the "pattern of life"?
> Anyway, again, there are indeed gradual species-level
> transitions known both in the fossil record and among
> extant forms.
I didn't say "completely" missing, I said "SYSTEMATICALLY" missing. That
is, gradual change (of the kind demonstratable today) occurs here and there,
in many small pockets. But does not continue over a large scale, it does
not span substantially large morphological distance. Rather, there are
countless morphological/design gaps, not just here or there, not just
piecemeal gaps, but SYSTEMATICALLY placed gaps that thwart our attempts to
conjoin all life by means of comparable experimental demonstrations. In
other words, gradual change (of the kind demonstrable today) is
SYSTEMATICALLY missing from the pattern of life. (This observation is a key
reason why punk-ek theory was proposed.)
science
> If a species is dying out due to changes in the
> environment, there may be a small chance that
> a genetic mutation in its otherwise doomed offspring
> might have a better chance to reproduce and
> survive in the new environment than it would have
> if the environment had not changed. Therefore
> once the offspring with the mutation reproduces
> all of its offspring would inherit similar traits, thus
> the offspring with the new mutation succeeds where
> the old mutation fails and dies off. This is just one
> example though.
Everything he said above about natural selection could be accepted, yet
STILL it doesn't predict that large-scale evolution is possible. Natural
selection theory makes no such prediction, much less a scientifically
testable prediction. Rather, the fitness terrain has contour, and that
contour presents barriers that can PREVENT large-scale evolution.
(Note: His quote from Laurence Moran and Futuyma is unhelpful to this issue
and the issue of testability.)
howard hershey
----------
In article <3bc26e82...@news.ptdprolog.net>, wf...@ptd.net wrote:
> On 8 Oct 2001 22:08:28 -0400, "science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
>>news:ts4f78d...@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>>> I'm sorry life isn't as neat and simple as you'd like it to be, but ...
>>
>>The issue isn't whether life is "neat and simple". The issue is that the
>>central evolutionary claims for natural selection theory are not testable.
>
> really?
>
> god, i hope no one tells francis ayala that. he has a description of
> his work in experimental evolutionary biology on his webpage at UC
> irvine. guess he didnt know you were gonna say that.
>
>>
>>
>>
>>Precisely! "Natural selection theory" is not a theory.
I agree. "Natural selection" is not a 'theory'. It is a mathematical
observation and description of the way that real variations in real species,
when compared, interact with a real environment. It is an *observed
mechanism* for changing or modifying phenotype in organisms. I have also
pointed out that because natural selection, as a mathematical description,
passes through a zero point, there are many cases of variations, which, when
compared are seen not to be subject to natural selection in that environment
but are selectively neutral. Selectively neutral phenotypes drift (do a
random walk).
>>It is merely a
>>structureless repository for all the just-so stories that haven't yet been
>>discarded.
I agree that many just-so stories in evolution do use natural selection as a
potential mechanism for modifying structure or process, and many of them
will be discarded as evidence points out specific problems with that
interpretation. The reason why natural selection is used as a potential
*mechanism* to explain the modifications of phenotype seen in the fossil
record is simply because it has been *observed* that natural selection,
which is a very real mechanism for producing changes in organismal
phenotypes, can very powerfully and quickly result in modification of
structure and process when the proper conditions are present (the
pre-existence of a randomly generated genetically-based phenotypic variant
that is favored by a new or changed environmental condition).
Examples of rapid phenotypic change in a population over very short periods
of time (geologically speaking) by the mechanism of natural selection have
been directly observed.
There are other *known* mechanisms that can modify structure or process, but
they tend to be weaker and less directed toward the local optimization to
environment (and changes in environment) that selection produces. It is the
*fact* that natural selection is directional, that it specifically leads to
optimization to local conditions, that makes it the obvious choice of known
mechanism when one is discussing functionally important differences in the
fossil record. It is likely that speciation (complete reproductive
isolation), OTOH, more typically arises because of a slower and more random
process of drift and random events during times of population isolation
rather than being due to selective pressure. This would account for the
wide and apparently unsystematic variation in the degree of reproductive
isolation seen in nature today.
Science, of course, always prefers *known* mechanisms to unknown ones. And
natural selection is one known mechanism for producing 'directed' (toward
local optimization) changes in phenotypes in populations. Do you have
another scientifically *known* mechanism that you prefer?
>>It's not a unified, or structured, or testable theory.
Differential fitness can be calculated. Natural selection, as a mechanism,
can be determined to occur (or not to occur) on the basis of this score.
Every time one measures differential fitness, one is determining the
existence or not (i.e., testing) of natural selection for that pair of
phenotypes in that specified environment. The fact is that natural
selection occurs and is an important mechanism that regulates the state of a
population's genome.
Your argument is making the claim that natural selection, which is a
mechanism that is known to modify the collective genome of a population to
optimize its fit to local conditions, has limits beyond which it cannot
work. And it does. For natural selection to work to modify phenotypes over
long periods of time there must be a continuing source of genetic variation
into a population. And there is. [Note: most of the 'traits' observed to be
involved in most evolutionary change -- modification of forelimb bones into
those seen in wings, say -- are what are called 'quantitative traits', so
any constraint on evolutionary change will have to deal with such
'quantitative traits'.] Now if you have some evidence that can convincingly
show that genetic variation cannot occur beyond a certain point, you might
have a point.
>>If
>>evolutionists said science is RESEARCHING the causes of survival (an lack of
>>survival), then that would accurately reflect what is taking place.
>
> see the above cite
>
> and that one cite is 1 more than all creationists are doing in
> researching creationism.
>
science
"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
>>> How much like a wolf is a chihuahua?
>>
>>They are very much alike, indeed, they can
>> even directly interbreed.
>
> You are kidding.
It's a fact. The canine group (containing wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals,
and the various dog breeds) forms an interbreeding group, linked indelibly
by abilities to interbreed. There are many such groups, and they are of
great interest to creation research and Discontinuity Systematics.
There is the camel/llama group
The sheep/goat group
The anatidea group (swans, ducks, geese, pintails, etc.)
The finch group (including all Darwin's finches from the Galapagos Islands)
The cat group (lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, house cats, etc) -- which
now seems to comprise one (or perhaps two to three) group(s), based on their
ability to interbreed.
It's an exciting area of research, straightforward in concept, and long
overdue. It's amazing evolutionists hadn't constructed comprehensive
databases of this key biological information.
howard hershey
----------
In article <ts4vp92...@corp.supernews.com>, "Adam Marczyk"
<ebon...@excite.com> wrote:
> science <sci...@minn.net> wrote in message
> news:9ptt35$8c1$1...@hydra.bigsky.net...
>>
>> "John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
>> news:1f10gyt.1dku03a1q8k4tyN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
>>
>> >> Easily. The fitness terrain has contour, and that contour
>> >> can PREVENT large-scale evolution. The very mechanisms
>> >> that evolutionists embrace can PREVENT evolution. For
>> >> example, a species can get 'stuck' at the top of a local fitness
>> >> peak, and held there forever by survival of the fittest. Nothing
>> >> about that is incompatible with natural selection theory.
>> >
>> > So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>>
>> The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of natural selection
>> to PREVENT large-scale evolution is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY
> AUDIENCES
>> by popularizers of evolution.
Natural selection is a mechanism that optimizes organisms to a particular
local environment. If that environment is stable, the organism will be
phenotypically adapted to that environment in the places that environment
exists continually (extinction, of course, also happens, because sometimes
these environments disappear). And there are, of course, many examples of
this stability at the *functionally relevant* morphological level that
selection has the most influence on. That, after all, is why there are
still apes that have more of the features of the common ancestor than humans
do. That does not mean, however, that these *relatively* phenotypically
unchanged organisms were not subject to evolutionary change. There are
mechanisms other than selection at work (especially neutral drift) causing
evolutionary change. And the DNA of the modern relatively (relatively
because modern species are never exactly the same as truly ancient ones)
phenotypically unchanged descendant shows evidence of these selectively
neutral changes that are a function of time since proposed divergence.
>
[snip]
David Jensen
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote in <9pvk9q$d0j$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>:
>
>"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
>
>>>> How much like a wolf is a chihuahua?
>>>
>>>They are very much alike, indeed, they can
>>> even directly interbreed.
>>
>> You are kidding.
>
>It's a fact. The canine group (containing wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals,
>and the various dog breeds) forms an interbreeding group, linked indelibly
>by abilities to interbreed. There are many such groups, and they are of
>great interest to creation research and Discontinuity Systematics.
I understand that they are genetically capable of interbreeding, but
they are mechanically incapable. A female wolf will disdain a chihuahua
and will not breed with it. A female chihuahua is incapable of breeding
with or bringing to term a wolf mix pup.
science
>> I didn't say EVERYTHING was made up.
>
> Of course you did, what else would a "just so
> story" indicate?
No. Even astrologers don't make up *everything*. Rather, they base their
just-so stories on facts about planetary positions, and (often) on facts
they already KNOW about the person's personality. In the same way, the
evolutionists' just-so stories don't make up everything.
> Once again natural selection is just part of
> the equation. But yes, science is flexible depending
> on if it fits the data at hand. This is the scientific
> method. This is what science is all about. If you
> call this structureless then you can dismiss any
> other area of science as well.
The above author indicates natural selection is effectively merely a bin,
into which we place the facts accumulated by science research. I wouldn't
have a problem with that, if that were really all that evolutionists claimed
about natural selection. But it isn't. Rather they continually shift back
and forth so as to avoid any single line of criticism. In this way, they
create the illusion that natural selection is a testable explanation of
large-scale evolution. This is the evolutionary shell-game. The above is
one of the classic shifts in the shell-game.
> Theory must fit the evidence and what is observed, if
> new evidence arises and contradicts a theory, the
> theory must be re-evaluated in light of the new
> evidence. Evidence is studied and interpreted
> using commonly known irrefutable facts.
Natural selection theory (and evolutionary theory) is a structureless
smorgasbord of naturalistic mechanisms. From this smorgasbord,
evolutionists SELECT whatever NATURAL mechanisms best seem to fit the data.
I call this 'NATURAL' SELECTION!
Once again, it is not a testable theory. It is a structureless smorgasbord.
> No, the issue IS where and how the data is retrieved
> and what the data tells us given common sense
> and established facts.
I will accept anything you can experimentally demonstrate. I know of no
creationist who wouldn't.
Moreover, natural selection theory itself tells us that the experimental
demonstrations cannot be extrapolated. The fitness terrain has contour, and
the contour can PREVENT large-scale evolution.
Yet our experimental demonstrations SYSTEMATICALLY fail to span the
morphological/design gaps in the living and fossil record.
> What you say here goes against the very foundation of science.
No. Evolutionists, in ALL their court cases, have endorsed testability as
key to science. Natural selection is not a testable theory of large-scale
evolution, therefore -- by their own criteria -- it cannot be scientific.
Ferrous Patella
>
>
>"Ferrous Patella" <mail1...@pop.net> wrote in message
>news:3bc31463$0$11213
>
>>>> So, there's stabilising selection. Yawn...
>>>
>> >The point is neither boring nor untrue. The capacity of
>>> natural selection to PREVENT large-scale evolution
>>> is generally NOT MENTIONED TO LAY AUDIENCES
>>> by popularizers of evolution.
>>
>> I personally got "niche ecology" in 9th grade biology.
>
>Mere "niche ecology" is not the issue. The point is that natural selection
>theory contains everything it needs to PREVENT large-scale evolution, and
>this point is not mentioned to lay audiences by popularizers of evolution.
>Rather, they sell the illusion I call "naive natural selection", the notion
>that large-scale evolution is simple, obvious, unavoidable, and fast. This
>is a key point in the debate over natural selection, yet evolutionary
>popularizers routinely ignore it.
Can you explain what niche ecology is? While you are at it, try "regression to
the mean".
>-- Walter ReMine
James Acker
: "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
: news:ts4ohbt...@corp.supernews.com...
: The therapsids themselves are a paraphyletic group, a group not united by
: possession of a common feature, but rather by the ABSENCE of a feature.
: Paraphyletic groups are large conglomerates, or repositories, for scraps,
: leftovers, and organisms that do not easily classify in the usual way.
: Invertebrates are an example, as they are described by the ABSENCE of
: vertebra. Paraphyletic groups, (being large repositories of otherwise
: disassociated organisms), are highly diverse and do not form a narrow
: lineage.
Are artiodactyls paraphyletic?
: -- Walter ReMine
: Fellow with Discovery Institute
: _The Biotic Message_
: http://www1.minn.net/~science
Good group for you to be associated with.
Jim Acker
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jim Acker
jac...@gl.umbc.edu
"Since we are assured that an all-wise Creator has observed the
most exact proportions, of number, weight, and measure, in the
make of all things, the most likely way therefore, to get any
insight into the nature of those parts of the creation, which
come within our observation, must in all reason be to number,
weigh, and measure." - Stephen Hales
howard hershey
----------
In article <3bc2ee78...@fl.news.verio.net>, pdu...@magicnet.net (Dunk)
wrote:
> On 8 Oct 2001 21:37:09 -0400, "science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"howard hershey" <hers...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
>>news:9pso8a$1u1$1...@jetsam.uits.indiana.edu...
>>
>>> Natural selection is an observation of nature that
>>> has been seen many times in many different ways.
>>
>>The key claim, the claim under dispute, is whether natural selection theory
>>explains large-scale, higher adaptations in a testable way.
The key claim is whether the *observed* *mechanism* of natural selection is
able to explain (is consistent with) the *observed* branching pattern of
phenotypic changes (almost all the changes seen are modifications of
pre-existing structures) that have been seen in the fossil record. For
example, is selection able to explain the morphing of two bones in the jaw
of early reptiles into the two bones in the ear of modern mammals. [You
might want to ask how we know that the same two bones are involved.]
Another mechanism that might be used to explain this is an initial selection
for the bones becoming unnecessary for the jaw function, at which point they
are "redundant, functionless" bones. Subsequent chance events then, allow
them to start being selected for a new function. This is opposed to a
theory that excludes such a transient "redundant, functionless" state and
has a more gradual morphing, with the bones always serving some utility in
hearing (as, for example, the jaw of a hippo does today).
These explanations are proposed because they use mechanisms that are known
to exist. I could clearly say that a hypothetical posited entity (a HYPE)
caused all these changes, either in each and every fossil showing
intermediacy or somewhere else, but there is no known mechanism of
HYPE-generated changes in organismal phenotypes. No one has ever seen an
example of a HYPE poofing organisms into existence or poofing functional
structures into existence.
>>It does not.
>>It does not even predict that large-scale evolution is possible.
>>(Regardless of allowing vast amounts of time.) That claim is made by
>>evolutionists themselves, not by natural selection theory.
>
[snip]
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:ts61oso...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> > Of course creatures can evolve "too far"...
>
> Natural selection theory makes no such prediction.
>
> ******
>
> > The therapsid series is a clear lineage and does
> > demonstrate gradual change.
>
> The morphological/design gaps in the therapsid series are HUGE by
comparison
> to anything we can experimentally demonstrate today. For example,
> jaw-joints supposedly moving to form a middle ear -- we can demonstrate no
> such thing today. In an effort to span the gaps, evolutionists
extrapolate
> (i.e. exaggerate) our experimental demonstrations today, but natural
> selection theory itself indicates that such extrapolation is not
justified.
And this proves your argument how? How does this prove creation? How does
your attack on natural selection, which is only a part of the process (you
dont seem to understand this), prove anything about creation? Your sentence
here "In an effort to span the gaps, evolutionists extrapolate our
experimental demonstrations today, but natural selection theory itself
indicates that such extrapolation is not justified." makes no sense at all.
The "exaggeration" as you would call it is called punctual equilibrium, and
really has nothing to do with natural selection. Your complete
misunderstanding of the entire subject gives you no ground to argue.
> Also, it's not a clear lineage if the ancestors are unclear.
Evolutionists
> do not even agree among themselves on the ancestors in the therapsid
> "series", and generally leave the ancestors unidentified.
Where'd you get this idea? Give us links to valid (non creation biased)
sites that state this.
>Evolutionists
> rarely even attempt to identify ancestors anymore, rather, they rely on
> various dendrograms (cladograms and phenograms) where no real ancestors
are
> identified.
What is it with these outrageous claims like this that have no data to back
them up. This statement here is an outright LIE.
You simply made it up. You can't just make things up, thats not science,
thats not a real argument.
John Luvitz: Yeah, thats it, thats the ticket. Yeah, I'm the queen of
england, and then, I'm going to go play baseball for the mets!
>
> > If you don't intend to back up your claims, don't make them.
>
> My claims are documented in my book. And no, I won't read it to you.
If you really are Walter ReMine, and you can't back them up here, whats the
use in reading the book? Why do you even bother posting here if you can't
argue your case legitimately? You so obviously dont even read our
rebuttles. In fact I've seen you respond to mine perhaps once? Why is that?
science
> Yours is more like finding a body with a broken
> neck at the bottom of the stairs and arguing
> to the jury that the evidence clearly points to the
> conclusion that invisible elves tripped him.
I said no such thing. The above author left out the key point -- the
evidence. In the Nicole Brown Simpson case it speaks clearly -- it tells
the existence of a designer who designed her death. It even tells many
capabilities and characteristics of that designer. There is no doubt on
this point.
Same with the Piltdown case. The evidence speaks clearly of a designer
who -- in private and whose identity is still unknown -- created the hoax
and placed it in the ground for us to find. We scientifically identify such
designers quite frequently.
> creationism is not science because it is compatible with
> any imaginable state of affairs. Whatever we find, that's God's will.
I said no such thing.
> Can you give any answer other than "that's just the
> way he wanted it"?
I said no such thing.
Adam Marczyk is now recklessly critiquing a book he has not read. And no, I
won't read it to him.
David Jensen
"science" <sci...@minn.net> wrote in <9pvn3f$d7p$1...@hydra.bigsky.net>:
>Adam Marczyk is now recklessly critiquing a book he has not read. And no, I
>won't read it to him.
Nothing you have said in this newsgroup would persuade me that you know
enough to have written a book worth reading.
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "mel turner" <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote in message
> news:9puj66$77b$1...@news.duke.edu...
>
> > It's testable and easily demonstrable that differential
> > reproductive success among individuals of different
> > genotypes can indeed affect changes to a
> > population's gene pool. What do you want "natural
> > selection theory" to be?
>
> For starters, I want the evolutionists' CLAIMS about natural selection
> theory to match reality. They claim natural selection theory is a
testable
> explanation of higher adaptation. It isn't.
We do? Where is that claimed? Show us, its bound to be on talkorigins.org or
nmsr.org somewhere.
> Notice above, his version of natural selection theory doesn't mention
> fitness or adaptation
I explained adaption earlier. Natural selection is the end result, not
always the cause.
, therefore it cannot possibly explain adaptation.
yup
> That is what I call a Lame formulation
is that an official term?
> for it cannot take evolutionists
> where they wish to go.
You're right, it wont, not that way at least, because you misstated and
misrepresented the entire theory. You started with a false premisis,
supported with a false inference, and ended up with a false conclusion.
> Evolutionists often shift natural selection to a Lame formulation, in
order
> to avoid the tautology objection
Thats the ticket...yeah....sure
>nd to create an illusion of testability.
Those damn illusions, welp guys she figured out our tricks, lets pack up and
go home. Forget science, the cure for cancer is a good bloodletting and
sheeps blood soup.
> Natural selection theory is like a three shell-game at the carnival.
> Evolutionists shift it in order to meet any SINGLE line of objection, then
> they shift again to meet the next objection, and so forth. It's a fun
> process to watch in action. I don't think evolutionists are even aware
> they're doing it.
Yeah its called blocking the bullshit with facts.
>
>
science
> > > The sequence of specimens, IN BOTH AGE
> > > AND MORPHOLOGY, is extensive and compelling
> > > in support of the theory of evolution. .... Next, the
> > > mechanism of evolution, which includes natural
> > > selection as a factor, most definitely and defensibly
> > > explains large scale change in species phenotype.
> > > FINALLY, THIS IS A TESTABLE CLAIM, SINCE
> > > SPECIMENS THAT ARE OUT OF PLACE -- IN
> > > TIME, PLACE, OR MORPHOLOGY -- CLEARLY
> > > FALSIFY IT. (Emphasis added)
>
> Why do you need to add "emphasis" here?
The above emphasis highlights the nature of his "test". It involves
fossil-sequence, and the potential of finding 'out-of-sequence' fossils that
would thereby refute evolution. My previous post shows why that isn't a
test, and it hinges on a key point. Evolutionists now avoid identifying
real ancestors, and without that the above "test" is phony. Evolutionary
theory is not put at risk by it.
> Your insistence that large scale change must
> be experimentally demonstrated today in order
> to infer it in the larger time intervals of the fossil
> record is simply a canard, a rhetorical trick.
No, it's not a "rhetorical trick". Natural selection theory does not
predict large-scale evolution is possible. Rather, it contains within
itself everything needed to PREVENT large-scale evolution.
The theory fails to predict large-scale evolution, and fails to be testable.
Yet we are still left with the option of experimentally demonstrating it.
That latter approach could be fully scientific.
> The tactic is to artificially create an insurmountable,
> albeit unnecessary, bar to clear.
The "bar to be cleared" is called science, and it's not unnecessary.
> More word games. Natural selection is a process,
> a demonstrable part of the theory of evolution.
Yes, he's using more word games. He now shifts natural selection away from
being a "theory" to being a mere "process". This is the shell-game I've
been documenting on this thread. Evolutionists shift goes back and forth,
as needed to avoid any single line of criticism. When I point out that
natural selection is not a "testable theory", he shifts to calling it a mere
"process", in an attempt to avoid my criticism. On and on goes the
shell-game.
> Ancestor-descendent relationships are not so
> hard to infer, and it is often done with a preponderance
> of several lines of evidence.
That is flat-out contradicted by the evolutionists' history. For example,
it was a key goal of Darwinian Systematics to identify ancestors, and (in
their zeal) they created (via paraphyletic groups and other artificial
constructs) the illusion that ancestors had been found and identified. That
illusion took over a hundred years to break down. And break down it did.
It was cast aside by the punctuationists (who offered a different theory to
replace classical Darwinism, and who avoid identifying ancestors) and by the
pheneticists and especially the cladists (who never identify ancestors).
The notion that identifying real ancestors is "often done" is pure bunk.
> Creationists usually insist (another rhetorical trick)
> that ancestor-descendent relationships are unproven
> unless the descendent individual is found issuing
> directly from the ancestor.
I said no such thing. (And I know of no creationist who has.)
Nathan McKaskle
>
> "Nathan McKaskle" <zil...@zillien.com> wrote in message
> news:3bc2f7cb$0$13462
>
> > If a species is dying out due to changes in the
> > environment, there may be a small chance that
> > a genetic mutation in its otherwise doomed offspring
> > might have a better chance to reproduce and
> > survive in the new environment than it would have
> > if the environment had not changed. Therefore
> > once the offspring with the mutation reproduces
> > all of its offspring would inherit similar traits, thus
> > the offspring with the new mutation succeeds where
> > the old mutation fails and dies off. This is just one
> > example though.
>
> Everything he said above about natural selection could be accepted, yet
> STILL it doesn't predict that large-scale evolution is possible. Natural
> selection theory makes no such prediction, much less a scientifically
> testable prediction. Rather, the fitness terrain has contour, and that
> contour presents barriers that can PREVENT large-scale evolution.
>
What? That IS large scale evolution in the works. Tell me, how do YOU
define large scale evolution. Evolution is a process that results in
heritable changes in a population spread over many generations. In fact,
evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles
within a gene pool from one generation to the next. This says nothing of
natural selection. So why do you continue to attack it? Once again let me
state that it is no longer appropriate to claim that evolutionary biologists
believe that Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is the best and only part
of the theory of the mechanism of evolution. Once again let me quote
Futuyma:
"The major tenets of the evolutionary synthesis, then, were that populations
contain genetic variation that arises by random (ie. not adaptively
directed) MUTATION and RECOMBINATION; that populations evolve by changes in
gene frequency brought about by RANDOM GENETIC DRIFT, GENE FLOW, and
especially NATURAL SELECTION; that most adaptive genetic variants have
individually slight phenotypic effects so that phenotypic changes are
gradual (although some alleles with discrete effects may be advantageous, as
in certain color polymorphisms); that diversification comes about by
speciation, which normally entails the gradual evolution of reproductive
isolation among populations; and that these processes, continued for
sufficiently long, give rise to changes of such great magnitude as to
warrant the designation of higher taxonomic levels (genera, families, and so
forth)."