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#7930 07/18/06 01:04 PM
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Originally posted by TheFallibleFiend:

No. Evolution does not "necessitate" speciation. Evolution causes speciation. Learn what evolution is. Then you can lecture, Mr. Morgan.
Your abosolutely right. Poor choice of words. But it has nothing to do with the point of my comment. Variation is not speciation and not evolution. There is no need to get nasty, I know what evolution proposes to be. Albeit, I am not a geneticist, I think I still have the right to post my opinion here. If not please let me know and I'll take my comments elswhere.

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#7931 07/18/06 01:08 PM
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"Dehammer, because there is no shortage of food and no predators, each line of fruit flies is preserved. So it seems to be ideal conditions for mutations to flourish and run their course."

Dear Blacknad. These are EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE conditions conducive to evolution. Evolution occurs best where food is scarce and predatation is fierce - resulting in a strong selective pressure. The Amazon is well-known for 2 factors 1) its incredible biodiversity and 2) the poorness of its soil overall.

From http://library.thinkquest.org/21395/textonlyb/deforestation.html

"The Amazon, though it is host to millions of lifeforms, is not full of fertile soil."

#7932 07/18/06 03:03 PM
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"Variation is not speciation and not evolution. "

Variation is a precondition for selection. Variation and selection together constitute evolution. Evolution includes speciation, but it also includes - and even requires - smaller steps than speciation events.

I never said that you don't have the right to state your opinion. But other people have the right to criticize your opinion. It has been my experience after nearly 25 years of studying this subject and arguing about it on the internet that the creationists, parrotting the intellectual garbage they find at places like AiG and ApologeticsPress, take some comic book version of what science is and what evolutionary theory says and puth forth some preposterous, half-truth version of the actual science which "true evilution believers" are dared to defend.

Then they whine about how they're criticized for questioning evolution - which is a blatant lie, because they are criticized for making stupid assertions about evolution, not for "asking questions."

Another tactic is to look up some thing that they think is arcane and that no one will know about - and then start making stupid assertions about how it refutes evolution:

2nd law of thermo, woodpecker tongues, woodpecker necks, lima bean genes, string theory, information theory, and any other abstruse field then can glom onto where they can pretend their erroneous and frequently half-witted jabber can be miscronstrued as a deeply considered argument. But there's always the implicit, "Ah ... well, see here... if you can't answer THIS argument, then you don't understand anything at all! Because this HERE argument refutes all of evilution!"

If you're not going to start in on this sort of crap, then I do apologize to you - sincerely and profusely. If you have honest questions, I'll do what I can to answer them. There's a lot more that I don't know than that I do, so expect to get a lot of "I don't know."

I consider some of evolution to be counter-intuitive. It's only natural therefore that people would have questions about it. Assertions - in particular, false and misleading assertions - are not questions.

#7933 07/18/06 03:35 PM
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Originally posted by TheFallibleFiend:
Dear Blacknad. These are EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE conditions conducive to evolution. Evolution occurs best where food is scarce and predatation is fierce.
Dear TFF (as we appear to be on such cosy terms). I understand very well how this works in nature and if you are lumping me in with creationists then you don't have to - I am not one.

Are you saying that scarcity of resources and predation is the cause of mutation? Because I was talking about mutation and not selection. All I was saying was that with all of the unbroken lines of fruit flies bred in labs you would maybe expect to see some change. It would not have to be advantageous to survive - it only has to be non-fatal. I just thought that genetic changes were more likely to survive in labs where there is no predator or natural means of ending that strain.

It seems more ideal. How many mutations in the big bad world never saw the light of day because the carrier became food?

Blacknad.

#7934 07/18/06 04:59 PM
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"I understand very well how this works in nature and if you are lumping me in with creationists then you don't have to - I am not one."

Dear Blacknad, I don't know for sure whether you are creationist, but I specifically exclude you from the normal flow of creationists even if you are one.

"Are you saying that scarcity of resources and predation is the cause of mutation?"

I'm saying that evolution consists of two things, variation (which can be caused by mutation) and selection. The selection part of this produces more salient effects when the selection pressure is stronger. The selection pressure is stronger when there is a short supply of food and you can't defend yourself against predation.

"Because I was talking about mutation and not selection."

Ah, you *were* talking about mutation, but then you said to dehammer, "because there is no shortage of food and no predators, each line of fruit flies is preserved. So it seems to be ideal conditions for mutations to flourish and run their course."
Regardless of your intent, the food and predation issue mention takes you clearly into the selection part of the process.

"All I was saying was that with all of the unbroken lines of fruit flies bred in labs you would maybe expect to see some change. It would not have to be advantageous to survive - it only has to be non-fatal."

And you are right, but you're missing an important element. There has to be some way of preferring one descendant over the others, i.e. the selection pressure. It doesn't mean that one set of genes is always selected over the others - just that, on average, it has a preferred chance of being selected. Without selection pressure, you just have everybody interbreeding and mixing genes and new variation gets lost in the shuffle or is lost altogether.

And this is EXACTLY what has happened. Contrary to what creationists parrot, fruit fly experiments have produced a new species of fruit fly. I gave a reference to this in my last post to drbarr / anyman.

"I just thought that genetic changes were more likely to survive in labs where there is no predator or natural means of ending that strain."
I understood what you meant. The problem is that unless there is some kind of selection (in this case artificial selection) that variation can become lost.


"It seems more ideal. How many mutations in the big bad world never saw the light of day because the carrier became food?"

No doubt, many. But the selection pressure is favors the guy who is best adapted to find food wear others can't or more likely evade the person trying to eat him.

#7935 07/18/06 06:23 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheFallibleFiend:
"Dehammer, because there is no shortage of food and no predators, each line of fruit flies is preserved. So it seems to be ideal conditions for mutations to flourish and run their course."
save for one thing. the biggest obsticle to a new line, is the choising of a mate. if food and lack of preditors does not create the pressure to change, the mating cycle will remain the same. this means that if there is nothing that will give a new line an advantage, say in numbers of male survivors to reach the female when she is laying eggs ect, then there has to be something that enables them to reach the female faster or catch her attension faster depending on how that species makes the choise. the old proven species would normally have the advantage, unless the new one gains some new form of advantage. in the wild, the old one cant compete for food, as well so there is more of the new one than the old one that can mate. or the new one would have to be faster at reaching the female, or it would have to be able to attract her better. on the other hand if it were the female that had changed, she would have to attract the males over the other females better.

the simpler the organism, the faster it lives and the slower it changes, due to having fewer things to change.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#7936 07/18/06 06:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Blacknad:
It seems more ideal. How many mutations in the big bad world never saw the light of day because the carrier became food?

Blacknad.
that is the point of evolution. if it gives and advantage, it would not become food, most likely.

let me illustrate the point with a joke i heard.

two hikers were walking thought the plains of africa, when they spotted a single lion on the prowl. it also spotted them, and charged. one hiker began running, while the other stopped and tied his running shoes.

the first holler over his sholders, "you cant think that will make it possible for you to our run the lion do you?"

the second replied, "i dont have to out run HIM."

two variation of a speices are in the field when they are chased by a preditor. the best does not have to be able to our run the preditor. which ever does leaves his mark on the genes pool by reaching the female alive first. if there are no preditors, there is no race. old tried and true will win the race.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#7937 07/18/06 06:44 PM
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drbarr said: ...I think I still have the right to post my opinion here. If not please let me know and I'll take my comments elswhere.
you've got the right and it's our pleasure to have...need more of the same

don't mind these guys; they try to run anyone off that doesn't go with the flow (w/ regard to the evolutionary paradigm)

no major prob...they've got a whole lot more bark and decidedly less bite

stick around...join the fun

more soon :-)

#7938 07/18/06 07:01 PM
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"they try to run anyone off that doesn't go with the flow"

Yet another asinine assertion. He isn't being run off. He's being corrected. What you guys want is the right to make foolish assertions without being criticized in return.

#7939 07/18/06 08:09 PM
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"One of the hardest things to get from a true believer is an account of what evolution actually is, and how evolution occurs."

It can be described in several ways, but change in a population's gene pool through time is as good a definition as any. It occurs through mutation and natural selection.

Why is that a hard thing to get? You could have gotten it from a variety of biology-related websites, and many, many books.

"Everything that I observe in nature tells me that evolution does not occur. Take three examples of birds that were transplanted to the western hemisphere for sporting purposes: ringneck pheasants, gray partridges and chukar partridges. All have been successful pioneers on this new (to their species) continent, but only within the realm of their original habitat."

What pressure is on them to change? And since you didn't have a working definition of evolution in the first place (because it's "hard to get"), how did you decide it doesn't occur?

"They all look exactly like their ancestors, and none have "evolved" the ability to expand their range into apparently friendly habitats that border their range."

Mutations don't proceed with purpose. You have Lamarkian ideas regarding evolution.


When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
--S. Lewis
#7940 07/18/06 08:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by DrBarr:
Your abosolutely right. Poor choice of words. But it has nothing to do with the point of my comment. Variation is not speciation and not evolution. There is no need to get nasty, I know what evolution proposes to be. Albeit, I am not a geneticist, I think I still have the right to post my opinion here. If not please let me know and I'll take my comments elswhere.
1st off, your absolutely right. you have the right to state your opinions here and to state your opinions about other peoples comments.

2ndly, no one has gotten nasty here yet. they have stated their opinions which are contrary to yours. if you cant accept other people making comments that dont agree with you, you might not want to post here. i hope you continue to post though, as you do have some interesting comments. just dont start insulting people who disagree with you and everyone will be fine.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#7941 07/18/06 08:23 PM
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Originally posted by DrBarr:

Furthermore, I just can't ignore the fact that several thousand generations of fruit flys have yet to produce a single advantageous mutation.
?It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact that, though geneticists have been breeding fruit-flies for sixty years or more in labs all round the world?flies which produce a new generation every eleven days?they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species or even a new enzyme.? Gordon Rattray Taylor (former Chief Science Advisor, BBC Television), The Great Evolution Mystery (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 48.
New fruit fly species HAVE arisen in laboratories, without any sort of genetic engineering, and even without human intent.

I'd look at articles and books published by people who didn't die 25 years ago, for more up-to-date information. Not that fruit fly speciation hadn't been observed before Taylor's death.

See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

for more information on cases of observed speciation.


When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
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#7942 07/19/06 02:36 AM
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I believe in evolution.I mean,even looking at my own 12 year old niece makes me think.She's 6"3 at 12 years old.Evolution has to play some part in that.People are bigger,faster,smarter,and stronger than they were 100 years ago.You even see it on tv.Any olympics fans here?Every olympics someone breaks a record.How is it that athletes have no limits,and is contantly making new records?In my opinion,that is evolution.

#7943 07/19/06 10:28 AM
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Originally posted by KryptonianKnight:
I believe in evolution.I mean,even looking at my own 12 year old niece makes me think.She's 6"3 at 12 years old.Evolution has to play some part in that.People are bigger,faster,smarter,and stronger than they were 100 years ago.You even see it on tv.Any olympics fans here?Every olympics someone breaks a record.How is it that athletes have no limits,and is contantly making new records?In my opinion,that is evolution.
So what's the selective pressure? Who's eating short people?

This is more about diet and better sports science.

Blacknad

#7944 07/19/06 01:52 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Blacknad:
So what's the selective pressure? Who's eating short people?

This is more about diet and better sports science.

Blacknad
competition. stereo types. hiring practices. in other words we are. society rewards the people that are faster, taller, smarter, or in some other form, better than the average. this means they get better rewards, meaning better lives and the shorter, dumber slower people end up with less. its causing more of a stratifying social order than most people realise. you'd be surprised at how many of them don't have children or die young due to depression, drugs, suicide, etc. because they don't fit the idea society has said they need to be. i read somewhere (don't ask for references, I've slept since then and it was not that interesting) that the average person to die from drug over does is under 5'5". the average age for gang related deaths is something like 15 and their average IQ is below 100. that is not to say they all are. just the average is below societies norm. this is a form of selective breading. unintended, but still selecive. the faster, richer, more successful male reaches and attracts the best females. the best looking, most successfull female attracts the most males, thus having the best selection. the best looking most successfull looking worker gets the best jobs, while the ones that are slower, and less successfull seeming, succeed less often. we are driving our own evolution to be even faster than normal.


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#7945 07/19/06 02:10 PM
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"I believe in evolution.I mean,even looking at my own 12 year old niece makes me think.She's 6"3 at 12 years old.Evolution has to play some part in that."

That might be an actual problem. I don't know. I hope she gets regular check ups.

"People are bigger,faster,smarter,and stronger than they were 100 years ago."

Better diet. Better living conditions. I don't think this is an example of evolution.

"How is it that athletes have no limits,and is contantly making new records?In my opinion,that is evolution."

Maybe. But it might also be improved understanding of biomechanics and how diet affects body chemistry, as well as improved training techniques.

#7946 07/20/06 03:28 AM
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Originally posted by TheFallibleFiend:
"I believe in evolution.I mean,even looking at my own 12 year old niece makes me think.She's 6"3 at 12 years old.Evolution has to play some part in that."

That might be an actual problem. I don't know. I hope she gets regular check ups.

"People are bigger,faster,smarter,and stronger than they were 100 years ago."

Better diet. Better living conditions. I don't think this is an example of evolution.

"How is it that athletes have no limits,and is contantly making new records?In my opinion,that is evolution."

Maybe. But it might also be improved understanding of biomechanics and how diet affects body chemistry, as well as improved training techniques.
Exactly,changing and finding new ways.Change is what evolution is all about,isn't it?And I don't think great athletes become great because of gatorade or their so called improved training.People 1000 years ago would perhaps even see us today as "unlike" them.But my point is training and diet I think has limits.And new world records in athletics are constantly being made.

#7947 07/20/06 03:25 PM
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"... finding new ways.Change is what evolution is all about,isn't it?"

Evolution is about change in genetic populations, not physical changes in individuals.

"And I don't think great athletes become great because of gatorade or their so called improved training."
I think you underestimate the importance of diet and training. It's not just that athletes train hard. Athletes have always trained hard. It's that they are training scientifically. We actually know a lot more about how to exercise now. Specific exercise programs can target specific muscles that are used for strength or for fine motor control.

I used to think that Personal Trainers were a waste of money. That was till I actually tried one. I got a membership at the county rec center and got to meet with a trainer for free. It was amazing the experience and insight I was getting from this guy. I'm now a big believer in PTs. (Unfortunately, not all of them are equally good.)

"But my point is training and diet I think has limits. And new world records in athletics are constantly being made."

It's a good point. Training and diet *do* have limits, but our understanding of these has improved dramatically over the last 50 years - and it looks like it will continue to improve for another decade or so. I doubt we have yet seen the limits that diet and training can produce.

#7948 07/20/06 07:54 PM
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KryptonianKnight,

These are the 100M Sprint World Records for the last 100 years or so.

Asafa POWELL........9.77....2006
Justin GATLIN.........9.77....2006
Asafa POWELL........9.77....2005
Maurice GREENE......9.79....1999
Donovan BAILEY......9.84....1996
Leroy BURRELL........9.85....1994
Carl LEWIS.............9.86....1991
Leroy BURRELL........9.90....1991
Carl LEWIS.............9.92....1988
Calvin SMITH..........9.93....1983
Jim HINES..............9.95....1968
Jim HINES..............9.9.....1968
Armin HARY............10.0....1960
Willie WILLIAMS......10.1....1956
Jesse OWENS.........10.2....1936
Percy WILLIAMS......10.3....1930
Charles PADDOCK.....10.4....1921
Donald LIPPINCOTT..10.6....1912
Frank JARVIS..........10.8....1900
Tom BURKE.............11.8....1896

Some of the technological improvements such as running spikes, starting blocks, and all weather polyurethane tracks etc. account for better times.

You can see that times were reduced by large margins at the start of the last century when technology first started to impact the sport. Now we are down to miniscule increases which can easily be explained by improved diet, training techniques and a greater understanding of the type of lifestyle needed to look after and hone the body.

Evolution is playing no part whatsoever. It just cannot have an impact on a hundred year timescale in anything as complex as a human. Or are you willing to say that evolution affected a change over a ten year period, allowing over .1 of a seconds reduction (1991 - 1999)? If not, then why think evolution is the cause for any of the changes?

Blacknad.

#7949 07/20/06 08:31 PM
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Quote:
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Quote:
Originally posted by Blacknad:
So what's the selective pressure? Who's eating short people?

This is more about diet and better sports science.

Blacknad
competition. stereo types. hiring practices. in other words we are. society rewards the people that are faster, taller, smarter, or in some other form, better than the average. this means they get better rewards, meaning better lives and the shorter, dumber slower people end up with less. its causing more of a stratifying social order than most people realise. you'd be surprised at how many of them don't have children or die young due to depression, drugs, suicide, etc. because they don't fit the idea society has said they need to be. i read somewhere (don't ask for references, I've slept since then and it was not that interesting) that the average person to die from drug over does is under 5'5". the average age for gang related deaths is something like 15 and their average IQ is below 100. that is not to say they all are. just the average is below societies norm. this is a form of selective breading. unintended, but still selecive. the faster, richer, more successful male reaches and attracts the best females. the best looking, most successfull female attracts the most males, thus having the best selection. the best looking most successfull looking worker gets the best jobs, while the ones that are slower, and less successfull seeming, succeed less often. we are driving our own evolution to be even faster than normal.
There is a mish-mash of ideas here. The fact is that in the developed world, successful people sire less progeny than do the lower social orders. Career people put off having children and are far more likely to have a single child.

The number of American women who have only one child has doubled over the last two decades

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/story?id=2178396&page=1

Quote:
"Twenty percent of the family population is one child," Newman said. "In the major metropolitan cities, like New York and Los Angeles, that number is 30 percent. People are having children later, which leaves less time for having the second child. Housing is expensive. The divorce rate hovers at 50 percent. Often both parents are working, and child care is a factor."
In the UK, professional people seem to mostly have single children. Anecdotally - at my daughter's nursery almost all of the children have zero siblings. If you want to see who is breeding, then you have to look to those on welfare. Look at council estates where girls start having children at 14 - 16 and just carry on. Some neighbours of my parents are long term claimants of sickness benefit. They have eight children and are expecting another. People who don't work are the only ones who can afford children. At $1189 per month for my three year old's nursery fees I am in no hurry to have another.

So if, as you say, the beautiful people are getting hired, they will probably be the ones contributing less to the gene pool.

Society does not reward the faster, taller or smarter. They are the ones that will pay through their noses to bring their children up (if they do have any at all), whilst those who cannot or will not work can pop them out one after another and the state will pick up the tab.

It's something, but it's certainly not survival of the fittest.

Blacknad.

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