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Posts: 2918
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 Posted: Fri 11 Feb, 2005 |
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A partial reply to your initial article. It’s partial, because so far I’ve only had the time to comment on the evolutionary part, and not really on the machine-physical law part. When I have more time I’ll take a deeper look at that too, and the second topic you’ve posted about this issue 
| Lebowsk1 wrote: |
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Science and technology determine the values, assumptions and goals of modern society. One might almost say that science has become the official religion of the day. |
That makes it almost sound as if science is a bad thing  It's always about the bad influences of materialistic science, but let's for a minute consider all the good things science brought to the world, directly or indirectly. During the Middle Ages when the church was still in command, it was dangerous to talk about alien ideas because there was always a chance that you'd be condemned of heresy. There was no differentiation yet between someone's personal ethics, the social climate and the objective scientific practice of those days. Take Galileo for instance. Because of the lack of differentiation between the I (personal ethics), We (social climate) and It (science), his objective findings were regarded as a direct attack on the social religious ideas of that time. Compare it with the situation nowadays: is the Pope still interfering if you say something controversial? Do you still face the danger of being accused of heresy when you do that? I don't think so.. Why is that do you think? Because the Industrial Revolution and the upcoming of science made it possible to differentiate those three value spheres. And this had some other tremendous results: modern medicine could evolve which would save the lives of millions of people, slavery was abandoned, democracy now had a chance to develop, women got much more rights than in the earlier days before the differentiation, etc... Furthermore, although it may seem science dictates all the rules and morals, YOU now have the power the determine your OWN ethics, without ever worrying you'll get killed because of your ideas (generally speaking ofcourse); this opportunity virtually didn't exist during the Middle Ages.
All these are direct or indirect consequences of the Industrial Revolution and the development of science. It's true that this initial differentiation has changed very quickly into a dissociation, but that doesn't devaluate all the good things which could arise after science got the chance to develop. So don't just consider science as the bringer of havoc into this world 
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| Unfortunately, whether we evaluate this materially orientated society from the point of view of psychology, sociology, politics, aesthetics or ecology, we must admit that the programme of aiming for dominance or control over the laws of nature has often resulted in disaster for the human race and the whole planet. |
Again, that's extremely black-white vision. True, science brought much disaster for this planet and its inhabitants, but the benefits science gave us are equally important. Can you even begin to imagine how many people could have died until this day, if there was never such thing as Western medicine? We would manage perhaps with traditional healing techs yes, but I highly doubt this would increase the life standards in as much as Western medicine was able to do so..
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| Material scientists say that the evolution of species is a scientific fact. That presupposes that there is a scientific theory of evolution of species. But we dare to ask: “Is the evolution of species even a scientific concept?” |
It's not a fact. It's a theory, which first started off as a working hypothesis. Why then has it been promoted to a theory? Because as science developped further, more tools were available to find more and more clues to support the hypothesis. A few examples:
- Paleontology: the existence of fossil links (more on those later on).
- Comparative anatomy and morphology: various very different animal phyla show remarkable comparable organs, while others show only basal morphology of a certain organ which is fully expressed in another animal (for instance: the human coccygeal bone, the appendix, wisdom teeth, or the third eyelid).
- Comparative embryology: the mutual differences between animals decrease when going back from adulthood to conception. Sometimes even almost identical embryonic stages appear (for instance all the chordates have a "gill slit stage"). Other very distinguishable phyla develop the same larvae. The processes of oogenesis and spermatogenesis prior to conception are found in the entire animal kingdom.
Furthermore, there's a biogenetic law which states that the ontogenesis is the recapitulation of the phylogenesis, which means that the development of the species is repeated in the development of the individual.
- Physiology: processes such as respiration, digestion, excretion,... can be found in the entire animal kingdom.
- Biochemistry: there are many proteins which exist in many animal species (for instance insulin can be found in every animal). There are equally many processes which essentially are the same in many many species (DNA replication,..). Another biochemical clue is the fact that the amount of variability increases, the lesser individual species are related to each other.
- Zoography: the geographical spreading of animal life shows a remarkable resemblance with the continental drift (especially in cases where animals got isolated from the rest of the world due to continental drift: they show a distinguished adaptive radiation which is often not found in the rest of the world). Examples: the marsupials from Australia, or the extinct giant sloths from South America (they could only migrate towards North America when continental drift closed the Panama gateway. The fossil record and the knowledge from the speed rate of continental drift in those areas match).
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If evolution of species is to be a scientific concept, evolutionists must meet the following conditions:
1. Evolutionists must give examples of evolutionary transitions in which one species changes into another.
2. Evolutionists must specify the mechanism by which one species could change into another.
3. Evolutionists must specify the actual course of evolution in the past. Which specific forms gave rise to which specific new forms?
Now we shall show that evolutionists cannot meet any of these three requirements. They cannot explain their concept of evolution in terms of actual experience. |
That's not true. Scientists have given examples of all three criteria mentioned here. But more on that later.
Science deals with experience yes, but if a direct experience is not possible, indirect experience is also allowed by means of direct signs which learn us something about the concept we're trying to get to know better. If science would solely be based upon DIRECT experience, then lots of sciences couldn't be called sciences (such as large scale astronomy, big bang cosmology, quantum mechanics, theoretical chemistry and physics, paleontology/paleobotanics/ and other paleo-sciences...). Perhaps they can't explain their concept of evolution in terms of actual experience, but that doesn't devaluate it in any way. In fact, it's remarkable science cán learn so much about evolution based upon the indirect experience through findings in various fields.
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| If no one actually knows exactly what “evolution” is, we cannot have a scientific discussion as to whether it actually took place. |
What's wrong with: "all the changes that have transformed life on Earth from its earliest beginnings to the diversity that characterizes it today" ? Ofcourse evolution is a very broad concept (microscale, macroscale, speciation-adaptation, behavioral evolution, etc...), but taken all together I'd say this definition is not bad
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| No one has seen one species change into another. |
The average species has a lifetime of about five million years.
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| The fossil record also fails to give direct evidence for the gradual change of one species into another. |
You don't have to look at the fossil record to find evidence of the gradual change of one species into another. Nowadays there exist so-called ring species. These are distributed around some geographic barrier, with the populations that have diverged the most in their evolution eventually meeting where the ring closes. Two examples:
- The North American salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii expanded southward into California from Oregon. The California population eventually split into a coastal population and an inland one, giving rise to two separate chains of interbreeding populations. One chain extends down the coastal mountains and one extends down the inland Sierra Nevada mountains. The dual chains of salamander populations gradually formed a ring around California's central valley - the San Joaquin Valley. Salamanders of the different populations contrast in coloration, and researchers have demonstrated that the coastal and inland populations exhibit more and more genetic differences the farther south the comparison is made. In the northern and middle portions of the ring, the salamander populations interbreed as a single species. About halfway down the ring, the coastal and inland gene pools occasionally "leak" across the central valley as members of the two populations interbreed. But near the ring's southern end in San Diego County, no hybridization occurs in some of the locales where the ranges of coastal and inland populations overlap. Based upon the criterion of reproductive isolation (one of the many reproductive barriers, which states that two related species that live in different habitats within the same area which encounter each other rarely, have a decreased chance of successfully produce fertile offspring if isolation remains), it is legitimate to designate the two southern populations as separate species.
- In the same way there exists a ring species of gulls, whereby the ring is formed around the North Pole. The British Herring gull can interbreed with the North American Herring gull, which can also interbreed with the Russian population of the Vega Herring gull, which can interbreed with the Russian Birula's Herring gull, which can interbreed with Heuglin's gull, which can interbreed with the Siberian lesser black-backed gull, which can interbreed with the Lesser black-backed gull from Northern Europe. However, this last population can't interbreed anymore with the British Herring gull, which would close the ring.
- The Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trochiloides in the Himalayan Mountains.
Although the existence of these ring species requires a revision of the original biological species concept, it clearly shows the gradual shift from one species to another.
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Breeding produces new variations but not new species (e.g. dogs)
Genetic mutation produces variations but not new species (e.g. fruit flies) |
True, but on the long term, due to various changing environmental, social and ecological factors, the accumulation of mutations, together with recombination during breeding causes a deviation from the original population, until new races, subspecies populations and eventually new species arise.
The ring species are a good example of that. Another example is the polyploid speciation in plants (it can be seen also in animals, but that’s rare; for instance cichlids in Africa’s Lake Victoria), which is a rather fast process of speciation based upon a genetically altered amount of chromosomes. For instance, a failure of regular cell division through meiosis during gamete production can double the chromosome number (going from diploid to tetraploid). This is called autopolyploidy, because the sets of chromosomes are all coming from the same species. The tetraploid can then fertilize itself (self-pollination) or mate with other tetraploids, but it cannot interbreed successfully with diploid plants of the original population. However, two different species can also contribute to a polyploid hybrid (called allopolyploidy). In fact, allopolyploidy is far more common than autopolyploidy. For example, two new species of plants called goatsbeards originated in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1900s. The goatsbeard genus, Tragopogon, is native to Europe, but three species were introduced by humans to the Americas in the early 1900s. These species are now common weeds in urban wastelands such as abandoned parking lots. In the 1950s however, botanists identified two new species of Tragopogon in regions of Idaho and eastern Washington where all three European species are also found. It was found that those two new species were allopolyploids of the original three Tragopogon species.
Another, more common example of allopolyploidy leading towards new species, is the case of the wheat used for bread. It’s an allopolyploid that probably originated about 8,000 years ago as a spontaneous hybrid of a cultivated wheat and a wild grass.
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| Selective breeding and mutation produce populations and individuals which are different from the original parent stock. All experiments show, however, that these differences are variations about a mean, and do not accumulate to produce new species. The examples that evolutionists hopefully put forward, such as the appearance of new strains of bacteria which are more resistant to anti-biotics, or of DDT-resistant mosquitoes, are not evidence that new species might appear in time. |
I agree with the examples given here. They are variations and adaptations, and perhaps they’re not yet sufficiently deviated to become separate species. But as I said before: the general life expectancy of a species is about five million years. So the overall chance of witnessing a species change into another one due to persisting adaptations is rather small (though again, ring species may one of the rare examples).. You might say “well there are millions of species on Earth, so there must be always some species changing into another one” True, but scientists have only properly investigated 1% (or even less) of those organisms. Furthermore, evolution theory is “only” 150 years old, and true genetical experiments are taking place for only 100 years or so, ever since the works of Mendel were rediscovered. This time period is incredibly small compared with the five million years life span of a species. I’m sure new species will arise due to persisting adaptations on the human presence, but therefore human impact has not been great enough yet to facilitate those phenotypical and genotypical changes which may lead towards new species.
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| Biologists generally consider that two organisms belong to different species if they cannot breed with each other to produce fertile offspring. Now, a population of organisms will often give rise to a sub-group which does not breed with the original population. According to the above definition, this would mean that a new species has appeared from an existing species. We must note, however, that these new “species”, which we might call “breeding-species”, are always very similar in bodily form to the parent species, and the two breeding species are often physically indistinguishable. Hence, this example of “new species” appearing has nothing to do with evolution, because “evolution-species” must necessarily have quite distinct bodily forms (Newell, 1982, 137). |
“Evolution-species” do not necessarily have distinct bodily forms. If the subpopulation remains isolated from the parental population, then it’s not unlikely that after a sufficient time period, they’ll show morphological differences when compared with the original stock population, due to a difference in mutation and adaptation patterns (cladogenesis). No doubt about that. But equally there are many examples of subpopulations with different gene pools which evolved into different species, without any adaptations which were necessary to give rise to different body morphology. See for instance the eastern meadowlark (Sturnella magna) and the western meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta): they both have very similar body shapes and colorations, but they show signs of a clear difference in behavioural evolution, because their songs are different, which helps to prevent interbreeding between the two species.
I hope you see that just as with the concept of evolution, also the concept of species must be considered in a very broad way. Differences in body morphology certainly are important, just as differences in biochemistry, body functions, behaviour, genetic makeup and reproductive isolation are. When all of these are considered, the difference between “evolution species” and “breeding species” becomes more like a semantic one instead of a true conceptual one, because both have features which are undoubtly interconnected with each other and can hardly seen independent of each other (mating preferences and body form).
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| Suppose we are discussing the species intermediate between a mammal and its supposed ancestor among the fishes. Evolution theory would require a regular progression of bodily form between the fish and the mammal. Therefore, when talking about the evolution of species, we are not concerned with mating preferences, but with bodily form. If two breeding-species are physically indistinguishable, they still belong to the same evolution-species. Therefore the appearance of new breeding-species provides no evidence for the evolution of species. |
Erm.. that’s a bit too simplified and again too black-white vision. Mating preferences often highly rely on body form (best known example: the male peacock’s tail), and body form often highly rely on mating preferences (best known example: anatomically modified orchids to attract only specific butterflies). There are countless other examples in many other phyla of organisms, and it definitely played a role in the development from fish to mammals, because in general and on the large scale, mating preferences could eventually lead to a certain evolutionary direction with a given development of a certain body form.
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| “What is it that holds so many groups of animals to an astonishingly constant form over millions of years? This seems to me to be the problem now – the problem of constancy; rather than that of change. And here one must remember that the genetic systems… are constantly changing. Thus the control system is continually changing but the system controlled is constant, and constant over millions of years. This problem seems to me to stick out like a sore thumb in modern evolutionary theory” (1968, 77) |
Honestly, I don’t see the problem. Granted, if no proofreading of the DNA occurs (such as in bacteria), the frequency of spontaneous mutations is about 0,1 mutation in every gene (though this number may vary a lot in individual organisms and in different phyla), in every new generation; however, most eukaryotes do a proofreading test, so that amount is a lot smaller. Apart from that, there are other recovery mechanisms available in the cell, which also diminish the amount of mutations slipping through the net. Overall one can say in eukaryotes, about one in one billion genes mutates in every new generation. So yes, genetic systems are constantly changing (UV, X-rays, gamma-rays, so-called depurinations which happens 10,000 times a day in every cell, deaminations, etc…), but the cell has an impressive list of mechanisms to solve most of these changes. It’s only when external changes causes a higher selection pressure on the organism, that more mutations will occur as a result of that. More mutations will be inherited by the next generation, and more possible changes will occur in the offspring. Only when a certain mutation gives rise to a better balancing of the selection pressure caused by increasing environmental pressures, the organisms harbouring that mutation will have a clear selective advantage when compared to those who lack the beneficial mutation. Over the next generations, that mutation will spread to the population. The resulting effect of the mutation highly depends on the very disturbance from which it arose and to which it tries to adapt to. It can lead to a morphological change, behavioural changes, reproductive changes, temporal changes, functional changes, etc…
So if an organism lives in súch an ecosphere where morphological, behavioural, functional, reproductive, or other changes do NOT benefit its survival, the inherited mutations won’t have the extra benefit of being filtered out because it would not necessarily lead to an improvement of an already stable environmental and social ecosphere. I don’t see what’s wrong with that picture..
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| Evolutionists generally assume, and thus the lay public also accepts, that all biological form is governed by genes. There is no evidence that this is so. |
Ever heard of homeotic genes, and especially Hox genes? Homeotic genes determine such basic features as where a pair of wings and a pair of legs will develop on a bird or how a plant’s flower parts are arranged. The Hox genes are a class of homeotic genes who provide positional information in an animal embryo. Changes in Hox genes can have a profound impact on morphology. For example, consider the evolution of tetrapods (the terrestrian vertebrates) from fishes (as you mentioned before): one of the major transitions in this vertebrate history was the evolution of the walking legs of tetrapods from the fins of fishes. Unlike the fish fin, the tetrapod limb has digits (fingers and toes in humans) that extend skeletal support to the tip of the limb. During the development of a tetrapod, a Hox gene is expressed at the outer edge of the limb bud, the embryonic structure that develops into a leg. The product of this Hox gene apparently provides positional information about how far outward bones should grow in the limb. A related Hox gene is expressed during the development of a fish fin, but in a smaller region back from the tip of the fin bud. A mutation in this Hox gene that expanded its region of expression to the tip of the bud probably contributed to the evolution of skeletal extensions that made it possible for limbs to support vertebrates on land.
The evolution from invertebrates to vertebrates was an even bigger episode in macroevolution, and it too was probably associated with changes in Hox genes (I’ll describe this more in detail when we come to the evolution of fishes).
It must also be noted that homeotic genes are often one part in a hierarchical order of gene activity (as discovered in the fruit fly). To give you an idea, in case of the fruit fly it starts with maternal effect genes (or egg-polarity genes), which activate gap genes which activate pair-rule genes, which activate segment polarity genes which activate homeotic genes of the embryo which then activates other embryonic genes. All these are important players in the overall morphological development of the fruit fly, but only the homeotic genes are found to have close counterparts almost everywhere in the animal kingdom. And because homeotic genes are so well conserved animals, they must play an extremely important role in the (morphological) development of animals.
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| Geneticists have studied the distributions of inherited characteristics in animals and plants, and have concluded that the patterns of inheritance are due to entities which they call “genes”. These studies tell us about variations in biological structures which already exist, but do not tell us what caused the structures to come into being in the first place. We may find that genes determine the colour of eyes, but that does not tell us about the origin of the eyes themselves (Elsasser, 1975, 120). |
Oh but they do, to a certain extent. That’s why comparative molecular biology and other disciplines exist today: through the study of genetic parallels between all kinds of organisms, one can try to combine the gathered knowledge into a tree of life, solely based upon molecular comparisons on the genetic level. It’s even more remarkable that, apart from the early bacterial phyla (but there’s a logical explanation to it), this genetic tree of life shows much resemblance with the tree of life built from paleontological and geological data.
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| These proteins (enzymes) are vital for the maintainance of biological function and structure. This tells us something about how the ingredients for biological form appear, but it tells us nothing about the appearance of biological form itself. That still remains a mystery. |
Again, the biological form clearly is controlled by genes (for instance homeotic genes and its Hox genes in particular), and IF an adaptation is necessary to change this form, mutations which change that form will have a bigger advantage to survive to the following generations, thereby expressing the modified form. A perfect example is the development of sharks and rays from toothless fish (the Agnatha): because of the development of jaws out of the first gill arch of Agnatha fish, they were able to manifest themselves as good predators. However, to increase the chance of catching a good prey, they had to develop high speeds in the water. Therefore, selection pressure caused a beneficial mutation to develop to the next generations whereby the outer dermal bony skeleton of the Agnatha was reduced until only many many very small bony scales remained in the skin. So the biological form of the skin changed as an adaptation to be able to reach higher speeds in water.
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| But WHAT organizing principle arranges the proteins to make working cells?… |
It’s something called “metabolism”. There are countless metabolic pathways which are fine-tuned to express genes in the most efficient way. Why do these metabolic pathways exist? Because they’re the ways evolution choose to take to combine molecules in the most efficient way (meaning, the lowest potential energy is reached after a reaction follows the natural tendency to bring about a negative change in free energy). Why does a system evolve spontaneously to the lowest potential energy? Well, because otherwise it would be more energy-consuming, and the cell would have to make more energy available, etc.. There are many processes which go into a direction of positive change in free energy or a higher potential energy, but they’re always compensated later on so that the overall yield is still positive and spontaneous in the right direction. But if you like, you can always throw in concepts like the anthropic principle, but I’ll leave that out here
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| And WHAT organizing principle arranges cells to produce living organisms? |
There are numerous signal-transduction pathways known whereby cells communicate to each other using various chemical signal molecules. These molecules facilitate specific gene expression which then produce certain proteins which then changes certain aspects of the cell (for instance cell motion towards the other cell). However, you can also go back to the very early embryonic stage to explain why cells stick together: after fertilization, various cell divisions take place without the cells moving apart (that would again cost quite some energy, because packed cells are energetically more beneficial than isolated cells (compare it roughly with oil droplets on your soup who always keep together, and if nothing happens, never split up into separate droplets => it’s not quite the same, but it gives you an idea )).
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| Genes certainly affect biological structure but there is no proof at all that genetic information alone completely determines biological form. |
There are the homeotic genes and its Hox genes, and I have no doubt scientists will discover more of them (because you seem to forget molecular sciences are only a century old, and look how much they already found. Seems promising for the coming centuries to say the least!). Can you give me proof (not just statements based upon faith) then that all genetic information alone does NOT completely determine biological form?
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| Genes control details in biological form. A change in the genetic code only produces variations within the species. |
I think I’ve provided some examples of the opposite truth. It strikes me now how much the author keeps repeating the same claims 
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| The fossil record gives little, if any, direct evidence for gradual modification of species. New species appear suddenly in the fossil record without apparent links to existing species. They then remain unchanged for some time. The fossil record does not give direct evidence for evolution between species. |
Some examples:
- The evolution of the horse from the early Eocene until present. Characteristics: larger size, reduced number of toes, teeth modified for grazing.
- The evolution of whales out of terrestrial Artiodactyls (ungulates) can be seen in a few stages (from Pakicetus to Ambulocetus to Dalanistes to Protocetids and the more recognizable whales Basilosaurus and Dorudon which eventually developed into the whales of today).
- The evolution of seed plants out of ferns and mosses (with several still living transition forms such as Selaginella.
- The evolution from reptiles to mammals through Therapids (mammal-like reptiles) can very clearly be seen from the fossil record.
- The evolution of elephants.
- The evolution of fruit flies on the Hawaiian archipelago can be very nicely tracked by comparing it with the geological formation of the islands during the last five millions years
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The Punctuated Equilibrium Model of Evolution
Despite the lack of intermediates between fossil species, evolutionists do not doubt that evolution has taken place. Rather, they have tried to devise a mechanism for evolution which accommodates the admission that the intermediates are missing. In 1972, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Gould put forward the “punctuated equilibrium” model. This theory suggests that evolution does not take place gradually, but in fits and starts (1972, 1977).
Let us consider the supposed evolution of Species B from Species A. The new idea is that a small population of Species A becomes isolated. This small group then evolved very rapidly into Species B in a hidden locality, without leaving any trace in the fossil record. The new Species B now invades the territory frequented by the original Species A and consequently replaces Species A in the fossil record.
The fossil record will show the persistence of Species A and the sudden appearance of Species B. The hidden and undocumented evolution events are supposed to take a geological instant; that means that they are too fast to show up as gradual transitions in the fossil record, and too slow to be visible amongst species existing around us today. |
I honestly don’t see what’s so wrong with this model.. I also don’t see any valuable objections that this model IS wrong. It’s no theory, only a model in an attempt to describe the various paleontological findings. And I think it’s a rather good model. However, if one talks about a geological instant, one has to realize this is still a few thousands of years. For instance, suppose a particular species lives for five million years, but most of its morphological changes occurred during the first 50,000 years of its existence. In this case, the evolution of the species-defining characteristics was compressed into just 1% of the lifetime of the species. On the time scale that can generally be determined in fossil layers, the species will appear suddenly in rocks of a certain age and then linger with little or no change before becoming extinct. During its formative millennia, the species may have accumulated its modifications gradually, but relative to the overall history of the species, its inception was abrupt.
The degree to which a species changes after its origin is another issue: if the species is adapted to an environment that stays the same, then natural selection would counter changes in the gene pool. In this view, stabilizing selection tends to hold a population in a long period of stasis.
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| The new model is certainly ingenious, but it is not scientific, because one cannot state it in terms of direct experience. |
As I stated before, DIRECT experience is not necessary to practice science in a reasonable way.
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| Evolutionists can neither give examples of one species actually changing into another, nor explain the mechanism by which new species could arise. |
Erm..
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| In an attempt to explain why there is no direct evidence for the theory of biological evolution, evolutionists have devised another theory for which there is no direct evidence. This is not science. |
It’s no theory, it’s a model, and yes this IS science, because to some extent it explains the findings. I don’t say it’s perfect, but it’s a working hypothesis and so far it’s not an unreasonable one. On the other hand, you’ve absolutely given NO valid evidence whatsoever to show this model is absolutely NOT valid in this stage of scientific research.
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Single-celled Animals
Evolutionists cannot explain the origins of single-celled living creatures. (see Gould, 1980, 217-226). |
True. But they’re making progress, and regularly they gather new insights. Science is not at the end of its investigation of evolution. There’s still so incredibly much research to be done, and I have no doubt they’ll get new insights into the origins of single-cell organisms. Ofcourse, due to the age we’re talking about here (at least 3.5 billion years old), it’s extremely difficult to give us any direct fossil evidence of that era. But that doesn’t mean the origin of these organisms can’t be scientifically explained..
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Many-celled Animals
Fossils of many-celled animals appear before remains of single celled animals in the fossil record (Moore, 1964). This indicates that many-celled animals did not evolve from single-celled animals. |
This is simply not true. Prokaryotes (bacteria, archaea) were the first organisms which appeared. All of them are single-celled. Some species were found in thick layers of algae (stromatolites), but these consists of single-celled prokaryotes. The first many-celled eukaryotic organism appeared about 2 billion years after the first single-celled organism appeared (about 1.5 billion years ago).
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Vertebrates
“Hence one is left with the sense of the ‘spontaneous generation’ of the vertebrates some four to five hundred million years ago” (Sillman, 1960).
Fishes
The appearance of the earliest fishes is “one of the most perplexing problems in the study of vertebrate evolution” (Stahl, 1947, 30) |
The first vertebrates were toothless fish (Agnatha). Using the specialized homeotic genes, Hox genes, scientists have proposed a model to explain the evolution of a vertebrate regular fish (with jaws) from toothless fish which in effect evolved from an invertebrate. It is known that most invertebrates have a single cluster of homeotic genes (the Hox complex). At some time, about 520 million years ago, a mutation (a duplication) happened of the single Hox complex which then provided genetic material associated with the origin of the first vertebrates. Since Hox genes play such an important role in morphological formation, the duplicate set of genes could have taken on entirely new roles, such as directing the development of a backbone, the hallmark of the vertebrates. Some time later, about 425 million years ago, a second duplication of the Hox complex seems to have occurred, yielding the four clusters found in most vertebrates. This mutation may have allowed for even greater structural complexity, such as development of jaws and limbs. So we went from one single cluster of Hox in the invertebrate ancestor to the two-cluster toothless/jawless fish and finally to the vertebrate fish with jaws. Another sign of this model is the fact that the vertebrate Hox complex contains many of the same genes as the single invertebrate cluster. The vertebrate and invertebrate genes occur in virtually the same linear order on chromosomes and they direct the sequential development of the same body regions. Thus, the vertebrate Hox complex appears to be homologous to the single cluster in invertebrates, thus strengthening the value of this model.
Examples of transitional forms:
- from jawless fish to sharks, rays and skates: Cladoselache, Tristychius, Ctenacanthus, Paleospinax and Spathobatis
- from jawless fish to bony fish: the Silurian-early Devonian groups of Acanthodians and Palaeoniscoids, Canobius, Aeduella, Parasemionotus and Oreochima.
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Amphibians
“Paleontologists… have not discovered the animals intermediate between the finned and limbed forms” (Stahl, 1974, 195). |
But the so-called Romer’s Gap in the fossil record preceding the rise of amphibians is closing. They’ve already found several transition forms (Acanthostega, Ichthyostega), and recently an even older form (Pederpes) which lived in the heart of Romer’s Gap. Other examples of transitional forms: Osteolepis, Eusthenopteron, Sterropterygion, Hynerpeton and Pteroplax. I have no doubt more findings will follow and clarify this matter further.
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Reptiles
“Unfortunately, not a single specimen of an appropriate reptilian ancestor is known prior to the appearance of true reptiles. The absence of such ancestral forms leaves many problems of the amphibian-reptile transition unanswered” (Carroll, 1969, 393). |
What about Hylonomus, Paleothyris, Limnoscelis, Tseajaia and Proterogyrinus?
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Modern Mammals
“We do not have a fossil record actually documenting the origin of any of these major groups (of modern mammals)” (Gingerich, 1977, 472) |
There are many Therapsids which have features of the later mammals (morphologically and physiologically seen). Some examples: Haptodus, Biarmosuchia, Procynosuchus, Dvinia, Thrinaxodon, Cynognathus, Diademodon, Probelesodon, Probainognathus and Exaeretodon. These show a slow transition into more mammal-like features. After this, a gap is known from about 30 million years, with only one mammalian fossil known from that time. However, after this gap, reptilian-like mammals appear (for example Oligokyphus, Adelobasileus, Kayentatherium, Diarthrognathus, Sinoconodon, Eozostrodon and Morganucodon). But just as there once was a gap between fish and amphibians, I see no reason why more findings will close this gap with more transitional animals.
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Primates
Most authors assume that primates evolved from insectivores, but “there appears to be almost no fossil material that convincingly documents any aspect of this transition. The lengthy discussion on primate origins has its roots in the hypothetical considerations”. (Simons, 1972, 105). |
True, there’s still a gap, but fossils were found of a proto-primate group (the Plesiadapids). More findings are necessary though. Examples of these very primitive, perhaps transitional, primates: Palaechthon, Purgatorius and Cantius.
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Human Beings
“At this point, I confess, I cringe, knowing full well what all the creationists who deluge me with letters after each column must be thinking. ‘So Gould admits we can find no evolutionary ladder among early African hominids; species appear and later disappear, looking no different from their grandfathers. Sounds like special creation to me’” (Gould, 1977, 30). |
Well, nowadays it seems like every year we find evermore earlier fossils of hominids which come closer the true link between ape and man. Examples: Australopithecus anamensis, A. aethiopicus, A. afarensis, A. garhi and some more. But granted, there’s still much confusion about the exact relations, though the tendency toward the exact point of deviation is visible on both sides of the gap.
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Plants
“I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation”. (Corner, 1961, 97). |
Hm I don’t know about this, so perhaps can you give some examples?
What strikes me about these quotes is that they’re rather outdated (the most recent one dates from… 1980). It must be noted that since then, there has been lots of new gap-closing findings, as I’ve mentioned.
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| “Wrong order” fossil sequences completely contradict the theory of biological evolution. |
I agree science can’t currently give decent answers to this anomaly. However, these wrong fossil layers are only a small minority compared with the overwhelming amount of “normal” layers, which DO support the biological evolutionary theory.
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| “Wrong-order” fossil sequences clearly contradict the theory of evolution of species. It is quite illogical to maintain a belief in evolution in the face of this directly contradictory evidence from the fossil record” |
It is equally illogical to deny the majority of the findings which DO support biological evolution. ALL findings must be considered, and so far, most findings by far can be correlated with biological evolution, including various transitional fossils and findings from many other disciplines (molecular genetics, physiology, morphology, anatomy, biochemistry, geology, zoography).
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| The insoluble problem of the missing layers only appears when geologists use evolutionistic doctrine as the basis for dating fossils. The geological formations prove that, although evolutionists suppose the fossil fauna in the adjacent layers to be separated by millions of years of “evolutionary time”, factually there was no separation in real time. Therefore, the evolutionary time scale is completely false. |
I wouldn’t say these missing layers are an insoluble problem. Science is constantly evolving and at no point we can safely say “yep this is all we’ll ever find out about this subject”. Look at science 100 years ago: scientists didn’t think about continental drift at first, until some started to ask questions about it. No one really knew what was going on, until Wegener came with his hypothesis. Scientists were highly sceptical at first, but years later they found more evidence to show his model was right. In the same way, scientists nowadays are confronted by missing layers, wrong fossil orders, etc… And in the same way, the evolving science will sooner or later provide us with new models, new insights and new explanations for this phenomenon. This is just the normal way good science works. I don’t see any reason why these findings could only be explained by creationistic ideas such as a massive Flood or something alike.. Do you?
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All proteins are made up of different combinations of the same 20 amino acids. If one combines three amino acids, the number of different chains is 20(to the power of)3 = 8000. If one combines five amino acids, the number of different chains is 20(to the power of)5 = 3, 200, 000 and so on. With even a relatively short chain of amino acids, the number of possible combinations is literally countless (Salisbury, 1971, 335).
There are countless possible protein structures, mostly biologically useless, for proteins must have very specific structures to be biologically effective. The probability that particular proteins with such highly specific structures would appear by chance in any “soup” of randomly formed molecules is extremely small. For example, the odds against the spontaneous appearance of a particular protein molecule with a particular essential sequence of 200 amino acids are: 1,000 ,000, 000, 000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000, 000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000 ,000,000 ,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0, 000 ,000,0 00,000,000,0 00,000,000,0 00,000,000,0 00,000,000 ,000,000,000 ,000,000 ,00 0,0 00,000,000,00 0,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000 ,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. |
Impressive number  Got some remarks though:
- Proteins don’t just spontaneously appear out of nowhere, but they are the result of a fundamental molecular process whereby DNA gets transcripted into RNA, which in itself gets translated into proteins. If you want to talk about the complexity of proteins, then you must talk about their origin, DNA. As you probably know, the building blocks of DNA are four simple bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine), a sugar and phosphates. If those components were absolutely neutral in all aspects, then yes it must be amazingly difficult to obtain DNA out of a soup of molecules. But they’re not neutral. In fact, due to the electron densities and electron distributions in those separate molecules, they have the tendency to bind on each other (via the chemical rules of electrostatic attraction/repulsion). Furthermore, due to their structure, the bases mutually also have the tendency to bind via hydrogen-bridges to form pretty stable complexes. However, DNA requires enzymes to form proteins. This posed a problem for many years, until scientists found out RNA was probably the first carrier of genetic information. Why? Because RNA sometimes has the ability to take over the role of enzymes (called ribozymes). Furthermore, scientists have already managed to form short pieces of RNA out of a primordial soup of molecules. Because of the hydrogen-bonds between the bases, it was more likely to form double-stranded DNA in time, then when hydrogen-bonds were not possible.
Ok that’s fine you may say, but what about those proteins? In the beginning, only short pieces of RNA and perhaps already DNA had been formed. Now we needed amino acids. There could have been lots of mechanisms possible to form those. I mean, even now only about 1% of bacterial metabolic pathways have been investigated properly, and among those results are already some amazingly simple pathways to obtain some of the absolutely necessary amino acids which are necessary to obtain proteins. Two examples:
- some Archaea (those organisms only live in extreme conditions (hot temperatures, acid environment, extremely salty and reductive places)) only need CO, H2S and a reductive environment (such as hot iron-sulfur rocks) to form pyruvate and alanine. Alanine is one of most simple amino acids and necessary to form the other amino acids through subsequent reactions. Pyruvate is an extremely important product, necessary for the energy balance in primitive organisms (through fermentation), and is also needed in many other metabolic pathways in other reactions.
- other Archaea (methanogenes) only need CO2 (and sometimes acetic acid, a very simple organic compound) to obtain their energy in the form of methane. Another product formed is hydrogen gas, which is absolutely necessary in certain reduction processes which indirectly have their influence on amino acid production.
There’s no doubt there are MANY other metabolic pathways to be discovered which give more insight into the primordial world.
- As I kinda showed in the previous point, the formation of proteins must not be seen as independent from its evolutionary history. Otherwise it might indeed seem a little… astonishing But it all began with the formation of very little molecules (RNA out of simple bases, a sugar and phosphates; simple amino acids out of even more simple and abundant molecules). Due to natural chemical interactions, those molecules could have been surrounded by a very simple membrane (liposomes, kinda like fat droplets on soup). The earliest machinery of protein formation is not very well understood yet, but they already know amino acids can easily be formed, just as RNA and eventually short pieces of DNA. But again, I see no reason why the science wouldn’t be able to evolve in the way as she’s doing right now (every once in a while there are new important insights in the early mechanisms of DNA transcription and RNA translation).
- The way this “problem” is represented here seems to imply there’s only one way evolution could have happened, and that is by using exactly those specific proteins which now are the building blocks of most organisms. Most protein structures are indeed biologically useless, but that’s because the function of these proteins must inherently be connected with the metabolic pathways as chosen by the process of evolution. If evolution choose to take another path, then other proteins were needed in whole other metabolic pathways in whole other organisms. The chemical and physical laws would probably be the same, but they can be taken so broad, that numerous possibilities are possible to reach the lowest potential energetic levels in life metabolism. So basically, evolution can NOT be reproduced (this also means adaptations are by far not the only one possible). To show this, scientists conducted a famous experiment: they took a pure culture of E. coli bacteria (they were all identical clones coming from one single bacterial cell) and divided the culture over 12 identical tubes with a growth medium of glucose. Each day every tube was transferred to a new glucose medium, and this during ten years. The generation period is about 4hrs, so during those ten years, about 21,900 generations evolved from the original clone culture. The question was: did the cells adapt to the environment of the laboratory and are these adaptions the same when this evolution is repeated twelve times? Result: in everyone of the twelve repetitions, the generation period dropped to only 2.5hrs and all the cells were a bit bigger than at the beginning of the experiment. So the rate of fitness was increased in all repetitions. But although the phenotypes were the same, big genotypical differences were found. So evolution is NOT repeatable because similar improvements in fitness is possible in many ways. After this first experiment, all colonies in the twelve tubes were transferred to a new medium (so a new external stress), namely maltose instead of glucose. After another 1000 generations scientists found out the bacterial cultures díd develop important differences in achieved fitness: this was caused because now the original material was NOT identical anymore (phenotypically the same, but not genotypically). They even found out some populations obtained their energy out of fermentation, while others used respirative pathways.
This experiment clearly shows the problem of protein synthesis in the beginning was really not restricted to a few possibilities. Instead, everything was still very open. When a few important amino acids formed many many possibilities existed on how to deal with these amino acids. It was NOT predetermined which reactions HAD to take place in order for life to develop itself! This is a crucial thing to realize. Therefore, the number mentioned here to “prove” proteins are highly unlikely to form spontaneously, is a clear deviation from what is actually scientifically known about the chemical properties of molecules, the many possible ways to form complex molecules out of simple abundant ones and the inherent features of the evolutionary process itself.
For now I’ll leave my comments on that. More to come when I have more spare time. One remark though about the evolution of the human eye, which is listed somewhat further in the essay as being totally not understood. This is quite wrong though. Many people seemingly find it hard to believe that such a complex organ could be the product of gradual evolution rather than finished designs created especially for humans. If the eye needs all its parts to work, usually the argument goes, how could a partial eye be of any use as an evolutionary stage. The argument is also used for the vertebrate’s skeleton and the stinging cells of the jellyfish. But let’s work out the example of the human eye. The fallacy in this line of reasoning is in the starting assumption that eyes have to be this complicated to be useful to an animal. The most basic versions of eyes are just clusters of photoreceptor cells, pigmented cells sensitive to light. Only slightly more refined eyes are the eyes of the flatworms called planarians, which have photoreceptor cells lining cup-shaped indentations on the head. These eyecups have no lenses or other equipment for focusing images, but they do enable the animal to distinguish light from dark; planarians move away from light, which is a behavioural adaptation that probably reduces the risk of being eaten.
Complex eyes of various types evolved independently from simpler ones many times in the animal kingdom. For example, some molluscs, including squids and octopuses, have eyes every bit as complex as those of humans and other vertebrates. Amongst living molluscs we can find eyes ranging in complexity from clusters of photoreceptors to camera-like eyes with lenses. Considering the long success of many “primitive” animals with simple eyecups, such as flatworms and certain molluscs, it is clear that eyecups work fine for what these animals have to do to survive and reproduce. In those animals that do have complex eyes, the organs evolved from simpler ones not in one quantum evolutionary jump, but by incremental adaptation of organs that worked and benefited their owners at each stage of this macroevolution.
In conclusion, I think the original post is really black-white vision without carefully investigating the scientific evidence which has been uncovered so far. New scientific insights are gained everyday, and some things which were highly anomalous a few decades ago, are slowly resolved by new discoveries and ongoing scientific research. I agree there are gaps still missing in the evolutionary tale, and some of them are crucial to the story. But if one honestly considers the amount of evidence one has already found in favour of evolution theory, then I don’t see any reason why science wouldn’t be able to find the answers to some of the enigmas one day when it has gained the insights and capacity to find these answers.
PS. I’ve already mentioned this, but in this comment, I only considered the physical manifestations of evolution. Imo only this relative evolution can be investigated by conventional science.
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| Posted: Fri 13 May, 2005 |
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| You said you couldn't understand how "good" mutations accumulate without a conscious being stroking his beard and saying "Yes, yes, no, no, no, yes" and so on to each alteration. I can't explain it any better than I already did, and I never once thought I'd have to. |
You got no mechanism, that's the problem. Always been my problem with this stuff. Mutations don't cut it... this is from
http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while/sage/v9i6f.htm
explaining how, scientifically, according to our knowledge of genetics (which is vastly superior to that in Darwin's day), mutations cannot do what you need them to, Atheist (if the details of the experiment seem boring, skip to "Summary of Results"):
If you have a Scrabble TM game, and lots of time on your hands, you can learn a lot about microevolution and macroevolution.
Science is best learned by experimentation, so let us describe some experiments you can do to learn important lessons about selection and evolution. We used a computer that simulates 1,000 trials in seven minutes; but even if you don’t have a computer, you can verify the results by hand for fewer trials in a little more time with a standard Scrabble game.
The Gene Pool
A standard Scrabble game has 98 letter tiles (plus two blank “wild card” tiles, which we didn’t use). The letters are not equally represented on the tiles. That is, there are nine A’s and twelve E’s, but only one Q and one X.
These letters represent genes. We refer to the collection of letters as the “letter pool” or “gene pool” interchangeably to reinforce the notion that the letters represent genes.
To do the experiment, select five letters at random from the gene pool, and see how many different words you can make with the five letters.
Since we didn’t want my imperfect knowledge of the English language to bias the results, we used an impartial computer to find the words. There is a file called “ospd.txt” that anyone can freely download from www.puzzlers.org. It is the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, consisting of 79,338 English words that are 2 to 8 letters long. We wrote a program that arranges the chosen letters in every possible combination, and displays just those combinations that are found in the dictionary file.
Since drawing five tiles from the bag, typing them into the computer, and putting them back in the bag takes time, we wrote another routine which draws simulated letter tiles at random from a virtual letter pool. This gene pool has the same 98 letter tiles used by the Scrabble game. A random number generator shuffles the 98 tiles after each turn.
We combined the random letter generator with the dictionary lookup routine in a program that pulls five letters from the gene pool and determines how many of them are in the dictionary and tabulates the results. We ran the program twice, saving the results in files called “Run 1” and “Run 2”.
Word Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4
ET 126 122 1 3
IS 68 57 3 744
IF 39 33 1 511
HI 33 31 2 468
IT 94 120 4 5
ID 70 81 644 3
RID 12 11 520 0
RIB 9 6 288 1
BID 4 10 225 0
HIS 3 1 0 328
BIB 0 1 32 0
BIRD 2 0 166 0
FISH 0 0 0 145
----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------
Different 2828 2890 233 226
Run 1 and Run 2 were “control runs.” They show the normal results without any artificial selection. Later we modified the program to add artificial selection, and got the results for runs 3 and 4. For now, let’s just look at runs 1 and 2 in the table below.
The last line in the table shows that after drawing five tiles 1,000 times, the computer was able to form 2,828 different words in the first run, and 2,890 different words in the second run.
Not shown in the table is the fact that, on average, the computer was able to form 14 words from the five tiles on every draw. Some words were repeated, which is why there were less than 3,000 different words, rather than 14,000 different words, after 1,000 trials.
Furthermore, some words were formed more often than others. We don’t have space to list all the words it formed, so we have shown just a few representative ones in the other rows in the table.
Neither I, nor the Microsoft spelling checker, knew that “et” is a valid English word, but it is in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Just in case you don’t know what “et” means, I will use it in a sentence for you.
Jed said to Granny, “I don’t feel too good. It must be something I et.”
In 126 of the 1,000 draws in Run 1, and 122 times in Run 2, the word “et” could be formed. The word “rid” came up 12 times in Run 1, and 11 times in Run 2. You can see some of the other results for yourself in the table.
The important thing about runs 1 and 2 is that the results were similar. The results weren’t identical, because this was a random experiment. But the experiment was done often enough that the statistics were stable.
Artificial Selection
Let’s suppose we want to skew things so that we can make a particular word more often using artificial selection. First we pick the word we want to encourage.
In Run 3, “bird” is the word. After drawing five tiles, and making as many words as possible, only the letters “b”, “i”, “r”, and “d” are returned to the gene pool. In other words, we don’t allow the other 22 letters to “reproduce.”
Initially, the gene pool contained two B’s, nine I’s, six R’s, four D’s, and 77 other letters. But since the other letters were never replaced after drawing, the letter pool was quickly reduced from 98 tiles to 21 tiles. This greatly limited the number of different words that could be produced. In fact, the average number of words that could be made on each draw dropped from 14 to 5 after just 27 draws. After 36 draws it leveled off to an average of 3.5 words per draw.
Artificial selection does achieve its goal. In the first run, without natural selection, “bird” was made from the tiles on draws 369 and 552. In the second run, also without natural selection, “bird” never could be made on any of the 1,000 draws. So, “bird” was only be formed from a draw of five tiles about once every thousand times.
In Run 3, in which we applied natural selection, “bird” was made a total of 166 times (on draws 28, 30, 34, 43, 48, 51, 60, 68, 71, 74, 75, … , 988, 989, 992, 993, and 996).
Not only did artificial selection make “bird” much more likely, it also produced a phenomenon that Charles Darwin called “correlation of growth”, which we recognize today as “inbreeding.” That is, “rib”, “id”, “bid”, “rid”, and other such words, were frequently formed. You can see that by comparing the results from Run 3 with other runs.
In Run 4, we tried to evolve a “fish” instead of a “bird.” Notice that Run 4 was successful 145 times, despite the fact that “fish” was never found in any of the previous 3,000 draws. Furthermore, Run 4 produced different “inbreeding” than Run 3 did, resulting in much higher instances of “is”, “if”, and “hi”.
The other important point to note is that artificial selection reduced the variation by a factor of about 10. The last line in the table shows that, without artificial selection (runs 1 and 2), more than 2,800 different words were be produced in 1,000 draws. With artificial selection (runs 3 and 4), just a little over 200 different words were produced.
Summary of Results
By removing letters from the letter pool, we were able to create a situation in which desired words were formed more frequently and consistently. There was less variation in the words that could be produced. Certain other words, which we did not particularly want to encourage, also appeared more frequently because they used the same letters (genes) as our target word.
The same things happen when artificial selection is used in breeding. The breeder does not allow plants or animals with undesired characteristics to breed, removing the undesirable traits from the gene pool, while increasing the frequency of individuals born with the desired characteristics. The more inbred the population becomes, the less variation there is. But, the inbred population might also contain genes for other characteristics, which will not be removed because the entire population has them.
Natural selection can produce the same kind of variation that artificial selection can. The only differences are that natural selection is not guided, and natural selection may not be as ruthless as intentional breeding is, so it may take more time for natural selection to cause as much variation.
The Rest of the Story
Evolutionists would like to stop right there. “Evolution” has been proved. Small changes are observed over a short period of time. Therefore, they say, large changes can occur over long periods of time.
The fallacy with this argument is that you can’t gain by losing. You cannot keep on losing money until you eventually become a millionaire (unless you were a billionaire to begin with).
No matter how many tiles you discard from your Scrabble game, you will never see this “bird” evolve on your game board:
(insert picture of foreign symbol word)
The reason why, of course, is that you need some Cyrillic letter tiles to spell “ptetsa” (the Russian word for “bird”). No matter how many tiles you discard, you won’t create any Cyrillic ones.
Macroevolution requires new information. A reptile can’t evolve into a mammal because a reptile doesn’t have the genes to make mammary glands. It isn’t a question of removing the genes from reptiles that keep them from giving milk. It is a question of coming up with entirely new genes.
Macroevolution isn’t just a whole lot of microevolution—it is an entirely different process. That’s why microevolution has as little to do with macroevolution as losing money has to do with getting rich.
Unpopular Terms
One point of agreement between many creationists and evolutionists is that neither side is very comfortable with the terms “microevolution” and “macroevolution.”
Some creationists are against using these terms because “micro” means “a little,” and “macro” means “a lot.” Therefore, since microevolution is a real, observable scientific process, it gives credence to the evolutionists’ train analogy. That is, if you see a train leaving New York, then observe it arriving some time later in Chicago, one can reasonably conclude that, given enough time, the train will eventually arrive in Los Angeles. By analogy, if you see microevolution cause a little change in living creatures in a short period of time, one can (mistakenly) conclude that given enough time any change is possible. Since that analogy sounds convincing to people who don’t have a strong background in biology, creationists would prefer to stay as far away from it as possible.
Evolutionists, on the other hand, don’t like the terms because they don’t like to admit the distinction. They would like to lump both processes together in the catch-all phase “evolution” so that they can say, “Evolution can be demonstrated in the laboratory,” and not have to admit that microevolution can easily be demonstrated, but macroevolution never has.
They realize the fallacy in the train argument is that although one can conclude the train will eventually get to Los Angeles, one can’t correctly conclude that the train will eventually get to Honolulu. That’s because a train has the capability to roll on rails, but not to float on water or fly though the air. If you want to get to Honolulu, you have to use a different process than rolling on steel rails. Macroevolution is a totally different process than microevolution.
The Scrabble experiment shows how microevolution uses selection to remove undesirable letters from the letter pool. Removing letters didn’t allow us to build any words that we could not have built before.
Crossbreeding
We can simulate crossbreeding by mixing the tiles from my English Scrabble game with my Russian Scrabble game. In general, we won’t be able to make as many English words because some of the tiles will be Cyrillic letters that are useless for making English words. We won’t be able to make as many Russian words, either. So, although we draw five tiles, in general, less than five will be useful.
In most cases, you can’t crossbreed different species because their “alphabets” are too different. But, there are some species that are similar enough that you might be able to produce viable offspring. But even in these cases, it doesn’t prove macroevolution, for the following reason.
Suppose we combine these three English tiles with these three Cyrillic tiles.
Clearly, this is not a legal word in either language; but someone fluent in both English and Russian would pronounce the mixed word as “scrabble.” One might say that we have evolved a new word by crossbreeding my English tiles with my Russian tiles.
Even so, we still had to have the English and Cyrillic letters to begin with. Mixing the tiles doesn’t create new tiles. Macroevolution needs a way to create new tiles.
New Genes
Mixing existing genes, whether they come from two creatures of the same species, or two creatures of different species, still requires that the genes existed in the first place. Where do new genes come from?
Darwin didn’t know about genes, and believed that diet, exercise, and climate created characteristics that were passed on to the creature’s offspring. Modern evolutionists know this isn’t true, so they turn to random chance to create new genes for natural selection to choose from. There are problems with this idea.
Suppose that the game factory occasionally made Cyrillic tiles by mistake, and included them in English Scrabble games. One or two Cyrillic tiles aren’t of any value, so they would be discarded by the purchaser. (Or, more likely, the buyer would demand that the game factory replace the defective tiles.)
Evolutionists sometimes claim that random mutations, which are of no value, hang around in the DNA in a sort of dormant state, waiting for other mutations that will interact with them and make them more useful. That is, our Scrabble game players would keep the occasional Cyrillic tiles until more Cyrillic tiles are made by mistake, so that complete Russian words can be made. That idea, which is so silly in our Scrabble analogy, is just as silly in real life.
“It” Has Been Proved
Yes, “evolution” (that is, microevolution) has been proved. It has been proved by breeders as well as computer scientists. Everyone agrees, but hardly anyone cares. The controversy is about macroevolution, which evolutionists also like to call “evolution.” But that kind of evolution has never been proved.
Microevolution has nothing to do with macroevolution because macroevolution requires the creation of new genes, while microevolution involves the elimination of existing genes.
Microevolution does not explain how we have so many different kinds of life on Earth. Science confirms microevolution, but the scientific evidence is strongly against macroevolution.
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