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The Undeniable Science of Biology
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 Good point |
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I was never force fed creationism in home school or anywhere else. <<I have run across extremely few folks who initially thought evolution was correct but later switched to creationism…>> I never started with the belief that evolution was correct. I had an open mind when I started looking into it. I would wager the vast majority of people who say they believe the theory of evolution have never looked into it. <<But back to the burning, saddle scorched question: Why are there ANY horse transitionals?>> That’s why it’s worth closely examining the evidence for a few transitional fossils. Is there any fossil whose classification as a transitional fossil is not in dispute? |
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That’s one way to look at it. Another way is, if the theory of evolution is true, why aren’t there literally millions? Think of how many animal species exist today. And then think of the number of transitional species that had to precede them if the theory of evolution is true. The number is staggering and (obviously) multiple times the number of animal species alive today. |
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Invariably Fatal Thumper is right--most mutations that alter phenotype are harmful, not beneficial. Within our own species most abnormally developing embryos are expelled. In fact, most human pregnancies (more than half) spontaneously terminate. It is unknown what fraction of these were non viable, but a good percent of stillborns and deaths at birth are the result of defects that prevent survival outside the womb. It is this reason sending the police in to investigate every miscarriage is problematic. But even the rare beneficial mutation has no guarantee of being passed on. How many good mutants got eaten before they ever had a chance to mate? The reason it happens at all is because nature is so horrifically prolific. One corn stalk produces how many hundreds of kernels? One pumpkin produces a hundred seeds. One dandelion. One pine cone will have a dozen seeds, but the tree will produce dozens of pine comes in a year. A hundred thousand children are born every day. Damn--got to run. |
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stalhandske 11-Sep-22, 09:17 |
Yes, but have you entirely neglected my response to this? |
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stalhandske 11-Sep-22, 09:20 |
Thumper You are talking about mixing of two 'established species'. That's not what transitional fossils are about. |
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Fossil record |
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Stål No I'm not. Here I'm talking about natural modification of an existing (established) species through natural selection to make it 'better'. Isn't that the evolutionist's argument? |
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Thumper It’s complicated. Most mutations seem to be largely neutral, but that can be deceptive because changes accrue and combine over generations. It’s certain that there are FAR more negative deleterious mutations than beneficial ones. Still, from NCBI, the National Health Library (a really good article) Of course not all mutations are harmful, and the occasional fitness increasing mutations drive adaptive evolution. In this issue Orr (2010) points out how some intriguing statements can be made about advantageous mutations beyond the fact that they are usually rare and difficult to observe. They include (i) back mutations that occur if a large enough number of slightly deleterious mutations was previously fixed, possibly at a time when the effective population size was smaller (Charlesworth & Eyre-Walker 2007), (ii) compensatory mutations that at least partially repair some harmful effects at the molecular level (e.g. Burch & Chao 1999; Innan & Stephan 2001; Kern & Kondrashov 2004), (iii) quantitative trait mutations that can either increase or decrease the value of a trait with an impact on fitness (e.g. Keightley & Halligan 2009), (iv) resistance mutations that are part of biological arms races between hosts and parasites (Hamilton et al. 1990), and (v) mutations that enable a species to start expanding into a new ecological niche (e.g. Elena & Lenski 2003; Bergthorsson et al. 2007). The frequencies and DMEs of these groups are probably very different and their prediction and estimation are likely to be fruitful fields for further research. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov |
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Are you saying that, in your view, the number of transitional fossils is 10 or 11? |
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How sure are you that Neanderthals and humans are separate species? “The biological species concept states that species are reproductively isolated entities - that is, they breed within themselves but not with other species. Thus all living Homo sapiens have the potential to breed with each other, but could not successfully interbreed with gorillas or chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. On this basis, 'species' that interbreed with each other cannot actually be distinct species. Critics who disagree that H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens are two separate species can now cite supporting evidence from recent genetic research. This indicates that the two interbred with each other when they met outside Africa about 55,000 years ago. As a result, everyone today whose ancestors lived outside Africa at that time has inherited a small but significant amount of Neanderthal DNA, which makes up about 2% of their genomes.” www.nhm.ac.uk |
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genomelink.io |
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Almost Invariably Fatal That milk digesting gene is pretty much fixed in the population, with the gene loss occasionally expressed in the unfortunate lactose intolerant individual. Milk gives my son-in-law voluminous gas when he imbibes, or eats dairy ice cream. Genes can go the other way. Blind cave fish lose genes for eyesight. They are still born with eyes, but these are non functional. At some point earlier in their history a successfully reproducing specimen which had no need of eyesight had its makeup fixed in the population as the last fish that still could see died. The same thing happened with old world primates. At some point after the new world monkeys (South American variety with the prehensile tails) split, an African ape's GULO gene suffered a mutation causing it to fail. GULO is the gene that expresses a protein which synthesizes ascorbic acid. All terrestrial mammals need vitamin C to live, but most make their own. The old world primates, fruit bats, and guinea pigs cannot. The diets of these three groups are historically rich enough in ascorbic acid the loss of the functional gene went unnoticed. A horse with a non functioning GULO gene would be feeble and die as a foal, before it could pass on the defective gene. Bu a fruit bat gets plenty of ascorbic acid in its diet. Same with humans. Our GULO gene is broken the same way it is in old wood apes, which we take as one tiny bit of evidence for common ancestry. Sailors on long ocean voyages became well aware of what causes scurvy, this essential vitamin deficiency. Had the old world primate food vitamin C sources perished, so to would have the old world apes, and our species would have never seen the light of day. |
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Andrew “Are you saying that, in your view, the number of transitional fossils is 10 or 11?” No!! Not even close to what he said! |
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lord_shiva 11-Sep-22, 11:52 |
Deleted by lord_shiva on 11-Sep-22, 14:32.
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@zorroloco |
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Counting Numbers <That’s one way to look at it. Another way is, if the theory of evolution is true, why aren’t there literally millions? Think of how many animal species exist today. And then think of the number of transitional species that had to precede them if the theory of evolution is true. The number is staggering and (obviously) multiple times the number of animal species alive today.> General George Wright slaughtered herds of Indain horses along the banks of the Spokane River, killing a thousand of them and destroying the Spokanee (Children of the Sun) horse culture. For more than a century afterward you could still kick up bones of that slaughter--even into the 1960s and 1970s. By 2010 scant evidence of his horse massacre remains. In just over a hundred years all those horses now leave no trace. It is a marvel we find even as much as we do. One cowpoke riding across the range came across a row of scutes. Pondering what kind of geologic process might have produced this, he kicked them off with his feet, destroying integral parts of the stegosaurus buried beneath. Those scutes, exposed by erosion after many millions of years, would have been destroyed by subsequent weathering over the next few thousand years. A buffalo herd changing its usual direction would have wiped them out. |
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@L_S I too never encountered the theory of evolution in secondary school or college. But I didn’t take courses in college where it likely would have been taught. I mostly took courses in English, Philosophy, Journalism and a few other subjects. I don’t think the theory of evolution and Law of Gravitation are on the same level in terms of validity and credibility - nowhere near it. That’s my opinion. I was asking if there are any transitional fossils that are not disputed by credible people with credentials. |
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Probably. Like Zorro implied, the vast majority who believe in gravity likely never really looked into that cockamamie theory either.> So the misrepresentation and mockery continues... |
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Thumper Truthfully, what school did you attend that force fed you evolution? Do you feel you were force fed algebra or PE or chemistry? Wasn’t evolutionary theory built into the biology curriculum in 9th/10 grade? Do you consider evolutionary theory, right or wrong, to have been influential in society? As such, shouldn’t it be mandated, much like history? (Which, btw, is almost always FAR less accurate than evolutionary theory). Force fed? Hyperbole much? |
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Z |
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Neandertal DNA [Revised] Like BC, I have higher than average Neandertal DNA. <<If Andrew needs more help perhaps he should [recruit] more creationists. Put out a call for folks force fed creationist theory in home school, or wherever they are found.>> <I was never force fed creationism in home school or anywhere else.> Thumper complained about being force fed evolution. This topic was not discussed in my public school--not even in first year biology. I think second year students touched on it, though I never took that. I never encountered it in five years of college either. <<I have run across extremely few folks who initially thought evolution was correct but later switched to creationism…>> <I never started with the belief that evolution was correct. I had an open mind when I started looking into it. I would wager the vast majority of people who say they believe the theory of evolution have never looked into it.> Have most of those who believe in gravity really delved deeply into that theory? [This comment revised to improve tone and reduce elements perceived as mocking]. <<But back to the burning, saddle-scorched question: Why are there ANY horse transitionals?>> <That’s why it’s worth closely examining the evidence for a few transitional fossils. Is there any fossil whose classification as a transitional fossil is not in dispute?> Disputed by whom? I mean, we can find folks willing to dispute anything. Mike Hughes disputed our world was round, up until his spacecraft crashed in the California desert. I'm not equating creationists with flat earthers. I do not believe there is any religious justification for insisting the world is flat--a notion easily disproven by a simple phone call to any friend or family member in an alternate time zone. Evolution is a much more subtle, less obvious concept. Kind of like Einstein's relativity. [Original post 11:52] |
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Thumper I guess if your comment is backed by nothing, it’s easy to feel clarifying questions to be mockery. That, btw, was mockery. |
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Response to Andrew Most anthropologists regard H. neandertalensis and H. sapiens as separate species, hence the nomenclature. Both are clearly of the same genus, Homo. There has been some debate as to whether the split should be at the species or at the subspecies level. Neandertal used fire, made art, and buried their dead. Neandertal middens exhibit less complexity in diet than do sapien garbage pits. Whether this indicates simple cultural difference, like Halal food or not eating shrimp, or whether it was more physiological is unknown. We have recovered enough Neandertal DNA to resurrect a pretty close facsimile. There are moral ambiguities in such research, however. <<I too never encountered the theory of evolution in secondary school or college. But I didn’t take courses in college where it likely would have been taught. I mostly took courses in English, Philosophy, Journalism and a few other subjects.>> I studied math and physics. My degree is in pure math. <<I don’t think the theory of evolution and Law of Gravitation are on the same level in terms of validity and credibility - nowhere near it. That’s my opinion.>> My biology friends demur. Just as the periodic table is the foundation of chemistry and plate tectonics underlies geology, evolution serves as the basis for biology. It is utterly fundamental to the science and study of life. Stellar evolution, underscored by the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, drives our understanding of astrophysics. The hot inflationary big bang is the bedrock of cosmology. QM (QED and QCD) are the basis of particle physics, which is becoming more and more entwined with cosmology. <<I was asking if there are any transitional fossils that are not disputed by credible people with credentials.>> None I am aware of. The Hagerman Horse is probably NOT a transitional, but instead the last of its kind. Horses went extinct in North and South America (if the horse ever made it that far south). Some folks view the branching tree of life as consisting primarily of end points. A fossil of a juvenile (pre pubescent) specimen cannot possibly be transitional, given that it has no offspring. On the other hand, every species is either a transitional species or the last surviving members of its kind. By default. Some species will give rise to new species, and the rest will simply go extinct. |
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Morrocco It is from Morricco you can gaze at Euope and the big rock at the tip of the Iberian Penninsula where some of the last Neandertal remains were found, people who lived about 40,000 years ago. |
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LS I've seen this picture (or variations of it) of "man's progression/evolution from ape" on many classroom walls since grade school... That man evolved from ape is standard fare taught as fact in every school across the country. It's so prevelant that it's burned into the psyche of every school aged child starting at the earliest ages. You say no? I find that hard to believe. |
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Thumper The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans remain. |
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Six or Twelve <Are you saying that, in your view, the number of transitional fossils is 10 or 11?> The number of fossils in just the horse series that we have discovered so far. Equus is the modern horse. Hipparion is Pliocene. Pliohippus, Nannipus, and Neohipparion are late Miocene. Merychippus is middle Miocene. Parahippus and Anchiitherium are early Miocene. Miohippus is Oligocene. Mesohippus is late Eocene, early Oligocene. Epihippus and Orohippus are mid Eocene. With Hyracotherium that makes 13. 11 of these are therefore transitional or terminal nodes, recognizing the fact hyracotherium itself is transitional from some as yet unidentified species. Why do we find any of these, all of which are extinct save Equus? No human alive or dead has ever seen hyracotherium. So why create it? There are plenty of varieties of Equus. Why populate the Earth with fossils of species no human has ever seen? The Bible authors were a bit precocious to divide ungulates into even toed and odd toed varieties, hinting at the more distant shared ancestry. If you look up the tree of life for the perissodactyla, the evolutionary relationships are truly fascinating. |
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Thumper 15:17 Lots of things are equally 'burned in' and even more have been 'burned in' even more deeply over the years. The important question is whether or not these perceptions are supported by evidence. Three hundred years ago you would been hard-pressed to find an adult European who didn't accept as background fact that the Christian God was watching your every move. There wasn't even a public debate on the question. That belief faded because it wasn't supported by evidence sufficient to convince a new generation. Now we have a significant proportion of the population that not only rejects evolution, but is quite vocal in making these objections heard. So if evolution isn't backed by convincing evidence, it should never have gained any following at all in the first instance; and should have died out within a couple of generations anyway. So don't try to tell me that evolution is a con job! If it is, then I want to know why the conspirators behind it haven't opened the most profitable advertising agency the world has ever known. Sorry, but anyone who wants to fight a scientific theory has to do it by the rules of Science if that debate is going to be won in the long term. A trickster might be persuasive for a generation or two, but it won't last much longer. And Evolution has not only lasted, it has built up a case that is supported by scientific disciplines that were not even imagined back in the days of the sail-powered Beagle. Perhaps one day Evolution will be shown to be an illusion, a pattern created by a human mind that sees patterns in random arrangements, like a Rorschach Test writ large. But that will need to be done by evidence, not by cherry-picking apparent imperfections in what is still a work in progress. |
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