How Do Evolutionists Explain Mass Extinctions in their Theories?

[Dante Writer]

Tis a minor point, but I don't buy this.
Since we don't know the probability of such an event, we don't know the frequency either.

Yes I am not seeing that abiogenesis would stop or has stopped as a supported theory.

 

[fantome profane]

Tis a minor point, but I don't buy this.
Since we don't know the probability of such an event, we don't know the frequency either.

It is an interesting point. Perhaps what we need to do is make a distinction between an abiogeneis event, and a "successful abiogenesis event" that leads to a chain of descendants lasting millions or billions of years. For all we know there may be abiogenesis events occurring all the time, but die out almost immediately. The new comer would have a hard time competing with the "experienced" microbes. The new comers would be destined to be lunch, tasting just like the materials they came from.

 

[Dante Writer]

That depends. Like I said, we still don't fully understand the process, so we can't be sure of what we would need to look for. We just can't make assumptions about it.


But you lead into that question by listing extinction events and rates and how they would have negatively impacted biological diversity, essentially asking how we explain biological diversity in light of these extinction events. And you also made statements like "Actually, the majority of life forms we see today happened in the much much shorter space of less than 200 million years" and "Modern humans are said to have evolved just 200,000 years ago". Are you suggesting that these are examples of evolution from abiogenesis events separate from the one that supposedly took place billions of years ago?

OK, you changed your position there:

" The species we see today DID evolve from the species that survived these extinction events."

" Like I said, we still don't fully understand the process, so we can't be sure of what we would need to look for."

You were strongly saying the species today came from species that survived a mass extinction and now you walk it back to we don't have the evidence and we don't know the process.

I am throwing out mass extinction and letting you all explain it in your own personal theories of evolution to see what comes of it.

So far some believe abiogenesis was still happening and some don't and you are now not sure when before you was.

That is the beauty of a good question when it challenges you to evaluate and possibly rethink your theory!

 

[Sapiens]

Tis a minor point, but I don't buy this.
Since we don't know the probability of such an event, we don't know the frequency either.

I rather doubt that we will ever be able to provide a bullet-proof prospective model starting from inorganic chemisty, but the retrospective model, that does not yet (and I doubt ever will) penetrate the actual event horizon, clearly supports the common ancestor for all model. Whether it "occurred" once, or a million times, or even is ongoing, is rather irrelevant. We refer to it as, "an event," out of convenience, but it was not like throwing a light switch. It would have had to be a long drawn out series of events that never featured an "It's Alive!" moment, but that slowly and gradually, possibility even through combinations of multiple precursor events, resulted in a single common ancestor for all that now lives. That's what the biochemistry, physiology and genetics tells us.

 

[Revoltingest]

I rather doubt that we will ever be able to provide a bullet-proof prospective model starting from inorganic chemisty, but the retrospective model, that does not yet (and I doubt ever will) penetrate the actual event horizon, clearly supports the common ancestor for all model. Whether it "occurred" once, or a million times, is rather irrelevant. We refer to it as, "an event," out of convenience, but it was not like throwing a light switch. It would have had to be a long drawn out series of events that never featured an "It's Alive!" moment, but that slowly and gradually, possibility even through combinations of multiple precursor events, resulted in a single common ancestor for all that now lives. That's what the biochemistry, physiology and genetics tells us.

No real disagreement here.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

OK, you changed your position there:

You were strongly saying the species today came from species that survived a mass extinction and now you walk it back to we don't have the evidence and we don't know the process.

Because you were specifically asking how evolution can take billions of years when there are extinction events which reduce biodiversity. It's simple: the species we see today evolved from the survivors of extinction events. I'm not claiming that no species exist today that are the result of subsequent abiogenesis events, I'm simply explaining that species can still take billions of years to evolve from the first supposed abiogenesis event in spite of extinction events.

I am throwing out mass extinction and letting you all explain it in your own personal theories of evolution to see what comes of it.

So far some believe abiogenesis was still happening and some don't and you are now not sure when before you was.

That is the beauty of a good question when it challenges you to evaluate and possibly rethink your theory!

Can you answer my question? What were you suggesting when you made those two earlier statements?

 

[Dante Writer]

No, you just expose your intellectual Achilles's heel. Unlike Darwinian evolution there is no supporting framework for intelligent design, but even a cursory examination of the products clearly demonstrates that intelligence is lacking in the design process. It does not matter if you invoke God (who falls to the knife edge of parsimony, skewered by Occam's razor) or you advance panspermia which just begs the recursive question, you lack support for any such claim. Darwinian evolution, however, suffers from no such problem.

" Unlike Darwinian evolution there is no supporting framework for intelligent design"

Dawkin's and crick seem to believe there is a supporting framework and the scientists that say life does exit on other planets and could be intelligent is also evidence for that theory. The theory of intelligent design requires no God as I have explained in other discussions.

Now if you want to say that theory is not as well explored as Darwin's theory I would certainly agree and that is because Government an the powers that be prefer to fund natural selection however you are seeing more scientists looking for that life on other planets and if they find it and it has similar DNA will you still claim it never happened?

 

[Sapiens]

In simple terms, food.

More than food. Niche space. At base: energy, oxidizer and reducer.

 

[fantome profane]

Dawkin's and crick seem to believe there is a supporting framework and the scientists that say life does exit on other planets and could be intelligent also support that theory. The theory of intelligent design requires no God as I have explained in other discussions.

You have misunderstood Dawkins. In the quote you used to start that other thread he hypothesized an unlikely situation, one he does not believe in. Dawkins has stated quite clearly that he does not believe life on this planet was seeded or affected, or designed by any extra-terrestrial source. Just because he explored the idea does not mean he supports the idea. He does not. Intelligent people can explore all kinds of ideas without agreeing with them. In fact that is a pretty good definition of intelligent.

However I am not sure about Crick. He might support it. I don't care.

 

[Dante Writer]

Because you were specifically asking how evolution can take billions of years when there are extinction events which reduce biodiversity. It's simple: the species we see today evolved from the survivors of extinction events. I'm not claiming that no species exist today that are the result of subsequent abiogenesis events, I'm simply explaining that species can still take billions of years to evolve from the first supposed abiogenesis event in spite of extinction events.


Can you answer my question? What were you suggesting when you made those two earlier statements?

"Because you were specifically asking how evolution can take billions of years when there are extinction events "

I never asked that question. I asked how mass extinctions fit into your theories.

"It's simple: the species we see today evolved from the survivors of extinction events."

I'm not claiming that no species exist today that are the result of subsequent abiogenesis"

Those statements contradict each other.

 

[Sapiens]

" Unlike Darwinian evolution there is no supporting framework for intelligent design"

Dawkin's and crick seem to believe there is a supporting framework and the scientists that say life does exit on other planets and could be intelligent is also evidence for that theory. The theory of intelligent design requires no God as I have explained in other discussions.

Now if you want to say that theory is not as well explored as Darwin's theory I would certainly agree and that is because Government an the powers that be prefer to fund natural selection however you are seeing more scientists looking for that life on other planets and if they find it and it has similar DNA will you still claim it never happened?

Conspiracy theories are like Samuel Johnson said,, (not indicting patriotism in general, only specifically false patriotism) the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I do not deny the possibility of panspermia, I just point out that it begs the question and only introduce a recursive term that is once removed and yet no closer.


.

 

[fantome profane]

"Because you were specifically asking how evolution can take billions of years when there are extinction events "

I never asked that question. I asked how mass extinctions fit into your theories.

"It's simple: the species we see today evolved from the survivors of extinction events."

I'm not claiming that no species exist today that are the result of subsequent abiogenesis"

Those statements contradict each other.

The original question was pretty vague. You will have to forgive us for trying to figure out what you meant by it.

 

[Dante Writer]

You have misunderstood Dawkins. In the quote you used to start that other thread he hypothesized an unlikely situation, one he does not believe in. Dawkins has stated quite clearly that he does not believe life on this planet was seeded or affected, or designed by any extra-terrestrial source. Just because he explored the idea does not mean he supports the idea. He does not.

However I am not sure about Crick. He might support it. I don't care.

Well you obviously have a bias so you want to believe that I am sure. However, Dawkin's did say it and it is a logical theory that other scientists have and are exploring at present.

It it obvious there is a lot of pressure on scientists to never stray into any theory that might open a door for creationists so the funding and focus and pressure has always been on natural selection ignoring other very reasonable theories that should be fully explored.

ID does not replace evolution and evolution is not a theory for the origins of life that ID is.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I never asked that question. I asked how mass extinctions fit into your theories.

... In light of evolution taking billions of years. Here is your original post again, emphasis mine:

"The evolutionists often defend their theories by saying it took billions of years for life to evolve into the forms we see today.

Actually, the majority of life forms we see today happened in the much much shorter space of less than 200 million years. That is a short space of time when you consider the massive amounts of evolution changes that would have had to occur. Modern humans are said to have evolved just 200,000 years ago."

What was the purpose of these statements if they bore no relation to the question you were going to ask?

Those statements contradict each other.

No they don't. I was specifically addressing the species we see today which took billions of years to form, as specified in your OP. What's more, common ancestry is confirmed by genetics and archaeology, so unless you have evidence of an entirely separate biological tree of life and organisms which have entirely unique genetic structures, we can't assume that the organisms we see on earth today are anything other than the result of a single abiogenesis event.

 

[Ouroboros]

Thanks and we have some common ground then!

Sorry for being so grumpy earlier.

I was severely hangry (hungry angry). My blood sugar was probably low, and you got in the crosshair.

I believe there are some other mechanisms of evolution at play and that is why I brought up the subject of mass extinctions and it may mean abiogenesis, seeding by design or possibly a built in code in DNA that is triggered by environmental stressors to evolve.

I believe that the mechanism that currently are in the theory do have influence on how things evolve, but I also believe that the theory is incomplete and there are many more factors at play. So we're in agreement there.

Something I thought about while getting food was that no science is ever complete. They're all incomplete, except for perhaps math. I am certain there are many things still to be figured out regarding evolution, just as it is for physics. Just like Newton gave us the three laws of motion, and then Einstein put it on its head, and then quantum physics is throwing in even more things, and today the search for the ultimate equations are failing and none of the super-symmetry theories can be tested or proven right, we're probably safe to say that we can never really understand all things.

 

[Dante Writer]

Conspiracy theories are like Samuel Johnson said,, (not indicting patriotism in general, only specifically false patriotism) the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I do not deny the possibility of panspermia, I just point out that it begs the question and only introduce a recursive term that is once removed and yet no closer.


.

"I do not deny the possibility of panspermia"

If that is as far as we get today in finding common ground I will take it!

 

[Ouroboros]

My intention was not to make evolution false.

Ok. My mistake. As I mentioned above, I was running low on energy. You were an easy target. Sorry.

I believe there is some form of evolution mechanism going on. I am not tied to any of the specific theories and I believe at this point that more than one mechanism is involved.

100% agree.

For instance, I do believe that genes crossing over and dormant genes turned on again might account for much more of the "mutations" that we see today. And not the single random change of a codon (even though turning on and off a dormant gene is basically doing that).

 

[fantome profane]

Well you obviously have a bias so you want to believe that I am sure. However, Dawkin's did say it and it is a logical theory that other scientists have and are exploring at present.

It it obvious there is a lot of pressure on scientists to never stray into any theory that might open a door for creationists so the funding and focus and pressure has always been on natural selection ignoring other very reasonable theories that should be fully explored.

ID does not replace evolution and evolution is not a theory for the origins of life that ID is.

We all have bias, but I am quite familiar with the works of Richard Dawkins. When I tell you that Richard Dawkins does not believe in intelligent design by aliens, that is a fact. I just want you to understand that.

Accusing me of being biased is not an argument.

 

[Dante Writer]

... In light of evolution taking billions of years. Here is your original post again, emphasis mine:

"The evolutionists often defend their theories by saying it took billions of years for life to evolve into the forms we see today.

Actually, the majority of life forms we see today happened in the much much shorter space of less than 200 million years. That is a short space of time when you consider the massive amounts of evolution changes that would have had to occur. Modern humans are said to have evolved just 200,000 years ago."

What was the purpose of these statements if they bore no relation to the question you were going to ask?


No they don't. I was specifically addressing the species we see today which took billions of years to form, as specified in your OP. What's more, common ancestry is confirmed by genetics and archaeology, so unless you have evidence of an entirely separate biological tree of life and organisms which have entirely unique genetic structures, we can't assume that the organisms we see on earth today are anything other than the result of a single abiogenesis event.

A question has a question mark after it.

I was relating my experience from talking to amy people that claim to believe in evolution but has never understood that mass extinctions have happened that changes the odds greatly of that theory.

As you can see we got to the crux of what I was after which was a discussion of other mechanisms that may have been at play to account for the rapid evolution after one of these events.

"we can't assume that the organisms we see on earth today are anything other than the result of a single abiogenesis event."

By your own logic we also can not assume they are the decedents of the organisms that survived an event.

 

[Dante Writer]

Ok. My mistake. As I mentioned above, I was running low on energy. You were an easy target. Sorry.


100% agree.

For instance, I do believe that genes crossing over and dormant genes turned on again might account for much more of the "mutations" that we see today. And not the single random change of a codon (even though turning on and off a dormant gene is basically doing that).

No problem and sounds like we have a lot of common ground and good to see!