If Evolution Were True

[Beaudreaux]

that's my theory. The Bible says to trust no man.

It does? Don't recall that part, but it sure seems like a tough rule to follow. Do you trust your pastor? Do you trust the.....OK, let's call them "scholars"...who advocate Intelligent Design?

 

[Autodidact]

I think she already said she does.

wa:do

s/he also said s/he doesn't; that's the problem.

 

[Autodidact]

Once again, go back and review, I answered your question about that yesterday.

YOU CONTRADICTED YOURSELF. You answered my question, saying no. As I pointed out by directly quoting your post, in the past you said yes. Which is it, yes, or no? Do new species evolve, or don't they?

This is so tedious.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Speciation is prompted by environmental factors, such as two populations of the same species being split off from one another, so I wouldn't think there would be a consistent time table for it. If a species was perfectly adapted to a single niche and its environment never changed or split the population up, it would probably never speciate. If it was suddenly set free in a new environment with many divering opportunities, it might speciate very rapidly. (Biology people, tell me if I'm wrong, but this is the impression I got from Bio 101.)

Yet if science says that all of the species happened in a certain time frame it seems important to come up with an average for speciation.

I'm not an expert, but if all you're looking for is a reasonable explanation of how we could get billions of species in a few billion years' time, it's best to understand that what we have is an exponential problem. Say we start with one species, and every ten million years it splits into two, and each subsequent species also splits in two every ten million years. Of course in the real world there are limits to growth, and sometimes a species will go for more than ten million years without speciating and sometimes take less time, but this is just an example. Anyway, after 100 million years you'd have 2^10 or 1024 species, at 200 million years you'd have 2^20 or 1,048,57, and at 400 million years you would have 1,099,511,627,776 species. So at any "average" speciation rate of ten million years or less, and span of time greater than 200 million years, the thing keeping the number of species out of the trillions digit is going to be environmental limits, not an inherent inability to get that much diversity that quickly.

I understand this. Other factors such as mass exinctions could but a crimp in starting from the 3.5 bya start point. Consider also that it took 1 billion years to go from one-celled to two-celled organisms and the math seems to become fuzzy. That's why I'm asking to see if the actually is any math for what I'm looking for. I'll not accept, "There is so just believe it."

 

[Autodidact]

How do you know if you've never read them?

Amazon. Now, do new species evolve, or don't they?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

YOU CONTRADICTED YOURSELF. You answered my question, saying no. As I pointed out by directly quoting your post, in the past you said yes. Which is it, yes, or no? Do new species evolve, or don't they?

This is so tedious.

Okay, I'll do the work for you, but please try and read my posts, This is not the first time you have missed answers.
post #246, "I see your point. I misspoke. We get new species. It is limited to that."

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It does? Don't recall that part, but it sure seems like a tough rule to follow. Do you trust your pastor? Do you trust the.....OK, let's call them "scholars"...who advocate Intelligent Design?

Psalm 118:8 kjv " It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man."

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Amazon. Now, do new species evolve, or don't they?

Wow, for someone who preaches evidence you rely on a lot of faith.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

s/he also said s/he ...

I'm not an hermaphrodite.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Psalm 118:8 kjv " It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man."

Isn't that slightly different than "Trust no man"?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Isn't that slightly different than "Trust no man"?

I suppose I used the SWV.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

And while youse guys are eddicatin me about evolution can you help me understand why it took a billion or so years to go from a one-celled organism to a two-celled organism?

Anybody?

 

[Beaudreaux]

And while youse guys are eddicatin me about evolution can you help me understand why it took a billion or so years to go from a one-celled organism to a two-celled organism?

.....economic downturn?.....

 

[sandy whitelinger]

.....economic downturn?.....

They needed a stimulus package.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

And while I'm asking to be educated can someone tell me if analogous parts in different species have the same or similar genetics? For example eyelashes in a cow and and a human.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Science-any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.

Faith-inner attitude, conviction, or trust relating man to a supreme God or ultimate salvation. In religious traditions stressing divine grace, it is the inner certainty or attitude of love granted by God himself. In Christian theology, faith is the divinely inspired human response to God’s historical revelation through Jesus Christ and, consequently, is of crucial significance.

Just wanted to get some basic definitions here. Which of the two words are you concerned the most about in this discussion Sandy?

 

[painted wolf]

And while youse guys are eddicatin me about evolution can you help me understand why it took a billion or so years to go from a one-celled organism to a two-celled organism?

Thats a big step. It was preceded by several smaller steps in that time. Like the change from Bacteria to Archea to Eukaryote. Only Eukaryotes are genuinely multicellular (though some bacteria can certainly act like they want to be!).
It took the Eukaryotes time to learn to work together to form complex colonies before they could become truely multicellular.
All in all, a billion years for all that isn't that bad a time frame. They managed quite a lot in that time.
Sadly most of it is underapreciated because it just doesn't look that shiney compared to say the enormity of a Brachaeosaurs. It doesn't look like it has much to do with us, unlike the taming of fire by early human ancestors.

And while I'm asking to be educated can someone tell me if analogous parts in different species have the same or similar genetics? For example eyelashes in a cow and and a human.

Yup, controlled by the same genes and everything.

But to be picky that feature would be called a homology in biological terms. Analogies are different.

Homology: traits shared by species due to common genetics/ancestry. (for example Hair in mammals.)

Analogy: Similar features shared due to similar lifestyle but not shared genetics/ancestry. (Wings in birds, bats and butterflies)

wa:do

 

[McBell]

And while youse guys are eddicatin me about evolution can you help me understand why it took a billion or so years to go from a one-celled organism to a two-celled organism?

Thats easy, the Religious Right was interfering, much like they do today.

 

[Inky]

Yet if science says that all of the species happened in a certain time frame it seems important to come up with an average for speciation.

That would be true if we were using the average rate of speciation as the basis for how long we think life has existed, but as far as I know, that's not a common endeavor. We get ideas of how long life has existed from genetics and fossil records, mostly. Considering the variance in speciation rate is so huge, both between individual species and between different eras, I don't know why it'd be particularly useful to know the "average". It would be like knowing that the average weight for all species is five pounds. Nice, but it doesn't really tell us anything.

Unless you meant that biologists need to know the average speciation rate to prove that it's short enough to account for the current diversity of life in the available time frame. (I wasn't sure what the question was going for...) Certainly if it was proven that species just couldn't split off fast enough to produce the current number in the time given, that would mean the theory of evolution needs to be replaced or seriously overhauled. [I'll expand this later; have to take a sneezy cat to the vet. Nice conversing with you.]

[Post-vet:] Yeah, PW basically said what I was trying to say.

 

[painted wolf]

There is no one set rate for speciation.

Life span, reproductive rates and environmental factors all play key roles in shaping how quickly or slowly species arise.
Even the social structure of a species plays a role... mutations/adaptations spread faster in social species for example.

wa:do