The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[Dan From Smithville]

The modern cheetah population is in decline and has markedly reduced genetic variation than it did historically. The genetic diversity is so reduced to the point that tissues from one member of the population can be transplanted on another member without rejection. Members are so genetically similar that one cheetah does not reject the tissue of another. This reduced diversity is the result of more than one bottleneck. One occurred approximately 100,000 years ago and the most recent and, perhaps most significant, occurred about 10,000 years ago. Cheetahs are on the verge of extinction as a result of the reduced genetic variation resulting from these bottlenecks. They are still the same species and they did not consciously conspire to create the bottlenecks.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Biological fitness is not an assumption of speciation. It is not the cause of speciation. It is the result of a more optimized phenotype responding to environmental selection.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As I said, the Bible is not a scientific textbook.

Something we agree on. It is a start.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Evolution is not the only factor impacting a population. A cataclysmic event like a volcano or a meteor can so drastically impact a population that its effect cannot be overcome by evolution and the population goes extinct.

Individuals with high fitness can be killed off by chance events. A lightening strike. A forest fire. Flooding. A misstep over a cliff. The theory of evolution does not take these random events into account. Having higher fitness in a given environment does not mean that those members of the population are invulnerable or immortal.

Ever member of a population are not equally fit. If you look at a room full of students and ask them how many siblings they have, you will get a variable response. That variable response is the fitness of their grandparents and parents. If the students have children, it is very likely that those offspring will be in variable numbers among the students.

Biological fitness is not the general state of health of individuals. It is not the cause of evolution. It facilitates the spread and fixation of genes through favored phenotypes that are good survivors in a specific environment.

 

[F1fan]

You are assuming this will cause a change in species.

Only in the sense that you folks with peanut allergies would be dead. And not have offspring.

It was a bad analogy. I'm trying to dumb it down. But I was trying to illustrate that fitness is not about typical fitness in everyday language. Its about how the circumstances of the environment can be deadly to a species or class of organisms.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You might want to go to jw.org and look up the term 'kind.' Kind — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY (jw.org)

Kind is meaningless. A dog is a kind of canine. It is a kind of mammal. It is a kind of vertebrate. It is a kind of chordate. Saying kind does not tell us what they mean.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Only in the sense that you folks with peanut allergies would be dead. And not have offspring.

It was a bad analogy. I'm trying to dumb it down. But I was trying to illustrate that fitness is not about typical fitness in everyday language. Its about how the circumstances of the environment can be deadly to a species or class of organisms.

Fitness is tied to survival traits in a particular environment.

It was good analogy for fitness even though it was completely missed by its target audience. Probably not dumbed down enough.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There is no such thing as "look and see" science. That term is meaningless and tells us nothing. It does not make any sense. Science is a mechanism to look at the world and see (understand) what is going on. To dismiss science using this confused term as pejorative makes little sense, since that is what science is utilized to do. To look and to see the natural world.

It makes a much sense as calling baseball, throw and catch baseball.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Just to reiterate a correction to a very clear area of confusion promoted by those that do not understand biology or evolution. Biological fitness is not general health. It does not cause speciation. Evolution and the specific type of evolution known as speciation are the result of environmental selection acting on the genetic variation within a population. Those that have the traits protected by selection have a greater fitness than those that do not when quantifying the results of reproduction. Give time and selection, speciation may eventually occur. Speciation and evolution do not happen suddenly and require long periods of time and selection to occur. Evolution takes place with populations and not with individuals. An individual may have favorable variation and greater fitness than other members of its population, but that does not mean it is a different species from other members of its population.

 

[ratiocinator]

Of course it's circular because you are merely assuming less well suited individuals are less likely to survive. Obviously fit individuals living in a less optimal environment than fit individuals living in an optimal environment have fewer off spring on average but it doesn't matter who produces the next individual, it will still be fit. Fitness within a given environment merely assures that it's your off spring who will be fit. It does not ensure that the off spring will be best suited nor does it lead to change in species unless there is some gradual change in the environment.

This is going to go nowhere until you understand what the theory of evolution says and how it uses the terms associated with it. Fitness is defined as being better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.

If those traits that make an individual fit are heritable, then of course, they will tend to spread through the population simple because they leave more offspring than those without it.

This is so obvious it's practically a truism. There is not the first hint of circularity in it, and if you think there is, you haven't understood it (despite its simplicity).

It does not ensure that the off spring will be best suited nor does it lead to change in species unless there is some gradual change in the environment.

It the relevant traits are heritable then it's likely that the offspring will also have them. It doesn't matter it all the offspring do or not, those that do will have more offspring themselves and so the trait will tend to spread. Hence the population changes as more and more of them have the traits. There is no need for the environment to change at all.

This isn't rocket science, it's really simple.

You're going round in circles yourself because you keep mixing up your own misunderstanding with the real theory of evolution. Why don't you stop, go away for a bit, and actually learn something about the theory of evolution? It might actually be possible to have a sensible discussion with you then, instead of everybody just pointing out that you don't understand that which you criticise.

 

[ratiocinator]

Most change in species occurs immediately after a bottleneck that selects for unusual behavior produced by consciousness as a product of genes and experience. Bottlenecks caused by other agents tend not to produce very dramatic change. Almost all genetic diversity that isn't the result of mutation results from localized bottlenecks.

This is not a theory (it seems scientific theory is something else you don't understand), it's an incoherent, evidence- and reasoning-free fantasy.

Just as one point: how, exactly, do you think a bottleneck can increase genetic diversity without any mutation?

 

[joelr]

Is that what the schools teach now? ...Belittle and attack opponents and ignore the argument...

First I thought you might realize that crying harassment when all I'm doing is pointing out facts is just a way to avoid the argument and a fallacy since it's a forum for opposing ideas.
But to say I'm ignoring the argument is delusional. I've made many many points which you have ignored to come back with one sentence and another to say I'm marginalizing or whatever. How about give evidence? You are here to debate ideas then when I debate you cry "marginalizing, bellittleing, give evidence.

People wanted to believe Darwin, remember. How else would the British condone the treatment of people in their colonies? Part of my theory is people believe what they want to believe and most people wanted to believe the unfit were going to die anyway. Ireland exported more than people during the potato famine; they exported food.

Did you just say "remember"?? As if you were there or have read anything about this subject? These oversimplified statements are bizarre? Many scientists did not accept evolution, probably most. Facts win out over the years and eventually there were no longer any doubts as many generations produced mountains of data and then came DNA studies. Now all scientists have accepted what is fact.

If species change gradually to suit their environment then why aren't there dozens of types of most species? Most species have isolated pockets where members do not interbreed with outsiders. Why don't each of these pockets create highly distinct species? Ring species are weak support for evolution and are accounted for my my theory. Why aren't there aren't there much more divergent examples?

Species arise at bottlenecks and then spread outward, Gradual change does not create the fossil record and is unevidenced.

The hominid species changes every 1-2 hundred thousand years over a 7 million year period. There were many species?
Hominid Species Timeline

We can age the fossil records in different ways. You question doesn't make sense? That is what happens? One hominid group migrated to Europe and became 2 different species.

"Evolution has no single schedule. Sometimes, new species or varieties arise in a matter of years or even days. Other times, species remain stable for long periods, showing little or no evolutionary change. However, the characteristics of organisms that reproduce every few hours, such as bacteria, can potentially evolve much faster than in organisms with generations that are measured in months or years, such as horses."

 

[joelr]

Thank you for this.

I would grant that your explanation is possible. My understanding though is that dogs spread worldwide in only a few hundred years which wouldn't be possible if your source is correct. Whatever the case this would have to apply to the entire science of agriculture which also spread over a brief period.

Without more evidence I doubt that it happened this way. Pet wolves would be very dangerous to keep and pet cats even moreso. Who was first to raise a bull from a pet.

I saw a story about some guy who decided to tame deer. The first step was getting one in the bed of his pick-up. Suffice to say it resulted in numerous injuries culminating in nearly being eligible for a darwin award.

It would not be dangerous to keep a newborn after hunting the parents. They would be useful for hunting and protection. Docile animals were kept, aggressive animals were not. This quickly bred the docile versions and the wolves able to be domesticated from birth.
It also happened about 75-100 years after humans were around which is way to big of a coincidence. DNA evidence tells much of the story.


There is little difference taking a wild baby wolf of dog either would have to be domesticated. People today raise wild wolves if they find them as babies, why wouldn't early humans? With competing tribes, predators, hunting, domesticating wolves would be a good idea. They were quickly bred into different animals.

Evolution of the Dog:

From Pekingese to St. Bernard and greyhound, dogs come in such startling variety it's easy to forget they belong to the same species. The profusion of breeds today -- at least 150 -- reflects intense, purposeful interbreeding of dogs in the past 150 years.

One consequence of interbreeding to create purebreds with sharply individual traits is that many disease-causing genes have become concentrated in these breeds. Because of the growing concern about health problems and the availability of powerful methods to hunt genes, scientists are hard at work on the "dog genome project." As with the Human Genome Project, the goal is to locate and map canine genes, particularly those that play a role in disease. Genes that influence behavior are also of great interest.

At the same time, the entire history of dogs and their relationship with humans has undergone some rethinking recently, thanks in large part to high-tech molecular dating methods that can determine evolutionary relationships and chronologies.

The dog, Canis familiaris, is a direct descendent of the gray wolf, Canis lupus: In other words, dogs as we know them are domesticated wolves. Not only their behavior changed; domestic dogs are different in form from wolves, mainly smaller and with shorter muzzles and smaller teeth.

Darwin was wrong about dogs. He thought their remarkable diversity must reflect interbreeding with several types of wild dogs. But the DNA findings say differently. All modern dogs are descendants of wolves, though this domestication may have happened twice, producing groups of dogs descended from two unique common ancestors.

How and when this domestication happened has been a matter of speculation. It was thought until very recently that dogs were wild until about 12,000 years ago. But DNA analysis published in 1997 suggests a date of about 130,000 years ago for the transformation of wolves to dogs. This means that wolves began to adapt to human society long before humans settled down and began practicing agriculture.

This earlier timing casts doubt on the long-held myth that humans domesticated dogs to serve as guards or companions to assist them. Rather, say some experts, dogs may have exploited a niche they discovered in early human society and got humans to take them in out of the cold.
Evolution: Library: Evolution of the Dog

 

[ratiocinator]

And nothing in fossil evidence that proves evolution either insofar as biology goes. To say that a bonobo is something like 98-99% of human dna is not proof of evolution. It is proof that a bonobo has 98-99% similar dna to a human. Now if it were 100%, that would take a different turn.

I see you're back to your attempt to dismiss genetic evidence as if it were just about the percentage similarity. I spent a long time explaining to you, and giving you references, as to why this was not the case and it's actually about the exact nature of the similarities and the differences that provide the evidence, not just how similar they are.

Why did you just ignore it all and go back to this apparently dishonest misrepresentation?

Examples of what you keep on ignoring:-
Testing Common Ancestry: It’s All About the Mutations - Articles
Genesis and the Genome (pdf)

 

[joelr]

You are assuming this will cause a change in species. And you are assuming it is the cause of change in species. If half the population was allergic to peanuts and only one survivor of twenty had the allergy then it would actually lead to fewer individuals with allergies. If the other 19 survivors were actually rescued where the guy with allergies died and were all octogenarians it would have very little effect on the species in the medium term (a few generations).

There's no question that those unsuited to their environment are at greater peril than others. The question is is this what drives the change in species and I say "no" simply because every individual is fit. Let's postulate instead that one of the passengers is sickly and always searching for strange foods. The other 19 are healthy young single men and women. There is no food on the island but the sickly one discovers that some tuber is delicious and satisfying. Others get sick when they eat it. After a century of waiting for rescue there is no one alive on the island. By the same token if a few individuals of a species had found this tuber and eating it saved them from extinction then their off spring would be very different than those which perished. There are numerous common genes and consciousness to all behavior and these genes occur in clusters. The off spring will be different. The degree to which they are different is related to just how "different" the behavior is. If any humans could eat wood then a group of wood eating humans would breed something more akin to a cow or a termite than a human. Obviously no human can digest wood so this is an extreme example. A more realistic one might be some sort of solar pulse that killed every bird not protected by several feet of stone. Many species would have exceedingly few individuals surviving. But in very short order the world would be repopulated by various species of birds. Some of these species might be burrowers that hunted rodents or worms. Many more would nest in caves.

You are simply assuming that because we can see the unfit perish that this unfitness drives the change in species. Then every time you see the weak die or trained athletes with peanut allergies die then this must cause evolution. It is a circular argument because you must start with the assumption that "natural selection" will remove less adaptable individuals from the gene pool. But nature doesn't select individuals to die rather disease and foxes select individual rabbits to die and even the best laid plans go awry. Nature isn't conscious just as you say but every single one of her creatures most assuredly is conscious and they are all equally fit and in some environment are each least likely to be "naturally selected".

Watching the weak die and the strong procreate is fine but it's still Look and See Science. There is no evidence it drives any significant change in species.

That isn't how it works. Changes in genes can happen. When a group of a species is separated for a long time and enough changes have been made and they can no longer reproduce with the original they are a new species.
Mutations are random. You don't eat wood and then your children magically start to develop cow stomachs? They would just die. If a large population had to use wood as a primary source of food (but still had other food to survive) eventually there may be a mutation by random that allowed a member to digest wood a bit easier. Their children would inherit that gene. Slowly over generations that gene would be in all members, especially if it allowed them to be the healthiest and well fed members of the society. Still no cow stomach. That would only happen if a random mutation happened and someone had a slightly different stomach and it worked a bit better. Then that gene may get passed down. Then in a few generations another change and so on. By the time you had enough random mutations slowly becoming dominant where the stomach was very different it could be 200,000 years. Or 1 million years.

A solar pulse or asteroid impact is an example of a dramatic and extremely unusual event that would make fast changes.
Every individual obviously isn't fit because 99.9% of all species are gone.
You should actually learn about evolution before you disagree with it.

 

[cladking]

A population bottleneck does not precipitate a speciation event or increase genetic diversity.

What I said was bottlenecks that occur in nature that select for BEHAVIOR is the cause of speciation.

I have shown and presented logic that it is not caused by fitness because all individuals are fit and niches don't change that much. You have not supported your argument or even addressed mine.

 

[cladking]

When a group of a species is separated for a long time and enough changes have been made and they can no longer reproduce with the original they are a new species.

Yet you can't show a ring species where in one place the individuals are feathered and eat fish and in another they are are hairless and claw footed and burrow for grubs. You can't show not because it's impossible to happen but because it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen because significant speciation occurs at bottlenecks. Niches don't last long enough for it to happen before mother nature rolls the dice and creates all new niches. Niches don't last long enough for a a fish to turn into an elephant and then into a whale. "Evolution" is a fairy tail created by a science that can't use experiment. Reality is logic incarnate but the theory of evolution is not logical. It seems logical only if you presume populations are static as Darwin did.

Over and over we see where species come from and how but instead we assumed the fit surviving is what caused it saw we didn't see it when it happened. We didn't see all change in life was sudden because we assumed that a quality of "fitness" was all pervasive despite logic.

 

[ratiocinator]

What I said was bottlenecks that occur in nature that select for BEHAVIOR is the cause of speciation.

Which is nothing but an evidence- and reasoning-free assertion. Why do you think a bottleneck is needed? Do you even understand what a bottleneck is in the context, because it doesn't look like you do? The environment selects traits (which can include behaviour) perfectly well without a bottleneck and many traits, and much of evolution, has nothing to do with behaviour.

I have shown and presented logic that it is not caused by fitness because all individuals are fit and niches don't change that much.

I see we can safely add logic to the list of things you don't understand. Your absurd claim that all individuals are fit (if you change the environment to fit them) is both irrelevant to the real world and a misunderstanding of the term 'fit' in the context of evolution. It has no affect at all on the actual theory of evolution, it is simply a silly and irrelevant misunderstanding.

 

[cladking]

As usual the problem is that reality is infinitely more complex than humans perceive it to be.

If it were as simple as we believe then we could make predictions but nobody can.

 

[cladking]

...it is simply a silly and irrelevant misunderstanding

It is not irrelevant because it is the unfit and sickly that both populate new niches AND that cause speciation. It is the least fit who are generally the parents of a new species. Without the unfit there would be no living relative left of a species and life could die out on an entire planet. Few species would survive bottlenecks without the unfit.

The fit eat well and procreate more but the unfit chart new territory and invent new processes and technology that allow the species to continue, expand, and evolve. Nature has a place for everybody and even the sick and lame nourish prey species.

Reality is more complex than our little minds and primitive science can imagine.