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Author Topic:   Does the Darwinian theory require modification or replacement?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 514 of 760 (619983)
06-13-2011 4:18 PM
Reply to: Message 512 by Mazzy
06-13-2011 3:43 PM



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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 518 of 760 (619989)
06-13-2011 4:30 PM
Reply to: Message 516 by shadow71
06-13-2011 4:25 PM


Re: Pretty much an irrelevant question.
If natural selection is planned, if random mutation for fitness is not correct, would the evoution theory be abandoned by science, or would the theory be changed to accept this fact?
You should put that question to Mazzy, who apparently thinks that if we know how to improve a theory we should instead abandon it ...

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 521 of 760 (619995)
06-13-2011 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 520 by shadow71
06-13-2011 4:44 PM


Re: You have got to be kidding me
He doubts it, but cannot absoutley refute a dramatic change in the way we understand evolution.
Well of course he can't "absolutely refute" the possibility of your daydreams coming true at some future date. This is no particular reason to think that they actually will, since that is true of any daydream .. owning a pet unicorn, being the first man on Mars, discovering that you have magical powers ... or whatever it is that you wish for.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 537 of 760 (620022)
06-13-2011 8:50 PM
Reply to: Message 531 by shadow71
06-13-2011 7:53 PM


Re: You have got to be kidding me
All ideaologists are very afraid of the doubt, ie, the truth, because that challenges their beliefs and scares them incredibilty.
When these very qualilfied scientists such as Shapiro and even Piglucci express findings that are incompatible with the "THEORY" they must be silenced, or in the case of molbiogirl ridiculed. The truth is so very hard to accept when it upsets the apple cart.
Keep an open mind and be not afraid.
Actually, it isn't necessary for ideologues to "silence" Pigliucci when he says: "This, contrary to the misleading claims of creationists and other pseudoscientists, is no harbinger of a crisis but rather the opposite [...] none of these additions have in any way undermined the foundations of the Darwinian edifice". They can just make-believe in their heads that he's saying the exact opposite.
And Shapiro, being a more obscure writer, is even easier for them to misunderstand.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 540 of 760 (620028)
06-13-2011 9:01 PM
Reply to: Message 536 by Mazzy
06-13-2011 8:27 PM


Re: You have got to be kidding me
BTW ..LUCA is dead due to HGT, so there is no Last Universal Common Ancestor..or at least that is flavour of the year. So there goes that irrefutable evidence that turned out to be a delusion.
As usual, you seem to be disguising your ignorance behind a veil of incoherence.
It does not matter that evolutionary researchers try to refute it because they refute each other all the time on pretty much everything ...
This lie would have been even funnier if you'd made some token effort to substantiate it.
Should TOE be replaced. Yes....but if not with a creationist model..then what have evolutionists got left to offer?
They've got this marvelous thing called the TOE. Which incorporates such phenomena as HGT and biased gene conversion.
Would you or anyone suggest this is not a paradigm shift?
Of course Sandford's nonsense isn't a "paradigm shift". To produce a paradigm shift it is not sufficient to be original, you also have to be right, which is kinda where Sandford falls down.
Yep....the TOE is a theory in evolution. It will modify and reinvent itself because there is no replacement.
Like the periodic table, then.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 542 of 760 (620030)
06-13-2011 9:05 PM
Reply to: Message 539 by shadow71
06-13-2011 9:00 PM


Re: You have got to be kidding me
Have you read the papers of Shapiro et. al that I have cited on this thread?
Do you disagree that these scientlist are in fact questioning the MS as presented?
They unquestionably think that evolutionary biology today is in advance of evolutionary biology in the 1930s (the "modern synthesis", so-called). They also seem quite pleased about this fact, as is every other evolutionist.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 547 of 760 (620044)
06-13-2011 10:18 PM
Reply to: Message 545 by jar
06-13-2011 9:26 PM


Re: No kidding.
I am saying that they are NOT questioning the Modern Synthesis.
But see posts #194, #197, #198, #199. They are certainly not questioning modern evolutionary biology; but if by "the modern synthesis" we mean the state of evolutionary biology in the 1930s, they naturally join every other evolutionist in rejoicing at how far we've come since then

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 549 of 760 (620083)
06-14-2011 3:02 AM
Reply to: Message 536 by Mazzy
06-13-2011 8:27 PM


I heard the creationist preacher; he said:
"Evolution is constantly forging ahead
and we learn more and more every day;
from Darwin's first thoughts, it's developed at length
to a theory possessed of great scope and great strength ---
which is why we should throw it away."
"By dint of research that is terribly clever
the theory is finer and better than ever
and should be dismantled for scrap;
Since Darwin first published, it's grown more profound,
and more accurate, evidenced, detailed and sound,
which proves that it's totally crap."
"It's a truth that is known to the fundie elect
that every step forward is twenty steps back:
if someone grows wiser in every respect
then this proves that he doesn't know jack."
And I marveled to hear as he prated at length
of how progress must indicate weakness, not strength
'til I felt I had something to add.
"If it's true what you say", I exclaimed with delight,
"that in getting much righter, we cease to be right
then all modern science is bad."
"How foolish I feel to have spent my time cheering
advances in science, design, engineering,
that ought to have caused me to curse
if only I'd heeded creationist sages ---
since things have improved since the late Middle Ages
it's clear that they must have got worse."
"For nothing was ever improved by improvement;
no theory that's strengthened will last very long;
to go forging ahead is a retrograde movement;
and things we've corrected are bound to be wrong."
"The chemists have grown more precise and exact,
thus proving that nothing they say is a fact:
(it was better by far to be vague);
and every improvement in medicine teaches
we ought to go back to blood-letting and leeches
and die of the bubonic plague."
"In math we've been having unbroken success
which informs us we're doing it wrong, I would guess
and proves, as one has to suppose
that it isn't as good as in ages of yore ---
let's return to the way that we did it before
and count on our fingers and toes."
"For every improvement's a form of decline
and every advance is a shameful retreat;
when you're making no progress, you're doing just fine,
but a victory counts as defeat."
"In physics, we've come very far, very fast,
which proves it was better in ages gone past
before Einstein and Pauli and Bohr.
You can keep modern physics --- I hope the whole lot'll
be scrapped, and we'll just resurrect Aristotle
and not use our brains any more."
"And so" (I went on) "in biology too,
since it keeps on improving, what else should we do
but hearken and heed to your call
to set aside science, and blindly subscribe
to the primitive myths of an ignorant tribe
which never get better at all."
"Increasing in wisdom's the mark of a fool
and every advance is a form of regress.
In science, let's follow this excellent rule:
there's nothing that fails like success."
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 554 of 760 (620372)
06-15-2011 9:43 PM
Reply to: Message 553 by shadow71
06-15-2011 8:40 PM


Re: Both Shapiro and Pigliuccci are saying that micro and macro evolRe: Define your terms
Both Shapiro and Pigliuccci are saying that micro and macro evolution are not the same, ie. macroevolution is not just gradual micro evolution.
NB: Not a quotation.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 573 of 760 (620484)
06-17-2011 8:50 AM
Reply to: Message 568 by shadow71
06-16-2011 3:57 PM


Re: Changing to another undefined term doesn't really help
Shapiro has stated clearly that the information based natural genetic engineering process does not rely on random and accidental change.
To my thinking these are findings that require a change to the modern theory of evolution.
Sheesh, can't you come up with any new mistakes? This is getting tedious.
For the nth time: all known mechanisms of genetic variation are, by definition, part of the modern theory of evolution.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 575 of 760 (620487)
06-17-2011 9:33 AM
Reply to: Message 571 by shadow71
06-16-2011 4:18 PM


Gould said what?
"I want to argue that the ‘sudden’ appearance of species in the fossil record and our failure to note subsequent evolutionary change within them is the proper prediction of evolutionary theory as we understand it." --- Gould, "Bushes and Ladders," Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1977, pp. 61-62.
"The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record." --- Gould, "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change", The Panda's Thumb: Reflections in Natural History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980, pp. 182-184.
"Eventually we (primarily Niles) recognized that the standard theory of speciationErnst Mayr's allopatric or peripatric schemewould not, in fact, yield insensibly graded fossil sequences when extrapolated into geological time, but would produce just what we see [...] The literal record was not a hopelessly and imperfect fraction of truly insensible gradation within large populations but an accurate reflection of the actual process identified by evolutionists as the chief motor of biological change. The theory of punctuated equilibrium was, in its initial formulation, little more than this insight adumbrated." --- Gould, "Punctuated Equilibrium in Fact and Theory," Skeptic, 1 (3): 49.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 593 of 760 (620631)
06-18-2011 7:29 PM
Reply to: Message 588 by shadow71
06-18-2011 3:03 PM


Re: Changing to another undefined term doesn't really help
Shapiro in his new book "EVOLUTION
A view from the 21st Century
states that novelity in evolution arises not by selection but by INNOVATION. He says without variation and novelty selection has nothing to act upon.
And if only there was such a thing as a Nobel Prize in the Bleedin' Obvious, Shapiro would be a strong contender.
Perhaps his book should be called "Evolution: A view from the nineteenth century"; or maybe: "What evolutionary biologists have been patiently explaining to anyone who'd listen for the last 152 years".
Shapiro writes:
The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable. Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life."
They do.
For the n+1th time, our ideas do not require modification in the light of things that we already know, because the things we know are in fact our ideas.
This, too, is bleedin' obvious, yet you are having a singularly hard time grasping it.
Our knowledge of genetics requires modification to incorporate the facts about genetics that we haven't found out yet. It already incorporates the things that we have found out.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 698 of 760 (622857)
07-06-2011 10:48 PM
Reply to: Message 697 by shadow71
07-06-2011 7:37 PM


Re: Towards a new evolutinary theory
Or does the theory of evolution need a modficaton, a new paradigm, that includes and explains:
Endosymbiosis
Reticulate evolution
Embryonic devopment and evo-devo
epigenesis
Phenotypic plasticity
Evolvability etc.?
The theory of evolution does include those things, and therefore does not need to be modified to include them.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 716 of 760 (623306)
07-09-2011 9:41 AM
Reply to: Message 715 by shadow71
07-09-2011 8:59 AM


Re: Definition of Evolution
Biological evolution is the process of change in the genetic makeup of a population.
That seems reasonable.
To which one might add: the theory of evolution is the set of known mechanisms by which evolution takes place.
Darwinism might then be defined as the theory of evolution plus the principle of common descent. It would be nicer to have a better word than "Darwinism", but it'll have to do.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 721 of 760 (623386)
07-09-2011 9:52 PM
Reply to: Message 720 by Wounded King
07-09-2011 5:59 PM


Re: Definition of Evolution
For instance it wouldn't cover the intial events in an endosymbiosis such as that which led to the mitochondria ...
Well, it might; e.g. if the original relationship was parasitic and evolved to be endosymbiotic. But if endosymbiosis just happened one day, then it's not clear that we would want that event to be covered under the rubric of "evolution".
---
Suppose I discover that one of the weeds in my garden tastes nice. I start watering it to encourage it to grow leaves which I will then eat. At the moment I first water it, the plant and I have entered into a symbiotic relationship. But has any evolution occurred? It has not.
... it would only pertain when the genomes began interacting to enforce the symbiotic relationship ...
I think we can live with that.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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