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Author | Topic: How do you define the word Evolution? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Or we could go to Evolution 101 at Berkley.
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. ... The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor Or from NCSE
Let us now look at the surviving meanings of evolution in order of increasing exactness, along with the names of some of the scientists with whom the ideas are associated (Bowler 1983, 1984; Mayr 1982; Mayr and Provine 1980; Ruse 1979/1999; see Figure 3). I take the broadest definition of biological evolution to be: Transmutation (descent with modification): This is the notion that new species emerge from existing species and that all existing species are the product of change in older ones. Early transmutationists: Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin (Charles's grandfather), Saint-Hilaire, Robert Chambers (author of theVestiges of Creation, first published in 1844), and Charles Darwin. This view was common by the 1830s, and Darwin did not invent the idea. A slightly narrower conception of evolution: Common ancestry: Related species have changed from a common ancestor species; that is, the reason that species are similar and are related in classification is because they have evolved from a shared ancestral species. This is also called phylogenetic change, or more simply, phylogeny. In a limited way, both Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin proposed common ancestry, but the first complete account was propounded by Charles Darwin. Narrower still: Biogeographic distribution: Related species arise as geographic neighbors; this is the view that no new species arises except in close contact with its most related species. This view was proposed by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin. Of course, the fact that new species arise as biogeographic neighbors is explained by common ancestry, but Wallace formulated this model before the common ancestry model was published. Or from the AAAS
Evolution is a broad, well-tested description of how Earth’s present-day life forms arose from common ancestors reaching back to the simplest one-celled organisms almost 4 billion years ago. It helps explain both the similarities and the differences in the enormous number of living organisms we see around us. Edited by CRR, : Block quote added to AAAS
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
The carbonaria mutation was in fact a "jumping" piece of DNA, called a transposon, which had inserted itself into a gene called cortex. These odd sequences more often have a damaging effect when they disrupt an existing gene. It probably did have a damaging effect in that it disrupted normal control of melanin production resulting in overproduction and hence a dark coloured moth. This could have been beneficial so long as soot was making trees darker. Another case of a damaged gene having a beneficial effect is adult lactose tolerance.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Evolution is simply change over time. Well according to the dictionary that is correct.A melting ice cube is changing over time. Therefore it is evolving. I am older than I was yesterday. Therefore I am evolving. Perhaps, jar, you might like to come up with a definition more appropriate to this forum.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Clearly you're avoiding the point that different scientific sources give different definitions of evolution. You can't just pick one you like and say "This is THE definition of evolution"; especially since it is such a poor one that even Creationists are willing to adopt it.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
And further on it says;
The allele-frequency definition, if adequate, would leave us unsatisfied that evolution really had been explained. and finishes with;
Eli Minkoff (1983: 575) consolidated the contemporary understanding this way: Evolution Originally, a synonym for ontogeny....According to Lamarck and his contemporaries, the unfolding of (evolutionary) potentials as each species ascends the scala naturae. From 1809 on, the transformation of one species into another; phyletic evolution. According to many geneticists..., changes in the gene frequencies of populations. Anagenesis plus cladogenesis. Phylogeny and the changes in gene frequencies that produce phylogenetic change. In the nearly two decades since the publication of Minkoff's book, there have been many exciting developments in evolutionary research. Models of evolutionary change based on our emerging understanding of developmental and regulatory genes, transposons, somatic hypermutation, endosymbiosis, and other previously unrecognized mechanisms for producing and maintaining biological variation present exciting new opportunities for evolutionary biology. Although the precise role and contribution of each of these mechanisms to the pattern of evolutionary change is still unfolding, it is certain that they will add to a fuller understanding of evolution as well as a new definition of evolution that incorporates these mechanisms. The article as a whole doe not endorse the "allele frequency" definition; which btw was not your definition.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Let us consider a not uncommon evolutionary event. A population of bacteria is exposed to an antibiotic. A mutation arises conferring immunity. Actually this is an uncommon event. Frozen samples retrieved from the remains of the Franklin Expedition showed a small proportion of antibiotic resistant members. This probably IS a mutation but it exists before the bacteria is exposed to antibiotics. The reason it is at such low levels initially is that it is a defect that is detrimental and only gives a net benefit when exposed to antibiotics. Similar results have been found from other samples from before we started using antibiotics in medicine. The antibiotics cause a strong negative selection against the dominant non-resistant members allowing the resistant members to rapidly increase in numbers. This is one reason that antibiotic resistance can arise within a few years; as has happened historically; the resistance was already there.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
My thought on this is that we initially expect organisms to behave like similar organisms. Similar fungi to Cercospora beticola have a teleomorph so initially we expect this one to have a teleomorph.
Whether we find it or not we will probably learn something new about this organism. There is no need to invoke the theory of evolution for common sense predictions.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Common sense is integral to science. But also remember that common sense it modified by experience so a fungi specialist would apply their common sense differently to a painter when considering fungi.
How would you determine what "similar organisms" are? Well the common sense approach would be to compare fungi to other fungi rather than pandas or whales. It's rocket science only if you're a rocket scientist.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Common sense like if you drop two cannonballs, one twice as heavy as the other, the heavier one should fall faster? That is not what actually happens. Actually this is what happens. The heavier one has greater mass/surface area and will be less affected by air resistance. Since nobody lives in a vacuum common sense is based on actual experience. But even so it allows a prediction to be made that can be tested and falsified or not. Observing that falling cannonballs APPEAR to fall at the same speed allows us to improve our understanding and predict that in a vacuum all objects will fall at the same speed. This hypothesis can then be tested. Common sense is just as good, and probably better, that the evolutionary hypothesis at making testable predictions that can then be scientifically examined; which is what I said earlier. Yes, herbedragons was comparing similar fungi and I was making the point that the evolutionary hypothesis was not required to follow that line of enquiry. Sorry if you were confused. Probably concussion from your major face plant.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
You're wrong Tangle.
Consider a soap bubble and a ball of lead, both exactly the same size. Which will fall faster? The difference in weight here is enough to produce an observable difference. The soap bubble falls quite slowly. I have seen this. Have you ever watered the garden? The heavy drops fall quickly but the mist settles slowly. I have seen this too. In air, size and density mean that not everything falls at the same rate; that only happens in a vacuum. Or so I'm told and I believe it to be true. In Galileo's experiment the effects of air resistance was small for both balls and the difference in how fast they fell was not discernible with the experimental equipment used. Evolution has many failed predictions to its credit! See here.DarwinsPredictions Depending of course on how you define evolution, and that is the topic of this thread.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined:
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There are Young Earth Creationists who are competent in all fields of science including biology and geology.
Since a lot of evolutionary biology deals with microevolution they probably work there too.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Thanks, dwise, for your comments.
I have heard from geologist speakers who followed the reverse path, moving from secular old age geology to young earth. Dobzhansky's quote is often used but as you note many biology classes don't even mention it so it is apparently not required to make sense of these subjects. While it can provide a narrative it seems sufficiently flexible to accommodate almost any set of facts.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
I remember this example differently although I haven't gone back to review it. From my memory Kent said that each kid would move away in a straight line but would carry part of the angular momentum so they would all be rotating the same way as the merry go round. I don't recall any mention of a curved path.
If I come across that video again I'll pay special attention to that bit. I'll also have to try to find the video about the sun losing mass. I also have found people who use the "Then why are there still monkeys?" question a few times. It shows a lack of understanding of evolutionary theory and, as CMI says, there are enough good arguments without using this one.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Is there any empirical evidence that the alleged post-toxin mutations occur, ...? Yes, in some cases. More to the point the mutations are occurring all the time but are only retained when they are beneficial rather than detrimental. In the case of chloroquinine resistance by malaria parasites it requires two mutations to confer resistance. Either one will probably not be retained until the second one occurs. This is why it has taken quite a long time for resistance to develop. So it is not that the presence caused the mutation pair but it caused it to be retained when it happened. OTOH I believe in some cases an environmental stressor can trigger an increase in mutations in certain parts of the genome to help the organism to adapt. This appears to be controlled as an adaptive mechanism. I can't give you a reference off the top of my head.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2268 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
I am aware that abiogenesis is not evolution, As I have shown previously some evolutionists do include abiogenesis in their definition of evolution; e.g. Coyne, Kerkut. In the 2009 "Darwin Collection" by The American Association for the Advancement of Science the first article was "On the Origin of Life on Earth" by Carl Zimmer. Including it in evolution theory is only an issue when a Creationist does it.
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