Macroevolution: Its all around us...

So back to topic...
Here is another interesting paper for discussion.Farrell, B. D., and A. S. Sequeira. 2004. Evolutionary rates in the adaptive radiation of beetles on plants. Evolution 58:1984-2001. pdf"Herbivorous insects and other small consumers are often specialized both in use of particular host taxa and in use of particular host tissues. Such consumers also often seem to show consistent differences in the rates of evolution of these two dimensions of host use, implying common processes, but this has been little studied. Here we quantify these rates of change in host use evolution in a major radiation of herbivorous insects, the Chrysomeloidea, whose diversity has been attributed to their use of flowering plants. We find a significant difference in the rates of evolutionary change in these two dimensions of host use, with host taxon associations most labile. There are apparently similar differences in rates of host use evolution in other parasite groups, suggesting the generality of this pattern. Divergences in parasite form associated with use of different host tissues may facilitate resource partitioning among successive adaptive radiations on particular host taxa."Basically, the study examines patterns of speciation among leaf-feeding beetles (Chrysomelidae) and their various food plants. The additional twist is looking at what parts of the plant are actually fed on. The interesting finding is that the insects more often change plant taxa than they change the part of the plant that they actually feed on (leaf, stem, root, etc.). So the adaptive radiation of species in the Chrysomelidae is more strongly constrained by ecological way of life (leaf-feeder, stalk-borer etc.) than it is by association with a particular plant taxon. (It was always thought that adaptive radiation in insects often paralleled adaptive radiation in the plants they fed on - but not necessarily it turns out.)I lost the reference for a similar article on adaptive radiation in weevils (Curculionidae), but I will try and find it again.

In typical fashion, you make a ton of unsubstantiated claims, never backing any of them up, and then proclaim victory.You claim, for example, that YEC makes no predictions, and yet I suspect you argue that it is falsifiable.You claim ID makes no predictions as well, which is a false statement. Irreducible complexity is a prediction, for example.You erroneously claim ToE is falsifiable by having the gall to state that just because other theories predict the same results, that this somehow means ToE is exclusively true.You refer to convergent DNA by saying "it was explained to you" and ignore the fact itself. No, that's BS on your part. Convergent DNA does show a guiding, non-random rule, and most molecular geneticists realize mutations are not actually totally random. That's just an artificial claim of evolutionists. Mutations are governed, for example, by the chemical properties involved. The fact that convergent DNA is real means that DNA does not strictly mutate in a random fashion, but there are in-built predispositions within the DNA.The question is who put the predispositions in there? You can say, well, they evolved from the properties of matter, and if that is the case, then we need to include physics and particle physics as part of evolutionary theory since the argument is the in-built design evolved from matter.If that's the case, where did the matter come from? Specifically, where did the design come from, and considering that matter is fundamentally a probability patter, a design (information), where is the intelligence behind the design?Asserting it all occurs by chance and randomly is unscientific since we have no examples within our own experience of design and information brought into existence from nothing before it, without intelligence present.

Where do I 'proclaim victory'?
I merely asked you to kindly take your off-topic rants elsewhere.
Your arguments have all been debunked previously whether you are able to appreciate the substantive nature of your debunking or not.
If you persist I shall be tempted to start calling you 'rant-man'. Could you desing an experiment to objectively determine whether a particular example of 'complexity' is 'irreducable' or not ? No you can't. It is not a prediction - it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. I really don't like it when people try and put words in my mouth. I never said anything of the sort. I said other theories that provided the same results as ToE would be redundant and superfluous. To be worth serious consideration, they would have to prove that ToE is wrong somewhere, or provide an explanation that is superior. This has nothing to do with ToE being exclusively true. It still has elements that will probably be improved upon, but it happen via the pseudo-logic of ID theorists or the like. You are so careless. I was refering to your erroneous claims about 'convergent evolution' - I have never heard of anything called 'convergent DNA'. Sheesh.All of the rest of your post is off topic. This thread is for discussion of macroevolution - not to defend or debate ID theory. Unless of course you could use ID theory to create a cladogram of some major taxonomic lineage. Can you do that? If not, then please, cease and desist cluttering up this thread with all this nonsensical drivel.

I would say my characterization of your comments is correct. Let's look at the heart of what you said in response to my comments earlier. You are trying to have it both ways. You want to claim something as evidence for ToE, but for it to be evidence for common descent, it cannot be equally just as good evidence for something else. In claiming it is evidence for common descent, you are claiming it represents some sort of exclusive evidence, and then when called on it, you speciously, imo, commented on it being redundant and superflous.Maybe you don't get the point. If it is redundant, then it's not solid evidence for common descent any more than it is evidence for anything else.The sky being blue is evidence too! Yippee! Everything is evidence, by defitinition, but not exclusive evidence of one thing or another.Remember that this is your claim. That's completely bogus on the face of it, a total overstatement, and just outright hogwash!For example, you specifically used the idea of plant breeding. So according to you, plant breeding "ONLY makes sense within the framework of ToE."I showed you where you are wrong, and you refuse to admit it. Plant breeding makes sense within the framework of YEC, OEC, ID, theistic evolution, alien guidance, and any and every other concept out there.No creationist, IDer, skeptic, etc,...has ever said that we could not manipulate plants to breed better plants, and plant breeding preceded the whole concept of evolution, and plant breeders could do their jobs perfectly well if they did not believe in common descent, or vice versa.In typical propaganda fashion, you overstate your case, essentially insisting that natural selection and adaptation only make sense with a ToE framework when they make perfect sense for all the other frameworks, including Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, or even aliens seeding the planet.If you want to argue the weight of evidence backs your view, do so, but to claim no natural phenomena in living things makes sense in any other framework is entirely bogus on your part.Yes, where are the mods when you need them, and where are the creationist mods?

I give up. Please just go away.
Start your own thread or something.
I will not reply to any more of your posts.

It doesn't, though. Plant breeding doesn't make any sense under any system but one encorporating selection and mutation. Oh, no, of course they haven't. But the model they have to employ to make sense of the patterns of breeding encorporates selection and mutation; in other words, they have to accept evolution (albiet, they do not admit that they are doing so) in order to explain that phenomenon.EZ's statement was quite accurate. The only model that makes sense of plant breeding is the one that encorporates the mechanisms of selection and genetic variability; the mechanisms of evolution. Just to correct a repeated mistake of yours - evolution is compatible with alien seeding (panspermia) so it's a mistake to imply that these two positions are competing or exclusive of each other. And obviously ToE and "theistic evolution" are the exact same thing as the ToE is not inconsistent with the presence of a creator. (In fact it's totally irrelevant to the question.)And, in fact, any model that encorporates selection and mutation is the exact same thing as evolution. It's an evolutionary model. So EX was quite correct to tell you that plant breeding, and other examples of population change, are explainable only by recourse to evolution. If they did make sense in any other framework, we would not have needed evolution to explain them. Your assertion is self-evidently incorrect.

So Young Earth Creationism is now by definition ToE.Yippee!You guys ever get tired of overstating things. Every model out there incorporates natural selection and mutations. Every creationist I have ever read or heard of does that.But that's not the same thing as accepting all life spontaneously generated all on it's own, and then evolved from one single common ancestor all via randomness and chance.That's a myth, could be a true myth, but a myth nonetheless.The fact that things evolve has never been contested and still is not contested by anyone today.

You managed to cram two errors into one sentence. Errors which have been corrected for you more than once.I suggest that you are wasting your time and the time of others if you are unable to learn something when it is told to you.You can take a 24 hour break and use the time to actually read some of what is posted.

If it incorporates natural selection and random mutation, then by definition, it must be. Of course you won't hear the creationists say that, but if they accept natural seelction and random mutation, then they must accept all that those mechanisms logically imply, or else they're intellectually dishonest.Of course, they all choose dishonesty rather than contradict their Bible. No, not true. Only the successful ones encorporate those things. A number of competing models did not encorporate those things, and they failed to explain observations as a result. No, it's not. But that's not evolution, so that's irrelevant. If you accept the mechanisms, then you accept the possibility that this is true; if you accept genetics then you must accept the likelyhood that this is true.Or else I guess you could be intellectually dishonest, like the creationists. Which are you? To the contrary; it's an accurate model of the history of life on Earth. You've never been able to present evidence against it, because your opposition to it stems from intellectual dishonesty, just like the creationists.

I am not sure if anyone noticed this item from a few months ago, but I just rediscovered it looking for new evidence.It concerns the discovery of variations in the hox gene cluster that explain how a crusteacean with legs on every segment could very abruptly morph into something like an insect with legs expressed only on specific segments.More evidence that even large changes in morphology, claimed impossible by the anti-evolutionists, may not be so difficult to explain on a mechanistic level.

Actually, one of the more interesting examples of speciation being caught in the act are the so-called "ring species." You take a population of birds (for example), place them at the north end of a mountain range, the birds begin to branch out along the western and the eastern side of the mountain range, headed south. At any location along either side of the mountain range, the micro-evolutionary changes do not result in any sort of reproductive isolation for that location. However, by the time the two branches meet at the south end of the mountain range, the western branch and the eastern branch are reproductively isolated.The genetic makeup of the populations anywhere along the mountain range (except form the south end) vary in a fairly continuous fashion, much like grey may vary continuously to white or to black, but by the time one reaches the south end, what one is dealing with are essentially two different species. At the same time, one might regard the whole population as being of the same species -- but one good forest fire would result in the kind of isolation required to regard the distinct populations at the south end as different species by any definition of the term.Ring Species: Unusual Demonstrations of Speciation
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.html
from
Action Bioscience.Org
http://www.actionbioscience.org/

Yes, that's another good type of evidence Tim.
I had thought of ring species too.Let me look at your examples and see if there are some salient points for further discussion.Good to see you made it over to this board from the other one.
I think you'll find an overall better quality of conversation .

Hey,Looks great! Definite time to bookmark. But now for something completely different (well, not that different, actually)...A Retroviral Engine for MacroevolutionSome time ago, scientists where examining the placenta of a baboon, and through an electron microscope, they noticed a familiar form of budding -- it appeared to be a retroviral infection. Moreover, there was the telltale reverse transcriptase expression which confirmed the presence of retroviruses. However, the baboon and its offspring were quite healthy. Examining the placenta of many other mammalian species, they arrived at the same results -- all placenta were infected with retroviruses -- specifically endogenous retroviruses being passed along the germline, retroviruses which were transcriptionally active in both the placenta and a variety of tissues during normal embryonic development -- although the species of retroviruses differed from mammal to mammal. What they found is that these retroviruses create a barrier to the mother's immune system, a barrier without which the developing embryo would rejected.Now consider: much like the platypus, at one time, all mammals layed eggs. But then at various points, some populations of mammals were infected by exogenous retroviruses in one epidemic or another. Oftentimes, retroviruses simply wiped out entire populations, but occasionally, they infected the germline itself, being passed along in a Mandelian fashion and lost the ability to exogenously reproduce. At this point, a largely symbiotic relationship between virus and host will develop -- otherwise the virus will simply be eliminated through the natural selection of the host. But what is a retrovirus capable of doing quite easily (with little or no investment) which would require a great deal of investment on the part of the host? Evade the immune system -- create a barrier to it. Retroviral infection is what made placentas possible as an alternative to eggs in protecting the embryo from the mother's immune system. And live birth is what made the larger brains of mammals possible, which has taken the predator/prey-dynamic to entirely new levels.Here are a few articles for anyone who might wish to look into this further:Human endogenous retroviruses in health and disease: a symbiotic perspective
Frank P. Ryan
J R Soc Med 2004; 97:560-565
December 2004
http://www.rsm.ac.uk/new/pdfs/j_art_dec04.pdfExpressions and Functions of Human Endogenous Retroviruses in the Placenta: An Update
A. Muir, A. Lever and A. Moffet
Placenta (2004), 25, Supplement A, Trophoblast Research, Vol. 18 S16-S25
Accepted 5 January 2004
Domain Registered at SafenamesThe viruses in all of us: Characteristics and biological significance of human endogenous retrovirus sequences
Roswitha Lower, Johannes Lower, and Reinhad Kurth
Poc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA Vol. 93, pp. 5177-5184
May 1996
Just a moment...If people want something more accessible for various audiences, they might try:Evolution of Retroviruses: Fossils in our DNA
John M. Coffin
Proceedings of The American Philosophical Society Vol. 148, No.3, pp. 264-280
September 2004
http://www.aps-pub.com/proceedings/1483/480302.pdfCan Viruses Make Us Human?
Luis P. Villarreal
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 148, No. 3,
September 2004, pp. 296-323
http://www.aps-pub.com/proceedings/1483/480304.pdfThe role of retroviruses in human life and disease
Medical and health informationYou might also want to check out some new books (I haven't had the chance to see them as of yet):"Viruses and the Evolution of Life" by Luis P. Villarreal
"Retroviruses and Primate Evolution" (by large collection of authors)This message has been edited by TimChase, 06-18-2005 06:36 PM

Glad to be here. Actually I was finding the other list to be fairly depressing for reasons which should be obvious.Oh, by the way, the little bit about retroviruses was actually meant to be a response to your piece regarding small changes in one of the thirtynine hox resulting in large changes in body plans. I will see if I can move it over to the right place.[Type, type, type, copy-paste,... OK. Now time to delete. Woops! Don't have the authority. Geez!]This message has been edited by TimChase, 06-18-2005 06:29 PM

Removed by author (duplicate)This message has been edited by TimChase, 06-18-2005 06:32 PM