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Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Evolution and Increased Diversity | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
This is something that frequently comes up in the CvE debates -- that evolution necessarily increases diversity (creationist) versus diversity is a result of evolution and can fluctuate (evolutionist).
The first problem is how to define (biological) "diversity" ...
Fairly obviously we would use the second definition. If we take it to it's extreme it would mean each individual organism differs from all others, so the sum total of all organisms would be the total diversity at any one time. The problem here is that there is ongoing death and ongoing birth, and the total numbers do not change significantly except in times of major extinctions. If we limit it to species (per example in the definition), then diversity would be measured by the sum total of all species at any one time. Again, the problem is that species are born and die, and the total numbers do not change significantly except in times of major extinctions. Either way the concept can be quantified (although actual measurement could be extremely difficult), so the increase or decrease over time could be measured and compared. That an individual organism or a species can die at any time shows that diversity does not always increase due to evolution (mutation and natural selection processes). Evolution is the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation, and this results in added diversity, when new species are "born," or in loss of diversity, when old species "die." The diversity we see is the result of evolution, but it is not a necessary result, just what happens. What this data can tell us is whether more or less species are being developed vs going extinct. This in term may inform debates on whether global warming or the impact on man on the environment is having an effect on biological life and the diversity of life as we know it. But I don't see it as being a critical factor in the study of biology or evolution. I guess the questions are: am I missing something? Do creationists see this differently? Is there some tie-in to "macro"evolution? Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : added questions from Message 3 Edited by RAZD, : ref to quote Edited by RAZD, : clarity punctuation Edited by RAZD, : sub, weird characters removed Edited by RAZD, : - = - by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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AdminQuetzal Inactive Member |
Hi RAZD,
This is an interesting topic for me personally, but I can't really see what it is you want to debate. Is there a question in there somewhere? Where do you want/intend to go with this topic?
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
This came up in debate with MurkyWaters regarding the definition of the theory of evolution, and it seemed a puzzle to me why he was so intent on it (other than to try and make the definition as impossible as possible).
I guess the questions are: am I missing something? Do creationists see this differently? Is there some tie-in to "macro"evolution? Thanks.
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AdminQuetzal Inactive Member |
Good enough. Promoted to Biological Evolution.
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AdminQuetzal Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5063 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Someone reading Darwin's "Origin" one can encompass his notion of diversity via the angles here (only diagram in the book):
The line at the top is suppposed by Darwin to transform, back, into the boundaries of any given country, and generations later, there are six places variation supposedly wrought. Darwin's notion of diversification in form-making is tied to diversity triangulatable in space. It did not seem to me to be any old kind of novelty creation. If a creationist wishes to argue not against Darwin's view but rather something created 100yrs or so later, they could simply point out the no one has followed up on Wright's notion of a gamodeme strictly. People are arguing whether or not Wright's complex process exists in nature but the question could be could man create isolatable breeding communties able to outevolve (into currently unoccupied regions of niche space) currently endemic genetic variations in nature, given nature. I suspect however that a creationist position against macroevolution would looke pricipally to showing that Darwin's spatial restriction of diverification can not exist on our actual Earth and thus his process for giving rise to 5 lineages from two within a country necessarily collide. I have not made this determination. It might be possible however. Gould however takes the position that Darwin failed miserably to explain diversity hitching his bit to levels of selection rather than levels of organization. I think Panbiogeographic statements can be read in part to provide the spatiality that is not simply a mirror image (among E, F G) as Darwin seems to have figured it. Temporally it matters how much time is supposed to be represented from the top to the bottom. The Earth is near spherical after all.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Someone reading Darwin's "Origin" one can encompass his notion of diversity via the angles here (only diagram in the book): Yes, and in that diagram you can see that diversity can increase but that it doesn't have to: there are several extinctions shown and places where a horizontal line would have more species than at the end. I think we can agree that the observation that there are more species now than at the (presumed microbial) start would be an increase in diversity that is explained by this process, but not that an increase in diversity need occur at any generation time.
I suspect however that a creationist position against macroevolution would looke pricipally to showing that Darwin's spatial restriction of diverification can not exist on our actual Earth ... ... Temporally it matters how much time is supposed to be represented from the top to the bottom. The Earth is near spherical after all. Yes it would come down to a matter of the limitations of time and space. One thing to point out is that the number of species known to exist and have existed could of it's own mean that a minimum time is needed no matter how you cut the timelines. This would be a matter of possible biodiversity and ecological support. Enjoy. compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click) we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5063 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Yes Darwin did not make it clear how many generations are represented with each line.
He was however trying to apply Malthus and to do so requires some macrospatial boundary IN which to compare the geometric growth of reproductions to the arithemetic increase of the food. To be willing to reduce the places in an actual geography on Earth envisaged with this math to the petri dish while logically scaling ok, I find leads to suspcious use of the notion of "metric". The diversity where, despite some extinction, becomes represented on both halves of the figure is to present how there need be NO LAW to the extinction of forms.There has to be an origin to the "species" with it. To say that the Mendel binomial not available to Darwin expunges his planar accompaniment to the words in the text seems like a cop out to me. It seems to me that by restricting one to a sphere rather than an infinite plane Darwin's diversification DOES become constrained in some visiable way. I would love to have some other way, other than words, to express this. Now if one of course does reduce the scale, without any intention of disrupting the topology (definition of 'neighborhood')implicit AND one assumes that it may not be on the Earth that a "country" is supposed to present linearly as per the diagram, then in bringing it back to macro size after the process has commenced, one is not subject to my restrictive configuing because one has the Universe as the outside bound of any niche rather than the rotating and revolving place we can in our best of moods can still be phoned home. If I reject Malthus, it is a piece of cake, to keep with your obervation, but it was in relying on that, that I think Darwin failed, not as Gould supposes, of failing to start with species selection but failing to realize that a number of things to be selected is not so easy to even describe let alone cut out of nature for human comprehension. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that Wright's isolation by distance is simply the ability to genetically support any given branch"" of Darwins' whether extinct or extant in the picture. Wright still maintained that some immigration from the population (as a whole) could still enter a given braching (Darwin compass of a country) This is why Wright spoke of that, THEN the stepping stone model (some where in between the middle of the diagram) then density dependence and now that then, a continuum(see quote below). If one is not a reductionist it is hard to simply accept the scaling operation creates not but a torque force of minsucle magnitude. This continuum must be one to one and onto Darwin's linearity it seems to me. I have not tried it but it seems to me that the purely arithemetic and geometric properties of transfinite numbers may supply a different drawing board from which to circumspectly represent Darwin's reasoning but with a different, not restricted to the plane, resultant depiction. But then what a "number" means biologically would be composite of genotype and phenotype, and that being hard for one without the intuition to so proceed, is unlikely to motivate in readers. So it would be easier for me to stick to tyring to interpret the already suggested evolutionary ideas.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5063 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
quote: RAZD came out after I posted with, quote: I am suggesting that maybe IT DOES have to according to Darwin, but not necessarily by post neo-Darwinian assertions.Look: The question as RAZD has it put, is-is, are a-z "at the end" necessarily containin more species than on Darwin's A..L line of beginner's luck. In between I have labeled two lines "greater number" and "lesser number" to accord with Darwin's use of the word "number". The question is, are there actual places where a lineage would have more species than at the end. Where is the end? This would depend on where Darwin's Fline necessarily is represented in my figure. This I have not determined.It may be that a measure of adaptedness is needed as Dobshansky wrote in the 60s (quote available). Regardless GS Carter in 1957 wrote quote: I feel that this outline of Darwin's depiction drawn via light cones in quaternionic space supplies the very "surface" mentioned by Carter. Dobshansy subsequently wrote, quote: Gould has decided that the position on adaptations had hardened in this time frame. Instead of finding this surface I revised, he expects us to wear the cap of his team that finds instead the arguments within evolutionary discussions ARE those of Paley-Agassiz 'transmorgified' (read Darwin and Darwin's "god" here). If the surface I am presenting is a better rendition than Goulds' then perhaps there was NO hardening but rather a softening up and faliure to pursue questions to an end. It seems to me that Stanley in the 70s who has said (quote in Lloyd's book) that "species selection" was never about general adaptedness may be correct historically but wrong rationally. It might be instead that the "hardening" was a failure to develop the methods called for by Dobshansky. Could it not be that the Gladyshev law contains such a law for the extinction of forms? Now if your question turned into mine is not comphrended, all I can do is rephrase it. The culprit is probaby what the word population means and what a "check" is on one. That seems to underlie Hoot persistant use of sexual selection but that is not my conversation... The places in dispute or under possible extinction directions seem to have been denoted by Carter with ,quote: For physicist's (using time as the scalar component (biology may? not use this))use of light cone representations with quaternions see
doing physics with quaternions
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bertvan Junior Member (Idle past 5850 days) Posts: 29 From: Palm Springs California Joined: |
Evolution happened, but how? How would “survival of the fittest” explain the origin of the fittest? The notion that “natural selection” might somehow organize a bunch of genetic accidents into intelligently interacting biological systems (RM&NS) doesn’t sound very convincing to me. But then lots of scientific theories don’t sound very credible to me. For instance the one about multiple universes -- the notion that an infinite number of universes exist, but our is the only one that “just happens” to be intelligently organized. However, no one attacks me if I make fun of the multiple universe theory. No one has gone to court and ruled that skepticism of multiple universes can’t be expressed in the classroom.
If biological systems are intelligently organized, rather than the result of random mutations accidentally self-assembling for no particular reason, life can be described as “intelligently designed”. Just because some religious people are also skeptical of RM&NS, and believe the intelligence responsible for the organization of living systems is their god shouldn’t negate the reality of the intelligent organization of living systems. As a religious agnostic, I regard that intelligence as a natural responsiveness of living systems. Used organs develop and unused ones atrophy. Bodies explore ways to heal wounds, fight infection, and respond to heat, changes in altitude and novel food sources. If religious people want to claim their god participates in those process, I have no objection. The only thing I object to is suppression of academic freedom. I object to the harassment, denial of tenure and loss of jobs for anyone who wants to explore the role of intelligence in the organization of living systems. I resent the fact that such discussions are not permitted in scientific journals. See my web site, Questions about Materialism at http://30145.myauthorsite.com/
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Welcome to the fray bertvan
Evolution happened, but how? By the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation. See Definition of Evolution to discuss further, as this is off-topic here.
How would “survival of the fittest” explain the origin of the fittest? It doesn't need to. The ecology is constantly changing in many little to major ways, and "fittest" just means best able to take advantage of the ecology available. Any organism has some "fitness" to any ecology, and some will be better than others. Perhaps you can start a new thread to discuss this further, as it is off-topic here. Go to Proposed New Topics to post new topics.
But then lots of scientific theories don’t sound very credible to me. See my web site, Questions about Materialism at This forum is not about advertising your websites or your ignorance. And they are off-topic here (as is your second paragraph -- see the [forum=-10] forum topics). So, do you have anything to say about diversity? Enjoy. ps -- as you are a newbie: type [qs]quotes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:
quotes are easy or type [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] and it becomes:
quote: also check out (help) links on formating questions when in the reply window. compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click) we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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42 Inactive Member |
do creationists believe evolution necessarily increases diversity?
can you please explain how this is a creationist view
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Welcome again 42 on your 43rd post (was the previous one the answer to the big question of life, the universe, and everything?)
do creationists believe evolution necessarily increases diversity? It's more that they believe (or have been told by creationists) that the theory of evolution says that there must always be an increase in diversity, which (of course) is wrong. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5531 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
RADZ writes:
RADZ, you may be right about the "theory" of evolution, but the practicality of it seems to be contradicted by John Sepkoski's "death graph" of marine families, redrawn below from S. J. Gould's The Book of Life (2001, p. 107):
do creationists believe evolution necessarily increases diversity? It's more that they believe (or have been told by creationists) that the theory of evolution says that there must always be an increase in diversity, which (of course) is wrong. At a macroscopic level Sepkoski's graph shows six global mass extinctions of marine life in terms of families. Since the Permian extinction there appears to have been a 'punctuated" increase of diversity at a rate of about 3 families per Myr. Why isn't this evidence of a naural increase in biodiversity? ”HM
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Why isn't this evidence of a naural increase in biodiversity? A natural increase in biodiversity does not mean that the process described in the Theory of Evolution necessitates diversity. That process can lead to less diversity just as it can lead to more. That we see an increase in diversity is just a correlation and not causation.
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