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Author Topic:   Evolving the Musculoskeletal System
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 211 of 527 (579396)
09-04-2010 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:45 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
Why do you think "family" means "kinds"?
Why do you think lions not breeding with donkeys disproves evolution? Be specific. Evolution doesn't claim that interbreeding is universal, just proximal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 210 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 12:45 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
ICdesign
Member (Idle past 4797 days)
Posts: 360
From: Phoenix Arizona USA
Joined: 03-10-2007


Message 212 of 527 (579397)
09-04-2010 12:55 PM
Reply to: Message 209 by Percy
09-04-2010 12:23 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
At some point they become too different.
And this is the point I made yesterday. ToE is so good at blurring the lines.
No-one can provide the web-site I asked for because ToE has the keep the lines blurred with extremely broad assertions

This message is a reply to:
 Message 209 by Percy, posted 09-04-2010 12:23 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by crashfrog, posted 09-04-2010 1:10 PM ICdesign has not replied
 Message 218 by Meldinoor, posted 09-04-2010 3:27 PM ICdesign has not replied
 Message 230 by Percy, posted 09-05-2010 7:04 AM ICdesign has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 213 of 527 (579399)
09-04-2010 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 198 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 10:47 AM


colourblind...
If we had such a smooth blend from one kind to another that this law was not violated then we wouldn't even be able to tell one kind from another.
400THz his the frequency of red light. There is a smhoth transition (the smoothest transition physically possible, in fact) from red to violet at 790THz.
Either
a) You cannot tell one colour from another
b) You can tell me where the line between colours definitely is and justify why it is there and not 100mHz less.
Maybe I missed it but did anyone reference a web-site that is rich with pictures of the evolution of the skeletal system after fish hit the land? I'm not interested in broad assertions.
Not a fan of doing your hard work for you. Why not check out
Panderichthys
Sauripterus
Elginerpeton
Tiktaalik
Obruchevichthys
Hynerpeton
Densignathus rowei
Ichthyostega
Acanthostega
Pederpes finneyae
Amniator
Or perhaps read some paleontology papers. It is rare to find all the information you want all in one place, even in the age of information so you'll have to do some work. Probably take you at least a few years to learn the skills to research and comprehend the raw evidence, I'm afraid.
Or you could look to the people that have already spent the time doing all of that and see what they say about it all.
Or alternatively you could assume that you are more competent in the subject than those that have trained for years upon years and suggest that 'common sense' trumps them. In which case, I look forward to seeing your 'common sense' self-built house. Your 'common sense' plumbing, 'common sense' electrical wiring and seeing you perform 'common sense' surgery on your loved ones.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 10:47 AM ICdesign has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 222 by Bolder-dash, posted 09-04-2010 10:01 PM Modulous has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2476 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 214 of 527 (579401)
09-04-2010 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:45 PM


Changes in muscle and skeleton.
ICDESIGN writes:
Lions and tigers are still within the same kind which is the cat family. Horses and donkeys are of the same family as well.
Lets see you breed a lion with a donkey. That is the line! That is the law I am talking about!!
You won't be able to breed a lion with a cheetah, either.
But at least you agree that all the changes in muscle and skeleton that we see in the cat family can evolve naturally. That's progress.
So why can't all the Carnivora descend from a common ancestor in the same way? Apply some common sense, and you'll realise it's possible.
Edited by bluegenes, : punctuation

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 215 of 527 (579402)
09-04-2010 1:10 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:55 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
ToE is so good at blurring the lines.
Living things blur the line. The theory of evolution is simply a description of what living things do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 12:55 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 216 of 527 (579404)
09-04-2010 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 201 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 11:43 AM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
ToE fails miserably with many common sense tests.
I am again left wondering why you think "common sense" is such a powerful guide in understand the world? Do you find Einstein's Theory of Relativity to be "common sense"? Quantum mechanics? Does common sense guide you to the correct answer to Monty Haul problem?
Do you think common sense will guide you correctly about the inner workings of the cell? Let me ask you a simple question about cell biology: in order to perform their correct function, proteins must reach specific places. It is not enough for a protein simply to be synthesized, it must be transported from where it is synthesized to where it performs its function. Proteins which are to be exported from cells are indicated by particular amino acid sequences at their N-terminus, proteins that are to be bound to the surface of the cell by different sequences at their N-terminus, proteins that are to function in the Nucleus by another sequence, proteins for the Golgi by another. So, given that all these targets are specified by sequences of amino acids at their N-terminus, tell me - using your common sense - how are proteins that are to be targetted to the lysosome specified?
Its all about coming to the right conclusions with the knowledge you have. I think all of you are missing the boat. That's my opinion.
It is indeed about coming to the right conclusions with the knowledge you have. But you don't have knowledge. You don't know how genes function, you don't know how the skeleton develops, you're ignorant of the fossil record, you don't understand how mutation occurs, you know nothing of the vast literature of experiments performed on evolutionary theory, or the mathematical underpinings of the field. How, with so little knowledge, do you think you can possibly be better at reaching the right conclusions than the people who do know these things?
Do you simply think that knowledge is meaningless? Do you think that a detective who has a hunch in the car is as equipped to correctly discern the killer as the detective who has interview the suspects, got the lab work done and reviewed all the salient CCTV footage?
I'll tell you, the thing I have learnt most from studying biology for the last few years is the depth of my own ignorance. Until you start to understand a subject you don't even begin to know what you don't know.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 201 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 11:43 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 217 of 527 (579414)
09-04-2010 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:45 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
ICDESIGN writes:
Lions and tigers are still within the same kind which is the cat family. Horses and donkeys are of the same family as well.
Lets see you breed a lion with a donkey. That is the line! That is the law I am talking about!!
Oh, I see where the confusion lies. You were using the word "kind" in a creationist sense while I was using it generically. Kind is not a classification within biology. Whatever the creationist definition of kind might be, evolution has nothing to say about it.
But we were talking about gradual change. What you said in Message 198 was:
ICDESIGN in Message 198 writes:
I don't care how gradual the change is, eventually you reach a line that has to be crossed where one kind becomes another kind. Its not MY law that says that line cannot be crossed, but never the less THE law says that line cannot be crossed.
The reply I gave earlier still applies. Whether the change is from one species to another or one genus to another or one family to another, the change is gradual. The more different two species are genetically, the less likely it is they can interbreed, but there's no explicit law within the field of biology that says that genera can't interbreed or families can't interbreed and so forth. Of course, by the very nature of genetics it must be considered very unlikely.
Where one species becomes another or one genera becomes another or one family becomes another is an inherently arbitrary choice. There's never any actual "line that has to be crossed." You maybe could talk about a region. On one side of the region you know they're the same species or genera or family, and on the other side you know they're a different species or genera or family, but there's no precise point within that region where the transition happened.
But we don't want to drift too far from the main point, which is that evolving a new feature takes many, many generations, and that at each point along the way the change must provide some advantage, otherwise it won't be selected and will be lost.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 210 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 12:45 PM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 220 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 4:14 PM Percy has replied

  
Meldinoor
Member (Idle past 4808 days)
Posts: 400
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 02-16-2009


(1)
Message 218 of 527 (579422)
09-04-2010 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:55 PM


Is this relevant to the OP?
Hello ICDESIGN,
ICDESIGN writes:
ToE is so good at blurring the lines
Maybe, but that's beside the point. Didn't you write in your OP:
ICDESIGN writes:
This thread is based on the assumption that ToE is true
So this tangent discussion about "kinds" and about where you think evolution can't go falls outside your proposed topic. You agreed that, for the sake of argument, you'd accept the postulates of the ToE (including common descent) in order to learn how we "evolutionists" think complex bodily systems evolved. I think my post, and the posts of many others covered that quite well.
Perhaps we should revive one of the old threads about kinds where you can continue this tangent discussion?
Respectfully,
-Meldinoor

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 12:55 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 219 of 527 (579424)
09-04-2010 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 12:45 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
Hi, ICDESIGN.
ICDESIGN writes:
Lions and tigers are still within the same kind which is the cat family. Horses and donkeys are of the same family as well.
Lets see you breed a lion with a donkey. That is the line! That is the law I am talking about!!
Where is the line? You gave an example of two things that can't interbreed, and claimed that it was a line, but you didn't actually say where the line is.
Let's examine it a little more closely.
You can breed a lion with a lion, or a tiger with a tiger, or a leopard with a leopard, or a cougar with a cougar.
If you breed a tiger with a lion, some offspring are fertile, and some are not.
If you breed a tiger with a leopard, offspring are stillborn.
If you breed a tiger with a cougar, you get no offspring.
You can read about it at Wikipedia
I don't see a line at all: I see gradually diminishing success in interbreeding as species get less and less similar. I see a blurry, fuzzy pattern.
You complain that ToE just blurs lines. Well, this is not so: ToE just calls a line blurry when it actually is blurry. Baraminology, on the other hand, just pretends the blur doesn’t exist, and calls it a line.
Edited by Bluejay, : "can"

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 210 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 12:45 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
ICdesign
Member (Idle past 4797 days)
Posts: 360
From: Phoenix Arizona USA
Joined: 03-10-2007


Message 220 of 527 (579429)
09-04-2010 4:14 PM
Reply to: Message 217 by Percy
09-04-2010 2:26 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
Percy writes:
The more different two species are genetically, the less likely it is they can interbreed, but there's no explicit law within the field of biology that says that genera can't interbreed or families can't interbreed and so forth
This is the exact kind of double talk I have been referring to that frankly I am sick of dealing with.
Draw the line wherever the hell you want. If you can't breed one kind of animal with another and that truth is unchangeable then that is a law of biology and a line has been drawn.
I can't even believe I have to have an argument of such a no-brainer status with people that have your kind of education....this is just such a grand waste of time I can't give any more energy to it.
...take care guys, I am over and out. Please don't respond from the reply tab of my post.
Thank you,
ICDESIGN

This message is a reply to:
 Message 217 by Percy, posted 09-04-2010 2:26 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 221 by Percy, posted 09-04-2010 5:02 PM ICdesign has not replied
 Message 226 by Dr Jack, posted 09-05-2010 5:02 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 221 of 527 (579443)
09-04-2010 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 220 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 4:14 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
ICDESIGN writes:
This is the exact kind of double talk I have been referring to that frankly I am sick of dealing with.
Science attempts to understand how things work, and evolution represents our best understanding of how life changes over time. Life cannot change in sudden large steps because while reproduction is not perfect, it is certainly mostly perfect. An error rate of 1 in 10 million cannot produce rapid change.
If you were able to gradually change the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece you would find that it gradually fits with the surrounding pieces less and less well. In the same way, as two populations of the same species that split from a single population change over time through successive generations they "fit" less well with each other and become less and less able to interbreed. You'd probably measure it by the percentage of organisms in the populations that can interbreed. Maybe after a hundred generations 95% of the organisms could still interbreed between the two population. After 500 generations maybe it's down to 80%. After a thousand generations it's down to 50%. After 2000 generations it's down to 10%. After 5000 generations it's down to 2%. And after 10,000 generations it's down to 0.1%. At what point in this process do you say that the two species are insufficiently interfertile to be considered the same species?
Clearly at some point the interfertility drops to zero, and then there's no longer any ambiguity. But the fact of the matter is that classification categories like species, genus and family are arbitrary categories invented by people. The categories are not an inherent property of nature. They're an artifact of our efforts to understand nature.
Skeletons arose the same way all structures arose throughout time: gradually with one tiny step at a time with positive traits being selected for and becoming more common and negative traits being selected against and becoming less common.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : "imperfect" => "perfect"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 220 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 4:14 PM ICdesign has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3629 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 222 of 527 (579488)
09-04-2010 10:01 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by Modulous
09-04-2010 1:00 PM


Re: colourblind...
I am trying to figure out what your color analogy has to do with anything regarding evolution? Is there something applicable between our photo receptors perception of colors, what our brains call things that look slightly similar, and what is the difference between species?
From far enough away a planet and a star look exactly the same to me, and from close enough up I can't tell the difference between a bread-crumb and some paint (and it doesn't even matter what color the paint is). I don't think we can gain much insight into evolution from this knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Modulous, posted 09-04-2010 1:00 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3629 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 223 of 527 (579489)
09-04-2010 10:03 PM
Reply to: Message 221 by Percy
09-04-2010 5:02 PM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
Life cannot change in sudden large steps because while reproduction is not imperfect, it is certainly mostly perfect.
If sometimes life changes in relatively sudden, larger steps, does that disprove the ToE?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 221 by Percy, posted 09-04-2010 5:02 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 229 by Percy, posted 09-05-2010 6:46 AM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Meldinoor
Member (Idle past 4808 days)
Posts: 400
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 02-16-2009


Message 224 of 527 (579547)
09-05-2010 12:24 AM
Reply to: Message 223 by Bolder-dash
09-04-2010 10:03 PM


Nope
Edited by Meldinoor, : No reason given.

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


Message 225 of 527 (579568)
09-05-2010 2:40 AM
Reply to: Message 198 by ICdesign
09-04-2010 10:47 AM


Re: Seeking to understand basis for incredulity
I don't care how gradual the change is, eventually you reach a line that has to be crossed where one kind becomes another kind. Its not MY law that says that line cannot be crossed, but never the less THE law says that line cannot be crossed.
If we had such a smooth blend from one kind to another that this law was not violated then we wouldn't even be able to tell one kind from another.
And we can't. That explains why creationists are unable to agree with one another, or even with themselves, whether certain fossils are to be considered ape or human. There are no lines in nature. That's why they can't find them even though it's their job to pretend that they exist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by ICdesign, posted 09-04-2010 10:47 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
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