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Author Topic:   1 piece of evidence to disprove evolution..
MarkAustin
Member (Idle past 3815 days)
Posts: 122
From: London., UK
Joined: 05-23-2003


Message 76 of 85 (51320)
08-20-2003 4:37 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Zealot
08-19-2003 11:15 AM


Re: Hey
quote:
Surely there is always selective pressure ? Why wouldn't there be ?
quote:
So essentially substantial mutation would only occur when something's design is a liability ? IE: Just noise ? I see what you are saying , well kindof , but that doesn't seem to be in line with forinstance the general argument of avian evolution . The general argument I've heard was that a cat/snake whatever developes a mutation which provides it with a 'slight' benefit EG: Falls to the ground slower (like 2 %) than another organism of the same species. Surely the old species that fall slightly faster is not a liablility but a fatality and should be 'unnatural death'.
Basically what I'm hearing is that organisms would only mutate when required ?
Selection pressure and mutation always exist. However, if an organism is well adapted to its environment, any chnage is likely to be detrimental, and thus will be selected out. The selection pressure is for stability. If the environment changes in any way and the organism's adaption becomes sub-optimal, changes will be more likely to be favourable and thus be selected.
Alway remember that evolution is a combination of two factors: random changes (mutation) mediated by a non-random filter (natural selection).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by Zealot, posted 08-19-2003 11:15 AM Zealot has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 77 of 85 (51323)
08-20-2003 5:11 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Zealot
08-19-2003 11:15 AM


Re: Hey
Ouch! Although MarkAustin touched on it, I can't believe no one else caught this one:
Zealot writes:
Basically what I'm hearing is that organisms would only mutate when required ?
No! Absolutely not. This is the fundamental teleological argument that the IDists are trying foist on everyone. Any individual organism is going to contain mutations that make them different from every other individual. You yourself have probably on the order of 3-6 mutations your own parents didn't have. The vast majority of these mutations have absolutely no effect whatsoever. They're either in non-coding regions of the DNA or whatever change that was made in a codon is off-set by the existence (at least in sexually reproducing organisms) of another copy of a fully functional gene. IOW, they don't hurt or help an individual. They're neutral. At worst, they'll be mildly negative ('cause if they were really negative, the individual is toast), or very rarely beneficial (in context).
It follows logically that when you're dealing with a population of these individuals, each with their own collection of different mutations, that by chance and the fact that a population tends to reproduce within itself (a gross oversimplification), some of these mutations will become common - "fixed" - in the population. Doesn't mean they are providing any kind of advantage - this is the genetic drift Mammuthus was talking about.
All of the above is taking place under a specific set of environmental conditions - the selection pressures extant in the population. This kind of equilibrium situation can continue for quite a while. However, consider what happens if one of those environmental variables changes. All of a sudden one of those up-to-this-point totally neutral or even mildly negative mutations existing in the population MIGHT (emphasis is important on the "maybe", here), become beneficial to that portion of the population that posesses it. All at once, the organisms that have that mutation or trait are doing "better" than the members of their population that don't have it. So they tend to survive better, maybe live longer, produce more offspring. Eventually, the traits or mutation that made them marginally more successful may become dominant in the population as more of their offspring survive to reproduce. Guess what this is called? Yep, it's evolution.
As you can see from this simplification, the mutations are always happening - they are NOT in response to the environment. The "environmental response" is simply that, when things change, the critters that have pre-existing conditions might find themselves in a situation where that condition gives them something of an advantage. It could just as easily go the other way - a change in the environment causes their particular mutations to go from mildly negative to REALLY negative, culling them out. There's no particular reason to choose one direction over another. There's certainly no purpose involved - like getting the "perfect" trait.
Hope this clarifies rather than confuses.
{edited to add: And as far as that last paragraph goes, an environmental change might just as easily - and probably far more likely - have a negative effect on EVERYBODY in the population, 'cause there simply weren't any traits available that helped. That's why it's considered "random".}
[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 08-20-2003]

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Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 78 of 85 (51327)
08-20-2003 5:43 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Zealot
08-19-2003 11:15 AM


Re: Hey
Zealot writes:
Surely there is always selective pressure ? Why wouldn't there be ?
Selective pressure is differential, meaning that the selective pressure on one feature can be high while the selective pressure on another is virtually non-existent.
Let me give you an extreme example: suppose, for the sake of argument, that peahens loose their eye-sight because of a mutation. That would effectively take the selective pressure away from the peacock's beautiful tail. If the peahens don't see the peacocks' tails anymore, mutations detrimental to the beauty of the tail are no longer selected against. The splendor of the tails will slowly diminish because random noise is no longer filtered out.
(Let's not go into other problems resulting from peahens losing their eye-sight, shall we?)
Zealot writes:
Parasomnium writes:
For a more indepth discussion of this subject I would refer you to Daniel Dennett's excellent book "Darwin's Dangeous Idea".
I think I'll need to read the book and hire a tutor to understand
I think you'll find that Dennett himself is an excellent tutor.
Zealot writes:
Parasomnium writes:
Only when circumstances change in such a way that the current wing design becomes a liability, then it will change substantially.
So essentially substantial mutation would only occur when something's design is a liability ?
More or less.
Zealot writes:
The general argument I've heard was that a cat/snake whatever developes a mutation which provides it with a 'slight' benefit EG: Falls to the ground slower (like 2 %) than another organism of the same species.
If you finish this sentence, I'll reply.
Zealot writes:
Surely the old species that fall slightly faster is not a liablility but a fatality and should be 'unnatural death'.
Are we talking 'murder'?
Zealot writes:
Basically what I'm hearing is that organisms would only mutate when required ?
No. Basically, nature says to a species: "Look pal, I'm gonna change the circumstances. Either you can mutate to accomodate for it, or you can go extinct. It's up to you." But it isn't up to the species, of course. It is mutated randomly all the time and only those mutations that help it survive in the changed environment are propagated. The effect is that it seems that organisms only mutate when required, where in reality they have no choice in the matter, and only those that happen to meet the requirements survive.
Cheers.
[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 08-20-2003]

This message is a reply to:
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Jesusfreak
Inactive Member


Message 79 of 85 (59630)
10-06-2003 12:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Zealot
08-14-2003 10:20 AM


If someone already said this plz disregard...
Evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, it states that 'all things left to themselves always tend to go from the complex to the simple' which would be the exact opposite from evolution
------------------
-Ducky

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Replies to this message:
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Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6012 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 80 of 85 (59633)
10-06-2003 12:50 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Jesusfreak
10-06-2003 12:36 AM


Re: If someone already said this plz disregard...
Shall I take this?
No it doesn't say that. Who told you that? They were wrong.
Here's what the second law says:
http://www.secondlaw.com
This is the best non-technical explanation I know of for the 2nd law.Written by physicist, who should know.
He's also written an article on the misstatement of the 2nd law in terms of "order/disorder", the summary of his point is here:
Just a moment...

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 81 of 85 (59657)
10-06-2003 5:13 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Jesusfreak
10-06-2003 12:36 AM


And even if it did say that it wouldn't be the opposite of evolution as evolution has no requirement for a progression from the simple to the complex, indeed apart from a small number of multicellular organisms the vast majority of life on earth has always been the 'simpler' unicellular organisms.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Jesusfreak, posted 10-06-2003 12:36 AM Jesusfreak has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6012 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 82 of 85 (59744)
10-06-2003 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Wounded King
10-06-2003 5:13 AM


Yeah, managed to get both evolution AND the 2nd law wrong...

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 83 of 85 (59753)
10-06-2003 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Zhimbo
10-06-2003 12:45 PM


My rule of thumb. Anyone who says that evolution contradicts the 2nd law of Thermodynamics understands neither.

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Darwin's Terrier
Inactive Member


Message 84 of 85 (59901)
10-07-2003 11:09 AM


quote:
Jesusfreak writes:
Evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, it states that 'all things left to themselves always tend to go from the complex to the simple' which would be the exact opposite from evolution
Hey, Jesusfreak, you do realise that you are giving creationists a bad (worse) name with stuff like that, don’t you? Nah, probably not, I suppose.
1. No, evolution does not contradict the second law. Do you honestly think that, in the 150 years since Darwin and Wallace, no physicist has ever talked to a biologist?
2. As already pointed out, you completely mis-state the second law. I guess you think that a fertilised egg violates the second law by turning into a baby.
3. Under evolution, it is perfectly possible to go from the complex to the simple. Look up Sacculina barnacles, and have a ponder on the relative simplicity of a snake’s limbless body.
Hmm, what next from Jesusfreak? No transitional fossils, perhaps? Or maybe evolution cannot work because random chance would take forever to assemble even a simple protein?
TTFN, DT
PS I think you'll find, Jesusfreak, that the First Law of Thermodynamics rules out creation...
[This message has been edited by Darwinsterrier, 10-07-2003]

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 85 of 85 (60346)
10-09-2003 8:23 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Zealot
08-14-2003 10:20 AM


Here's a potential falsification that I tried on another message board:
Suppose that God did not create the light in between the stars and the earth like the creationists insist? Then throughout history, "new" stars would have continually come into view as the light from those stars would finally have time to reach earth.
Imagine, that we could only see the stars out to 6000 light years or so, and every year astronomers would discover new stars as the sphere of the visible universe comes into view, one light-year at a time....
That would be some pretty powerful evidence of a young universe.

This message is a reply to:
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