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Author Topic:   Ready When Made
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 6 of 73 (61100)
10-15-2003 10:00 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by mike the wiz
10-15-2003 9:43 PM


I don't get what you're trying to argue, either. We see just as about as many species dissapear in the fossil record as we see appear in the fossil record. While the variety of species follows a heavy boom and bust cycle, we see an overall increase invariety in the precambrian, and then a slow overall increase in variety as we get into more modern sediments - exactly what one would expect to find. What would you expect to find?
New species are being discovered all of the time. It is your *assumption* because of your creationist viewpoint that all of them were already there, waiting to be discovered. While in very remote locations, this may be the case for most of them; however, new species (and especially subspecies) (occasionally even genuses and families) are regularly found in heavily studied areas, as well. The rate of such findings is roughly relative to the frequency of the animal's reproduction - for example, we can witness speciation in a vat of bacteria at a phenominal rate (in fact, familial transitions have been observed - in one case that I'm familiar with, a non-colonial species developed into a colonial species).
In larger animals, it is more rare, because of the slower breeding rate. I'm not aware of any large mammal species for which species-level cladogenesis has been observed to occur, although there are numerous subspecies-level developments. And I know of several of small mammal species-level transitions that have been observed. Given the time frame, this is about what is expected.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."
[This message has been edited by Rei, 10-15-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by mike the wiz, posted 10-15-2003 9:43 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 9 of 73 (61107)
10-15-2003 10:19 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by mike the wiz
10-15-2003 10:06 PM


You're not understanding the most basic elements of the evolutionist viewpoint. When a species dies out, it is replaced by other species living at the same time - nature abhors a vaccum. If there is a food supply not being utilized, or a weakness in the chain, species move in to exploit it. The species that replace it tend to split via cladogenesis.
What your point boils down to is an argument that they're not radiating fast enough. The fossil record clearly shows quite the opposite.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."
[This message has been edited by Rei, 10-15-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by mike the wiz, posted 10-15-2003 10:06 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by mike the wiz, posted 10-15-2003 10:41 PM Rei has replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 15 of 73 (61128)
10-16-2003 1:43 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by mike the wiz
10-15-2003 10:41 PM


Where do you get that even a measurable percentage of species in the world are going extinct currently, let alone historically? Large mammals are going extinct faster than they're developing, but that's mostly our fault. We've only been here for the past couple tens of thousands of years. The fossil record shows no overall "extinction" trend, just boom and bust cycles.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by mike the wiz, posted 10-15-2003 10:41 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 25 of 73 (61206)
10-16-2003 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by mike the wiz
10-16-2003 11:52 AM


quote:
What if they require change rapidly. millions of years??
Once again: Then they go extinct if they cannot adapt quickly enough.
You seen not to be catching on: there are between 10 and 100 million species on Earth. A species going extinct is a drop in the bucket. 10 species is nothing. 100 is nothing. 1,000 is nothing. 10,000 is nothing. Do you get the picture?
Yes, due to humans, which have been around for a few tens of thousands of years, in particular large animals have been going extinct during these past few tens of thousands of years at a faster rate. This is a "bust" period, as we have described. There are hundred of major boom and bust cycles in global diversity in the evolutionary record. Rapid climate change is another major cause of such effects. But with tens of millions of species, there are *plenty* to move in and fill the void (and consequently, diversify through cladogenesis, as their new niches will be quite different) when an extinction occurs.
What part of this do you not understand?
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by mike the wiz, posted 10-16-2003 11:52 AM mike the wiz has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Brad McFall, posted 10-16-2003 1:55 PM Rei has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 33 of 73 (61225)
10-16-2003 3:01 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by mike the wiz
10-16-2003 2:25 PM


Mike, you're skipping the issues.
1) Address the issue of the number of extinctions relative to the number of total species
2) Address the issue that we're in a recent bust period due to *humans* - otherwise, evidence the fact that large numbers of extinctions are coming from something other than humans.
3) If your claim is that you feel we're not witnessing new species, then state so, so that I can cite articles on speciation events.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by mike the wiz, posted 10-16-2003 2:25 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 52 of 73 (61799)
10-20-2003 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by defenderofthefaith
10-20-2003 6:16 AM


quote:
Say any species suddenly is faced with a challenge to survival that will require some new trait to keep it alive. Suppose we have some bears on an island. The climate gets colder. Natural selection kicks in, and soon we have only the bears with genetic information for long hair surviving to pass on their chromosomes. So the gene pool has narrowed down to long hair only. But then temperatures reverse to very hot. However, since natural selection has thinned the gene pool down to longhaired bears, there are no shorthaired bears to breed with to regain genetic information for short hair
1) I don't understand how you think that "developing longer hair" is even a remotely difficult task, mutation-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if it only took a few BP mutation at one of any of several places in the genome.
2) You forget about atavisms. Most genes that dissapear aren't "lost", they just become inactive due to slight mutations, and can reactivate.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by defenderofthefaith, posted 10-20-2003 6:16 AM defenderofthefaith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by balyons, posted 10-20-2003 9:54 PM Rei has replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 55 of 73 (61852)
10-20-2003 10:42 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by balyons
10-20-2003 9:54 PM


quote:
Mutations are not good. Notice the word. It carries a very negative connotation, and there is a reason for that.
The ability of evolution to occur even though the vast majority of mutations are harmful is demonstrated here. You need to show that *no* mutations are beneficial.
quote:
Science has not proved that any mutation is beneficial to a species, just assumed that there is one, in order to support its theories.
Ah, so this (as an example) isn't beneficial:
Single mutation at the intersubunit interface confers extra efficiency to Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase - PubMed
Want more? I'll give you as many as you want - there's an encylopedia's worth of observed examples of beneficial mutations out there.
quote:
And some slightly off topic arguments- life does not come from non-life (check out Louis Pasteur's abiogenesis experiments)
http://EvC Forum: Evolution has been Disproven
quote:
and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
http://EvC Forum: Irreducible complexity- the challenges have been rebutted (if not refuted)
quote:
The otehr thing that contradicts Evolution is the existance of self-sacrifice. The ideas of love and humility (in people) and at least defending the young and weak in other animals simply cannot be explained by a natural selection or survival of the fittest, and these traits obviously exist.
What are you talking about? Your offspring are the ones that carry your genes on - self-sacrifice for them is *utterly necessary* if you want your genes passed on to future generations. In social species, the success of the tribe/troop/flock/pride/whatever is necessary for the individuals in it to pass their genes on; otherwise, all will perish (they share much of the same genetics anyway). If you have a troop of chimpanzees that becomes severely weakened by a lack of unity, there's always another tribe of chimpanzees ready to sieze their territory and kill/injure them in the process.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by balyons, posted 10-20-2003 9:54 PM balyons has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 62 of 73 (61951)
10-21-2003 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by defenderofthefaith
10-21-2003 5:22 AM


quote:
Whoops. We're at crosspurposes here. I completely agree with everything balyons said, except that no mutation can be beneficial. Mutations can be beneficial - depending on what criteria you're using - but they can't add information. This ties in nicely with Loudmouth's argument concerning nylon-digesting bacteria. Although that may have looked like new genetic information, or macroevolution, at first, it's more likely to have been a loss of information in that the enzyme catalysis processes became less specific. By a loss of information, the enzymes would be less effective but more general in what they digested, allowing the enzymes to remove any inbuilt inhibition they may have had against chewing up nylon. Proteins and nylon are digested in a very similar manner (which is why nylon is the first substance you'd notice being catalysed if these mutations began). Degeneration again - beneficial for the moment, mind you, depending on whether nylon is good for bacteria, but such losses of information would eventually create an enzyme that is permitted to digest a wide range of substances but is not good at it. Such bacteria would not survive when pitted against bacteria with substrate-specific very efficient enzymes.
But new evidence actually suggests plasmids may be responsible for the nylon digestion. Other bacteria have the same property and could have passed this information to the flavobacteria. See e.g. K. Kato, et al., A plasmid encoding enzymes for nylon oligomer degradation: Nucleotide sequence analysis of pOAD2, Microbiology (Reading) 141(10):25852590, 1995.
Defender, nylon didn't exist until modern times. So, quite obviously, something evolved the ability to digest it, whether it was flavobacteria or other. By adding the ability to digest it, it now has a brand new niche that it can fill, much the same as how if a non-photosynthetic bacteria in the early earth became able to harness energy from light - even weakly - it would spread to fill the Earth.
Virtually everything is give and take (although there was essentially no "give" in the link I presented above); however, replication + mutation means that the original ability is retained, and a new ability is added; replication + mutation occurs all the time, and in fact, the copy tends to mutate at a different rate than the parent.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by defenderofthefaith, posted 10-21-2003 5:22 AM defenderofthefaith has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 68 of 73 (62149)
10-22-2003 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by defenderofthefaith
10-22-2003 5:29 AM


quote:
Nylon may not have existed until modern times, but remember it's a man-made compound composed of natural substances which did exist a long time ago. Enzymes, as far as my limited knowledge tells me, are specific in what they digest. As I said above, a degeneration in the gene pool could have reduced their inhibition towards digesting the particular composition of natural materials that makes up the polymers of nylon.
1) That's not at all how things work. Polymers have different properties than their component materials.
2) That would be an *improvement* in the organism, to be able to handle a wider variety of food sources.
quote:
Nylon and protein digestion processes are very similar.
In what manner? Nylon is polyamide - that is, a long chain of subunits of:
H O
| |
N --- C --- (CH2)5
Proteins are long chains of amino acids.
Not at all related, except that they use carbon to make long chains.
quote:
This is a loss in information, and since it also involves the enzyme becoming less specific, is probably not in the long run beneficial.
Please explain how having a brand new food source is "not in the long run beneficial". If humans in a 3rd-world country suddenly became able to eat dirt, would that somehow be "not in the long run beneficial"?
The enzyme that breaks down nylon doesn't just attack random things. It breaks down nylon, and gets energy from it, which it gives to the cell.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by defenderofthefaith, posted 10-22-2003 5:29 AM defenderofthefaith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Coragyps, posted 10-22-2003 4:15 PM Rei has replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 69 of 73 (62152)
10-22-2003 2:10 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by defenderofthefaith
10-22-2003 5:43 AM


quote:
Such gains have not been observed, but even if they did happen the bears could not afford to wait until one came along.
Wow, if you think something as simple as gaining and losing hair are "macroevolution", what do you think of these pigeons (and yes, they are real):
There's plenty more where these came from... by putting selective breeding forces on pigeons, people have created the most bizarre forms imaginable. Now, even though humans use a 100% selection criteria, as I demonstrate in this thread, it need not be even close to 100%.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by defenderofthefaith, posted 10-22-2003 5:43 AM defenderofthefaith has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 73 of 73 (62183)
10-22-2003 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Coragyps
10-22-2003 4:15 PM


Ah, my bad, thanks. Chains of amino acids are polyamides.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Coragyps, posted 10-22-2003 4:15 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
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