Evolution is True Because Life Needs It

I know we're getting way off topic but this type statement saddens me..."If all that is holding you back from committing immoral acts is the fear of eternal punishment, then I sincerely hope you never lose your faith."... the perception that God is angry and/or unloving. I never fear eternal punishment no matter what I do because I believe someone took my place and paid the debt.

Ok, so then you're in the same boat as the rest of us; you don't commit immoral acts because you're not immoral.

Portillo writes: When the creationist Gregor Mendel discovered natural selection...

Gregor Mendel was not a creationist but a scientist and Augustinian friar, i.e., a Catholic. And he didn't discover natural selection. He discovered genes and inheritance.

The evolution of a large dog to a small dog is certainly change of a kind.

How do you know all dogs are the same kind? How do you know that each dog breed, and the wolf, is not a separate kind? If your answer is that they are all mutually interfertile then I guess we finally have a definition of kind.

All dogs, however, are one species and dont change into something fundamentally different. This isnt because you dont have enough time, its because you run out of variation.

Given mutation, how does one run out of variation?

One flaw is that artificial selection and selective breeding is a purposeful process with intelligence, skill and precision. Evolution is an unguided, purposeless and natural process. A step by step process, micromutation accumulated through natural selection, producing the diverse groups of animals from a cellular ancestor. Nature did its own creating, there was no intelligent agent.

Is it a fundamental flaw when chemists mix chemicals in the lab with purposeful intelligence to figure out how nature works? You would answer no, right? Was it a fundamental flaw when Mendel bred his pea plants himself with purposeful intelligence to figure out how nature works? You would answer no, right? Then why is it a fundamental flaw when breeders mix animals in the barn or the lab with purposeful intelligence to figure out how nature works?

Another flaw is that breeders can produce change only within boundaries.

Except that this isn't true. Breeders of long-lived species like dogs and cows can only produce a small amount of change, but breeders of short-lived species like fruit flies, mosquitoes and bacteria can produce a large amount of change through many generations and thereby new species.

Pigeons for example have been bred for 10,000 years, but they are still pigeons.

But pigeons are a family, not a species. What for you defines the pigeon kind? Is it being interfertile like dogs and wolves? There are over 300 different species of pigeon, and they definitely do not interbreed. And with so many species, are you sure no new species have emerged over the past 10,000 years?

This is why evolutionary biologists proclaim minor variation within species such as the peppered moths, as evidence for the grand macro evolutionary changes that happened in the past.

This is untrue. The peppered moth is presented as an example of natural selection in the wild, not of macroevolution. So is the finch's beak.

We dont observe life arising from non-life...

Tell you what, you present your scientific evidence for dust of the ground being transformed into a man, and we'll present our evidence for natural processes being responsible for everything ever observed. But not in this thread, it would be off-topic.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Typo.

Hi Portillo.

Thanks for the reply, but it doesn't seem to address my question.
There are various things in it we could discuss, but I was trying to keep our discussion focussed.

So...
Do you accept that this:

could evolve into this:

?

The others have poked this wide open, so I'll just address your first line:

The evolution of a large dog to a small dog is certainly change of a kind.

So is a wolf of the dog kind too? What of a fox? Coyote? Dingo? Are ALL of these just different "kinds" of dogs?

Hi Percy,

Portillo writes: All dogs, however, are one species and dont change into something fundamentally different. This isnt because you dont have enough time, its because you run out of variation. Given mutation, how does one run out of variation?

quote:

---

New Dog Breeds

Newly created breeds are all dog breeds that were recently and intentionally created since 1940, usually by the life-time work of a single breeder or a group of dedicated breeders. New breeds are created mainly for four reasons: miniaturization, breed enhancement, genetic mutation, or to adapt to the local, geographical living conditions. Some of these breeds now have fixed traits and breed true to type, while other breeds are still under development. Most of them are not yet AKC, FCI or UKC registered.

---

Note that the ones that breed true mean that the genes for the breed type have been isolated, and that these are like the pure breeds of peas that Mendel isolated in his experiments; that they are new means that they have one or more mutations that were not previously isolated in a breeding population.

These are new variations within the dog clade, and it seems the process of mutation and variation is still operating. Certainly these new breeds have added to the diversity of dogs.

Enjoy.

Edited by RAZD, : clrty

These are new variations within the dog clade, and it seems the process of mutation and variation is still operating. Certainly these new breeds have added to the diversity of dogs.

This is most certainly true. A good example are dachsunds. They carry a mutation in their FGRF3 gene causing them to have stunted limbs, otherwise known as achondroplasia. Humans with mutations in the homologous gene also have achondroplasia (i.e. dwarfism). This is a dominant trait meaning that you only need one copy of the gene in order to have the condition. Obviously, this mutation could not have come from their wolf ancestors. Instead, this trait was isolated and bred to homozygosity by breeders after the mutation occurred in their breeding stocks.

Hi hooah212002,

So is a wolf of the dog kind too? What of a fox? Coyote? Dingo? Are ALL of these just different "kinds" of dogs?

Personally I find the easiest way to discuss kinds is by using cladistics, as this avoids the question of what level of taxonomy is involved (which seems to change with moods).

quote:

---

What Makes a Wolf a Wolf?

Wolves belong to the family Canidae and are most closely related to domestic dogs, foxes, coyotes, dingoes, lycaons, and jackals. There are 14 total living subgroups of Canidae, and they are often referred to as canids. A derived trait for canids is that they have 42 teeth, although bears also share this characteristic. There are, however, other distinguishing features between canids and bears. Canids tend to have long tails, walk on their toes, and have four toes to each hind foot, while bears have short tails, walk on their soles, and have 5 toes to each hind foot.

The gray wolf looks very similar to other canids, so differentiating species isn’t always straightforward. Throughout its evolution, the wolf has been increasing in size, so wolves tend to have a larger body that most other canids. Furthermore, after collecting skull measurements from the wolf, scientists have found that it has a broader snout and wider nose pad than its other close relatives.

---

Note that extinct species, such as the Dire Wolf, are not shown in the cladogram, only currently living species.

So the questions for creationists are ...

1. where they draw the line for the beginning of the dog clade ...
   
   1. is it just domestic dogs plus gray wolf,
      
   2. or does it include the coyote and the cape hunting dog ...
      
   3. or does it extend to include the bush dog, the maned wolf, the hoary fox and the crab eating fox ... ?
   
   
2. does the clade of foxes (gray fox and ones below it in the diagram) represent a different kind from the dog kind?
   
3. are the bush dog and the raccoon dog really dogs or is this just a common naming error?
   
4. likewise, are the hoary fox and the crab eating fox really foxes or is this a common naming error?

This chart also does not show the silver fox, which is a melanistic form of red fox that was subjected to 50 years of selective breeding in Siberia to develop a tame variety for the fox farming industry ... and ended up with a domesticated variety with traits similar to the domestic dog ... so does that mean that foxes must be a member of the dog kind?

Enjoy.

Edited by RAZD, : dire wold link

Personally I find the easiest way to discuss kinds is by using cladistics.

Ahh, but "kind" is their term so it is up to them to define it. What you are doing is called "making sense" using fact and evidence: something unfamiliar with creationists.

Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

Hi again hooah212002,

... What you are doing is called "making sense" using fact and evidence: ...

What I have done is take what creationist say about kinds and noted that this is similar to the way biologists talk about clades. They don't care about genus and family etc classifications, just that a specific group of species form a kind that evolved from an original common ancestor.

The disagreement between biology and creationism is that they claim there were a number of common ancestors, while biologists are happy with a small group of bacteria interchanging (via horizontal transfer) soon after life appeared.

Personally I find clade to be a good working definition for kinds in these discussions, something that can be agreed on ....

Enjoy.

I suspect that in practise a "kind" is whatever creationists think evolution is unable to result in.

It will vary from creationist to creationists depending on their own individual misapprehensions about what evolution is.

Hi Straggler,

I suspect that in practise a "kind" is whatever creationists think evolution is unable to result in.

And that is the basis for the thread Dogs will be Dogs wil be ???

which does not appear to attract any creationist involvement, even though, imho, it should be of interest to them ...

Enjoy

If you can get creationists to agree with you, I'd be all for it. However, that would entail them dropping the use of kind which doesn't seem to be happening. There is no sense in evolutionists assuming they mean clade but say kind, especially since it is not up to us to define their terms.

I am thinking that my previous reply could possibly be construed as sarcastic or something.
So I thought I would explicitly state that it was not meant in a derogatory (or whatever) sense.

I truly see no clear answer to my question in your reply.
For example - you do not mention cats at all.

And looking at your summary sentence:

Portillo writes: We dont observe life arising from non-life, evolving into multicellular life, evolving into fish, evolving into amphibians, evolving into reptiles, evolving into birds, evolving into mammals, evolving into humans. Nor will ever.

"We dont observe life arising from non-life" - 'non-life' to 'life': clearly not related to a cat evolving into a fox.
"evolving into multicellular life" - 'single-cell'(?) life into multicellular life: clearly not related to a cat evolving into a fox.
I am unsure of what the rest of your sentence means as it contradicts your previous statements.
To slightly paraphrase:
"We dont observe multicellular life ... evolving into mammals"
This conflicts with your previous statement that Wolves (multicellular life) evolved into Chihuahuas (mammals).

So, to summarise:
I found your reply confusing, contradictory and unconnected to cats evolving into foxes.

I'll ask again...
Do you accept that this:

could evolve into this:

?

Well, I came to an Evolution vs. Creation forum, what else should I expect.

We as human beings are naturally draw to conflict in all forms, whether it is shooting one another in real life, or in a video game, or in any other game, in the buisness world, and in just plain living.

EVC does not escape the bounds of these tenants, and to come here expecting people wanting to flesh out new ideas instead of arguing over the old appears to have been a foolish propisition.

Never the less, thank you for participating.

Edited by Invader Scooch, : Ambiguity

Still no answer.

Is there some aspect of my question that you are having trouble understanding or is there some aspect of your answer that you are having trouble expressing?