Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,581 Year: 2,838/9,624 Month: 683/1,588 Week: 89/229 Day: 61/28 Hour: 0/3


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Peter & Rosemary Grant, Darwin's Finches and Evolution
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 21 of 131 (725720)
05-01-2014 4:11 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Faith
05-01-2014 1:04 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
All you have to do is recognize what happens in breeding. It's the same thing that happens in the development of new races or subspecies in the wild. It's a process of eliminating competing alleles for the trait selected. The black fur gets selected in the case of the pocket mouse and the light allele becomes extremely rare in that population
As always, you neglect the effects of genetic drift and mutation prior to and after speciation and come up with the wrong answer. Left alone, and without speciation, the diversity of any population can increase over time through those processes. It is also the case that mutation can add alleles and not simply modify them. Those facts applies equally well to populations before and after speciation. You are of course free to deny that those processes happen, but in that case your reduced diversity argument does not address the theory of evolution actually embraced by scientists.
It is, in fact easy to construct scenarios that you are saying cannot occur. I suspect that any one of us can do it.
Here is a simple example. Imagine a mouse that undergoes a mutation that improves its ability to detect air currents with its whiskers to the extent that it can detect cats before the cats have a chance to detect the mice. Mice with that defect can survive despite having mutations that would wipe out their fellow, relatively poor hearing ancestors. That means that they have the capability of surviving despite new mutations that make them strong but slow, or with brighter colors that don't allow them to haid, or a sense of smell that detects cheese but not cats, or a more active mind that may occasionally get distracted. Mice with those same characteristics in he original population get eaten by cats. So those changes cannot drift through the population.
Now the new mice take up residence in places where there are lots of cats and people because that is also where the easy food is. The result is speciation because the sensitive whiskered mice no longer mate with their cousins. Those mice can continue to mutate in ways other than developing dull whiskers. Mice need not be identical to be considered a species.
So the new species is more diverse than its ancestor species. In fact it can be more diverse than the original population despite having no option to have poorly adapted whiskers. No that does not sound much like mere breeding, but that's because human breeders would cull out the diversity of the new population. Nature does not do that. Only the newly sensitive whiskers are vital to the new species. Other characteristics can change as long as they don't get the new mice eaten.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 1:04 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:17 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 24 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:39 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 131 (725722)
05-01-2014 4:26 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Faith
05-01-2014 4:17 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
I very clearly argued in my very first post on this subject here.
Yes, and I've just demonstrated to anyone who cares to read that your argument is wrong; your typing in all caps or big type not withstanding.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:17 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:43 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 26 of 131 (725725)
05-01-2014 5:00 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Faith
05-01-2014 4:39 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
Right, that genetic stuff is lost to the population.
Wrong. That material could not propagate in the original population, but it can thrive in the new population because mice with sensitive whiskers can tolerate more diversity.
f all you get is different traits here and there in the population you are not getting this microevolution of a whole population with its own trait picture, but whenever that happens it is due to the reduction and sometimes elimination of the alleles for the traits that are NOT part of the new trait picture.
Wrong. In the original population, mice with dull whiskers cannot also have bright colors. Those mice are removed by cats and don't have mice babies. If that trait ever existed it is gone now.
Not so in the new population. If some of those mice mutate, then both colorful and non-colored mice survive.
es of course, but I am NOT TALKING ABOUT THE DIVERSITY OF PHENOTYPES, I am ONLY talking about GENETIC DIVERSITY
Yes, and in the example I gave you, the diversity of phenotypes was produced genetic variation introduced by new mutations which would prevent survival in the original population. However, mice with and without those variations thrive in the new population because the whiskers gives all of them a sufficient survival advantage of detecting cats.
Not that it is impossible, but could you tell me how you think you are getting phenotype differences without genetic differences? You have denied this before, but it appears to me that you believe in some Mendelian version of diversity where diversity comes merely from new combinations of existing genes. That is not the theory of evolution.
Both phenotype and genetic diversity are on a population basis. As long as individual mice have differences, then the population is diverse.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:39 AM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 131 (725726)
05-01-2014 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Faith
05-01-2014 4:43 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
Go back to the original paragraph and THINK for a change.
I understand exactly what you are claiming. But what you describe is not how scientist believe evolution works. So it is not an argument against the theory of evolution, but is instead an argument against something else.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 4:43 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 5:05 AM NoNukes has not replied
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 5:39 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 33 of 131 (725741)
05-01-2014 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Faith
05-01-2014 5:39 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
So this certainly IS an argument against the Theory of Evolution, the TRUE evolution, what REALLY happens in evolution, which ought to be recognizable with a little work. Not to mention honesty.
And yet you cannot identify a single flaw in my description of the process by which the population of mutated mice end up more diverse than the original population.
What you appear to believe is that there is at the beginning some kind of super genome capable of all traits that gets pared down to make sub species. Instead of noting that we disagree about that issue, you pretend that scientist just have not 'noticed' your view.
Well the reason they haven't noticed is because your view is wrong.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 5:39 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 2:53 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 48 of 131 (725804)
05-01-2014 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Faith
05-01-2014 2:53 PM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
I don't think I understand the situation you think you are describing. What does this have to do with the reduction in genetic diversity that is necessary to the formation of a new supspecies?
I think the example I gave is explained in very simple terms. Cats, mice, whiskers, and colored fur is about as uncomplicated as it gets.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 2:53 PM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 49 of 131 (725806)
05-01-2014 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Faith
05-01-2014 10:14 PM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
It doesn't produce just one single breed but a large variety of cats with curled ears.
Bingo!

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 10:14 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 10:46 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 55 of 131 (725815)
05-02-2014 12:10 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Faith
05-01-2014 10:46 PM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
They don't constitute a race which of course means this has nothing to do with the processes I am talking about.
Exactly so. Evolution is about creating new species and not about creating new races or breeds. Hence the title "Origin of Species" for Darwin's book. Did you really think evolution is about black people evolving into white people? Or vice versa? (Not trying to offend.) Or about creating wiener dogs from collies?
Evolution is about the creation of new species, and is about the processes by which that result is brought about. (for about the 200th time) If the curly ear creates an evolutionary advantage (and I don't believe that it does) then the mutation could lead to a new species of curly eared cats. And as you noted, that species might well be quite diverse. Breeds, on the other hand, are intentionally made, non-natural non-diverse groupings because we define any offspring that does not look right as not being part of the breed and because we deliberately mate similar looking parents.
So if you are talking about something else, like breeding then while some processes might be common to evolution, you are not addressing the theory of evolution (also for about the 200th time). And that means even if you were right, your point is irrelevant. You would instead be making the rather tautological and pointless observation that a collection of extremely similar animals is not very diverse. Yeah, I get that.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Faith, posted 05-01-2014 10:46 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 12:53 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 60 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 1:06 AM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 62 of 131 (725833)
05-02-2014 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Faith
05-02-2014 12:53 AM


Re: You can't get evolution beyond microevolution
duplicate
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 12:53 AM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(3)
Message 63 of 131 (725835)
05-02-2014 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Faith
05-02-2014 12:53 AM


Re: You can't get intelligence out of a turnip
This is pure nonsense that proves only that you don't have a clue about what I'm talking about. I said it is not easy to grasp, it requires THOUGHT
No it does not require deep thinking. Just because it took something like ten years of your life to come up with nothing does not mean it takes any real effort to point out your errors.
Evolution is not the process of coming up with breeds. If we left dogs alone to do what nature tells them to do we'd have mutts in very short order.
Darwin called his finches "species" but they were merely races or subspecies of the finch
First of all, races are not sub species. That is pre-19th century racist crap. The races represent classifications of the variety that homo sapiens encompass. Every human being on this planet is of the same classification as every other human being and they are way more alike than poodles and danes.
In fact, every time you see a new human being or grouping of humans with different appearance, but the same combination of upright walking, opposable thumbs, speech, and high intelligence, that person is a walking refutation of your ridiculous cartooning of evolution. Every human on earth is interfertile with every other, as is nearly every dog.
Secondly, Darwin's observations were limited to looking at stuff on an island for a relatively short time, so no he did not observe the entire process. Darwin did not see and had no idea what the origins of variety were, so he did not opine on genetics related mutations. This thread is about people who have observed for even longer and are getting to see more than Darwin saw. However mutations are rare, so evolution takes lots of time. And even this thread is about natural selection rather than all of evolution.
Darwin's conclusions about his observations were about the origins of species and not just longer beaks on finches. It turns out that his conclusions about species were quite correct and go far beyond what he saw finches do.
Thirdly, Darwin did not see created on the island, new homogeneous breeds of anything. That is your eight year folly. The way we get breeds is not simply by manipulating the available variety, but by segregating out diversity. We have to actively remove diversity.
As painful as it might be for you, you've spent eight years thinking about how to make box terriers, but the rest of us already know how to do that.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 12:53 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 8:08 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(6)
Message 65 of 131 (725837)
05-02-2014 8:23 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by Faith
05-02-2014 8:08 AM


Re: You can't get intelligence out of a turnip
I do not want to continue this discussion with you. But I have to correct this idiotic thing you are doing with the term "race." The way I am using it is perfectly correct to describe subspecies of any animal
I don't care what you and dwise agreed to. We don't refer to groupings of dogs as races. There are no races of gorrillas. Nothing contemporary about a definition that has its origins in the 17th century.
And even letting the sloppy classification stand does not change anything. You surround the term with so much tripe, that even being right about that does not save your thesis.
GET A CLUE.
That might be insulting if it came from someone I held respect for in some way. And by way of correction, Asian, black, and white people are not different subspecies, but represent variety in the same sub species, namely Homo sapiens sapiens.
Species boundaries are quite arbitrary and it has been pointed out to me that my post is quite shaky. I'll acknowledge that to be the case. But it is accurate enough to point out where you've gone wrong.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : add classification for humans.
Edited by NoNukes, : It's vs. its. Grrr,
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 8:08 AM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 68 of 131 (725852)
05-02-2014 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by PaulK
05-02-2014 10:59 AM


Re: Beneficial mutations and other facts
Unfortunately you did exactly what I said. And in fact you did it again when you talked about the "iffiness" of the evidence for mutations. Again, the evidence is not "iffy" in any way that suggests that beneficial mutations are rarer than we think.
Faith's argument is worse than you are allowing for here. Because despite her disbelief that there can be any substantial number of beneficial mutations, her claim is that even if she allows us to have those mutations, evolution is still a dead end because making new breeds chews up any diversity.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by PaulK, posted 05-02-2014 10:59 AM PaulK has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 3:52 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 70 of 131 (725865)
05-02-2014 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Faith
05-02-2014 3:52 PM


Re: Beneficial mutations and other facts
The example of breeding is the only accessible example of how this has to happen to get the new traits of a new breed, and it's perfectly good as an example of what has to happen in the wild too.
How long have you been thinking about this?
Let's suppose in the wild, a mutation gives a wolf a curly ear that presents no advantage over other wolves. The result is of course that wolves as a population becomes more diverse. And that is true regardless of whether that mutation is a gain of a new gene or is a modification of a gene that used to ensure pointy ears.
The fact that you come along later and declare that the curly eared wolves are a new breed does not change or mean anything. The entire population of wolves now has a genetic variation and a corresponding phenotype that did not exist before.
And of course if a population of wolves having the curly ear and all of the wolves other variations gets isolated from the other wolves, then at that point they are necessarily less diverse than all of the wolves together, but nothing then prevents new mutations from generating spots, or bobbed tails, or an enhanced sense of smell etc. In time the grouping might be just as diverse as the original pool, and that is regardless of the fact that the new group lacks a gene for pointy ears.
The alleles for other traits can't remain in the population, period.
Well, I could construct a scenario where an old trait could be recovered, but the point is that the loss of one trait does not prevent diversity from increasing with regard to other traits as long as mutations are allowed.
And the second point is that making breeds is not what evolution requires.
If your argument is simply that humans are unlikely to regain things that were lost during evolution, like tails or gills, I'm down with that. But there are so many other ways to gain diversity that such a principle does not make evolution a dead end.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 3:52 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 8:23 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 76 of 131 (725876)
05-02-2014 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Faith
05-02-2014 8:23 PM


Re: Beneficial mutations and other facts
Why do you keep talking about phenotypic diversity? That has nothing to do with my argument. Of course you can get traits popping up in a wild population from time to time that make it more diverse at that level. Mutation isn't required, just the occasional expression of a rare recessive allele will do it. That's has nothing to do with my argument.
Since you said that I am allowed to use mutations, I provided a mutation that created the new phenotype. Therefore I have by definition provided an example involving genetic diversity. And since you've asked nicely, I will tell you that the new allele I introduced is dominant, not recessive.
Nothing more is required genetically to produce a separate classification of wolf. You simply separate the curly eared wolves from the rest. Or you just name them in place after you've seen a few of them.
I invite you to reconsider your last post. At this point, even your fan Raphael must be wondering about the horse he's backed in the derby.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Faith, posted 05-02-2014 8:23 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Faith, posted 05-03-2014 1:00 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 80 of 131 (725882)
05-03-2014 1:19 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Faith
05-03-2014 1:00 AM


Re: Beneficial mutations and other facts
If you want to try to prove that evolution continues even with increases in genetic diversity or that you can get distinctive new subspecies by such increases you'll have to come up with a few more examples.
I don't need more examples. Since your claim is that it is impossible to generate new groupings without decreasing diversity, any single example is sufficient to show that you are in error.
At this point, I have provided two, extremely simple hypothetical examples, only to have you attempt to say, in effect, that the conditions I invented were not what I said they were.
On top of that Dr. Adequate cited real life examples; examples which you dismiss without saying that they are wrong. At this point I think you have more than enough to think about.
I guess I could point out that for the population with the curly ears, the alleles for other kinds of ears are reduced or eliminated, which is the pattern I've been talking about.
Yes, you could point that out. Our you could read from my post were I acknowledged exactly that point and then dealt with it.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Faith, posted 05-03-2014 1:00 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Faith, posted 05-03-2014 1:27 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 83 by Faith, posted 05-03-2014 1:31 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024