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Author Topic:   nested heirarchies as evidence against darwinian evolution
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 8 of 248 (451448)
01-27-2008 6:26 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by randman
01-27-2008 5:45 PM


Re: patterns
randman,
Why would a process that hasn't changed in hundreds of millions of years produce new phyla and then quit doing so.
Any radically new bauplan that would warrant the status of phyla would then have to compete with already well adapted bauplans.
Cladistically speaking it couldn't really happen, anyway. Any radical new bauplan would still belong to an extant phyla because it would be ancestral to it.
As modulous points out, anything else wouldn't be a nested hierarchy, anyway, making your point moot. Your point is that nested hierarchies are evidence against evolution because new phyla don't appear, but if they did they wouldn't be nested hierarchies anyway. So nested hierarchies are irrelevant to your argument, it is simply a rehash of the "no new phyla" argument.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by randman, posted 01-27-2008 5:45 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by randman, posted 01-27-2008 7:30 PM mark24 has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 9 of 248 (451453)
01-27-2008 6:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by randman
01-27-2008 4:41 PM


randman,
one would expect more perfect designs to have evolved if Darwinian processes were as capable of evolution as evos posit.
Well, that's the intelligent-designer-is-a-perfect-Christian-god argument out of the window, then!
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by randman, posted 01-27-2008 4:41 PM randman has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 41 of 248 (451607)
01-28-2008 5:18 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by randman
01-27-2008 7:30 PM


Re: patterns
randman,
Why? Think about this. We still have non-vertibrates around, for example, and they have been around for 500 million plus years according to evos. Vertibrates evolved presumably from non-vertibrates, correct? So why wouldn't they continue to evolve new vertibrate phyla with some regularity over geologic time? Can you cite some studies explaining your reason why or is this just something handwaived away?
Vertebrata isn't a phylum, it is a subclade of phylum chordata. You unwittingly make my point for me. Whatever evolves from chordate stock remains in the monophyletic group chordata. It matters not one iota whether it can fly, breathe underwater or just sits plant-like on a rock filter feeding. If its ancestors were chordates, it is a chordate. It cannot be in two phyla at once.
If something within phylum chordata without a vertebral column evolves a vertebral column, it may warrant a new taxon all of its own, but that taxon will be within phylum chordata, not outside of it. No new phylum.
Surely, some new vertibrate phyla would have evolved in the past 500 million years assuming the same process is in existence that evolved them in the first place over a much briefer period.
As already pointed out, & if we suspend current classifications to allow vertebrata to be a phylum, anything that evolved from vertebrates would still belong to phylum vertebrata. It may be a new clade requiring a new name, but it will be a subclade of phylum vertebrata. You will never get a new phylum from a phylum.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 43 of 248 (451611)
01-28-2008 6:16 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by exon
01-28-2008 5:40 AM


exon,
I think the question you are trying to ask though is "why did all the major body plans arise in the Cambrian (or whenever) and not continuously throughout time?" - and as has already been pointed out, they didn't, they have popped up all the time but aren't called phyla, because the later they have arisen the more nested they are in the hierarchy.
Spot on & well put.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by exon, posted 01-28-2008 5:40 AM exon has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 75 of 248 (451759)
01-28-2008 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by randman
01-28-2008 12:23 PM


Re: reply to percy, modulous, .....
randman,
Putting this into a general reply. The argument that competition keeps out new lines of evolution is why you guys are saying non-vertebrates, for example, did not evolve into newer lines of vertebrates or other things.
As I have already pointed out, vertEbrata is not a phylum, vertebrates belong to phylum chordata.
This phylum has organisms as diverse as:
Seasquirts:
Tunicates:
Elephants:
Whales:
Teleost Fishes:
Mammals:
Amphibians:
I could go on. The point is, that in this phyla, only tunicates & seasquirts are found in the Cambrian, the rest are subclades of phylum chordata that evolved later. You seem to want to present the Cambrian phyla as unchanging & unevolving, having somehow lost the capacity to do so. I think a seasquirt to a flying frog under any other circumstances would warrant separate phyla having evolved, wouldn't you?
Why isn't it? For the reasons I have explained in message 41. Which you didn't respond to, I might add.
Mark
Edited by mark24, : Remove advertising from image

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 83 of 248 (451791)
01-28-2008 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by randman
01-28-2008 5:29 PM


Re: moving the topic forward
randman,
Maybe a little humility on your part here would go over better. Of course, vertebrates are not phyla per se, though there are vertebrate phyla.
Maybe a huge dose of humility on your part would go over even better. There are no such things as vertebrate phyla at all The vertebrate clade is nested in phylum chordata.
Really, what's the point in bring up a phylum level discussion & not have the ability to cite a phylum as an example?
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by randman, posted 01-28-2008 5:29 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by randman, posted 01-28-2008 6:15 PM mark24 has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 105 of 248 (451901)
01-29-2008 3:42 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by randman
01-28-2008 6:15 PM


Re: moving the topic forward
randman,
There are vertebrate animals that are part of a phylum, right? Which is what I was saying.
Vertebrates aren't the phylum, though.
Why don't we see new phyla appearing?
Already answered this in post 41, this means you have to stop complaining this question hasn't been answered, OK?
Why don't we see, as another example albeit a different classification, new and improved dinosaurs evolving?
We do, they're called birds. Of course, they can never not be dinosauria or phylum chordata because they are ancestors to them. It doesn't matter if dinosaurs evolved exoskeletons & jointed legs, they would still be chordates & not arthropods. Everyone has made exactly the same point. What is so hard?
It's time evos look past the magic, simplistic formula of Darwinism.
It's time you understood cladistic classification & the meaning of monophyleticism. It can't be that simple, you aren't getting it. Maybe that's why you think it's magic?
Massive evolutionary changes have occurred within phyla since they appeared. In any other scenario these organisms would be afforded the rank of a new phylum but aren't because of the principle of clades & the requirement for them to be monophyletic.
Mark
Edited by mark24, : No reason given.
Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by randman, posted 01-28-2008 6:15 PM randman has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 107 of 248 (451921)
01-29-2008 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by randman
01-29-2008 1:35 AM


Re: convergent evolution
randman,
Moreover, I would expect a process creating the animal phyla, yes, to create new phyla, not just repeat the old ones.
The process is there, is continuing, as evidence by seasquirts to elephants within the chordate phylum. But an organism belonging to a phylum will always belong to that phylum, all its ancestors will always belong to that phylum. They cannot begat another phylum as the rules of classification do not allow it.
In other words, no-new-phyla is an artifact of our classification system, evolution continues unabated, however.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by randman, posted 01-29-2008 1:35 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by randman, posted 01-29-2008 1:05 PM mark24 has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 123 of 248 (452169)
01-29-2008 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by randman
01-29-2008 1:05 PM


Re: convergent evolution
randman,
Your post does not address my point. We are not discussing the posited evolutionary lines, per se...at least on this point, that theorically occured from the phyla that appeared in the Cambrian explosion or existed then, but why the same process that produced those phyla did not continue to do so for the next 500 million years.
My post exactly addressed your point, & I have been saying the same thing since my first post.
I repeat, from my last post:
quote:
But an organism belonging to a phylum will always belong to that phylum, all its descendents will always belong to that phylum. They cannot begat another phylum as the rules of classification do not allow it.
In other words, no-new-phyla is an artifact of our classification system, evolution continues unabated, however.
  —mark
Way back in post 41 I said pretty much the same thing:
quote:
Whatever evolves from chordate stock remains in the monophyletic group chordata. It matters not one iota whether it can fly, breathe underwater or just sits plant-like on a rock filter feeding. If its ancestors were chordates, it is a chordate. It cannot be in two phyla at once.
If something within phylum chordata without a vertebral column evolves a vertebral column, it may warrant a new taxon all of its own, but that taxon will be within phylum chordata, not outside of it. No new phylum.
  —mark
Waaaaaaaay back in post 8:
quote:
Cladistically speaking it couldn't really happen, anyway. Any radical new bauplan would still belong to an extant phyla because it would be ancestral to it.
  —mark
That's no less than three times that I alone have explained why there have been no new animal phyla since the Cambrian.
So, just for kicks I'll explain it a fourth time; An organism belonging to a phylum exists within a monophyletic clade. All of it's descendents must therefore belong to that phylum & that phylum alone. It is an artifact of the classification system not the mode & tempo of evolution that limits new clades of high taxonomic rank.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by randman, posted 01-29-2008 1:05 PM randman has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 125 of 248 (452179)
01-29-2008 4:36 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by skepticfaith
01-29-2008 2:01 PM


skepticfaith,
Take invertebrates for instance, how much 'evolutionary change' has occurred in each species - they have remained essentially the same for eons. Many species have gone extinct but the remaining haven't changed much.
Chordates that were represented in the Cambrian by tunicates & seasquirty soft bodied organisms, that in the modern day now include, elephants, humans, eels & sharks. Please explain to those silly muddle headed biologists how this represents them not having changed much?
For the record, seasquirts are members of phylum chordata that includes the vertebrates, but are invertebrates themselves. In other words, vertebrates evolved from invertebrates within the same phylum.
This was illustrated with pretty pictures in message 75.
Mark
Edited by mark24, : No reason given.
Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by skepticfaith, posted 01-29-2008 2:01 PM skepticfaith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by skepticfaith, posted 01-29-2008 5:13 PM mark24 has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 130 of 248 (452215)
01-29-2008 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by skepticfaith
01-29-2008 5:13 PM


skepticfaith,
They suddenly appeared in the fossil record. You assume they have evolved but I would like to see some evidence of this proposed evolution.
So why ask how much evolutionary change has occurred?
Clearly you thought the phyla appeared in the Cambrian & remained unchanged. This is false.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by skepticfaith, posted 01-29-2008 5:13 PM skepticfaith has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 152 of 248 (452356)
01-30-2008 5:57 AM
Reply to: Message 144 by randman
01-30-2008 3:16 AM


Re: trying not grow impatient
randman,
Why have no new animal phyla emerged in over 500 million years roughly is one of the points in the thread topic
For the FIFTH time:
An organism belonging to a phylum exists within a monophyletic clade. All of it's descendents must therefore belong to that phylum & that phylum alone. It is an artifact of the classification system not the mode & tempo of evolution that limits new clades of high taxonomic rank.
The other four times are referenced here.
In your own language:
Did you get that?
Got that?
You think you have that point clear now?
So you think you got it this time?
Please acknowledge that you understand the above, or not. Having mutiple direct answers to your original point ignored is tedious & rude. What is the point of being here if you are just going to ignore answers to your questions.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 144 by randman, posted 01-30-2008 3:16 AM randman has not replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 172 of 248 (452523)
01-30-2008 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 171 by molbiogirl
01-30-2008 4:04 PM


Re: moving the topic forward
molbiogirl,
For what its worth there isn't a single true plant phyla in the cambrian at all. Every bally one of them appeared during or after land colonisation.
Mark
Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 171 by molbiogirl, posted 01-30-2008 4:04 PM molbiogirl has replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 190 of 248 (452563)
01-30-2008 5:35 PM
Reply to: Message 188 by randman
01-30-2008 5:17 PM


Re: X O X O
randman,
.....I have had to make that same point several times with no acknowledgement.
Annoying, isn't it?
So no new plant phyla in over 100 million years but we are dealing with a continual Darwinian process.
That really make sense to you?
Yes, for the, what is is now, the SIXTH time? That makes you a hypocrite, surely, complaining of behaviour you have been guilty of since the threads beginning?
An organism belonging to a phylum exists within a monophyletic clade. All of it's descendents must therefore belong to that phylum & that phylum alone. It is an artifact of the classification system not the mode & tempo of evolution that limits new clades of high taxonomic rank.
A phylum cannot begat a phylum.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 188 by randman, posted 01-30-2008 5:17 PM randman has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 203 of 248 (452595)
01-30-2008 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 200 by skepticfaith
01-30-2008 7:08 PM


Re: trying not grow impatient
skepticfaith,
It looks a lot like all or almost all the phyla appeared in one era and subsequently at other times (assuming that the the dating is correct ) other types also appear suddenly.
No, most phyla appeared outside the cambrian. All of the plant phyla, among others.
If the dating is incorrect then you are utterly & completely robbed of any point whatsoever.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 200 by skepticfaith, posted 01-30-2008 7:08 PM skepticfaith has not replied

  
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