Evolution answers

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ah, but every time you find a missing link, that leaves TWO MORE GAPS!

The fundies have two gaps of their own, the ones where Adam and Eve are supposed to be.

 

[Pyrts]

As to the "billions of links between species", ask him to consider the difference between a Greyhound and a Chihuahua. Now... ask him where the "missing links" are between those dogs -- and if they're actually both dogs or if they're different things (and if a Boxer is yet a third species.)

There's two points here: First --the fossil record for animals is not well preserved because no kindly hand found the dead, laid them out, and preserved them neatly in mortuaries and graveyards (instead, they were food for other things.) And second -- if evolution is incorrect, we could NOT create variations within a species (which, over a long enough time, would actually lead to new species. We could specialize each of those dog breeds to the point where it was a genetically different animal and couldn't cross-breed with other dogs.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

This might tie in to the thread about whether mocking is an appropriate argument. Sometimes you can mock creationists with facts, especially when their questions/complaints already contain their own answer.

3) Natural Selection. People who subscribe to the theory of evolution usually mistake natural selection as a process of evolution. This is patently FALSE as natural selection EXCLUDES genetic material,m it does NOT introduce unique genetic material. Natural Selection is the OPPOSITE of evolution. Natural selection CULLS genes, evolution would require NOVEL genes.

The answer to this is "Of course natural selection is a process of evolution. It's the one that excludes genetic material". Your friends complaint here is nothing but spin and denial. He already knows the answer, just won't see it. It's really hard to believe that any rational argument will be useful here. Obviously you know this person better than I do, but to me situations like this suggest something is needed that isn't (entirely) rational argument.

 

[Dinwar]

First --the fossil record for animals is not well preserved because no kindly hand found the dead, laid them out, and preserved them neatly in mortuaries and graveyards

Even when that does happen many bones disapear. There are grave yards that we know are grave yards due to finding artifacts and a few scraps of bone, but the majority of bone has disolved away due to the acidity of the soil. Over longer periods of time things like bioturbation can keep material that would otherwise be buried in more acidic sediment.

We could specialize each of those dog breeds to the point where it was a genetically different animal and couldn't cross-breed with other dogs.

Given the fertility of some mules, and the tremendous difference between some dog breeds, and their inability to mate without medical intervention (ie, a rat terrier isn't going to mount or be moutned by a mastif and produce puppies [though it's REALLY funny to watch a terrier try!]), I'm willing to accept that at least some dog breeds are actually new species. The concept of "species" is loose enough to justify this stance.

 

[foophil]

This might tie in to the thread about whether mocking is an appropriate argument. Sometimes you can mock creationists with facts, especially when their questions/complaints already contain their own answer.


The answer to this is "Of course natural selection is a process of evolution. It's the one that excludes genetic material". Your friends complaint here is nothing but spin and denial. He already knows the answer, just won't see it. It's really hard to believe that any rational argument will be useful here. Obviously you know this person better than I do, but to me situations like this suggest something is needed that isn't (entirely) rational argument.

The first guy I'm debating with really is a good friend, though a bit off now. It is kind of like watching a sibling grow up and go a bit bonkers a little at a time. Some of it is likely caused by who he spends his time with and where he gets his information, but some of it is probably just a mental imbalance of some sort. He has a lot of paranoia when it comes to certain government conpiracies. I'm no psycologist though, and haven't been around him enough over the past decade to really get a sense of what happened. It has been sad to watch over the years though.

The second guy is someone I barely know from a few years ago. I don't mind hurting his feelings if needed.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

It even happened with Darwin himself. He hypothesized that birds evolved from reptiles, given their morphology. Then they found Archaeopteryx, an animal that would have been classified as a reptile had it not had fully-developed flight feathers.

I was about to post that the shape of a certain orchid caused him to predict a bird with a certain beak, but I was a little off on the details:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/oct/02/moth-tongues-orchids-darwin-evolution

 

[Retrograde]

In fact, the concept of species is generally only useful in animals; once you get outside Kingdom Animalia, you run into SERIOUS trouble making the concept work.

That's 'cause plants are promiscuous, cheerfully spreading their pollen upon the wind, or depending on bugs to do it for them, and letting it land where it may. And they have the attitude that when it comes to chromosome sets, the more the merrier: tetraploid, hexaploid, whatever - just keep piling them on!

The two things about evolution that I find the hardest to get my mind around are 1) it has no overall goal or purpose: changes to organisms happen and they are either propagated or not and 2) the whole concept of species (and all the other classifications) is man-made, because humans like to put things into tidy little compartments. I think the concept of evolution would be clearer if children were taught cladistics instead of traditional binomial classifications, but the latter are too ingrained.

"1) Charles Darwin had no idea about genetics. His evolutionary tree was based merely upon appearance of the animal.

True, although people have long observed that organisms appear to inherit some traits from their ancestors (ever hear some remark that a baby has its father's eyes and its mother's nose, for example?). But just because something isn't understood doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I don't understand just how gravity works, but I can predict its effects on my immediate universe and not pile stuff up too high. Darwin's lasting contribution, IMHO, was to get people thinking about life as something in constant flux.

 

[Dinwar]

the whole concept of species (and all the other classifications) is man-made

This isnt' entirely true. The species concept is real; there are differences between species in reality. The issue is, the definition is very, very fuzzy. Higher taxonomic orders are trickier. If you're talking to a strict phylogenist like me, higher taxonomic orders represent evolutionary histories--to say "These are in the same family" is to say "These share the same ancestor". This is not a necessary component of Lennaean taxonomy, however; it's an attempt to combine taxonomy with phylogeny into something that's both useful and biologically meaningful.

In other words, species do exist we just can't really define them that well, and higher taxonomic orders exist but represent really, really old speciation events.

I think the concept of evolution would be clearer if children were taught cladistics instead of traditional binomial classifications

Dear gods in Hell no! I took a graduate level class on statistical paleontology, and this was one of the harder parts! The math behind cladistics SUUUUCKS, particularly when the professor makes you do the first few by hand (and I mean by HAND--pencils and paper!).

The key concepts, however, are easy enough to teach--and are generally accepted as part of normal taxonomy. Some traits are important in differentiating between groups, and others are not. We define groups based on those important traits. If you've ever worked with a taxonomist, you'll find that this is exactly how they define species.

 

[Retrograde]

The key concepts, however, are easy enough to teach--and are generally accepted as part of normal taxonomy. Some traits are important in differentiating between groups, and others are not. We define groups based on those important traits. If you've ever worked with a taxonomist, you'll find that this is exactly how they define species.

Aha! I finally understood the concept when I went to the Museum of Natural History and saw an exhibit that hit the highlights: the academic treatments I had read before that made little to no sense. (My degrees are in chemistry and computer science: post-retirement I volunteer at a botanical garden, so I have some exposure to the seemingly constant reclassification of plants.)

Back to evolution vs creationism: one argument I frequently hear for creationism is that organisms are so perfectly adapted for their environments there must have been Divine Interference. My counter-examples are the anhinga (it wants to be a diving bird but the one I saw in the wild was more a falling off a low branch into the water bird: it doesn't have the oily coating on its feathers to make them water proof), tree kangaroos, and giant pandas, who are so specialized that if their preferred species of bamboo disappears so do they.

 

[Dinwar]

Back to evolution vs creationism: one argument I frequently hear for creationism is that organisms are so perfectly adapted for their environments there must have been Divine Interference. My counter-examples are the anhinga (it wants to be a diving bird but the one I saw in the wild was more a falling off a low branch into the water bird: it doesn't have the oily coating on its feathers to make them water proof), tree kangaroos, and giant pandas, who are so specialized that if their preferred species of bamboo disappears so do they.

This actually gets to Arguments 1 and 3 in the OP. Darwin himself proposed multiple mechanisms besides natural selection that may be responsible for evolution. I recall that he cited sexual selection as one major one. Kin selection is another factor that's often overlooked by Creationists, but I don't recall if the concept originated with Darwin.

Secondly, Darwin himself dealt with the issue of poor adaptations. To claim that organisms are perfectly adapted to their environments is to be more than 150 years out of date; imperfections are widely known, and there are even methods to catagorize them. The concept of morphospace arose in part because someone wanted to know why so few spiral types were used in shells, for example.

Modern Creationism is self-satirical. They use arguments disproven well over a century ago, and accuse legitimate scientists of holding back knowledge!

 

[jimbob]

This actually gets to Arguments 1 and 3 in the OP. Darwin himself proposed multiple mechanisms besides natural selection that may be responsible for evolution. I recall that he cited sexual selection as one major one. Kin selection is another factor that's often overlooked by Creationists, but I don't recall if the concept originated with Darwin.

Secondly, Darwin himself dealt with the issue of poor adaptations. To claim that organisms are perfectly adapted to their environments is to be more than 150 years out of date; imperfections are widely known, and there are even methods to catagorize them. The concept of morphospace arose in part because someone wanted to know why so few spiral types were used in shells, for example.

Modern Creationism is self-satirical. They use arguments disproven well over a century ago, and accuse legitimate scientists of holding back knowledge!

A question about the highlighted bit, why would sexual selection *not* be considered natural selection?

One reason for the OP is that is so obviously right - remember Huxley's comment about how incredibly stupid to have not thought of it before.

We know how selective breeding works, natural selection is similar but the only trait it selects for is success in breeding as only those organisms which manage to breed, breed. Axiomatically, these are the best at breeding.

 

[Dinwar]

A question about the highlighted bit, why would sexual selection *not* be considered natural selection?

Mostly because it's useful to differentiate them. Natural selection tends to mean selection from the environment--the temperature, rainfall, predators, etc. Sexual and kin selection are selective forces from within the population. Given how often sexual selection seems to oppose what's best for the organism, it's very useful to be able to discuss different selection mechanisms separately.

It's all selection. It's all culling. In the broadest terms, you can group all of this, along with artificial selection and a few others, together and call it a day. But when you start to ask "Why does this animal have this trait?" such broad catagories prove hinderances rather than helps. More precision is required.

 

[pgwenthold]

Modern Creationism is self-satirical. They use arguments disproven well over a century ago, and accuse legitimate scientists of holding back knowledge!

How about the fact that the whole reason Darwin (and others) started thinking about evolution is because the prevailing scientific model (creation) didn't jive with what they were observing?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How about the fact that the whole reason Darwin (and others) started thinking about evolution is because the prevailing scientific model (creation) didn't jive with what they were observing?

It doesn't jive with ANY honest observation.

 

[barehl]

1) Charles Darwin had no idea about genetics. His evolutionary tree was based merely upon appearance of the animal. Whatever something most appeared like, was (naturally to Darwin) what it "evolved" from. We now know this to be completely bogus due to advances in genetic understanding and gene mapping. So the original theory was an invention or a logical fallacy...

I'm sorry but this notion is ludicrous. It isn't just a little bit off or slightly wrong; it's completely wrong. One of the outstanding taxonomic examples was the correct classification of the giant panda based only on physical characteristics. It is a bear without any doubt even though it is the only vegetarian bear. In contrast, although a koala superficially resembles a bear, a closer examination shows the myriad differences. To suggest that DNA comparison has somehow proven that physically similar animals are not related is false. In every case, the genetic differences follow physical differences. Where DNA does help is when you have fine shades of distinction such as when trying to decide if groups are separate species or sub-species.

The reason why genetics has come to the forefront is because it is cheaper. Distinguishing one species from another requires an exhaustive physical examination, some of this on a microscopic scale. Running DNA tests is now much easier. The difference is like that between hand sewing and a sewing machine. People do in fact still sew by hand. What genetics actually gave the theory was a mechanism of trait transmission to the next generation. Trait transmission was well known but the mechanism was not. Well before Darwin's time, people actively bred silkworm moths, ducks, geese, chickens, sheep, goats, cattle, horses, dogs, hogs, yaks, reindeer, and llamas based on trait transmission. To deny this is to deny thousands of years of animal breeding.

2) There is not ONE missing link between man and Ape (or man and chimpanzee since Darwin was going by appearance and not genetic similarities) but there are BILLIONS of missing links between each distinct species. IN FACT, what the "evolutionary tree" sows is the OPPOSITE of evolution. It shows that species are distinct, NOT that one species leads to another. Where are the billions of missing links between each and every species? And not just a billion years ago, but TODAY?

This claim is clearly not based on math. Let's say one generation of humans is 20 years. Then a billion generations would be 20 billion years which is several times older than the Earth. I had the same reaction when I saw the movie, "The Book Of Eli", and they claimed that he had an entire Braille Bible in a single volume. A real King James Braille Bible is 18 volumes; takes 60 inches of shelf space, twelve inches high and twelve inches deep; and weighs 64 pounds. A generation for a chimpanzee is about 10 years. So, from 5 million years ago would be no more than 500,000 generations total. How many species can you fit in that many generations?

Secondly, your friend's notion of a species is completely wrong. Small changes happen over time; a population doesn't simply leap to a new species. This isn't like packing up your belongings and moving from one house to another. It's more like renovating your house while you are still living in it. Although your new house might look different from your old house, there is never a firm line where it stops being one and starts being the other. Now imagine that you only had pictures of before and after with none of the work in between. Suppose someone looked at the two sets of pictures and claimed that it wasn't possible that your renovated house was related to the original. Suppose that person even went so far as to claim that unless you could document every brush of paint and every nail that you did not renovate your house. We don't tend to see this detail in the fossil record because change is relatively fast, geologically speaking. However, we do see this type of change in living species today, much as you could take that person to another house that is being renovated and show them the same process.

3) Natural Selection. People who subscribe to the theory of evolution usually mistake natural selection as a process of evolution. This is patently FALSE as natural selection EXCLUDES genetic material,m it does NOT introduce unique genetic material. Natural Selection is the OPPOSITE of evolution. Natural selection CULLS genes, evolution would require NOVEL genes.

This is a clear misunderstanding of evolution based on false notion that all genes are either harmful or beneficial. In reality, most variation is neutral. When evolutionary pressures occur, it is these neutral genes that are used to adapt. This changes the relative frequency of these genes and increases the odds for beneficial combinations. For example when Wernher Von Braun was trying to design the V-2 rocket, he needed a powerful fuel pump. When he described what he needed to a fellow engineer, he was told that a pump like that already existed as a firetruck pump. So, that is what they started with. Likewise, development of jet engine technology was based on existing steam turbine and turbo charger technology. You should look at the steam engines that were used on the Titanic. These were 30 feet high, 63 feet long, weighed 720 tons, and developed 15,000 HP. Compare this with the 60 HP unit Fulton put in his first boat. The barrel and breech of a single 16" gun on an Iowa class battleship weighed 250,000 lbs. Yet, this is a direct descendent of a musket.

4) So far the only way, other than in comic books, we know of mutations is through accidents resulting in inferior gens. (Which are then REMOVED by natural selection.) Exposure to harmful environmental events - radiation, poisons, toxins, create mutation. And these mutations are HARMFUL and often leave the recipient unable to survive or reproduce, or less able to do either. So mutation is, again, contrary to evolution, NOT a contributor to it.

Really? If you and your friend are not clones then which of you is the mutant? This ridiculous classification only allows for a single genotype with any variation being classified as a harmful mutation. This is not reality; most variation is neutral.

5) Species. Another aspect of distinct species, which being distinct already tend to disprove evolution, is that species generally are incompatible with each other. You cannot mate distinct species with each other. In the very few cases you can, the offspring is usually STERILE. So you cannot get evolution by reproduction between species.

By his theory, an elevator would have to able to load passengers on one floor and unload them on another floor without moving. He arbitrarily classifies the elevator as a stationary storage room at whatever floor it happens to be on. Thus, elevators are impossible.

In short, the very distinct species ARE NOT proof of evolution, but tends to DISPROVE evolution. Natural Selection does the OPPOSITE of what evolution would need to do. Mutation is almost exclusively HARMFUL and subsequently removed by natural selection. Species cannot interbreed. EVERYTHING touted by evolution proponents as an aspect of evolution is actually the OPPOSITE and tends to disprove evolution, not prove it.

This is just a repetition of the earlier false claim. While it is technically true that most mutation is harmful, these also mostly don't produce offspring. Harmful mutations tend to stop the sperm from swimming and stop the fertilized egg from developing or sometimes result in stillborn. It is however false to claim that most variation in live-born offspring is harmful. The great majority is neutral. Ask your friend what fingerprint pattern is a harmful mutation. Other characteristics can be either good or bad depending on the environment. For example, color blindness is beneficial if you are out at night more.

Evolution is a plain BAD theory invented by someone who was going merely on outward appearance of animals, and had zero clue about DNA. It's proponents use the very things which tend to DISPROVE evolution, in an unscientific way to explain something ridiculous with logical fallacies.

No. Evolution was an obvious theory that was already supported among animal and plant breeders well before Darwin. Nor did Darwin leap to a shaky theory but instead spent many, many years considering whether it was truly supported by evidence. Since Darwin, this evidence has continued to grow and today the theory is much more involved and complex than he could ever have imagined. Nor is evolutionary theory based on arguments or word games. Support comes from entire branches of science including chemistry, biology, paleontology, physics, and geology.

NOTHING supports this theory, everything given as support tends to disprove it, not prove it."

Nothing proves the theory to someone who has a vested emotional interest in believing it false. These are the same people who still insist that Anna Anderson was the Russian Grand Duchess, Anastasia Romanov, instead of the Polish born and mentally ill Franziska Schanzkowska. An investigation in 1927 uncovered her real identity and a more recent DNA comparison confirmed this finding. Yet, those who believe still manage to ignore such evidence and claim the opposite.

"1) Mostly correct.

No. This is false.

2) I pulled this from talkorigins.org which says it better than I can: "Due to the rarity of preservation and the likelihood that speciation occurs in small populations during geologically short periods of time, transitions between species are uncommon in the fossil record. Transitions at higher taxonomic levels, however, are abundant."

This is true but it still wouldn't result in billions of missing links between humans and a common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Again, you seem to be stuck trying to disprove the orignal, older version(s) of the theory of Evolution. Evolution doesn't happen in huge, obvious steps (most of the time).

That was never the theory. Again, breeding had happened for thousands of years before Darwin. Let's take a modern example. I remember quite clearly when I was young and my mother made fried chicken that you got about 3 servings of breast meat. Today, you get about 6 servings of breast meat. Why? Well, I recall an interview with Frank Perdue of Perdue Farms where he talked about selectively breeding chickens that would grow faster. He also talked about using calipers to measure the width of the chicken's chest to select which chickens to breed. This process took many years and many generations of chickens to get what we have today.

3)What natural selection does (and thereby evolution is based off of) is to cull out the mutations that are not benefitial. They are not one and the same, nor do most biologists think they are. Natural selection is simply the mechanism behind the theory of Evolution. It does indeed cull genes that are not a benefit to the species, and helps to keep the genes that, through mutation, do provide a benefit.

Your description is too simple. Life itself tends to eliminate harmful mutations; you don't really need natural selection for that. Natural selection is the process where energy resources are balanced via available characteristics for the best reproductive probability. That's it.

4) The vast majority of mutations are flat out not even noticed. It is through the accumulation of many, smaller mutations (again, there are exceptions) that natural selection can start to play a role in whether they are over all a benefit or a hinderance.

I can't really agree with this. The balancing occurs all the time; this isn't like saving up to buy a better adapted genotype. If the environment stays the same then the physical characteristics stay pretty similar but the genes themselves can change enough to be a new species.

5) Species being different disproving the theory of Evolution is the most absurd argument you've presented so far. You do realise that, aside from humans and a few others species out there, most are stuck to very small, specific areas (without human intervention), and therefore don't breed with each other on a global scale right? When species get separated by barriers for long periods, they evolve away from each other.

The mistake he made is to assume that populations jump from one species to another. In other words, he seems to assume that a single mutation created a new species in one animal. The question would then be what this animal would mate with. He does not seem to understand that enough change to be considered a new species would take many generations.

 

[Dinwar]

How about the fact that the whole reason Darwin (and others) started thinking about evolution is because the prevailing scientific model (creation) didn't jive with what they were observing?

Not precisely. Lennaeus himself toyed with ideas of evolution because his classification system was too effective--it was too obvious, once someone dug into it, that life fit a nested hierarchy, and that this is a bit too similar to how families work.

Creationism had taken a huge hit prior to Darwin--Catastraphism was more or less destroyed by the publication of "Principles of Geology", among other works. These demonstrated that the Earth was ancient, and that the processes happening today are capable of explaining most of what we see in the rock record. Creationists rallied in various ways, many of which were every bit as scientific as evolutionary thought at the time. Special creation was abandoned for creation of groups (what groups depended on who you talked to) arising independently. Mass extinctions were taken as major perturbations in the biosphere, something that clearly contradicted strict interpretations of Uniformitarianism (a school of thought Darwin belonged to). There were other issues as well.

My point is, back then there were all sorts of ideas trying to explain the data, and so little data that a person could rationally choose among a wide variety of worldviews, including Creationism.

The reason Creationism died out as a scientific dicipline is because over decades and centuries the data gathered proved it wrong. In that sense, scientific Creationism is no worse than many other theories.

Note that I said SCIENTIFIC Creationism. Modern Creationism is nothing like its forebearer. It doesn't even pretend to be science anymore; modern Creationism is an openly social program, not a scientific theory.

 

[jimbob]

Mostly because it's useful to differentiate them. Natural selection tends to mean selection from the environment--the temperature, rainfall, predators, etc. Sexual and kin selection are selective forces from within the population. Given how often sexual selection seems to oppose what's best for the organism, it's very useful to be able to discuss different selection mechanisms separately.

It's all selection. It's all culling. In the broadest terms, you can group all of this, along with artificial selection and a few others, together and call it a day. But when you start to ask "Why does this animal have this trait?" such broad catagories prove hinderances rather than helps. More precision is required.

OK, I guess it is partly a function of my age - having grown up with the idea of the selfish gene, it just seems so much simpler to think that at the organism level* the "goal" is offspring who successfully reproduce.

*i.e. ignoring say the evolution of the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor, which can be explained by natural selection at the genetic level

 

[Dinwar]

...it just seems so much simpler to think that at the organism level* the "goal" is offspring who successfully reproduce.

Simpler, but less accurate. Unfortunately, reality is much more complicated than that. Factors such as subjective preferences for food or sexual partners can have profound impacts on evolution, if applied consistently enough and over a long enough time.

 

[barehl]

OK, I guess it is partly a function of my age - having grown up with the idea of the selfish gene, it just seems so much simpler to think that at the organism level* the "goal" is offspring who successfully reproduce.

There is no goal. Any given animal seeks to survive; it puts most of its resources into survival. If the opportunity presents itself then it will mate. The process however of balancing energy resources to reproductive probability is outside of the individual. This is based on odds and statistics. It's a process of populations, not single organisms.

 

[jimbob]

There is no goal. Any given animal seeks to survive; it puts most of its resources into survival. If the opportunity presents itself then it will mate. The process however of balancing energy resources to reproductive probability is outside of the individual. This is based on odds and statistics. It's a process of populations, not single organisms.

That was why I put scare quotes. It is difficult to find non teological language that isn't clumsy.

I'd disagree with the highlighted bit, worker bees for example.


But yes it is a probabilistic process. I actually spent several threads arguing just that. I'd also argue that the reproductive fitness landscape is subject to arbitrary change, say when one E.Coli bacterium developed a couple of mutations which enabled some aerobic metabolism of citrate and which then created a selective pressure in favour of citrate metabolism and which then swept through the population..