From “Over 65 Million Years, North American Mammal Evolution Has Tracked With Climate Change” (ScienceDaily, Dec. 27, 2011), we learn:
What the authors found is six distinct and consecutive groupings of mammal species that shared a common rise, peak, and decline in their numbers. For example, the “Paleocene fauna” had largely given way to the “early-middle Eocene fauna” by about 50 million years ago. Moreover, the authors found that these transfers of dominance correlated with temperature shifts, as reflected in data on past levels of atmospheric oxygen (determined from the isotopes in the fossilized remains of deep sea microorganisms).
To the extent that the study helps clarify scientists’ understanding of evolution amid climate changes, it does not do so to the extent that they can make specific predictions about the future, Janis said. But it seems all the clearer that climate change has repeatedly had meaningful effect over millions of years.
No wonder they say Darwinism predicts nothing. Evolution, in general, predicts nothing.
“Such perturbations, related to anthropogenic climatic change, are currently challenging the fauna of the world today, emphasizing the importance of the fossil record for our understanding of how past events affected the history of faunal diversification and extinction, and hence how future climactic changes may continue to influence life on earth,” the authors wrote in the paper.
But if such studies don’t enable us to predict anything, why are they important for understanding the outcomes of anthropogenic climate change?
The ONLY prediction either position can make is change or stasis- that is organisms and climate will either change or remain pretty much the same.
Climate change theory does make for predictions, wrong ones:
The UN “disappears” 50 million climate refugees, then botches the disappearing attempt
Notes:
Predictions, particularly successful predictions, is the one thing that separates true science from pseudo-science. i.e. separates Intelligent Design from Darwinian materialism:
In fact, by the criterion laid out by Lakatos in the following article and audio lecture, Darwinism is found to be a ‘degenerate science program’, i.e. a ‘pseudoscience’;
The following evidence shows Darwinism to be a ‘degenerate science program’ using Lakatos’s criteria for prediction and testability;
Whereas on the other hand, where we can find no rigid falsification criteria for neo-Darwinism, here is the basic, ‘rigid’, falsification criteria for Intelligent Design:
Here is How neo-Darwinian evolution avoids falsification from the many instances of ‘anomalous’ genetic evidence:
Here is How neo-Darwinian evolution avoids falsification from the the completely incongruent fossil record;
This following article reveals how evolutionists avoid falsification from the biogeographical data of finding numerous and highly similar species in widely separated locations:
further note:
We in the ID movement need to embrace the fact that anthropogenic climate change is real and that if we do not act now to stop it then the consequences will be disastrous. We run the risk of damaging our credibility by doubting such solid science as climate change. It is the mark of a serious amount of irrationality when you realize that CO2 levels and temperature have correlated over the last 400K years. CO2 levels vascillated between 180 and 280 for 400k years and now in the last hundred they’ve shot up to 380. We’re dead if we don’t acknowledge this horrendous mistake.
Also CO2 causes temperature, not the other way around. Temperature is the mean molecular motion. You need a cause for temperature to increase. Molecules just don’t start moving faster for no reason. The cause is increase in CO2. Just look at the charts.
Noam,
I feel your pain but it is misplaced. CO2 is not the culprit. We need to deal with all the other $h!+ we are doing to this privileged planet.
Take a good look at all the ice that is melting- it all has one thing in common-> soot, that is, they are dirty. Dirt traps the heat of the sun and will melt the ice even when the ambient temp is below freezing.
With all the crap we are doing to this planet, watching you misguided XXXs froth about CO2, something plants need, plants that we need, makes me sick.
Ya see I do not disagree that we are the bad guys. It is just that with everything else that we are doing, to focus on the one thing that we may actually be doing right, ie getting that lost carbon back into the (carbon) cycle (which we also need), is beyond lunacy.
Now stop hyperventilating and just think about it…
Joe, were you the one I was debating with a month ago? In any case, you’re being completely irrational. An irrational person is one who does not understand what they need to do in order to keep themselves alive. You personally can most likely keep yourself alive, but if the species as a whole thought like you did, we humans would be irrational. We have to take the necessary steps to ensure that not just our generation survives but that future generations survive. As for you soot keeping temperature even, you’re wrong. If what you say is true then you would retrodict that no matter what level CO2 was at it would stay the same. Looking at this chart that is clearly not the case:
http://www.google.com/imgres?u.....29,r:0,s:0
Now, after looking at that chart are you going to admit that temperature rise and CO2 are correlated or are you going to move the goal post and come up with a new argument?
No Noam, you weren’t debating with me. You were just spewing nonsense about CO2 and you refused to deal with soot.
I never said that. You must be irrational to not understand what I said because I said it in plain English.
Click on the following and educate yourself- google “soot and global warming”
But doesn’t this study predict that major changes in mammalian fauna will be associated with a major change in climate?
As a corollary, a major change in climate can lead to major changes in the mammalian fauna? In what sense aren’t these predictions?
Evolutionary theory has given rise to lots of hypotheses that have predicted lots of things, successfully.
That doesn’t mean that evolution can predict anything (e.g. climate change). It’s not an oracle. “Prediction” in science means “what we should observe if our hypothesis is correct”. This can include new data, including data from the past.
Anyway, a (late) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 🙂
Perhaps a new year’s resolution might be to not mangle science articles in news posts?
To answer your question:
1. They do enable us to predict stuff
2. They are important because, while the predictions maybe probabilistic and non-specific, they tell us that there will be profound effects.
For example, we can use past evidence to predict that if you raise the speed limit in built-up areas, more pedestrians will be injured. That doesn’t enable us to predict that any one vehicle will injure any one pedestrian with any degree of certainty. Our statistical prediction may nonetheless be highly reliable.
Hi Elizabeth,
What should we observe if living organisms are accumulations of random mutations?
And hopefully Darwinists and neo-darwinists take your advice and make a new year’s resolution to stop mangling science.
Then it will be a Happy New Year indeed.
It’s called the Darwin Awards.
Well, as the theory says that they are non-random accumulations of random mutations, where the non-random (usuing the word “random” colloquially) element is natural selection, we should expect that in any generation, we should observe an increased prevalence of those alleles that tend to foster successful reproduction in the parental environment.
As we do. I take it you have read “The Beak of the Finch”?
You could call it that.
Or you could call it poor highway management.
Yes the theory may say it is non-random accumulations, if it even says that at all, but the evidence doesn’t support it. What, exactly, are those alleged alleles that foster some advantage? You will know them when you see them, right?
How many different alleles can foster successful reproduction? What about random genetic drift, which appears to be more prevelant than differential reproduction due to heritable random mutations?
Yeah, “beak of the finch”- unfortunetly the book and research support a wobbling stability
From my PoV if humans aren’t any smarter than squirrels, chipmunks and other road-kill, then that would be the Darwin Awards.
So if you believe that soot does not keep temperature even then why did you say: “Dirt traps the heat of the sun and will melt the ice even when the ambient temp is below freezing.” If we’re debating global warming and you think temperature is rising, then we’re in agreement.
Well, not necessarily, but what you do see is the change in the prevalence in certain apparently heritable traits, and you can sometimes track those traits down to specific alleles. Occasionally the traits will turn out not to be genetic at all but epigenetic, or a developmental response to some environmental factor.
In the case of the Galapagos finch beaks, the relevant alleles have been pinpointed IIRC.
Lots.
Well, that’s why I added the “colloquially” caveat. Drift accounts for some changes in prevalence. However, advantageousness also accounts for some – see the experiments with spots on guppies, and, indeed, the tracking of mean finch-beak size with available seed sizes.
Whatever. It’s your point, not mine.
You think that plants were suffering from lack of CO2 until we started “putting it back” into the atmosphere?
Do you have a citation for that?
The variation already existed in the population(s) of finches. No one knows if accumulations of random mutations didit.
Also if tere are lots of different alleles that can foster an advantage then you should understand that NS is not non-random because you have no idea what will be selected for at any point in time. Nor do you know what mutation will occur, nor even if the advantageous trait will get passed down. With sexual reproduction it isn’t a sure thing.
So again what is this alleged non-random component?
Nope. Plants prosper with more CO2. And we would prosper with more plants.
But no I don’t have a citation for your misunderstanding/ strawman.
You don’t have a citation for your assertion that plants need more CO2?
Then why make it?
Well, we know they were mutations (by definition). Are you suggesting that mutations aren’t random?
No, you can’t predict it ahead of time. But if you observe an advantageous heritable trait (larger beak-size, for instance) and can track down the allele that is responsible, then you know that you have identified an advantageous allele.
Indeed.
Which is why you have to work backwards from an observed advantageous phenotypic trait.
Which is why it is far more likely that a trait will become advantageous once it is fairly prevalent in the gene pool, rather than instantaneously.
Natural selection.
Elizabeth,
Natural selection is a result of three processes. Each of these processes contains a random component, the variation more so. If you have differential reproduction due to heritable random variation, then you have natural selection.
Can’t tell what variation will occur. Can’t tell if any of the offspring will inherit even the most beneficial variation and the only way to determine differential reproduction is follow the individuals for their entire reproducing age.
Then there are those “lots” of different alleles can foster successful reproduction.
That means natural selection is about as non-random as bird-shot coming out of a sawed-off shotgun. And that is being generous.
BTW, yes intelligent design claims that not all mutations are random in any sense of the word. And natural selection cannot have mutations that are directed by GAs.
I never made such an assertion.
And there isn’t anything in the part you quoted that has anything to do with plants.
What is wrong with you?
Perhaps you could provide a specific example of a mutation that was directed or non-random.
Dude,
The dirt traps the heat and MELTS the ice and snow. By doing that it the albedo effect is reduced.
CO2 isn’t causing the temperatures to rise. Stop all the other stuff and all will be as it should.
Any transposon. A transposon, carries within its sequencing the coding for two of the enzymes required to “cut-n-paste”.
In what sense are they directed?
Yes.
No, the only way to determine differential reproduction is statistical, at population level You can’t do it by following an individual.
Well, “non-random” is a colloquial term. Natural selection is a bias to the sampling of the gene poll in each generation. Personally I think the word “random” should be dropped, as it’s extremely misleading. Mutation and differential reproduction are both stochastic effects. Both, in fact, are biased in favour of what works. Disastrous mutations are rarer than near-neutral ones, and successful breeding is biased in favour of those bearing alleles that tend to promote successful breeding. By definition.
I don’t know what this means.
You said:
What is the basis for your assertion that there is any “lost carbon” that needs to be put “back into the (carbon) cycle”?
I’m not aware of any evidence that suggests that there is any such loss that needs to be remedied.
Well if natural selection is just a statistical artifact then you don’t have anything wrt biology.
What works can be just about anything. And that is why non-random is a non-starter.
BTW, yes intelligent design claims that not all mutations are random in any sense of the word. And natural selection cannot have mutations that are directed by GAs.
Then perhaps you could start by reading “Not By Chance”, by Dr Lee Spetner.
And a bit of advice- you should at least try to understand your opponent’s position before dismissing it.
Fossil fuels. That is supposedly the whole stupid point- we are unleashing carbon that has been stored away- carbon that has been taken out of the carbon cycle:
Global Warmer – A Primer 3 – The Carbon Cycle
But anyway nice of you to retreat and regroup without acknowledging your error.
It’s not a “statistical artefact”. It’s a statistical phenomenon. Like the half-life of radioactive material.
These sentences makes no sense to me.
Joe, it is precisely because I want to understand your position before dismissing it that I told you I didn’t understand it.
And I still don’t. I cannot parse your claim. I’d appreciate it if you would rephrase it.
To be specific, you said:
“intelligent design claims that not all mutations are random in any sense of the word”. Please give a few samples of senses of the word “random” that you have in mind. I would argue (and so would most evolutionists) that mutations are non-random in many senses of the word “random”. But there’s no point in talking about it unless we both understand what we mean by that word.
You also said:
“And natural selection cannot have mutations that are directed by GAs.” I can’t make any sense of this sentence at all. “Natural selection” doesn’t “have mutations”. And GAs don’t “direct” mutations”.
Please clarify.
Thanks.
How can it be anything if whatever survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce? Whatever works and lots of different alleles…
If you are not following the successful organisms then your statistical phenomenon is useless as it tells you nothing about what is actually occurring biologically.
What alleles will become more prevelant? The ones that do.
As for mutations and random- we have been over this but here it is again- no purpose, and as you said stochastic.
OTOH, Dr Spetener posits “built-in responses to environmental cues” as one mechanism for change.
That is why the whole deal comes down to the origin of living organisms. If stochastic processes cannot account for that then stochastic processes are not the main driver of evolution- remember the designed to evolve stuff?
Natural selection requires stochastic processes. So if the mutations are via stochastic processes then it ain’t natural selection but perhaps a form of artificial selection.
GAs do direct mutations as all GAs are written to solve a problem and the mutations are how it does so. It is all part of the package, part of the design. And yes mutations are part of natural selection so natural selection has mutations. Can’t have NS with them.
Joe,
do you admit that if what you’re saying is true, then temperature should not rise? if not, then why assert it as evidence to buttress your position? if yes, then why is your retrodiction falsified with the following chart?
http://www.google.com/imgres?u.....edu/home/g
Noam,
If the albedo effect is reduced then the temperature will rise. And what I am saying is the albedo effect will be reduced.
Also if the ice-packs melt wouldn’t that cause the sea-level to rise and wipe out all those big cities?
“If the albedo effect is reduced then the temperature will rise. And what I am saying is the albedo effect will be reduced.”
So you’re saying that temperature will rise? Then we’re in agreement. I thought you thought Global Warming is a myth.
What I said and say is anthropic global warming via CO2 is a myth.
Anthropic global raping is alive and well and needs to stop.
I’m not sure if you’re saying that, one, CO2 rising is a myth or two, that CO2 is rising but humans are not causing it, or three, that CO2 is rising and humans are causing it but that does not cause the temperature to rise.
You ought to try to be more clear.
also, why did you quote that link on the carbon cycle, that guy proved that we’re pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than the Earth can handle.