Evolution’s Repeat Performances

_{Cornelius Hunter

June 24, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Would you believe that the blind, unguided process of evolution repeats itself? Would you believe that evolution somehow repeats striking patterns of change? Evolutionists do.

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Comments

Dave: Could you tell me what the theory of punctuated equllibrium is, and why it was first hypothesized? Also, as bornagain77's evidence indicates, there seems to be some disagreement or controversy in the scientific community over whether or not there are "enough" such "transitionals" to support the theory of gradualism as it pertains to evolution. You can see that my request above is connect to the evidence that bornagain77 has provided. Let us not lose sight that this exchange is in regard to your claim that a complete lack of "transitionals" would falsify the theory of common descent. I am agreeing that there is not a complete lack of "transitionals" (I have that word in quotations for a reason), but I wish to continue this debate after you have answered my question about "punctuated equillibrium" above. Bornagain77, I greatly appreciate your contribution!William J. Murray_{June 30, 2009
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I don't know which "predicted" fossil you are talking about but if it is this one you are deceiving yourself: Tiktaalik - besides the fact they looked in a known "swampy area" at the time for a "swampy creature" should clue you to the utter lack of predictive power they were truly exercising. Besides that they are not transitional: Excerpt: Indeed, Tiktaalik’s fin was not connected to the main skeleton, so could not have supported its weight on land. The discoverers claim that this could have helped to prop up the body as the fish moved along a water bottom,3 but evolutionists had similar high hopes for the coelacanth fin. However, when a living coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was discovered in 1938, the fins turned out not to be used for walking but for deft manœuvering when swimming. http://creation.com/tiktaalik-roseae-a-fishy-missing-link Here is the true state of the fossil record: In spite of the crushing evidence found in the Cambrian explosion and DNA analysis of different phyla most scientists, and thus a large portion of the public, continues to imagine that all life on earth descended from a common ancestor and continues to imagine missing links with every new fossil discovery making mainstream media headlines. Yet, the true story of life since the Cambrian explosion, that is actually told by the fossil record itself, tells a very different story than the imaginative tales found in mainstream media accounts. Where the story of life, since the Cambrian explosion, is extremely clear to read is in the sea creatures who fossilize quickly in ocean sediments. We find fossils in the fossil record that appear suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, fully-formed. They have no unambiguous evolutionary predecessor. They just appear abruptly in the fossil record unique and fully-formed. This is exactly what one would expect from an infinitely powerful and transcendent Creator continually, and abruptly, introducing new life-forms on earth. Even more problematic for the materialist is the fact once a fossil suddenly appears in the fossil record it remains surprisingly stable in its basic structure for as long as it is found in the fossil record. The fossil record can offer not even one clear example of continuous transition from one distinct type of fossil form to another distinct type of fossil form out of millions of collected fossils. In fact some sea creatures, such as certain sharks and starfish which are still alive today, have unchanging fossil records going back hundreds of millions of years to when they first suddenly appeared in the fossil record without a predecessor. Ancient Fossils That Evolutionists Don't Want You To See - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLzqDLZoufQ "The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find' over and over again' not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another." Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager "A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God." Paleontologist, Mark Czarnecki "There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways, it has become almost unmanageably rich and discovery is outpacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." Professor of paleontology - Glasgow University, T. Neville George "Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9 "The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be .... We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time ... so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated". David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History The Fossil Record - Don Patton - in their own words - video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4679386266900194790 "In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms." Fossils and Evolution, TS Kemp - Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 " Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.” George Gaylord Simpson (evolutionist), The Major Features of Evolution, New York, Columbia University Press, 1953 p. 360. "No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution." - Niles Eldredge , "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate," 1996, p.95 Partial List Of Fossil Groups - without the artificially imposed dotted lines - Timeline illustration: http://www.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/pro_plfr.gif "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University and the leading spokesman for evolutionary theory in America prior to his recent death. The Fossil Record - Fact And Fiction - Marc Surtees - video http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/fossils.xml "Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties?" Charles Darwin - Origin Of Speciesbornagain77_{June 29, 2009
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HI William, Lack of transitionals could be chalked up to the very rarity of fossils you mentioned in your post. It would hardly falsify evolutionary theory. Not so. We find fossil evidence of past life, and we know the process is rare, so we expect gaps.However, it's not rare enough that no transitional sequences at all (no matter how gappy) could be reasonably expected. It should be obvious that if no sequences of any kind were found, then the fossil record could not be used to support the theory at all. Without it, the essential inference of common ancestry could not be made beyond extant organisms. A completely different theory would be needed to explain how the diversity of life came about.Dave Wisker_{June 29, 2009
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Dave Whisker: Lack of transitionals could be chalked up to the very rarity of fossils you mentioned in your post. It would hardly falsify evolutionary theory.William J. Murray_{June 29, 2009
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Hi William, I should have said that the theory of evolution makes no significant predictions - meaning, non-trivial predictions that would falsify the theory as being the best description of the phenomena in question. Hmm..like the prediction we will find transitional fossils, and the fact that they are indeed found?Not finding ANY would put a serious dent in evolutioinary theory, as we woulkd not able to identify trends over time. Of course, there are those who throw up the red herring about why we don't see "billions and billions" of these transitionals. Well, sorry, but the theory does not predict these numbers, since all lines of evidence point to only a very small percentage of organims ever get fossilized, and then under specific circumstances. However, we do have examples of very fine-grained transitions, and those that indicate general trends showing greater change over time.Dave Wisker_{June 29, 2009
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Phinehas, Exactly the same question I asked, which was left unanswered elsewhere; what has set "natural selection" to such a finely-tuned status so that life can exist at all, much less within the much finer parameters where such complex and slow-reproducing entities like humans, with illusionary self-referential minds that ask these questions, can come into existence?William J. Murray_{June 29, 2009
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Regarding guided vs. unguided:
Evolutionary theory has NEVER - even from its earliest inception - viewed the changes as “unguided”. The clue is in the phrase “natural selection” - by definition, “selection” is guided and in this case the selection is carried out by environmental factors (such as access to food or sexual selection).
If environmental factors are guiding selection, what is guiding the environmental factors? Are the environmental factors not blind, purposeless, random, unguided, etc.? Of course evolutionary theory doesn't consider the changes unguided. If they did, they wouldn't be able to sneak design in the back door. How would they then come up with brilliant insights like: "Vestigial characters, if functional, perform relatively simple, minor, or inessential functions using structures that were clearly designed for other complex purposes?" They want to have their cake and eat it too, but when the blind is leading the blind, how can either be said to be guided?Phinehas_{June 28, 2009
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lamarck, Murray and BA77, Game and set, at least. I often wonder what those pathetic creatures must have been like before the "evolutionary arms race" forced them to the near perfection of design we see today. Too bad none of them qualified for the fossil record. Did you see the article for June at biologicinstitute.org?merlin_{June 27, 2009
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Born Again, that's a good summary. ID science awaits mysticism's response to information loss. Information loss MUST be false if darwinist mysticism is to hold true. It absolutely must be, yet that's all that's ever been observed. Genome's MUST be able to create all the diversity, and all the genes coding for completely different regions of a large organisms. Otherwise the genome was ID'd, pre programmed in my opinion, to allow for change within brackets. For anyone with questions, google "genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome". Then pull up the amazon link and see the 10 pages or so of reviews of the book below. All of the reviews must be read to get a clear picture. This is layman friendly and interesting. A separate point for anyone to answer. Has anyone ever calculated the amount of mutations needed for all the diversity in the ToL, and figured in the time? This concept has been brought up but I don't see stats anywhere. Evolution in spurts could be ignored if the numbers don't add up in any case.lamarck_{June 27, 2009
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Site Admins Aplogies - I lost my previous account due to a power cut and I can't remember the random assortment of characters that is my password. So I have created this account. Brent
Is this a joke? This is precisely confirming what is being claimed in this thread, that one scenario and it’s opposite are both claimed as evidence supporting evolution. Heads I win, tails you lose. Gotta love those odds when you can get away with it.
If both scenarios don't support evolution, could you tell me what each scenario supports, as far as you are concerned? And could you describe briefly each scenario as you see it? I'm not familar with your thoughts on these matters, I don't recognize your name I'm afraid. But I await enlightenment!Echidna-Levy_{June 27, 2009
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*If you are able, rather.William J. Murray_{June 27, 2009
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Anthony, If you are unable to provide an example of a non-trivial prediction of evolutionary theory, then by all means provide one, instead of imagining what my state of mind is. Please direct me to a specific scientific prediction of current evolutionary theory which, if falsified, would indicate that naturalistic (unguided) evolution could not have been responsible for the phenomena in question. In case you missed it, Anthony, this thread is about something, and my statements were made in that context. The context is that evolutionists can take both prediction A, or fact A, and prediction not-A, or fact not-A, and claim that each are evidence of, or explained by, evolution. Yes, those are technically "predictions", but they are trivial predictions, because they do not rise to the level of falsifiability for the process claimed to produce the phenomena in question. This makes such predictions nothing more than ad hoc stories and myths that have no real significance other than to comfort believers. I await your significant evolutionary prediction.William J. Murray_{June 27, 2009
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Well since I am a fallible human given to confirmation bias, as all humans are, i can hardly claim to be pure in such matters, but at the very least you have to give me some credit for examining the evidence of "the other side", whereas the papers you guys cited gave absolutely no consideration to the competing, and very viable hypothesis of genetic entropy. Indeed i doubt very seriously many of the researchers have even heard of it. But to try to be fair to the scientific method let me dust off an old paper of mine and show it to you: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." William Shakespeare - Hamlet Scientific Materialism And The Question Of Origins - Dr. Thomas Kindell - video Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvXF47L447U Part 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCQYZkIG6GM The artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy onto the scientific method has blinded many scientists to the inference of God as a rational explanation in these questions of origins. In fact, the scientific method itself makes absolutely no predictions as to what the best explanation will be prior to investigation in these question of origins. In the beginning of a investigation all answers are equally valid to the scientific method. Yet scientists have grown accustomed through the years to the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy onto the scientific method. That is to say that by limiting the answers that one may conclude to only materialistic ones, the scientific method has been very effective at solving many puzzles very quickly. This imposition of the materialistic philosophy onto the scientific method has indeed led to many breakthroughs of technology that would not have been possible had the phenomena been presumed to be solely the work of a miracle. This imposition of materialism onto the scientific method is usually called methodological naturalism, methodological materialism, or scientific materialism etc... Yet today, due to the impressive success of methodological naturalism in our everyday lives, many scientists are unable to separate this artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy from the scientific method in this completely different question of origins. A Question for Barbara Forrest In fact, I have heard someone say that, "Science is materialism." But Science clearly is not materialism. Materialism is a philosophy that makes the dogmatic assertion that only blind material processes generated everything around us, including ourselves. Materialism is thus in direct opposition to Theism which holds that God purposely created us in His image. Furthermore science, or more particularly the scientific method, in reality only cares to relentlessly pursue the truth and could care less if the answer is a materialistic one or not. This is especially true in these questions of origins, since we are indeed questioning the materialistic philosophy itself. i.e. We are asking the scientific method to answer this very specific question, "Did God create us or did blind material processes create us?" When we realize that this is the actual question we are seeking an answer to within the scientific method, then of course it is readily apparent we cannot impose strict materialistic answers onto the scientific method prior to investigation. In fact when looking at the evidence in this light we find out many interesting things that scientists, who have been blinded by the philosophy of materialism, miss. This is because the materialistic and Theistic philosophy make, and have made, several natural contradictory predictions about what evidence we will find. These predictions, and the evidence we have found, can be tested against one another within the scientific method. For a quick overview here are a few: 1.Materialism predicted an eternal universe, Theism predicted a created universe. - Big Bang points to a creation event.- 2. Materialism predicted time had an infinite past, Theism predicted time had a creation - Time was created in Big Bang. - 3. Materialism predicted space has always existed, Theism predicted space had a creation (Psalm 89:12) - Space was created in the Big Bang. - 4. Materialism predicted at the base of physical reality would be a solid indestructible material particle which rigidly obeyed the rules of time and space, Theism predicted the basis of this reality was created by a infinitely powerful and transcendent Being who is not limited by time and space - Quantum mechanics reveals a wave/particle duality for the basis of our reality that blatantly defies our concepts of time and space. - 5. Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe, Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time - Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. - 6. Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind - Every transcendent universal constant that scientists can measure is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. - 7. Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe - Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe. - 8. Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made - ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a "biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.". - 9. Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA that was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life on earth - The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial mutations whatsoever. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 10. Materialism predicted a very simple first life form which "accidentally came from a warm little pond". Theism predicted God created life - The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 11. Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11) - We find evidence for complex photo-synthetic life in the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth - 12. Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life to be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse life to appear abruptly in the seas in God's fifth day of creation. - The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short "geologic resolution time" in the Cambrian seas - 13. Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record - Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group, and within the specific species of the group, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. - 14. Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth - Man himself is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. - As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy, from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the most likely true explanation. -bornagain77_{June 26, 2009
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Bornagain, Can I just suggest, paragraphs might help.Excession_{June 26, 2009
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William J. Murray, my point is that your claim is that there were no predictions, and when you were presented proof that there were predictions, you altered your requirement to "significant predictions," with "significant," of course, to be defined by you. It's pretty clear that nothing will rise to the level of significant in your mind. Bornagain, it's ironic to hear you mention confirmation bias.Anthony09_{June 26, 2009
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I looked at the so called prediction papers and they are crap. First the prediction of a Cambrian fossil sister group craniates (your strongest paper) seems so wide open to interpretation of any evidence that came along that it seems very likely they were severely given to confirmation bias i.e. I truly believe all similarities were counted and all dissimilarities ignored to arrive at their preconceived solution...The prediction is also considered weak because it is confirmed by presupposing your necessary foundation of macro-evolution to be true in the first place, and need i remind you that evolutionists have not even empirically shown that micro-evolutionary events can generate the information for macro-evolutionary events in the first place (The Edge: Behe) (Biology's Big Bang Koonin)! Then you guys quote an e-coli study of a very minor variation within kind...Excuse me for being severely underwhelmed withthis "prediction" but working under the proper Genetic entropy Framework the same exact predictions can be made and in fact more robust predictions can be made since Genetic entropy correctly surmises the limits to variation, and loss of robustness from parent strains, that we continually witness in all tests conducted thus far (as predicted by genetic entropy and ignored by Evolution)...Your predictions are actually "shoehorning" evidence without fairly giving the alternative hypothesis, Genetic Entropy, a fair shake in the process, thus you are guilty of placing your philosophical bias ahead of true science, and thus you have gone astray of the scientific method practiced in its true form. i.e. you have not sought truth above all else!bornagain77_{June 26, 2009
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Anthony, So you consider the difference between making no predictions, and making no non-trivial predictions, scientifically significant?William J. Murray_{June 26, 2009
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Sorry, 72 should read
marsupial Austrlian wolf
rather than
Australian wolf
sparc_{June 26, 2009
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First we get "no predictions," then we get "no significant predictions." Darn, those goal posts seem to be moving by the second. ; )Anthony09_{June 26, 2009
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Dave, I'm sorry, you are correct. I should have said that the theory of evolution makes no significant predictions - meaning, non-trivial predictions that would falsify the theory as being the best description of the phenomena in question. ID makes non-trivial predictions; it can be falsified rather easily in any particular case. However, had those evolutionist predictions you mentioned failed, then scientists would not be looking for an alternative theory to explain the phenomena (alternative to evolution); they would invent another evolutionary story to explain it. Then, if that story was proven false by facts, they would invent another such story. Darwinism makes no non-trivial predictions; it comes up with a lot of speculative, trivial predictive stories that evolutionists can invent and discard at a moment's notice.William J. Murray_{June 26, 2009
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Levy says:
Yet the malaria parasite is and remains one of the most sucessfull organisms on the planet. Despite the best efforts of humanity it retains it’s ability to have “in 1 year more mutation/duplication/selection events than all mammal lineages would have had in the entire +100 million years they have been in the fossil record”. Not bad eh? Perhaps it does not need to generate new “novel biological complexity” because it’s doing just fine as it is? Ever considered that? Do you think novel biological complexity just develops on it’s own with no input from the enviroment? Why would an organism well adapted to the enviromental niche it finds itself in change at all?
Is this a joke? This is precisely confirming what is being claimed in this thread, that one scenario and it's opposite are both claimed as evidence supporting evolution. Heads I win, tails you lose. Gotta love those odds when you can get away with it.Brent_{June 26, 2009
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The extinct Australian Wolves are surely additional evidence that corroborate your point.sparc_{June 25, 2009
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When Behe gives reasons why direct paths are unlikely, many have answered that indirect paths can provide the solution; the scaffolding falls away, leaving the effect of a functioning system that appears ic; there are also the 50+ engines of variation; the process is extremely complex; this is why it is so difficult to actually demonstrate the pathways taken to get to a result; and now, with all these twists a turns, we're to think that these same sets of steps, and accompanying necessary selective pressures occurred again in the same orders necessary to get the same result again. Berlinsky suggest 50K mutations from creature entering water to become whale; if we needed 20 mutations, each with 2 possibilities, don't we get to 1 M possible pathways, 30, 1 billion, 40, 1 trillion; so, in this case, it seems numbers of mutations is very significant to say why convergent evo is likely or not;es58_{June 25, 2009
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Echidna, You argue that it doesn't matter that we see no morphological change with bacteria after many generations because there's no environment necessity. Do you concede that morphological changes are much easier in a bacteria than in a mammal, from the genome's perspective, thus making it much more likely to see changes in bacteria than in fish? Then there's the matter which I you brought up, of increased life spans. Do you factor this in? How do we observe increased mutation and morphological change with longer and longer lifespans? Bacteria, no change. Huge organisms with vastly longer generations, huge change. The amount of beneficial mutations combining to form an eye or leg make it much harder on neodarwinism considering the established ratio of good to bad mutations, and the staying power of these good mutations in light of the constant barrage of bad ones interfering AND STAYING PUT. Do you understand there is no "clean sweep" of bad mutations because of the near neutral quality of most of them? Yet there's a million or ten thousand to one ratio of bad to good. Shouldn't we all be dead? This could all be answered by you stating that random mutations and natural selection account for all of life. Your only other option is to say that neodarwinism doesn't work, this is a KEY KEY point. I think you're missing what gene entropy implies about the genome. The genome is always tending towards chaos of it's information (it's delicate balance of code for complex life), or entropy. Genetic entropy predicts only small changes are allowed, because only slightly altering the existing setup is allowed. Whole new novel genes of a totally unique coding can never be made via neodarwinism, and they've NEVER been observed to be made, yet they're abundant in the genome. So therefore only intelligence could have set up a genome in the first place. Neodarwin methods have no way of doing this. Yet you say we observe changes helping organisms. This is predicted by Gene entropy, the point is large changes aren't allowed. Neodarwinists are freaking out about this. Gene entropy is backed up by the fossil record, there's no fine gradation found on the level of point neucleotide mutations, which are the vast majority of mutations. The gradation predicted by darwin and all others since, is so fine as to not be detectable in phenotype. As if you took a picture of a child every second till adulthood. We right now see a picture of the child every ten years. The fossils MUST be there at least from calcification on. You MUST believe this to be a neodarwinist.lamarck_{June 25, 2009
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Lest we foget, what about Darwin’s prediction of the pollinator for the Madagascar Star Orchid? Is that it? The flower has got to be pollinated, and Darwin predicted a pollinator? So you say evolution predicted this? I'm sorry but anyone knowing flowers must be pollinated would arrive at the same conclusion! In nature we find stunning examples of Intelligent Design. There are many species of a certain flower, the orchid, that are designed to be pollinated by a single species of insect. Many people first became aware of the peculiarity of orchid fertilization upon hearing about Darwin's orchid, (Angraecum Sesquipedale). Upon inspecting the flower with its foot-long nectar spur, Darwin hypothesized the existence of a moth with a foot-long proboscis (nose), to reach the tiny pool of nectar at the bottom of the spur. I don't know how people can think this was conclusive proof for evolution. Excuse me for being under whelmed by his prediction. It is exceedingly simple minded to think that a few accidental mutations of DNA are to accomplish the exceedingly complex rearrangement of protein molecules, both the flower and the moth have needed for such specialized pollination. Such complex rearrangements are beyond the capacity of this universe to generate accidentally. Actually this argue strongly for ID! Many such oddities are found in orchids. First, when we examine a orchid bloom, we notice that the pollen is not a dustlike coating of grains on the male part of the flower as is common in flowers such as daises. Instead, orchid pollen is clumped together in pollinia. An insect visiting an orchid bloom removes the entire clump all at once and then deposits this mass on the female part of the bloom (stigma). Thus, orchid pollination is a one-time event, with each bloom capable of fertilizing only one other flower. Affixing the pollen on a pollinator is too important to trust to casual visitation. Some of the ways the orchid achieves pollination are weird. Some species of orchids are pollinated by flies or beetles attracted to the gross smells of rotting meat or dung these orchids give off. Other examples of orchid pollination can only be accomplished by a single species of insect. Some examples are found in such genera as Caledenia, Cryptostylis and Spiculaea. These orchids exude scents and have lips that resemble particular species of female wasps or bees. In the case of the genus Drakaea, which has a hinged lip, the male wasp is flung bodily against the orchids sexual parts as he tries to fly off with what he thinks is a female wasp. When he tries the same thing on another flower he is flung again, completing the pollination. Hopefully this repeated abuse doesn't discourage him from trying to find a real mate. In the genus Catasetum, a scent is generated that attracts the male bee of the species Euglossine. The scent is like cologne for the bee, making him more attractive to female bees. As he is busy scratching around, picking this scent up, he sets off a trigger. This causes the pollinia to hit him with such force that it ejects him completely out of the flower with the pollinia glued to his head or back. These are but a few examples of Intelligent Design found in orchids. Many books could be written describing such integrated relationships found in nature.bornagain77_{June 25, 2009
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Lest we foget, what about Darwin's prediction of the pollinator for the Madagascar Star Orchid (confirmed 50 years later)?Dave Wisker_{June 25, 2009
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Levi, so arrogant with no evidence?: This following article refutes Lenski's supposed evolution of the citrate ability for E-Coli: Multiple Mutations Needed for E. Coli - Michael Behe excerpt: Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it’s not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a “citrate permease” which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell’s membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, “The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions.” (1) Other workers (cited by Lenski) in the past several decades have also identified mutant E. coli that could use citrate as a food source. In one instance the mutation wasn’t tracked down. (2) In another instance a protein coded by a gene called citT, which normally transports citrate in the absence of oxygen, was overexpressed. (3) The overexpressed protein allowed E. coli to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen. It seems likely that Lenski’s mutant will turn out to be either this gene or another of the bacterium’s citrate-using genes, tweaked a bit to allow it to transport citrate in the presence of oxygen. (He hasn’t yet tracked down the mutation.) http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3U696N278Z93O Why are fitness test flawed? Just because evolution has never passed one? tell you what Levi since you are so smug about all this why don't you tell everybody why evolution never occurs when we test for a sub-strain for fitness in the parent strains native environment. How come I have a feeling you will just offer a superficial rationalization as to why increased complexity cannot be tested against a parent strain. this is not science Levi and frankly having you impose your philosophical bias onto the evidence with such arrogance makes me sick. Regardless of how you feel about living in an imperfect world, the fact that an instruction was lost from the genome in furthering the lactase enzyme longevity conforms to the principle of genetic entropy, (all the while you ignore the 3500 documented cases of uncontested deterioration for the genome) Is this how you practice science Levi? I would fire you! If you want to gripe about why God would allow such imperfection, as I said before, that is a theological argument and leaves the realm of empirical science? Do you want to argue for the validity of evolution from a theological basis since you have no evidence to withstand scrutiny? I suggest you take the matter up with Dr. William Lane Craig. You mentioned something about the increasing age for humans being before death as proof for evolution. Is this your big gun? Excuse me for being underwhelmed. Although the fact that man even ages and dies in the first place is powerful evidence for the effects of entropy, you blow by all this and cite the fact that we have increased knowledge in combating diseases and thus have increased overall longevity before the inevitable death which shall visit every man. but how powerful is your evidence for evolution? Genesis 6:3 says that mans days shall be 120 years. CNN - World's oldest person dies at 122 - August 4, 1997 27-Nov-2008: Worlds Oldest Person Dies At Age 115 World's oldest person, Yone Minagawa, dies at 114 - Japan News Review and Psalm states: Psalm 90:10 says, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten [70 years]; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years [80 years], Seems to me Levi you are without merit once again in your evidence. But hey let's look a little deeper at the supposed evolution of man: "We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations," Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. "Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians." Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University "La Sapienza," Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.- I wonder what Hitler would have thought of that study? As well the accumulation of slightly detrimental mutations in humans is revealed by this following fact: “When first cousins marry, their children have a reduction of life expectancy of nearly 10 years. Why is this? It is because inbreeding exposes the genetic mistakes within the genome (slightly detrimental recessive mutations) that have not yet had time to “come to the surface”. Inbreeding is like a sneak preview, or foreshadowing, of where we are going to be genetically as a whole as a species in the future. The reduced life expectancy of inbred children reflects the overall aging of the genome that has accumulated thus far, and reveals the hidden reservoir of genetic damage that have been accumulating in our genomes." Sanford; Genetic Entropy; page 147 This following study is interesting in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed for the estimated 60,000 year old anatomically modern humans found in Australia: Ancient DNA and the origin of modern humans: John H. Relethford Excerpt: Adcock et al. (7) clearly demonstrate the actual extinction of an ancient mtDNA lineage belonging to an anatomically modern human, because this lineage is not found in living Australians. Although the fossil evidence provides evidence of the continuity of modern humans over the past 60,000 years,,,, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33358 The author of the preceding paper seemed to be mystified that there is this loss of genetic information. Yet, the result clearly falls within what we would expect from a Genetic Entropy perspective. Dang Levi, I guess you can be all smug as you want but I see nothing for you to crow about in what you have cited. It is very weak tea indeed. Maybe you really don' care about the truth at all. Do you?bornagain77_{June 25, 2009
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And how about this? Grant PR and BR Grant (1995). Predicting microevolutionary responses to directional selection on heritable variation. Evolution 49(2): 241-251Dave Wisker_{June 25, 2009
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Or this: Mallat J & JY Chen (2003). Fossil sister group of craniates: predicted and found. J. Morph. 258 (1): 1-31 Or this: Hall B (2001). Predicting Evolutionary Potential. I. Predicting the Evolution of a Lactose-PTS System in Escherichia coli . Mol. Biol. Evol. 18(7): 1389-1400Dave Wisker_{June 25, 2009
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William, The theory doesn’t predict anything. So Trivers and Hare didn't specifically predict the sex ratios of social insects, based purely on evolutionary theory? Pray tell, where is the evidence to contradict those? Surely you have them, since yoiu so confidently stated that the theory predicts NOTHING. Or maybe--just maybe--- you don't know what you are talking about?Dave Wisker_{June 25, 2009
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