PPPS-- you have to see the Dilbert cartoon in the book where this fish sprouts legs and then has to try convince the lady fish still in the water that they're an adaptive advantage... "Well, THAT'S an original line..."

quote:

Originally posted by Metro Dynamics:
Your name is uncannily appropriate, crazy carlos.

I hope some of you enjoy this.

Oh yeah. Hell would be too good for them... it's twilight in the Science Zone...

Species is just a word made up by us to easily identify biological entities at a gross level. The reality is and always has been that species overlap, as Colin's example shows, and as evolution would indicate.

We're all transitional forms.

I can't understand how this conversation is still going on.
It's like arguing if our solar system revolves around the sun or not.

Carlos, thanks for your interesting reply. It looks like I misinterpreted you. If you're talking about differences in opinion about the mode and frequency of change, then I have no problem with that. I think that the "they" in your posts, the dogmatic orthodox Darwinists, don't actually exist in large numbers. Most paleontologists know about punctuated equilibrium (which is one explanation for the sudden appearances of new species-- there's that damn word again-- in the fossil record, but I'm certainly open to there being other explanations) and as one of the quotes I mentioned indicates, there are significant examples of both sudden appearance and gradual change in the fossil record. Neither mode is entirely dominant.

Also keep in mind that sudden appearance is still a matter of pretty small differences in ordinary terms, if I'm not mistaken. I think the general rule is that it would be difficult for the untrained eye to tell the difference between a suddenly appearing new species and it's proposed ancestor species.

I believe you're right that taxonomy is a mess. I fall into the camp that believes this is because taxonomy is totally artificial (see also Kradlum's comment). That is, clades make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, generally, but deciding what makes a population a species, or a group of species a family, and on and on, is basically arbitrary and doesn't represent much except for a handy way to give a name to related clades. The only natural unit of biology is the individual, and even that isn't so cut an dried. (Gould did a very interesting essay on that once; I'll have to look for it when I get home.)

I don't agree, by the way, that the eye is particularly hard to explain. Dawkins did a good job in Climbing Mount Improbable of describing it in terms that I could understand. There's a reference at the talk.origins site as well, which might be interesting. I have yet to see an example from the intelligent design enthusiasts that had a different character from complexity which has good evolutionary explanations. It seems to me that they are just pointing, in general, at the places where there isn't enough evidence to make an argument. This is different from something that contradicts existing theory, and it seems to me that most proponents of intelligent design have an ulterior motive for creating artificial controversy around these points.

The "fish sprouting legs" thing is pretty interesting too, because there is at least one accessible and excellent book about it called At the Water's Edge by Carl Zimmer. I highly recommend it, when you can get to a library of course.

Human evolution isn't the only place where things like mate selection come into play (the peacock's tail is one example). Our tools and our societies have made a difference though, I'll agree with that.

When you start talking about quantum physics affecting evolution, I think you're entering very speculative territory. I'm aware of the sum-over-histories thing, but I also know that if you do so much as insert a detector into your apparatus the interference patterns will disappear. It is very difficult to create quantum effects with objects as large as molecules, let alone such huge molecules as DNA. I think when we're talking about mutations and evolution, the waveforms collapse and macroscopic models work well, but I will admit that is only a gut feeling. There is room for speculation there, as long as we remember it is speculation.

That's what you get for being deliberately provocative.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: colin,

Meh heheheheheheheh.

BoingBoing turns the tables on creationist wackos.

WWBHD?

Either they added that link at the bottom to talk.origins' page on Kent Hovind when I (and probably countless others) sent it to them, or I (and countless others?) redundantly sent them a link that they had included already...

I thought my tour in the talk.origins trenches years ago cured me of any desire to debate this stuff any longer, but obviously I was wrong.

The nice thing about not posting at work is that
when I get home from work, Colin will have posted
for me. Thanks, Colin.

quote:

Originally posted by Kradlum:
Species is just a word made up by us to easily identify biological entities at a gross level.

I consider it more of a classificatory scheme.
It's probably not the only one we could use, but
it's the one we have, so we make the best of it.
All classificatory schemes, especially those
which attempt to classify items not built with
those particular classes in mind, are imperfect.
Certain outliers will certainly exist. OTOH,
that's not to say that the differences as noted
by the classificatory system do not exist or
that the process of change, in this case, does
not exist. Finding problems with the
classificatory system is just that, finding
problems with the classificatory system.

As for orthodox darwinism, I'm not sure what
this refers to, specifically, but if you're
referring to evolution as put forth by Darwin,
it's a tad out of date. The beauty of science is
that we learn. There are huge gaps in our
understanding, but that's why we keep making new
advancements. If we knew everything, the
scientists could go find another job.

The Gould essay about the difference between an individual and a colony is called "A Most Ingenious Paradox", and it's in his collection The Flamingo's Smile. The essay is basically about siphonophores, such as the Portuguese man-of-war. In many ways they are not single organisms but colonies (each tentacle of a man-of-war is a seperate "person" apparently). However, the individuals in the colony are so specialized they act more like organs of a larger body than members of a colony, including "individuals" specialized for motion, digestion, and reproduction. It's a very interesting illustration of how Nature doesn't fall into neat little categories (although the patterns and groups are still there; we just have to deal with the fact that the boundaries can be fuzzy).

Guys, 250,000 dollars is a lot of money maybe we should take them seriously.

I think Kent Hovind's offer of $250,000 is just as serious as Boing Boing's offer of $1 million, and possibly less likely to pay out.

Ok, it's a bit more serious, because it makes some people think he has a point. So, just to be completely redundant, Kent Hovind's definition of "evolution" is this:

quote:

the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

• Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
  
• Planets and stars formed from space dust.
  
• Matter created life by itself.
  
• Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
  
• Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

You have to empirically prove all of these things happened, and you have to prove it happened "without God". This is precisely equivalent to proving that Jesus is not the son of the Spaghetti Monster.

Take note what happens when people actually do take him seriously. They get asked to recreate the Big Bang in a laboratory. No simulations; you must produce a new universe to win. When the geologist in that article managed to convince Mr. Hovind to wager some money on the somewhat simpler and more relevant challenge of proving that dogs and bananas shared a common ancestor, he would only wager $2000, and this only if he, Mr. Hovind, were allowed to hand-pick the judges (and the reward would only be $1000 if even one of those hand-picked judges wasn't convinced).

I hope you weren't being serious, klik, because Kent Hovind sure isn't.

____
Edit: Correct spelling of Hovind.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: colin,

"Son of the Spaghetti Monster" sounds like a film I'd watch!

quote:

Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia.

heh...i wanna be a ordained priest of the church of the flying spaghtti monster so bad.

All I can say is, if there is an intelligent designer, it and I are going to be having some words about wisdom tooth removal and the four years I spent with braces. Hell, I think I'll bring along someone with a congenital birth defect or maybe Tay-Sachs, just to really rub it in.

quote:

Originally posted by striv:
I can't understand how this conversation is still going on.
It's like arguing if our solar system revolves around the sun or not.

OK, maybe to wind this conversation up and down a little. First, I don't think a lot of you realise just how entrenched naive Darwinism is within the biological community -- and these are the people who are now making money out of creating genetic monstrosities like crops with "terminator" genes that prevent them producing seed, so the farmers have to buy more from the factory. A sterile gene like that could **NEVER** evolve naturally, and the consequences of putting these artificial monsters into the environment have not been evaluated. Then they cross animal and plant species -- again something that could **NEVER** occur naturally. These genes are operating on different time scales, for one thing, and we will soon see the disastrous effects of these insane experiments. Then they'll have the solution ready -- creating genetically modified human beings to eat their genetically modified food, and we'll have the real worst WG nightmare scenario.

My point: ALL of these monstrosities are based on an incorrect concept of species, propagated at universities. If you think you have a proper definition of species, and think you can get the university scientists (always scrabbling for grants) to listen to you, rotsa ruck, pal.

Here's something, though, and this is crazy carlos's bottom line with all this stuff. I can PROVE that all of this neo-Darwinist stuff COMPLETELY IGNORES THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENT on evolution. Now, missing "the environment" is a pretty big thing to leave out of your picture. But consider this.

Apart from the case of insects (bees, ants) evolutionists discount the possibility of "group selection". They much prefer the Dawkin's view that actually, the only real unit of selection is the gene. Go and ask a biologist -- really, go and ask them, I have over years and years -- whether "altruism" can possibly evolve. They may talk about "kin selection", where you lay down your life for two of your children or four of your cousins, but not true "altruism", which we'll define here as doing beneficial work on the environment AT YOUR OWN COST that all members of your species will benefit from.

David Sloan Wilson has been showing for 30 years now that extremely simple conditions will promote the evolution of altruism. The easiest condition is just random clumping. A "clump" of altruists (and I stress, this is random -- they are not seeking each other out as a "family" or anything like that) will experience the enhanced beneficial effects of a clump of individuals doing work on the environment that promotes all members of the species in that vicinity. (Wilson's early example was the earthworm that turns over more soil than necessary, aerating it, promoting plant growth and ultimately more worm food).

The lone altruist in a clump of selfish types obviously loses out. But incredibly simple arithmetic (I'll do it for you if you want, it'll take five minutes) shows that clumps with the larger number feeling the enhanced effects, put out that many more offspring that they outweigh the lone altruist, who is taken advantage of by the selfish types. It's kinda "having your cake and eating it" -- the clump with more altruists feels an enhanced effect because there's more of them -- and lo and behold, there's more of them feeling the enhanced effect.

Very simply, Wilson showed with random clumping that the only condition necessary is that the gain experienced by the altruist must be more than the extra cost experienced. For orthodox Darwinism, they say the cost of the trait means that the altruist is always at a competitive disadvantage to the member of the species that takes the gain from the altruist's work, but experiences none of the cost. Wilson showed, in effect, that "altruism isn't altruism".

If the gain must just be bigger than the cost, it's like any other trait. It will be selected for.

Another thing Wilson showed promoted altruism is "culling with a broad swathe" -- the more environmental catastrophes occur, the more altruism is promoted. And we are seeing more and more evidence now of past catastrophes, volcanoes, meteors, climate change, that has nearly wiped out all life on earth at least four times. One in a thousand species has survived. As has been said, "to a first approximation, we are all extinct".

NOW -- let's look at the environment. A trait which evolves via what Wilson calls "indirect effects" operates via its effect on the environment. It "looks" like altruism, but it's really just self-interest. Nonetheless, anything that even remotely **LOOKS** like altruism is automatically rejected out of hand by most biologists. (Don't believe me -- go and ask them. I engaged these guys for years before I decided to stop wasting my breath).

Because they cannot see anything that looks like altruism, orthodox biologists automatically and without thinking eliminate ANY effect that might evolve through a creature's effect on the environment (except kin selection, where you direct your good effects towards members of your own family). The whole point about Wilson's analysis is that it's randomly directed, into a "clumpy" environment -- and is space not clumpy by definition? If it was perfectly uniform, you would have no way of identifying up from down. Space is inherently "clumpy".

Therefore, without any thought at all, biological science ignores the possibility of "evolution by indirect effects". This means they are ignoring evolution via effects on the environment. Believe me, I've written to many of the major players pointing this out to them. They don't want to know.

The net result is that they can carry on with their perverse genetic experiments, without worrying about whole chains of reaction being set up in the ecosystem, because they've eliminated any possibility of considering the effect of the environment on evolution. This is a catastrophe for the planet and all living things on it.

My thesis (30 years ago) argued that the ecosystem is the ultimate unit of selection -- that a particular combination of species will cover the ground maximally, even though it may look as though they're competing, so that when hard times come, the system is resilient. Ecosystems which don't cover their ground maximally go extinct AS A WHOLE. And that ground will then be covered by another system that works better. The system is "selected" as a whole. What I'm saying is that these guys don't have the faintest clue what an "ecosystem" really is.

If you model it, you find some very interesting things. The moment you introduce "evolution by indirect effects", the overall biomass of the system ALWAYS goes up. The "big predator" which is knocking lots of species will find whole chains of other species conspiring (automatically) to knock it down. It works on the "enemy of my enemy" principle. Basically, one little species that does something to its environment that helps somebody that's knocking the big predator, will find an automatic feedback loop promoting that behaviour. Again, orthodox biology **CANNOT** see evolution happening via the environment, so they can't see any such effect. They see the end system, but cannot see how the system "bootstraps" itself.

Again, when you model it, you find ecosystems either explode exponentially, or collapse (if they're not a viable combination of species). This shows that the ecosystem itself is behaving like a living thing that can live or die. In Roger Lewin's book Complexity, there's a whole chapter called Explosions and Extinctions that talks about this in the modelling. It all comes from evolution by indirect effects, but none of those guys had ever heard of David Sloan Wilson or evolution by indirect effects (I know, I asked them all).

David talks about multi-level selection (MLS) theory, ie evolution happening at all levels from the gene to the population, but still won't go so far as to say that the ecosystem is a unit of selection, in fact the ultimate unit of selection. But he did some experiments in test-tubes, "breeding" ecosystems to order in the same way that you might breed a dog. He published a paper in 2000 called "Artificial ecosystem selection", so he's getting there.

There was a guy called Arjun Makhijani who published an essay in 2001 in which he argued that "the genome is the expression of its entire environment" which got people quite excited, they said it was a philosophical breakthrough. I wrote to him, arguing that the real thing to say was "the ecosystem is the ultimate unit of selection" (this I believe is the true definition of the ecosystem) but he didn't get it. So I'm still plugging away.

My point: these are theoretical battles that have the most drastic real consequences, and I think it's the most crucial battle the human race faces (on behalf of all the other species). But as the "big predator", we are facing action from the rest of the ecosystem -- anything that wipes out humans will benefit a huge host of other species. So watch out for the bird flu, Russia's top epidemiologist Lvov says it will kill a billion people, and Russia has already set aside 300,000 beds to deal with it. The revenge of the chickens. Don't say we haven't asked for it. (I'm vegetarian btw )

We have a huge battle on our hands to ensure any kind of future that will see any possibility of "natural" existence. I regard the "Neuromancer" kind of future as just about the best we can hope for. I think "they" want a massively controlled biological population.

So, to end, I'll say this: without question, the single greatest artificial mutation of the human race is happening right now, with the proliferation of microwaves. The first known side-effect of microwaves (in radar operators in WW2) was sterility. Hungarian research shows that men who are heavy cellphone users have sperm counts 30% down, sperm motility of remaining wrigglies 30% down. The point: the sperm that's being killed is not "microwave compliant". Biggest cause of death now in kids in the US -- brain tumours. Finnish government research shows that microwaves destroy the human blood brain barrier, flooding the brain with toxins including heat-shock proteins, caused by cellphone use, which promote cancer. So we are eliminating all members of the population who are not "microwave compliant". Ultimately, "they" want the scenario where people will have chips implanted which are linked via microwave. Maybe you think this is all very cool. But, as I keep telling the cellphone companies, those of us who are sensitive to this radiation HAVE RIGHTS -- they can't possibly understand this. But they're going to get a shock. There are going to be lawsuits soon from people who've died of brain tumours (Johnny Cochrane was one) which are going to make Vioxx look like a tea-party.

It's a huge war, invisible, but this is my chosen battleground. I make no apologies for getting worked up about it.

OK. Today was pay day, hence the posting, but I'm still going to be very spare, things are very tight here.

quote:

Originally posted by striv:
I can't understand how this conversation is still going on.
It's like arguing if our solar system revolves around the sun or not.

Ever had an argument about this with hardcore godbotherers? It's like trying to piss up a skateboard ramp and not get your shoes wet.

And chicken taste damned good. Bird flu can only kill me once but I'll guarantee I'll eat dozens more of the bastards before that happens.

Hey, we carnivores can be sanctimonious too .

quote:

Originally posted by Upholstered Dave:
Bush promoting an approach to Education.
The most famously stupid man in the world suggesting how people should be educated. Jesus Whip-Cracking Christ!

I find it funny when anyone 'mentally challenged' says the word 'intelligence'.

quote:

the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

• Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
  
• Planets and stars formed from space dust.
  
• Matter created life by itself.
  
• Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
  
• Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

I would like to hear someone's ideas on how God came into being. It's not that I don't believe in an all powerful being or anything, but simply crediting everything to God really doesn't answer any questions at all.

After all if we dismiss the possibility that we came into reality by random chance and insist that we are the product of some all-powerful beings master plan, do we take it for granted that this being came into being by random chance? do we assume this being was created by an even more powerful being as part of It's master plan? or do we just have to take it on faith that God has always existed and not ask any questions because any attempt to seriously explore them will cause our heads to explode?