The Lowly Fruit Fly Befuddles the Evolutionists

[Perspicuo]

Science is oridnarily befuddled with problems. That's because science is actually set to hunt, trap and kill actual real-world problems. Religion isn't. Religion has faith in dumbass beliefs in lieu of even bothering itself to get befuddled with anything relating to actual reality.

Science thrives on reality blowing up its hypotheses to arrive at knowledge, and even seeks for it to happen and adjust its theoretical superstructure. Religion, in contrast, is scared shitless about reality, so much that it is always in denial of any sort of contradiction with it.

 

[Kharakov]

However, no evolutionist has shown that nature has a process that can start with animal A and produce animal B that is not a species derived from animal A

True! Because all animals species ARE derived from another.

I agree. All canine species are derived from canines. All feline species are derived from felines. Evolutionists speculate that there is a common ancestor from which both canines and felines derive. There is no way to test this speculation through laboratory experiment so it remains speculation. So far as science is able to determine, if you start with canines, you get canines - that is how biology has been observed to happen.

Well, unless you look back a few million generations (endless genealogies for ya). A cross panther squirrel 55 million year old fossil reveals shared ancestor cats dogs.html

In fact, bacteria have been observed to evolve certain traits over thousands of generations, developing the ability to metabolize citrate.

Now, it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria.


And read this too.  Cladistics.

 

[rhutchin]

In fact, bacteria have been observed to evolve certain traits over thousands of generations, developing the ability to metabolize citrate.

Now, it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria.

This is Lenski's ongoing experiment with e-coli. The reports on this attribute the change to a mutation. Further research will have to be done to nail down what that mutation involved. For now, we just have a new species of e-coli and even Lenski calls it e-coli.

I like your statement of faith - "it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria." That is a good evolutionist statement. The great hope of the evolutionists - that millions of generations would evolve something other than e-coli. Lenski has just passed the 50,000 generation. I guess we will have to wait a couple hundred years to see if your hope is well founded.

 

[rhutchin]

And read this too.  Cladistics.

From the article: "The techniques of cladistics, and sometimes the terminology, have been successfully applied in other disciplines: for example, to determine the relationships between the surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales,[7] or also between 53 manuscripts of the Sanskrit Charaka Samhita.[8]"

So, based on the success stories noted, cladistics is a methodology that can take all the different canine species in the world and order them based on shared characteristics. I think cladistics was invented by creationists to order all life into groups that could be traced back to the animals coming off the ark. It explains how bats can be grouped with birds in the Bible - both share the characteristic of flying.

- - - Updated - - -

Science is oridnarily befuddled with problems. That's because science is actually set to hunt, trap and kill actual real-world problems...Science thrives on reality blowing up its hypotheses to arrive at knowledge, and even seeks for it to happen and adjust its theoretical superstructure.

I guess that explains why science is blowing up evolution.

 

[Kharakov]

. For now, we just have a new species of e-coli and even Lenski calls it e-coli.

Yeah. Amazing that something is pretty similar to its ancestors, when it grew in similar conditions.

I like your statement of faith - "it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria."

I know you're trolling, but there is some truth in the statement "I have faith in the logic of that statement".

It makes sense- if there are small changes in a population over 50,000 generations, one would need 1000 times the generations to have a decent change in the population.

And this is only in a very controlled environment, without the retroviruses that have evolved alongside bacteria, which can accelerate the speed of genetic drift (retroviruses could be the first sperm...a semi-sexual transmission of genetic material).

That is a good evolutionist statement. The great hope of the evolutionists - that millions of generations would evolve something other than e-coli. Lenski has just passed the 50,000 generation. I guess we will have to wait a couple hundred years to see if your hope is well founded.

Nah. We can observe what has already happened in the past. We can trace the various genes through populations, and link back to major changes in populations. Hell, hasn't it only been a few 1000 generations from wolf to chihuahua... has me worried about bunnies and cats being bread into  tribbles.

 

[Kharakov]

So, based on the success stories noted, cladistics is a methodology that can take all the different canine species in the world and order them based on shared characteristics. I think cladistics was invented by creationists to order all life into groups that could be traced back to the animals coming off the ark. It explains how bats can be grouped with birds in the Bible - both share the characteristic of flying.

Yeah. If you stray from the "last common ancestor" method.

Anyway- here are other uses..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics#Application_to_disciplines_other_than_biology

 

[Keith&Co.]

I guess that explains why science is blowing up evolution.

Science accepts the theory that mutations with selection can account for the changes in DNA that identify evolution.
Science accepts that this accounts for the diversity of life on the planet because the theory explains all known observations.
WHEN someone shows that there is an upper limit to evolutionary changes, then current evolutionary theory will be falsified. You haven't done that, yet, nor identified any research that falsifies speciation, macroevolution or such things.

WHEN someone establishes a way to measure complexity and shows above a certain amount of complexity, it actually demands an intelligence to create it, then current evolutionary theory will be falsified. Not until then, though, and you haven't provided any observatoins that show anything evolutionary theory cannot account for.

WHEN someone shows that scientists are befuddled by discovering complexity, then your thread title will not be a dishonest claim based on a strawman view of evolution-related research.

WHEN someone shows that the origin of life cannot be separated from how life changes over time, then evolutionary theory will be forced to include origins as part of evolutionary science. Then claims that any questions over origins are problems for evolutionists will be less silly than they currently are. Not a lot less, but less.

You're claiming victory, rhutchin, when you haven't even registered an entry in the contest.

 

[Shadowy Man]

There is no way to test this speculation through laboratory experiment so it remains speculation.

If you are going to demand that the practice and advancement of science be limited to laboratory experiments there will be an incredibly large number of scientists being put out of work. Not to mention, entire fields of science will evaporate, including all of astronomy.

 

[bilby]

In fact, bacteria have been observed to evolve certain traits over thousands of generations, developing the ability to metabolize citrate.

Now, it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria.

This is Lenski's ongoing experiment with e-coli. The reports on this attribute the change to a mutation. Further research will have to be done to nail down what that mutation involved. For now, we just have a new species of e-coli and even Lenski calls it e-coli.

I like your statement of faith - "it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria." That is a good evolutionist statement. The great hope of the evolutionists - that millions of generations would evolve something other than e-coli. Lenski has just passed the 50,000 generation. I guess we will have to wait a couple hundred years to see if your hope is well founded.

I watched a car driving for a whole minute; the engine made three THOUSAND revolutions in that time, and yet at the end of the experiment, it was still in the same suburb. Sure, it was in a different place in the suburb (further work will need to be done to find out exactly which road it drove on to get from the starting point to where it is now), but the idea that it might one day end up in a different suburb - much less a different town, or a different state, is ridiculous. People have run engines for hundreds of thousands of revolutions in testing laboratories, and not once has the engine been seen to change cities in that time.

To say that cars may have originated in another state based on this evidence is pure speculation. I guess that the only way we could find out if this speculation is well founded would be to wait for several hours, to see whether any of the cars change state once again (it's such a shame we don't have time to do this).




I find it truly odd that people are happy to dismiss the above as absurd, but cannot see that rhutchin's version follows EXACTLY the same logic.

If a car can move, then there is no limit to how far it can drive, given sufficient time. But we are expected to believe that evolution is fenced in with species (or genus or family or order) boundaries that cannot be crossed - which is EXACTLY as sensible as suggesting that cars cannot cross the boundary between Queensland and New South Wales.

'Species', 'genus', 'family' and 'order' are arbitrary classifications, like 'suburb', 'city', 'state' or 'country'. The boundaries are not real, they are fictions imposed to help understanding.

The argument 'Cars cannot move AT ALL' would be a stupid premise; but at least it would be a basis for a valid logical argument that cars cannot move between states. Arguing that 'Cars can only move slowly; The state boundary is a long way off; Therefore cars cannot move between states' is a far less compelling position; while the premises are no longer obviously false, this is at the expense of rendering the argument itself invalid - which is NOT an improvement.

Having been forced, by observation, to accept that 'Populations cannot evolve AT ALL' is a false premise, we are left with the obviously invalid argument that says 'Populations only evolve slowly; Currently existing families are very different from one another; therefore populations cannot evolve into new families'. Not only is this argument invalid, but it is far from clear that the second premise is actually true. Of course, it is pointless to consider the truth or falsity of the premises - the invalidity of the argument renders this moot.

 

[rhutchin]

In fact, bacteria have been observed to evolve certain traits over thousands of generations, developing the ability to metabolize citrate.

Now, it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria.

This is Lenski's ongoing experiment with e-coli. The reports on this attribute the change to a mutation. Further research will have to be done to nail down what that mutation involved. For now, we just have a new species of e-coli and even Lenski calls it e-coli.

I like your statement of faith - "it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria." That is a good evolutionist statement. The great hope of the evolutionists - that millions of generations would evolve something other than e-coli. Lenski has just passed the 50,000 generation. I guess we will have to wait a couple hundred years to see if your hope is well founded.

I watched a car driving for a whole minute; the engine made three THOUSAND revolutions in that time, and yet at the end of the experiment, it was still in the same suburb. Sure, it was in a different place in the suburb (further work will need to be done to find out exactly which road it drove on to get from the starting point to where it is now), but the idea that it might one day end up in a different suburb - much less a different town, or a different state, is ridiculous. People have run engines for hundreds of thousands of revolutions in testing laboratories, and not once has the engine been seen to change cities in that time.

To say that cars may have originated in another state based on this evidence is pure speculation. I guess that the only way we could find out if this speculation is well founded would be to wait for several hours, to see whether any of the cars change state once again (it's such a shame we don't have time to do this).


I find it truly odd that people are happy to dismiss the above as absurd, but cannot see that rhutchin's version follows EXACTLY the same logic.

If a car can move, then there is no limit to how far it can drive, given sufficient time. But we are expected to believe that evolution is fenced in with species (or genus or family or order) boundaries that cannot be crossed - which is EXACTLY as sensible as suggesting that cars cannot cross the boundary between Queensland and New South Wales.

'Species', 'genus', 'family' and 'order' are arbitrary classifications, like 'suburb', 'city', 'state' or 'country'. The boundaries are not real, they are fictions imposed to help understanding.

The argument 'Cars cannot move AT ALL' would be a stupid premise; but at least it would be a basis for a valid logical argument that cars cannot move between states. Arguing that 'Cars can only move slowly; The state boundary is a long way off; Therefore cars cannot move between states' is a far less compelling position; while the premises are no longer obviously false, this is at the expense of rendering the argument itself invalid - which is NOT an improvement.

Having been forced, by observation, to accept that 'Populations cannot evolve AT ALL' is a false premise, we are left with the obviously invalid argument that says 'Populations only evolve slowly; Currently existing families are very different from one another; therefore populations cannot evolve into new families'. Not only is this argument invalid, but it is far from clear that the second premise is actually true. Of course, it is pointless to consider the truth or falsity of the premises - the invalidity of the argument renders this moot.

Bad analogy. The issue is not the location of the car but whether it ever becomes something other than a car. No one is saying that populations cannot evolve; we all know they can. Populations of finches investigated by Darwin changed beak size over time but they never stopped being finches. No one has ever observed any population of organisms to change in such a manner as to be something new. The excuse offered is that such change takes too long to be observable. That just makes evolution speculation and not fact.

Evolutionists would like to think that e-coli could evolve into something that is not e-coli and they would like to think that the ability to metabolize citrate takes it down that road. It's wishful thinking at this point.

- - - Updated - - -

There is no way to test this speculation through laboratory experiment so it remains speculation.

If you are going to demand that the practice and advancement of science be limited to laboratory experiments there will be an incredibly large number of scientists being put out of work. Not to mention, entire fields of science will evaporate, including all of astronomy.

Nothing wrong with scientists being imaginative. However, someone still has to go into the laboratory and sort out truth from fiction.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Bad analogy. The issue is not the location of the car but whether it ever becomes something other than a car.

Then you miss the point of the analogy.
Small samples cannot lead to dependable conclusions.

No one is saying that populations cannot evolve; we all know they can. Populations of finches investigated by Darwin changed beak size over time but they never stopped being finches. No one has ever observed any population of organisms to change in such a manner as to be something new.

But no one's observed anything that would prevent that change.

The excuse offered is that such change takes too long to be observable. That just makes evolution speculation and not fact.

Actually, it makes evolution speculation AND fact, depending on which parts you're discussing.

Evolutionists would like to think that e-coli could evolve into something that is not e-coli and they would like to think that the ability to metabolize citrate takes it down that road. It's wishful thinking at this point.

AT THIS POINT.

That would be the point of the analogy. You're making conclusions about vast time based on limited times.

 

[bilby]

In fact, bacteria have been observed to evolve certain traits over thousands of generations, developing the ability to metabolize citrate.

Now, it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria.

This is Lenski's ongoing experiment with e-coli. The reports on this attribute the change to a mutation. Further research will have to be done to nail down what that mutation involved. For now, we just have a new species of e-coli and even Lenski calls it e-coli.

I like your statement of faith - "it would still probably take millions of generations to evolve something entirely different than the basic bacteria." That is a good evolutionist statement. The great hope of the evolutionists - that millions of generations would evolve something other than e-coli. Lenski has just passed the 50,000 generation. I guess we will have to wait a couple hundred years to see if your hope is well founded.

I watched a car driving for a whole minute; the engine made three THOUSAND revolutions in that time, and yet at the end of the experiment, it was still in the same suburb. Sure, it was in a different place in the suburb (further work will need to be done to find out exactly which road it drove on to get from the starting point to where it is now), but the idea that it might one day end up in a different suburb - much less a different town, or a different state, is ridiculous. People have run engines for hundreds of thousands of revolutions in testing laboratories, and not once has the engine been seen to change cities in that time.

To say that cars may have originated in another state based on this evidence is pure speculation. I guess that the only way we could find out if this speculation is well founded would be to wait for several hours, to see whether any of the cars change state once again (it's such a shame we don't have time to do this).


I find it truly odd that people are happy to dismiss the above as absurd, but cannot see that rhutchin's version follows EXACTLY the same logic.

If a car can move, then there is no limit to how far it can drive, given sufficient time. But we are expected to believe that evolution is fenced in with species (or genus or family or order) boundaries that cannot be crossed - which is EXACTLY as sensible as suggesting that cars cannot cross the boundary between Queensland and New South Wales.

'Species', 'genus', 'family' and 'order' are arbitrary classifications, like 'suburb', 'city', 'state' or 'country'. The boundaries are not real, they are fictions imposed to help understanding.

The argument 'Cars cannot move AT ALL' would be a stupid premise; but at least it would be a basis for a valid logical argument that cars cannot move between states. Arguing that 'Cars can only move slowly; The state boundary is a long way off; Therefore cars cannot move between states' is a far less compelling position; while the premises are no longer obviously false, this is at the expense of rendering the argument itself invalid - which is NOT an improvement.

Having been forced, by observation, to accept that 'Populations cannot evolve AT ALL' is a false premise, we are left with the obviously invalid argument that says 'Populations only evolve slowly; Currently existing families are very different from one another; therefore populations cannot evolve into new families'. Not only is this argument invalid, but it is far from clear that the second premise is actually true. Of course, it is pointless to consider the truth or falsity of the premises - the invalidity of the argument renders this moot.

Bad analogy. The issue is not the location of the car but whether it ever becomes something other than a car.

No, you have misunderstood; in this analogy, distance in space for the car is equivalent to distance in relatedness between populations.

No one is saying that populations cannot evolve; we all know they can.

Indeed we do

Populations of finches investigated by Darwin changed beak size over time but they never stopped being finches. No one has ever observed any population of organisms to change in such a manner as to be something new. The excuse offered is that such change takes too long to be observable.

Indeed it is. It isn't an excuse; it is an explanation.

That just makes evolution speculation and not fact.

Nonsense; it is a fact that cars move; it is therefore a fact that, absent anything to stop them from moving, they can move an indefinite distance given sufficient time. One need not actually observe them for an indefinite time for this to be more than mere speculation.

Evolutionists would like to think that e-coli could evolve into something that is not e-coli and they would like to think that the ability to metabolize citrate takes it down that road. It's wishful thinking at this point.

No, it is an observation of a small change.

Small changes add up to big changes over time. If an object moves, then no matter how slow it is, it will, given time, move a long distance.

If a population changes, no matter how slowly, it will, given time, change into something that is quite different from the original.

The ONLY valid arguments against this are:

1) NO changes occur AT ALL - we have proven this to be false, via the citrate experiment (amongst others)
2) There is a specific hard limit to change that cannot be breached

1) we agree is false; so your only way to defend your position here is either:

A) to accept as valid, an argument of the form "Populations only evolve slowly; Currently existing families are very different from one another; therefore populations cannot evolve into new families" - which literally defies logic; or
B) Demonstrate that insufficient time has been available for evolution to complete the observed changes - which given the observed rate of evolution and the observationally determined age of the Earth is certainly not the case; or
C) Demonstrate a hard limit beyond which change is impossible.

So, the only question remaining is: What exactly is or are the specific feature(s) of dogs that differentiate them from cats, and which it is IMPOSSIBLE to produce by a sufficiently large number of small incremental changes?

Unless you can give a solid, definitive answer to this question - and can either show that this answer applies not only dogs and cats, but to every other pair of 'kinds' you wish to define; or provide a different but equally solid and definitive answer for each pair of 'kinds' - you have nothing. Evolution is clearly and logically able to produce, from a single, simple, common ancestor, every one of the varied forms of life we see on Earth - given sufficient time.

 

[James Brown]

Darwin's Finches

Darwin's finches

(also known as the Galápagos finches) are a group of about fifteen species of passerine birds.^[1] They often are classified as the subfamily Geospizinae or tribe Geospizini. It is still not clear which bird family they belong to, but they are not related to the true finches. They were first collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle. All are found only on the Galápagos Islands, except the Cocos finch from Cocos Island.


The term "Darwin's finches" was first applied by Percy Lowe in 1936, and popularised in 1947 by David Lack in his book Darwin's Finches.^[2][3] David Lack based his analysis on the large collection of museum specimens collected by the 1905–06 Galápagos expedition of the California Academy of Sciences, to whom Lack dedicated his 1947 book. The birds vary in size from 10 to 20 cm and weigh between 8 and 38 grams. The smallest are the warbler-finches and the largest is the vegetarian finch. The most important differences between species are in the size and shape of their beaks, and the beaks are highly adapted to different food sources.

About fifteen different species. Not related to true finches.

More reading: http://www.eeb.princeton.edu/FACULTY/Grant_P/PRG_Abstracts.pdf
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Speciation.html

 

[Perspicuo]

Science is oridnarily befuddled with problems. That's because science is actually set to hunt, trap and kill actual real-world problems...Science thrives on reality blowing up its hypotheses to arrive at knowledge, and even seeks for it to happen and adjust its theoretical superstructure.

I guess that explains why science is blowing up evolution.

Yes, the scientific community has been throwing fossils, chemistry, physics and genetics relentlessly at the idea of evolution-natural selection. It is now one of the most powerful ideas in science and the foundation of our understanding of biology and achievements in medicine.

We shall hope the process of wrestling with this and so many other theories to continue mercilessly.

I surmise from your comment you do not agree with the course biological sciences have taken for the past 100+ years. That's ok too. Science can take it. That's all it ever does anyway.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If you are going to demand that the practice and advancement of science be limited to laboratory experiments there will be an incredibly large number of scientists being put out of work. Not to mention, entire fields of science will evaporate, including all of astronomy.

Nothing wrong with scientists being imaginative. However, someone still has to go into the laboratory and sort out truth from fiction.

You're missing my point. There are really no experiments that can be done for astrophysics. There is no lab in which we can blow up a star again and again trying it with different amounts of metals. There is no lab that is big enough or can last long enough to test theories on the formation of planetary systems. There aren't even any laboratories that can produce a vacuum rarefied enough to simulate the densities and pressures of the interstellar medium.

Yet, scientific investigation of the universe can still be done. Theories can be developed. Evidence can be sought and found. A cogent logical structure tying it all together can be constructed. Predictions for the next set of observations can be made. This is all science and none of it is done in a laboratory.

There are many fields that study things that happen on too large a scale or too long a timescale to be done in the laboratory. That does not disqualify them from being "science".

 

[Malintent]

Here's the abstract from a neat article in Nature.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12962.html

Diversity and dynamics of the Drosophila transcriptome

"Animal transcriptomes are dynamic, with each cell type, tissue and organ system expressing an ensemble of transcript isoforms that give rise to substantial diversity. Here we have identified new genes, transcripts and proteins using poly(A)+ RNA sequencing from Drosophila melanogaster in cultured cell lines, dissected organ systems and under environmental perturbations. We found that a small set of mostly neural-specific genes has the potential to encode thousands of transcripts each through extensive alternative promoter usage and RNA splicing. The magnitudes of splicing changes are larger between tissues than between developmental stages, and most sex-specific splicing is gonad-specific. Gonads express hundreds of previously unknown coding and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), some of which are antisense to protein-coding genes and produce short regulatory RNAs. Furthermore, previously identified pervasive intergenic transcription occurs primarily within newly identified introns. The fly transcriptome is substantially more complex than previously recognized, with this complexity arising from combinatorial usage of promoters, splice sites and polyadenylation sites."

Of the lowly fruit fly, the authors say, "The fly transcriptome is substantially more complex than previously recognized, with this complexity arising from combinatorial usage of promoters, splice sites and polyadenylation sites."

Just making it harder for evolutionists to support their faith.

I don't understand your assessment. More is understood about the mechanics of fly genetics. How is understanding more about how this works a problem (other than for a person who is emotionally invested in not-knowing-how-things-work)?

Do you hate god? then why deny His awesome works? Too complicated for your god to have produced? Then your god didn't do it.. someone else's must have. Praise Alah.

 

[Malintent]

Evolutionists would like to think that e-coli could evolve into something that is not e-coli and they would like to think that the ability to metabolize citrate takes it down that road. It's wishful thinking at this point.

WHY do you beleive that "evolutionists" would LIKE to think the theory of evolution best explains speciation? I think this may be at the root of your paranoid distrust.

 

[abaddon]

WHY do you beleive that "evolutionists" would LIKE to think the theory of evolution best explains speciation? I think this may be at the root of your paranoid distrust.

To defend his faith, all others must also be limited to faith. To guard his unfounded beliefs, others need to be the believers in unfounded things. To rise triumphant over enemy believers, he has to level everything to faith and just-so stories to give equal footing to his own just-so stories.

We know that "If I can put down your beliefs then mine will stand triumphant" is crap logic. But YEC's need a stable certainty and yet have adopted a 2500 year old worldview. In a world with the internet, heathen beliefs intrude and need to be beaten down. The strategy isn't to use logic but apply a smear campaign: Make the enemy look like the real fool, the one who has fanciful beliefs (ones that he'd "like to think"). Break the enemy's weapon (evidence) by showing off how obstinately unaffected you are by it.

That, I think, is the root of a creationist's paranoid distrust. The physical world's a shadow world, infested with demons and lies and relativism. It's a confused messy place compared to the Ultimate Reality, God's realm, where all remains immutable and safely certain. The to-do over science finding complexity in nature is a way of implicitly saying "None of you worldly fools have the final real everlasting unchanging truth (but I DO!)"

 

[braces_for_impact]

I feel so...befuddled...

 

[rhutchin]

Science is oridnarily befuddled with problems. That's because science is actually set to hunt, trap and kill actual real-world problems...Science thrives on reality blowing up its hypotheses to arrive at knowledge, and even seeks for it to happen and adjust its theoretical superstructure.

I guess that explains why science is blowing up evolution.

Yes, the scientific community has been throwing fossils, chemistry, physics and genetics relentlessly at the idea of evolution-natural selection. It is now one of the most powerful ideas in science and the foundation of our understanding of biology and achievements in medicine.

Nothing in science depends on a knowledge of evolution. Take evolution out of the science textbooks and just describe genetics and biological processes and science will do fine.