Why Are Evo's Ignorant of Mendelian?

I don't understand

reply to post by monkey_descendant


You admit you don't understand. Then you pretend to know better then
noted evolutionary biologist, P. Z. Myers.
If your above mentioned (finches) had evolved hooked beaks and started catching fish. That would have been classical evolution, Darwinism.
When the beak size changes by a couple mm, back and forth. From dry seasons to wet. That is due to a gene that is ever present in the gene pool. For macro evolution to happen, new information must be created in the genes.......................
The fact that you try and use this as proof of classical evolution, shows how desperate you are and how weak, (non-existent), the evidence for macro evolution is!

reply to post by Howie47


You really don't understand. It's tragic.

"Darwinism"?? Come on. You must be able to do better than that. I doubt you'll find any darwinists anywhere in the world. What you will find, though, are evolutionary scientists, people of great learning and knowledge that far surpasses yours on this subject. They're not crying themselves to sleep because none of it makes sense. They're publishing their work, which stands up to critical peer review, and getting it accepted in the (ever-updating) theory of evolution.

Many small changes over a vast period of time = evolution.

To put it in biblical terms:

Microevolution begets macroevolution.

And for more pseudobiblical fun, there's the scientific trinity of microevolution, macroevolution, and evolution. They're all the same thing.

Originally posted by Howie47

For macro evolution to happen, new information must be created in the genes.......................

Microevolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population.
When enough allele frequencies change speciation occurs. If a new species forms, macroevolution has occurred.

Greater complexity is NOT required to evolve - just higher fitness.
The most common action of natural selection is to remove unfit variants as they arise via mutation not add new variants.
In other words, natural selection usually prevents new alleles from increasing in frequency. When selection acts to weed out deleterious alleles, or causes an allele to sweep to fixation, it depletes genetic variation.

New information must not always be created. I can be deleted. if becoming simpler grants a reproductive advantage (as it did for parasites), then the organisms will become simpler.

reply to post by dave420


R. Dawkins and many other noted evolutionist have publicly refereed to themselves as, "Darwinist".

reply to post by Ulster


So in your way of thinking. The very first life. Is no less complex then humans?! Humans are just more fit?!

reply to post by Howie47


Please cite your source. Dawkins is not Darwinist, as the modern theory of evolution has moved on a lot since the days of Darwin, so him calling himself Darwinist would be like a modern doctor calling himself a trepanist.

The term "Darwinist" is, however, used heavily by US Creationists and ID proponents. You can check out the Wikipedia article to read more. The term "Darwinist" is used in science, but it means someone who believes in the classical theories Darwin created, as opposed to an evolutionist, who believes in the modern theory of evolution. Dawkins is clearly the latter, not the former, as is anyone else who has a shred of knowledge of evolution.

But then that takes the wind out of your argumentative sails, so I guess you'll ignore this.

reply to post by Howie47


Clearly you have no idea at all, and are just clutching at straws to try to illicit any response you can that suits your purpose. One word: FAIL.

reply to post by dave420


I will not be luered into a mindless, ignorant debate with you, Dave4.
If you had read any of the recent books on Evolution you wouldn't have made this post at all.

In the first essay of the collection, you say that as a scientist, you're a Darwinist, but as a human being, you feel it's important to recognize that natural selection is unpleasant and fight against it. Could you explain this in more detail?

Richard Dawkins: It's a less-strong claim than for the laws of thermodynamics. I think for the laws of thermodynamics we more or less know that they apply everywhere in the universe. The laws of Darwinian evolution: First off, we don't know if there's life anywhere else in the universe; there may not be. It is actually seriously possible that we may be alone in the universe. Assuming that there is other life in the universe (and I think most people think that there is), then my conjecture is that how ever alien and different it may be in detail (the creatures may be so different from us that we may hardly recognize them as living at all), if they have the property of organized complexity and apparent design -- adaptive complexity -- then I believe that something equivalent to Darwinian natural selection -- gradual evolution by Darwinian natural selection; that is, the non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary elements -- will turn out to be applied. All life in the universe, my guess is, will have evolved by some equivalent to Darwinism.

Originally posted by Howie47

I don't understand

reply to post by monkey_descendant

 

You admit you don't understand. Then you pretend to know better then
noted evolutionary biologist, P. Z. Myers.
If your above mentioned (finches) had evolved hooked beaks and started catching fish. That would have been classical evolution, Darwinism.
When the beak size changes by a couple mm, back and forth. From dry seasons to wet. That is due to a gene that is ever present in the gene pool. For macro evolution to happen, new information must be created in the genes.......................
The fact that you try and use this as proof of classical evolution, shows how desperate you are and how weak, (non-existent), the evidence for macro evolution is!

You took what I said out of context. How creationist of you! No, what I don't understand is what you are trying to say. Your ideas are so flawed that I don't understand you.

Macroevolution does not require mutations (or "new information") as you put it. It requires a huge ass amount of natural selection and gene flow and a lot of time and isolation from other populations. Any sort of evolution can happen from already existing dna or genetic mutations.

BEak size also didn't just change by a few milimieters there was a huge change in size and this changed the population. Even if the population then was again mostly "small" beaked this would still require natural selection.

Howie:

let's play a game.
Let's pretend that we have a species made up of five individuals (for simplicities sake)

lets pretend there dna is abcd bcde efgj ghia ghij

lets also pretend that all those individuals with the allele "a" are bigger than the rest and so slower.

lets also pretend that all those with the allele "a" die before they reproduce because they were too slow to run away from predators.

The only individuals left have the dna: bcde efgj ghij.

Any resulting offspring then could only be compromised of the existing dna. Offspring would then have to have a combination of dna left over from the individuals with: bcde efgj ghij.

This means that "a" is now lost from the population. "A" made individuals bigger, this means that all new existing individuals will be smaller, they have to be.

Do you deny then that this new generation is different, that the species has changed?

Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by dave420

 

I will not be luered into a mindless, ignorant debate with you, Dave4.
If you had read any of the recent books on Evolution you wouldn't have made this post at all.

Why not? He's obviously extended you the courtesy of engaging your mindless, ignorant drivel, the least you can do is banter with him. All the guy's trying to do is educate you, after all.

reply to post by monkey_descendant


I know I'm pretty much banging my head against the wall with you guys.
Because this is your religion.
Here is a couple quotes that apply directly to the question of micro-macro evolution. For all the undecided or confused readers.

"... the attitude of population geneticists to any paleontologist rash enough to offer a contribution to evolutionary theory has been to tell him to go away and find another fossil, and not to bother the grownups." (Maynard Smith, 1984)

Among all the claims made during the evolutionary synthesis, perhaps the one that found least acceptance was the assertion that all phenomena of macro evolution can be ‘reduced to,' that is, explained by, micro evolutionary genetic processes. Not surprisingly, this claim was usually supported by geneticists but was widely rejected by the very biologists who dealt with macro evolution, the morphologists and paleontologists. Many of them insisted that there is more or less complete discontinuity between the processes at the two levels—that what happens at the species level is entirely different from what happens at the level of the higher categories. Now, 50 years later the controversy remains undecided. Ernst Mayer

We do not advance some special theory for long times and large transitions, fundamentally opposed to the processes of micro evolution. Rather, we maintain that nature is organized hierarchically and that no smooth continuum leads across levels. We may attain a unified theory of process, but the processes work differently at different levels and we cannot extrapolate from one level to encompass all events at the next. I believe, in fact, that ... speciation by splitting guarantees that macro evolution must be studied at its own level. ... [S]election among species—not an extrapolation of changes in gene frequencies within populations—may be the motor of macro evolutionary trends. If macro evolution is, as I believe, mainly a story of the differential success of certain kinds of species and, if most species change little in the phyletic mode during the course of their existence, then micro evolutionary change within populations is not the stuff (by extrapolation) of major transformations. Stephen Jay Gould

All the types,( I've discussed in this thread), are of the same species.
Tortoises, iguanas, finches, that have experienced "founders effect",
can still interbreed and produce offspring that are fertile. Even though some of these animals have been separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years!
Quibbling about the meanings of words is not going to change this fact, into Classical evolution, macro evolution, Darwinism, or what ever you want to call, "all life evolving from a common ancestor.

[edit on 13-5-2008 by Howie47]

Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by monkey_descendant

 

I know I'm pretty much banging my head against the wall with you guys.
Because this is your religion.
Here is a couple quotes that apply directly to the question of micro-macro evolution. For all the undecided or confused readers.

Among all the claims made during the evolutionary synthesis, perhaps the one that found least acceptance was the assertion that all phenomen of macro evolution can be ‘reduced to,' that is, explained by, micro evolutionary genetic processes. Not surprisingly, this claim was usually supported by geneticists but was widely rejected by the very biologists who dealt with macro evolution, the morphologists and paleontologists. Many of them insisted that there is more or less complete discontinuity between the processes at the two levels—that what happens at the species level is entirely different from what happens at the level of the higher categories. Now, 50 years later the controversy remains undecided. Ernst Mayer

We do not advance some special theory for long times and large transitions, fundamentally opposed to the processes of micro evolution. Rather, we maintain that nature is organized hierarchically and that no smooth continuum leads across levels. We may attain a unified theory of process, but the processes work differently at different levels and we cannot extrapolate from one level to encompass all events at the next. I believe, in fact, that ... speciation by splitting guarantees that macro evolution must be studied at its own level. ... [S]election among species—not an extrapolation of changes in gene frequencies within populations—may be the motor of macro evolutionary trends. If macro evolution is, as I believe, mainly a story of the differential success of certain kinds of species and, if most species change little in the phyletic mode during the course of their existence, then micro evolutionary change within populations is not the stuff (by extrapolation) of major transformations. Stephen Jay Gould

All the types,( I've discussed in this thread), are of the same species.
Tortoises, iguanas, finches, that have experienced "founders effect",
can still interbreed and produce offspring that are fertile. Even though some of these animals have been separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years!
Quibbling about the meanings of words is not going to change this fact, into Classical evolution, macro evolution, Darwinism, or what ever you want to call, "all life evolving from a common ancestor.

So what if they are all finches, iguanas, etc. That means they haven't aquired enough genetic differences yet to not interbreed. Science recognises that different "species" can interbreed to produce fertile offspring, whereas others (those species that have too many genetic differences between them) cannot. There is no debate here, there is no "look what science doesn't know" in this statement. No where does biology give a set time limit for evolution to occur in, unless it's observed it happen in a lab (like in bacteria) then it can estimate this for whatever bacteria! Scientists have done that a countless times.

Do you realise that much of modern medecine relies on the theory of evolution? Why do you think people have to finish their antibiotics? Bacteria create new generations in the blink of an eye so they evolve damn quickly.

Secondly do you know what a founder effect is? It's when a segment of a population (only representing some of the entire populations genes) start a new populaton somewhere else. It doesn't have to turn the new population into a new species it just means the new population is missing genes that the origional population has.

Also, Howie, answer the question of my game.

reply to post by monkey_descendant

It doesn't have to turn the new population into a new species

It does if you want to use it as proof of classical evolution! That is what this thread is originally all about! Lest we forget!

Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by monkey_descendant

 

It doesn't have to turn the new population into a new species

It does if you want to use it as proof of classical evolution! That is what this thread is originally all about! Lest we forget!

Then you really don't understand evolution. What do you even mean by classical evolution?

A new species being formed is NOT a requirement of a founder effect. We've had lots of founder effects happen amongst humans, yet we are all one species. In fact all non-african people are the result of founder effects!

If you don't answer the question to my game then I'm going to assume that you realise that you are wrong or that you have such little understanding of evolution that you don't understand the game.

definition of a founder effect straight from wikipedia for your pleasure which states that a founder effect does not have to lead to speciation, but can, and even gives a human example of a founder effect:

"In population genetics, the founder effect refers to the loss of genetic variation when a new colony is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1952[1], using existing theoretical work by those such as Sewall Wright. As a result of the loss of genetic variation, the new population may be distinctively different, both genetically and phenotypically, from the parent population from which it is derived. In extreme cases, the founder effect is thought to lead to the speciation and subsequent evolution of new species. The founder effect is a feature that can also occur in memetic evolution.


In addition to founder effects, the new population is often a very small population and so shows increased sensitivity to genetic drift, an increase in inbreeding, and relatively low genetic variation. This can be observed in the limited gene pool of Easter Islanders and those native to Pitcairn Island."

Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by Ulster

 

So in your way of thinking. The very first life. Is no less complex then humans?! Humans are just more fit?!

Complexity is your word not mine. Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements. Not just the number of elements.

You argued than new information was added. That is not correct i many cases.

There are many bacterium that have more base pairs than humans.
Here is one with over 1 trillion base pairs. 300x more than you and I. www.springerlink.com...

Bacterial genes are packed more closely together in their genome than, say, in the human genome, and the genes still appear to interact with each other in complex ways.

A Mathematician may use Euclidean Geometry in his study of Geometry and/or Mathematics. It doesn't make him a Euclideanist.

An Evolutionary biologist uses Darwinian natural selection in his study of natural selection or modern evolutionary synthesis but it doesn't make him/her a Darwinist either.

Originally posted by Ulster

Originally posted by Howie47
reply to post by Ulster

 

So in your way of thinking. The very first life. Is no less complex then humans?! Humans are just more fit?!

Complexity is your word not mine. Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements. Not just the number of elements.

You argued than new information was added. That is not correct i many cases.

There are many bacterium that have more base pairs than humans.
Here is one with over 1 trillion base pairs. 300x more than you and I. www.springerlink.com...

Bacterial genes are packed more closely together in their genome than, say, in the human genome, and the genes still appear to interact with each other in complex ways.

Your making a good argument for Intelligent Design theory! Yes bacteria is very complex. We don't find any very simple forms of life on this planet. Which is what Darwin suspected when He devised his theory.
All that complexity didn't just 'pop' into existence!