(Insert controversial and attention grabbing title concerning evolution, creationism and god here), page 2

reply to post by TheWill

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Hi I honestly missed the reply u2u Sorry

Some because not all variation has a genetic basis - for example, people do have a tendency to put on weight at different rates, but a certain amount in the variation of body weight will also come down to environmental factors - starving people, regardless of their genetics, tend to be lighter than people with unlimited food. Phenotypic versus genotypic variation, and a general avoidance of making absolute comments.

People have the ability to store food internally as fat. Just like all sea mammals do. We also have flat feet and some of us even have skin between the fingers like a frog. We lost our body hair because it made as more agile in the water even our babies have no problem holding their breath.... instinct. Some time in our past we have been developing in an area with lots of water. Then it all became a dessert. Luckily our watery past made us able to stand up. Straight

You mean we were at first some sort of dolphin ? But got screwed and lost our flippers ?

I'll respond later on the other stuff

reply to post by Sinter Klaas

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People have the ability to store food internally as fat. Just like all sea mammals do. We also have flat feet and some of us even have skin between the fingers like a frog. We lost our body hair because it made as more agile in the water even our babies have no problem holding their breath.... instinct. Some time in our past we have been developing in an area with lots of water. Then it all became a dessert. Luckily our watery past made us able to stand up. Straight

As much as most, if not all, vertebrates store energy as fat, and I believe that a great many invertebrates do, too (I'm sure about insects and fairly sure about molluscs, crustaceans and annelids, but the rest are all worms to me), the points that you have outlined cry back to one of the chapters in Desmond Morris' "manwatching" (very dodgy sounding title, but puts a lot of - now quite old - anthropological concepts into a much more accessible format), which is a discussion of (someone else's) suggestion that mankind is an amphibious ape. I personally think that the argument is very convincing.

Compared to our close non-human relatives, all humans have webbed fingers - there is considerably less freedom of the thumb in humans than there is in, for example, chimpanzees, because of an extended web of skin between thumb and index fingers. Not just in populations with frog-like webbing.

You mean we were at first some sort of dolphin ? But got screwed and lost our flippers ?

Now I'm confused... unless there's two people typing.

Either way, I'm bored, so...

Humans wouldn't be descendant from some sort of dolphin, more - in the same way that hippopotamuses are adapted to an amphibious lifestyle that is probably not a far cry from that of the ancestor of their closest relatives (dolphins and whales), which have further adapted to a fully aquatic lifestyle, and seals seem to be a largely aquatic animal evolved from a dog-like ancestor, humans would represent just another (of many) mammalian returns to an amphibious lifestyle.

reply to post by TheWill

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Lol you're bored.

First what do yo feel is a good theory the amphibious ape theory isn't even considered consensus yet it explains a lot about everything except for some kind of devolution.

It is late for me but you attracted my curiosity I want to know how far we share knowledge and hopefully can ad new for both.

Forgive me for my weird reply last time I was doing multiple thinks at once and I really can;t multi task


PS
I actually think the title is genius

reply to post by Sinter Klaas

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I like the amphibious ape theory because it explains:

1) relatively fine hair (Actually more hair, in terms of hair follicles per unit area of skin, than Pan spp., but it is noticeably less thick)

2) Vestigial nature of human toes - of course, this could equally be explained by the fragility of long digits when running on flat ground. Ostriches, for example, have undergone reduction in the number of toes (and there are a couple of tribes either in sub-saharan Africa or Indonesia, can't remember which, were a large portion of the population has only two toes per foot, like ostriches.

3) the shape of the human nose. For me, our noses are the most striking difference when I look at the other apes. Our noses are generally a better shape for keeping out water, but I have trouble seeing any other adaptive significance of them.

4) the web between thumb and forefinger (not froglike, but still greater than in other apes)

5) that babies can swim at birth

6) why I (personally) have a much stronger reaction to aquatic predators than terrestrial predators (terrestrial predators I just avoid, but if I so much as look at a decent-sized crocodile my heart seems to want to stop beating.

There are other morphological traits, and the diving reflex, which I don't pretend to fully understand (although I have noticed that it's easier to hold my breath for a long time in water than on dry land), but those are the biggies for me.

To me it is just a hypothesis as to how we came to be the way we are, but of the available hypotheses, I'm rooting for either an aquatic origin (late pleistocene decline of fruit trees forced Pan into omnivory in a forest setting, and our ancestors into the water for the relatively easy prey to be found there) or a "plains ape" origin - where the split between Pan and Homo is closely associated with the divergence of forest/savannah elephants and widespread deforestation by said savannah elephants, creating a novel habitat...

One of my lecturers gave what I feel is a good criteria for deciding whether something is viable - it must be necessary, and it must be sufficient. He was talking about gene products in the context of embryological development, but I feel it holds true elsewhere, too. A good adaptive explanation must be better than its contemporaries at explaining the trait in question, and it must - to me - provide a satisfactory explanation as to how that trait could have come to fixation.

Sorry if that's a little hard to follow - it's almost as late here, I think, as it is in the netherlands.

EDIT - returning to the point, for me to like a theory there are just two real conditions: 1) that I have heard of it and 2) that, if the same data had been available to me, I would have come to the conclusion. Statistical significance is useful, but I can take it or leave it.

EDIT pt ii: I'm confused by your mention of "devolution"... In my view, evolution only has direction in time. Fitness is maintained above a certain threshold (below which is extinction), and changes that "revert" to a former state represent evolution just as much as progression to novel states.

reply to post by thedeadtruth

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That is an interesting way of seeing it. I've always felt that someone who knew everything would be driven completely insane (and thus rendered incapable of passing any of their infinite knowledge on) by that knowledge, but this doesn't stop me from trying... the thought of the exploding head is slightly more dissuasive, perhaps worryingly, than the thought of insanity.

That said, I'm curious as to your response to the questions at the end of the OP - without reference to any of the specific evolutionary hypotheses (i.e. who shares a common ancestor with whom, what selective pressures led to what divergences et cetera), what are your thoughts on the explanation of (the theory of) evolution I offer there?

Thanks.

reply to post by Kailassa

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I've never really thought about my version of predator avoidance from an inherited memory perspective - more along the lines of any aquatic ape who saw a crocodile swimming nearby and thought to itself "meh, so what?" would likely not have very many children, and so any heritable basis for non-avoidance of crocodiles would vanish, or any heritable basis for specific avoidance of them would be heavily selected for.

I don't really know what to think about heritable memory - on the one hand, there are places (geographically speaking) where my family comes from, and when I'm in those places I feel safer than when I'm not, but this could be my own personal memory having been skewed since by familiarity with the areas.

It would fit very nicely with Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields ("Dogs that know when their owners are coming home and other unexplained powers of animals" is the book of his that I've read, and he presents fairly convincing evidence for long distance communication without physical cues), but I probably have more trouble getting my head around those than heritable memory.

reply to post by TheWill

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Like telepathy, it would certainly be an evolutionary advantage to have some memory from your ancestors.
I've experienced many things which are presently unprovable, but I believe we should not over-rate the present extent of our knowledge. If something can happen, there must be a rational explanation for it. However the negative converse is also assumed to be true by many, which is patently illogical. One day we might understand the mechanisms for many things which are currently dismissed through lack of demonstrable evidence.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

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Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
What has been observed in labs is this : Organisms undergo mutations, but not to the extent that they have develop into an organism that is unrecognizable from its predecessor... as the theory of evolution suggests.

This is not what the theory of evolution suggests. In fact, we would be able to recognize an ancestor of the descendant species for quite a few generations...hundreds and thousands even. It could go back millions of years with an obvious relation between a point a few million years back and now. Now, if you go back even longer...things might get dicey. But it depends.

It's currently held as being quite certain that birds evolved from a specific set of dinosaurs. We have evidence of this because there are recognizable similarities between them over spans of millions of years. Hell, some dinosaurs even had feathers.

I generally disagree with the idea that mutations over millions of years not only physiologically changes an organism to the extent that its unrecognizable from its ancestor, but adds in qualities and traits that were not present as well.

Again, it's not unrecognizable. It's not even always indistinguishable. It just wouldn't be interfertile with the preceding species. Nylon eating bacteria are an example of added qualities and traits not present in ancestral species. Nylon eating bacteria would have been unable to exist prior to the existence of the synthetic substance known as nylon.

Evolutionary science makes the claim that gradual change over millions of years does this... but cannot back this claim up through observations.

Except that it can.

The fossil record is just about good enough to establish that a certain specimen existed, NOT to conclude that it is part of a sequence.

Why?

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

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Before you read the following, be aware that the author (me) of this particular post is grumpy today, and as such the post may come off more aggressively than it was intended, so please don't take it personally.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
My Questions

Except that you don't actually ask any.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n

Originally posted by TheWill
a) Do you believe that evolution occurs? (Please don't say something like "micro-evolution, not macro" because then I will have to explain why the concept of a species is flawed, thus making the concept of speciation flawed, thus meaning that the division between micro and macro evolution has no basis in biology)

Well, I believe that evolution occurs to the extent of what has been observed in labs. Nothing more, nothing less. What has been observed in labs is this : Organisms undergo mutations, but not to the extent that they have develop into an organism that is unrecognizable from its predecessor... as the theory of evolution suggests.

Doesn't really answer my question.

Did you read the OP? Or did you just come in here with an agenda and post away with fingers blazing? Mutations are, if you read the OP, only necessary for evolution to continue long term. Of course, if you feel that I have misrepresented evolution as a concept, please feel free to detail this, rather than leaving N/A for that part.
Mutations are not, typically, expected to change the form of an animal greatly - although, I must add, mutations to the reglatory regions of genes do tend to be noticeable. Ever noticed how a lot of different species have some individuals that are a lot smaller than the rest?

That's a mutation in the regulatory region. Same with difference in length of nose, size of ears, colour of skin. I know a lady who's got an extra pair of ribs - that's a mutation in the Hox genes. Regulatory region are pretty much the only non-synonymous mutations within mammals, and the Hox genes are hardly tampered without throughout the animal kingdom. Most modern mammals (with the exception of Afrotheria and Xenarthra, which are considered basal) are far from unrecogniseable from their extant relatives, let alone their predecessors

originally posted by sk0rpi0n

Originally posted by TheWill
b) If no, which of the above numbered points - please be specific - do you disagree with, and why?

I generally disagree with the idea that mutations over millions of years not only physiologically changes an organism to the extent that its unrecognizable from its ancestor, but adds in qualities and traits that were not present as well. Evolutionary science makes the claim that gradual change over millions of years does this... but cannot back this claim up through observations. The fossil record is just about good enough to establish that a certain specimen existed, NOT to conclude that it is part of a sequence.

Which is not "one of the above points".

However, a) most living animals have at least some relatives which they can be visually associated with (although I admit that it's a leap from newts and frogs to caecilians). Heck, even Queen Victoria, who was more concerned with being misquoted after her death vis-a-vis her state of amusement, noted how remarkably human apes were.

And what's unrecogniseable? I mean, a snail is a snail, yes? And it's not hard to see that a slug's not unlike a snail, is it? Does having four legs, fur, and a spine make something recogniseably the same? Because I'm going through vole and shrew bones lately, and I can tell you, when it's not from a head or leg, I've got no clue as to which it comes from.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n

Originally posted by TheWill
c) Do you (regardless of your stance on evolution) feel that the above points do not accurately portray the concept of evolution, and if so, which ones do you disagree with, and why?

N/A

Not applicable? Of course it's applicable! You've made no mention of the points actually made, and instead brought up your own. Does this mean that the points I made were not an accurate representation of evolution (as a concept) or not?



Thanks muchly! Starred because you did have a go at answering the questions, and I recognise that my post sounds like a rant, which it's not - I'm just snappy because my computer cost me £60 earlier today because it couldn't wait until after my exams until its cable went kaput. So, sorry if I've taken that out on you.

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