For Evolutionary Theorists, A Challenge from the Ocean Depths

reply to post by vasaga

What both alternatives do, is add consciousness in the mix. That's the only way forward. Nowadays people love to dismiss it as some deterministic chemical process, but it's not working out. The evolution theory probably would become complete, if consciousness was added to it, and maybe the two alternatives above will no longer be needed. I obviously don't know which one is right or isn't right, but, that's why we should have the right to question. If we stay in the evolution vs creationism paradigm, we'll keep going in circles forever.

Neither of your two alternatives are alternatives for evolution. If anything they are alternatives for abiogenesis. Further, they have no scientific component of any kind, that is, they can be neither tested nor falsified.

So, have you any alternatives to Evolution?

reply to post by Astyanax


Perhaps they are simply being pushed out of their natural habitats due to a variety of causes. Junk on the ocean floor is disrupting their ability to remain unseen and undetected until now or for the past decade when sightings of enormous squid began to float topside. It is so sad to be alive to witness all of this. Like an elephant or whale our souls will carry this memory forever.

reply to post by antar

Giant squid are not an endangered species. They exist in great numbers all over the world and the only known threat to them comes from their natural enemies, sperm whales. They live far too deep to be bothered by most human activity.

The population crash and genetic bottleneck we're discussing in this species occurred tens of thousands of years ago—if it occurred at all.

Thank you all the same for commenting on the thread.

reply to post by rnaa

So, have you any alternatives to Evolution?

Vasaga has left, and closed the door politely behind him. Since the truth or falsity of evolution is not the topic of this thread, may I appeal to you to keep that door closed?

I would much rather hear what you think about the matter of the thread topic.

reply to post by Astyanax


Not sure if your answer gives much relief from the sadness I feel in seeing these beautiful giants of the oceans floor continue to float dead to the surface. It just "Feels" wrong to me and another indication that the entire eco system is in one of the greatest challenges of my lifetime. I LOVE the oceans so much and have seen so much negative change. As for the bottleneck effect, I was mistaken.

reply to post by antar

Not sure if your answer gives much relief from the sadness I feel in seeing these beautiful giants of the oceans floor continue to float dead to the surface.

Animals die, antar, and when they die they leave corpses. Console yourself with the thought that if a dead squid was found floating, complete, on the surface, it wasn't torn apart by the jaws of a sperm whale while still alive—the usual fate of these monsters. The ocean is a deadly place, far more so than the land. The struggle for existence there is ferocious and relentless.

There is a fish called the mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) that is common in most of the world's tropical and temperate oceans. Mahi-mahi pretty much exist to be eaten; it's been calculated that about 90 percent of all mahi-mahi end up being eaten alive. But that is the common fate of most ocean denizens.

Do you know what is the world's most successful predator, after man? It's Orcinus orca, the killer whale. It has the widest distribution of any mammal except H. sapiens, thriving in a wide variety of environments from the Equator to the poles, a beautiful, deadly, highly intelligent (it's a dolphin), versatile, insatiable killing machine.

Dolphins, too, are deadly predators. In addition, the sexual behaviour of at least some dolphin species is based on gang-rape.

And in the deep dark depths where dolphins and orca do not go, pilot whales and sperm whales are equally deadly predators. And they are just the apex of a whole pyramid of predatory and parasitical relationships among ocean life that extends from the air above (predatory birds) to the benthic ooze. There is no escape anywhere.

We think of baleen whales (the plankton feeders—blues, humpbacks and the rest) as relatively benign creatures because they don't hunt prey large enough for us to feel empathy with. But every day, a blue whale swallows anything up to seven tons of krill (small shrimp) and other 'zooplankton', meaning small animals—bait fish, fry, jellyfish, squid, and so on. Tens of thousands of tiny lives with every gulp. They are not vegetarians.

None of this has anything to do with human impact on the oceans, deleterious though that undoubtedly is. This is Nature at her finest. She is not sentimental. She doesn't do compassion. She cares nothing for the feelings of sensitive, kind-hearted folk.

It amazes me how those that believe in evolution, which is till theoretical, attack those that say they don't believe in evolution or creation, but in the possibility of some other way.

Do you people realize how asinine you sound, when you attack that persons perspective ?

reply to post by Blue_Jay33

I am frequently asinine. Now, have you anything to say on the thread topic or are you just here to express your antipathy towards evolution? Because if it is the latter, I have nothing to say to you and I sincerely hope nobody else will say anything to you either.

reply to post by Astyanax
It's an interesting puzzler isn't it? I read your OP last week and couldn't think of anything reasonable. However a couple of ideas have emerged today that make a little sense.

Firstly, we don't have a lot of data to determine that giant squids are extraordinarily lacking in variation. The study involved 43 samples and historical conclusions from morphology. Then again, the minuscule differences in the samples they do have are novel enough to extrapolate across the species and will have to do until more samples are available.

That aside, I wonder if giant squid fulfil a reproduction cycle like migratory squid and fish? In a scenario like this, we might imagine them having a migratory urge that involves a specific breeding area? If so, their international spread might not be influential in creating speciation or more genetic diversity?

What could be throttling the changes are a small gene-pool and a life cycle that restricts their population growth. For example, it's a common hardship of marine life that wherever species are rearing their young a seasonal ecosystem arises with a predatory food pyramid. I'm thinking of situations like the shark frenzy at specific beaches where marine turtles are hatched. In this scenario we might speculate that a whale population would include such a location on its travels and keep the squid species very limited.

Quite possibly the giant squid have been on the evolutionary back-foot for centuries. Yeah, I'm speculating and firing maybes all over the post. Maybe in the past when the seas had far more marine life, the squid were forced to maintain similarly small populations in the face of increased predation by whales? Conversely, such whales would also have enjoyed greater food resources elsewhere which potentially allowed the poor squid to allay extinction altogether.

Unless I'm mistaken, it might be possible to test the idea of a giant squid birthing area by analysing the beaks in the same way we can identify where humans and animals grew up by mineral analyses. Admittedly I'm out on quite a limb with that one

Incidentally, in response to posts by you and Antar (hiya Antar), I was reminded of a sequence in Attenborough's Blue Planet that makes me glad I'm not a sea critter >>

reply to post by Kandinsky

That was an amazing video; many thanks. I wouldn't be a bait fish for any money.

Some of your maybes are pretty interesting. The fact is, marine ethology is a pretty sketchy science. Most of what was received wisdom a generation ago has been superseded—for instance, it is now evident that there are many more whales in the world than was previously thought. I once saw five, possibly six blue whales at a feeding-ground, all within the course of an hour. And at one time it was estimated there were less than a hundred of them in the whole world! That can't have been right, surely? Such estimates were going around just 30 years ago, and whales don't breed like rabbits do...

But we have the technology to study life in the oceans properly now, and we're learning fast. Did you know that sperm whales, possibly the world record divers among air-breathing animals (the leatherback turtle has a rival claim) sometimes get the bends? Stranded sperm whale corpses often show signs of the bone pitting associated with decompression sickness. Yet these amazingly specialised predators must dive as far down as a kilometre to find their prey. And taking giant squid is not easy; you may have seen the horrific scars sperm whales carry. Their bodies are also often misshapen, which may be genetic but could just as well be due to the rigours of their lifestyle. Yet they live longer than we do—up to 70 years, which is much longer than we could in the wild if we had to hunt our own prey. How do we know how long they live? Whale teeth have annual rings, just like tree-trunks.

Your idea of migratory squid converging on a common breeding-ground is intriguing. I don't know enough to judge how likely that is. But all the world's giant squid are one species, something that was not known until a few weeks ago, which sort of fits your hypothesis. No-one knows how long they live.

By the way, I don't want to give the impression I have saltwater in my veins or anything. I love the sea, but as sailors go I'm strictly a passenger, and I don't get out nearly as often as I'd like to.

reply to post by Astyanax


I am here to support those that have seen that evolution is bogus, people have figured it out, but are perhaps agnostic towards biblical creation.
Guess why ?
Because they are one step ahead of those that still believe in a theory that has so many holes in it, it makes swiss cheese look solid.

They have had the epiphany that theories that concern cosmology, abiogenesis and evolution are inextricably linked together.

Anyway back on topic...

The team’s conclusions are based on the mitochondrial genome alone.
The Mitochondrial DNA is not the whole story. I would like to see what the Nuclear DNA shows before stating that Architeuthis has no population structure.

The chemical analyses of the squids beaks suggest that they stick within a relatively contained patch of ocean. But.. the squid larva have been collected on the surface and are certainly capable of passively drifting over tens of thousands of miles on oceans currents. Maybe they used to be restricted to a specific part of the world but were released by some ancient event, like a change in climate, or the extinction of a competitor.

reply to post by Astyanax


Given that the most likely scenario for the population decrease that led to a breeding bottle-neck in our own species was an event that created a nuclear winter, it would be my guess, depending on the life span, and reproductive frequency, that the giant squid could also have been affected by the loss of sunlight. However, differing from the human experience, it would have been more to do with it's primary predators, deep sea sharks finding their other food sources diminished and therefore having to rely on it's secondary diet of juvenile giant squids which limited, or even in some areas entirely prevented, reproductive success for the squid leaving only those pocketed in areas that the deep sea sharks could not reach.

reply to post by Astyanax

Oh ya, squids like cockroaches just may be a higher form of evolution which will not come to fruition but billions if not trillions of years from now, however if and when it does it will not be on this planet. But what is the pinnacle of the human form? Or have we reached it already? Evolution, evolution, ever wonder why is it that even if you keep humanities closest cousins the chimps around humans for generations and generations they will not likely develop any traits or any of humanities traits will pass on to them, and as soon as that influence that is humanity is gone, they will go back to being just monkeys in trees trowing poop at each other in a eye blink. That one percent in the genome is a whole world of difference, and yet how did it come to be in so mere a time-frame, when if you were to switch things around the same would not be said not even in millions or billions of years likely. Your answer would be as good as any other, but the likely answer may also be that it was not accomplished in that time frame. What if the nutters to some degree are right? What then? What if it is all just some experiment? By others.

To live in stasis for long periods of time is a greater evolutionary trait and achievement then society is, or ever was. You don't believe me? Wait around a few billion years and things just may become clearer.

Originally posted by antar
reply to post by Astyanax

 

Not sure if your answer gives much relief from the sadness I feel in seeing these beautiful giants of the oceans floor continue to float dead to the surface. It just "Feels" wrong to me and another indication that the entire eco system is in one of the greatest challenges of my lifetime. I LOVE the oceans so much and have seen so much negative change. As for the bottleneck effect, I was mistaken.

Sea Apples.

The denizens of the deep sea like Astyanax are being consumed on a daily basis, yet they are not aware of it. But in all the same can be said of everybody and everything including humans, its all just a matter of awareness of it. In nature there is no such thing as a negative or a positive, ultimately even death does not really exist since like you and others are so fond of saying, we are one, and we are all matter, and all matter is merely recycled.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird


Wow, no other stars for your post but mine? Ok, well I have to say that it feels like you are wise.

Originally posted by Astyanax
The population crash and genetic bottleneck we're discussing in this species occurred tens of thousands of years ago—if it occurred at all.

Or maybe there was no bottleneck and instead the DNA polymerase that replicates their mitochondrial DNA just has very high fidelity. We'll know a lot more if they sequence some nuclear genomes..

Originally posted by Blue_Jay33
reply to post by Astyanax

 

I am here to support those that have seen that evolution is bogus, people have figured it out, but are perhaps agnostic towards biblical creation.
Guess why ?
Because they are one step ahead of those that still believe in a theory that has so many holes in it, it makes swiss cheese look solid.

The cool thing about scientific theories is that they can be disproved. It has been 153 years and some months since On the Origin of Species was published, and so far nobody has managed to disprove its main point. So one must wonder, what makes you think it's bogus? Name the holes. Darwin's original publication had one major hole, but I'm almost certain you don't know it (and anyway it was resolved a long time ago).

reply to post by antar

Nah the thing just reminded me of another thread... Yours I think, I forgot what it was about the sea and zombies or some such, which in a way reminded me of this thread, deep sea critters and squids, evolution and off course, sea apples.

On a genetic level it is very very hard to find a difference between a baboon and a human, all the parts that make one or the other is there and on a genetic level there all interchangeable. In fact there is a difference, a difference of sequencing, but that to is negligible, its just a matter were the same parts go in the configuration but all the parts are the same all throughout the board, but in there sequencing. And ya the whole evolution thing can be disproven also, I really do not know why people say it cant, I suppose they just like it, and its a pretty theory I suppose. But like the fact that we are all one can be mystified into some sort of fell good believe, when it just says were all ultimately just recycled matter, here, then, now, and ever on. So to can the whole evolution thing can be expressed into something that is really really not very pretty to look at...But that to is just sequencing a sequencing of facts and truths, all of which are ultimately negligible.

Originally posted by rhinoceros
Darwin's original publication had one major hole, but I'm almost certain you don't know it (and anyway it was resolved a long time ago).

If its the hole I'm thinking of, the original publication went quite well in that regard, and it was only after some criticism did Darwin modify his book (wrongly) for later editions that made the hole.
But anyway, that was resolved a long time ago.