The biggest flaw in Evolutionary Theory

reply to post by rhinoceros


I should have included archaea but glossed over it because I was operating under outdated thoughts that it is very much like bacteria and viruses and I begrudgingly admit that I neglected plasmids as well. This is what I get for going off the top of my head on something I haven't studied in 15 years. Lack of due diligence will get me every time! Had I done so I would have realized that the newer view is a separate chain of evolution for archaea, bacteria and viruses. Thanks for the correction, you're never too old to relearn something or add something new to the wheel house.

FreeMason

boncho
reply to post by FreeMason

 

Oh wow, you did it, you totally disproved evolution, go collect your Nobel.







Wait...

Do some reading...

Our DNA from day one to our deaths is not the same. Dammit! Your whole theory, disproved with one little side note.

Shucks.

Bacteria and viruses alter our cells over time, no different than how they incorporated themselves into each other eons ago.

Because all evolution is thought to occur happenstance, regardless of the inputs needed, it still relies upon a random number generator and great time to make low probability more probable.

So there is no environmental factors in evolution?

edit on 10-10-2013 by boncho because: (no reason given)

Bacteria and Viruses do not evolve and are misused as examples of evolution.

A Bacteria never becomes more than a Bacteria, and a Virus never becomes anything other than another type of Virus. Mutations and adaptations within their own genetic limits is not in any way a form of evolution, it is what they are genetically made to do.

A bacteria can no more evolve into a complex cellular organism with a backbone, than a primate could evolve into a human.

And on that note, Humans share only 93-95% DNA with Chimps, but share 98% DNA with Pigs.

Are we more related to Pigs than to the proposed ancestor of our lineage?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

rnaa
reply to post by winofiend

 

The thylacine for example, a marsupial, with all the characteristics of a canine. Evolved entirely separate from all other animal life, in a completely different environment.

The only thing in those sentences that is correct is that the thylacine ('Tasmanian Tiger') was (is? some folks think its still out there) a marsupial.

There are lots of marsupials still around. The Tasmanian Devil is quite closely related to the Thylacine. In Australia and New Guinea there are dozens of species including Kangaroos, Wallabies, Possums, Quolls, Koalas, Wombats, Fruit Bats. I can hear a Ringtailed Possum banging around on top of my roof as I type this (I've got RIngtails in my backyard and Brushtailed in my front yard).

In addition, there are dozens of extinct marsupials that were obviously co-existent with the Thylacine. One of these extinct marsupials has been termed the 'Marsupial Lion' and another, a giant wombat was as big as a cow.

Marsupials are not just in Australia. The Opossum family is very large and resides in both North and South America.

I don't know what kind of point you thought you were trying to make with such a dumb statement, but you are wrong whatever it is.

His point was plain and simple (and it whistled as it sailed above your head); that the thylacine (much like thylacaleo, the 'Marsupial Lion' you mention above) is a striking example of convergent evolution.

When he said 'evolved separately from all other animal life', yes that is technically incorrect, but his point was that our marsupials here evolved in isolation from all other mammals spread over most of the rest of the globe (once the supercontinent, Gondwanaland, broke up and started spreading apart).

And when you attack posters for minor technicalities like this, you'd better try and make sure you have your own facts straight (else you end up looking stupid) -

There are lots of marsupials still around. The Tasmanian Devil is quite closely related to the Thylacine. In Australia and New Guinea there are dozens of species including Kangaroos, Wallabies, Possums, Quolls, Koalas, Wombats, Fruit Bats.

Fruit Bats (aka Flying Foxes, genus Pteropus) are not marsupials.

reply to post by ReturnofTheSonOfNothing

Fruit Bats (aka Flying Foxes, genus Pteropus) are not marsupials.

Oops. I plead guilty, yer 'onor. That was indeed a serious mistake.

However, your defense of winofiend's post, while good intentioned I'm sure, is just hiding his mistakes which were more than just 'technically incorrect'.

I am addressing this to you, ReturnofTheSonOfNothing (RoTSON) because you tried to explain what winofiend's point was. I appologize to you winofiend if it sounds like I am talking to about you behind your back, I don't mean it that way, I just couldn't figure out what point you were trying to make, and what I considered your badly misunderstood description of the thylacine almost made me think you were trying to deny evolution somehow. I just couldn't work it out; sorry.

winofiend said:

The thylacine for example, a marsupial, with all the characteristics of a canine. Evolved entirely separate from all other animal life, in a completely different environment.

Yet had markedly similar characteristics to mammalian evolution.

The thylacine did not evolve separate from all other animal life, in any way shape or form. It was (is?) a carnivore. How could it evolve as a carnivore if there was no animal life around? It it meant that it evolved 'differently' from all other animal life, winofiend was even more wrong. There are lots of animals, all over the world that fill a similar ecological niche. Winofiend mentioned dogs, for example, and I mentioned the Tasmanian Devil.

Furthermore, winofiend correctly identifies the thylacine as a marsupial. Marsupials are mammals, of course they have "markedly similar characteristics to mammalian evolution". What point is made by telling us that water is wet?

Not only but also, a thylacine may have looked superficially like some dogs look, but they did not behave like dogs. For a start, they were not hunt in packs (though we don't know enough about them to say that as an absolute; there are apparently reports they might have hunted in small groups but that may have been parents teaching their young). There are other animals superficially similar to dogs that are not dogs, for example the hyena.

Finally on that thought, marsupials evolved on Gondawanaland, as you say, and when the split occured, marsupials who happened to be 'caught' on Australia/New Guinea continued to evolve as did those in America. They did not arise separately on Australia and America, they were just geographically isolated some time later. In modern times, the thylacine was a 'relict', the isolated remnate of a larger population that died out on the mainland (Tasmania was joined to the Australian mainland until the sea rise after the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago).

The fact that there are marsupials in America and Australia are not examples of 'convergent evolution'. The fact that there are thylacines, dogs, and hyenas in different parts of the world are examples of "convergent evolution".

winofiend goes on to say:

Does this give any credibility to evolution working as it should,

In what way does that 'question' make sense? Evolution works the way evolution works. There isn't any right way for it to work; nor is there any wrong way for it to work. There is just the way it does work.

winofiend tries to clarify what is meant by that question:

where the environment helps to shape the outcome of the life it contains?

This at least is an interesting question, albeit in my opinion more philosophical than scientific. Leaving aside that there is no 'working as it should', does the environment 'actively' participate in evolution or does it 'passively' provide opportunities for exploitation. I vote for passive, but perhaps others have different views.

Winfiend continues:

Where it is not required, life will remain unchanged. Where it is an effervescent and volatile environment, life will be varied and different. There is no requirement for things to change where there is no need to change.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution, I think. Life always changes. Even though some animals appear to continue in the same form for many millions of years, they are never the less changing with every generation. For example, crocodiles were long considered to be 'living fossils', but it has been shown that they are indeed actively evolving.

Why would life need to duplicate a spine? The structure exists as it does without need to improve in life that has evolved with it, and in other life, it is completely missing, and replaced by an exoskeleton.

I just don't know where this comment came from. I can't find any reference to anybody asking about the spine in the thread. To whom is winofiend conversing here, and what is the point being made?

There are several 'organs' that have evolved that do the same sort of thing in different animals. The eye has evolved at least 3 times (squid, mammal, jellyfish); wings 2 (birds, bats).

I don't know about convergent evolution of spines, I haven't thought about it, but the divergence of vertebrates and invertebrates was very early on. I don't know of any evidence that the spine evolved more than once, but I don't know of any absolute assertion that it didn't either. How would we know? A fossil of a fish on one side of the world may or may not be the exact first individual that ever had a spine, but how would be know that or distinguish it from the fossil of a fish on the opposite side of the world? How would we know that the spine was evolved separately or one was a relative of the other?

I appologise again winofiend for talking away from you, I don't mean to offend, it's just the way my thoughts came together that I was addressing RoTSON.

reply to post by rnaa


I'll leave it up to winofiend to address those points, as I am not his mouthpiece.

However I will say this - I believe he 'miss-spoke' when he said thylacines evolved independantly of all other 'animals'. I believe he intended to say "mammals' - that Australian marsupials evolved in isolation compared to most other placental mammals, and thus there are amongst them fairly decent examples of convergent evolution where these marsupials resemble or occupy the same ecological niches as some placental mammals.

I don't think we actually disagree on this point, do we?

reply to post by flyingfish


Fair play my friend. Perhaps I am slightly more understanding of them than you are.

Once again though, may I ask, are you speaking about ANY creationist in general, or are you speaking about specific types I.e those who follow religious texts? I draw a big divide between the two.

DazDaKing
reply to post by flyingfish

 

Fair play my friend. Perhaps I am slightly more understanding of them than you are.

Once again though, may I ask, are you speaking about ANY creationist in general, or are you speaking about specific types I.e those who follow religious texts? I draw a big divide between the two.

I understand well.
I'm not against creationists themselves, I have friends and relatives that are creationist, you could even say I'm creationist, it's entirely possible the Universe was created.

It's mostly the anti-evolution creationists, that just make up unevidence proclamations and lie about it after they are refuted, then cry that they're being biased against. If they could just provide evidenced ideas, then there wouldn't be any bias and we could have decent honest debate.

Anyway a bit off topic, you can read my thread Dishonest Creationist Tactics= Bad Religion and get a better understanding of what I'm talking about.

Philosophile
You're arguing with facts from a peer-reviewed, college level textbook for Biology that is taught to students? My goodness. Bless your heart. Mitochondria is not a parasite. Otherwise it'd be recognized as such by our bodies and our immune system would begin its process of eliminating the intruders. Therefore, mitochondria could not possibly parasitic invaders to our bodies.

edit on 12-10-2013 by Philosophile because: typos

Does the textbook discuss the origin of mitachondria?

If it does, it would describe an early form of parasite (or at least an entirely different cell-type) that has now become – and we now call – mitachondria. Its various forms are now symbiotic with our, and most other living organism's cells.

The reason our body doesn't reject it is because this symbiosis existed billions of years before 'bodies' even existed! Among other research, this is a very good grounding in the origin of mitochondria:
www.nature.com...

FreeMason

But randomness cannot happen linear progressively.

I think the randomness part is a misnomer since chemistry follows very define rules, so it is not all a random condition. We have a tendency to suggest that the replacement of intelligent design is randomness and that is only a part of it all. Why do you suggest it is ALL linear? It is only linear looking from the present to the past, but if one was to look from the beginning to now one would see billions of branches that lead off into other animals or deadened along the way.

The intelligent design part only has to do with whether we are preconceive to be exactly human as we are or if that is just how things turned out.

One last thing to think about...life is very hard to kill once it is in a place that can support it, species, on the other hand, come and go all the time. We are a species and if we do not die out, evolution will do the job in a few million years as we become a new species, or does someone suggest that humans are the only lifeform that doesn't change.

reply to post by Xtrozero


Creationists always go on about 'Randomness' while completely missing the point that random mutations are filtered cumulatively by a completely not-random process called natural selection.

It would be like if you were going to try and crack a safe using 'random' guesses. If it was a 12 digit number and you had to guess the entire number in one go - it would be next to impossible. This is what creationists *think* evolution represents. It does not.

Imagine if you had to guess those 12 digits, but where you had some method of positive feedback from the locking mechanism, so that as you guessed each individual digit, the lock would 'tell' you if that discrete digit was correct. Suddenly unlocking the safe goes from 'astronomical' in the above example, to 'a foregone conclusion' or simply a matter of time. It becomes much, much easier.

This 'feedback' on each digit is analogous to non-random natural selection acting upon random mutations (ie, your random guesses at each digit). It's a cumulative process.

All this nonsense about tornadoes and junk yards and boeing 747's is just the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of this process.

ReturnofTheSonOfNothing
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

Creationists always go on about 'Randomness' while completely missing the point that random mutations are filtered cumulatively by a completely not-random process called natural selection.

It would be like if you were going to try and crack a safe using 'random' guesses. If it was a 12 digit number and you had to guess the entire number in one go - it would be next to impossible. This is what creationists *think* evolution represents. It does not.

Imagine if you had to guess those 12 digits, but where you had some method of positive feedback from the locking mechanism, so that as you guessed each individual digit, the lock would 'tell' you if that discrete digit was correct. Suddenly unlocking the safe goes from 'astronomical' in the above example, to 'a foregone conclusion' or simply a matter of time. It becomes much, much easier.

This 'feedback' on each digit is analogous to non-random natural selection acting upon random mutations (ie, your random guesses at each digit). It's a cumulative process.

All this nonsense about tornadoes and junk yards and boeing 747's is just the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of this process.

Except there is no such thing as natural selection. The lion isn't competing with the gazelle and vice versa, they are in concert together as part of an intricate biosphere. To suggest that natural selection is the only force of progress in evolution ignores the fact that millions of different branches of gene expression exist all of which are necessary to support the whole tree.

Natural selection works very good for mankind, who in fact does genocide and completely destroy entire families of races, like the Native Americans who are almost completely extinct as far as a pure race goes.

But this doesn't really seem to occur naturally.

Even with natural selection guiding random events, the events have too rare an occurrence to have ever happened.

The evolution of prokaryote into eukaryote happened once in 4 Billion years.

That's 1 out of 4,000,000,000 chance per year.

The fact that it happened only once disproves it ever having happened.

reply to post by bitsforbytes

But, I find it easier and simpler to believe in our Father.

In other words, you find it easier and simpler not to think at all. I get ya. And while I'm "getting ya", I would like to recommend that you not participate in any matters that will significantly impact the future of our society. I'd hate to see you put that "God-given" brain to work, seeing as how it causes you such inconvenience.

reply to post by FreeMason

The lion isn't competing with the gazelle and vice versa

Correct! Well done.

Lions compete with other lions and gazelles with other gazelles.

they are in concert together as part of an intricate biosphere.

Whose agent of creation was good old opportunism.

millions of different branches of gene expression exist all of which are necessary to support the whole tree

Branches are forever falling off the tree (as you put it) while new branches grow. The tree is constantly changing shape. It is very robust. You can prune it down almost to the roots — it's happened a few times, most radically in the Permian — and it will grow back and flourish. The idea of a perilous natural balance that, if upset, will bring the whole structure of life crashing down is false and hopelessly anthropocentric.

reply to post by FreeMason


Let's ignore the glaring logical fallacy that is your last sentence. Since you want to talk probabilities let's look at the classic example of a deck of cards. There are 52 cards in a deck (not counting the jokers). This means the odds of a deck being in a specific order is 1 in 52! (that's 52 factorial not just 52). Which means if you pick up a deck of cards the cards will be in that exact order only once out of every 8.066e67 times. Despite the astronomically low odds of the cards being in that order does not stop the fact that they are in that order.

Xcalibur254
reply to post by FreeMason

 

Let's ignore the glaring logical fallacy that is your last sentence. Since you want to talk probabilities let's look at the classic example of a deck of cards. There are 52 cards in a deck (not counting the jokers). This means the odds of a deck being in a specific order is 1 in 52! (that's 52 factorial not just 52). Which means if you pick up a deck of cards the cards will be in that exact order only once out of every 8.066e67 times. Despite the astronomically low odds of the cards being in that order does not stop the fact that they are in that order.

You see that is the problem with creationism. To make a preconceive notion work they need a " intelligent design" concept otherwise it would represent the deck of cards preconceive order of 8.066e67 times without intelligent design. While Origins just says it will be some order or in other words 1 to 1 chance they are right.

FreeMason
Except there is no such thing as natural selection.

Practically the entirety of biological science would disagree.

How, for instance, do you explain the observed development of anti-biotic resistances in populations of micro organisms, or of herbicide/pesticide resistance in populations of plants/animals?

reply to post by FreeMason

Except there is no such thing as natural selection.

Nylon eating bacteria would say that you have no idea what you're talking about. If they could talk. But they can't. Because they're bacteria.

* I am typing on a small, crappy phone... with a shotty touch screen... and with long gangly like fingers... there will errors in grammar and spelling... get over it.

-

It really bothers me with how closed minded "educated" people can be and how dismissive they are towards opposing views... so let us cut the elephant in half and see how things progress.

Point 1:

It is my observation that the universe is fractal. Self similarity, at least to me, seems to be a universal constant.

Point 2:

Much like anything with potential, occurences and expressions of that potential are reactionary. i.e. until a given force is applied, potential is infinite.

Point 3:

If the state of potential is infinite, there is no reasonable way of extracting a definitive outcome unless the reactionary force is clearly stated. Therefore, both states of existence are plausible.

--------------

Now to make my overall assumption using analogies of a selff similar nature.

If we were to draw an infinte line and using whatever method, could attempt to locate its central point; we would end up with two outcomes.

1- We could only approach the central point and would never arrive at one.

2- All pointss could be defined as the center of infinity.

Much like Pi... or an Event Horizon... or God for that matter... it can only be approached and not fully quantized/measured/located.

EVOLUTION is a similar process. Regardless of what evidence we find to substantiate our hypothesis... without knowing both the very beginning and the very end of a particular series of steps... our observations will ALWAYS be incomplete and open to variety of plausible outcomes.

It is reactive in the sense that enviromental states are required as a prerequisite. And without a "big picture" present... we end up arguing over shadows of what it is we seek to explain; so stop dismissing others ideas because ones ego won't let them see past their own shadow of ignorance.

ReturnofTheSonOfNothing

FreeMason
Except there is no such thing as natural selection.

Practically the entirety of biological science would disagree.

How, for instance, do you explain the observed development of anti-biotic resistances in populations of micro organisms, or of herbicide/pesticide resistance in populations of plants/animals?

edit on RAmerica/Chicago31uTue, 15 Oct 2013 23:08:48 -050010-0500fCDT11 by ReturnofTheSonOfNothing because: (no reason given)

God's will to punish man for his evils.... BAM!