[_ Old Earth _] Darwin's Four Points

[Barbarian]

A great deal of criticism of Darwin's theory comes from people who don't understand what his theory says. These are Darwin's four points:

1. There are more organisms born than can survive, and they compete for resources with the winners surviving to reproduce.

2. Every organism is slightly different than its parents.

3. Some of these differences change the likelihood of the organism surviving to reproduce.

4. Those with favorable differences leave more offspring, and over time, changes accumulate to form new species.

Notice that while Darwin's points are as solid as ever, there have been several major revisions to his theory:

• The first major revision, which cleared up a nagging problem in his theory, was genetics. The revelation that heredity was like sorting beads, rather than like mixing paint, explained why new traits could become established and increase in a population.
  

• The second was the neutralist theories, most prominently presented by Kimura, in which random variation could make significant changes in a population. Kimura showed that if there are two different alleles for a specific gene in a population of finite size, then random events will eventually result in fixation (only one allele left) in the population. So not all changes are the result of natural selection. Time and chance happen to them all. This is not the same as phylogenetic changes; the many changes seen in horses from Hyracotherium to Equus, are clearly adaptive, even if some other features did not have significant selective value.

• The third was punctuated equilibrium, most notably advocated by Eldredge and Gould, who showed that the fossil record and distribution of aberrant species fit a model of evolution in which speciation happens in a relatively short time (tens or hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps) followed by a long period of stasis, in which a well-fitted population is prevented from evolving much by natural selection. This explains, as YE creationist Kurt Wise writes, why transitionals are so rare at the species level, while they are abundant in higher taxa; as Ernst Mayr noted, unusual species tend to be small, an in out-of-the-way places. This is consistent with founder effect and rapid evolution followed by stasis.

• The fourth, and still underway, is evolutionary development, in which embryology and genetics are showing the mechanics of phylogenetic change. One of the key advances in evo-devo is the understanding of evolutionary constraint, the limits on phenotypic change due to the evolutionary history of the lineage.

Notice that chance, while still operative in neutral evolution, is not the way phylogenetic change occurs. I hope this is useful for those who are interested in examining evolutionary theory.

 

[brother Paul]

Water bodies abundant in nutrients have been proven to have a lower diversity of species than the ones lacking them. It is known as the "paradox of enrichment". Where higher availability of nutrients should mean higher diversity in many instances just the opposite is true. In fact, among phytoplankton (a species with perhaps the most diversity and apparent survival rate) we see they dwell most successfully in area with less resources and yet do not kill each other off in competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_enrichment

 

[brother Paul]

Around 400 million years ago flowering plants seemed to take over the whole world very suddenly and to this day constitute about 90% of all plant species. Darwin in his time called it “an abominable mystery” and to this day we do not know why. The rapid evolution of flowering plants of so many varieties runs directly against a slow evolutionary process, Especially the unending presence of annuals which must be preserved and planted to return yet there they were and still are.

 

[Barbarian]

Water bodies abundant in nutrients have been proven to have a lower diversity of species than the ones lacking them. It is known as the "paradox of enrichment". Where higher availability of nutrients should mean higher diversity in many instances just the opposite is true. In fact, among phytoplankton (a species with perhaps the most diversity and apparent survival rate) we see they dwell most successfully in area with less resources and yet do not kill each other off in competition.

"Phytoplankton" is not a species. That is like calling a forest a species. And it appears that you've misunderstood the term. It has to to with the dynamics of predator/prey relationships, wherein the enrichment of the environment for one or both of the species tends to destabilize it.

I did some work in graduate school on the Lotka-Volterra equation and simple prey-predator relationships. If you plot the population levels of the prey against those of predator, you will normally get a closed curve:

If the environment allows lots of prey, their population booms, followed by a boom in predators, which leads to a crash in the prey population, followed by a crash in predators. Eventually, a new equilibrium is established, but in the meantime,the relationship becomes chaotic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_enrichment

A useful model for this in the real world is the Isle Royale, with wolves and moose. While it doesn't strictly follow Lotka-Volterra, it demonstrates the phenomenon.

 

[Barbarian]

Around 400 million years ago flowering plants seemed to take over the whole world very suddenly and to this day constitute about 90% of all plant species. Darwin in his time called it “an abominable mystery” and to this day we do not know why.

The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms around 202–245 million years ago, and the first flowering plants known to exist are from 160 million years ago. They diversified enormously during the Lower Cretaceous and became widespread around 120 million years ago, but replaced conifers as the dominant trees only around 60–100 million years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowering_plant

I dunno. Sixty to one hundred million years seems like a long time to get established, if you ask me.

The rapid evolution of flowering plants of so many varieties runs directly against a slow evolutionary process,

Most species only live a fraction of that time. Even without punctuated equilibrium, that's slow evolution. This happened over tens of millions of years, after all.

Especially the unending presence of annuals which must be preserved and planted to return yet there they were and still are.

The grasses, mostly. And they were a response to cooler and drier climates in the Miocene.

 

[turnorburn]

10' of millions of years sounds obnoxious actually when you consider God himself said He created all of this in 6 days..

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

 

[Barbarian]

10' of millions of years sounds obnoxious actually when you consider God himself said He created all of this in 6 days..

Christians point to the impossibility of mornings and evenings without a sun to have them. This is one of the reasons we know that the "yom" in Genesis was not a literal 24 hour day. Since the Bible uses that word for all sorts of time periods, there is no reason to believe it was intended literally.

Let it be God's way, not man's literalist revision.

 

[brother Paul]

Yes we were using alternative definitions of a "species" sorry for that. But none the less there are so many varieties and with little competition yet they thrive in areas where there are few resources. Still seems to not fit the "Darwinian" explanation of natural selection....

And as for annuals (flowering plants in this case, but some vegetables also only grow if planted and cultivated each year) how would the first few generations have fit into the "Darwinian" explanation of natural selection? After the first generation they would have disappeared (at least most varieties) and each year fewer and fewer bulbs or seeds being somehow preserved.

 

[Barbarian]

Yes we were using alternative definitions of a "species" sorry for that. But none the less there are so many varieties and with little competition yet they thrive in areas where there are few resources.

Plants (which is what phytoplankton is) need sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, and some minerals. Mostly, it's there in the ocean. However... one can induce huge blooms of phytoplankton by simply seeding an area of the ocean with iron (which is the limiting mineral in the seas). And when this is done, different species of phytoplankton become dominant, as different species will compete more effectively with the others, in the presence of iron, just as different species of trees in a forest will become dominant if a number of different conditions should change.

It is evident from mesoscale iron enrichment studies that, after iron addition to HNLC waters, the phytoplankton community commonly changes from one dominated by smaller phytoplanktonic species to one dominated by diatoms. This is of great concern from an
ecological viewpoint because phytoplankton form the base of the marine food chain. Any changes in the phytoplankton community will have unknown and poorly predictable, but potentially highly damaging, impacts on marine ecosystems.
http://www.climos.com/imo/Other/Other_greenpeace_iron_fert_critiq_Sep2007.pdf

Which is what evolutionary theory predicts.

Iron fertilization is the intentional introduction of iron to the upper ocean to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom. This is intended to enhance biological productivity, which can benefit the marine food chain and is under investigation in hopes of increasing carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Iron is a trace element necessary for photosynthesis in all plants. It is highly insoluble in sea water and is often the limiting nutrient for phytoplankton growth. Large algal blooms can be created by supplying iron to iron-deficient ocean waters.


A number of ocean labs, scientists and businesses are exploring fertilization as a means to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide in the deep ocean, and to increase marine biological productivity which is likely in decline as a result of climate change. Since 1993, thirteen international research teams have completed ocean trials demonstrating that phytoplankton blooms can be stimulated by iron addition.[1] However, controversy remains over the effectiveness of atmospheric CO
2 sequestration and ecological effects.[2] The most recent open ocean trials of ocean iron fertilization were in 2009 (January to March) in the South Atlantic by project Lohafex, and in July 2012 in the North Pacific off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, by the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC).[3]


Fertilization also occurs naturally when upwellings bring nutrient-rich water to the surface, as occurs when ocean currents meet an ocean bank or a sea mount. This form of fertilization produces the world's largest marine habitats. Fertilization can also occur when weather carries wind blown dust long distances over the ocean, or iron-rich minerals are carried into the ocean by glaciers,[4] rivers and icebergs.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

Still seems to not fit the "Darwinian" explanation of natural selection....

The idea that a change in environment should favor different organisms is part of the theory.

And as for annuals (flowering plants in this case, but some vegetables also only grow if planted and cultivated each year)

For example, maize (corn) would die out in one generation. It has become so dependent in its evolution from teosinte, that it can no longer reproduce on its own. But that is what domestication tends to do. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbarian has found that many "annuals", with proper care and cultivation, will actually grow up year after year.

how would the first few generations have fit into the "Darwinian" explanation of natural selection?

Consider the slow evolution of maize from teosinte, which is documented by traces of the intermediate forms in archaeological finds. Initially, it thrives in the wild. Then, as mutation upon mutation is selected for by farmers, it becomes both more productive, and less able to survive on its own. Finally, as maize, it can't grow on its own.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/