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Async - when I (and others) showed you that other animals had these characteristics (and therefore answered your assertion that humans are "special" in some "unique" way) you replied, "Oh, so we're related to dolphins, now?" That is where I got the idea that you were claiming that any creature sharing these abilities was closely related. Because you claimed it.
I was careful to use the word "closely" because while I am convinced that the evidence shows that we are related, it does not mean that humans and dolphins are "closely" related, such as, for example, humans and bonobos are closely related.
No matter how many times you assert this, it will still be untrue.
Your premise does not pass muster. Your premise has been - humans are unique and have abilities that no other animal has. We have shown that other animals have these abilities, to one degree or another. The ability is there, and can now be grown or expanded. Some of these animals are closely related to us, some are more distantly related. Yet the abilities are by no means unique to humans. We have more beneficial adaptations in some ways (much worse in others). We're not even at the top of the food chain - think instead of a food "web" and we are smack inside of it.
So your premise, that the existence of these abilities is unique to humans and that it makes a case that we were made differently, is shown to be hollow when you see how many other animals also have these abilities at merely a different level.
I was careful to use the word "closely" because while I am convinced that the evidence shows that we are related, it does not mean that humans and dolphins are "closely" related, such as, for example, humans and bonobos are closely related.
No matter how many times you assert this, it will still be untrue.
Your premise does not pass muster. Your premise has been - humans are unique and have abilities that no other animal has. We have shown that other animals have these abilities, to one degree or another. The ability is there, and can now be grown or expanded. Some of these animals are closely related to us, some are more distantly related. Yet the abilities are by no means unique to humans. We have more beneficial adaptations in some ways (much worse in others). We're not even at the top of the food chain - think instead of a food "web" and we are smack inside of it.
So your premise, that the existence of these abilities is unique to humans and that it makes a case that we were made differently, is shown to be hollow when you see how many other animals also have these abilities at merely a different level.
lordkalvan
Member
1. Your argument is logically absurd. How is the fact that Animal X can do something that Animal Y can't evidence that the two animals are not evolutionarily related? Sperm whales can dive deeper than any other whale known, so this means that by this argument it is 'simply rubbish' to suggest they are related in any way to other cetaceans.
2. There is no 'evolutionary claim that we are descended from chimps'.
3. Evolutionary theory does not suppose that, axiomatically, earlier means the same as more primitive.
So the evidence indicates.
Which none of the evidence indicates. So why should we prefer your 'explanation' over the one inferred from the evidence?
I think we all read it being soundly refuted.Didn't you read my post on the eyes of the trilobites? Maybe you should. It's an eye-opening exercise.Get it? No? Ah well...
You have yet to defend or support your claims on the back of your selective quoting of Muller. Would you care to return to the relevant thread and do so, or shall I simply post the exchange here?
ETA And just to point up the poorly-informed nature of your claims in respect of mutations, let me repeat this comment again from one of your other threads:
Some mutations are out-and-out bad for the individual, some are bad for the individual, but good for the population and some are good for both. Most mutations have no impact on evolution at all, but those that do can become very quickly fixed in a population (for a current example, see the rapid growth in numbers of the England overwintering blackcap warblers). To take an obvious example of the generally neutral effect of mutations, consider that, as I believe Rhea has already pointed out, for example, every human being born carries between 50 and 100 mutations, of which about three matter in the sense that they cause changes in a protein. Determining whether any of those individual mutations will have positive consequences for the individual and the potential population of his/her descendants, negative consequences for the individual, but positive ones for the potential population of his/her descendants, or negative consequences for both is almost impossible to tell, but if these mutations were overwhelmingly dangerous or harmful as you suggest, then we wouldn't be here exchanging views on the subject.
So it looks as if your selective 1950 citation isn't quite the slam-dunk clincher you seem to think it is.
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Asyncritus
Guest
I think your premise is completely nonsensical Rhea, to be blunt.
To look at the mental and psychological capacities of the average human being, and then think - hey animals can do that! - is completely nonsensical.
If that is what you really think (and there's a word we can't use of animals in any real sense) then there's no more that I can say.
Produce an example, if you will, where a mutation has been shown to produce a single new species or genus. Your assertions on this matter are hopelessly unfounded.
Heard about Lenski?
He cultivated about 20,000 generations of E.coli and despite all the mutations that normally take place, failed to produce even a single new species.
They claimed that a new function did arise, but E coli stubbornly remained E coli and became nothing else.
I can see Lenski on his prayer mat praying to the god of evolution to act on his behalf. Alas, no response.
So do the maths. If 20000 generations produced 0 new species, how many generations will it take to produce the 6000000 species existing today?
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/0/richard_lenskis_long_term_evol051051.html
You're saying animals don't think?
You mean a single mutation? You think that is how speciation works? One mutation makes a new species?
And your thought is that evolution should be able to be proven in a single experiment, despite any existing evidence that is presented from teh real world? And if it doesn't happen in some random short period of time no one else should keep trying?
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So I went to read Lenski, since your interpretation of data has been faulty in the past. And I went directly to his page (of course, as is sensible) and thence to one of his articles in Science News, since your creationist sites are known to misquote and misrepresent (as well as being out of date to boot). A couple of quick things: your data is, as always, hopelessly out of date. You haven't updated your source in 10 years or more. The experiment has gone on without you keeping up. His experiment is with asexual creatures, so any speciation from sexual selection is simply not present, but he has seen the evolution of new strains from mutations alone able to live in environments that the old strains could not. He's at 50,000 generations as of last winter.
to wit:
Oh, snap. another new scientific fact refutes Asyncritus' 10 year old central premise.
Science is so freakin' cool the way it keeps discovering.
to wit:
Oh, snap. another new scientific fact refutes Asyncritus' 10 year old central premise.
Science is so freakin' cool the way it keeps discovering.
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lordkalvan
Member
Rhea, don't you know, it's not evolvability, it's built-in variability? Although how it's 'built-in' and how it's limited in extent, who knows?
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Asyncritus
Guest
Discovering that 50000 generations don't produce a single new species?
Heh heh heh!
50,000 generations and not a new species in sight. Is that what you're saying? (Poor Lenski. Doesn't learn, does he?)
(Hey LK, aren't you going to tell him something about how mutations and natural selection produce a gazillion new species??? What's keeping them back???)
OK, Rhea, so:
if 50000 generations have produced 0 new species
How many generations will produce 6,000,000+ species from the 'common ancestor'? (Which was asexual, by the way, since there was only one of them!)
Even a chemist should be able to figure that one out!
Heh heh heh. :toofunny
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Asyncritus
Guest
We aren't talking about depth diving LK. The japanese pearl fishers go down to quite some depths greater than a normal human being.
We are talking about an enormous number of things (just look around you and at your keyboard: you'll see some of them) that NO CHIMP CAN DO. Things that justify an entirely separate kingdom for mankind in the classification systems.
None of which your common ancestor or its chimp descendants can do.
So where did the instincts to do these things (like generating the theories of gravitation and special relativity for instance) come from, pray tell.
Look, de Waal said so. In April this year or some such.
So what are we descended from if not the chimps?
What do you mean? That Bobo was more advanced than a human? Well, where are his computers and skyscrapers?
1 Because it takes account of the EVIDENCE of those quite extraordinarily different human qualities I listed and
2 Because it makes pure good sense.
Instead of scratching round for 'similarities' between humans and chimps, why not focus on the monumental differences, which show clearly that there is no connection between the two things?
I read his paper. Did you?
I re-read your paragraph, and notice that you do not mention any constructive items that arose from a mutation, far less a new species, or genus. Got any examples? (Spare me the plastic -eating bacteria).
I said that the vast majority of mutations were either neutral or deleterious.
Muller was far more destructive than that.
www.wisegeek.com/what-are-cancer-cells.htm
Incidentally, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl released monumental amounts or harmful radiation into the environment. All the atomic testing that went on before Hiroshima, and since then by the US, Russia and others, must have done the same. Mutations by the zillion must have taken place. Ever heard of any new species being produced?
No? Why not? Because mutations do not produce new species.
Do the maths. If a zillion mutations don't produce any new species, merely those poor, deformed, disease-prone creatures and plants, how many mutations does it take to produce the 6,000,000+ species from any given 'common ancestor'?
Chernobyl and the others I've mentioned are considerably more recent than that. Got any more proof of speciation by mutation anywhere?
Do we have to kill off every living thing by exposing them to harmful radiation just to prove you're wrong?
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lordkalvan
Member
<snipped sound of Rhea's points going right over your head>
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Asyncritus
Guest
I did go to have a look at her links - and guess what? No new species... after 50,000 generations. I'd say that's pretty good proof that mutations etc don't produce new species, wouldn't you?
Not to mention Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the testing grounds for nuclear bombs used by the major nations.
Do the maths, LK, do the maths and let me have your conclusions.
lordkalvan
Member
Well, that's funny because I rather thought you were talking about the fact that, because one species can do something quantitatively better than another species can, this is evidence that these species cannot be evolutionarily related. If this isn't your point, perhaps you could explain it again and, if it is, tell us why a quantitative difference in diving ability is somehow different from a quantitative difference in counting ability? In your opinion, are sperm whales related in any way to other cetaceans? If yes, why? If no, why not?
If you are offering this seriously as an argument, you seem to be suggesting that, in your opinion, all cetaceans are the same species. Is this the case? If it isn't, it would appear to have escaped your notice that Japanese pearl fishers and 'normal human beings' are - wait for it - the same species.
Why do you imagine that, because one animal can do something that another can't, this is so remarkable? And when many of these things are simply differences of degree - as has been pointed out - your amazement appears even more contrived.
You have still to explain your new classification system in the detail necessary to show us how you plan on categorizing plants and fungi. If you are unable to offer a detailed methodology for implementing your proposed system, what use do you imagine it will be? At the moment, it seems contrived simply to allow you to trumpet Homo sapiens as 'an entirely separate kingdom' in stubborn denial of the methodology of taxonomic science. I can see why you want to do this, but your approach seems to be fundament-backwards: you look for things that you believe justify your separation of humanity from the other organisms, rather than showing us how your proposed classification system provides an objective methodology for classifying all Earth's organisms. So at the moment it just appears to be a lot of hopeful handwaving.
Most of what you offer as particularly ‘unique’ examples to differentiate humans form chimps as you wish to do amounts to a matter of degree only.
If you think that ‘generating the theories of gravitation and special relativity’ is instinctively driven, you need to elaborate your understanding.
And I have pointed out the doubtful value of your source. I note you have been unable to cite any scientific paper or book by de Waal where he makes this claim, nor have you been able to cite any other reference, so I rather think you can put this dubious justification for your risible implication to rest.
A primate species ancestral to both lineages.
Where did I say that? You have a very simplistic idea of evolutionary theory in you imagine that an earlier organism is necessarily less developed than a later one. Dinosaurs were as ‘advanced’ evolutionarily as human beings; human beings simply have different evolutionary traits from dinosaurs.
You could equally well list ten ‘extraordinarily different…qualities’ manifested by other organisms. Your evidence is interpreted quite egocentrically, species-wise. Simply because you present evidence does not mean that the conclusions you wish to draw from it are warranted….
…especially when you rely on an argument as question-begging as this one. It also makes ‘pure good sense’ that the Sun orbits the Earth; however, it doesn’t.
Because they show no such thing and, furthermore, the science of taxonomy does not amount to ‘scratching around’. Again, please show, with worked examples, how your proposed classification methodology is better adapted to explaining the relationships amongst organisms, So far, all we have seen is a great deal of handwaving, assertion and wishful thinking.
As you’ve read it, perhaps you can confirm whether or not it is mostly concerned with the mutational effects of ionizing radiation introduced into the environment by human activity – as its title suggests - and also how relevant it is to studies of natural mutational effects carried out in the 60+ years since it was published?
I don’t recollect mentioning plastic-eating bacteria and, even if I had, why should I spare you mention of evidence of mutational change? If you recollect, however, I did refer you to 'a specific 32 base pair deletion in human CCR5 (CCR5-Δ32) [which] confers HIV resistance to homozygotes and delays AIDS onset in heterozygotes.[44] The CCR5 mutation is more common in those of European descent.'
Source: en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation
I also asked you about the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, but answer came there none. You might also want to consider the evolutionary implications inherent in the varying human blood types and phenomena such as the sickle-cell mutation.
Well, as you originally wheeled out your cobweb-encrusted Muller reference to show that ‘well over 99% are harmful in some way’, which particular claim would you like to run with?
Muller seems to be talking about cancer occurring as a result of mutation or genetic damage. Do you imagine that all mutations lead to cancer? If you do, why and where is your evidence?
And how relevant do you imagine these man-made environmental catastrophes are to a consideration of the effects of naturally-occurring mutations and genetic change? Why not wheel out Bhopal while you’re about it?
Who said they did? Mutations alone will not directly generate new species. Do you imagine that in some way evolutionary theory proposes that the offspring of a long-ago non-human primate mutated into a human being?
You seem to imagine that mutations caused by ionizing radiation are exactly the same as any other mutation. Why is that?
Well, what’s your explanation and evidence for speciation, then, other than the incremental accumulation of genetic variation?
As ionizing radiation of the type, in the orders of magnitude and in the circumstances of which you’re talking about have, as far as I can see, no relevance to the question of naturally-occurring genetic changes, I am not sure what relevance you imagine your examples have to this discussion.
Interestingly, I notice you have responded to none of the questions I asked in the two posts preceding this one that you have replied to. Why is that?
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lordkalvan
Member
Whooooosh!
Red herring, as explained.
How many sciency zillions and gazillions should I include in my calculations?
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Asyncritus
Guest
You're full of red herrings LK - I give you that.
There is no merely quantitative difference between chimps and humans - the differences are of many orders of magnitude.
Look at any nest built by a chimp, and a skyscraper. There is nothing to compare really, and worse, you know it. In fact I think you are being intellectually dishonest here, attempting to minimise the importance and magnitude of the differences between the 2 groups in the interest of supporting evolution theory.
You have yet to produce some facts which begin to account for the way the differences arose. Muttering that it's only a difference of degree, is in my opinion being wilfully ignorant and amazingly eye-blinkered. As the saying goes, there's none so blind as won't see.
Another of your red herrings. Stay with the chimps/men please.
You really can't be serious about this nonsense, can you?
The distinguishing features of man are so painfully obvious, it it simply wilful ignorance and blindness that is producing this guff, LK.
You really and seriously mean to say that the features which distinguish you from a chimp, are so blurred and indistinct that you can't see them? If so, then I can only say that you deserve to have descended from such creatures.
I'm not too sure how profitable this discussion can be given the above.
You have been presented with a huge list of titanic differences between man and chimp, and all you can say is 'it's a matter of degree only'. Where did you say you got your qualifications?
Man possesses the ability to think. That ability is inbuilt, not learned. Instinctive is a good word to describe it. No chimp possesses such abilities to any degree whatsoever. I didn't think that is a point even worth discussing, far less defending.
I really don't care whether he or the Smithsonian is right. Both are wrong, in my opinion, because neither can account for the differences already pointed out.
Which one? That's begging the question, with no evidence whatsoever.
Utter nonsense.
Simply because you hand wave them away doesn't mean they don't exist, and don't destroy your pet theory.
Irrelevant red herring.
The science of taxonomy may be a great one - but they blunder savagely in totally ignoring the unique characteristics of man - particularly the mental ones.
I don't know what you're talking about here. Is it about red herrings again?
Magnificent example of species production. Congratulations in advancing the cause of evolution so enormously!
I really don't believe this. So bacteria develop antibiotic resistance. That is not the point at issue. Have any new species been developed and identified by your non-scratching round taxonomists?
There are no evolutionary implications to the sickle cell phenomenon. All the people who have the condition are still people and not Homo mosquitoensis.
So you're really no further forward.
Remember, we are looking for the evolutionary production of new species, genera and higher taxons. Not merely these minor wobbles you're pinning so much faith upon to prop up the failed theory of evolution.
Once more, I said that the vast majority of mutations are either neutral or deleterious. Muller was more savage.
You have produced nothing of any substance to suggest otherwise. And again, remember, your failed theory has yet to account (with evidence) for the production of a single genus or worse, family: never mind the phyla.
More red herrings. Do you buy them in bulk, or what?
Mutations (of whatever sort) do not produce new species or anything higher. You have not been able to account for the mutational origin of anything useful to your theory yet.
When do you propose doing so?
No? What does it say, and where's your evidence? And please avoid the fairy-tales, will you?
The question before you is: have you any evidence whatsoever that mutations (of whatever cause) have produced a new species, genus...etc?
Please address it instead of red herring-ing everywhere.
I think Gould had that bit right. Reproductive isolation, which is merely another name for long continued inbreeding does that.
However, a bit of speciation is all it can do. It cannot provably produce any major taxa. Darwin's finches are still finches, and not hawks or anything else.
I've been given to understand that if the finches are released into a wider population, they revert to their original type. If that's correct, then bang goes another pillar of evolution.
You know very well what their relevance is. Now answer the questions instead of red-herring-ing.
In case you don't know what the question is, I'll say it again:
Produce some examples of mutations (followed by natural selection) which have generated any new species and higher taxa.
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Asyncritus
Guest
You choose. Just make it a nice large number.
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Asyncritus
Guest
You may think that you have shown that they 'could have evolved'. I doubt that. In evolution theory particularly, the wish is often mistaken for fact - and you are a particularly good exponent of that fault.
But 'could' is never proof that they 'did'.
Stop waving your wands around and account for the way an object of optical perfection, employing many features of advanced modern lenses and optics, DID evolve from anything.
With fossil evidence, of course.
Barbarian
Member
When I showed you, you abandoned the thread, as you always do when you realize your argument is refuted.
Tough talk from the bunker, but when you venture out and give specifics, the thread always ends badly for you, doesn't it?
There is no perfection in trilobites. Aberrations are greatly reduced, but humans can make better lenses than trilobites did. Aspherical lenses are difficult, but hardly beyond the technology today.
I already showed you. But from the thread you abandoned...
The schizochroal eye, with relatively few, more complex lenses, was easily evolved from the holochroal eye by paedomorphosis.
All early trilobites (Cambrian), had holochroal eyes and it would seem hard to evolve the distinctive phacopid schizochroal eye from this form. The answer is thought to lie in ontogenetic (developmental) processes on an evolutionary time scale. Paedomorphosis is the retention of ancestral juvenile characteristics into adulthood in the descendent. Paedomorphosis can occur three ways: Progenesis (early sexual maturation in an otherwise juvenile body), Neoteny (reduced rate of morphological development), and Post-displacement (delayed growth of certain structures relative to others). The development of schizochroal eyes in phacopid trilobites is a good example of post-displacement paedomorphosis. The eyes of immature holochroal Cambrian trilobites were basically miniature schizochroal eyes. In Phacopida, these were retained, via delayed growth of these immature structures (post-displacement), into the adult form.
The Trilobite Eye
Done.
lordkalvan
Member
If it’s a red herring, it’s your red herring. It’s rather instructive that questions that address or seek to elucidate your various claims, assertions and assumptions you conveniently dismiss as red herrings thereby obviating you of any responsibility to answer them. Well, then, can you please explain that, if you’re not saying that the fact that one species can do some thing or things quantitatively better than another species is evidence that they are not evolutionarily related, what are you saying? So are sperm whales related to other cetaceans or not, despite their greatly superior diving capability? If yes, why; if no, why not?
Umm, an order of magnitude is a quantitative difference. Well, it was the last time I looked. That aside, perhaps you can tell us what objective criteria you use for measuring these alleged differences?
Where have I compared a skyscraper to a chimpanzee’s ‘nest’ and what relevance does this have to the price of fish anyway? No one is arguing that human beings don't have different mentation skills from chimpanzees, but these mentation skills are matters of degree. The most intelligent animals – chimps, bonobos, parrots, dolphins – are typically assessed with IQ-equivalents in the range of 35-49, i.e. the approximate equivalent of someone with moderate retardation (source: http://www.paulcooijmans.com/intelligence/iq_ranges.html). Are you suggesting that moderately retarded human beings should be classified taxonomically with chimps, bonobos, parrots and dolphins because their mentation levels are in the same range? If not, I ask again what methodology of classification you propose that will allow us to implement this idea you have that levels of intelligence (or whatever word you choose to use) can be used to distinguish amongst different species?
Nope, I am simply trying to get you to offer something in the way of scientific rigour to your proposed classification method – you are a scientist, after all, or so you claim – and tell us how we can objectively assess whether or not species are related to one another. After all, this is exactly what taxonomic science does, so if you can’t offer us something better and explain why it is better, then what use are your subjective claims about humanity’s difference from other primates such that it justifies creating a new kingdom just for them?
What about the similarities? Don’t you want an explanation of how those arose too and why we are more similar to chimpanzees than to orangutans? Do you think any primates are related one to the other? If yes, why; if no, why not?
And your opinion is noted and dismissed. I have ‘muttered’ nothing, but simply, along with others, pointed out that your stupendous amazement at the fantastic ‘psychological’ differences that you parade before us as evidence that Homo sapiens deserves its own ‘kingdom’ is not supported by a close examination of what those alleged differences amount to. If you want to think you are ‘special’, please feel free to think it, but until you can come up with a sound methodology to show how your claimed differences can be objectively measured, all you are doing is (metaphorically speaking) rattling the bars of your cage.
You were the one who introduced this analogy, so if it’s anybody’s red herring, it’s yours; if you are unwilling or unable to defend it when challenged, at least stand up and say so instead of sliding away with handwaving accusations that others are trailing red herrings through the thread.
And I am to be persuaded that it is ‘nonsense’ simply because you say so why, exactly? Show us your objective methodology for classifying organisms according to their ‘psychology’ (or whatever you want to call it) and you may have grounds for an argument, but until then you’re just blowing smoke.
If you can’t do what is asked of you, simply say so and we can consign these claims to the dustbin of personal incredulity, along with most of the rest of your others. ‘Painfully obvious’ does not constitute an argument of any scientific rigour at all. Are you sure you are a scientist, because the way you approach your arguments gives very little sign of it?
Where did I say any such thing? Chimpanzees and Homo sapiens are different species; they have numerous traits that distinguish them as such. Unfortunately for your vague hypothesis, they have many shared physical traits and genetic similarities that taxonomically show them to be more closely related than are say, gorillas and human beings, or any other primate to any other primate and that primate to a mouse, and so on. These similarities can be tested and demonstrated objectively. Your proclaimed differences, however, can only be tested and demonstrated with Asyncritus’s version of the Victor Meldrew system.
And I’m not sure how profitable it is either, given your reluctance to address questions, comments, points and arguments arising from your various claims, assertions and assumptions.
More later.
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lordkalvan
Member
‘Titanic’, huh? Is that another one of those sciency terms that allow us to measure differences and similarities objectively? How are you getting on with explaining how your proposed ‘mentation classification methodology’ will allow us to categorize plants and fungi? I never said anything about where I got my qualifications, but I’ve already told you that, unlike you, I don’t claim to be any sort of scientist, so why the interest?
So do lots of other animals. Do you have a point?
Do you mean that it’s genetically determined?
Well, as chimpanzees (and other animals) do possess such abilities, then you do indeed need to defend your claim that these differences amount to ones objectively sufficient to warrant classifying Homo sapiens as a separate kingdom in disregard of the physical traits that taxonomic science assesses when analysing the relatedness of various organisms. You seem unable and/or unwilling to do this.
The point is that you are wrong in your implied assertion that evolutionary theory claims that human beings are descended from chimpanzees, that you are unable to support your assertion with anything other than a second-hand reference from a doubtfully reliable source and that your misunderstanding highlights your apparent unfamiliarity with a theory that you are so ready to rubbish on the back of little more than personal incredulity. Given your lack of interest in whether your source or the Smithsonian ‘is right’, why should anyone put any credence in the intellectual rigour of your arguments and claims at all?
Given the inevitably fragmentary nature of the fossil record and the impossibility of claiming that fossil X is directly ancestral to descendant Y, it is doubtful that your question can ever be answered absolutely. However, there are numerous hominid and primate fossils that demonstrate transitional features leading inevitably towards Homo sapiens. This diagram -
http://www.calacademy.org/teachers/bioforum/images/smith_human_tree_698x696.jpg
- gives a reasonable outline of our best understanding of the evolutionary relationships amongst hominins based on fossil and genetic evidence.
Why is it ‘utter nonsense’? Because you say so? Do you imagine that ‘advanced’ in evolutionary terms simply has all to do with mentation and nothing else?
Where do you imagine I claim that there are no differences amongst different species, which you seem to be implying here? Where have you demonstrated that the differences you identify as so significant ‘destroy’ any theory at all? Simply trumpeting the fall of evolutionary theory on the back of your personal incredulity and amazement only illustrates the absence of scientific methodology and rigour that underpins your claims.
Why is this a ‘red herring’? If you claim that something ‘makes pure good sense’ solely on the back of your personal assertion that subjectively proclaimed differences in mentation are sufficient to warrant placing humanity in its own kingdom, why is it a red herring to point out that another claim that ‘makes pure good sense’ based on the observation that the Sun moves across Earth’s sky is, in fact, also not warranted simply because it ‘makes pure good sense’? ‘Pure good sense’ is neither intellectually rigorous nor scientifically credible as the basis of an argument.
Then show us how these characteristics can be objectively measured amongst different organisms such that they can be applied methodically to a classification system. If you can’t do this then your assertions as to the distinctive separation of humanity from species that scientific taxonomy has seen us closely related to since the days of Linnaeus remain worthless.
Nope, you claim that you have read Muller’s paper, so I am asking you whether or not you can confirm that the subject of his paper is mostly concerned with the mutational effects of ionizing radiation introduced into the environment by human activity? This seems both straightforward and relevant to your claims. You might also want to tell us whether, as its title fails to suggest otherwise, it is concerned with any mechanism other than radiation damage as a cause of mutation? You can then further explain to us how relevant Muller’s work remains given the 60 years of additional research that has been undertaken since into the effects of mutational change. Or perhaps you would prefer to regard all of this as a ‘red herring’ too?
Look at those goalposts moving. Quite amazing. What I am addressing is your claim that ‘I re-read your paragraph, and notice that you do not mention any constructive items that arose from a mutation, far less a new species, or genus. Got any examples? (Spare me the plastic -eating bacteria).’ So here is an example of a ‘constructive item’ arising from a mutation that you have been presented with before and that you have ignored before. Would you like to address it now in the light of your claim that mutations are never beneficial?
Goalposts shifting again. I am addressing your claim that mutations can never be positive, only neutral or (when you trot out your whiskery Muller reference) 99% deleterious.
Why are there ‘no evolutionary implications to the sickle cell phenomenon’? Is it your argument, then, that ‘the sickle cell phenomenon’ is not a mutation of the haemoglobin gene and that it does not confer benefits on the population in which it exists while being disadvantageous for individuals who inherit two copies of the mutation?
However, I seem to be further forward than you are.
Keep on moving those goalposts. What we are looking at is your claim that mutations can never be positive, only neutral or negative.
Well, as both you and ‘savage’ Professor Muller appear to be wrong, perhaps you would like to withdraw your claim?
ETA Actually you said '..worse, those mutations, as many studies have shown, are all neutral or deleterious.' So are you changing your mind?
On the contrary. In contrast, you have answered none of the questions asked in the comment this is supposedly responding to. Why is that?
Umm, it’s not ’my’ theory and you have yet to show that it has ‘failed’ anything: you have simply trumpeted your personal incredulity about certain phenomena, demanded that others prove to your satisfaction that evolutionary theory can offer explanations for those phenomena, denied that any such explanations are either possible or plausible, and then proclaimed yourself the destroyer of evolutionary theory. Evidence from multiple lines of research – palaeontology, genetic sequencing, developmental embryology, morphology, atavisms, vestigial features, biogeography, etc – all testify to the soundness of evolutionary theory and support conclusions as to the emergence of new species as a result of evolutionary processes. Perhaps you would like to offer your explanation of observed speciation events and other evolutionary phenomena discussed above?
Again, if these are red herrings, they are your red herrings. You introduced them into the discussion. If you are unable to answer questions that arise from your introduction of them, simply say so and we can thus dismiss the claims you are trying to make on the back of them.
This makes no sense. How are observed, beneficial mutations not evidence of evolutionary change?
Sorry, try reading for comprehension.
It says that populations evolve, not individuals. Here’s my evidence that this is what it says:
‘The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next.’
Douglas Futuyama, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at NY State quoted here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
I’ll leave those to you.
Can you answer the question asked? It appears not. If you are different from your parents, can you explain what biological mechanism acts to prevent cumulative genetic changes from resulting eventually in speciation events when reproducing populations of the same organism become reproductively isolated from one another? Can you explain how this biological mechanism can be identified? Can you explain the better alternative cause of observed speciation events and phenomena such as antibiotic resistance in bacteria?
Please demonstrate that red herrings have been introduced into the discussion at all.
And your citation to support this claim is what, exactly? Looking at pp 342-3 of my copy of The Flamingo’s Smile by Gould, I see him writing that ‘Favorable traits often arise by mutation…. The mutation (if recessive) may not be expressed in the next generation, but it will not be eliminated.’ Or are you agreeing that speciation occurs because of mutations in reproductively isolated species? It’s hard to tell from what you have written.
What stops ’a bit’ becoming ‘a lot’?
What do you regard as ‘major taxa’? The evidence seems to indicate a clear and unmistakable evolutionary relationship between birds and theropod dinosaurs, for example.
Do you suppose that evolutionary theory suggests anything otherwise?
Given to understand by whom, what ‘wider population’, what is their ‘original type’, why do they ‘revert’ to it and how does this demolish evolutionary theory as you imagine it does?
You seem to imagine that ionizing radiation of the type, in the orders of magnitude and in the circumstances of which you’re talking about is the only force driving mutation. If this is the case – and I am trying to clarify whether it is or not – you are, quite simply, wrong. Ultraviolet light, certain chemicals and mistakes by DNA polymerase can all cause mutations to occur.
You should get down off that high-horse of yours and try answering a few questions yourself. Or don’t you ‘do’ answers?
How many mutations and over what timescale do you imagine are necessary to generate ‘new species and higher taxa’? Chromosomes contain genetic material; genetic material can be mutated; some of those mutations are harmful to individuals and populations, some are neutral to individuals and populations, some are harmful to individuals but positive for populations, and some are positive for both. No individual mutation will cause a speciation event:
Mutations can create many different versions of the same gene (known as alleles). While a single mutation can sometimes create a drastic change to an organism, such as changing red eyes to white, most mutations cannot. That's because most traits are based on many different genes working together. Mutating any one of those genes often only produces a subtle change, or none at all.
Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_18
You may also want to reflect on the fact that, as you have observed, many mutations are neutral. Even neutral mutations contribute to variability and that variability combines and recombines through the generations to produce unpredictable results.
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A
Asyncritus
Guest
With reference to human evolution, I have just discovered this quotation from apologeticspress.com
Comments welcome.
And as any seasoned (and honest) paleontologist can attest, sometimes the interpretations get in the way of the facts. One example comes pressingly to mind.
In the April 1979 issue of National Geographic, Mary Leakey reported finding fossil footprint trails at Laetoli, Tanzania. The strata above the footprints were dated at 3.6 million years, while the strata below them were dated at 3.8.
As Marvin Lubenow noted: “These footprint trails rank as one of the great fossil discoveries of the twentieth century” (1992, p. 173). Why is this the case? Not only did Dr. Leakey discover three distinct trails containing sixty-nine prints, but, as she explained in her autobiography (Disclosing the Past), she also found footprints that depicted one individual actually walking in the steps of another!—something that only humans have the intelligence (or inclination) to do. In that autobiography, she wrote:
The specialist who carried out the most extensive study to date of the Laetoli footprints (at the invitation of Mary Leakey herself) is Russell Tuttle of the University of Chicago.
He noted in his research reports that the individuals who made the tracks were barefoot and probably walked habitually unshod. As part of his investigation, he observed 70 Machiguenga Indians in the rugged mountains of Peru—people who habitually walk unshod.
After analyzing the Indians’ footprints and examining the available Laetoli fossilized toe bones, Dr. Tuttle concluded that the ape-like feet of A. afarensis simply could not have made the Laetoli tracks (see Bower, 1989, 135:251).
In fact, in an article on the Laetoli footprints in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, he wrote: “In discernible features, the Laetoli G prints are indistinguishable from those of habitually barefoot Homo sapiens” (p. 64).
He then went on to admit: “If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus, Homo” (p. 64, emp. added). Evolutionists, therefore, in spite of the evidence, have ascribed the footprints to australopithecines.
Interestingly, Mary Leakey originally labeled the Laetoli footprints as “Homo species indeterminate,” indicating that she was willing to place them in the genus of man, but was unable to decide upon a species designation.
It is clear, of course, why she was unwilling to call them what they clearly are—Homo sapiens. If she had placed humans as far back as 3.7 million years, that would have destroyed every evolutionary lineage in existence—and any that could be envisioned in the foreseeable future.
And so, rather than accept the data at face value, evolutionists scrambled to “explain them away” by labeling what were obvious human footprints as having been made by australopithecines.
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge once commented: “We have been looking at the fossil record as a general test of the notion that life has evolved: to falsify that general idea, we would have to show that forms of life we considered more advanced appear earlier than the simpler forms” (1982, p. 46).
In light of the evidence provided by the Laetoli footprints, could we not say, then, that, according to the evolutionists themselves, “the general idea” of evolution has been “falsified”? Indeed we could! [For a detailed discussion of the Laetoli footprints, see Lubenow, 1992, pp. 173-176.]
Lubenow, Marvin L. (1992), Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
endquote
http://www.apologeticspress.com/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=1046
Hmmmm....
I am now perfectly convinced that palaeoanthropologists don't know anything worth bothering about.
Comments welcome.
And as any seasoned (and honest) paleontologist can attest, sometimes the interpretations get in the way of the facts. One example comes pressingly to mind.
In the April 1979 issue of National Geographic, Mary Leakey reported finding fossil footprint trails at Laetoli, Tanzania. The strata above the footprints were dated at 3.6 million years, while the strata below them were dated at 3.8.
As Marvin Lubenow noted: “These footprint trails rank as one of the great fossil discoveries of the twentieth century” (1992, p. 173). Why is this the case? Not only did Dr. Leakey discover three distinct trails containing sixty-nine prints, but, as she explained in her autobiography (Disclosing the Past), she also found footprints that depicted one individual actually walking in the steps of another!—something that only humans have the intelligence (or inclination) to do. In that autobiography, she wrote:
The Laetoli Beds might not have included any foot bones among the hominid remains they had yielded to our search, but they had given us instead one of the most graphic alternative kinds of evidence for bipedalism one could dream of discovering. The essentially human nature and the modern appearance of the footprints were quite extraordinary.
As the 1978 excavations proceeded, we noted a curious feature. In one of the two trails, some of the individual prints seemed unusually large, and it looked to several of us as if these might be double prints, though by no amount of practical experiment in the modern dust could we find a way in which one individual could create such a double print….
The prints in one of the trails did indeed turn out to be double, as Louise [Robbins, an anthropologist—BT/BH] and I and several others had expected, and at last we understood the reason, namely that three hominids had been present….
I will simply summarize here by saying that we appear to have prints left three and a half million years ago, by three individuals of different stature: it is tempting to see them as a man, a woman and a child (1984, pp. 177,178, emp. added, italics in orig.).
In her National Geographic article, Dr. Leakey admitted that the footprints were “remarkably similar to those of modern man” (1979, 155:446).As the 1978 excavations proceeded, we noted a curious feature. In one of the two trails, some of the individual prints seemed unusually large, and it looked to several of us as if these might be double prints, though by no amount of practical experiment in the modern dust could we find a way in which one individual could create such a double print….
The prints in one of the trails did indeed turn out to be double, as Louise [Robbins, an anthropologist—BT/BH] and I and several others had expected, and at last we understood the reason, namely that three hominids had been present….
I will simply summarize here by saying that we appear to have prints left three and a half million years ago, by three individuals of different stature: it is tempting to see them as a man, a woman and a child (1984, pp. 177,178, emp. added, italics in orig.).
The specialist who carried out the most extensive study to date of the Laetoli footprints (at the invitation of Mary Leakey herself) is Russell Tuttle of the University of Chicago.
He noted in his research reports that the individuals who made the tracks were barefoot and probably walked habitually unshod. As part of his investigation, he observed 70 Machiguenga Indians in the rugged mountains of Peru—people who habitually walk unshod.
After analyzing the Indians’ footprints and examining the available Laetoli fossilized toe bones, Dr. Tuttle concluded that the ape-like feet of A. afarensis simply could not have made the Laetoli tracks (see Bower, 1989, 135:251).
In fact, in an article on the Laetoli footprints in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, he wrote: “In discernible features, the Laetoli G prints are indistinguishable from those of habitually barefoot Homo sapiens” (p. 64).
He then went on to admit: “If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus, Homo” (p. 64, emp. added). Evolutionists, therefore, in spite of the evidence, have ascribed the footprints to australopithecines.
Interestingly, Mary Leakey originally labeled the Laetoli footprints as “Homo species indeterminate,” indicating that she was willing to place them in the genus of man, but was unable to decide upon a species designation.
It is clear, of course, why she was unwilling to call them what they clearly are—Homo sapiens. If she had placed humans as far back as 3.7 million years, that would have destroyed every evolutionary lineage in existence—and any that could be envisioned in the foreseeable future.
And so, rather than accept the data at face value, evolutionists scrambled to “explain them away” by labeling what were obvious human footprints as having been made by australopithecines.
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge once commented: “We have been looking at the fossil record as a general test of the notion that life has evolved: to falsify that general idea, we would have to show that forms of life we considered more advanced appear earlier than the simpler forms” (1982, p. 46).
In light of the evidence provided by the Laetoli footprints, could we not say, then, that, according to the evolutionists themselves, “the general idea” of evolution has been “falsified”? Indeed we could! [For a detailed discussion of the Laetoli footprints, see Lubenow, 1992, pp. 173-176.]
Lubenow, Marvin L. (1992), Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
endquote
http://www.apologeticspress.com/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=1046
Hmmmm....
I am now perfectly convinced that palaeoanthropologists don't know anything worth bothering about.
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