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jackfrost10
Guest
Well i should say 3.5 and the example is all life. We are all only 2009’s model.
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rossum
Guest
It happened four times so we can be sure that it is not impossible. It happened in four different ways, so we know that there is more than one way to solve the problem. There may be more; evolution has certainly found a lot of different ways to make eyes.
You have granted us the evolution of gliding. Hollow bones had evolved prior to the evolution of flight; they are not uncommon in terrestrial dinosaurs, and are present in the lineage that led to birds. We have small hollow boned, feathered dinosaurs with the potential to become gliders; Microraptor gui probably was a glider. With a glider we have a set of reasonably aerodynamic feathers and some basic attitude control suitable for gliding. Dinosaurs can obviously move their arms so some sort of flight stroke is possible - see Wing-Assisted Incline Running and the Evolution of Flight for one possible route to the evolution of a proto-flight stroke.
Even before flight we have terrestrial dinosaurs with hollow bones and feathers. You have allowed the evolution of gliding and we have fossils of probable gliders and some attitude control. We have possible routes to the evolution of the flight stroke. Now look at Archaeopteryx: hollow bones, feathers, flight stroke and attitude control. No doubt Archaeopteryx had improved over the original versions, but small improvements of existing systems is something that evolution is good at. The claim that the evolution of flight is impossible does not stand up in this case.
For insects the case is different. For a small insect - a millimetre or so - the problem is not flying, the problem is staying on the ground. With such small dimensions the surface to volume ratio makes it almost inevitable that it will be blown into the air. Proto-wings can be useful for heat exchange and attitude control. An overall increase in size will make the wings large enough for powered flight.
Loci is correct. As I have pointed out, dinosaurs already had feathers and hollow bones before they took to the air. We would need a detailed genome of a hollow boned, feathered, non-flying dinosaur to be able to carry out your program with any degree of accuracy. It is unlikely that the required information is still available. Where is Professor Challenger when you need him?
The point of the Behe quote is to emphasise that Behe himself agrees that IC systems can evolve. To quote further from that paper:
Behe and Snoke only used one of the possible evolutionary pathways; in particular they omitted recombination which is present in sexually reproducing species like dinosaurs. I agree with the qualitative result; IC (which they call ‘MR’ for Multiple Residues) can evolve. Their quantitative result is less certain as they themselves say. Even if we had the DNA sequences we needed, any numbers that we got from the calculation would be unreliable.
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Techno2000
Guest
And the 2010 model is going to look just like the 2009 model.
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edwest2
Guest
Let’s evolve a poison container:
The substance must not be harmful to the carrier.
The container is built but is empty. It is required that the container hold at least one effective dose of poison. Refill must be automatic, so a sensor is required.
A filling system is built.
The substance contained now needs a feed line to the point of exit, i.e. fangs.
The fangs, which were solid, must now be hollowed. The feed line must connect to each.
A muscle must be added to the container to apply pressure to release poison.
Modification to autonomic system in brain to contract muscle to force sufficient poison into feed line to be injected. Modification to “instinct” that converts bite/crush and kill to inject poison and kill. It would be useful to have the sensor in the container alert the carrier when it is empty for purely survival purposes, i.e. no more ammo in the poison container.
It is my view that the law of probability precludes all of this from happening, even if millions of years are supposedly involved. I find all dating methods (yes, I’ve read up) entirely questionable.
Example: The heart of the coelocanth is basically a muscle that surrounds an artery and expands and contracts. It is classified as “primitive,” but that is entirely arbitrary. The coelocanth is doing fine today with a ‘simple’ means to pump blood, as opposed to, say, a four chambered heart, which can be properly called complex. It is a moot point to identify one as being more evolved.
Finding similarities in no way implies descent. There are different means to produce a similar result.
Peace,
Ed
The substance must not be harmful to the carrier.
The container is built but is empty. It is required that the container hold at least one effective dose of poison. Refill must be automatic, so a sensor is required.
A filling system is built.
The substance contained now needs a feed line to the point of exit, i.e. fangs.
The fangs, which were solid, must now be hollowed. The feed line must connect to each.
A muscle must be added to the container to apply pressure to release poison.
Modification to autonomic system in brain to contract muscle to force sufficient poison into feed line to be injected. Modification to “instinct” that converts bite/crush and kill to inject poison and kill. It would be useful to have the sensor in the container alert the carrier when it is empty for purely survival purposes, i.e. no more ammo in the poison container.
It is my view that the law of probability precludes all of this from happening, even if millions of years are supposedly involved. I find all dating methods (yes, I’ve read up) entirely questionable.
Example: The heart of the coelocanth is basically a muscle that surrounds an artery and expands and contracts. It is classified as “primitive,” but that is entirely arbitrary. The coelocanth is doing fine today with a ‘simple’ means to pump blood, as opposed to, say, a four chambered heart, which can be properly called complex. It is a moot point to identify one as being more evolved.
Finding similarities in no way implies descent. There are different means to produce a similar result.
Peace,
Ed
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Techno2000
Guest
I wonder why this fish has not evolved, because they say… EVERYTHING has to evolve,don’t they ?
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JDaniel
Guest
In other words, soft bodied, unicellular organisms (if they existed for 3 billion years - 3.5 billion years ago to 540 million years ago) suddenly exploded during the Cambrian explosion, into the multi-cellular, boney creatures we find fossils of today? So, would you say that the vast majority of the heavy-duty evolution of macro-creatures took place during that 540 million year period?
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JDaniel
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Sorry, I meant 54 million year period.
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tjm190
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Who claims fish have not evolved?
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tjm190
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I’m not an expert on this particular area, however I would assume a large increase in species could result from either- Changes in the environment (large scale changes favor a wider variety of species) or simply timing (life had reached a point where ‘specialization’ was more available.)
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tjm190
Guest
Every act of reproduction changes the modelAnd the 2010 model is going to look just like the 2009 model.
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rossum
Guest
Coelacanths have indeed evolved. We have a number of fossil Coelacanths, all of which were shallow water species up to about 30 cm long. Modern Coelacanths are deep water species up to 100 to 150 cm long. They are in the same Order, Coelacanthiformes, but a different Family to all fossil Coelacanths.
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wanstronian
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With every post you demonstrate further your ignorance of the widely-accepted mechanics of evolution.
Why can’t you admit that you just don’t want it to be true? Instead you have to trot out these ill-informed straw man parodies.
OK, just a little common sense here:
When I see an animal that is perfectly suited and adapted to its environment, I have a tendency to believe it was specificly produced for the purpose. It certainly does not stand the scrutiny of any other purpose.
If you have a key that matches the keyhole and fits the lock, it is a fairly good possibility it was, in fact, built for that purpose.
Except in the case of animals and their respective environments and abilities you end up with a key that has a nearly impossibly large variation to it and a lock that matches this variation perfectly but also keeps changing…
For all of the variation we have bred into dogs, they are still dogs.
Is there an example of a species change?
I don’t mean an example of a species with traits that are similar to others, I mean a species that has changed enough that it can no longer breed with others that do not have these same changes.
For example, a breed of dog that we have specialized to such a degree that it is no longer possible at a genetic level for the new breed to mate with the older breeds.
I love it when people drag out the “your to ignorant to debate with” argument.With every post you demonstrate further your ignorance of the widely-accepted mechanics of evolution.
Why can’t you admit that you just don’t want it to be true? Instead you have to trot out these ill-informed straw man parodies.
OK, so correct the post. How exactly did the snake evolve the ability to poison its prey?
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tjm190
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The divergence from dog to wolf isn’t even complete yet- we wouldn’t expect to see a split within dogs yet.
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rossum
Guest
Fine. However, let us recall that evolution tends not to build stuff from scratch if it does not have to - it usually takes something that already exists and modifies it to suit the new purpose. In the case of poison containers it often starts with a salivary gland and modifies that.
Saliva is not harmful, even though it does help in digesting food - the lining of the mouth and the teeth are already resistant to saliva. As the saliva moves towards poison the mouth can also move in parallel to resist. Failures die from their own poison and do not reproduce. It is also worth noting that most snake venoms are not technically poisons. If you drink some it will be broken down by your digestive system and rendered harmless. It is only dangerous if it is injected directly into your bloodstream, thus bypassing your digestive system.
Salivary glands are already leakproof and are already built. They already have a sensor and an automatic refill system.
Salivary glands already have a filling system. All that is needed is a change in the ingredients.
There is already an existing feed line to the mouth. The exit point of the feed line needs to move and teeth need to change their shape.
The probable intermediate was a U-shaped cross-section fang with an open channel. Some existing snakes use this system. Extending the sides of the U will close over the channel and give a hollow, O-shaped, fang. There is often more than one way for evolution to get to a destination.
Already present in a salivary gland.
Already present for salivary glands - saliva is released when there is food in the jaws.
Not by much - bite + saliva is very similar to bite + venom. If you have ever observed reptiles eating then you will notice that they are not strong on crushing/chewing as they do not have cheeks - stuff falls out of the sides of their mouths. Swallowing large chunks is much more their style. Many non-poisonous snakes swallow their prey whole.
Such a sensor is already present in salivary glands, which are kept replenished automatically.
Your personal views are not relevant to science. Particularly so if you do not realise that poison glands are mostly modified salivary glands; starting from a salivary gland changes the odds considerably as many of the required subsystems you have described are already in place. Have a look at Properties of a Toxin from the Salivary Gland of the Shrew, Blarina Brevicauda for an example of exactly the sort of evolution I am talking about.
By modifying a pre-existing component, such as a salivary gland, evolution can develop a new component without having to start from a blank sheet of paper. Salivary glands are already present in the mouths of tetrapods and they are an obvious candidate for evolution into poison glands.
rossum
True, but shouldn’t we see some kind of species change somewhere?
I mean, the theory specifies that these changes have been going on for quite some time.
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buffalo
Guest
Can we agree these basic building blocks instructions are contained in the DNA code?
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rossum
Guest
Yes. There is DNA for salivary glands in all land tetrapods that I am aware of.
rossum
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