Population Bottleneck

[rom]

and predictable.

It is enough to say that a phenomenon is empirical if it is verifiable by observation or by experiment. However, if you are referring to the theory that explains the phenomenon, then you might require that it be testable (or falsifiable), the experiments repeatable , and the results predictable.

It is only a logical requirement for the average complexity of new species to exceed the average complexity of earlier species.

OK, let me grant that to you. Now, the next question is, Is there any laboratory or field evidence that there is an average rise of genetic information in a group of newly descended species from their parent species? NONE!!! As far as I know, every known evolution of “new” species recorded and observed was the result of sorting or loss of information rather than an increase, or is the result of a gene switch being turned on or off, without a corresponding increase in genetic information. If you have different information, or you have the evidence that we are looking for, please present it.

Evolution adapts species to the environment in which they live. If the environment becomes less complex then there is an advantage to reducing complexity so as to waste less of the available resources. Caves have no light so cave fish lose their eyes so as not to waste resources. The absence of light is a reduction in complexity of the cave environment. Evolution tracks that reduction, resulting in a decrease in the complexity of fish living in that environment.

Agreed. Therefore, any experiment you do in a dark cave that results in a loss of vision cannot be evidence for the evolution of the eye. You need to do your experiments outside the cave if you want to account for the evolution of the eye.

Macro-evolution in biology is defined as the emergence of new species, and higher clades. A new species is macro-evolution, at least in biology textbooks. I do hope that you are not following buffalo down the Humpty Dumpty route and redefining words to suit your argument.

My concept of macro-evolution does not contradict yours, but does not ignore that complexity arises along with diversity.

FYI: Actually, Buffalo is a good researcher. I have clicked the heart on some of his posts.

 

[rom]

Big time wrong. Humans had no tails.

Hahaha. You caught that too, huh? I think that Rossum was referring to the coccyx, which was once believed to be the vestige of a tail. But that idea had been debunked long ago. The coccyx is not really a useless part of the human body (or a relic of the past), since it acts as a point of attachment for tendons and other muscles that would be incapable of movement, were it absent.

No it hasn’t fallen. It’s just bushier at the base.

It depends on how it is presented. The Tree of Life I gave still looks like a tree, but the common “ancestors” are represented as branching points (since the actual ancestors, if any, are unknown.) Other trees of life I have seen look more like forests than trees.

 

[rossum]

Your claim is that everytime there is a split the offspring are better?

Not every time. Some new species can go extinct very quickly while the parent species carries on. However, on average, the new species is better adapted to its environment that the old species would have been.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Now, the next question is, Is there any laboratory or field evidence that there is an average rise of genetic information in a group of newly descended species from their parent species?

Genetic information is not a measure often used by biologists because it is not very useful. The human genome is about 3 billion base pairs. The onion plant (Allium cepa) has more then 30 billion base pairs, ten times as much as humans. There is a single celled amoeba (Amoeba dubia) with 670 billion base pairs, over 200 times as many as ourselves.

Raw information content is not a useful measure.

rossum

 

[FredBloggs]

“Empirical” means verifiable by observation or experiment.

Well you can observe the evidence from embryology, zoology, palaeontology, morphology etc. Why do you not consider that empirical?

 

[FredBloggs]

Big time wrong. Humans had no tails.

A little disingenuous, this. Rossum never said that humans had tails. He said that humans have lost tails. While you’ve chosen to take this literally, I’m sure you understand that he meant that the distant ancestors of humans had tails.

And of course, human embryos have tails until around 10 weeks… and some are even born with tails.

 

[rossum]

A little disingenuous, this. Rossum never said that humans had tails. He said that humans have lost tails. While you’ve chosen to take this literally, I’m sure you understand that he meant that the distant ancestors of humans had tails.

You are correct. I specifically referred to our “Catarrhine ancestors” in that post.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Genetic information is not a measure often used by biologists because it is not very useful. The human genome is about 3 billion base pairs. The onion plant ( Allium cepa ) has more then 30 billion base pairs, ten times as much as humans. There is a single celled amoeba ( Amoeba dubia ) with 670 billion base pairs, over 200 times as many as ourselves.

Raw information content is not a useful measure.

That is where you are going south. It is and will increasingly be a useful measure.

 

[rossum]

That is where you are going south. It is and will increasingly be a useful measure.

Then please explain why a single celled amoeba needs over 200 times as much information as a human. What was the designer thinking when he/she/it/they designed that genome?

rossum

 

[buffalo]

And of course, human embryos have tails until around 10 weeks… and some are even born with tails.

No. This is not considered to be so anymore.

 

[buffalo]

Then please explain why a single celled amoeba needs over 200 times as much information as a human. What was the designer thinking when he/she/it/they designed that genome?

Your claim is it is not a useful measure. Source for how much “information” an Amoeba has?

 

[FredBloggs]

No. This is not considered to be so anymore.

Citation please?

 

[rossum]

You need to learn, buffalo, that scientists like to measure things. Lots of things. That means that there is a lot of information out there to reference.

As I said above, Amoeba dubia has 670 billion base pairs in its DNA. Each base pair gives 2 bits of Shannon information. That gives a total of 2 x 6.7e11 = 1.34e12 bits of Shannon information.

rossum

 

[rossum]

No. This is not considered to be so anymore.

Wrong again, buffalo. Some are, very rarely, born with tails: see Human tails, x-ray here.

Making unsupported claims is not the way to win a scinetific argument.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Wrong again, buffalo. Some are, very rarely, born with tails: see Human tails , x-ray here .

Making unsupported claims is not the way to win a scinetific argument.

Remember, that life contains the core conserved elements and instructions to build all types of body plans. An incidence of a tail is a deformity and in no way supports the claim that all humans in the past had tails. It can be the result of a deleterious mutation resulting in a birth defect. Genetic entropy will produce more oddities as time goes on.

 

[buffalo]

You need to learn, buffalo, that scientists like to measure things. Lots of things. That means that there is a lot of information out there to reference.

As I said above, Amoeba dubia has 670 billion base pairs in its DNA. Each base pair gives 2 bits of Shannon information. That gives a total of 2 x 6.7e11 = 1.34e12 bits of Shannon information.

Then the conclusion must be that humans have a much more efficient operating system. No one doubts humans are much more complex. The DNA code can be read forward, backward and is layered. We are finding new info on DNA information capacity everyday.

 

[rossum]

Remember, that life contains the core conserved elements and instructions to build all types of body plans. An incidence of a tail is a deformity and in no way supports the claim that all humans in the past had tails. It can be the result of a deleterious mutation resulting in a birth defect. Genetic entropy will produce more oddities as time goes on.

Personal opinion unsupported by any evidence. In science that counts as a loss.

Then the conclusion must be that humans have a much more efficient operating system. No one doubts humans are much more complex. The DNA code can be read forward, backward and is layered. We are finding new info on DNA information capacity everyday.

Wrong again. Humans and amoeba have the same ‘operating system’. They translate their DNA into proteins the same way that we do. I suggest that you read up about the eukaryote cell. Both ourselves and amoeba are eukaryotes.

You have no evidence for your "more efficient operating system’. Perhaps you would like to tell us about the ‘operating system’ of the Fugu fish?

You are pulling unsupported statements out of thin air to try and support your position. Unsupported statements will not win any science arguments.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Unsupported statements will not win any science arguments.

You yourself made several in your reply.

 

[rom]

Genetic information is not a measure often used by biologists because it is not very useful. The human genome is about 3 billion base pairs. The onion plant ( Allium cepa ) has more then 30 billion base pairs, ten times as much as humans. There is a single celled amoeba ( Amoeba dubia ) with 670 billion base pairs, over 200 times as many as ourselves.

Not useful? I guess it depends on what you want to do with it. But in a discussion on evolution, it is not only useful, but important. Genetic information is the instruction contained in the DNA that regulates the formation of the proteins and enzymes needed to produce an organism and all its parts. Most organisms start as a single cell. But whether the cell will develop into a lady bug or an orchid will depend on the genetic information contained in its DNA. So, how can we pretend that it is not important?

It is important not to confuse the amount of DNA in an organism with the richness of its genetic information content. Some genomes just have a lot of “junk DNA.” Also, if an organism has plenty of repeated sequences in its genome, such as your onion plant, it may have a lot of DNA but be very poor in genetic information. It is similar to a book with many duplicate pages. The book may appear larger in size, but it will not have more information than the same book without the duplicate pages.

In some cases we might notice the rise of a new species due to a genetic mutation where a single nucleotide base is changed, inserted or deleted from a sequence of DNA or RNA. This may trigger a noticeable change in the phenotype, even the appearance of a new species. But this does not increase genetic information. It is like using a marker to remove some of the letters in a book. The result may look like a corrupt copy of the original book, but it has no new information in it.

Now here is my point. Suppose that there was a time when organisms didn’t have any eyes. This means that there was no genetic information in the genome of all existing organisms for making an eye. Then, after several million years we have a species endowed with eyes. If you do not want to call it a rise in complexity, fine. There is no sense arguing about terminology. But it shows that there is now a genetic information that produced the eye, which did not exist several million years earlier. The evolutionists will say that the new genetic information “evolved.” I say, maybe. But don’t say it is fact until you can show verifiable laboratory or field evidence that the new genetic information for the development of the eye (or any other new organs) came from a species where that information was originally observed to be absent. This is the kind of evidence I am looking for. Anything less than that does not prove super-evolution.

 

[rom]

Well you can observe the evidence from embryology, zoology, palaeontology, morphology etc. Why do you not consider that empirical?

My post will be too long if I try to explain why all the evidences you cited are not empirical. So, let me choose the evidence from embryology first. The alleged “evidence” from embryology is supposed to show the descent of higher forms of living beings from the lower. But if you merely show a comparison of embryos, such as Haeckel’s drawings (see below), then the descent of man from the fish is not really observed but imagined. Therefore, it is not empirical. A similar comment can be said of the other evidences you cited. We can discuss them, if you want. But please present your evidence. (The image below is in the public domain.)

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Incidentally, the drawings of embryos given above were exposed as fraudulent since 1868. Of course, all embryos will look similar in the early stages of their life because they all start as a single cell. But Genetics has shown that the human embryo was always a human embryo right from the moment of conception. It was not a fish embryo or a hog embryo that only became human after eight weeks of its life. That this evidence still persists and is being used to promote evolution surprises me.