Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

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LeafByNiggle said:
I’m done answering questions
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Where I ask questions, I must admit that I am less interested in the person’s answer than I am in getting them to think about what they are saying. I like to figure things out and, no offence, there are better sources in the literature to pursue something of interest that someone has introduced into the discussion.

On the other hand, when asked a question, which I find rarely happens actually and wish it were more, it provides me with an opportunity to communicate my vision of things, which actually is clarified for myself in the process.

I don’t see it as an issue. Ask away!
 
o_mlly said:
Gould’s stressed that his argument was not based on randomness but rather contingency ; a process by which historical outcomes arise from an unpredictable sequence of antecedent states, where any change in the sequence alters the final result (p 283).

Biologist John Maynard Smith wrote, "I agree with Gould that evolution is not in general predictable. …
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Oh my word. Why do you not understand this…

Smith and Gould AND the guy that wrote the preface to those papers are absolutely certain that a predictive theory of evolution DOES NOT EXIST. Can that possibly be clearer? The guy actually wrote as much and you have quoted it:

“All of these are key elements of what MAY become a predictive theory of evolution…”

Don’t you understand what that means? It means that there IS NO predictive theory of evolution but there MIGHT be sometime in the future. Smith and Gould agree that there isn’t one now and are reasonable certain that there will not be one. I tend to agree. There are simply too many unpredictable variables. Gould is famous for suggesting that if we reran the tape of evolution then we wouldn’t get what we’ve got now.

Others are not so sure: Tape of life may not always be random | New Scientist

But if you think that that means that you can’t the ToE to MAKE predictions then I’m wasting my time responding to these type of comments.

Look, I’m going to bend over backwards here. The ToE is an amazingly simple theory to understand. It’s taught to children. This isn’t quantum field theory. You can follow it with a relatively small knowledge of biology and associated sciences. However…

…there is a gargantuan bedrock of knowledge behind it that will find you out if you haven’t done some basic reading on the subject and have spent some time studying it. There are those in this forum who have done neither and they will deny it until they are blue in the face but to anyone who has spent some time getting up to speed with the subject, the statements they make, the questions thay ask, the claims they espouse and the arguments they make are very close to being farcical.

You are following their example and shooting from the hip without knowing enough about the subject to realise, not that you are missing the target, but that your gun isn’t even loaded.
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Bradskii said:
Smith and Gould AND the guy that wrote the preface to those papers are absolutely certain that a predictive theory of evolution DOES NOT EXIST. Can that possibly be clearer? The guy actually wrote as much and you have quoted it

“All of these are key elements of what MAY become a predictive theory of evolution…”

Don’t you understand what that means? It means that there IS NO predictive theory of evolution but there MIGHT be sometime in the future.
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I’m evolving to go ahead and take those two aspirin before reading your posts. Whatever are you trying to say? Let me refresh your memory.

First you posted:
“Bradskii said:
Prediction: Too many examples to list really. Here’s a selection of 142 papers (count 'em! 142!) all dealing with prediction regarding evolution (you must have know these were available - all you had to do was Google ‘evolution prediction’. Make some effort, for heaven’s sake). Predicting evolution | Nature Ecology & Evolution
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Then you posted: (I guess you found 10 papers that didn’t meet your own exacting standards for making predictions. Only 132 now left to refute?)
“Bradskii said:
Your job, should you wish to accept it, is to somehow deny that predictions regarding evolution were made in all those papers to which I linked (count 'em! 132!).
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OK. I can see you’re a dog with a bone on this issue. Let’s do what you ask. So I look at the first paper referenced, Gould’s book. Re-read my post: GOULD MAKES NO PREDICTIONS. Oh, OK. You got me. Gould predicted that evolution could not predict. I guess we are unfair to assume you meant predictions about life and not the theory (and how unfair of us to infer that any predictions made be subsequently proven to be true?). Relax, the bars will be open soon.
 
o_mlly said:
Re-read my post: GOULD MAKES NO PREDICTIONS.
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In writing ‘‘Wonderful Life,’’ Stephen J. Gould said, his intent was to determine the extent of the ''predictability of life." The New York Times: Book Review Search Article

This has been, as I have said, if not Gould’s life work then at least that which defines his position in evolutionary literature. His position has always been the one that the book explains in detail. He has always predicted this view (as bizzarely as it seems to you), that discoveries within evolution would eventually prove that the COURSE of evolution itself cannot be predicted.

The book is his view that that prediction has been proved to be correct. His book is nothing other than the scientific explanation of that. Using evolution itself to prove it.

To paraphrase his position, and he could well have written this in the foreward: ‘I predict that aspects of the evolutionary process will prove that the COURSE of evolution itself cannot be predicted.’
 
Techno. You know the drill. Things are evolving, you just have to wait a million years. Can’t wait a million years? Oh well. Believe it happened. Sign here. Trust us.
 
edwest211 said:
Techno. You know the drill. Things are evolving, you just have to wait a million years. Can’t wait a million years? Oh well. Believe it happened. Sign here. Trust us.
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Here’s the part I can understand. The clock for evolution started ticking so-called 4 billion years ago, and yet when you look around you find nothing evolving.
 
Techno2000 said:
Here’s the part I can understand. The clock for evolution started ticking so-called 4 billion years ago, and yet when you look around you find nothing evolving.
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Here’s the part I can’t understand. The clock for penicillin started in 1928 and already many bacteria have evolved immunity to it.

Here’s the part I can’t understand. The clock for DDT started in 1939 and already many insects have evolved immunity to it.

Here’s the part I can’t understand. The clock for Roundup (glyphosate) started in 1974 and already many weeds have evolved immunity to it.

Your sources are lying to you, Techno.

rossum
 
rossum said:
The clock for penicillin started in 1928 and already many bacteria have evolved immunity to it.
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Wrong. I can’t understand how people can participate in a discussion and learn nothing. Again, for the upteenth time - a cave was discovered that they determined had been sealed from the rest of the world for two and a half million years. They found bacteria there that were resistant to modern antibiotics. The conclusion is that all bacteria may have had these capacities initially in order to maintain a harmonious balance with molds in their shared environments, but that this trait was lost through random glitching of the genome. Fortunately for them, but not for us, these traits can be passed on to one another through plasmid transfer. Do we have to post the link again for those who continue not to read replies?
 
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Aloysium said:
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rossum:
The clock for penicillin started in 1928 and already many bacteria have evolved immunity to it.
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Wrong. I can’t understand how people can participate in a discussion and learn nothing. Again, for the upteenth time - a cave was discovered that they determined had been sealed from the rest of the world for two and a half million years. They found bacteria there that were resistant to modern antibiotics. The conclusion is that all bacteria may have had these capacities initially…
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You don’t say which “modern” antibiotic. There are many. And resistance to one does not imply resistance to another. It is possible that some bacteria already had some resistance. But to suggest that all such resistance is latent in all bacteria is pure speculation. This is an example of taking a true fact and drawing the wrong conclusion from it.

Resistance to antibiotics is very specific to the antibiotic in question. Since there are potentially an unlimited number of antibiotics that man might invent, it is just an act of faith to assume that every one of those inventions were anticipated in the genetics of all bacteria. That would take an infinite amount of information. Bacteria cannot hold an infinite amount of latent genetic information.

And your anecdote does not address DDT and Roundup.
 
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buffalo said:
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rossum:
Here’s the part I can’t understand. The clock for penicillin started in 1928 and already many bacteria have evolved immunity to it.
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Uh no, they already had latent memory and recalled it.
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Here’s the problem with your “latent memory” theory. No one has found evidence of such a memory. It is only hypothesized. The very existence of such a memory presupposes that some knowledgeable agent instilled that memory (God, or whatever). Otherwise there is no scientific explanation of how that memory got there. The presupposition is equivalent to a religious faith in an intelligent designer of life. You can’t find the evidence of the memory before it is expressed, at which time it might just as well have come from natural selection.

Many experiments have been done with artificial (forced) selection. In all of these we see an inheritable change. I don’t remember where I saw it, but somewhere I saw the report of an experiment where some animal was subjected to artificial selection that favored a very lopsided left-right imbalance in the morphology. It was something like selecting birds for have a larger right wing than a left wing (but it wasn’t birds.) Perhaps someone who has seen the experiment can fill in the details. The result was a grossly imbalanced being. Now this is easy to explain in terms of evolution. It is just the response to the selection pressure. But to explain it in terms of intelligent design is much harder. There is no natural benefit for a creature to become so lopsided. In fact in the wild it would be an absolute detriment. So there is no reason an intelligent designer would have programmed a “latent memory” into the genetic code for that particular abnormality - other than anticipating that very experiment. Since there are an infinite number of potential experiments that could be run with artificial selection, the genetic code that contains this “latent memory” would also have to be infinite. That would push it out of the realm of observable coding and into the realm of hypothesized supernatural memory. That would make it an inappropriate hypothesis to consider in science since it would not be testable like evolution is testable.
 
buffalo said:
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rossum:
Here’s the part I can’t understand. The clock for penicillin started in 1928 and already many bacteria have evolved immunity to it.
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Uh no, they already had latent memory and recalled it.
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"Now there’s one big caveat. This “hardwired” resistance is true only for natural antibiotics.

About 99.9 percent of all the antibiotics that we use come from microorganisms, from bacteria and fungi," Barton says. “They are constantly lobbing these chemical missiles at each other. And so if you’re going to live in that environment you have to have a good defense.” The goal of all this lobbing is survival: There are very few nutrients in the cave. So the microorganisms are constantly trying to kill each other and take each others’ food.

But some antibiotics are manmade. “The bacteria in the cave have never been exposed to these antibiotics,” Barton says. “So they’re still sensitive them.” Scientists Find Million-Year-Old Superbug In New Mexican Cave : Goats and Soda : NPR

Modern penicillin is manmade.
 
Aloysium said:
Again, for the upteenth time - a cave was discovered that they determined had been sealed from the rest of the world for two and a half million years. They found bacteria there that were resistant to modern antibiotics.
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There are two reasons I can think of off the top of my head for that. Many bacteria have ways to counter other bacteria, hence many modern antibiotics are designed to copy the ways bacteria are already using to fight other bacteria. Those “modern” antibiotics, or similar, have been used by bacteria for a long time so some other bacteria will have evolved resistance.

Second, mutations are random, so a mutation may appear before it becomes useful. If it is neutral then it can persist in a population through neutral drift for a very long time.

A bacteriologist could no doubt think of other reasons. You might also consider that the cave work was done years ago (you do not give a reference or a date) and the theory of evolution has not been overturned.
The conclusion is that all bacteria may have had these capacities initially
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You jump from ‘some bacteria now’ to “all bacteria may”; that is a leap too far. Can I claim that: “Some people are Buddhist now therefore all people may have been Buddhist in the past”? That is very very bad science.

You are reading far too much into this. Bacteria can evolve immunity very easily. Have a look at: Evolution of Bacteria for how easy it is for bacteria to evolve immunity to an antibiotic.

rossum
 
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buffalo said:
Uh no, they already had latent memory and recalled it.
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And your evidence for this latent memory is? We have fully sequenced bacterial genomes, so we already know it is not held in DNA. Where is it held, and where is your evidence for this non-DNA storage of information?

rossum
 
Oh dear Techno.

We can see that even humans over the last few hundred years are evolving.

We are becoming taller, less hairy, have bigger frontal lobe (greater working memory, emotional understanding).

Some strains of bacteria have now become resistant to antibiotics (there are cases of people dying of chlamidia in the US). Bacteria in particular evolve quickly akd constantly.

The WHO is constantly on high alert for viruses that have changed (ie evolved) particularly their mode of transportation and period of incubation (remember swine flu, bird flu, ebola??)

We see it all the time.
 
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