Darwin's theory

Brian Shanahan

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Some pretty much have (see crocodiles)

I'm sorry to have to pull you up there, but you're wrong. The only species which is not evolving is an extinct species.

It is a common misconception when people see a "primitive" species and assume they have stopped evolving, because they haven't, it's just that a lot of the evolution has been going on under the hood, and in parts of the animal which don't fossilise and therefore don't get preserved, but it is a simple fact of biology that species which stop or lose the ability to evolve quickly die out, because their environment is dynamic, often quite quickly so, and always changing.

Brian Shanahan

Vivisectus wrote: »

A gay gene might have beneficial effects for survival, and at the same time not always get expressed in such a way as to lead to a 100% homosexual preference... it could even sometimes not even get expressed like that at all! Thus such a gene could overcome the downsides of a decreased likelihood of procreation.

Sickle cell anaemia is a perfect illustration of this idea. There is a gene (located in chromosome 11) which confers an advantage in resistance to malaria if it is inherited from one parent, yet causes anaemia if it is inherited from both. While this is an awful chance for an individual, in the areas where the mutation occured (mostly in malaria infested tropical and sub-tropical areas, often independently) it is a great benefit at the population level to have the mutation, because even if a large number die from anaemia related problems, many more are rendered highly resistant to malaria, one of the largest killers.

endacl

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Sickle cell anaemia is a perfect illustration of this idea. There is a gene (located in chromosome 11) which confers an advantage in resistance to malaria if it is inherited from one parent, yet causes anaemia if it is inherited from both. While this is an awful chance for an individual, in the areas where the mutation occured (mostly in malaria infested tropical and sub-tropical areas, often independently) it is a great benefit at the population level to have the mutation, because even if a large number die from anaemia related problems, many more are rendered highly resistant to malaria, one of the largest killers.

Hah! If darwinology is so bloody clever, and both anaemia and malaria are associated with blood, why didn't the people who lived in those regions simply 'evolve' to have no blood?!?

How am I doing JC? I'm kinda new to this creationist thing.

Hang on. If they didn't have blood........ Sundays....... Transsubstantiation....... Body and blood with no blood....

Feck's sake. My first attempt at creation science an I'm tripped up by my own logic. JC. Seriously. I don't know how you keep your head on straight at all.

Cianmcliam

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Sickle cell anaemia is a perfect illustration of this idea. There is a gene (located in chromosome 11) which confers an advantage in resistance to malaria if it is inherited from one parent, yet causes anaemia if it is inherited from both. While this is an awful chance for an individual, in the areas where the mutation occured (mostly in malaria infested tropical and sub-tropical areas, often independently) it is a great benefit at the population level to have the mutation, because even if a large number die from anaemia related problems, many more are rendered highly resistant to malaria, one of the largest killers.

In theory it sounds plausible, however I just can't see how the math can stack up on this. Take the hypothesis discussed earlier in the thread, that a set of genes that contributed to having a gay male child might make female relatives slightly more fertile. This just doesn't seem to balance out.

A super-fertile female simply can't produce many more children than a normaly healthy female because they can't avoid the 9 months gestation and subsequent weaning period that other mothers also can't avoid. They also have a finite amount of time, until the middle of their fourth decade, before their reproduction stops altogether.
The homosexual male could well forfeit any amount of children almost up to his death bed, could be several dozen in polygamous societies or raiding tribes. The families with homosexual males in their line would then be replaced in the population by those whose men were fond of one night stands, multiple wives and taking back many women during wars.

As I said before, there's surely genetic factors at play but I can't see a very good argument for it being an adaptation.

EoghanIRL

Wibbs wrote: »

Here's one nature made earlier

As you can see we have a clear progression from "ape" to the hominid family over the course of 5 million years. You can see the basic similarities, but also the differences.

Check out this comparison to classic Neandertals. They show a more obvious morphological debt to Erectus.

Now of course it wasn't as simple as all this. It wasn't a "clean" A to B progression. It never is, it's fuzzy lines of back and forth adaptation and evolution and interbreeding. EG Neandertals weren't our direct ancestors, both us and they were evolved from local populations of Homo Erectus. Think of both of us like Erectus version 2.0. They were the V 2.0 that came up in Europe, we were V 2.0 that came up in Africa. Indeed at first we don't look so different to more lightly built later Neandertals(Wiki at one point had a pic of a supposed archaic modern from North Africa that was actually a French Neandertal skull). We had brow ridges, less of a chin, bigger teeth etc. Our main difference was in the overall shape of the skull, ours were more rounded, ball like, theirs were more elongated, rugby ball like, female Neandertal is almost entirely conjecture and a lash up of male bones "feminised" for the purpose. The blue eyes and blondish hair is frankly risible IMHO.

Cool drawing.
Interesting how a and b have no mandible but only a maxilla . Never knew that .
Or is it just removed for the drawing ? Noob question :P

SaveOurLyric

ScumLord wrote: »

You still don't seem to have a basic grasp of how evolution works. That's like saying about baking, take this carrot cake and turn it into chocolate log and then I'll believe in baking.

It isnt. No one claims you can turn a carrot cake into a chocolate log. But people are claiming, that by tiny steps, an apes beget men.

SaveOurLyric

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

Yes, it's that compelling. If you................
what the operating mechanics of it are (in particular natural selection).

Well explained, thanks. And it does sort of make sense. So if evolution is correct, why are there still people who dont believe in it ? Are they simply not evolved enough ?

endacl

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

But people are claiming, that by tiny steps, an apes beget men.

No they're not. That would be as dumb as creationism.

Wibbs

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

But people are claiming, that by tiny steps, an apes beget men.

Because the evidence for it is very compelling. As I linked earlier http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/paleobiology/jpg/300_96dpi/c17f021.jpg.

And that's a very rough sketch of the fossil record we have for humans and proto humans. There are many examples of one blending into the other. The so called intermediate fossils and evidence the creationists claim don't exist. That's why there's no "missing link", the changes are slow and pretty steady over time. Even in so called anatomically modern humans there are changes within them since we first left north east Africa. Hell there have been more changes in the human genome in the last 10,000 odd years than happened in the previous 50,000. This is some complex shít here.

Even mainstream for public consumption science often misses the latter and can serve to confuse. That Brian Cox series currently on the box "Human Universe" was making some well dubious claims among the science in the first episode. EG he mused along the lines that if a human from hundred odd thousand years ago was born today they'd grow up just like us. Eh nope. Sorry Brian. I dunno where they were gleaning their advice from. The jury is very much out on that one. The early anatomically modern humans found while having clear features that lead to us today, were quite different in many aspects. Check this dude out LINK. One of the early examples. The features of AMH he has are (very basically) a more rounded braincase, though not as rounded as us today, more of a chin, though again not as much as folks today, his cheekbones are much more forward sweeping than other archaics, he has much less of a gap between the last molar and the jaw, he has more of a forehead, but again not as much as folks today. Plus he's got browridges you could rest a pint on and his face has more of a muzzle thing going on than would be common today. If the chap was alive today he'd look more like us than a classic Neandertal alright, but he'd still stand out as a little odd looking.

Culturally? The jury is really out on that one. In the middle east where modern humans and Neandertals lived together and apart from(IIRC) 100,000, to 50,000 years ago, there was remarkably little difference between them culturally. They used the same stone tool tech, they seemed to have both buried their dead(depending on whom you read). This was also the likely point where we were breaking out the milk tray, roses and barry white records and getting jiggy with each other, so we must have felt somewhat kindred. About the only difference were their hunting strategies. Moderns tended to do follow the herds seasonal type hunting whereas the other lads were more local. If you were taking bets on who would end up winning you'd be hard pressed. Neither were like us anyway.

As for Brian going on about hafted weapon points and all that from 150,000 years ago, I personally call shenanigans. If you read the original report it looks very like selection bias on the part of the researchers. Sure they found what looked like blades and points, however they made up a tiny minority of the tools found. Nothing like a consistent technology being used regularly. This is very common in this area of science(EG for years "handaxes" were the pride of museum collections and research. Well they're very pretty, so like the magpies we are they collected them profusely yet other stuff, the more common stuff was largely ignored except by a few people). Don't get me effin started on the "finished product" bollocks surrounding Levallois lithic reduction* technique. No really... Don't. :D

So you see SOL, I'm no blinkered proponent of "science is perfect maaaan". Not by a long shot and it can sometimes be quite resistant, even aggressive to new ideas that contradict current firmly held beliefs**. Looong history of that there and each generation often thinks "no, we have it right now". That firmly held belief meme is not just restricted to the religious, it seems to be a very human thing. However the difference is and it's a big effin difference is sooner or later when the evidence is so obvious(and often when a new generation of scientists comes along) science changes. It adapts, it dials back, even throws out the the old and in with the new that has better evidence. Religion does not. Especially fundamentalist stylee religion. It takes a position and never deviates.






* good god, I just typed the words "Levallois lithic reduction" in After Hours. That says two things; AH is well cool and I win the internet.

**in this context of human evolution there was(and still is a little) the "out of Africa" guys in the red corner and the "multiregional" guys in the blue. That shít ran for years with denials, dismissals and even came to blows at conferences. Boffins throwing punches at other boffins. I'd have paid to see that stuff.

Capt'n Midnight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/180301.stm

Research at the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, showed that 15% of female elephants and 9% of males in the park were born without tusks.

In 1930 the figure for both male and female elephants was only 1%.

In elephant terms 1930 was just 3 generations ago.



We've witnessed so many species that have been made extinct by introduced animals. Extinctions are so common that there's even the story of Tribbles the cat who was alleged to have wiped out a whole species of flightless bird. Some of the main agents of extinction today are the cats, rats and mice that out compete and eat native species. And cane toads.

Edgarfrndly

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

Well explained, thanks. And it does sort of make sense. So if evolution is correct, why are there still people who dont believe in it ? Are they simply not evolved enough ?

They are simply too ignorant to bother to actually research it. It has nothing to do with evolution.

Capt'n Midnight

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Sickle cell anaemia is a perfect illustration of this idea.

Cystic Fibrosis is probably a better example.

1 in 19 Irish people have the gene for it.

For most of history if you got a copy of the gene from both parents it was very unlikely you'd have a family yourself.

Edgarfrndly

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

But people are claiming, that by tiny steps, an apes beget men.

Man is an ape. Man is also evolved from now extinct apes. The evidence for it is overwhelming. It is not a claim. It is a fact.

EoghanIRL

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/180301.stmIn elephant terms 1930 was just 3 generations ago.



We've witnessed so many species that have been made extinct by introduced animals. Extinctions are so common that there's even the story of Tribbles the cat who was alleged to have wiped out a whole species of flightless bird. Some of the main agents of extinction today are the cats, rats and mice that out compete and eat native species. And cane toads.

So god wants elephants to be born with tusks .

Capt'n Midnight

marieholmfan wrote: »

Surely one can be a creationist while accepting that the universe seems to be 14 billion years old (to humans).

Actually the universe is just 5 minutes old.

Fake fossils and fake memories I'm afraid.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

And again what about Neandertals and homo Erectus and all other archaic humans? How do they fit into your Adam and Eve story?

Well who else was there for Cain and Able to marry ?

This diluting of the gene pool was obviously responsible for the decreasing longevity of biblical patriarchs through Genesis.

SaveOurLyric

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

It is not a claim. It is a fact.

Or at least, you believe that it is a fact. Some do some dont.
This is where belief in a particular branch of science makes makes some scientists unbearably self righteous.
On balance, I think now Darwins theory of man evolving from ape type animals over hundreds of thousands of years probably is correct. So lets say its a 'working' fact. A best estimate. Probably correct. A reasonable claim. But its probably the best scientists who keep an open mind and dont dogmatically label things as facts.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

To save the ecosystem of just the Phoenix park in Dublin would require a vessel at least the size of the largest oil tanker in the world today and you couldn't make it from "gopher wood".

You could.

Dead easy , any time you wanted to extend the ark you'd have to gopher wood.

Cianmcliam

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Cystic Fibrosis is probably a better example.

1 in 19 Irish people have the gene for it.

For most of history if you got a copy of the gene from both parents it was very unlikely you'd have a family yourself.

True, although the link was that the gene combinations had main effects that were detrimental to reproduction but had adaptive effects in other combinations that allowed the mutation to persist.

In the examples given before the main effects of the certain combination are all very rare compared to the 1 in 10 figure given for homosexuality. They probably wouldn't survive many generations outside our very large gene pool.
To be that prevalent you would need some fairly obvious adaptive advantage in family lineages that have it. All the proposed adaptive advantages seem severely underpowered to explain it.

I still think some kind of hormonal priming/androgen disruption in the womb is going to be a large part of the mechanism and not simply a flip of the genetic dice.

mickrock

The results of evolution are really amazing.

Especially from a process that is supposedly blind, dumb and directionless.

Capt'n Midnight

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

But its probably the best scientists who keep an open mind and dont dogmatically label things as facts.

People who don't keep an open mind and dogmatically label things as unchangeable facts just aren't scientists unless you completely abuse the meaning of science.


The first three decades of the last century was full of seismic shifts in physics. Such that a joke from the 1920's was about some physics students sneeking a look at the exam paper and saying "it's the same as last year's exam" and their professor telling them "yes , but the answers are different"

Max Planck who came up the concept of quanta of energy had this to say "My unavailing attempts to somehow reintegrate the action quantum into classical theory extended over several years and caused me much trouble."

He just didn't like quantum theory and he wasn't the only one. It was too abstract , it's only saving grace is that the maths matches most of the evidence. It's a tool that works and many would gladly ditch it if something more rational came along.

endacl

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

Or at least, you believe that it is a fact. Some do some dont.

With respect, it's statements like that that highlight the gap in understanding. It's not about belief. It's about acceptance of demonstrated facts, based on supporting evidence. That's all it is. Belief does not negate the validity of a fact. Nether does disbelief. Belief, in fact , has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's not a matter of opinion.

You either deny the facts because it shakes your belief, or you accept the facts in the face of that belief and adjust accordingly. Some people, for whatever reason, can't do this. They of course have an absolute right to their beliefs. I respect that. What they do not have is the right to have those beliefs respected. Certainly not to the extent that conversations like this might, to the casual observer, imply a parity between opposite but equal arguments. They're not equal. They're not even equatable.

Faith and fact are to different things. Religion does not belong in the laboratory. Funnily enough, science certainly does belong in the church. Steeples would fall down without engineers and architects with a solid grasp of physics.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

The results of evolution are really amazing.

Especially from a process that is supposedly blind, dumb and directionless.

Nothing new then? :rolleyes:

Knasher

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

But its probably the best scientists who keep an open mind and dont dogmatically label things as facts.

That is why scientists call it a theory. I.E. Something that fits and explains all the facts we have observed thus far, and that offers predictive power that has allowed us to predict newer facts that were then tested and found to be true. Something that we accept as true only so long as we haven't yet found a fact that disagrees with the theory, or had the theory predict a fact that then turned out to not be true.

People use the terms "fact" and "theory" in a very different way than scientists do.

Wibbs

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You could.

Dead easy , any time you wanted to extend the ark you'd have to gopher wood.

:mad: Get out. :mad: :pac:

Edgarfrndly

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

Or at least, you believe that it is a fact.

No, I don't believe it's right. Based on the huge array of evidence available to me, I wholly accept that it's a fact. Belief doesn't come into the equation.

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

Some do some dont.

I like how nonchalant you stated that, as if it's fifty/fifty. Let's be clear, over 95% of all scientists accept that evolution by natural selection is a fact. Those who do not in most part have no qualifications in biology, and for the very minute number of biologists who oppose it, it's largely due to religious reasons. They are unable to come to terms with something that contradicts the bible, and are outright in saying so.

endacl

Knasher wrote: »

That is why scientists call it a theory. I.E. Something that fits and explains all the facts we have observed thus far, and that offers predictive power that has allowed us to predict newer facts that were then tested and found to be true. Something that we accept as true only so long as we haven't yet found a fact that disagrees with the theory, or had the theory predict a fact that then turned out to not be true.

People use the terms "fact" and "theory" in a very different way than scientists do.

Well.....

No. That would be a hypothesis. The word 'theory' in this context is actually closer to the common understanding of the word 'fact'. Newton's Theory of Gravity, for example. Not a matter of opinion. Stuff falls down. It doesn't fall up. Ever.

http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

endacl

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

I like how nonchalant you stated that, as if it's fifty/fifty. Let's be clear, over 95% of all scientists accept that evolution by natural selection is a fact. Those who do not in most part have no qualifications in biology, and for the very minute number of biologists who oppose it, it's largely due to religious reasons. They are unable to come to terms with something that contradicts the bible, and are outright in saying so.

Funnily enough, if over 95% of scientists didn't accept that evolution by natural selection was a fact, it'd still be a fact. That's the beauty of facts. They're impervious to opinion. In much the same way that dogmatic religious thinking is impervious to facts.

Knasher

endacl wrote: »

Well.....

No. That would be a hypothesis. The word 'theory' in this context is actually closer to the common understanding of the word 'fact'. Newton's Theory of Gravity, for example. Not a matter of opinion. Stuff falls down. It doesn't fall up. Ever.

http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

A hypothesis wouldn't yet have the part where it has been found to predict new facts, and those facts were tested and found to be true. (though it is a somewhat fuzzy demarcation). Every theory, no matter how established, is only accepted so long as a fact hasn't been found that disagrees with it. If something was to fall up (hypothetical negative matter maybe), then first that thing would be tested to see if it really was a fact, then the theory would have to be adjusted to accommodate it.

endacl

Knasher wrote: »

A hypothesis wouldn't yet have the part where it has been found to predict new facts, and those facts were tested and found to be true. (though it is a somewhat fuzzy demarcation). Every theory, no matter how established, is only accepted so long as a fact hasn't been found that disagrees with it. If something was to fall up (hypothetical negative matter maybe), then first that thing would be tested to see if it really was a fact, then the theory would have to be adjusted to accommodate it.

I'm open to correction, consider me corrected! There's a danger to using the word theory in its commonly understood sense though. There is a world of difference between the definition of a 'scientific theory' and a 'well, that's just a theory and I don't believe it' theory. For some, this is a very convenient distinction.