|
Author
|
Topic: John A. Davison: Correspondence - Do We Have an Evolutionary Theory?
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 13. September 2007 13:28
quote:
Better yet, go over to Panda's Thumb and present your views there and see just how far you will get. Look at what is happening to Martin at After The Bar Closes. It is disgusting.
Panda's Thumb is a weblog where anyone can post so long as they are on-topic and civil. It is not designed for anyone other than contributors or their invited guests to write posts.
AtBC is also open to all (with very few exceptions) and anyone is welcome to start a new topic. Martin's problem is that he has yet to pursue a subject when asked to support an assertion with evidence.
IP: Logged
|
|
nosivad
Member
Member # 767
|
posted 13. September 2007 18:13
Martin is ten times the scholar of all the creeps at "After The Bar Closes" combined. It is a blatant lie to say that few have been banned from Panda's Thumb as well. I would love to see the whole list of which I am a member. Maybe Wes would be willing to present it but I doubt it. There is only one forum that I know of which has banned more posters and that is Uncommon Descent, thanks primarily to the insatiable egomania of David Springer, the biggest bully in the history of the internet. P.Z. Myers doesn't ban anyone. He just never allows their comments to appear!
Why should any forum ban anyone? I will answer that question. It is summarized in a single word - FEAR, fear that the forum denizens, invariably birds of a feather, gathering together, have dedicated their lives to a myth.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 13. September 2007, 18:30: Message edited by: nosivad ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 14. September 2007 02:25
quote:
Martin is ten times the scholar of all the creeps at "After The Bar Closes" combined.
This may be so, but, as I said, there is, as yet, no evidence in Martin's posts there to support this assertion.
quote:
It is a blatant lie to say that few have been banned from Panda's Thumb as well.
I suppose that depends on when few changes to many in comparison to the total number of posters. I believe the number of blocked ISPs is in the tens.It is an unfortunate fact that you are banned at Panda's Thumb. The specific reason has been made clear on more than one occasion. If you were prepared to acknowledge this and give assurances as to future conduct, it is possible posting privileges could be restored. The bar for conduct is not set that high.
quote:
I would love to see the whole list of which I am a member. Maybe Wes would be willing to present it but I doubt it.
I have replied by PM.
IP: Logged
|
|
Daniel Smith
Member
Member # 3004
|
posted 14. September 2007 04:39
quote:
There are three necessary and sufficient conditions for natural selection to occur. There must be variation in the population, this variation must be heritable and this variation has to affect fitness, the ability to survive and reproduce. When the environment changes (climate, a disappearing food source, a new predator, etc) a species may largely disappear, but a few individuals with serendipitously useful variations may survive and exploit the vacated niche.
This is a potted version of my understanding of natural selection as generally accepted.
Yes, that's the theoretical concept. Now, can you cite one real world example -- either from modern biological history or from the fossil record -- where this theoretical mechanism has been shown to produce anything more than minute varieties within species? quote:
Perhaps you or John would like to explain how natural selection inhibits the spreading of new beneficial alleles through a population.
Let's say a beneficial mutant is born. What will it breed with? It will have to breed with a non-mutant. Will their offspring be as beneficial? Will it even be a mutant? What about the next generation - now twice removed from the original mutant? Eventually the mutation will be watered down - back to the status quo. quote:
Well, the generally accepted view is that when niches are filled there is a struggle for scarce resources and the fittest (at exploiting that particular niche) will be more successful at reproducing.
That's the theory. Any real world examples? quote:
quote:
:As it stands now (based on realistic selection), the struggle for existence knocks out variations and maintains the status quo.
I don't follow your reasoning here. Perhaps you could elaborate.
Natural selection is a cold mistress. It works by killing. Most living things - born in the wild - die before maturity. Even the most pronounced advantages cannot be passed on if the organism does not live long enough to reproduce. That's realistic selection.
quote:
quote:
:I'm impressed by the number of real world examples these authors use to discredit Natural Selection.
Would you like to cite your best example?
There are so many. You really should read the books. Berg and Schindewolf cite hundreds of examples - Berg mostly from modern biology and Schindewolf mostly from the fossil record. It's really does them a disservice to try to pick a "best" example, but I'll give you one that Schindewolf describes:
quote:
To this extent, the one toed horse must be regarded as the ideal running animal of the plains. It's early Tertiary ancestors had four digits on the front feet and three on the hind feet, and low crowned cheek teeth. Since in the later Tertiary, an expansion of plains at the expense of forests has been observed, this change in environmental conditions and the consequent change in the mode of life has been represented as the cause of linear, progressive selection leading up to the modern horse.
However, in the formulation of this view, not enough consideration has been given to the fact that the evolutionary trend of reduction in the number of toes had already been introduced long before the plains were occupied in the early Tertiary by the precursors of the horse; these inhabited dense scrub, meaning that they lived in an environment where the reduction of the primitive five-toed protoungulate foot was not an advantage at all. In the descendants, then, the rest of the lateral toes degenerated and the teeth grew longer step by step... regardless of the mode of life, which... fluctuated repeatedly, with habitats switching around among forests, savannas, shrubby plains, tundra, and so on.
If selection alone were decisive in this specialization trend, we would have to ascribe to it a completely incomprehensible purposefulness...
Basic Questions in Paleontology pp. 358-359, emphasis his.
[ 14. September 2007, 13:57: Message edited by: Daniel Smith ]
IP: Logged
|
|
nosivad
Member
Member # 767
|
posted 14. September 2007 05:34
I have no intention of engaging those from Panda's Thumb whose only purpose is to disrupt and hijack threads which are concerned with my published papers.
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 14. September 2007 12:20
Hi Daniel
You wrote: quote:
Now, can you cite one real world example -- either from modern biological history or from the fossil record -- where this theoretical mechanism has been shown to produce anything more than minute varieties within species?
(my emphasis)
I take it from this that you then agree that micro-evolution is well established. Macro-evolution is merely an accumulation of micro-evolutionary events. This involves rather more time than has passed since evolution was proposed as a theory. The fossil record is not a fixed piece of evidence, but is being expanded continuously by further discoveries and deeper insights into existing ones.
quote:
Let's say a beneficial mutant is born. What will it breed with? It will have to breed with a non-mutant. Will their offspring be as beneficial? Will it even be a mutant? What about the next generation - now twice removed from the original mutant? Eventually the mutation will be watered down - back to the status quo.
Darwin was worried by the possibility that inheritance might be blending rather than particulate, but Mendel demonstrated the fact of particulate inheritance, which let to the modern synthesis. Your objection is based on a misunderstanding about how genes are inherited and passed on.
quote:
Natural selection is a cold mistress. It works by killing. Most living things - born in the wild - die before maturity. Even the most pronounced advantages cannot be passed on if the organism does not live long enough to reproduce. That's realistic selection.
The whole point is that organisms (even marginally) better equipped to survive in a particular environment are statistically more likely to survive and produce more offspring. If your argument held water, it would be devastating against Meyer, Schindewolf and John's idea of saltation. Who would the hopeful monsters breed with?
quote:
I'll give you one that Schindewolf describes:...
If you are interested, I will find some material for you about horse evolution.
IP: Logged
|
|
Daniel Smith
Member
Member # 3004
|
posted 14. September 2007 13:56
Arjun:
quote:
I take it from this that you then agree that micro-evolution is well established. Macro-evolution is merely an accumulation of micro-evolutionary events. This involves rather more time than has passed since evolution was proposed as a theory. The fossil record is not a fixed piece of evidence, but is being expanded continuously by further discoveries and deeper insights into existing ones.
Again: Any real world examples?
Schindewolf showed that the fossil record was very complete in many areas - with millions of examples of some forms (such as ammonoids) - and that the gaps are real: quote:
However, there are no special conditions whatsoever in the fossil record that would indicate that gaps had repeatedly affected only the sequences that connect structural designs. The gaps that exist in the continuity of forms, which we always encounter at those very points, are not to be blamed on the fossil record; they are not illusions, but the expression of a natural, primary absence of transitional forms.
Basic Questions in Paleontology, pg. 105, (emphasis his)
Further discoveries have only confirmed his argument.
quote:
Darwin was worried by the possibility that inheritance might be blending rather than particulate, but Mendel demonstrated the fact of particulate inheritance, which let to the modern synthesis. Your objection is based on a misunderstanding about how genes are inherited and passed on.
I'll give you a real world example that shows the "power" of selection:
Dog breeding.
Dog breeding works because it shields the various breeds from natural selection. What would happen if suddenly, all dogs were thrown back into the wild?
All the specialized breeds would disappear and be replaced by mutts. Eventually, as more and more specialized breeds interbred, various watered down dog types would become prevalent - but all the specialized "niche" dogs would be gone. Selection would weed them out.
This can be verified in your own neighborhood. quote:
The whole point is that organisms (even marginally) better equipped to survive in a particular environment are statistically more likely to survive and produce more offspring. If your argument held water, it would be devastating against Meyer, Schindewolf and John's idea of saltation. Who would the hopeful monsters breed with?
First, no mutation guarantees free passage to adulthood (unless you know of a mutation that will render an organism impervious to all diseases, predators and natural disasters?).
So the odds are immediately against any mutation getting passed on (remember - most organisms never make it to adulthood).
Second, sexually reproducing species are notoriously picky about who they will breed with. Many times a member who is different becomes a social outcast. Strike two.
Thirdly, genetics is a recombination process. The mutation might not even be passed on. If it is, there's still no guarantee that it will survive or be passed on to the next generation (see 1 and 2). That's it - strike three you're out!
As for "hopeful monsters", the truth is, often when variations appear, they appear suddenly and are immediately scattered throughout the population. It happens much too fast to be the result of random mutation and selection. Berg and Schindewolf give numerous examples of this - as do many other authors. Evolution -- based on real world evidence -- happens as if by law - not as if by accident. quote:
If you are interested, I will find some material for you about horse evolution.
No thanks, I'll wait for you to respond directly to Schindewolf's argument.
IP: Logged
|
|
nosivad
Member
Member # 767
|
posted 14. September 2007 15:03
Daniel Smith
From Schindewolf's' 1936 book, Palaeontologie, Entwicklungslehre und Genetik, which has never been translated, Goldschmidt, in The Material Basis of Evolution (1940), called attention to Schindewolf's saltational views, views with which Goldschmidt was in complete agreement. Referring to Schindewolf's 1936 book -
"He shows that the many missing links in the paleontological record are sought for in vain because they have never existed: 'The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg'."
Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 395.
Incremental Darwinism never had anything to do with evolution and those who still claim that it did are illiterate fools. The internet is crawling with them, still spouting Darwinian pablum with complete abandon, even here and now at "brainstorms." Furthermore, as my signature indicates, creative evolution is a phenomenon of the distant past just as Julian Huxley and Robert Broom both recognized long before me. So also did Pierre Grasse when he asked the question -
"Aren't our plants, our animals lacking some mechanisms which were present in the early flora and fauna?"
Evolution of Living Organisms, page 71.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 14. September 2007, 15:06: Message edited by: nosivad ]
IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
nosivad
Member
Member # 767
|
posted 15. September 2007 00:55
Thank you Martin. It is a dirty business dealing with these invaders from After The Bar Closes and I admire your willingness to do it. I have nothing but contempt for the whole lot of them. It is too bad I can't hijack their threads at Panda's Thumb.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 15. September 2007 02:16
quote:
Any real world examples?
The TOE would claim all of them. Your task is easier; to find a black swan
quote:
Schindewolf showed that the fossil record was very complete in many areas - with millions of examples of some forms (such as ammonoids) - and that the gaps are real:
I think claimed would be more accurate than showed.
quote:
As for "hopeful monsters", the truth is, often when variations appear, they appear suddenly and are immediately scattered throughout the population.
and why are they not immediately eliminated by the argument you are putting forward that variation will be eliminated by selection? You seem to want to have it both ways. quote:
Evolution -- based on real world evidence -- happens as if by law - not as if by accident.
As in information being "front-loaded" and unfolding at prearranged moments. What is the mechanism that ensures that these saltations occur at exactly the right moment in time and space so that these new species are (apparently) in their right niche? No blue whales in the Sahara desert, for example. quote:
I'll wait for you to respond directly to Schindewolf's argument.
I am not a biologist. My expertise, such as it is, is in biochemistry. There are very powerful biochemical arguments in favour of TOE, such as the universal (apart from small and significant differences in some prokaryotes) genetic code, the inherent replicating properties of DNA, near universal chemical processes in life forms, etc. etc.
However, it is a central given of TOE that the environment is not anticipated when mutations occur. Once again, your task is easier. Document an example where mutation is directed and you have undermined TOE.
I will need a little time on my horse evolution homework project.
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 15. September 2007 02:23
John:
You quote Goldschmidt:
quote:
"He shows that the many missing links in the paleontological record are sought for in vain because they have never existed: 'The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg'."
Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 395.
But Daniel says:
quote:
Second, sexually reproducing species are notoriously picky about who they will breed with. Many times a member who is different becomes a social outcast. Strike two.
Will not that first bird from a reptilian egg have been an outcast?
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 15. September 2007 02:25
quote:
You can discuss the "poisonous aposematic" ladybirds with me there.
You have posted on the wrong thread. May I suggest you repost on the "mimicry" thread.
IP: Logged
|
|
Daniel Smith
Member
Member # 3004
|
posted 16. September 2007 01:50
Arjun:
quote:
The TOE would claim all of them. Your task is easier; to find a black swan
Sure, the TOE would "claim" them all (that's because it's not really a theory but is rather an all-encompassing viewpoint)-- but what evidence exists that gradualism ever produced anything?
Besides, I'm asking YOU if you know of any real world examples either from the fossil record (as in fossils showing a series of gradual transitions filling up those troublesome gaps Darwin was at a loss to explain), or from modern biological history (such as a documented case of gradualism crossing the species barrier).
quote:
I think claimed would be more accurate than showed.
This is one of Europe's leading Paleontologists we're talking about here. He presents a staggering array of evidence in support of his views. What exactly is your threshold for "showing"?
Have you even read the book? quote:
and why are they not immediately eliminated by the argument you are putting forward that variation will be eliminated by selection? You seem to want to have it both ways.
Not at all. They are not eliminated because they are numerous. This is shown throughout the fossil record and is documented repeatedly in modern biological history by Berg and others. That these are pre-existing functions that somehow get switched on at a certain point in time is empirically observed. There are documented cases in recent history of entire transplanted populations of finches switching beak types in as little as twenty years! quote:
As in information being "front-loaded" and unfolding at prearranged moments. What is the mechanism that ensures that these saltations occur at exactly the right moment in time and space so that these new species are (apparently) in their right niche? No blue whales in the Sahara desert, for example.
Divine Providence? Intelligent Design? I don't know, but I know there is no empirical evidence to show that it is chance. quote:
I am not a biologist. My expertise, such as it is, is in biochemistry. There are very powerful biochemical arguments in favour of TOE, such as the universal (apart from small and significant differences in some prokaryotes) genetic code, the inherent replicating properties of DNA, near universal chemical processes in life forms, etc. etc.
How do any of these support the TOE? How do any of them weigh against ID? quote:
However, it is a central given of TOE that the environment is not anticipated when mutations occur. Once again, your task is easier. Document an example where mutation is directed and you have undermined TOE.
Berg did it. Read Nomogenesis. He devotes an entire chapter to the subject. Here's an excerpt:
quote:
The four-chambered heart has been developed in crocodiles, birds, and mammals quite independently. The growing complexity of the heart in the series of vertebrates exhibits, in general, a perfectly definite direction---from the two-chambered heart of the fishes through the three-chambered organ of the amphibians and the majority of reptiles, to the four-chambered heart of crocodiles birds and mammals.
Nomogenesis, pg. 124, (emphasis his)
Of course he goes into much more detail about this, but his conclusions are based on direct evidence from the real world -- not theoretical, just-so stories.
IP: Logged
|
|
Arjun
Member
Member # 6108
|
posted 17. September 2007 12:35
Hi Daniel
You wrote earlier
quote:
It's really does them a disservice to try to pick a "best" example, but I'll give you one that Schindewolf describes:
and quoted a passage by Schindewolf discussing horse evolution.
As I said earlier I am neither a biologist nor a paleontologist (do you have any scientific expertise, by the way?), but I had a look for some links and found this article (admittedly a little out of date).
It would appear that horse evolution is not the straight line from Eohippus to Equusas often depicted in popular texts.
Interestingly, the Tertiary period has now been superseded as a geological term, and Eohippus has been renamed.
[ 17. September 2007, 12:36: Message edited by: Arjun ]
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic