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Topic: can some aspect of Darwinism be falsified?
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Anthony Sebastian
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Member # 1588
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posted 10. June 2006 15:53
Regarding John A. Davison's posted 25. March 2006 07:12:
In my reading of science journals, I find many articles in which the researchers report finding evidence of ongoing speciation. For example:
Mendelson TC, Shaw KL. Sexual behaviour: rapid speciation in an arthropod. Nature 2005;433:375-6.
ABSTRACT: Theory predicts that sexual behaviour in animals can evolve rapidly, accelerating the rate of species formation. Here we estimate the rate of speciation in Laupala, a group of forest-dwelling Hawaiian crickets that is characterized primarily through differences in male courtship song. We find that Laupala has the highest rate of speciation so far recorded in arthropods, supporting the idea that divergence in courtship or sexual behaviour drives rapid speciation in animals.
EXCERPT: “We conclude that speciation on Hawaii Island is both explosive and ongoing.”
Also see:
della TA, Costantini C, Besansky NJ, Caccone A, Petrarca V, Powell JR, Coluzzi M. Speciation within Anopheles gambiae--the glass is half full. Science 2002;298:115-7. [Ref ID: 30]
Irwin DE, Bensch S, Irwin JH, Price TD. Speciation by distance in a ring species. Science 2005;307:414-6. [Ref ID: 15]
Raskina O, Belyayev A, Nevo E. Quantum speciation in Aegilops: molecular cytogenetic evidence from rDNA cluster variability in natural populations. Proc.Natl Acad.Sci.U.S.A 2004;101:14818-23. [Ref ID: 17]
Anthony Sebastian
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Anthony Sebastian
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posted 10. June 2006 16:19
John A. Davison, when you say: ""Can any aspect of Darwinism be verified?"...The answer of course is yes. What can be verified is that selection, natural or artificial is capable of one thing only. It can produce intra-specific varieties and in in some instances subspecies. That is all it can do today and that is all that it ever did."
"...that is all that it ever did." How can one know that with the kind of certainty implied in the assertion?
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Bruce Fast
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posted 11. June 2006 00:53
Anthony Sebastian, I notice that you did not make any attempt to distinguish between "classic definition" speciation, and speciation as currently used in biology. Dr. Davison's position is quite clear in that the term speciation as is commonly used in biology is as common as dirt -- that being animals organising into groups where genetic interchange is no longer common. The classic definition of biological speciation is that the the members of separate species will not be able to mate producing fertile offspring.
As the "mushy" definition is commonly used, and as the "mushy" definition allows for speciation all over the place, a failure to clarify what definition of speciation is being used causes me to write off your reports as more reports of "mushy definition" speciation.
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Zachriel
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posted 11. June 2006 08:38
Bruce Fast: "As the "mushy" definition is commonly used, and as the "mushy" definition allows for speciation all over the place, a failure to clarify what definition of speciation is being used causes me to write off your reports as more reports of "mushy definition" speciation."
It's a shame that nature is so "mushy" and doesn't meet your requirements for intellectually rigorous classification. Unfortunately for your sensitivities ;-) , reproductive isolation is a continuum, usually not the result of a discrete event.
Meanwhile, scientists are forced to try and make sense of the world as it is. Fortunately for science, the process of divergence and the mechanisms of reproductive isolation have empirical consequences that are subject to observation and verification (as noted above).
[ 11. June 2006, 09:12: Message edited by: Zachriel ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 11. June 2006 10:12
Sebastion
The answer is obvious. That is all that can be verified in the experimental laboratory and all that can be deduced from the fossil record. There is now and never was any role for chance in creative evolution and I challenge anyone to provide evidence that there was. Science proceeds on that which can be ascertained not on what might be so.
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John A. Davison
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posted 11. June 2006 20:59
Lyell's Principle of Uniformitarianism was swallowed "hook line and sinker" by both Wallace and Darwin and continues to be assumed by Darwinists everywhere. There is not a shred of evidence that creative evolution is any longer in progress. Phylogeny, exactly like ontogeny, has proven to be a self-limiting, self-terminating phenomenon for which the extinction of the species is the counterpart to the death of the individual. To blithely assume otherwise is naive and without foundation. I still ask for anyone to name any two true species, living or fossil, for which there is convincing evidence that one is the ancestor for the other. We see the products of a long past evolution, not "evolution in action" as the Darwinists continue to so doggedly insist. As nearly as can be empirically determined, creative evolution is not in progress today and I do not believe that there is a single organism on the face of this earth that will ever become anything very different from what it is right now. So also was the opinion of Robert Broom and Julian Huxley.
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peter borger
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posted 12. June 2006 03:15
Lyell's Principle of Uniformitarianism has been abandoned recently wrt mutation rates.
Haven't had any response on that yet, neither on mutation rates.
Zachriel, any comments? Others?
peebee
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Zachriel
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posted 12. June 2006 08:00
peter borger: "Lyell's Principle of Uniformitarianism"
Lyell was a geologist.
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peter borger
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posted 12. June 2006 09:13
The uniformitarian principle was adopted by Darwin,and afterward by all fields of science, including biology and thus mutation rates. Now it has to be abondoned. I explained why and why it terminates long ages.
What about my other comments? Could you find the SNPs in the cyt C gene? Any comments on that?
peebee
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Zachriel
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posted 12. June 2006 09:46
peter borger: "The uniformitarian principle was adopted by Darwin,and afterward by all fields of science, including biology and thus mutation rates. Now it has to be abondoned."
You are probably referring to Penny's paper, Relativity for Molecular Clocks. If so, then you do not understand the scientific principle of uniformitarianism.
Penny indicates that the measured rate of mutation is higher for short time scales. This would apply in the past as in the present. Penny clearly shows that this is a wrinkle in how genetic evolution is *measured*, then offers a plausible explanation and areas of empirical study to resolve the issue.
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peter borger
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posted 12. June 2006 09:59
quote:
Penny indicates that the measured rate of mutation is higher for short time scales. This would apply in the past as in the present. Penny clearly shows that this is a wrinkle in how genetic evolution is *measured*, then offers a plausible explanation and areas of empirical study to resolve the issue.
No, you must have missed the message.
Penny's paper tries to reconcile the very high intraspecies mutations rates with the low frequencies found in interspecies comparisons. It is what I refer to as well: Chimps and humans ---> one neutral mutation. The 40 (or so) human annotated sequences ---> 18 mutations, some of which even change the AA sequence. So, Penny is inventing another ad hoc untestable evolutionary explanation.
peebee
[ 12. June 2006, 09:59: Message edited by: peter borger ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 12. June 2006 10:19
Peter Borger
"terminates long ages" my foot. Are you prepared to deny the testimony of the fossil record? Do you actually believe in a young earth? Those require a yes or no answer and I expect you to provide them in those terms.
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Bruce Fast
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posted 12. June 2006 11:54
Its time for the peanut gallery to ask for some clarification. Zachriel, you said that Penny said, "Penny indicates that the measured rate of mutation is higher for short time scales."
Could you please rephraise this into layman's terms. Why, according to Penny, is the measured rate of mutation hiher for short time scales than for long?"
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Zachriel
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posted 12. June 2006 12:28
peter borger: "Penny's paper tries to reconcile the very high intraspecies mutations rates with the low frequencies found in interspecies comparisons."
Bruce Fast: "Why, according to Penny, is the measured rate of mutation hiher for short time scales than for long?"
Kimura's original neutral theory assumed that over longer timescales, detrimental mutations would disappear from a population. This does not apply to slightly detrimental mutations over shorter timescales. Direct studies were not available at that time.
peter borger: "So, Penny is inventing another ad hoc untestable evolutionary explanation."
In fact, Penny suggests further research concerning the continuum between population heterozygosity and binary-tree evolution.
For those interested, here is Penny's article.
Professor David Penny
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Zachriel
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posted 12. June 2006 13:04
Bruce Fast: "Why, according to Penny, is the measured rate of mutation hiher for short time scales than for long?"
Let me point out that Penny is merely proposing a hypothesis.
Each time science advances, it always produces new questions, genomic research being no exception. Not having all the answers to every question does not constitute a falsification.
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