Evolution

[keithprosser3]

Given the nature of reproduction and of natural selection isn't evolution inescapable?
How can evolution not happen?

[Danmark]

Reply to 1. Have you read the website you reference? You state "In fact Festinger used religious belief as an example of cognitive dissonance" when in fact the website references examples of end of the world prophecies and how, when the failure of the prophesied end occurs, that failure is rationalized.

And that is exactly what makes it cognitive dissonance; that even when proved wrong by the failure of the predicted apocalypse, these religious believers in the prophesies rationalize their continued belief despite the evidence the prophesy was false.

These failed prophesies is a process of religious cognitive dissonance that has been going on for 2000 years, starting with Jesus, who was an apocalyptic preacher*, despite the many rationalizations to stretch out the coming doom he predicted to now some 2000 years. This is exactly what Festinger was referring to in his book, When Prophesy Fails.
Here is a long list of predicted dates for apocalyptic events 'such as the Rapture, Last Judgment, or any other event that would result in the end of humanity, civilization, the planet, or the entire universe. The list shows the dates of predictions from notable groups or individuals of when the world was, or is,
forecast to end.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_da ... tic_events



__________________________
*Mark 13:30-33: "....This generation shall not pass away, until all these things be accomplished....But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
This quote is interesting for another reason because it implies lack of omniscience.

[Danmark]

Regarding the website you reference. It states "However, a phylogenetic tree does make significant predictions about the morphology of intermediates which no longer exist or which have yet to be discovered. Each predicted common ancestor has a set of explicitly specified morphological characteristics, based on each of the most common derived characters of its descendants and based upon the transitions that must have occurred to transform one taxa into another (Cunningham et al. 1998; Futuyma 1998, pp. 107-108)." However, the website data does nowhere show the complete transitional evolutionary tree for any species. It merely lists transitional species that are morphologically relatable, like dinosaurs & birds.
However and for instance, the dinosaur to bird transition is disputed at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 183335.htm
The available data for evolution are inconclusive - can you accept that?

Certainly not. For reasons that have been explained many times on this forum, the fossil record is incomplete since fossils are rare compared to the number of organisms that have died. One of the differences between science and faith is that science tolerates conflicting opinion. Certainly evolutionary biologists disagree on particular details of how to fit the data together for some sequences. The bird-dinosaur relationship is much more complex than to suggest a nice, even progression from dinosaur to bird. Some of the controversies are covered in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1381 by kenblogton]

In case you were skimming or anything:

Your objection to evolution based on abiogenesis conflicts with every dictionary I know, though frankly it is obvious that abiogenesis and evolution are entirely separate topics.

Your next point is just straight up unreasonable and has shown to be multiple times, almost like a basic misunderstanding of probability and a belief that as soon as you put a lottery ticket into a lab it's instantly a winner because it's being studied.

Not only that but you show a heavy bias towards creationism - you repeatedly claim there is no evidence for abiogenesis but fail to give any evidence for divine intervention. This is a form of argument from ignorance used to shift the burden of proof.

You quote a heavily discredited book from 1991. Even if it was well respected, it's nearly 25 years old.
There are two scenarios for your last quote. Either you got the wrong Steven Stanley, and the quote has no evidencial basis whatsoever beyond anecdotal, or you got the right Steven Stanley, and demonstrate that the book is clearly misleading. Either way, it is literally an opinion - because of the use of "convincing".

You assert that 5 million years of fossil data should give a continuous record of evolution. This is simply not true. Fossilisation is rare, and phenomena such as punctuated equilibrium mean species can remain unchanged for long periods of time. Not to mention the incredibly poor quality of the book you cite.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 1371 by Danmark]

Danmark stated, in part, "The failure to accept the overwhelming evidence of evolution is another example of cognitive dissonance"

kenblogton replied "The failure to reject evolution in the face of underwhelming evidence, as my posting indicated, is another example of rationalization or desperation or delusion or?
kenblogton

By the way, explain a "complete species" vs. an "intermediate species." And how are feathered reptiles and our hominid ancestors not whatever you think they ought to be?

I don't recall using the term "complete species" Viable species is a good term for those which endure longer term.
Intermediate species are those which are transitional between a more primitive ancestor and a more advanced descendent. To solidly establish evolution, at least one example of unbroken intermediates between an ancestor and its viable descendent must be established.
Regarding dino to bird evolution, look at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 183335.htm.
kenblogton

1. In point of fact there really is no such thing as a species, it is a convenient crutch for conversation that means, organism with a very similar genotype.

2. Every organism, living or fossil, is a transitional organism on the way from what is to what it will become. Thus the concept of an unbroken line of intermediates between an ancestor and its descendents is quite impossible, it is like asking someone to walk across a continent years after someone else did and only step in the first traveler's footprints.

3. There has been controversy about the exact bird/dino relationship since the days of Bakker's "Hot Blooded Dinosaur" book. It was (and is) safe to say that they are closely related, and since the name Aves has presidence, in the end dinosaurs will be classified as birds, rather than the other way round ... but that's nothing new, many biologists have held that opinion since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1387 by H.sapiens]

H.sapiens said:
1. In point of fact there really is no such thing as a species, it is a convenient crutch for conversation that means, organism with a very similar genotype.

kenblogton replied:
1. A biological species is a group of individuals which can breed together (panmixia). However, they cannot breed with other groups. In other words, the group is reproductively isolated from other groups. "The words 'reproductively isolated' are the key words of the biological species definition".

H.sapiens said:
2. Every organism, living or fossil, is a transitional organism on the way from what is to what it will become. Thus the concept of an unbroken line of intermediates between an ancestor and its descendents is quite impossible, it is like asking someone to walk across a continent years after someone else did and only step in the first traveler's footprints.

kenblogton replied:
2. If there were not an unbroken line of intermediates, the later species could never have arisen from the former.

H.sapiens said:
3. There has been controversy about the exact bird/dino relationship since the days of Bakker's "Hot Blooded Dinosaur" book. It was (and is) safe to say that they are closely related, and since the name Aves has presidence, in the end dinosaurs will be classified as birds, rather than the other way round ... but that's nothing new, many biologists have held that opinion since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

kenblogton reploied:
3. It seems we are in agreement here.

kenblogton

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1388 by kenblogton]

He means with regards to evolution, you can't just look back through history and say "these are all one species". It's fuzzier than that.
Obviously in the modern day, the same species are those that can breed and produce fertile offspring.

For example - every animal is the same species as it's parents. It can breed with them. (at least in 99.9999% of cases).
But species still diverge.

Lets say we have a chain of children that goes A>B>C.
A and B are the same species (A and B can produce fertile offspring)
B and C are the same species (B and C can produce fertile offspring)

But in this example (exaggerated a lot), A and C might not be able to produce fertile offspring. The differences between A and B might only have been minor, but when the minor differences between B and C are added, it might be major.
So A and B are the same species, B and C are the same species... but A and C aren't.

So species themselves don't really exist distinctly in the context of evolution.

[H.sapiens]

[quote="kenblogton"]
[Replying to post 1387 by H.sapiens]

kenblogton said:
1. A biological species is a group of individuals which can breed together (panmixia). However, they cannot breed with other groups. In other words, the group is reproductively isolated from other groups. "The words 'reproductively isolated' are the key words of the biological species definition".

H.Sapiens replies:

Yes ... but! It is not that simple. Ring species illustrate a problem

Ring Species (from wiki)

In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which can interbreed with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series, which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between each "linked" population. Such non-breeding, though genetically connected, "end" populations may co-exist in the same region thus closing a "ring". The German term Rassenkreis, meaning a ring of populations, is also used.

Ring species provide important evidence of evolution in that they illustrate what happens over time as populations genetically diverge, and are special because they represent in living populations what normally happens over time between long deceased ancestor populations and living populations, in which the intermediates have become extinct. Richard Dawkins observes that ring species "are only showing us in the spatial dimension something that must always happen in the time dimension."

Formally, the issue is that interfertility (ability to interbreed) is not a transitive relation – if A can breed with B, and B can breed with C, it does not follow that A can breed with C – and thus does not define an equivalence relation. A ring species is a species that exhibits a counterexample to transitivity.

The ring species illustrates, in space, how every organism, living or fossil, is a transitional organism, through time, on the way from what is to what it will become.

kenblogton said: If there were not an unbroken line of intermediates, the later species could never have arisen from the former.

H.sapiens replies: Of course, in an absolute sense, there must be an unbroken chain from start to finish ... however finding such a chain in the fossil record would demand the impossible ... that every member of the chain have been fossilized and that all such fossils be preserved. In any case, making slices through time to separate parent and child species is a specious waste of time.

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1387 by H.sapiens]

kenblogton said:
1. A biological species is a group of individuals which can breed together (panmixia). However, they cannot breed with other groups. In other words, the group is reproductively isolated from other groups. "The words 'reproductively isolated' are the key words of the biological species definition".

H.Sapiens replies:

Yes ... but! It is not that simple. Ring species illustrate a problem

Ring Species (from wiki)

In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which can interbreed with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series, which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between each "linked" population. Such non-breeding, though genetically connected, "end" populations may co-exist in the same region thus closing a "ring". The German term Rassenkreis, meaning a ring of populations, is also used.

Ring species provide important evidence of evolution in that they illustrate what happens over time as populations genetically diverge, and are special because they represent in living populations what normally happens over time between long deceased ancestor populations and living populations, in which the intermediates have become extinct. Richard Dawkins observes that ring species "are only showing us in the spatial dimension something that must always happen in the time dimension."

Formally, the issue is that interfertility (ability to interbreed) is not a transitive relation – if A can breed with B, and B can breed with C, it does not follow that A can breed with C – and thus does not define an equivalence relation. A ring species is a species that exhibits a counterexample to transitivity.

The ring species illustrates, in space, how every organism, living or fossil, is a transitional organism, through time, on the way from what is to what it will become.

kenblogton replies:
At http://www.darwinwasright.org/ring_species.html, it states: "In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighboring populations that can interbreed with relatively closely related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series that are too distantly related to interbreed. Often such non-breeding-though-genetically-connected populations co-exist in the same region thus creating a "ring". Ring species provide important evidence of evolution in that they illustrate what happens over time as populations genetically diverge, and are special because they represent in living populations what normally happens over time between long deceased ancestor populations and living populations. If any of the populations intermediate between the two ends of the ring were gone they would not be a continuous line of reproduction and each side would be a different species."
As previously stated, species, ring or not, can beget fertile members.

kenblogton said:
If there were not an unbroken line of intermediates, the later species could never have arisen from the former.

H.sapiens replies:
Of course, in an absolute sense, there must be an unbroken chain from start to finish ... however finding such a chain in the fossil record would demand the impossible ... that every member of the chain have been fossilized and that all such fossils be preserved. In any case, making slices through time to separate parent and child species is a specious waste of time.

kenblogton replies:
In Johnson, P.E. 1991. Darwin on Trial. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, he states: "According to Steven Stanley, the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming contains a continuous local record of fossil deposits for about five million years.… Because this record is so complete, palaeontologists assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked to illustrate continuous evolution. On the contrary…“the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to the next.” (51) As you can read at http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/people/g ... ley_s.html, Stanley is a reputable Researcher in the Marine and Environmental Geology Division.
Five million years of complete paleontological records is long enough to find evidence of continuous evolution.
kenblogton

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1391 by kenblogton]

I said this earlier.
I think you have the wrong Stanley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Stanley
This is the same stanley as the one you link.

He's an evolutionary biologist.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 1392 by Jashwell]

He has the "right" Stanley, but the wrong conclusions. Steve Stanley in at the Univ. of Hawaii and is a staunch evolutionist, but he is often quote mined:

1. Evolutionist Steven M. Stanley on no gradual transitions in the fossil record

In an effort to advance its claim that the fossil record provides evidence against evolution, the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication Life--How did it get here? By evolution or by creation?, hereinafter referred to as Life, notes:

The failure of the fossil evidence to support gradual evolution has disturbed many evolutionists. In The New Evolutionary Timetable, Steven Stanley spoke of "the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another." (p. 21)

In fact Stanley is explaining Ernest Mayr's modern punctuational view of evolution. The quote in context in the original source reads:

The point here is that if the transition was typically rapid and the population small and localized, fossil evidence of the event would never be found. The other aspect of this argument is that the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another did not reflect a poor record for large, well-established species, but the slow evolution of such species: full-fledged species are not the entities that undergo the majority of major evolutionary changes.[1]

2. Although Stanley does speak of inadequacies of the fossil record, he offers an explanation as well as noting its strong points. This is not mentioned by Life.

Life continues quoting Stanley:

He said: "The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution]."

Life substituted "slow evolution" for "gradualism" as it appeared originally,[2] thereby changing the sentence to appear to be a criticism of all evolution.
[edit] Stanley on surprising things in the fossil record

3. To further support the claim that the fossil record provides evidence against evolution, Life presents:

After all this time, and the assembling of millions of fossils, what does the record now say? Evolutionist Steven Stanley states that these fossils "reveal new and surprising things about our biological origins."... What is it that these evolutionary scientists have found to be so "surprising"...? What has confounded such scientists is the fact that the massive fossil evidence now available reveals the very same thing that it did in Darwin's day: Basic kinds of living things appeared suddenly and did not change appreciably for long periods of time. (p. 59)

4. Thus Life is stating that Stanley's "surprising things" were observations of the sudden appearance and stasis of organisms in the fossil record. However, following this statement in the original context Stanley does not in fact mention sudden appearance or stasis. Instead he identifies the "surprising things" as follows:

Fossils are vestiges of ancient life, shards of long-lost biotas. Some are skeletons--shells, bones, and teeth, for example. Others are traces of activity--tracks, trails, burrow, and even defecations. Some fossils are drab and inconspicuous, but others are spectacularly beautiful....Fossils are quite dead, but in the eye of the sapient observer they often spring to life. In these ghosts of stone we can see shapes and movements of the past. From fossils, uniquely, we can read something of the history of life on Earth. Ancient patterns of behavior and of biotic interaction move within our reach.[3]

5. Thus Life has taken the quote out of context and assigned it a meaning that was not intended by the original author.
[edit] Stanley on what happened to the bowfin fishes

In a list of quotes apparently intended to demonstrate that fish have not evolved, the anti-science "Evolution Encyclopedia" quotes Stanley:

As a first example, we can consider the bowfin fishes. . No more than two bowfin species are known to have existed at any one time . . What has happened to the bowfin fishes during their long history of more than one hundred million years? Next to nothing! The bowfins of seventy or eighty million years ago must have lived very much as their lake dwelling descendants do today.[4]

In the original context Stanley proposes a "thought experiment." He suggests that, concerning phylogenies with historically few species, if a gradualist model of evolution is correct then one would expect to see great change over the lifetime of the lineage. If on the other hand evolution occurs by speciation (punctualist model) then one would expect to see little change. The quote then comes from the results of this experiment:

What has happened to the bowfin fishes during their long history of more than one hundred million years? Next to nothing! During the latter part of the Cretaceous, bowfins became slightly more elongate, but during the entire sixty-five million years of the Cenozoic Era, they evolved in only trivial ways. Two new species are recognized, but these differ from their Late Cretaceous ancestors only in subtle features that represent no basic shift of adaptation. The bowfins of seventy or eighty million years ago must have lived very much as their lake-dwelling descendants do today. Thus, the punctuational view is favored.[5]

Above from Rationalewiki: List of quotes out of context