How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

[Purple Knight]

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.





This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #841]

Fine questions indeed, but absolutely nothing to do with my reasonable scientific questions about how an unpredictable process can be claimed to achieve anything other than stasis.

Stasis by definition is a stable or equilibrium state, but there are external events that can disturb this and the system deviates from stasis until it can settle into another stable state. Great white sharks will likely continue to be great white sharks until some predator comes along that can threaten their position in the ecosystem. If that happens, great white sharks will have to adapt or die off. How they might adapt is not predictable, but it will have to happen for them to survive (maybe they get smaller but faster, or larger to take on the new threat, or develop venom that is effective against the threat, etc. ... we can't predict the path that would be taken mathematically).

Yes, this is all very familiar to me, I was raised on this reasoning too and it does seem reasonable and rational.

But it is rooted in some assumptions which are that random genetic mutations coupled with natural selective influences absolutely can lead to ever increasingly sophisticated organisms.

So I agree IF the process can definitely yield that THEN the above is quite reasonable, it is not the argument itself I take issue with but the premise.

As far as life on Earth, stasis is certainly not a common condition as some 99.9% of all species are postulated to have become extinct (supported by the fossil record).

But that is just not the case at all. Prokaryotes appeared approx 3.5 BYA until eukaryotes appeared about 2.0 BYA - so for 1,500,000,000 years we had - to all intents and purposes - stasis - that's the evidence, no evolution.

Change is the norm, not stasis, despite the inability to predict mathematically what evolution may "create." Some of the base processes may be amenable to mathematical analysis as outlined by The Barbarian in post 838, but external factors that influence natural selection like geological events, loss of food sources, disease/parasites, etc. are not predictable, so the exact path evolution may take, and the time frame, also cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. Maybe bacterial experiments have some chance at that in controlled experiments, but it is anyone's guess what humans (or any other existing animals) may evolve into in 100 million years or if our descendents will be around at all.

If stasis really was not the norm we'd not see it last for 1,500,000,000 years.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #843]

But that is just not the case at all. Prokaryotes appeared approx 3.5 BYA until eukaryotes appeared about 2.0 BYA - so for 1,500,000,000 years we had - to all intents and purposes - stasis - that's the evidence, no evolution.

What? How do you know that within this 1.5 billion year period that both prokaryotes and eukaryotes were not changing into all kinds of different types and forms? Both still exist today and probably in millions or billions (I'm no biologist) of species that didn't exist 2 billion years ago (because they have evolved). That is far too broad of a brush to claim stasis. You could also say that for the past 200 million years or so there have been mammals, and define that as stasis without considering all of the different types of mammals within this broad group.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #843]

But that is just not the case at all. Prokaryotes appeared approx 3.5 BYA until eukaryotes appeared about 2.0 BYA - so for 1,500,000,000 years we had - to all intents and purposes - stasis - that's the evidence, no evolution.

What? How do you know that within this 1.5 billion year period that both prokaryotes and eukaryotes were changing into all kinds of different types and forms? Both still exist today and probably in millions or billions (I'm no biologist) of species that didn't exist 2 bliiion years ago (because they have evolved). That is far too broad of a brush to claim stasis. You could also say that for the past 200 million years or so there have been mammals, and define that as stasis without considering all of the different types of mammals within this broad group.

For the first 1.5 Billion years that life has existed it was - to all intents and purpose - in a state of stasis, nothing but prokaryotic life everywhere for 1,500 million years, year after year after year after year...arguably during that immense time period evolution did not occur or at least is not revealed by any evidence.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #845]

For the first 1.5 Billion years that life has existed it was - to all intents and purpose - in a state of stasis, nothing but prokaryotic life everywhere for 1,500 million years, year after year after year after year...arguably during that immense time period evolution did not occur or at least is not revealed by any evidence.

(underline mine)

My earlier point was that Prokaryotic life includes all prokaryotic life, which is a very broad brush. I assume you don't know if the genomes of the earliest prokaryotes were different from those 1.5 billion years later, or how different they might have been. The genetic differences between all humans alive today is only about 0.1%, around 1.2% between humans and chimps/bonobos, and 7% between humans and an old world monkey like a rhesus monkey.

A lot of evolution happened between all of these, and for all we know early prokaryotes had far more evolutionary change than among all the primates, or even across all mammals. If the degree of evolution of prokaryotes over 1.5 billions years is not known, then you can't claim it was in a stasis situation (ie. we don't know). Or do you have references to support the idea that all prokaryotes that existed over this 1.5 billion year period did not evolve (while remaining within the very broad category of prokaryotes)?

https://www.pnas.org/content/107/1/133

[The Barbarian]

... now, where are the Navier-Stokes equations for evolution?

Let's see...

Harvey-Weinberg equation tests for selective pressure in a population. It predicts the assortment of alleles in the n+1 generation, given the assortment in generation n, assuming some specific conditions and no selective pressure for that gene.

Shannon equation for information measures information content of specific gene loci. It explains how mutation produces new information in a population.

Those are pretty simple examples. You would have little trouble with them, I think. Would you like to learn about them?

How does that help me predict how long it will take for bacteria to become - say - worms?

Pretty much the way you declined to tell me how long it would take for a pebble on the continental divide to get down into the valley below it, and how much material would be abraded on the way. So you think that this means that gravity and evolution are thereby falsified?

how does that help me establish whether or not some initial state will - over time - lead to a) extinction,

So far, all species go extinct in something like 2 to 40 million years. So all of them.

b) stasis

Hardy-Weinberg can do that for you. If the predicted frequency of alleles matches the actual frequency of alleles, you have stasis.

or c) ever increasing complexity?

"Ever increasing complexity" is not a prediction of evolutionary theory. For example, our skeletons have become simplified, relative to our reptilian ancestors.

If you have some understanding of Calculus, you might want to read Population and Evolutionary Genetics by Francisco J. Ayala. It's a nice introductory level text on mathematics in evolutionary science. A slightly more rigorous treatment can be found in Alan Hastings' Population Biology; Concepts and Models. Starting on p. 45, there's pretty good treatment of Hardy-Weinberg, and how it works.

This is a digression

No, you asked for some mathematical issues in evolutionary science.

quote]... now, where are the Navier-Stokes equations for evolution?

I showed you a few simple ones. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium point, for example, tells us when there is statsis and when the population will change over time.

I've specifically asked if the "theory" offers any means of predicting if, when and how some initial state will change over time.

Yep, and now you know. If you don't feel confident about the math, I could walk you through it.

The perception seems to be that ever increasing complexity, sophistication is almost inevitable

Among creationists, perhaps. As you now realize, evolution often simplifies organisms.

But there's no method I know of - mathematical or otherwise - that can prove this so it must be just a belief.

I often hear this from creationists; "I can't figure out how this could be, so it must just be a belief." But now you know better; look up the two texts and see.. However, by your own criteria, gravity has to just be a belief, since you can't tell me how and when that stone is going to make it into the valley. I grant you that physicists would simply say that it's ludicrous to criticze gravitational theory because one can't accurately predicte everything gravity does. But maybe that's a tip for you regarding evolutionary science? Think about it.

[The Barbarian]

But that is just not the case at all. Prokaryotes appeared approx 3.5 BYA until eukaryotes appeared about 2.0 BYA - so for 1,500,000,000 years we had - to all intents and purposes - stasis - that's the evidence, no evolution.

I spent my undergraduate years, learning about prokaryotes. You are hilariiously wrong. Most of the biochemistry by which you function, evolved during that period, in prokaryotes. And it was a long, long time. Paleogeochemistry has learned a great deal about how life worked early on. And it's a complex and fascinating story. A New History of Life, by Ward and Kirschvink, would help you get through some of the issues.

[The Barbarian]

What? How do you know that within this 1.5 billion year period that both prokaryotes and eukaryotes were changing into all kinds of different types and forms?

Yes, emphatically so. A huge diversity of prokaryotes evolved before eukaryotes existed. There is far more prokaryotic diversity than we find in eukaryotes. The banded iron formations, for example, document the continuing problem for the first photosynthetic organisms, which periodically poisoned themselves with the toxic oxygen produced by their metabolism. That's just one of the many evolutionary changes in early life.

We can't expect everyone to be a biologist. But we can expect people to be cautious about things they don't understand.

[Sherlock Holmes]

But that is just not the case at all. Prokaryotes appeared approx 3.5 BYA until eukaryotes appeared about 2.0 BYA - so for 1,500,000,000 years we had - to all intents and purposes - stasis - that's the evidence, no evolution.

I spent my undergraduate years, learning about prokaryotes. You are hilariiously wrong. Most of the biochemistry by which you function, evolved during that period, in prokaryotes. And it was a long, long time. Paleogeochemistry has learned a great deal about how life worked early on. And it's a complex and fascinating story. A New History of Life, by Ward and Kirschvink, would help you get through some of the issues.

Its beyond far fetched, a science fiction story, this gentleman may help you see the errors in your thinking, so why not watch, it may help you get through some of the many misunderstandings that plague your beliefs.



He begins by summarizing his professional work and expertise in nanomachines (or "biological cells" to use a less representative, older, informal parlance).

I'd be very interested in your response to this but please can we avoid disparaging put downs like "He's just a creationist" or "what do you expect from an ID believer" or "This is just Godism" or "Even people with PhDs can spout pseudoscience" and all the other niceties that the evolution faithful routinely spout when someone dares to challenge the fairy tale.

I must have mentioned this lecture two or three times and each time all I've seen is him get attacked, his association with ID ridiculed, never, not once did anyone credibly address any of the points he raises.

[Sherlock Holmes]

By the way Barbarian, you still have this outstanding, are you reticent to answer me?

To save you time clicking mice, here's the outstanding question:

Do you regard a proposition as true if we have no proof it is false?

I suggest answers like "Yes" or "No" or "I have no idea" or variations thereof.

[Diagoras]

I must have mentioned this lecture two or three times and each time all I've seen is him get attacked, his association with ID ridiculed, never, not once did anyone credibly address any of the points he raises.

I can't speak for anyone else, but that video's nearly an hour long - I don't have the time to watch it carefully enough to take notes of specific claims.

You must have some favourite quotes from it that you consider worth sharing, so why not make it a bit easier for your opponents here? A couple of "He says X at the Y minute mark, and disproves your A at B minutes" might be enough.