Beeruser said:
Man, if you hate my opinion so much, just don’t read it.
David B: -20 points
Beeruser: Are you sure you’re not one of Phaedrus’ many personalities? 
A correction: Before I get nabbed by jab1, the Least shrew is not the smallest mammal in the world. The Bumblebee bat is the smallest. I chose the Least shrew because it is nearly the smallest and I would be able to examine specimens in collections if need be. Besides the Least shrew does present a compeling case against evolution in mammals and meets all the criteria needed to do so.
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
KeithB: The example you quoted was,
"Example three: Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island.
(Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.)
Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41" quoted from the link KeithB provided.
Ah yes, that tricky little test we biologists have to perform is the key. Without the test this mouse is useless. I doubt it was performed but I will continue looking into it by buying the above mentioned book and doing further research. If I find the test has not been performed I will bring it to the attention to the folks running the Talk Orgins site. It has been 20 years since the discovery of the mouse, why no test? If it has and was proved invalid and I will do the same plus shout it from the rooftops as another ruse by evolutionists, uncork and bottle of Champagne and toast myself ;)!
Thank you for you effort and thanks for playing, “Evolution: Truth or Conjecture”.
Don Pardo, please show our guest our nifty consolation prize.
Yours,
Phaedrus 
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
I found some more information on the Faeroe Island house mouse. Independent studies were done in 1987 by Shultes. He collected specimens from the Island and brought them back to South America where the original ancestors were.
He then dropped them off downtown at the local Meatmarket/Dancebar “The Mouse Den” to see what would happen. When the mice came back several days they had some “wild” stories but none of them “got lucky”. One mouse named MacGregor had gone to a hotel first and checked in and made the room ready, complete with food, music, and soft candlelight. He went to the bar and actually got one of the female mice to go back to the room with him. He said she ate the cheese tray but refused to even sip the wine! He played some great romantic songs like, “I’d fight a Tabby just for you”, “This house is just a house without my Minny”, and " Let’s do it in the rough"…all to no avail. The others’ stories were no better.
From that particular case, which was published in Scientific American in the January edition of 1988, most scientists have concluded that trying to prove that the Faeroe Island house mouse is a separate species is an unfruitful endeavor.
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Phaedrus, I know you were trying to be cute, but I have no idea what you just said. It sounded like
Which is it? If they didn’t breed, isn’t that evidence for speciation? I totally don’t understand. I hate to be the one to say “I don’t get the joke, please explain it,” but,
I don’t get the joke. Please explain it.
Sorry douglips, some friends had called with an emergency. A relative who is a former drug user and former sexual abuser of kids needed help and I was awake for 22 1/2 hours out of 24 searching the internet for a rehab that owuld take him…I digress, but that’s why it wasn’t clear or very funny besides the fact that many are funnier than I can be.
I meant that the scientists weren’t able to get the mice to mate so they thought “we might as well give up”, an attitude that NO scientist should EVER take!
Sorry it was unclear.
Happy Christmas,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
As I look out over the grounds from a high turret window, surveying the little kingdom that I and my wife built, I see the flower garden that she labored in love over, all covered in snow, and my mind drifts back… How I miss her, especially now. She loved Christmas. She loved all the gift buying, all the carolers, all the decorating, all the baking and cooking, all the little things that make a holiday and her so very special. I remember how our daughter used to wake us up in the morning with “Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy come see what Santa Claus brought me!”
Now all that is just a memory, but one that cannot fade, it was filled with too much love. Oh, family is SO important.
Earlier this week Jeeves, my butler, had the children from the local orphanage come over for their gifts (it was a custom my wife started) (my own custom was to drink enough Eggnog that I would chase her around the tree making sounds like a moose in heat late Xmas eve night). One little girl came up to me and said, " Now I KNOW there’s a Santa Claus, cuz he’s YOU!" I broke down cried like a baby.
Christmas morning I shall be alone, shambling though this great big house in my smoking jacket with my ascot in full bloom. My sickly white legs with all their varicose veins bulging out like the lines on a map sticking out from under my robe. I’ll probably be sipping some fine bourbon and reminiscing about the people that are gone from my life…
And now from me, to all of you, all the love in the world, may you wake up in the morning with the ones you love and have the bestest Christmas you ever had.
Merry Christmas,
Phaedrus
Not fantasy, but a dream
Phaedrus with the world, linking arm and arm, swaying and singing “let there peace on Earth and let it begin with me”…arm and arm with woman and children who has been abused, people of all colors, creeds and religions, different sexual orientations, people who have failed others and the people they have failed, people who have dreams and people who never have them, people who are knowledgeable and people who are simple in their hearts and minds, people loving the world and each other…
Peace on Earth,
Phaedrus
Beeruser…(+200) points
pldennison…-20 points
hardcore…100 points
David B…-20 points
Thanks for the 200 points, but how did I get so much?
There’s always another beer.
Beeruser: 100 points per post for defending me or coming to my aid.
Did you get anything cool from Santa?
In case some were wondering, I exempt myself fromt he rating. I just figured that was fair.
Happy Chrismas,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Phaedrus:
This is all you need? There is plenty of mammalian evidence for this in the literature. Someone like DrF would be more capable of discussing this, but I’ll try to give a few examples.
http://www.enselink.com/clinalBlood.gif
This chart clearly shows a clinal variation of the B blood allele in humans. The details are explained at http://daphne.palomar.edu/vary/vary_2.htm
Harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) clinal variation is considered at http://swfsc.ucsd.edu/sars/SAR98/HPRPINWA.htm
An interesting article titled “Clinal Variation in European DNA’s” is in the Volume 70, Number 4, August 1998 issue of Human Biology.
Gosh, Phaedrus… if only I would have known this was all you needed…
hardcore: Aw, you just want those steak knives!
You’ll have to excuse me, I was up late last night testing a batch of mushrooms. I was just going off to bed when I thought I’d pop on to check what was new at the board.
No, wait, that sounded bad. I was just, uh, let’s see, I was, uh, breeding mushrooms? No, that’s not it. I was finalizing some thoughts on the plakula hypothesis and the rediscovery of Trichoplax. I was comparing Haeckel’s gastraea hypothesis and its alternative, positing a plauloid stage for the evolution of gastrulation. Yeah, that’s it, that’s what I was doing…
Anyway, I don’t care about your freakin’ Phophocena’s man! I will never believe, no, never! Evolution can’t be true!!!
:::::shutting eyes and plugging ears, running around the room and crashing into things::::
never never never!
Ahem, adjusting cravat and lighting pipe…
Yes, I am aware of the allele drift of certain genetic characteristics of humans as well as other mammals. Still, it does not prove that they drift to the point that they can exist allopatrically and not be able to mix their genes. What you have pointed out is well known to be true but it is not an example of “evolution”. I put the word in parentheses to connote the standard meaning in this thread.
Your porpoise link has my interest piqued though. I will investigate it after I get some sleep.
The article you mentioned in human biology probably wouldn’t help me either, unless it had evidence of humans evolving into other species today. Is there anything in it you think would have value for me? If so, tell me what and why and I’ll pick it up if it is available.
Perhaps it wasn’t your intention, but you impressed me. There are not many willing to devote the energy or time to this issue that you have. Either they are too busy with their own lives or they consider the matter unimportant. Since I am seriously considering turning my research over to someone else to publish when this thread is through and I have done all the research I can, I consider it to be VERY important.
Thank you for your “Hardcore” effort!
Yours,
Phaedrus
A final note: Did you know that bats are poecilothermal (cold-blooded)?
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
If you need any help testing those mushrooms, I am ready to do my bit for psilocybin science. New Year’s Eve would be a good opportunity for me to run a few tests.
Phaedrus said:
Well, let me try a different factoid. At http://night.primate.wisc.edu/pin/news/neotrop2.html a section titled CHROMOSOMAL VARIATION IN ALOUATTA FUSCA (the brown howling monkey) contains the following:
Now, I hope you aren’t searching for an example of a species and it’s ancestor both currently alive in order to accept evolution. You strike me as too intelligent for that old dodge. Regardless, the internet is a veritable fountain of knowledge about evolution, and you can find mountains of evidence if you will relinquish your assumption that it will somehow invalidate your theology, IMO.
I’ll be expecting the steak knives immediately.
Phaedrus, do you really think that evolution is false, or are you just fucking with us? Come on, you’re fucking with us,aren’t you? I mean, unless your mind was seriously poisoned by some rabid anti-science freak when you were a child, how could you not? I mean, it doesn’t even disagree with anything in the Bible or, for that matter, any other religious text I can think of off-hand, does it? Does it say in the Bible “Thou Shalt Not Change”? (actually, I think it was in Job that God said “See, I AM doing a new thing.” Oh, and the AM is because I AM is another name for God, making that a grammatically incorrect quote). Anyway, come clean, you’re only joking. Please say you’re only joking.
Hardcore: I forgot to mention that the winner would get an ENTIRE set of Tupperware (used just once) and a complete set of Ginsu Steak knives.
I apologize for waiting this long to respond but I was busy wrapping them for shipment.
Seriously, I do apologize for being a little unclear. When I was talking about clinal variation that led to speciation, I was referring to that salamander and the Herring Gull. In each of those instances the end of the cline cannot breed with the other end and produce fertile offspring. This is what I am looking for in mammals and so far haven’t been able to find.
In the case of the salamander it can breed and produce fertile offspring all along its cline (from deme to deme to deme) but the opposite ends cannot breed and produce fertile offspring.
Same thing with the Herring Gull, it can breed all the way around the Globe but when it meets up with its former “ancestor” it cannot breed and produce fertile offspring.
Now I know we have clinal variations in man, a more obvious case is the Negro and other “races” which are variations in our species. But they all exist sympatrically and can produce fertile offspring, hence, they have NOT speciated (turned in to separate species).
“Now, I hope you aren’t searching for an example of a species and it’s ancestor both currently alive in order to accept evolution. You strike me as too intelligent for that old dodge.”
Thank you for the compliment. No, I am not expecting that. What I AM expecting is someone who believes “evolution” to be able to prove what they postulate. So far all available evidence has fallen short of proof.
“Regardless, the internet is a veritable fountain of knowledge about evolution, and you can find mountains of evidence if you will relinquish your assumption that it will somehow invalidate your theology, IMO.”
My theology is not at issue here. I would be more than comfortable with changing my understanding of the first chapter of Genesis if science could show me mammals changing into other species in a cline or allopatric separation that led to it or ANYTHING at all. Still the evidence is missing. I know the internet is full of information but as yet I haven’t found anything that leads me to think evoution is true. I am not being hardheaded here and I don’t want you to be angry with me. I consider your last effort to be my fault! I should have been more clear in what it was that I need in the way of evidence. By the Way, Last night when I said allopatrically I meant sympatrically, I was very tired, sorry.
"I’ll be expecting the steak knives immediately. "
I have them packed up, so I am waiting to send them!
As to the shrooms, I didn’t know that you were a bioassayer. You do have a license, don’t you?
Again, thank you and I am sorry if you did all that work for nothing.
Phaedrus
ps: Do not give up hope, you may have already given me the info I need. I printed out the Phocoena article, just didn’t have a chance to read it today.
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Surgoshan: I am just F***ing with you. Now, does that make you feel any better?
I know it seems incomprehensible to some that a scientist would disbelieve evolution. Yet, I am not alone in this. There are more than you would suspect. In my own field, mycology, there are many of us who do not believe that man came from an ape-like ancestor. Some scientists do believe it, yes, but they are NOT all scientists. I am a scientist and in some sense a rationalist (philosophically) I have reasons that range from epistemological to logical to scientific and yes even the dreaded “R” word, religious.
I have no problem changing my religious beliefs to things that science HAS proven. I believe the Earth is somewhat round. I believe that the Earth rotates around the Sun. I believe that the aliens are taking over the planet, ah, wait, on second thought, let me rephrase that, I believe that we have no proof for intelligent life other than humans on the planet Earth (even this is in doubt by some )
Thank you for you skepticism, for THAT is always a healthy thing!
Yours,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.