# Symbiosis does not develop over time **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 3, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054 "2013-06-03T18:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/141 "2013-06-07T15:57:47Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Science is knowledge gained from observation. Not really, although empirical observations are an important component of science. As has been said, science involves not merely direct observation but drawing inferences from those observations. We can gain knowledge about things we cannot directly observe, such as events in the past, from things we can directly observe, such as data available in the present. Your insistence on direct observation shows a fundamental lack of understanding of science (which is pretty much essential in order to give any credibility to creationism.) You appear to believe in Noah’s flood. Of course neither you nor anyone else alive observed this event. But neither do we have any first hand accounts of the purported event. The biblical account was written down long after the supposed events, so at best is based on hearsay instead of observation. We know for a fact that this event did not occur, first because of its physical impossibility (insufficient water to cover the whole Earth; the impossibility of fitting a pair of all animals in the Ark as described; the fact that freshwater organisms couldn’t have survived), and second because the geological record shows absolutely no evidence of any such universal flood as well as decisive and overwhelming evidence against it. So you believe something for which there is 1) no objective observational support; 2) massive amounts of observational data against. Given this, insistence that direct observation is the only way to gain knowledge about something makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![trabajabamos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@trabajabamos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabajabamos)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/142 "2013-06-07T16:21:14Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > What’s the problem with saying the Big Bang is a fact? It’s about as factual as anything else in this world. Well, the prediction and subsequent discovery of the CMBR certainly makes the Big Bang more factual than anything the OP has said in this thread… ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/143 "2013-06-07T18:30:51Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Yeah, I’d love to hear what the alternate explanations are. Everywhere we look in the sky we see super hot plasma behind all the stars. What other process filled the universe with that plasma? Well, god did it of course. That the neat bit about claiming “god did it” about any one thing you don’t otherwise understand - you get to say it about everything you know fuck all about afterwards. And if the other guy asks why, you can immediately fall back to “mysterious ways, mate”. Fiendishly clever, innit ? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/144 "2013-06-07T18:58:47Z")
Aside from the fact that this thread is just an embarrasing slow-motion fall down the stairs for the OP, I should note that the tiny legs in whales help in reproduction by allowing them to wear tiny, sexy stockings. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/145 "2013-06-07T19:14:01Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Aside from the fact that this thread is just an embarrasing slow-motion fall down the stairs for the OP, I should note that the tiny legs in whales help in reproduction by allowing them to wear tiny, sexy stockings. Ah, so that must be what I always hear in the headlines about the dolphins getting trapped in fishnets. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/146 "2013-06-07T19:20:05Z")
I thought that was bears…you know, teddies. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/147 "2013-06-07T19:31:34Z")
I always wonder if fundies realize they advocate a “centrally planned” universe vs a “free market” one? God could have individually designed every organism and placed every grain of sand. It’s like Stalin sitting down and saying “100 thousand railroad ties to Siberia, 27 thousand to Vladivostok”. But how much more awesome is a God that designed a process by which every ecological niche is filled with life even as the environment itself is changing? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/148 "2013-06-07T20:12:54Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > What’s the problem with saying the Big Bang is a fact? It’s about as factual as anything else in this world. Not really, although I agree with you that it’s definitely the best scientific hypothesis out there. It just isn’t well-explained enough yet to qualify as a “fact” for elementary education purposes, IMO. The **expanding universe** is indeed an observed fact (and the science book I mentioned accurately represented it as such). And the much hotter and denser early universe is an inferred fact, based on the CMBR and other observations, as noted by **trabajábamos**. But what does it even mean to say that the Big Bang _itself_ is a “scientific fact”? The laws of physics as we understand them aren’t valid in the earliest moments of the universe. Yes, there are lots of hypotheses about what physical assumptions we could make to explain the Big Bang, but AFAIK we’re a long way from a real scientific understanding of the actual instant of origin of the universe. There isn’t even a coherent intuitive way to think of the Big Bang “happening”, because there was no “before” point at which it hadn’t yet happened. Nope, I think it’s best to be upfront about the fact that some aspects of current scientific theories on cosmology and biology are still evolving, and therefore we don’t need to include their more speculative parts just to present schoolchildren with a nice tidy story. Teach them that the universe is expanding and cooling from an earlier form in which it was smaller, hotter and denser, and that that expansion has been going on since at least the first few moments of its existence. And when a smart student asks, “But what was it like right at the very beginning? How did the universe get from not existing to existing?”, reply candidly “We’re not entirely sure”, and carry on with as much additional information about singularity hypotheses as the student can absorb. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/149 "2013-06-08T02:05:07Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Not really, although I agree with you that it’s definitely the best scientific hypothesis out there. It just isn’t well-explained enough yet to qualify as a “fact” for elementary education purposes, IMO. FWIW I disagree. The evidence supporting the fact that our universe started as a singularity is beyond compelling. For the BB not to be factual, virtually everything we know about cosmology would have to be wrong. And while we’re been significantly wrong about bits of cosmology before, I really don’t see the whole field being revamped any time soon. I could be wrong, but I’d seriously be surprised if I am. > [@Kimstu](#): > > But what does it even mean to say that the Big Bang _itself_ is a “scientific fact”? The laws of physics as we understand them aren’t valid in the earliest moments of the universe. Well… yes and no. Quantum Mechanics and Relativity both ‘work’, individually. The problem is that they need to someone be combined to analyze a singularity, and without a quantum theory of gravitation, that won’t be happening any time soon. However, the fact that we don’t have the math to describe it isn’t, in my view, a significant stumbling block. Hell, the same problems analyzing the singularity we live in are the same problems we have if we try to analyze the internal workings of black holes in our universe. But that black holes exist is supported by roughly equivalent evidence to the BB, and they’re not seriously disputed by any cosmologists that I’m aware of. > [@Kimstu](#): > > There isn’t even a coherent intuitive way to think of the Big Bang “happening”, because there was no “before” point at which it hadn’t yet happened. Well, we’re an evolutionary relative best fit. Of course our primitive ape senses didn’t evolve to be able to apprehend the mysteries of Universe. But that also doesn’t strike me as a particularly compelling argument. After all, the creation of both QM and Relativity themselves were world-shattering (with the atom bomb, literally). > [@Kimstu](#): > > Nope, I think it’s best to be upfront about the fact that some aspects of current scientific theories on cosmology and biology are still evolving, and therefore we don’t need to include their more speculative parts just to present schoolchildren with a nice tidy story. We can, and should, teach children that science deals only with refutation, and all of its truths are relative and subject to being disproven. That’s its main strength, after all. But I don’t think that’s any reason to leave out the bits that have the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists as best fit models to explain the data. “This is what the evidence points to and what the modern consensus is” would be fine, but IMO that’s just a semantic variation on “scientific fact”. /$.02 ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/150 "2013-06-13T15:17:39Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Snakes are not related to whales in any way. Where’s your cite those bones are used for reproduction? I was using evolution’s own idea of homologous parts here. Common descent right? Or are you a creationist like me? ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/151 "2013-06-13T15:19:08Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Describe exactly how they are used in reproduction. > > Of course, this is completely nonsense, as has been said. Vestigial leg bones in whales are entirely internal. In very rare cases, rudimentary external legs may be present. If only a few individuals have them, and they are used in reproduction, then how do the others reproduce?:dubious: > > Boas and pythons have highly reduced pelvic bones and femurs; the femurs generally appear externally on either side of the vent as as tiny spurs, and in this case are used in reproduction. However, several other kinds of snakes including the blind and thread snakes (Typhlopidae adn Leptotyphlopidae) also have vestigial pelvic or leg bones, but in this case the bones are entirely internal and not used in reproduction. > > **reef shark** , you really shouldn’t just regurgitate what you read on creationist websites. Most of it is outright fabrication, and the rest is misinterpreted. I have referred to a simple animal planet (croc hunter) show about 4 times now, yet you keep asking me. Can you please check that youself, at all, instead of accusing me of regurgitation? ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/152 "2013-06-13T15:21:22Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is incorrect for whales. In whales, the hip bones are not attached to the vertebra, cannot move, and are invisible from the outside. > > You are very wrong about whales. Why do you keep saying these are ‘hip bones’? Please explain how whales reproduce and attach to each other during that process, to correct me. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/153 "2013-06-13T15:23:04Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I was using evolution’s own idea of homologous parts here. Common descent right? Or are you a creationist like me? You are again demonstrating your complete ignorance of actual biology. Even if you were mildly correct in terminology, you’d have known they’d be analogous structures. But as they’re simply vestigial bones, they’re really neither. When they were legs, though, they’d have been analogs. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/154 "2013-06-13T15:25:51Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Or the simple fact that he’s provided no proof, at all, other than “hey, those bones look similar!” By that logic, since flying fish can leap out of the water and glide for a bit due to their fins, all fish can. QED, all fish can fly. > > Oy vey. For the fifth time, i simply refer you to the animal planet. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/155 "2013-06-13T15:27:18Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I was using evolution’s own idea of homologous parts here. Common descent right? Or are you a creationist like me? What common descent? Whales and snakes are not related. So prove the leg bones in a whale are used in reproduction. Creationist? Fuck no. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/156 "2013-06-13T15:28:30Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > For the fifth time, i simply refer you to the animal planet. Animals have their own planet? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/157 "2013-06-13T15:35:56Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I have referred to a simple animal planet (croc hunter) show about 4 times now, yet you keep asking me. Post the bloody link then. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/158 "2013-06-13T15:44:41Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > For the fifth time, i simply refer you to the animal planet. Yeah… you’re still wrong and ignorant about basic biology. Good on you though for using Animal Planet as your citation. [Here’s a cite for you.](http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/similarity_ms_01) It has pictures. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/159 "2013-06-13T15:49:15Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You guess wrong, as usual. > > Here ya go. > > [Sperm whale copulation.](http://www.arkive.org/sperm-whale/physeter-macrocephalus/video-12a.html) > > [Belugas mating](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fm0TMVxnw) > > [Killer whales mating](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzSXGPslEQ) > > Please point out the vestigial legs in these videos. Have you really done your due diligence on this? If you did, you would notice why only SOME have these bones? For example, the North Sea Beaked Whale, only the males have this..They are anchor bones for the reproductive organs. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/160 "2013-06-13T15:50:42Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Have you really done your due diligence on this? > > If you did, you would notice why only SOME have these bones? > For example, the North Sea Beaked Whale, only the males have this. **.They are anchor bones for the reproductive organs**. \*\* SO PROVE IT! \*\* Where are \*your \*cites? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054.md?page=9)