KeithB:
Note to self: Next time you’re trying to be funny, try to be more obvious… [wink]
Yeah, but you can see why we love teeth so much!
Tamerlane you obviously know more about the fossil record than I do. So I cant respond for or against what you say.
spoke I know those traits wherent specfically breeded for by some person. Sometimes things just work out that way in nature. Like families have common traits and features that have unintentionally come into being.
dropzone I wasnt specifally talking about a seal. I was talking about a hypothetical seal-like creature that supposedly went from land to sea and evolved into say a whale. It would be very difficult for a species to live long enough to physically evolve to solely survive in the water.
Actually, not really. Seals are almost totally marine creatures. They are at a distinct disadvantage on land, and cannot hunt or effectively avoid predators on land, but can live on land if their needs are provided for. However, at one time a pre-seal was considerably more doggish and functioned perfectly well on land. As generation after generation (and I am talking about a LOT of generations) spent more and more time in the water, some of the pre-seals experienced mutations that proved to be helpful in an aquatic environment. And a point that is often missed, more pre-seals experienced mutations that proved DISADVANTAGEOUS or had NO EFFECT on their survival than had the “positive” mutations. No advantage or a disadvantage will not improve one’s chance of survival long enough to pass that mutation along to the next generation. Many negative mutations do not survive long enough to be born alive, but don’t tell your sister that her baby was stillborn because it was a mutant.
Another point that is often missed is that a mutation that provides an advantage in one environment can be a disadvantage in another, like a seal’s legs. Or a trait was once advantageous may start getting a bit negative. My favorite example of that, because I had to spend so much pain and money fixing it, is our wisdom teeth. Our ancestors had plenty of jaw space for them. Some of us current humans do and some, like me, don’t. At some point having an enormous jaw with great big teeth, as found in Australopithecines, stopped being necessary, possibly because of tools being used to cut up food and fire to cook (and soften!) it. Mutations for a jaw that stopped growing at an early age and smaller teeth, which would have been negative before, stopped being a problem. A smaller jaw chewing softer food needs less muscle to do its work, so enormous jaw muscles and a sagital crest to attach them to are no longer needed. If a mutation or two took them away, no biggy.
In fact, having a lighter head using less calcium and less muscle using less protein to make it and calories to move it might prove advantageous under certain conditions. So what if the jaw didn’t get big enough for that last set of molars to fit into it? Most folks didn’t live long enough for it to become a problem, anyway. And it’s not like it’s likely to kill you or prevent you from reproducing.
My point is that pre-seals were not magically transformed into modern seals overnight. What happened was a succession of mutations occurred and some of them made it easier for the pre-seals to spend more time in the water. Because these creatures were better able to hunt and evade predators than their more-terrestrial cousins, they were better able to pass their genes on to the next generation. A succession of slight advantages spread over thousands and millions of years gave us the modern seal.
As for the whole Chihuahua/Great Dane debate (and when is this thread getting moved to GD?), how does selecting for a specific group of traits in a dog breed differ from evolution, except in the sped-up timetable? Unnatural selection is funtionally the same as natural selection: in both cases the offspring that do not possess the advantageous traits are less likely to reproduce.
I must first admit that the theory of evolution (and it is still just a theory) doens’t explain many things to me and I therefore, for now, reject the notion that people evolved. I believe an itelligent being created all life.
With that said, I would also like to say that facts speak loudly to me so I am willing to research it further and am also willing to listen to what people on here have to say and even will go to whatever links are posted in order to learn more.
Now on to the ridiculous. In this link http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp (yes I know it’s Jack Chick, but I think this particular tract makes some valid points) the “christian” points out many errors derived from fossils. I realize people on here don’t like Mr. Chick, and so be it. I don’t know the man, but if he indeed believes people are going to perish and suffer forever then at least I can give him credit for trying to divert people from what he thinks is their ultimate end. But what I would like to know is if this tract is totally false or were the fossils talked about indeed found to be what the christian claims them to be?? In other words, can anyone disput what is said in this tract or will it just be the typical “let’s bash jack” and ignore that what is said may be true?
I’d really like to see a point by point refutal, if that’s possible, on the fossil record talked about in this tract.
Thanks!
Dropzone, I should probably wait and post this tomorrow but…
Or a trait was once advantageous may start getting a bit negative. My favorite example of that, because I had to spend so much pain and money fixing it, is our wisdom teeth. Our ancestors had plenty of jaw space for them. Some of us current humans do and some, like me, don’t. At some point having an enormous jaw with great big teeth, as found in Australopithecines, stopped being necessary, possibly because of tools being used to cut up food and fire to cook (and soften!) it. Mutations for a jaw that stopped growing at an early age and smaller teeth, which would have been negative before, stopped being a problem. A smaller jaw chewing softer food needs less muscle to do its work, so enormous jaw muscles and a sagital crest to attach them to are no longer needed. If a mutation or two took them away, no biggy.
Have you heard of “Culinary Evolution” I just read the term within the past month or so, it was coined by C. Loring Brace and discusses the facial and cranial changes that occur with changes in food and mastication.
Jois
I have to go to bed, but I wanted to hit a couple points first.
“Richard Leakey found a normal human skull under a layer of rock dated at 212 million years”
I’ve not heard this, but the geology in the area he digs is so contorted by tectonic action that older strata could be squished on top of younger strata.
Neanderthals: “Dr AJE Cave said his examination showed that this famous skeleton found in France over 50 years ago (more like 150, but that’s over 50–dz) is that of an old man who suffered from arthritis.”
True, to a point. Cave considered Neanderthals human, but not the same as modern humans (“This is not to deny that his limbs, as well as his skull, exhibit distinctive features - features which collectively distinguish him from all groups of modern men. In other words, his “total morphological pattern”, in the phraseology of Le Gros Clark (1955) differs from that of “sapiens” man.” (Straus, Jr. and Cave 1957). See this site.) His point was not that Neanderthals were identical to moderns, but that they had been misrepresented as stoop-shouldered brutes. If your spine was in as bad shape as that of this old guy you’d be stooped, too.
Interesting stuff. I hope you have more. Thanks
Before making statements like the above, you should familiarize yourself with what the term “theory” means in science. I believe some Talk Origins site links have already been provided, you would do well to follow them.
The first portion of the statement is hard to understand in terms of the rather vast evidence for evolution, so I have to assume you are poorly read in the matter. The second part of the statement is not relevant.
No, it does not make valid points, it makes many distortions. Go to the Talk Origins web site for facts and citations.
Anyone using the bile, hatred and lies that he uses does more harm than good to his “cause.”
See Talk Origins: biological sciences are not based around evolutionary theory for nothing.
Since they are, in effect, members of a ring species, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the breeds at the extreme ends are separate species until they discovered the species connecting them in the middle.
To wit:
by the evolutionary definition of “species,” the St. Bernard and the chihuahua are the same species because it’s possible for St. Bernard genes to enter into the chihuahua breed. You just need to pass those genes through a number of intermediates first.
Incidentally, where did you get that argument?
-Ben
Jalapeno_On_A_Stick:
Last year somebody thought that that particular Chick Tract made valid points. They were wrong, too.
I cannot seem to find an earlier, more detailed post, but last August I wrote:
I also especially like that Jesus is the electro-weqak force.
…I think my spelling has improved over the past few months…
I also used to have a link detailing where Chick plagarized his “illustrations”. Plagarism is bad. It is a violation of the commandments against stealing and covetting another’s property.
Hi DrFidelius, The first think I thought of when I looked at the Chick cartoon was where did he get those illustrations. If you ever find that link, I’d like to see it, too, please.
Hi Spoke-, I don’t know if Obvious Guy would concede that lions and tigers are separate species, but I think they are separate species, but that they may have been too recently separated to have completed total speciation. Hve you seen any dating on this?
Jois
Thanks, Doc, that saved me a lot of trouble. Instead, I get to present a bunch of comments.
After logging off last night I couldn’t get to sleep because I wasn’t done here. As I lay thinking I realized that the errors in the Chick tract required a fair amount of effort to ferret out of the original data, and that the person who did it, our pal Hovind, had to purposely distort and misrepresent the data to make his points. In other words, the information he provides are not merely mistakes but outright lies! I have heard of people who thought that the end of bringing people to religion justified whatever means were required to accomplish it, but I have always thought that it was shameful to actually lie to people as part of one’s evangelizing.
Having been raised Catholic, another of Mr Chick’s pet hatreds, I have never been taught that there was a mutual exclusion between Christianity and evolution. In fact, a prominent Catholic priest and theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, was also a prominent paleontologist in the first half of the last century. He was also involved in the digs that gave us, uh, ahem, [sub]Piltdown Man[/sub] but has generally been cleared of collusion. (What were they THINKING? Where the hell would the muscles for that jaw attach, fercryinoutloud?)
Lucy was a chimp? Nah, not with THAT pelvis. Nor with those femurs. No surprises at ALL when the gait of Australopithecus afarensis turned out so “modern.”
I remember cases like “Nebraska Man” being used as examples of why one must be very careful extrapolating from a single tooth, as pigs and bears have some teeth very similar to ours. Convergent evolution on the part of omnivores, I suppose, but we had a good laugh at the guy who made the mistake.
Jois, thanks for the tip on “Culinary Evolution.” No, I was unfamiliar with it, but I’m going to track it down ASAP.
Ben, if someone like Louis Leakey were to find Joey’s dog skeletons, he probably WOULD put them in different species. Leakey was a guy who would create new species for slightly different specimens found in comtemporaneous strata five miles apart. Specimens as different as St Bernards and Chihuahuas could be different genera! 
Who says you need intermediates? A female St. Bernard, a male chihuahua, and a platform at the right height.
Seriously, as far as I know all domesticated dogs are completely interfertile, in theory if not in practice.
And the chihuahua would say, “Who needs that platform!”
Jois
Precisely: in theory if not in practice. One thing creationists typically fail to understand is prezygotic vs. postzygotic isolation. Oftentimes species will be genetically compatible (in other words, you can make a test-tube baby,) but for a variety of reasons genes don’t naturally flow between the groups. For example, different pheromones, mechanical incompatibility of genitalia, different mating dances, etc.
-Ben
Ben: Oftentimes species will be genetically compatible (in other words, you can make a test-tube baby,) but for a variety of reasons genes don’t naturally flow between the groups. For example, different pheromones, mechanical incompatibility of genitalia, different mating dances, etc.
Right, Ben, I think underestimate how important the physical/cultural details are, maybe because some are subtle differences and others are just unfamiliar to us.
Carl Berry, I’m pretty sure the whale fossil sequences show one species evolving into another and the fossils for what we call cattle are pretty complete, too. The same is true IIRC for some kinds of shell fish. The problem is would your creationist friend be able to read and understand the fossil sequences. How much meaning would these things have for someone who had alread made up his mind that no such thing existed? Even http://www.google.com should get you pretty good info if you look (I’m guessing)for “whale fossils” and checkout “zoo paleo and whales” as well.
Jois
Tielhard de Chardin is interesting, but probably best approached as a philosopher and theologian rather than a scientist, in spite of his credentials. He spent his life attempting to reconcile science with intense spirituality, starting with an unquestioned assumption that such a thing could be done. It led him to things like the “noosphere”, and the “omega point”, and made him possibly the most formidable opponent of the existentialists who held center stage among the philosophers of his day, but meant he practiced his science with a definite agenda.
I will admit, however, that I am speaking from second hand observation by commentators, and have not read Tielhard de Chardin’s work (by all account, a weighty undertaking). As for those commentators, Sir Peter Medawar has a lot of unkind things to say about “The Phenomenon of Man”:
http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Medawar/phenomenon-of-man.html
Some of Teilhard’s modern fans will claim he anticipated the internet when he described the noosphere. My impression was that he had his heart in the right place, but was a bit off the deep end. Julian May used his world view for her SF “Galactic Milieu” novels to great effect, though.
I never really saw much difference between cutting edge science and mysticism. Hell, one of my professors claimed to have me Casteneda’s Don Juan. “He was in a tree.”