But evolution doesn’t say that. Evolution just says that allele frequencies change over time. Mutations can be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral.
In a lightless environment, a mutation that causes a fish to lose its eyes is more or less neutral. A mutation that causes a bird to become flightless might not be detrimental enough to wipe out the species.
I should also say that, as edwino pointed out, if all this genetic variety were built in to an organism’s genome, we should see it when we do DNA sequencing. We don’t. In fact, in order for your hypothesis to be true, every organism would have to have the same number of chromosomes, which isn’t the case.
That’s EXACTLY what we’re saying. Y’see, mutant animals without eyes are hatched or born all the time. This means the other animals laugh at and tease them. (Sorry, I was channelling Dave Barry there for a second…) Actually, it means those animals are ill-suited for their environment and quickly end up as food for predators or scavengers. But in a light-less environment like caves, being eyeless actually has an advantage: fewer organs to maintain, meaning the animal can get by on less food and oxygen. It is better suited for its environment. It thrives, while its sighted cousins die off. Given enough time, all the animals in a cave will have no eyes (Or skin color).
**Sorry. Evolution means ANY change. Losing an organ means a change. But as you can see, losing eyes is NOT bad if one lives underground where there is no light.
I simply MUST learn to type faster!
You have just said, in effect, that: “natural selection does not exists”, by implying things do not necessarilly get better. I thought “natural selection” was all about the survival of the fittest, not the survival of the mutants.
Hi Hiryuu, and welcome. You are this year’s version of me, or rather, what I once was.
Here are some guidelines that will help you:
The Theory of Evolution is not in conflict with theories concerning the Divine’s plan of Design, nor does it seek to totally subordinate the concept of the Divinity, be it Jehovah, Allah or even The Invisible Pink Unicorn. As with most of science, it is amoral.
The main conflict in the Evolution vs. Creation debate are with those which wants to assert the Divine’s specific methods of making the planet Earth as it is today, using books such as the Bible. The main problem, as I have come to realize, is that Genesis story of the creation of the Earth was by necessity a simplified version for the people at the time. People today are confused by its simplification of the story and use it to assert that God must have created each animal and plant as if She were a potter creating each vase. Besides being a very long and tiring process (I mean, networking by Hand just one system of 100,000,000,000,000,000 cells must be a bitch, oh forgive me), it doesn’t take into account very efficient tools She must have used to process the Earth, the design of each animal and plant, and the environmental interaction among them. Evolution, with all its unanswered questions, seems to be one of several efficient system processes She must have used.
While what the creationist theories are faith-based, specific methods and systems they espouse must be scientifically proven and established. It is very tricky to use the contrarian method of proof, the main method of creationists, while there are answers to questions not yet unasked.
To many people here, Whomever made the rules concerning natural selection, random genetic mutation, and other features of evolution, and how these were established, why was the planet mae this way, and so on, is irrelevant to the discussion, when scientific theory is disserted. They classify the Divine factor, if there is such, as metaphysics, as some concept which cannot be proven or disproven by the scientific method.
Scientists admit that the various theories concerning evolution are not complete, and there are still more questions to be answered. But they believe that the basic mechanisms of natural selection has been established. But they are looking into them, while the creationist approach tend to be reactionary.
Some applications of evolution, such as eugenics and Social Darwinism, are admittedly bad. But the development of these two does not invalidate the theories of evolution. In fact, futher development in evolution theory disproved that good results are likely to come from the above two.
Trickademous and mangetout discussed this much more eloqently than I did. And to answer the question: Yes, it is about the apes.
No. Natural selection does not mean continuous improvement. “Survival of the fittest” could mean “survival of the mutants”, if the mutants are more fit. Listen, do you understand what a mutation is? How would you define it? Most biologists would define a mutation as the substitution of one DNA nucleotide for another. And this could change the codon, which could change the amino acide specified in a protein, which could change the functionality of the protein.
But here’s an interesting thing. Some enzymes control the function of other enzymes. So a change in one enzyme can change a phenotype radically. Want an example? Well, testosterone is the hormone that causes the development of male characteristics. All cells in the body have testosterone receptors. If a protein in the testosterone receptor is damaged, then the body is insensitive to testosterone, even though the Y chromosome is telling the body to produce testosterone.
What happens is that a genetically male XY will embryologically develop to look exactly like a female XX despite producing the same amount of testosterone that other XYs do.
And we can think of many other examples where a small change in one protein can affect development profoundly. The point is that a mutation in one protein can have drastic effects in the phenotype.
Now, back to the cave fish. Why would a cave fish with eyes be “fitter” than a cave fish without eyes? You have the idea that “fitness” means something like “better able to do things, stronger, faster, smarter”. But when biologists use the term fitness they mean fitness in only one thing, reproduction. It is true that often times faster, stronger, and smarter organisms will have more offspring than slow, weak and stupid ones. But that is not always the case. Sometimes the slow, weak and stupid ones have more offspring, because it costs energy to move fast, and it requires resources to build strong muscles and nerves.
So, a cave fish without eyes could very easily have more offspring than a cave fish with eyes. At the very least having eyes would no longer be an advantage. Therefore, any mutation that would cause blindness is no longer disadvantageous. It no longer causes reduced fitness. So the offspring of the blinded fish are just as adapted to the cave environment as the fish with eyes. Without selective pressure maintaining complex structures like eyes they quickly disappear.
Now, back to your idea that archetypal organisms have many genes which are turned on or turned off according to their environment. Well, that does happen. But not nearly as much as would be neccesary.
Suppose we look at two species, a wolf and a fox. You would hold that the fox is simply a kind of wolf that has adapted to it’s local environment and is only expressing the particular genes to make it a fox. But this would mean that the fox and the wolf should have pretty much exactly identical genomes, if the only difference was their environment. And it would imply that we could transform a wolf into a fox if we simply but the wolf into the fox environment.
But this does not happen. In fact, wolves and foxes can share the same environement. And when we do genetic analysis of fox DNA and wolf DNA, we find that wolves have genes that foxes do not have, and vice versa. While wolves and foxes do share most of their genes, the differences between them is attributed to the differences in their genes.
This is why everyone is saying that you believe in Lamarckism, since you seem to believe that external environment can act directly on a species.
Now, another point. You say that the various archetypal species have “always existed”. But this makes no sense, unless you believe that the universe is eternal. At some point, there were no living things. At some later point there were living things. Where did they come from? It is all very well to speculate that some sort of inherent design in nature created them, but what does that mean? Do you mean that if you leave a puddle if organic chemicals lying around long enough they will eventually organize themselves into some sort of living creatures? What is the difference between that and evolution?
And you must also explain what exactly constitutes an archetypal group. Are all dog-like creatures members of the same archetypal group? All cat-like creatures? How about all monkeys? All fish? All turtles? What are the limits? You have postulated some sort of natural grouping of animals, but you must provide some sort of evidence that these natural groupings exist and are not merely arbitrary.
Biologists like to call this “argument from incredulity”. You are able to swallow that all dogs come from a common ancestor, or all cats, or all monkeys. But why can this form of evolution happen but it cannot progress further?
Also, you said that you believed that there was some evidence of a global flood, and that all species around today were survivors of that flood. Very interesting idea. Could you therefore explain why islands like Hawaii are commonly occupied by endemic species that do not exist anywhere else in the world? And why Australia was populated exclusively by marsupials?
Well, that should be enough questions for now. Please keep up the good work, you’re doing much better than the typical anti-evolutionist!
Boy, not only I am so ineloquent, I misspelled Triskadecamus’ name.
Since others have dealt with the cave-fish thing, I thought I’d touch on this one. Flightless birds did not, in fact, lose their wings; the wings simply atrophied. So, yes, the genes for wings are still there, since the wings themselves are still there.
One notices a similar trend among theropod dinosaurs: they start off with relatively long arms and in some lineages, the relative arm length decreased dramatically. Think Tyrannosaurus.
After the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceaous, birds in some areas became the arch-predators (not to be confused with your archetypes). They grew in size, and in the process, pretty much abandoned the entire idea of flight. In such cases, the wings took less and less precedence in terms of “fitness” - they were no longer advantageous, so selective pressures were no longer operating in favor of their retention.
The lack of wings in no way hindered these flightless birds - huge, bone-splitting beaks and strong legs were more than sufficient to keep these birds at the top of the food chain for some time.
Note, however, that when other (mammalian) predators were introduced to the areas where such birds were, the birds did not regain the ability to fly (such would certainly have been advanatageous at that point!) - they went extinct.
The flightless ratites of today are but a small sampling of the diversity that flightless birds once had.
Ok, I will try and explain the framework of there being inherent design in the universe. This is because the whole ‘built-in’ hypothesis requires inherent design.
The Fibonacci Factor
I mentioned this briefly in an earlier post, but will now go into detail.
Sources:
http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html
http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat2.html
The fibonacci sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…etc (Add the previous two elements to determine the next).
Why is the fibonacci sequence significant? It is significant because it is evident in diverse phylae and species throughout nature.
Which phlylae and species use fibonacci in nature? Well, to name a few…
Rabbits, Bees, Flowers, Trees, Sea shells, and many others.
Now, here is my arguement; It is obvious why a species would use fibonacci in its “design”, it is proven to be the most efficient way of utilizing its sorroundings. My question is this: What is the probability that such diverse phylae and species all evolved by incorporating the same sequence into their “design”?
We are talking about diverse and unrelated phylae and species that all happened to incorporate the fibonacci sequence and 1.618 (PHI) as a proportion into their design.
The human body for example inorporates (1.618) into its proportions, but so does the arrangement of petals on a flower. Are you beginning to see how improbable it is that both unrelated phyla would come across the same number and continue using it? There are infinity numbers to choose from but everything decided to incorporate the same number (PHI), and the same sequence (fibonacci).
The fact that everything suddenly got the tip of at once that (PHI) should be used gives credibility to my theory of design, and that PHI and fibonacci were fundamental to that design.
You may argue that diverse phylae and species came across the same number through trial and error. Well the only way to prove that PHI is better than the infinite amount of other numbers is to test PHI against an infinite amount of other numbers, and this of course would take an eternity.
Also PHI is incorporated into fossils and remains of any given age, in other words there is no way you can say “Look at this point in history such and such an evolving species had no PHI in it, while later on in history it did have PHI in it”.
This is because PHI is evident throughout the fossil record timeline.
Well, there we have it. Thanks for taking the time to read all that but it lays the foundations for a theory of inherent design as opposed to evolutionary chance.
Please take the time to go over the links I gave above so that you can really understand what I am talking about.
Are you… Darren Aronofsky??? 
Actually, Hiyruu, The Fibonacci Factor is another example of using something that affects evolution but it does not refute it:
http://library.thinkquest.org/27890/altver/applications4.html
In this case the Fibonacci numbers have an effect in the dynamics of plant growth, evolution is not out of the picture.
Hiyruu, this is the second time that evidence that you wring forth is not a “killer” of evolution, but only a modifier of it. (And not as important as many other factors)
“Something from nothing?”
So where did God come from? God is complex. That page is assuming that something intelligent like God could exist at the beginning of the universe, and something simple like a blob of matter couldn’t.
My point was not whether Fibonacci and PHI were observed, the point is that PHI has always existed as a principal of design, and was around before life on this planet occured.
Also consider the improbability of diverse phlya/phlae groups all utilizing the same number. Out of all the infinite numbers, every phyla happens to use PHI and fibonacci, and the PHI and Fibonacci properties are found throughout the fossil record timeline in all these phyla, so there is no evidence that it is connected with evolution.
PHI and fibonacci as principals are apparent in an given age of life on this planet, so they cannot be something that was learnt over time, rather they have always existed as the core of the design model.
Let me emphasize this point: PHI and Fibonacci are evident throughout the entire fossil record timeline which means that it was never something that was learnt since it was always already known.
How can the utilization of PHI and Fibonacci be the result of millions of years of evolution if they were already used in the beginning anyway.
This all proves my point that design has always been around.
Darwin’s Finch wrote:
Yeah, but it’s unlikely that flightless birds could regain the ability to fly easily, even if it became advantageous. Since their wings are no longer useful to them, the genes that code for their wings have probably accumulated lots of mutations that aren’t detrimental to the organism. “Re-activating” these genes to make useful wings will almost certainly not work, at least not in most cases.
It’s the same situation with the “de-activated” gene (the “pseudogene”) for synthesizing Vitamin C, which is present in humans and other great apes. We lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C in our own bodies waaaaaaay back when citrus fruits became a regular part of our diet. Were this pseudogene reactivated into a real gene now, it would probably not work correctly, due to all the “neutral” mutations it would have accumulated while it was sitting there unused.
And incidentally, when we got the technology to do so and started comparing genes from different members of the same species, we discovered that, yes, indeed, pseudogenes show more diversity in genetic makeup (i.e. have accumulated more mutations) than real genes do. This was strong evidence for Darwinian evolution.
What is the fundamental difference between the fibonacci sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…etc. and the sequence consisting of increasing powers of two: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536… ?
Both can arise as the result of extremely simple iterative processes, addition for fibonacci, multiplication for the power series. The multiplicative process is found widely throughout unliving and living systems. Atomic and binary fission come to mind as prominent examples of the binary sequence. Does that mean that you are willing to accept the fact that dividing cells follow the same mathematical sequence as the production of neutrons in a runaway nuclear reaction as a proof of inherent design ? That seems like quite a large leap of faith. If that’s not what you are implying, feel free to clarify what it is that makes the fibonacci sequence in particular so indicative of the hand of the divine engineer.
YMMV, but as far as I can tell, there is no salvation for creationist theories in the realm of numerical mysticism.
The reason PHI and Fibonacci are so special is that they allow for the optimal operation of life, 1.618… being the perfect number for life.
Take a look at the links I gave above. They show why PHI and Fibonacci are used so much by nature, and are considered the optimal proportion and sequence to use to support life.
Hiyruu, the line about the “dynamics of xxxx growth” should be the clue; it points to restrictions and properties of the physical bodies of all living creatures. In other words, nothing is happening in a vacuum. When the numbers appear even in non-living things, that is a big clue that we are dealing with natural properties. (Including natural selection)
Back to the designer: human designers use the numbers to create more pleasing works of art, but the numbers were already there. Just like relativity, quantum effects, etc. those things existed before humans figure them out. It is a property of nature that does not need a designer. Science does not need to add an intelligent designer to something that nature does for itself:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
intelligent design is an added hypothesis and the proponent’s burden is to demonstrate why it is necessary to make this hypothesis. I have argued that no evidence or rational argument for intelligent design can be found in either the data or the theories of modern physics and cosmology. If the hypothesis of intelligent design is to be discussed in science classrooms, then good science methodology demands that we make clear that this is an uneconomical hypothesis that is not required by existing scientific knowledge.
That last paragraph is actually a quote from the linked article.