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Author Topic:   How do you define the word Evolution?
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 76 of 936 (803246)
03-27-2017 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by CRR
03-27-2017 6:45 PM


Some transitional fossils
"Although creationists frequently claim that there are no transitional fossils, the paleontological record tells a very different story."
Access denied | National Center for Science Education
Fossils with transitional morphology are not rare. Fossils illustrating the gradual origin of humans, horses, rhinos, whales, seacows, mammals, birds, tetrapods, and various major Cambrian "phyla" have been discovered and are well-known to scientists.
Lots more

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 77 of 936 (803248)
03-27-2017 8:42 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by CRR
03-27-2017 6:45 PM


The fossil record has been explored extensively since then and the transitional fossils are still not there.
You made that up.
Instead the fossil record shows sudden appearance and disappearance with stasis in between. This is what Gould referred to as "the trade secret of paleontology" and the reason he and Eldridge developed the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium.
You made that up.
Darwin argued in "Origin of Species" that even in a stable environment there should still be evolution since there was always competition within the species for food and reproduction.
You made that up.
However there has never been extensive periods of stable environment and even if the abiotic environment was stable the biotic environment would be changing as predator and prey adapted to counter each other.
You made that up.
The continued lack of transitional forms in the fossil record is a slap in the face for [neo-]Darwinian evolution.
You made that up.

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 78 of 936 (803249)
03-27-2017 8:53 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Coyote
03-27-2017 8:15 PM


Re: Some transitional fossils
From your reference;
A recent example from the news is the discovery of the fossil species Tiktaalik roseae.
Tiktaalik is a transitional form in the evolution of vertebrates on four legs. Ahlberg and Clack (2006) describe the importance of the discovery:
It demonstrates the predictive capacity of palaeontology. The Nunavut field project had the express aim of finding an intermediate between Panderichthys and tetrapods, by searching in sediments from the most probable environment (rivers) and time (early Late Devonian). Second, Tiktaalik adds enormously to our understanding of the fish—tetrapod transition because of its position on the tree and the combination of characters it displays.
Per Erik Ahlberg and Jennifer A. Clack (2006) "Palaeontology: A firm step from water to land," Nature 440:747-749
Tiktaalik has turned out to be an epic fail for evolution.
After Tiktaalik was found fossil footprints were found that predated it in the Zachelmie Quarry. This shows that the data on which the prediction was based was wrong and hence the finding of Tiktaalik was simply fortuitous, and destroys the claim of predictive capacity. The above wording suggests, and I can remember it being promoted as, not as just an intermediate form but as an actual intermediate. Since footprints predated it, it couldn't have been an intermediate after all.
There are problems with many of the claimed sequences of transitional fossils.
The palaeontologist David Raup wrote:
‘The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be modified or discarded as a result of more detailed information. What appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and less gradualistic. So Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated.’ D.M. Raup, ‘Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology,’ Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50:22, 1979.
Similarly whale evolution is looking very problematic since (a)Pakicetus was shown to be fully terrestial instead of the otter like creature originally postulated, and (b)finds early fossils of fully formed whales has closed the evolutionary window to about 1 million years which is impossibly short.
But here's the rub, this thread is " How do you define the word Evolution? ". Where is your definition?

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 79 of 936 (803250)
03-27-2017 8:57 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Dr Adequate
03-27-2017 8:42 PM


You made that up.
Just saying "You made that up" is not an Adequate answer.
If you have read "Origin of Species" you must have missed that bit.
But here's the rub, this thread is " How do you define the word Evolution? ". Where is your definition?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 80 of 936 (803252)
03-27-2017 9:56 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by CRR
03-27-2017 8:57 PM


Re: You made that up.
Just saying "You made that up" is not an Adequate answer.
It is a perfectly adequate answer to things you made up and asserted without so much as a pretense of providing evidence.
If you have read "Origin of Species" you must have missed that bit.
I have read the Origin of Species, and moreover understood it. The ubiquity of competition does not necessarily imply that any of the selection pressures will be adaptive rather than conservative.
Here's something Darwin actually said in the Origin of Species: "The period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change."
But here's the rub, this thread is " How do you define the word Evolution? ". Where is your definition?
Heritable changes in a population.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 81 of 936 (803253)
03-27-2017 9:57 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by CRR
03-27-2017 8:53 PM


Re: Some transitional fossils
Is your ridiculous nonsense about the fossil record on topic?

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 82 of 936 (803254)
03-27-2017 10:01 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by CRR
03-27-2017 8:53 PM


Re: Some transitional fossils
Tiktaalik has turned out to be an epic fail for evolution.
After Tiktaalik was found fossil footprints were found that predated it in the Zachelmie Quarry. This shows that the data on which the prediction was based was wrong and hence the finding of Tiktaalik was simply fortuitous, and destroys the claim of predictive capacity.
Not really, no. They went looking for rocks in a time window of about 20 million years that they expected to find the tetrapodal transitional forms. And they ended up finding those forms in that time window . That early tetrapodal forms were also found 10-20 million years earlier than this does not break the prediction that tetrapodal transitionals should be found in the twenty million year window just before full tetrapods were found. It turns out they are found in a 40 million window before that. Nobody predicted this. But then it isn't like failing to predict one thing means you failed to predict another. That would be like saying 'I predicted Trump would win the Presidency' is undermined by failing to predict it would only last 6 months.
The prediction was that early tetrapodal forms would appear between the earliest known Rhipidistia (410million years ago) and creatures such as Ichthyostega (360 million years ago). So the full window of opportunity is actually 50 million years - the prediction was that basically in the middle of these two periods was the best place to find the transitionals, but mostly anywhere in there would be fine as far as natural history is concerned - but there'd likely be some gap after Rhipidistia to allow for evolution to actually occur! It turns out that it was on the early side of things, meaning there wasn't as big a gap between Rhipidistia and early tetrapodal forms as had been expected - but it didn't break an prediction.
The palaeontologist David Raup wrote
That phyletic gradualism isn't what we find, which he regards as Darwin's notion of evolution - although Darwin never committed to it and even suggested wasn't the case. His final argument was that evolution obviously happened, and Darwin's theory explains some of the how but is insufficient to explain the whole thing. But you know, that's a pretty well established concept at this point. We don't slavishly follow Darwin. He isn't Pope Darwin the Infallible of Evolution.
Similarly whale evolution is looking very problematic since (a)Pakicetus was shown to be fully terrestial instead of the otter like creature originally postulated
Using evidence to better update our understanding of natural history from speculative drawings on the cover of magazines is not a problem for evolution. But exploring your 'problems' with natural history takes us wildly off topic regarding the definition of evolution.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 83 of 936 (803269)
03-28-2017 6:40 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by ICANT
03-27-2017 1:53 PM


Re: Very Late Reply, and simply wrong
If what you just quoted and said is true shouldn't there be a complete trail of the different changes visible today in the fossil record?
Do you have a complete movie of yourself of every minute of every day of your life?
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

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Astrophile
Member (Idle past 127 days)
Posts: 92
From: United Kingdom
Joined: 02-10-2014


Message 84 of 936 (803318)
03-28-2017 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by ICANT
03-27-2017 1:53 PM


Re: Very Late Reply, and simply wrong
If what you say is correct why does the fossil record show times of new life forms without a connection to previous life forms, that has been called punctuated equilibrium?
If what you say is correct, how do you interpret this aspect of the fossil record?

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 85 of 936 (803510)
04-01-2017 12:14 AM


Define Evolution
I don't think anybody deserves a reply until they have answered the original question, "How do you define the word Evolution?"
[edit] RAZD has given a fairly lengthy definition and I am considering my reply.
Edited by CRR, : as noted

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 86 of 936 (803511)
04-01-2017 4:19 AM
Reply to: Message 85 by CRR
04-01-2017 12:14 AM


Re: Define Evolution
OK, CRR, so just where the frak have you ever defined the word, "Evolution."?
Do please be as specific as possible.

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CRR
Member (Idle past 2242 days)
Posts: 579
From: Australia
Joined: 10-19-2016


Message 87 of 936 (803512)
04-01-2017 6:42 AM


My definition
After reading previous discussion and having a good think on the subject I think the best definition of evolution overall is a slight modification of Kerkut’s;
Evolution is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself arose naturally from an inorganic form.
The key elements of this are abiogenesis and ascent from a last universal common ancestor (LUCA).
Coyne, in his definition adds, the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.. But note that this expands it by specifying a mechanism. Mutation, selection, genetic drift, punctuated equalibrium, etc., are all mechanisms of evolution but should not be confused with the definition of evolution itself.
LUCA is considered to be a simple microbial life form with a minimal genome and the mechanisms of evolution have added the genetic information to produce complex life forms including man. Hence I say ascent rather than descent in my definition.
The definition from population genetics; a change in allele frequency in a population over time; is unsatisfactory because it focusses on only a part of the whole scope of evolution.
Now I know that some people will object to including abiogenesis in the definition but I think it is an essential part of the thinking of most evolutionary biologists and inseparable from evolution.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 88 of 936 (803515)
04-01-2017 7:41 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by CRR
04-01-2017 6:42 AM


Re: My definition
The definition from population genetics; a change in allele frequency in a population over time; is unsatisfactory because it focusses on only a part of the whole scope of evolution.
Having thought about this - I agree. This definition does cover a more limited scope than what we usually mean when we talk about evolution. I think most people would agree that something like the endosymbiosis of mitochondria and chloroplasts is part of what we understand by evolution - but this is not captured by the change of allele frequencies definition.
However, your definition:
Evolution is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself arose naturally from an inorganic form.
is not very satisfactory; since it seems to me that nothing that you've included is entailed by what we mean when we talk about evolution. Your definition would mean that someone who argued for two independent origins of life; followed by evolution with natural selection; would be arguing against evolution; which is obviously wrong.
It seems to me that all we really mean when we say 'evolution' in the biological sense is 'how organisms change over time'. Everything else is either about the mechanisms of evolution; or specific events in natural history as we understand it. They aren't part of the definition.

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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 89 of 936 (803522)
04-01-2017 12:08 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by CRR
04-01-2017 6:42 AM


Re: My definition
CRR writes:
Now I know that some people will object to including abiogenesis in the definition but I think it is an essential part of the thinking of most evolutionary biologists and inseparable from evolution.
That makes no more sense than adding blast furnaces to the definition of "automobile".

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 90 of 936 (803523)
04-01-2017 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by CRR
04-01-2017 6:42 AM


Re: My definition
CRR writes:
Now I know that some people will object to including abiogenesis in the definition but I think it is an essential part of the thinking of most evolutionary biologists and inseparable from evolution.
That is your assertion yet it seems most evolutionary biologists consider them as two separate subjects which is why they created the terms evolution and abiogenesis instead of just using the one term evolution.

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