A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis

I agree, but maybe we can start some threads on some of the smaller pieces and get a good discussion, such as whether natural selection and mutations can explain similarities arising via convergent evolution, or if that's pie in the sky evo-thinking. I think it's clear that natural selection is NOT going to dictate the design of the mammalian ear (to have evolved twice), but mainstream evos think otherwise.That might be a good starting point....

This seems a little off. There are different "genera" that can breed fertile offspring in the wild, but maybe they should not be thought of as separate species, much less separate genera or even in the case of pseudorcas and bottlenosed dolphins, sometimes as different subfamilies.Nevertheless, the notion of a distinct line that cannot be crossed is interesting. It fits with what some biblical creationists maintain, but perhaps not IDers.For me though, I would think and do think it is highly likely we can genetically manipulate a blend of different species given enough technological advancement.Do you really think this is ultimately impossible?

Herepton or anyone else for that matter.NOTHING dives evolutionaty change because it is no longer occurring. Like ontogeny, phylogeny has been a self-limiting, entirely internally controlled phenomenon which in my opinion terminated with the production of Homo sapiens, the last verifiable mammal species to appear on this planet. In my firm opinion there will be no more. The extinction of the terminal products of evolution is exactly like the death of the individual - final and irreversible. Extinction is ALL that we see at present. Ontogeny ad phylogeny are intimately related manifestations of reproductive continuity. Only ontogeny remains. That is my position and I will stand by it until it is proven to be in error. I have published that opinion in my paper "Is evolution finished?" and elsewhere.I have yet to retract anything I have ever committed to hard copy in journal publication and I am reasonably confident I never will.To blithely assume that evolution is in progress is completely without justification just as Pierre Grasse, Julian Huxley and Robert Broom all concluded. I have repeatedly cited their conclusions and have always been ignored. I have gotten used to it.

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

WK, I really don't know what experiments have been done, but apparently there are no experiments demonstrating macroevolution, only experiments or observations demonstrating microevolution that evos call macroevolution.As you know, that is one reason people like me don't consider ToE real science. The dogmatism they assert unobserved claims they freely admit cannot be demonstrated via experiments is very telling. It seems to me that absent demonstration via experiments, that the dogmatism is grealy misplaced and indications of a lack of scientific understanding of what real science is, even though they always accuse their critics of that.Certainly, even if Herepton is wrong on the 200 years of experimentation, should there not have been at least 100 years of such experiments with at least some demonstrable and unequivocal successful results to warrant the insistence by evos that "evolution (meaning the Theory of Evolution, common descent for all species from a single source) is a fact"?

I believe that we will one day be able to recreate our own immediate acestors when we can rigorously control chromosome restructuring. I also believe we are terminal products and do not anticipate any future mammal species or indeed any future naturally occurring species of any sort. I see no obstacle to producing new "species" experimentally but I am convinced it will never be achieved through the selection of allelic mutants. I know of not a single recently evolved species to replace any of the thousands that have become extinct. Does anyone? If they do please call it to my attention.

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

I don't think you could ever unequivocally show the descent of all species from a single source experimentally. The best you could hav eis converging lines of genetic and morphological fossil evidence, it isn't really something amenable to experimental investigation beyond that of comparative genetics.I'm not sure what sort of 'successful results' you are thinking of.TTFN,WK

I don't mean from a single source, but a true macro-evolutionary leap so to speak, or another way to describe it would be a sufficient series of small changes to produce a creature or species that is indeed qualitatively different enough to be a macroevolutionary change.

Hi John,I'm not sure whether you check the [forum=-23] forum, so I thought I'd let you know that you've received a nomination over in the June, 2006, Posts of the Month thread. It's at Message 13.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

PercyThanks for the link. I responded there.

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

I believe that not only true species but all of the higher taxa resulted from instantaneous events for which there were never any intermediate states. In other words ALL of evolution WAS saltational just as Schindewolf and Goldchmidt had independently concluded. There WAS no room for gradualism in creative evolution, a process no longer in progress."The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg."
Otto Schindewolf

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

I would hesitate to make that claim. I think it may be possible to prove that more than one creation was involved. I keep an open mind on the matter.

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

The nice thing about the PEH is that it can accomodate repeated production of identical or nearly identical products even in unrelated taxa such as in marsupial and placental mammals where many examples abound.

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

Well it certainly makes more sense that natural selection. I really don't see how random mutations and natural selection could select for the 3 inner ear bones twice. It's not as if there are no other designs that would work, and as many evos like to point out, many of these designs aren't even optimal from a practical standpoint.

It isn't as if they evolved twice completely independently, this isn't some extreme case of convergent evolution but rather an example of parallel evolution.There may well be other designs that would work, but both placentals and eutherians would have started with the same structure from which the inner ear would have evolved. The inner ear as we know it might just be the simplest solution from that starting position, it almost certainly isn't the only solution though.TTFN,WK

I regard convergent evolution as just one more Darwinian fantasy. The mammalian ear, like the eye or more accurately eyes, could only have been produced in one step since functional intermediates are impossible to imagine, let alone find. Once again I insist that there was never an exogenous cause for either ontogeny or phylogeny. Both have proceeded inexorably driven entirely from within the genomes of those relatively few organisms that were capable of producing offspring fundamentally different from themselves. Such have always been in the minority. The vast majority of all creatures, past and present, were doomed at the moment of their inception to ultimate extinction because they were quite incapable of further change. Evolution, like embryonic development, has involved a progressive loss of potential until today, competent organisms seem no longer to exist. If creative evolution were to occur today (and I cannot rule that out), I am confident it could not be the product of bisexual conventional reproduction. Whether my earlier proposed semi-meiotic means was involved remains to be seen since it has yet to be experimentally examined. Schindewolf was convinced that evolution was not an experimental science and cannot be examined that way. While I am not yet convinced, he may have been right. He was undoubtedly the greatest paleontologist since Cuvier."Many recent authors have spoken of EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION; there is NO SUCH THING. Evolution, a unique, historical course of events that took place in the past, is not repeatable experimentally and cannot be investigated in that way....The only factors that are known and accessible to experimentation are some that, as far as can be anticipated, can lead to the differentiation of races."
Basic Questions in Paleontology. page 311, his emphasis.Please note his expression "took place in the past."All real evolution was macroevolution and, in my carefully considered opinion, no creature reproducing by Mendelian (sexual) means has ever been able to engage in creative evolution through those means.* Now I've done it! How do I get rid of all this all empty space?

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"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."