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Author Topic:   Evolving the Musculoskeletal System
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 31 of 527 (577464)
08-28-2010 11:04 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by ICdesign
08-28-2010 10:37 PM


Re: What you answered, what you didn't
ICDESIGN writes:
Actually sir, I haven't been making the case for a designer if you will look at my opening statement.
Yes, I saw your wish to leave questions of design origin out of this discussion. I ignored it because it is a disingenuous tactic: you wish to use ID assertions without the ID baggage.
I did not need to be told to assume the ToE is correct; I am already confident of that; and I will not engage in the fiction that your arguments are not those of Intelligent Design.
Nonetheless, I did not dismiss your arguments as ID boilerplate, I merely noted their character. I replied, as others have, substantively. The record is clear on the evidence for evolution: you could spend the rest of your life reading the primary sources and exploring primary collections. I do not think you have spent a single day in the endeavor.
So, no, you don't get to make bare assertions, reply to counterarguments with bare assertions, and then demand reams of scientific data when your bare assertions are pointed out.
You made an assertion; there were counter-assertions, supported by evidence cited and known by both sides of the debate to exist. This is where you present your citations of evidence and alternate explanatory reasoning, not where you demand to be tutored.

Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by ICdesign, posted 08-28-2010 10:37 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 32 of 527 (577466)
08-28-2010 11:10 PM


Some of the evidence...
Some of the evidence is found in the following journals:
American Journal of Human Biology
American Journal of Human Genetics
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
The Anatomical Record Part A
Annals of Human Biology
Annals of Human Genetics
Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
Anthropological Science
Anthropologie
L' Anthropologie
Archaeometry
Behavior Genetics
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Biological Psychology
Biology and Philosophy
BMC Evolutionary Biology
Current Anthropology
Current Biology
Economics and Human Biology
Ethnic and Racial Studies
European Journal of Human Genetics
Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolutionary Anthropology
Forensic Science International
Gene
Genetical Research
Genetics
Genome Research
Heredity
Homo
Human Biology
Human Heredity
Human Genetics
Human Genomics
Human Molecular Genetics
Human Mutation
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Journal of Archaeological Science
Journal of Biosocial Science
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Journal of Human Evolution
Journal of Human Genetics
Journal of Molecular Evolution
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Nature
Nature Genetics
Nature Reviews Genetics
PLoS Biology
PLoS Genetics
Proceedings of The Royal Society: Biological Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Russian Journal of Genetics
Science
Trends in Genetics

This is a very partial list. Then you need to add in the museums around the world, and a lot of other evidence.
Of course, you won't accept any of this evidence as your mind has already been made up by religious belief.
So why are you even asking?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 33 of 527 (577467)
08-28-2010 11:18 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Bolder-dash
08-28-2010 10:04 PM


One of his questions was, where are the false starts?
I thought I showed you the false starts - the individuals with deformities, the achondroplasiacs, and so on. The "false starts" are the individuals whose skeletal systems didn't form according to the conventional program, but whose deformities were not so severe that they didn't simply die in the womb.
If you mean something else by "false start" then you're going to have to be more specific.
So the examples you showed do not support the ToE, they rather contradict it, because what they show is that each time you have a gross mutation, it is damaging to the organism.
Well, achondroplasia isn't damaging to the organism, per se. Are you aware that individuals with dwarfism have incredible physical strength, due to the shortened moment-arm of their limbs and therefore the increased mechanical advantage?
I mean, they're just short. They live just as long as you or I. Humans evolved in the tall grasses of the African savanna, so there was a selection pressure for being able to see distantly over the weeds, but it's not hard to imagine a selection pressure against height, in favor of a small, sturdy, compact body. In that case we'd be considered the mutants (not least of which because the normal gene, which you or I have, is recessive.)
we are asking for examples of positive ones-which your theory needs quite a lot lot lot of.
If you want examples of observed beneficial mutations you should start here:
Are Mutations Harmful?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-28-2010 10:04 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 34 of 527 (577468)
08-28-2010 11:21 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by ICdesign
08-28-2010 8:48 PM


ICdesign writes:
Bones are thickest where the greatest pressures occur, and the most flexible where give is needed.
Some of this is adaptive growth. You too can have stronger bones - just increase your exercise, particularly exercise that modestly stresses some bones, and those bones will grow stronger.
ICdesign writes:
Some are rounded at their ends to rotate within joints;
That might be partly adaptive growth, too. I would guess that a child crippled at birth for some reason not related to the bones, would probably grow bones that were not as rounded.
ICdesign writes:
Some are beveled, like the skull, so that the pieces fit perfectly together.
They fit together because they adaptively grow together.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by ICdesign, posted 08-28-2010 8:48 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 35 of 527 (577470)
08-28-2010 11:50 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by ICdesign
08-28-2010 8:01 PM


Hi, ICDESIGN.
ICDESIGN writes:
I think your drawings are extremely underfetched in explaining any of my posed questions.
Do you want to continue the discussion?
If so, it would be in your interest to contribute to it.
The way you carry on a conversation is like a talent show in which you are the judge: you ask for us to present things, then pass judgment on them and say, "Next!"
This is not very enjoyable for us, and it isn't what we thought we were signing up for.
I would personally like to at least get some feedback.
You asked what the evolutionary explanation for the arrangement of the skeleton is.
I told you what the evolutionary explanation is, and provided what I thought was a decent visual aid to help explain it better.
Then you told me that it doesn't answer your question, and asked for the next contestant, repeating your original call for entries, without saying why my answer was inappropriate.
Why doesn't it answer the question? I showed you a set of animals with a clear spectrum of characteristics with multiple different organizations of the limb bones. This indicates that the "specialness" of limb and joint organization isn't as great as you think it is.
Why don't you think it shows this?

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by ICdesign, posted 08-28-2010 8:01 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 36 of 527 (577487)
08-29-2010 7:24 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Bolder-dash
08-28-2010 9:56 PM


Bolder-dash writes:
Evidence please. Evidence must be something we can see, taste, smell or touch-and must be repeatable and predictable.
Keeping in mind that the topic is how the musculoskeletal system evolved, it sounds like you're asking for evidence that random mutation and natural selection were responsible. It's really just an extremely common rational inference. Given that matter and energy behaved the same in the past as they do today (in other words, given that the natural laws of the universe haven't changed measurably over time), random mutation and natural selection would have been operating in the past just as they are today.
The same inference is used in all science. In geology the same erosive forces operating today to wear down mountain ranges are thought to have worn down ancient mountain ranges in the past. In astronomy the same forces of gravity that keep the planets in orbit around the sun today are thought to have kept them in orbit in the past. In physics the forces responsible for particle physics today are thought to have been responsible for it in the past.
Across all the sciences the way we figure out what happened in the past is to study how our universe works today and project the forces and processes we find back in time. When we discover evidence of new forces and processes then we'll include those, too.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-28-2010 9:56 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by ICdesign, posted 08-29-2010 10:14 AM Percy has replied
 Message 42 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-29-2010 12:39 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 37 of 527 (577489)
08-29-2010 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by ICdesign
08-28-2010 10:37 PM


Re: What you answered, what you didn't
ICDESIGN writes:
Where are all the false starts that you guys claim have died off?
There should be millions of them.
It is estimated that 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct. That's a lot of "false starts," though that's the wrong term. It would be like calling the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans false starts on the road to modern civilization.
Your question can be answered at the individual level, too. Some significant number of fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted because of deleterious mutations. Some are aborted before coming to term for the same reason. Some number of offspring do not survive to adulthood due to deleterious mutations. And some adults compete poorly with their peers and so leave few or no descendants, making it less likely their genes will survive into future generations.
Take a section (any section) of the body and explain piece by piece a feasible rendition of how small mutations gradually developed into all the bones and joints that make up that section.
Your belief that the processes of random mutation and natural selection are insufficient to produce the diversity of features observed in modern species is driving you to repeatedly ask the same exact question in thread after thread. I don't know if anyone has ever done what you ask regarding skeletal joints, but it's certainly been done for the eye. I'm sure you've seen descriptions of eye evolution before, but for reference here's a link to the Wikipedia article: Evolution of the eye. What seems different to you about the accumulation of small changes over time in skeletal joints as opposed to the eye?
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by ICdesign, posted 08-28-2010 10:37 PM ICdesign has not replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 349 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 38 of 527 (577499)
08-29-2010 9:36 AM


Environment
Is it correct to say that the environment in which an organism evolves works only as a post development filter for fitness?

  
ICdesign
Member (Idle past 4798 days)
Posts: 360
From: Phoenix Arizona USA
Joined: 03-10-2007


Message 39 of 527 (577508)
08-29-2010 10:14 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by Percy
08-29-2010 7:24 AM


Keeping in mind that the topic is how the musculoskeletal system evolved, it sounds like you're asking for evidence that random mutation and natural selection were responsible. It's really just an extremely common rational inference
This is exactly the point we are taking issue with Percy. All any of you have to offer is inference. Inference is not evidence. It may be rational to you and other evolutionists but there are millions of us out here in the real world who think your inferences are extremely irrational.
random mutation and natural selection would have been operating in the past just as they are today.
If this is true then why do you only have inferences?
Here in the true world of observable science all we see are minor variations within a kind.
Here in the true world of observable science I have yet to see any transitional creatures walking around that are between ape and man.
All you ever had was inference, and that is all you ever will have!
My evidence has always been in the descriptions of function as with the 5 different types of joints. Every one of you whine I don't bring evidence to the table. All you have for a counter is inference.
Where is the evidence?
A creature with a ball joint where a hinge joint is located could have survived just fine.
My underlining question is HOW? How exactly does evolution produce 5 distinctly different joints? All any of you ever have for an answer is an inference that rm/ns produced them for the sake of survival.
I have pointed to over 1200 points of evidence within the Musculoskeletal system that beg the questions of how and why and all you bring is irrational, illogical inference.
As far as your reference to the eye goes. Its all more of the same.
Inference, inference, inference.....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Percy, posted 08-29-2010 7:24 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by jar, posted 08-29-2010 10:25 AM ICdesign has not replied
 Message 41 by crashfrog, posted 08-29-2010 12:17 PM ICdesign has replied
 Message 49 by Percy, posted 08-29-2010 2:57 PM ICdesign has replied

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


Message 40 of 527 (577509)
08-29-2010 10:25 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by ICdesign
08-29-2010 10:14 AM


ICDESIGN writes:
A creature with a ball joint where a hinge joint is located could have survived just fine.
If so then where is the problem? If a ball joint would serve the same function as a hinged joint then it is not a matter of one being the right arrangement and the other wrong but just what was pointed out to you back in Message 3 of this thread.
jar writes:
First, there is no evidence that the bones, joints and muscles are in just the right position. The evidence shows that they are in just good enough position to get by.
ICDESIGN writes:
My underlining question is HOW? How exactly does evolution produce 5 distinctly different joints? All any of you ever have for an answer is an inference that rm/ns produced them for the sake of survival.
No, that is not what folk say. No one claims that different joints were produced for anything.
What folk have been saying is that joints, bones and muscles that don't function will leave the critter at an reproductive disadvantage.
It is simple really. Them critters that are just good enough to get by survive. Them that can't, don't.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by ICdesign, posted 08-29-2010 10:14 AM ICdesign has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 41 of 527 (577516)
08-29-2010 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by ICdesign
08-29-2010 10:14 AM


All any of you have to offer is inference. Inference is not evidence.
Inference is something you do with evidence.
It may be rational to you and other evolutionists but there are millions of us out here in the real world who think your inferences are extremely irrational.
Then by all means, explain why.
If this is true then why do you only have inferences?
We don't only have inference. We have a record of past mutations that exists in the genome of every living thing.
A creature with a ball joint where a hinge joint is located could have survived just fine.
A human with a ball joint knee instead of a hinge knee wouldn't be able to stand, because the knees would simply pop out to the side. You don't have the muscles in your knee to restrict that kind of movement without the assist of a joint that simply won't flex in that direction.
Here in the true world of observable science all we see are minor variations within a kind.
"Kinds" are not something that we have ever observed in the "true world of observable science." "Kinds" are not a description of biological reality, they're a fabrication by creationists who don't know anything about biology. The proof of this is that creationists cannot define "kinds" except circularly.
What a surprise, though - 40 posts in and you're already scrambling to change the subject. I think we're all going to conclude that your extreme haste to change the subject from musculoskeletal growth to "created kinds" is because you found that, once again, biological science had ample answer to your supposedly "unanswerable" questions.
IC - is it ever going to occur to you that the reason these questions seem "unanswerable" to you is because you don't know enough science to understand the answers? Why do you continue to pretend that you can engage in criticism of a field that you do not evince even the slightest interest in actually learning about?
Don't you see how, at the very least, you're at a tactical disadvantage when you allow yourself to be the person in these discusssions who knows the least about biology? I was kind enough to suggest an entire curriculum of study about DNA and mutations to you (a kindness that, in typical Christian fashion, you repaid with disgusting invective.) How did that go for you? Did you even bother, or did you decide that knowing nothing at all about biology would somehow give you the advantage you need to go toe-to-toe with evolutionists?
How, exactly, is that supposed to work?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by ICdesign, posted 08-29-2010 10:14 AM ICdesign has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by ICdesign, posted 08-29-2010 7:25 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 42 of 527 (577520)
08-29-2010 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Percy
08-29-2010 7:24 AM


Ok, so let's be perfectly clear then. You are now saying (contrary to your see, smell, taste, touch demands) that rational inference is as good as any for drawing the conclusions one wants to draw, and we really don't need to be hamstrung by the whole see, taste touch, smell evidence burden.
Instead what we can just say that RM and NS are probably happening today (no need to prove this either) and leave it at that. Please try to be consistent for the level of demand you require for evidence in the future then is the least we should ask.
But anyway, I guess you do have lots of evidence for RM and NS in todays world? It must be common as heck right? We can see it all around us, right?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Percy, posted 08-29-2010 7:24 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by crashfrog, posted 08-29-2010 12:43 PM Bolder-dash has replied
 Message 50 by Percy, posted 08-29-2010 3:07 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 43 of 527 (577521)
08-29-2010 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Bolder-dash
08-29-2010 12:39 PM


Instead what we can just say that RM and NS are probably happening today (no need to prove this either)
But it is proven. Remember? Last week I recounted the experiment that I performed myself that proved it. Remember how you had no response and retreated, thus conceding the point?
But anyway, I guess you do have lots of evidence for RM and NS in todays world?
Sure. Proving the existence of random mutation and natural selection is such a trivial task we let undergrad biology students do it. You can do it, too, if you can get your hands on some Ames strain E. coli. (Your local biology supply catalog will have some you can order in the mail, usually a lyophilized culture you'll have to re-hydrate on your own.)
Of course, that would require you to be someone of intellectual curiosity and honesty, not an intellectual coward desperately trying to ignore the evidence of his own eyes to maintain a cherished ideology.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-29-2010 12:39 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-29-2010 1:01 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 44 of 527 (577526)
08-29-2010 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by crashfrog
08-29-2010 12:43 PM


Did you create a new type of organism or something? I missed that in your lofty experiment. As I recall, you simply used an agent to accelerate mutations to a bacteria. Whoaaa.
Is that the best ya got? Sorry, if I don't appear so impressed. Did any of the bacteria grow eyes, or a left toe? You might have gotten my attention a little better if that happened. Any random mutations for echolocation? A spleen?
I guess a mind like yours doesn't require much to convince it does it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by crashfrog, posted 08-29-2010 12:43 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by Granny Magda, posted 08-29-2010 1:12 PM Bolder-dash has replied
 Message 57 by crashfrog, posted 08-29-2010 11:08 PM Bolder-dash has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 45 of 527 (577527)
08-29-2010 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Bolder-dash
08-29-2010 1:01 PM


Hi BD,
Did any of the bacteria grow eyes, or a left toe? You might have gotten my attention a little better if that happened. Any random mutations for echolocation? A spleen?
Why would you ask for that?
You do realise don't you, that if any of those things were to happen in Crashfrog's E. coli , that it would falsify the ToE, not prove it? You get that, yeah?
Mutate and Survive

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-29-2010 1:01 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by Bolder-dash, posted 08-29-2010 1:21 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
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