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Author | Topic: THE END OF EVOLUTION? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pcver Junior Member (Idle past 5101 days) Posts: 22 From: Sydney, Australia Joined: |
Percy writes:
Errr.... that was not what I said. You think that DNA in a living cell isn't subject to 2LOT?What I said was: "...the structure of a DNA strand is holding up against the effect of the 2nd LOT". And that's because there is this mysterious phenomenon called -- Life. Percy writes:
Sounds like the bar is lowered yet again to allow evolution theory to get over the line. First understand that evolution is just change over time, and the original source of change is mutation. Whether a mutation is beneficial or detrimental makes no difference, a change is a change.I am quite stringent with definition. Evolution is definitely not just change over time. Mutations must lead to changes that lead to new species to qualify as evolutionary. This is a tough life, I know. Percy writes:
Err.... a subtle twist there, but again that was not what I said. Describe for us how the creation of new information violates 2LOT.What I said was: quote:Let's say someone who is ignorant about computer micro-chip is coming to a belief that it may just be possible for a micro-chip to be accidentally formed in beach sand by random chance, through unknown processes of the sea, waves and salt chemicals. If a micro-chip expert is to advise that such a possibility does not exist as that would be in violation of the 2nd LOT, would anyone disagree with the expert? We know this is true because we have apriori knowledge that micro-chips (i) are man-made, (ii) extremely complex, and so cannot possibly be formed by random chances. How about a living cell with all its DNA strands? Does anyone in his/her right mind believe a living cell is less complex than a micro-chip?If I were to have personally witnessed God's creation, I would be empowered with the knowledge that for random chance to create a living cell would violate 2nd LOT, therefore impossible. Unfortunately no one had personally witnessed God's creation. We can only examine the end-product to decide between creation or random chance. It is a belief either way -- A belief in evolution versus a belief in creation. The complexity of a cell suggests to me I can quietly but very confidently claim that for evolution to create a structured information system such as a cell would be a gross violation of 2nd LOT.
Wounded King writes:
The bad news is, the burden of proof is such that the onus is on you to provide an evidence that evolution has already created a structured information system.
That is essentially exactly the argument Lucy hs been making without any support or evidence, do you have some actual coherent reasoning and evidence or just the same faith based argument? Percy writes:
Am I right to say if mutation is completely absent, I'd still be different from both my parents and all my offspring would be somewhat different from me?
Every reproductive event produces mutations. This means that almost all offspring are different from their parents, and since they as parents will in turn produce offspring who are different genetically... Percy writes:
Supposing I say that represents 30 random mutations over 50 years. Different organisms have different mutation rates....on average each person has about 30 random mutations (3x109 x 10-8).....(there are other changes...where mistakes can also cause larger scale mutations, and there are other possibilities for mutations...)Over 4 billion years, we'd expect 2.4 billions random mutations. I think it'd be extremely generous to assume 1 out of 30 random mutations positively contributed to evolution of new species. So, according to... theory of mutations... ... merely 80 million uninterrupted positive mutations would account for evolution from the first cells to modern human today. How believable is that? BTW, since human DNA has about 3x109 base pairs, is it unreasonable to expect at least 3x109 positive mutations, assuming one mutation accounts for creation of one base pair? Wounded King writes:
I am sure one example would be natural selection of black moths versus white moths. But I'd to make it clear when I refer to beneficial mutation, I really mean beneficial in evolution sense, not 'beneficial in a context sensitive sense' Mutations have different 'meanings' in as much as they are highly context sensitive. A mutation which is beneficial in on environment can be neutral or detrimental in another environment.For example, I think one unconditionally beneficial mutation would be formation of a structured information system. Hi Anglagard,I have briefly read those stuff. They are not as convincing as you may think. But I would really prefer you to point out something that would bowl me over. BTW, here's a response to "Macro-evolution observed in the laboratory": Bacteria 'evolving in the lab'? (Lenski, citrate-digesting E. coli) - creation.com It seems the mutations in E.Coli amounts to a "data change", but not a "function change". I have suggested elsewhere mutations will not lead to evolutionary change if only "data change" is involved.EvC Forum: ERV's: Evidence of Common Ancestory I gladly accept variants of E.coli exist due to mutations but still they'd all be just variants of one E.coli species. I'm still curious whether Lucy is female...
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Huntard Member (Idle past 2295 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
pcver writes:
Actually, it is. That's all that evolution is, all the other things are logical consequences (like speciation).
I am quite stringent with definition. Evolution is definitely not just change over time. Mutations must lead to changes that lead to new species to qualify as evolutionary.
Nope, even when it stays the same species, it has still evolved. I hunt for the truth
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Peepul Member (Idle past 5018 days) Posts: 206 Joined: |
quote: This would not be a violation of 2LOT if it did happen. It's just extremely unlikely. Also this is a very poor analogue of evolutionary processes. Microchips have no heredity or reproduction - essential for the step wise changes that evolution describes.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.0 |
Greetings pcver,
quote: But to be clear, you do believe that DNA cannot be formed naturally due to the 2nd Law. Isn't that the case?
quote: You are nit-picking. Evolution, at its most basic, is simply change over time. You can describe it in any number of more descriptive and more sophisticated ways, but it remains, in essence, change over time.
Percy writes: Describe for us how the creation of new information violates 2LOT. pcver writes: The complexity of a cell suggests to me I can quietly but very confidently claim that for evolution to create a structured information system such as a cell would be a gross violation of 2nd LOT. Which is pretty much the same as what Percy was suggested you had said. You are nit-picking again when you suggest that Percy has misrepresented you. Why not stop being evasive and concentrate on answering the question which is before you; why should the 2nd Law be a problem for the formation of DNA, the cell or any other biological unit? Please explain in detail why thermodynamics is an obstacle to evolution.
quote: Actually, Lucy brought up the topic of the 2nd Law. This is Lucy's thread. That leaves the onus on Lucy and anyone else who wants to make the same argument. The overwhelming majority of biologists and physicists see no reason why thermodynamics should present a problem for the ToE. If you disagree so strongly with the experts in these fields, the onus is on you to explain why. Otherwise, you will likely be dismissed as just another crank (sorry).
quote: WTF? Why on Earth would you assume that? News flash; not every life form in the human evolutionary tree would have lived for 50 years. Most would have lived far, far shorter lives. The results of your back-of-the-envelope maths are thus invalid. You have also forgotten to take genetic drift into account. Once again, you are creating bogus calculations. No-one is impressed.
quote: But evolution is context sensitive. The context is the environment and the means of interface between environment and organism/population is natural selection.
quote: I'm sorry, but this is utter crap. You are being lied to, hardly a surprise when you get your information about science from a website with "creation" in the title. Lenski's bacteria evolved a new ability, the ability to metabolise citrate. It was not an ability which they possessed before. It was a new ability. It emerged right there in the lab. If that is not an emergence of new function, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us precisely what would qualify as such...
quote: It's not relevant. Concentrate on what is being said, not who is saying it. Mutate and Survive "The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
The complexity of a cell suggests to me I can quietly but very confidently claim that for evolution to create a structured information system such as a cell would be a gross violation of 2nd LOT. But you absolutely cannot, apparently, articulate why that should be. At least not in any way that actually reflects a knowledge of thermodynamics. You are just making a bare assertion, not an argument. In what way does the 2nd law of thermodynamics prohibit an evolutionary origin for the cell? 'Oooh! Cells are complex!' is not an argument based on thermodynamics.
The bad news is, the burden of proof is such that the onus is on you to provide an evidence that evolution has already created a structured information system. As others have pointed out, you and Lucy are both making a very specific claim that the 2LOT makes evolution by random mutation and natural selection producing cells or DNA or some other complex organismal system impossible. Yet neither of you can give any reason actually connected to thermodynamics why this should be the case. The evidence I would suggest is that we clearly have a biological 'structured information system', as you call it, and there is absolutely no evidence for any supernatural mechanisms or intervention in any of the natural history we can observe either currently or in the geographical record. On the other hand we have a large number of natural biological mechanisms which generate biologic/genetic diversity as well as a framework for how the environment can act on such diversity to favour genetic changes with a greater capacity for reproduction. In informational terms random mutation is a statistical process like a Markov chain or Monte Carlo model. The way complex informational structures can arise from such a process is by the interaction of the evironment as a source of information. This is the informational equivalent of the counterargument to the traditional 2LOT argument, in that case people who have a clue what they are talking about understand that the sun produces a huge input of energy into the earth which allows local decreases in entropy without breaking the 2LOT. Similarly complex biological systems can arise due to the input of information from the environment via selection acting on random mutation. What counterargument do you have to this model?
Am I right to say if mutation is completely absent, I'd still be different from both my parents and all my offspring would be somewhat different from me? In sexual organisms it is usually the case that even in the absence of de novo mutation offspring will be different due to the mixture of their parents' genetic complement. That doesn't affect the fact that we have vast amounts of data showing the existence and prevalence of de novo mutations in organisms of all types.
Supposing I say that represents 30 random mutations over 50 years. Over 4 billion years, we'd expect 2.4 billions random mutations. I think it'd be extremely generous to assume 1 out of 30 random mutations positively contributed to evolution of new species. So, according to... theory of mutations... ... merely 80 million uninterrupted positive mutations would account for evolution from the first cells to modern human today. How believable is that? About as believable as you suddenly grasping some basic biology. This isn't mutational rate based on a 5o year lifespan. This is the number of de novo mutations between one generation to the next. A new born baby will already have this complement of mutations. Strangely enough your strawman 'theory of mutations' is indeed unbelievable.
BTW, since human DNA has about 3x109 base pairs, is it unreasonable to expect at least 3x109 positive mutations, assuming one mutation accounts for creation of one base pair? This question doesn't seem to make any biological sense, but I'd suggest given your general level of understanding that the answer is probably yes it is unreasonable. Not every base pair in the human genome is the result of a beneficial mutation.
But I'd to make it clear when I refer to beneficial mutation, I really mean beneficial in evolution sense, not 'beneficial in a context sensitive sense' This statment makes no sense, it just shows that you don't understand the 'evolution sense' of the term.
It seems the mutations in E.Coli amounts to a "data change", but not a "function change". I have suggested elsewhere mutations will not lead to evolutionary change if only "data change" is involved. Your suggestion sounds like nothing more than airy speculation. Do you have any actual reason why a 'data change' or in a biological context a genetic mutation cannot lead to a 'function change'. You also seem to be using the word function in a highly idiosyncratic sense. TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
pcver writes: What I said was: "...the structure of a DNA strand is holding up against the effect of the 2nd LOT". And that's because there is this mysterious phenomenon called -- Life. I think I understand what you're saying pretty well. This seems pretty clear. You're saying that there is some mysterious quality of life that enables it to hold up against the effects of 2LOT. This isn't true. Life has no mysterious quality relative to any physical laws, not 2LOT or any other. Life is just matter and energy participating in very complex chemical reactions, and it is no more or less able to hold up against 2LOT than anything else in the universe.
I am quite stringent with definition. Evolution is definitely not just change over time. Evolution already has a definition, you don't get to redefine it for your convenience. The word you should be using for "changes that lead to new species" is speciation. Small evolutionary changes over time gradually accumulate to the point where a new species classification is justified. This is what ring species illustrate so clearly, but geographically rather than temporally.
Err.... a subtle twist there, but again that was not what I said. What I said was: quote: So describe for us how creation of a new "structured information system" would violate 2LOT. You say that the spontaneous formation from raw materials of microchips and living cells is equally unlikely, and I agree with you. I suspect everyone else here agrees with you, too. That's because just as evolutionary theory doesn't postulate sudden and unlikely origins for species, and the same principles of slow and gradual change apply to the origin of life, too. Whatever the precursors of the first life, they must have been very simple by the standards of modern life forms, and their eventual emergence is thought to have been a very gradual process involving replicators of some type and taking millions of years. You need to find an analogy to what evolution actually says.
If I were to have personally witnessed God's creation... Careful, your religious slip is showing again. Here in the science forums we talk science.
The complexity of a cell suggests to me I can quietly but very confidently claim that for evolution to create a structured information system such as a cell would be a gross violation of 2nd LOT. This tells us a lot about you and nothing about 2LOT or evolution. Have you ever heard of the psychology studies that show a correlation between confidence and ignorance? Anyway, what you need is facts and evidence, not confidence. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar. Edited by Percy, : More grammar.
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Taq Member Posts: 9973 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7 |
I posit that no new species will come from homo sapiens. Hit me with the actual research that I've been ignoring and convince me otherwise. Why don't you hit us with the research that backs your claim? But since we are talking in hypotheticals . . . Would you first agree that chimps and modern humans are separate species? Would you also agree that they can not produce viable hybrids? Would you also agree that the explanation for a lack of viable hybrids and the difference in morphology between chimps and humans is the 5% difference in DNA (counting indels), along with the chromosomal fusion in human chromosome 2? If you agree with all of these, then continue on . . . Please show how two separate human populations can not accumulate a 2-5% genetic difference if those populations are not allowed to interbreed for 5-7 million years. Please show how microevolutionary events will not accumulate to the point that the DNA differences between the two human populations will not allow for viable offspring between the two populations.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Percy.
Percy writes: there is research indicating that human beings have been evolving at an increasingly rapid rate over the past 10,000 years, and that we're evolving at a more rapid rate today than at any time in our evolutionary history. What does "evolving at a more rapid rate" mean? Are they talking mutations per capita?Maybe a mean difference in sequence between pairs of individuals? Or, is it just referring to the quantity of mutations or unique sequences that are present in the population at large? -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 4716 days) Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
Supposing I say that represents 30 random mutations over 50 years. That's each individual in each generation, not between all individuals in that generation. And every individual has a different set of different types of mutations. That's a trillion human mutations per decade. Is that more believable? After all, it's well known that your believing it is the universal standard of reality. Over 4 billion years, we'd expect 2.4 billions random mutations. I think it'd be extremely generous to assume 1 out of 30 random mutations positively contributed to evolution of new species. So, according to... theory of mutations... ... merely 80 million uninterrupted positive mutations would account for evolution from the first cells to modern human today. How believable is that? BTW, since human DNA has about 3x109 base pairs, is it unreasonable to expect at least 3x109 positive mutations, assuming one mutation accounts for creation of one base pair? Edited by lyx2no, : Fix formating and get snarky. Genesis 2 17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness. 18 And we all live happily ever after.
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alaninnont Member (Idle past 5437 days) Posts: 107 Joined: |
Is this the "kind" or "baramin" belief that you're pushing? The belief that micro-evolution is fine, but macro-evolution is verboten? I am not talking about micro or macro in general. I'm talking about a new species coming out of homo sapiens. Percy said in post 143 that for speciation to occur it is required that genes don't intermingle. How can that happen with homo sapiens in todays global village?
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alaninnont Member (Idle past 5437 days) Posts: 107 Joined: |
Around 70 % of the world's population don't have enough to eat. How many of those are living in situations that are still far better than H. ergaster could hope for? There are approximately seven billion homo sapiens living on the planet today, 70 % of that is almost five billion. How many ergaster lived during the entire era of their existance on earth?
How would you test a fossil that looks like modern H. sapiens for inter-fertility with modern H. sapiens? Are you saying that you have discovered other species that have come out of homo sapiens? Prepare you Nobel speech. I'm submitting your name.
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
I come across articles about this in the pop-sci press probably several times a year. I can't recall the actual source and issue of any of them, though I'm sure two of them were New Scientist and Scientific American, but here's a short column I found on the web that provides a few details. It appeared in SciAm a couple years ago: Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22392 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
alaninnont writes: I am not talking about micro or macro in general. I'm talking about a new species coming out of homo sapiens. Percy said in post 143 that for speciation to occur it is required that genes don't intermingle. How can that happen with homo sapiens in todays global village? If by speciation you mean the human race splitting off into two different species, then you're right to express skepticism. Given the increasing interconnectedness of the world, it seems extremely unlikely. But if it's true that the rate of human evolution has been accelerating over the past 10,000 years, then it is very likely that at some point we'll no longer be the same species we once were. That means we'd be unable to breed with humans from tens or even hundreds of thousands of years before. Of course, being able to establish that this had happened experimentally seems unlikely given the probable unavailability of not only any humans from that long ago, but even just genomic information. Will scientists 100,000 years from now still have a copy of the results of the human genome project that was completed a few years ago? I doubt it. --Percy
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2106 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
I am not talking about micro or macro in general. I'm talking about a new species coming out of homo sapiens. Percy said in post 143 that for speciation to occur it is required that genes don't intermingle. How can that happen with homo sapiens in todays global village?
Easy--temporal separation. Populations often change gradually, with the resulting changes accumulating through time. And genes don't intermingle across time--its a one-way street. Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Are you saying that you have discovered other species that have come out of homo sapiens? Prepare you Nobel speech. I'm submitting your name. Why do so many arguing against evolution seem not only to not understand evolution but also to not understand simple arguments, or even plain English. Maybe you just quoted the wrong sentence but what you wrote seems to have absolutely nothing to do with what Dr. Jones said beyond their both discussing Homo sapiens. Dr. Jones' very important point is that even allowing that it would be easier to find evidence of a more recent closely related species of Homo due to it being more recent that unless there were distinct morphological differences from modern Homo we would be unaware of the distinction. We can't tell if there are any other 'cryptic' Homo species in the fossil record because we have no criteria for where to direct the necessary tests which would be required to establish that they represented a distinct species. It may not even be possible to establish this, look at the trouble people have even agreeing on whether H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis or as they are sometimes called H. sapiens sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalensis. As to our discussion in Message 208, you seem to have trouble keeping straight the difference between people and warblers. Have to say I was fascinated to see you list immunization as one of the stronger environmental stresses acting on modern humans, it really helps to point out just how divorced your understanding of the world is from reality. Sure, contracting polio is much less of a stress on the human body than the polio vaccine, I am wholly convinced by your reasoning and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. TTFN, WK
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