Evolution and complexity

To carry your example one step further, what is seen is often multimodal. As you look more closely at a population you find there will be clusters around certain traits.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks for the excellent and detailed explanation. Yeah, I wasn't really considering that. I probably should have typed that more pressure can mean more evolution and not that it neccessarily does. But it isn't important for my original point in Message 5:

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Selective pressure varies on different populations so that some have felt more pressure and changed more. Couldn't you call that more evolved?

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What do you think?And what do you think about Crash's statement:

LMAO!Brilliant pictures, mate.

Thanks again everybody for responding. First of all, I know evolution is right and it works the way most of you know it works. I was just curious about these "arguments" against evolution and wanted to find simple answers because I haven't done much research about this yet. I am a scientist and I work with things* that have 'lived' billions of years and 'evolve' very slowly so the misconceptions about *quick* evolution I have are there because I'm human, and human time-scales are very very short. Boy I need to go read a good book about evolution, any suggestions?* stars - that's why i use quotes for life and evolution here =)

You're in the right place. On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin lol

If you like somethibg different as darwinian mainstream thoughts on evolution I will recommend you especially John Davison. He cited in his Manifesto most prominent scientists who dismissed darwinism and yet believed in evolution. He is not only a critic, he also proposed his own view how the evolution occurs.Retired Service | The University of VermontVery interesting is also the article from Vaclav Petr (Charles University Prague) "British metaphysics as reflected in Robert Broom’s evolutionary theory". Available on internet.Other evolutionary critics of darwinism as Adolf Portmann (head of Basel University and prominent zoologist "Neu wege der Biologie", "Biologie und Geist") and Zdenek Neubauer (professor of Charles University of Prague whose researches on molecular bilology has been published worldwide - in the Nature as well - are to be found free for download at inet only in Czech as far as I know. Btw. Neubauer turn to be antidarwinist only recently and he calls darwinists as "sorcerers".).Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

And to add to MartinV's suggestions, to examine the "quality" of John Davison's argument you can also look no further than this very forum. Just click on Memebers and look him up. If you are even remotly sane, you should be able to recognize that he is only argument is the intellectual equivalent of Touretts syndrome.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

The same denigration - or even worse - experienced Giordano Bruno, who paid with the same coin and denigrated Oxford doctors as well.
History repeated. Let me quote Giordano Bruno who faced out Oxford doctors and scientific estabishment of his time (Ptolemaists - you know):

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Therefore now that we have been in the dregs of the sciences, which have brought forth the dregs of opinions, which are the cause of the dregs of customs and of works, we may cartainly expect to return to the better condition.

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Eroici furori II dial. Edited by MartinV, : "paid with the same coin"Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

I would agree that when selective pressure is causing change to occur, then greater selective pressure should generally result in more rapid change.The main reason for my quibble is that for many, the definition of evolution is change over time. I've especially seen creationists use this definition, such that they then try to use examples of stasis as evidence against evolution. Which is, of course, wrong, but as long as they are using a faulty definition for evolution they will be convinced (and will convince others) that they are disproving evolution.As for determining whether something is more or less evolved, or whether everything is equally evolved, it's all relative. To my mind, it's how well adapted a species is to its environment, which would then equate degree of specialization as a measure of how evolved something is. But what about less-highly specialized species able to function in several different environments? Could they really be considered less highly evolved?I think that the only instance that we can truly and safely described one species as being more highly evolved than another, or more primitive, would be when we consider a transitional series and compare earlier and later stages of the development of a particular trait.And again, I quibble because I've seen how the misunderstandings created by such usage of the terms "more evolved" and "primitive" are exploited by creationists.More directly regarding the statement, "All living things on Earth have experienced the same amount of evolution.", I would also quibble. Not all species are at the same point in adapting to their environments; some are relatively new to their niche while others have been there for a long time. Some traits are much more recent developments than others. I think that what he was trying to convey was that we cannot speak of certain species being more evolved than others.The only other sense in which that statement would be true would be that, if all life descended from a common ancestor, then all life has been evolving for the same amount of time. Which brings us to a claim made by Michael Denton.Denton compared the differences between species of a given protein (it's been nearly 20 years, so I forget the details as I relate this from memory). If you compare the same protein between different species, you will find differences in the amino acid sequences. We would expect more closely related species to have more similar sequences and less closely related to have less similar sequences and that is precisely what we find. Denton refuted that by expecting to see a ladder-of-life progression of the modern protein sequences and he failed to find that. Instead, he found grouping-together of similar species and that all the groups were about equidistant from each other (I had done a decent write-up on this on CompuServe, but don't know where it is right now).The irony is that, while he thought that he was refuting the "tree of life", what he had actually done was to recreate it. Because one of the ideas about genetic drift is that random changes in amino acid sequences will occur at a relatively constant rate over time. So given two modern species, one having descended from the other, we would find that both differ by the same amount from the ancestral species from which both are descended. In other words, just because amphibians evolved from fish doesn't mean that fish stopped changing; ie, modern proteins are not identical to what the ancient proteins were. This was demonstrated by "green fossils", tree leaves preserved in mud in which genetic material survived. "Green fossils" of magnolia leaves show changes in proteins over generations while the physical form of the leaves had remained constant.This also came into play in Walter Brown's imfamous "rattlesnake protein" claim. Using a study that compared cytochrome c in various species, Brown claimed that it showed that the rattlesnake is more closely related to humans than to any other animal. Strictly speaking, and stated in precisely that manner, that was true. Because no other snakes were included in that study, all other animals were equally different from the rattlesnake; it was pure coincidence that humans were one amino acid less different. Of course, if he had explicitly stated what he was implying, that, based on this protein comparison, the animal closest to humans is the rattlesnake, then that would have been grossly false. The macaque monkey differs from humans by one amino acid, compared to the 14-amino-acid difference (from memory) with the rattlesnake. And although chimpanzees weren't included in that study, their cytochrome c is identical to humans.

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"Green fossils" of magnolia leaves show changes in proteins over generations while the physical form of the leaves had remained constant.

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The form of the leaves is another evolutionary puzzle. I don't know how do darwinists explain different shapes of leaves on trees. Probably by natural selection as usually. Yet probably Adolf Portmann's conception of "Selbstdarstellung" would be more appropriate. Maybe it is time for Brad McFall to introduce some more insight - even if complicated physical one.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

I can't offer any suggestions for books, but here are a couple of websites.Understanding Evolution - Your one-stop source for information on evolutionThis site is good, because it presents the basic concepts of evolution in a logical manner that is easy to follow. This will give you the whole picture, but it is rather simplistic. It will only take you so far.TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution ControversyTalkOrigins is more techincal, but doesn't have nearly as cohesive a layout as the Berkley site. If you're interested in specific topics with regard to evolution, it is a good site to search.

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We are BOG. Resistance is voltage over current.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Yeah, I was confused too. Then I realised he was talking about stars, which are often likened to living things (with the 'birth' of a star, and the 'death' of one, and its life-cycle.

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Ok, that makes even less sense than before. I don't think I've ever met a scientist that's as ignorant of another field of science as this. Oh well, I guess there's a first time for everything.

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We are BOG. Resistance is voltage over current.

​

Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

"Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment; you must also be right." Actually, he was burned alive by the religious establishment of his time.