Evolution in pieces.

Good, you have no reason to give up your faith. There is no connection between faith and science. Many scientists believe as you do and many believers have no problem with the conclusions of science.

I'm a bit confused. It appears that your link agrees that there is "good indirect evidence" that birds and mammals evolved from reptiles. Can you explain why it is "indirect"?And since it is "good" does that mean they are agreeing that it took place. They appear to be but then argue that small changes could not have done it. Is that correct?The site then goes on about piling coins up and lifting weights. In those examples we can offer some reasons for a barrier. It is not clear that they do so for ongoing small evolutionary changes.They state:
That is, while (1) may apply to some evolutionary changes, generalizing such phenomena to the level of a universal explanation of evolution is an unjustified step.
(1) here is the idea of (1) much time + small changes = large changesWhat places does it apply to then?They also state:

quote:

---

Perhaps, but if we try to secure this argument for evolutionary change, we end up merely assuming there are no relevant limitations. Do we really know enough about ontogeny and phylogeny to justify this raw assumption?

---

Since in some cases, the reptile to mammal example is one, we see small steps in the fossil record I presume that they accept that one as having occured since this arguement doesn't apply to that.Next we seem to start to get to the meat of the matter:

quote:

---

I think this is a crucial point. More and more biologists are arguing that morphological evolution is driven by changes in regulatory elements. In fact, some have even proposed that alterations in the patterns of gene regulation have been far more important in evolution than changes in protein function. But what does this mean? It would mean that all of the fossil evidence is largely the consequence of trivial evolutionary events that have little meaning for the origin of much cellular machinery. If most of evolution and the fossil record can be explained by changing the pattern of gene expression, then most of evolution and the fossil record is not relevant to questions about the origin of those genes or the basic process of gene expression itself. (1) might be vindicated at the level of organismic evolution, but at a very high price. That price being that almost all of the evidence of evolution now becomes irrelevant to the deeper aspects of life.

---

One way to take this is that the idea of evolution being based on very small changes adding up becomes one of small changes in the basic genetics AND small changes in regulation of the genes producint large changes all of which add up to large changes.If that is what is being argued then that is in line with what I undertand current evolutionary thought to be.They then toss in:

quote:

---

While evolutionary hypotheses that build upon (1) also build on what biochemistry and cell biology provide for evolutionary tinkering, they don't explain the origin of that biochemistry and cell biology themselves. To put it one way, the evolution of clothing and fashion depends on the human body, but nothing about fashion-evolution explains the origin of the human body.

---

Which just tosses in the problem of the origin of life but is irrelevant to the question at hand.Then they say:

quote:

---

Thanks to bacterial genomics, it is now becoming quite clear that extant bacteria would not be all that different from the last common ancestor of bacteria, which is to say that 3.5 billion years of small changes in bacteria have not resulted in any obvious large change. In terms of overall complexity, modern bacteria are no more complex than their 3.5 billion-old ancestors. In terms of the basic cellular machinery, not much has changed. Many small changes have not added up to large changes. Might this be the typical way in which evolution works?

---

How is this relevant? No one has said that changes HAVE to add up. They can move around a point and not have a direction in the long term. What is being said is they CAN add up if there is selective pressure to give them some directionality. The important concept is one of a rachet. That is something which "holds" a change once it happens. Selection can supply that if it works out for the organisms.In summary they say:

quote:

---

And when talking about the evolution of the mammalian middle ear bones, we should not forget that we are still basically in the dark in trying to explain how both a mammalian and reptilian zygote actually develops the middle ear and jaw bones, respectively. Without this knowledge, attempts to explain such a transition as a function of a series of small, incremental changes stretched across time are rooted in ignorance. That is, we don't truly understand neither the process of development nor the process of evolution and without such knowledge, there is no reason to think we are on safe ground when employing (1).

---

So again, it appears that they agree that the events have taken place. They are concerned with the detailed understanding of the mechanisms.They suggest that it takes more than small changes and use regulation as an example of something other than small changes. However, small changes in regulation are also small genetic changes.

quote:

---

One may assume (1) to explain evolutionary change as a working hypothesis, but we should keep in mind that large changes in evolution are basically a "black box" and a series of small incremental changes may play only a trivial, fine-tuning role in any transition (there is no evidence to think otherwise). What's more, bacteria, as the predominant life forms on this planet, which have experience the most evolution of all life forms, tell us clearly that (1) need not apply to biological evolution.

---

Well, "working hypothosis" is what it is in the sense that it is the consensus theory for what has occured.However, I think we do understand a lot more about the genetics than they are claiming. I will leave that part for the experts.The bacteria statment, as noted, is totally irrelevant.

Even if that is the case so what? Was Lucy more human-like or more chimp-like? Lucy was bipedal so we evolved from a bipedal "ape". (I'm using Ape loosly of course).

That is, of course, not true. There is evidence cna accumulate in the way biologists say they did. What is under discussion is how far this way can go. That is what your own link is saying.And the whole point of the article seems to be that some other mechanism is needed to be added to the "accumulated small changes" mechanism. It, in fact, suggests one such possible mechanism.However, it doesn't clarify whether that mechanism is based on a "small change" or not. In fact it doesn't clarify when a change is small or large. Don't we need that distinction?

I don't understand this paragraph. I get almost none of it. Could you translate please?Specifically, what are "imigartions"? What does "at a metaphoric standpoint" mean? What does "untill deployed otherwise" mean?
I don't even understand "...shared derived characters supplement anymore then similarites for eukaryotes.".

No, we don't, directly that is.However, there are good reasons for thinking that the fingerprints of past DNA is still there in extant organisms. In addition, we are learning how changes in control mechanisms (which they discuss) can have large phylogenic changes while being "small" changes in the genetics.added by edit:
Their claim seems to be that the genetics are a "black box" that we don't understand. It doesn't require old samples of DNA to correct that problem if it is as bad as they say.[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-17-2003]

Cute little devils those fuzzy little fellas. Species are, as expected in an evolutionary context, subject to varying degrees of fuzziness."Kinds", as used by creationists, are subject to no such fuzziness at all. That is the whole point of the concept; that there can be NO fuzziness.Species are not fuzzy enough to be of no value in classification since it is possible to put individuals into one species or another most of the time (even if with some argument). After that the classification scheme is simply(ha! as if it is reall simple) a matter of grouping upward. The arguments are on a low, level species by species basis. Detailed arguments occur to fit organisms into one place in the hierarchy and agreement is reached.Kinds, on the other hand is a concept which starts with something with no defintion whatever and then genera or species are put into the group. The lack of definition is apparent when we find different creationists disagreeing on the grouping and not geting together to resolve the disagreements or lack of definition. The disagreements are at lower and higher levels.

I agree.This is way there are published statements about what a species is. This includes various ways of separating them depending on the information available. Lots of effort is spent keeping the whole tangled web of organisms as straight as we can.Each of the higher taxa is, to the best of my limited knowledge, documented in depth with careful specification of what makes an organism a member of that particular group. When there are arguements over classification they are documented and discussed in very great depth. So much depth that I find the details a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps we should get clear just what you do and do not accept? It is difficult to answer you in a way that you might understand if we don't know what we do have in common?That is, are you someone who is a believer in intelligent intervention here and there in the otherwise "conventional" evolutionary process?Or are you someone who believes in a collossal stream of "special creations"?Or are you a young earther who believes in one batch of creation with no changes since 6,000 years ago?Or are you a young earther who believes in hyper evolution since the flood?In addition, you ask for "proof". That word can mean somewhat different things. In science "proof", as it is used in mathematics isn't what is reached for but rather a best answer we have today. Can you define your idea of "proof"?

Ok, since you are suggesting the ToE is wrong perhaps we should back up a bit first. The theory is the best explanation we have to the facts at hand. Let's summarize the facts first then.Life arose by undetermined means about 3.5 billion years ago. At that time and for most of 3 billion years after it was relativily simple.At just over half a billion years ago life developed parts which could fossilize and the rate of diversification increased. There were organisms with characteristics of modern phyla but no modern organisms whatsoever.From then on each period of time had life forms different in many ways from the earlier ones and still no fully modern forms. At each time we find a more modern form, eg., amphibians, reptiles, mammals etc. appearing in "stages".Overall as we get closer to the present the organisms of a particular class are more like current forms.Finally, as we get to only 10's of millions of years before the present the overall pattern of life is much like today but with none of the present exact species.Today we can see that the genetic relationship between the organisms matches the relationship that was first, independently inferred from the fossil record.These are the facts at hand. These are what has to be explained by any theory we devise.The ToE explains these and many other facts. There isn't another theory available that has been put forward and stood up to scrutiny.Now, you seen to have some disagreement with it and the whole disagreement seems to be that small changes heaped on small changes can not produce a large overall change. Since we have seen that large changes have occured (by some means which is what we are arguing about) and we know that small changes do occur (by the mechanism suggested by neo-Darwinism) it seems a bit odd to argue with the most reasonable conclusion.Therefore we haven't "proved" (in a mathematical sense) the ToE "right". But it is the best theory put forward so far.The only other suggestion that could come from your arguement against the affect of many small changes is that occasionally there is some other mechanism which takes place now and then while the understood genetic mechanisms operate most of the time.The result would be, it seems, a neo-neo-Darwinism with a new mechanism added.------------------
Common sense isn't

Life either arose on earth once or more than once.If it arose once then it did get from single celled organisms to man somehow or another.If more than once there may be some disconnect. However, we can't see the disconnect anywhere. It certainly doesn't seem to be there in the last 300 million years or more. Where is that disconnect? Where is the point that one chain of offspring stopped and another started anew?

No, that's not why I accept it. There is a thread about why one might accept evolution. To me it is the sum of many things. The genetic concordance with fossil information is a big one though. I don't really understand this. Are you saying if we took away the evidence connecting some of the so-called higher taxa we might arrive at a different conclusion?I think we can look into history to say what the result would be. 150 years ago most of the detailed transitional fossil evidence we have wasn't found. None of the genetic evidence was available at all. Definitive measurement of the actual time available wasn't available (and, in fact, there were things to suggest that it was wrong)At this time Darwin and Wallace put forward a theory to explain what was available. (It was about what I gave in the "facts" post above (without the genetics)). Even then it was obviously powerful enough to convince many, many people. So I think the conclusion might be the same. It would just be much more tentative and less obviously a very solid conclusion than it is now.Since then all the additional data has become available. More fossils, deep time and genetics. All have come after the proposing of the theory and all support it.

Let's be clear here. You know so little about this subject that you still don't know that mutations happen a lot! That you have several yourself? That they are observed and measured?Is that what this odd little statement is telling us?I wasn't aware that any creationists were trying to say that mutations didn't happen. They say a lot of silly things but not that. Do you have some source for your comment or is it just off the top of your head?

So you agree that mutations happen then? Good, whew! I was a bit worried there.Let's leave the argument about whether there is "information" in the genome out of it for a bit. I'm pretty easy on that; it depends on how you define information.Can I paraphrase your point so we don't have to have a, perhaps, poorly defined word in there?Do mutations produce novel (that is new) genetic sequences?
Do mutations (and there are many sorts) produced genonmes with greater numbers of base pairs in them than in the previous generations?
Are any of these in actual genes that are expressed as proteins?
Are novel proteins ever produced?One answer: Yes.If you don't think that novel or more base pairs in the genome is more "information" then you'll have to define what "information" is in this context.------------------
Common sense isn't[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-26-2003]

It doesn't matter what kind. Let's just see if we can agree they happen.