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Author Topic:   nested heirarchies as evidence against darwinian evolution
randman 
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Message 1 of 248 (451419)
01-27-2008 4:41 PM


Nested heirachies are often cited as evidence for the Theory of Evolution aka Darwinism or NeoDarwinism. (I will use the term Darwinism to mean the mainstream neodarwinian evo model here.) However, even assuming certain things like evo dating techniques, etc,....for sake of argument, the evidence itself does not, imo, support Darwinian models of evolution.
Specifically:
1. Essentially except one possibility around 470 million years ago, all animal phyla had appeared or evolved around the time of the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago. Since that time, no new animal phyla have appeared or evolved IN 500 MILLION YEARS. Apparently whatever processes or creative events that evolved, created or animated the appearance of the animal phyla has not been in process for the past 500 million years. If it had, we would see new phyla emerging and we do not. Certainly, there have been quite a few extinctions during that time to open ecological niches up.
2. I don't have the chart handy so maybe someone that recalls it here on the forum can help me with this. But there was an interesting post of a chart from a textbook showing nested heirachies and almost everyone had the point of a "common ancestor" distinctly colored in as undiscovered yet. The pattern was quite stunning as we never seem to have the fossils of the common ancestor that evolved various other genera and species. If Darwinian evolution were true, it would be likely that at least sometimes if not often, we would see more of the mythical common ancestor, but he's generally nowhere to be found.
3. Let's assume for a minute universal common ancestry and get in your mind's eye the visual picture of what we see in the fossil record, assuming and giving evos a pass for a minute on the lack of transitionals and so forth......Does the evidence really support the idea of a continual, Darwinian, gradual over geologic time, evolutionary process?
I don't think it does, and neither have some somewhat distinquished scientists.
“Facts are facts; no new broad organizational plan has appeared for several hundred millionyears, and for an equally long period of time numerous species, animal as well as plant, haveceased evolving . At best, present evolutionary phenomena are simply slight changes ofgenotypes within populations, or substitution of an allele with a new one.” (Grasse, The Evo-lution of Living Organisms,1977 page 84.) and: “The period of great fecundity is over; present evolution appears as a weakened process, de-clining or near its end. Aren’t we witnessing the remains of an immense phenomenon closeto extinction? Aren’t the small variations which are being recorded everywhere the tail end, the last oscillations of the evolutionary movement? Aren’t our plants, our animals, lacking some mechanisms which were present in the early flora and fauna?”(Ibid, page 71).
When you take a step back, if you believe in universal common descent, what you see is an incredible process that peaked hundreds of millions of years ago and has been winding down ever since.
4. Lastly, I think comparing heirarchies between Marsupials and Placentals and in other areas shows a predisposition towards specific designs not environmentally driven, but apparently internally driven or driven by design. It's interesting that evos often cite design imperfection as a reason to reject a Designer without realizing this point actually disagrees with their models. Over such long geologic time periods, one would expect more perfect designs to have evolved if Darwinian processes were as capable of evolution as evos posit. Moreover, you would not expect imperfect designs such as the mammalian ear to evolve independently. On the other hand, the idea a Designer would create perfect designs in a pragmatic sense is a theological argument, not a scientific one, because it presupposes the intent of the Designer. As an artist, I can see where imperfection may be more suited to communicate a whole host of more perfect concepts such as love, endurance, tragedy and comedy, etc, etc,..even beauty, that may be more valued than mere physical perfection of design.
The appearance of similar designs arising independently also discredits the idea of nested heirarchies as evidence for Darwinian evolution.
Note: This may be a little too long and broad for an OP. Let me know what you guys think?
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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AdminNosy
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Message 2 of 248 (451422)
01-27-2008 4:53 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 248 (451426)
01-27-2008 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by randman
01-27-2008 4:41 PM


What an odd thread.
Frankly, I'm surprised to see this promoted. The title and the opening paragraph is about the nested hierarchical pattern of the species, but the points actually discussed have very little to do with nested hierarchies.
Succinctly, the reason that the nested hierarchies is evidence for evolution is that evolution predicts that this pattern should exist and should be seen; furthermore, there is no other reason for such a pattern to exist.
I'm not sure what the so-called Cambrian explosion or the fossil record or the other points you raise have to do with this.
Extraneous side issue deleted, as per Admin warning.
Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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This message is a reply to:
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Message 4 of 248 (451430)
01-27-2008 5:14 PM


Please Address the Topic
Before this thread gets too much underway I'd like to request that members keep their focus on the topic and not on extraneous side issues.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 5 of 248 (451436)
01-27-2008 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chiroptera
01-27-2008 5:07 PM


patterns
What I am trying to discuss is the pattern, which I don't think, nor did Grasse think, reflects Darwinian evolution. Take my example of no new phyla appearing. Why would a process that hasn't changed in hundreds of millions of years produce new phyla and then quit doing so. By evo accounts, all evolution since then has been within the phyla. Looking at the general pattern, it just doesn't reflect Darwinian processes.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Modulous
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Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
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Message 6 of 248 (451442)
01-27-2008 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by randman
01-27-2008 5:45 PM


Re: patterns
Take my example of no new phyla appearing. Why would a process that hasn't changed in hundreds of millions of years produce new phyla and then quit doing so.
If a new phyla popped up tomorrow, that would hardly be a nested hierarchy would it? In a nested hierarchy, the names we give to groups of parent nodes (phyla) shouldn't be applied to groups of their child nodes. I have a maternal line and a paternal line. I'll never find myself with a third parental line, so why would we find new parental lines of extant life forms popping up to the extent you suggest?
Evolution didn't stop producing new phyla:- we just started calling the nested groups within phyla subphyla and then superclasses and classes etc etc.

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 7 of 248 (451446)
01-27-2008 6:13 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Modulous
01-27-2008 5:56 PM


Re: patterns
Evolution didn't stop producing new phyla:- we just started calling the nested groups within phyla subphyla and then superclasses and classes etc etc.
Interesting hypothesis...do you have some studies or ideas on how to verify that? Specifically, the phyla are arranged based on physical properties, right? Your suggestion discounts that physical variation, imo.
Why, for instance, would new phyla not in the line of the older phyla not appear? Think about this because it's a serious question not to be lightly dismissed. Whatever parent groups or similar parent groups evolved into all the phyla, assuming Darwinian evolution was at work, would they not continue to evolve new phyla?
Or is it that their potential to evolve was somehow spent or something?
Keep in mind we are talking 500 million years according to evos. Surely, new phyla would continually emerge from (for lack of a better term) more primitive forms. It just doesn't add up.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Modulous, posted 01-27-2008 5:56 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 8 of 248 (451448)
01-27-2008 6:26 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by randman
01-27-2008 5:45 PM


Re: patterns
randman,
Why would a process that hasn't changed in hundreds of millions of years produce new phyla and then quit doing so.
Any radically new bauplan that would warrant the status of phyla would then have to compete with already well adapted bauplans.
Cladistically speaking it couldn't really happen, anyway. Any radical new bauplan would still belong to an extant phyla because it would be ancestral to it.
As modulous points out, anything else wouldn't be a nested hierarchy, anyway, making your point moot. Your point is that nested hierarchies are evidence against evolution because new phyla don't appear, but if they did they wouldn't be nested hierarchies anyway. So nested hierarchies are irrelevant to your argument, it is simply a rehash of the "no new phyla" argument.
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by randman, posted 01-27-2008 5:45 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 9 of 248 (451453)
01-27-2008 6:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by randman
01-27-2008 4:41 PM


randman,
one would expect more perfect designs to have evolved if Darwinian processes were as capable of evolution as evos posit.
Well, that's the intelligent-designer-is-a-perfect-Christian-god argument out of the window, then!
Mark

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 10 of 248 (451459)
01-27-2008 7:30 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by mark24
01-27-2008 6:26 PM


Re: patterns
Cladistically speaking it couldn't really happen, anyway. Any radical new bauplan would still belong to an extant phyla because it would be ancestral to it.
Why? Think about this. We still have non-vertibrates around, for example, and they have been around for 500 million plus years according to evos. Vertibrates evolved presumably from non-vertibrates, correct? So why wouldn't they continue to evolve new vertibrate phyla with some regularity over geologic time? Can you cite some studies explaining your reason why or is this just something handwaived away?
The argument there is no room ignores the levels of extinctions that have taken place. Surely, some new vertibrate phyla would have evolved in the past 500 million years assuming the same process is in existence that evolved them in the first place over a much briefer period.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

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 Message 8 by mark24, posted 01-27-2008 6:26 PM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by molbiogirl, posted 01-27-2008 9:02 PM randman has replied
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molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2641 days)
Posts: 1909
From: MO
Joined: 06-06-2007


Message 11 of 248 (451496)
01-27-2008 9:02 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by randman
01-27-2008 7:30 PM


Re: patterns
Why?
You seem to have missed the point.
Let's say my maternal grandfather fathered 4 children. One of those 4 gave birth to my mother, who then gave birth to me.
If my granddad inseminated some young thing tomorrow, would my soon to be new aunt/uncle be any less the progeny of my granddad than my other 3 aunts?
Think about it, Rand.
The ancestral pool remains the same, no matter how young the phyla.
So why wouldn't they continue to evolve new vertibrate (sic) phyla with some regularity over geologic time?
Again, you seem to have missed the point.
Listen carefully to what Mark says ...
Mark writes:
Any radically new bauplan that would warrant the status of phyla would then have to compete with already well adapted bauplans.
Competition, Rand. It's really that simple. But that point is MOOT.
Em double oh tee. See above.
PS Firefox has a lovely spellchecker.

This message is a reply to:
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randman 
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Posts: 6367
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Message 12 of 248 (451506)
01-27-2008 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by molbiogirl
01-27-2008 9:02 PM


Re: patterns
Let's say my maternal grandfather fathered 4 children. One of those 4 gave birth to my mother, who then gave birth to me.
If my granddad inseminated some young thing tomorrow, would my soon to be new aunt/uncle be any less the progeny of my granddad than my other 3 aunts?
Think about it, Rand.
The ancestral pool remains the same, no matter how young the phyla.
I didn't miss it. There is a reason the phyla are classified differently, right? Evos are arguing every living thing ultimately has the same ancestral pool, right? So that's really a dead issue. But evos still distinquish, say, between non-vertibrates and vertibrates despite sharing the same ancestral pool. Non-vertibrates evolved vertibrates, right?
So what did that stop?
Think about it.
On the competition point, nice idea. How would you verify that scientifically? Are there any peer-reviewed studies that do that?
Frankly, I don't see why if new vertibrates and other new forms would not continually evolve. The competition argument doesn't carry too much weight considering the violatility and extinctions and the fact evos argue, even here on this thread, that evolution continued to occur.
So was there so much competition that no more evolution could occur and populations stabilized or was there plenty of room for further evolution? If there was plenty of room, your argument on competition really doesn't hold much water.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

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molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2641 days)
Posts: 1909
From: MO
Joined: 06-06-2007


Message 13 of 248 (451520)
01-27-2008 10:30 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by randman
01-27-2008 9:23 PM


Re: patterns
Oh, for chrissake Rand, it's vertEbrate.
Are there any peer-reviewed studies that do that?
Are you questioning the idea of competition? Or are you questioning the idea that vertebrates evolved from invertebrates?
So what did that stop?
Never.
Frankly, I don't see why if new vertibrates (sic) and other new forms would not continually evolve.
They do. To quote Archer's signature, "All species are transitional".
---
First. Vertebrates are not the only option. Why you choose to focus on vertebrates is beyond me.
Second. The definition of phylum is specific. Not just some vague "other form".
Phyla are distinguished by common structure and organization. They can be thought of as general body plans (aka bauplans).
wiki writes:
The Cambrian explosion was a great flowering of life forms that occurred between roughly 530 and 520 million years ago;[4] during this time organisms similar to, but not strictly members of, modern phyla existed;[5] whilst some appear to be represented in the Ediacaran biota, it remains a matter of debate whether all phyla existed prior to the explosion.
It seems that one answer to your question is, yes. Other phyla did evolve, but went extinct.
Another answer to your question, the one that Mark provided, is that another sort of bauplan would be in competition with those that are already VERY well established. And would, therefore, have a very hard row to hoe. As did the now extinct phyla from the Cambrian explosion.
Another answer to your question might be this:
The Cambrian explosion lasted around 70-80 million years. Even if a new phyla were to pop up tomorrow, we wouldn't know about it for another 70-80 million years.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by randman, posted 01-27-2008 9:23 PM randman has replied

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RAZD
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Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 14 of 248 (451523)
01-27-2008 10:43 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by molbiogirl
01-27-2008 10:30 PM


Re: patterns
First. Vertebrates are not the only option. Why you choose to focus on vertebrates is beyond me.
His question is why don't new vertebrates evolve all over again from invertebrates, and thus form a second vertebrate branch.
Corollary: how would you know it hasn't happened?
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 15 of 248 (451525)
01-27-2008 10:52 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by molbiogirl
01-27-2008 10:30 PM


Re: patterns
Oh, for chrissake Rand, it's vertEbrate.
My spelling has worsened immensely in the past few years for some reason.....but you got the idea anyway.
Are you questioning the idea of competition?
I am questioning the idea that competition would limit new phyla from emerging.
First. Vertebrates are not the only option. Why you choose to focus on vertebrates is beyond me.
I agree they are not the only option. Moveover, it seems to me there should be tons of major new body types and plans we haven't seen. I just used vertEbrates as an example. Also, it's been in the back of my mind to start a thread on why invertebrates could have developed vertibrate and human genes for complex nerve functions without any natural selection involved, but that's a different thread....(mods, please don't get too mad as it's a point that could be valid later on this thread if we get into the issue of the evolution of genes and expressed morphological range.)
Phyla are distinguished by common structure and organization. They can be thought of as general body plans (aka bauplans).
So why not new major bauplans?
It seems that one answer to your question is, yes. Other phyla did evolve, but went extinct.
They didn't evolve in the past 500 million years roughly. The fact some extinctions occured suggests there is room for new phyla, just no mechanism to produce them.
Another answer to your question might be this:
The Cambrian explosion lasted around 70-80 million years. Even if a new phyla were to pop up tomorrow, we wouldn't know about it for another 70-80 million years.
I think more like 20 million years is closer to the mark, and then 500 million years with no phyla evolving. So that argument doesn't work. If a new phyla emerged tomorrow, we'd still have 500 million years with no new animal phyla emerging.

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