nested heirarchies as evidence against darwinian evolution

I understand the evo position here very well. Look at your diagram and notice the linear aspect of it. Why wouldn't the black dot start new lineages, for example?The evo explanation is that the original species evolved out or went extinct. My comment is that similar forms surely exist which have the potential for evolution. Why do we always see, assuming common descent, a burst and then from that point in the line, no more?It doesn't add up. Think about it. Edited by randman, : No reason given.

This really is an absurd false accusation and should not be repeated. It shows an utter lack of comprehension over criticisms of evo models based on the fossil record and is a particularly inflammatory and derogatory remark, imo.

So you agree that Tiktaalik is a transitional that fits within the previous gap between fossils involved in - and demonstrating - the transition from fish to quadruped?Excellent.Then we can talk about whale transitionals ...Enjoy.Added by edit:Looks like the comment I made has not been shown to be false by Randman. So much for it being a false accusation then.Edited by RAZD, : whale of an additionEdited by RAZD, : opportunity not taken
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Please let moderators do their job. If you have a problem with a post then please post to the Windsor castle thread.I'll deal with this particular complaint here, though. In the opinion of this moderator, RAZD has said nothing ignorant, inflammatory or derogatory. That ends this matter. Please do not reply to this post in this thread.

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--	Percy
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Clearly not, or you wouldn't be asking questions like: Now, when there is something in your opponents' position that you do not understand then this is a sign that you do not understand their position very well.Do you see why that is? Again, there is apparently something you don't understand.I think what you're missing is that the Y axis of the diagram represents time, but your question is itself unfortunately rather unclear.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

randman, Because that population is extinct. Whether the organism is "similar", or not is a red herring. The salient point is that it is a descendent of the basal population by definition & will therefore already be a member of that phylum, & so will its descendents. No new phylum.Clearly you have failed to understand the position you claim to know so well. See above.Like a squidgy chordate to an elephant, for example? It doesn't matter how similar or different they are, all descendents will be chordates.For the SEVENTH time:An organism belonging to a phylum exists within a monophyletic clade. All of it's descendents must therefore belong to that phylum & that phylum alone. It is an artifact of the classification system not the mode & tempo of evolution that limits new clades of high taxonomic rank.A phylum cannot begat a phylum.So, if a soft squidgy chordate that is "similar" to the basal population & ultimately evolves into an elephant, the pachyderm remains a chordate. It doesn't stop being a member of that phylum once an arbitrary amount of evolution has occurred. We don't. I refer you AGAIN to message 75. the only chordates in the early Precambrian were squidgy litle things, a phylum that now includes elephants, whales, fish, amphibians, dinosaurs, mammals & so on.This is like talking to someone who forgets everything except their name every time they go to sleep. Please try to hold these concepts in your head & ensure your answer takes account of them.MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.

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

I might as well add my input. Maybe it would help if you imagined horizontal lines going across the diagram. Each of those lines represents one point in time. Everywhere it crosses the descent lines is one species or group or population that existed at that time.Drawing a horizontal line lower than the vertical position of the black dot clearly shows that the black dot no longer exists in the form of the black dot. Only its descendents exist. Nature has lost the opportunity to make the black dot evolve further. This is the same thing as what I just explained above. Just like women hit menopause, and just like entire tribes of Native Americans were wiped out by Europeans (and other tribes), the original dot has only so much reproductive potential in it. Once its entire population has changed into something else or gone extinct, the original gene pool is essentially gone. The "information," if you will, has been fragmented and mostly lost, and there is no way to get it back together again without having wombats interbreed with sea urchins.

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Signed,
Nobody Important (just Bluejay)

Let me start by restating the question to see if I have it right:(1) The first known life in the fossil record is a cyanobacteria.Fossil Record of the Cyanobacteria

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The cyanobacteria have an extensive fossil record. The oldest known fossils, in fact, are cyanobacteria from Archaean rocks of western Australia, dated 3.5 billion years old.

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(2) Cyanobacteria exist today.Life History and Ecology of Cyanobacteria

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Though cyanobacteria do not have a great diversity of form, and though they are microscopic, they are rich in chemical diversity. Cyanobacteria get their name from the bluish pigment phycocyanin, which they use to capture light for photosynthesis. They also contain chlorophyll a, the same photosynthetic pigment that plants use.

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Cyanobacteria are very important organisms for the health and growth of many plants. They are one of very few groups of organisms that can convert inert atmospheric nitrogen into an organic form, such as nitrate or ammonia.

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(3) if other forms of life (eukaryote, multicellular, etc) evolved from cyanobacteria in the past, why don't we see other forms of life (eukaryote, multicellular, etc) evolving from cyanobacteria now?Is that a fair statement of your basic question?

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If that is a fair statement, then we can move on to the next level of the question, a level that is not as explicitly clear, so I'll put up a couple of alternatives:Scenario APopulation A₁ evolves to a point where it divides into two populations, A₂ and B, where A₂ is genetically similar to A₁ (perhaps identical), while B is genetically distinct from A₁ and A₂. B goes on to evolve into some organism C before evolving into another organism D (etc).Population A₂ evolves to a point where it divides into two populations, A₃ and B', where A₃ is genetically similar to A₂ (perhaps identical), while B' is genetically distinct from A₁, A₂ and A₃.Etc. so we always have some A_n that may be genetically similar (perhaps identical) to A₁.Should (any) B' be(a) genetically similar to (every other) B or
(b) distinct from it? Perhaps as distinct as it is from A_whatever?If (a), then we should see very similar types of organisms evolving again and again as this process is repeated at each level.Historical note: before the time of Pasteur it was thought that small organisms were spontaneously generated and that they continually transformed into "higher" organisms, and each type of organism was continually replaced by new recruits, transformed into similar-or-near-identical forms, while the old guard moved on, transformed into even "higher" forms.Result (a) would produce a similar result to "spontaneous generation" in the continual appearance of similar species from uncommon ancestors.If (b), then B' could never evolve into C (D, etc). They could still continue to evolve, but the products would be different from the product of the B generation.It may (eventually) evolve into something similar to C (or D, or Z, skipping C and other intermediates entirely), however that would be a case of convergent evolution, such as we see with flying squirrels and sugar gliders (ain't they cute?).Scenario BPopulation A evolves to a point where it divides into two populations, B and C, where B is genetically distinct from A and C is genetically distinct from both A and B. C goes on to evolve into some organism D, before evolving into another organism E (etc).The results of this scenario are the same as they are for A's result (b) above because they are already distinct genetically.Nor can (as others have pointed out) A re-evolve into B or C, because there is no A left.Re-evolving the wheelThus the only way you could re-evolve a similar organism is if Scenario A result (a) can happen. How likely is this?Evolution is dependent on two basic forces:(1) random variation
(2) selectionRandom variation means that repeating a previous variation is unlikely, and the longer the DNA strand is, the more possibilities for variation there are (exponentially), however this can be offset by some mutations being more likely than others.Selection means that those better able to take advantage of the opportunities of an ecological system will do better than those less able, whether at survival or reproduction or both, and thus more likely to spread within the ecological system.Simply put, in order to evolve a B' that is genetically similar to B you would need to repeat a random variation AND have the same ecological system available for B' that existed for B.The problem is that this ecological system is necessarily different, because it is already inhabited by B (or by C, which has evolved from B due to selective advantage). B' would have to find an ecology that is not inhabited by B to have the opportunity to evolve further, so while B only needs a nonA ecology, B' needs one that is nonA and nonB.We can look at another example here: mudskippers (introduced on several other threads): What would be the obstacles for a mudskipper to move on to land at a time when there were no land animals?What are the obstacles now?The difference is that other organisms change the ecology, and this changes the opportunities available. This is most visible after extinction events when there are higher rates of evolution than there are in a fully diversified ecology.Thus, even if A_n^p is very similar to A₁, it is effectively a different organism because it is living in a different ecology, so it cannot evolve in the same way that A₁ did.

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Scenario COr possibly neither of these scenarios really addresses your question, you want to know why something really novel doesn't evolve that would make a whole different type of organism from all the others in existence now or in the past.The questions are:(1) is it possible?Yes.(2) would it be a new phyla?No.(3) does this mean evolution is finished?Not in the slightest.To answer this clearly let's look at a current taxonomic tree of different classifications of all the various organisms today (from Woese): There is no line that goes back in time. Phylogeny is not defined by the differentness of an organism, but by the (differences between) descendants of the organism.Any new type of organism is a new species, by definition, period, no matter how novel, original or new it is in any feature.Taxon levels are arbitrary distinctions that make it easy to talk about different types of organisms, and there is nothing sacred about the different levels and designations: they reflect some, but not all, common ancestors that happened in the past along the path to the diversity of life today. Others could be chosen that would be just as valid, just as descriptive.For instance, we could arbitrarily say that all the species alive on earth 10 million years ago form a taxon level, and all species alive since then are part of the taxon defined by their (whatever it happens to be) ancestor species that was alive 10x10^{^6}(10e6) years ago. We can label them "10e6ers". Then go back another 10 million years and do the same, labeling them "20e6ers" and noting which of the 10e6's are descended from which of the 20e6's. Keep doing that and you will develop a tree that has 3.5 billion / 10 million = 350 levels (instead of the current 7 or so traditional levels, but that is identical in form to the current tree of life, just with different labels at different arbitrary points along the branches. Opportunity, opportunity taken, followed by opportunity filled. Mudskippers facing land predators.Enough for me tonight. Does that help? Is it in the right direction?Enjoy.

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Hi,

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"If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes around?", you've just moved the old silly argument back a few orders of magnitude. Why not push it back further:- why are there still non-animals around?

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You say it's a silly argument but why is it silly?
As a matter of fact, when I was a kid I was taught evolution at school in France, and I couldn't believe it since my argument to myself at that time (i was not told that argument) was:
"I still see those fishes, there are still chimps, so why did they stop evolving if evolution is true?"I think it's a good argument. You must have asked that question yourself since it's a legitimate question to ask.Sincerely,
-David

They didn't stop evolving. They continued to evolve along a different path than we did. They are just as evolved as we are, they just aren't us.Let's try an analogy. Are you descended from Frenchmen? Are you living in the U.S.? If you have "evolved" to living in the U.S., then why are there still Frenchmen?

See here, here and if you wish to discuss it where it is on topic you might try Human Evolution (re: If evolved from apes, why still apes?).The short answer (that allows us to stay vaguely on topic) is that both modern chimps and humans have evolved considerably from the common ancestor we share. The fish that you saw have evolved a long way from ancestral fish. The evolution didn't 'stop'.Welcome to EvC, hope you enjoy the ride

Unfortunately that doesn't make it a good argument.It relies on a wholly unrealistic understanding of what evolution is. Evolution doesn't require an entire species to change into another species.Think of it like this.If you had a brother and your brother looks almost exactly like your father, much more like him than you. If your father then died, would you be surprised that your brother was still around?Maybe sometimes you might get a shock seeing him come into the room, because he looks so much like your father; that would be you making the same sort of mistake thinking that the superficial resemblance means that they are the same thing.The modern fish and chimps that we see are not the same species as the ancestral populations from which both we and they derived anymore than we are, although they may resemble them more closely physically.The idea that they have stopped evolving is one with no basis in fact, they have not stopped evolving. If you expect to see fish giving birth to frogs then you have a very faulty understanding of what evolution is.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

Here's how NosyNed phrased it on a recent thread about this topic: The non-human apes are our cousins. We share an evolutionary great-great-grandparent (or something like that) with them, but they evolved from one of our great-uncles. That great-uncle was not the same kind of ape that we see today. We did not evolve from chimpanzees anymore than you were born to your aunt.In the opening post of this thread, randman asserts that, if evolution were true, we should see new cousins to today's phyla evolving today, just like we see our primate cousins evolving today along different lines from us. However, the common ancestor between us and the great apes is extinct, so any new developments will only come from other apes or humans. Likewise, the common ancestors of today's animal phyla are also extinct, so the only new lines that will evolve will come out of existing phyla.Edited by Bluejay, : grammar

I understand the fact that what we see today comes from other lineages that didn't evolve.Actually I'm French, and still living in France, but let's say my ancestors migrated to the US, then I would be American, without any French culture left in me. My culture and language would be totally different to that of my ancestors. I could be bilingual though.
There would still be French people in France, but my ancestors wouldn't be the only ones leaving France and emigrate to other countries. It still something that is happening and that can be observed and tracked down. But also French culture (or any other culture) is evolving and changing. It's not what it was like 20 years ago, or 100 hundred years ago etc... It has always evolved.As for, let's take the Coelacanth as an example, it is pretty much what it was millions of years ago (according to fossils), right?So isn't it still legitimate to ask, in all fairness of the debate, why hasn't the Coelacanth changed or produced some new traits? Since neo-Darwinism theory requires a huge amount of new genetic information to tinker with and "choose" from the useful and the useless? I think it's fair to ask why don't we observe the tremendous amount of genetic mutation required for the emerging of new feature/traits/organs/?Sincerely,
-David M.Edited by DogToDolphin, : bad phrasing

The coelacanth found today is not the same species as the ancient coelacanth.The big flaw in you argument is that you think being human is an endpoint in evolution. If you think all apes should evolve into humans then you must think that evolution favors humans and that humanity is a goal. On the same way of thinking all fish should evolve into a superfish and all reptiles should end up as supercrocodiles.If this was to happen, there would be huge gaps in the food chain and the environment would have countless dead zones. In fact, these dead zones would be prime candidates for exploitation. We would expect species to adapt to the available habitats and thus, evolution goes on its nonpersonal way.