Thread: middle east again...

>>that was just a trait adaption

You're not thinking on a long enough timeline. Now what would happen if the Moths did start producing larger offspring as well. Then those started to develop afformentioned poisons. At what point do you stop saying: "Thats not a different species, its just a different version of the same thing." Technically we're all just a collection of cells with different traits.

If we all had the same cells then why can't cats and dogs breed together? I think that genes are an important to remember.


>>The adaptations are so subtle that they disprove the theory

Again; Its the timeframe. That was an infintesimally small period of time in the "grand scheme of things".

How can anyone know the time frame? This slow evolving theory has never been proven. No one has documented anything for longer than 40 or 50 years.

Some interesting change in topic... going from middle east crisis to... the evolution

[sarcasm]you have all evolved the wrong way, I tell you! Something's wrong... all the WRONG people have survived![/sarcasm]

Hey, what's that sticking out of the back of your head? Oh, a third eye, I C

Hey, I wonder how the "sirvival of the fittest" applies to what's happening in the middle east... are the fittest being blown away?

>>With the moths in England,I'm sure you have all heard of this, how the light ones were being eaten so only the darker moths were surviving, that was just a trait adaption, the moth did not evolve into another moth.

This is the English Pepper Moth. The point of this example was the time frame / area.

The cause of the change was the industrial revolution. _Only_ around industrial areas the dominant moth wing colour was darker as they comoflaged better against trees that had been stained with coal smoke in a _only_ a decade(than the original white moth).

This small evolution was observed and documented. Now we have two sub spiecies that can interbreed.

>>Why didn't the moth suddenly become poisonous? Or have babys that were too big for the birds to eat?

That would have worked as well but most things follow the 'path of least resistance'.

>>The adaptations are so subtle that they disprove the theory about natural selection evolution.

Why? How? Because God only took 7 days?

>>If we all had the same cells then why can't cats and dogs breed together?
The difinition of a spiecies is one that can produce sexually viable offspring.
BTW
Lions and Tigers produce Ligers.
Horse and Donkey produce Mule.
Dalmation and Chiwowwa(sp?) produce Mongrel (bitza)
ect.

Yeah, sorry guys, guess we got off the original subject quite a bit eh?

Pepper moth, thank you.

I hadn't heard about the lion and tiger being interbreed, I had heard about horses and donkeys, the mules are sterile though so they can't be a new breed. Have heard about them breeding horses and zebras, I believe they call it a zorse. It is also a sterile animal.

Any apologist will tell you: "Consider not who the messenger
is, but rather what the message says." But if anyone here
would take the time study the life and actions of the the prophet
Mohammed they would find him (1) a murderer, (2) a torturer,
(3) a child rapist, (4) a robber, (5) a consummate bedouin
Arab, and more. Even so, almost half the world's population reveres this
man, who encouraged his followers to kill in the name of Allah, as a holy apostle of God. The message of the Koran is hailed through
posterity as a work of beauty and genius inspired by the Tongue
of God upon an illiterate trader who spent the first 40 years
of his life driving a camel in his uncle's caravan between Medina,
Mecca, Damascus, Cairo, and other oriental cities 600 years after the birth of another well known prophet.

Jesus was a messenger whose life is studied hand-in-hand along
with the message He brought and given to us in the New Testament. Jesus was a man who not only preached living and
loving every man and woman as a brother and sister but also
set Himself as a prime example for other to follow.

So did Muhammad set his own incomparable example for others to follow. And knowing that fact will explain volumes
to those of us who fail to understand why such a holy work as
the Koran is the basis for the violent actions of the world-wide
muslim movement. From the moment of its conception in the
Islamic Apostle's fertile mind the scimitar of Islamic philosophy has carved a river of blood stretching west from the Arabian Sea
all the way to the Indian Ocean--all in the name of God and ridding
the world of "infidels."

The case against Muhammad is well documented starting from
the Hegira and continuing to the present days' events in New
York, Afghanistan, and the open air markets of Israel and Palestine, the Phillipines, Pakistan, China and Russia. To get an idea of the Messenger as well as the message of the Koran, take a look at Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, written between 1771 and 1778, and thus unprejudiced by any of todays' current events. Start with Chapter 50 and read with amazement a retelling of what we are seeing now commencing in the year A.D. 622 and continuing unabated--all in the name of religion and the most Merciful God, Allah.

Wake up, people. It's getting late.

rick

It seems to me as if most people discussing evolutionism, both for and against, really have no idea of what they are talking about. I hope I am going to have time to clarify some things about the theory in question. If I don't I'll do one today, one tomoorow, until I grow tired. For the record, I believe in guided evolution.

#1. People seem to be getting the ideas of "natural selection", and macroevolution mixed up. About the former, please never use it in intelligent conversation. It is a tautology. It is predicted that the fittest animals will reproduce the most, and it defines the fittest animals as the ones that reproduce the most. Ridiculous if it is to be taken as any sort of evidence whatsoever. The ability to run quickly may seem very positive for an animal, but it is possible that a faster horse may injure itself more, due to the greater stress increased velocity puts on the structural system, etc. In almost all situations it is very difficult to isolate the trait leading to an outcome. Lots of people think that having a large brain is an advantage because humans do and we dominate the ecosystem, but one will notice among monkeys/gorillas etc those with the smaller brains are not always those most in danger of extinction.

Let us lookat some evidence for natural selection as a hypothesis, I think it was either Doug Futuyama or GG Simpson that favored the following examples: 1.Insects develop resistance to poisons because those with a mutant trait causing resistance survive more than those that do not have it. 2.A drought in an island led to the disappearance of small seeds eaten by a local bird species, so the birds had to eat an inferior larger seed. Over several generations, birds with small beaks that couldnt handle the new seeds became less common. 3. Mice colonies become extinct when a gene causing sterility is introduced into the males.

None of these examples can provide any reasons why species may morph into different species. They show, pretty much, that there exist circumstances which favor one characteristic of a species over another. If one looks at the infamous (for those of us forced to sit through freshman bio) Drosophila somethinginlatinicantrememberus, it has remained exactly the same for millions of years. No change whatsoever. I cannot understand why many scientists (not all) point to population fluctuations and say "thats why nature can construct things like eyes and brains."

Which leads us to mutations, which I will write about tomoroow.

just read this gem...

At what point do you stop saying: "Thats not a different species, its just a different version of the same thing." Technically we're all just a collection of cells with different traits.

ummm...species are differentiated by not being able to breed with one another, I believe...Perhaps you should learn some elementaries before you argue about something as complex as evolution...

>"if there's a banana on my table and I don't know it's there, it's still there"
>....... yeees... and..?


Point is, if you have two different rooms, one you are in and one containing a banana, there is neither a reason for you to assume there is a banana, nor any evidence supporting it. But fact is, the banana is there. It does exist, despite your rational thinking and lack of evidence.
It's impossible for you to know if there is one if you cannot get out of your room.


"There IS only one way"

And that's your's and therefore you're right. Sounds familiar. Religious.


>Just let people believe what they want to believe.

I can deal with people saying 'I believe'. That's fine with me. But I will argue with anyone claiming to be perfectly right without proof.


"There is a God. You cannot disprove it. Therefore I'm right"
-Christian

"There is no God. You cannot disprove it. Therefore I'm right"
-Atheist

"With the given tools and current evidence or lack of it, it is
unlikely that a God exists. However, as with all science, this
is not the absolute truth, but rather what we can conclude with
the means at hand."
-Scientist

From my point of view, Atheism is a religion, because followers
believe their point of view is infailable without being able to
prove it.

How many muslims were killed in the US and canada exactly?

>>Jesus was a messenger whose life is studied hand-in-hand along with the message He brought and given to us in the New Testament. Jesus was a man who not only preached living and loving every man and woman as a brother and sister but also set Himself as a prime example for other to follow.

Yet in his name we had the Crusades, the Spanish Inqusition, Conqisidors in South America and the 'stolen generation' in Australia ect. His followers are not blameless.

The current situation is not about religion. It is about wealth, politics and power. If there was not money or political milage to be made, we would not be seeing this war.
The actions of a religions members do not always conform to their faith. Take the current situation with Cathloic priests abusing children in the US and Aust.

The problem is the fundamental flaw in humans. Not a particular religion. Muslims follow their beliefs, which include 'an eye for an eye' yet I do not see many Christians 'turning the other cheek'.

nvoigt:

If you wish to classify atheism as a religion thats your choice, but it is substantially different to other religions, there are no irrational beliefs in atheism and there is no blind faith. When i said there was Only one way you took out of context just think about for a second and you will realise there cannot possibly be an alternative to "logic",

It is as irrational to believe in God as it is to believe in elves/gobleins/faires*insert random irrational belief here*

""There is a God. You cannot disprove it. Therefore I'm right"
-Christian

"There is no God. You cannot disprove it. Therefore I'm right"
-Atheist "

Santa exists! You cannot disprove it. Therefore I'm right"
-Nutter

It is irrational to believe in something you have no evidence for, hence i do not believe in Santa.
-Atheist

Ok I knew it! I knew I would get dragged into giving a description of how/why evolution works. *sigh* Ok

DISCLAIMER: The following information is a SIMPLIFICATION, attempting to explain this stuff in more detail would require a lot of text, (and if you really want to understand just get yourself a biology textbook)

Let me start by saying there is no debate, only people who lack biological knowledge query evolution, anyone who learns biology to a decent level immediately realises evolution is fact.

I am not going to show the mountains of proof supporting evolution, the radiometric dating, the gazzillions of fossils, the lab breeding of new strains, etc. I am going to give the an explanation for WHY and HOW evolution occurs and WHY it is

A: Inevitable given the properties of our DNA

B: Also inevitable that macroevolution (species change) is inevitable given (microevolution)

OK here we go.

The genetic code stores all the information required to make life in the form of DNA, the DNA is made up of a large string of molecules called nucleotides, a nucleotide contains 1 of 4 bases (A, T , C, G), nucleotides form codons, which are a section of 3 nucleotides IE:

If our Nucleotide chain was C G G T C A A T C.

The first codon would be: CGG
The second: TCA
The third: ATC

Right got that? DNA made up of nucleotides, 3 nucleotides to a codon.

DNA forms the template for protein synthesis, the process by which proteins get formed, each codon (aside from nonsense codons/start, stop which we will ignore) corresponds to a given
amino acid. Amino acids are the sub-units for proteins.

The DNA is split into sections each of which codes for a separate protein, these section of DNA are called GENES.

Right so lets imagine that our sequence from above is a gene (its way way too small to ever be one, but for the purposes of this example it will do)

So its made up of three codons CGG, TCA, and ATC, so our protein will be made up of three amino acids, (the amino acid that corresponds with CGG, the AA that corresponds with TCA, and the AA that coresponds with ATC)

Ok with me so far? DNA split into sections called genes, genes code for proteins.

(Simplification time) When an organism passes on its genes there is a small chance that a mutation will have occured, there are several different kinds of mutations, many of them will totally change the protein of the gene containing the mutation (e.g. adding or removing a single nucleotide, will change the protein completely because it will change every codon), others can make a large or small difference depending on where the mutation occurs: Say this mutation changes one nucleotide to another, that changes one codon and hence one AA in the final protein, now the position of that AA effects how important the mutation, in Enzymes a large portion of the protein is structural and a small part is known as the "active site", if the amino acid changed was in the active site it will have a large effect.

Anyway what you need to know is that mutations in DNA occur, and the results are altered proteins.

Ok now for the evolution part:

Evolution works on a very simple principle: If offspring were born with a mutation that was beneficial, they will more more likely to pass on that gene, than offspring either born with a negative mutation or no mutation at all. I already hear the people screaming about "more likely to" if you multiply that "more likely to" by thousands of generations you will have a population in which almost every individual has the mutated gene.

Lets look at a hypothetical example (there are a gazzilion real life examples but i don't know any usefull ones off hand)

Let's say we have a generic mammal, in a temperate climate. For whatever reason the mammal's environment changes, (they move North for more food, the weather changes, etc.) So these generic mammals are now in a much colder environment.

What happens now? Well by chance one of our generic mammals gets a mutation that makes his hair a little thicker. He is now more likely to pass on his genes than other individuals without his new mutated gene.

Again i'm sure many of you don't like the "more likely to", maybe our new mammal, dies of disease before he mates... yup could happen. But it doesn't alter the fact that another (beneficial) mutation is going to come up at some point and eventually the mammal with the mutation is going to pass on his genes.

Basically what will happen is this mutated gene for thicker hair will spread through the population, because the organisms possesing it are less likely to die and hence more likely to mate than their brethren.

Ok so we have slightly hairier mammls, big deal, well quite, but that was ONE tiny adaptations, what happens is over time you get more and more and more accumulating each one changing our generic mammals: He will get thicker fur, smaller ears and nose (reduces heat loss), a thicker layer of subcutaneous fat, etc. etc.

There is no real stopping point (well there is in a way, the organism could find it's ideal niche, but that doesn't happen too often), the mammal will continue to change, of course it GRADUAL, very gradual, most mutations are negative (they will not spread to the population though).

So that covers how evolution changes an organisms phenotype (characteristics) now what about specices?

First off do you actually know the definition of species? What would happen if our generic mammal shrunk in size by a factor of 3 (it takes suprisingly few mutations to alter size), would it qualify as a new species then? If it looked completely different to it's previous appearance would it qualify as a species then?

In fact there is a tangible definition of species: Two organisms of the same species are capable of mating to produce fertile young.

Basically if two animals can mate and their young is capable of mating (horses + donkeys = mules BUT mules cannot mate, hence horses and donkeys are considered separate species) they are of the same species.

So to determine whether or not our mammals in the North are a different species to the ones that existed in the south we must ask whether or not they can mate together.

Whether they can mate depends on two factors, A: They have to physically fit together (elephants and chicken ain't never gonna happen) B: They have to be genetically compatable.

The reason you cannot mate with an ape is because you are not genetically compatable; your DNA is too different, to the apes. So if our mammals in the North are left their for long enough their DNA will become too different from the orginal Southern mammal to mate hence a new species.

Incidently you might be tempted to think that once our Northern mammals has got thick fur and small ears etc. they would just stop adapting hence they would never be different enough genetically to not be able to interbreed with their Southern cousins....... that doesn't work, as long as their is competition for resources aka selective pressure (which there usually is); food, shelter, mates, etc. then their will always be another possible mutation that makes an individual better off.

Ok, that was a simplification. But hopefully it gives you a basic grounding in how/why evolution occurs.

Ask questions if you didn't understand parts (intelligent questions!).

It's not always mutations. Normal sexually reproducing populations have a variety of differing traits (size, eye color, etc). Changes in environment that make a naturally occuring instance of a trait more advantageous will tend to make that trait more common through normal evolutionary processes. The recombining of genes through sexual as opposed to asexual reproduction is a major genetic advantage to most species.