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| quote: | Originally posted by CyberneticAngel
But that is only 26 characters, the rediculus complexity of the earth ensures that the formation of the current ecosystem had to be guided in some way
http://www.geocities.com/deitiphobe1/evodefanged |
| quote: | | The first major fault found with natural selection is simply that no one has yet been able to discover how it works. In its basic form, of course, the theory predicts “survival of the fittest”—meaning that in every species there are certain members with superior physical traits, and that they will therefore survive longer, produce more offspring, and pass their superior traits down to the next generation. Unfortunately, the world’s great scientists have been entirely unsuccessful in determining whether a specific trait is superior or not. By way of example, suppose that you had an unlimited selection of gene types, and you wanted to design the ultimate timber wolf. What sort of traits would you include--stronger legs, keener noses, greater intelligence? So far, no scientists would be able to help you decide, because none of them have ever successfully predicted the dominance of certain members of a species based on their genetic traits. |
Who said evolution had to predict such things on such higher organisms such as mammals? Do you realize just how many extraneous factors are involved that render such a prediction a virtual impossibility? How on earth does this make the theory any weaker? Such predictions are done all the time on lower organisms where extraneous variables are more controlled like in a lab, for example. And the results given demonstrate over and over the strength of the theory.
| quote: | | As Ronald Brady points out, the scientist who wishes to determine the usefulness of a trait “…does not derive survival from his knowledge of engineering; he observes the fact of survival and then attempts to explain this by reference to design. How do we know that an animal is optimally designed for an environment? It survives in that environment. Thus, no matter how we explain good design after the fact, the criterion used for the detection of good design is always survival.”[6] In other words, it is impossible to examine individuals within a species and judge which ones are the fittest; a Darwinist can only wait and see which animals produce the most offspring, then conclude that these were in fact superior to the rest of the population. |
First off, I find it a bit misleading how Professors of Philosophy, such as Brady above, are quoted as if they’re experts on evolution. More often than not, they’re not.
Second, I fail to see exactly how this author’s argument gives any weakness to evolution – if anything he’s merely distorting what evolution is. Why are we so concerned PRESENT tense which animals are deemed “the fittest”? What is the relevance to this author on which animals in the present are deemed the best for survival, and how the hell would he or any evolutionist for that matter be able to aptly judge what their survival rate would be based on their phenotypical characteristics?
Evolution takes tens of thousands to millions of years, yet this author seems it appropriate to be able to judge organisms RIGHT NOW? Asking just a tad bit too much here, and is really creating quite the straw man.
| quote: | | But if natural selection is a failure in nature, can it be produced in the laboratory? Animal breeders have known for centuries that their “artificial selection” can produce small-scale changes, but also that there is a limit to how far a species can move from its original design. I might well add that these changes almost always have negative side effects: consider the case of the “purebred” dog, which is almost inevitably peevish, high-strung, sickly, brainless, or all of the above. |
So? This is artificial selection, and judging by man’s standards we’re not too good at it, especially when compared to nature’s way of doing it. This argument is dangerously close to the old creationist argument of “a bacteria is still a bacteria”. A very weak argument that once again demonstrates very little understanding of evolution, as well as the timeline for which it adheres to.
| quote: | | Darwinists, however, insisted that the limitations of breeding are a byproduct of limitations within the given gene pool. There simply aren’t enough different gene combinations available in normal breeding. To produce greater change in a species you need an infusion of new genes, which can be produced via mutation. So to this end the evolutionists have diligently been using various methods to force mutations in the common fruit fly. So far it has proven nearly impossible to produce any that are beneficial: the most common result is sterility, which is definitely not a Darwinian survival trait. In cases where a fly survives the mutation and is able to reproduce, a second mutation quickly follows which serves to cancel the effect of the first, as a physician might re-break an athlete’s bone so that it will heal straight. |
I’m sorry, but this author really hasn’t a fucking clue about drosophila research genetics. You really don’t need to search too far to see the wealth of beneficial mutations and effects of those mutations with drosophila. Why obfuscate this?
And what’s worse, the case of sterility is a case FOR speciation, such as this:
| quote: | Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences.
(Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.)
Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292. |
| quote: | | Natural selection is also a sadly disadvantaged theory when one attempts to apply it to the vegetable kingdom, especially once you consider the argument raised by Fleeming Jenkin: the effects of “good” mutations would quickly be lost through interbreeding with the original species.[7] |
Did the author just use an 1867 quote? Why am I not surprised. He does realize that evolutionary research has progressed quite a ways since then, doesn’t he?
| quote: | | (Darwin himself referred to this as the biggest difficulty for natural selection anyone had ever raised.) In the animal kingdom, it is possible to contrive intricate scenarios to deal with this problem, but species in the vegetable kingdom are rooted in place; they can’t do anything to avoid cross-pollination. It seems the main principle operating in the plant world is “survival of the luckiest”. |
And surely he would realize that there are other extraneous factors to plant breeding, such as geographic isolation (yes, this does occur even on the plant level), plant-animal interaction, uhh – plant-climatological interaction (the wind can blow pollen, last I checked), etc., all which have quite a tremendous effect on plant interbreeding. Surely this wise author would have realized this?
| quote: | | Carnivorous plants, for example, seem to defy the idea of natural selection. This group, which includes the pitcher plant and Venus’ flytrap, has the ability to obtain nourishment from flying insects that fall prey to their various traps. This is an incredible advantage over the other plants, because it gives them the ability to flourish in poor soils where other plants cannot survive. Logically, then, we should see multitudes of carnivorous plants at every turn, glorying in their enhanced survival skills and sneering down at lesser plants such as crab grass, which are still dependent on sun and soil for nutrition. But carnivorous plants are actually quite rare. Why? The Darwinist has no choice but to conclude that although the ability to catch insects for food appears to be an advantage, since they have not reproduced as well as other plants without this ability, this trait must actually have no particular benefit. |
Or one would also include that his premise of this being a “superior” trait over non-carnivorous plants is a bit weak and faulty. Why would such a trait be considered “superior” if other non-carnivorous plants are extremely successful in their given niche? If a plant or organism is successful in their given environment, they’ll remain successful even in the face of competition. We see this over and over again in the environment. Besides, again other factors may limit the success of carnivorous plants, such as climate adaptation, predation, camouflage, etc. etc. Strange how these minor points are seemingly overlooked.
| quote: | The animal kingdom also seems inexplicable in terms of natural selection. Gordon Taylor, who was once Chief Science Adviser for BBC Television, published a book called The Great Evolution Mystery posthumously in 1983. It contains a multitude of examples from nature that pose serious problems for the idea of natural selection.
One is the problem of under-development. Taylor observes that while the wasp was able to develop a smooth sting capable of being used as often as necessary, the bee is stuck with a barbed sting that is torn out by the roots after one use, generally resulting in the bee’s death. Is it really beneficial to have as your only means of defense a weapon that is suicidal to use? |
I’m not well-versed in bee biology, but again it all has to do with a given niche. The bees are highly successful creatures working together in one cohesive unit. Given their success, once again the question has to be asked – why would they need to adapt? The author seemingly misses this obvious point ad nauseum.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there bee species out there that retain their stingers if used? Bumble bees? Killer bees? I forget, but I believe they do exist.
| quote: | | Another obstacle to natural selection is over-development. Two of the examples Taylor gives are the Irish elk and the peacock. The “Irish” elk, now extinct, actually lived in Siberia. Its most striking feature would have to have been its truly gargantuan antlers, which typically measured twelve feet in length and weighed more than 500 pounds. Imagine a cheerleader twirling a thirty-foot, hundred-pound baton, and you might begin to question how much the elk’s burdensome headgear really aided its survival. |
Again, I’m not too well-versed in elk evolution, but one may think the author just answered his own question here by pointing out that the elk is now extinct. So what was the point in this again?
| quote: | | Similarly, the peacock’s fabulous array of tail feathers is an enormous hindrance when it is attempting to outrun or escape its predators. In addition to slowing it down, when fully spread it can greatly limit the peacock’s field of vision. Where is the evolutionary advantage there? Some Darwinists argue that the impressive display of feathers aids the peacock during the mating process. But Taylor points out that other birds are perfectly capable of carrying out a courtship without such a liability, so the question remains: why would a bird ever have grown such a thing in the first place? |
Ahh, I get it – because God said so, right?
Seriously, the author’s shortsightedness in understanding evolution is shown when he narrows his own definition of evolution by mere survivability. Indeed that is a driving evolutionary factor, but there are other factors involved as well – sexual attractiveness is definitely one too. Remember, organisms want to survive AND reproduce. There are certain cases, such as the peacock, where the sexual drive will tend to supercede the evolutionary drive of survival. There are a number of other examples of these sexual attractive displays in other bird species as well as loud mating calls which certainly attract predators, as well as in frogs, fireflies, etc. Are these animals any less successful? Of course not. Traits that are a liability to survival can evolve when the sexual attractiveness of a trait outweighs the liability incurred for survival. A male who lives a short time, but produces many offspring is much more successful than a long lived one that produces few.
So once again, the author doesn’t seem to know too much about evolution.
| quote: | | Natural selection takes yet another blow from simple odd development, as in the case of the scent glands found in goats and deer. These glands allow them to keep track of each other, but simultaneously give them away to predators. Attempting to rationalize the survival of deer with scent glands over deer without them leads to wildly improbable scenarios: perhaps the glands evolved at a time when their predators had not evolved a sense of smell! Or did the scents left by deer communicate among the species a plan for avoiding predators, which the glandless deer were unable to read? Pierre-Paul Grasse, a leading European zoologist, cites this example along with several other problems of natural selection before concluding, “Selection tends to eliminate the causes of a population’s heterogeneity and thus to produce a uniform genotype. |
I just addressed this.It acts more to conserve the inheritance of the species than to transform it.”
| quote: | | Some of the most compelling arguments against evolution are provided by those creatures and systems that exhibit something called irreducible complexity. Michael J. Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box, uses the example of a mousetrap to explain this concept: you can’t begin catching mice with just the wooden base, then add a spring and catch a few more mice, becoming better and better as you add the bar, the catch, and the hammer. All of these parts must be present and functioning if the mousetrap is to catch any mice at all; therefore, it is irreducibly complex. |
Yes but the components of that mousetrap can be made into a number of other noticeable things, such as a tieclip, a doorstop, etc. Behe’s arguments were terribly weak.
| quote: | Examples of this abound in nature. We will begin with the animal kingdom, observing a fascinating variation on the ant: the ant-lion. Alan Hayward rephrases the findings of Pierre-Paul Grasse: “This remarkable insect lives in regions of dry sand or sandy soil, where it digs a pit about two inches deep and waits at the bottom for ants to tumble in. It has a delicate intruder-alarm system, sensitive to the slightest vibration. If a single grain of sand rolls into the pit the ant-lion springs to the alert, with its pincer-like mandibles gaping, ready to seize its prey. The underside of its body is provided with a set of horn-like anchors, so that it can grip the soil while struggling with its captive.
The ant-lion’s mouth is quite extraordinary, being fastened almost shut with a complicated locking system. This makes it unable to eat solid food, but the mouth forms a kind of drinking straw, ideally suited to supping broth.
Having grabbed an ant, the first thing the ant-lion does is to inject a paralyzing drug. Then it gives a second injection of digestive juices which gradually turn the ant’s insides into a nourishing liquid, ready for the ant-lion to suck it out.
There is no drinking water in the hot, dry sandpits where ant-lions live. Most insects would soon die of dehydration in such an environment. But not the ant-lion. To begin with, he is provided with an impermeable skin which, like the aluminum foil around a roasting chicken, prevents his body moisture from drying up. And his digestive tract has a system for recycling the urine, like astronauts do in a spaceship, so that every drop of water can be used again and again.” The odds that this “avalanche” of chance adaptations would occur in a sequence that allows the insect’s survival, says Grasse, are “infinitesimal”. |
You must forgive me if I think Hayward is a bit of a distorter right off the bat:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hov...wgood-yea2.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-add.html
Aside of that, complex features such as the one mentioned above have been demonstrated to arise via evolutionary mechanisms. What’s the point in this example?
| quote: | Another insect that embodies irreducible complexity is the brain worm. Robert Wesson provides an account of its bizarre life cycle. “The brain worm that reproduces in sheep uses ants to get back into a sheep. The worms get into ants by infecting snails that eat sheep feces. The snails expel tiny worm larvae in a mucus that ants enjoy, and some dozens of worms take up residence in an ant. But this would do them no good if the ants behaved normally; too few ants would be eaten by sheep. Consequently, while most of the ants make themselves at home in an ant’s abdomen, one finds its way to the ant’s brain and causes the ant to climb up a grass stem and wait to be eaten by a sheep. Ironically, the worm that programs the ant is cheated of happiness in the sheep’s intestine; it becomes encysted and dies.
The whole procedure seems unnecessary. Why do the worm eggs defecated by the sheep not simply hatch and climb up the grass stem to await being eaten by a sheep instead of making the hazardous trip through snail and ant? How could they become adapted to being carried by the ant unless the ant were already programmed to make itself available to be eaten by a sheep?”[8] |
I think the author needs to take such examples a few steps further – what about those animals, INCLUDING the human brain worm Plasmodium falciparum that are quite harmful to humans, and are rapidly becoming resistant to drugs? What about all those harmful organisms that kill humans, period?:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/4/part2.html
Oh, I know – “the Lord moves in mysterious ways”, right?
I think my favorite example really of intelligent design is cancer cells. Don’t you think God did great with these little buggers? Talk about irreducibly complex! He sure did wonders with cancer cells, didn’t He?
| quote: | | Bombardier beetles are another fascinating example of the irreducibly complex. These amazing insects use a form of chemical warfare to fend off enemies. When they sense danger, they produce a chemical irritant by mixing hydrogen peroxide, hydroquinones, and certain enzymes. It seems a fairly clear-cut case of design: take away any of the ingredients, and the formula doesn’t work. But staunch Darwinian Richard Dawkins has an airtight scientific explanation. He points out that “…both hydrogen peroxide and various kinds of quinones are used for other purposes in body chemistry. The bombardier beetle’s ancestors simply pressed into different service chemicals that already happened to be around.”[9] Apparently we are expected to believe that long, long ago, a portion of the beetle population began to negotiate arrangements between various and sundry of their internal organs, until finally by trial and error they arrived at the highly beneficial situation they enjoy today. |
Why is that so difficult to believe? Surely you understand evolution enough to know that transitional parts or intermediary novel features likely have served other purposes, don’t you? Again, nature is full of examples. And besides, the beetles have some strange features that seem a bit undersigned:
| quote: | *With design, we expect similar forms to be created for similar functions and different forms for different functions (Morris 1974, 70). However, what we see is different forms for similar functions. Many ground beetles have very similar habits and habitats as centipedes, but their forms differ greatly. Different groups of bombardier beetles use very different mechanisms for the same function of aiming their spray (Eisner 1958; Eisner and Aneshansley 1982).
*Some forms have no function. Some bombardier beetles have vestigial flight wings (Erwin 1970, 46,55,91,114-115,119).
*If bombardier beetles have a purpose, then death is an integral part of it, since the beetles are predators (some, as larvae, are parasitoids, gradually eating pupae of other beetles [Erwin 1967]), and their spray is a defense against other predators. Many creationists claim that death was not part of God's design.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB310.html |
God sur do work in mysterious ways, don’t he?
| quote: | J. C. Willis, a highly regarded British botanist in the mid-twentieth century, was well respected and internationally honored in spite of his lifelong hostility to the idea of natural selection. In his book The Course of Evolution, he provided several examples of conflict with the theory from the plant kingdom, which Alan Hayward here relays to us.
“Willis also discusses many features of plants where no intermediate steps are possible. To give just one simple example, leaves are arranged on plant stems in two main ways. They may alternate as you go along the stem: left, right, left, right, and so on. Or they may be opposite each other in pairs. You cannot have a “half opposite, half alternate” arrangement. How, then, did one arrangement evolve into the other, when there cannot be any intermediate steps? And what possible survival value can one arrangement have over the other, anyway?" |
Oh my God, is Hayward really being serious here? Who said there were no intermediate steps? Who says one evolved into another in the fucking first place? And why would an intermediate step necessitate a “half opposite, half alternate” arrangement?
Questions like these really demonstrate a severe lack of knowledge on evolution – the guy should really read a few more evolutionary biology journals for fuck’s sakes.
| quote: | | Again, Willis asks, why is it that so many arrangements in plants and their flowers are mathematically perfect? In the case of opposite leaves, for instance, they are always exactly opposite. Why is this? |
Honestly I don’t know. My botany lacks quite a bit as well. But since I don’t know personally, I’ll just happily insert “godidit” wherever I don’t know something.
It’s just easier that way, don’t you think?
| quote: | | On climbing plants: “Climbers differ in two ways from their upright relatives: they have weak, flexible stems, and they have tendrils, or some other climbing device. Which evolved first? If the weak stems came first, how did the floppy-stemmed plants escape being smothered by other vegetation while their tendrils were evolving? And if the climbing organs evolved first, what made such organs evolve when they were not yet needed?”[10] |
Again Hayward seems to have a severe lack of understanding about transitional novel features. This guy’s pretty damn dubious.
| quote: | | Natural selection, then, is perhaps not the indomitable fortress of an idea it has been presented as. |
It seems this guy really fell in love with Hayward’s book without a little educating and reading of research on his own. Sad.
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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