Things Evolution Can't Evolve?

[gilbo12345 860]

Haha! I knew you'd pounce on me for that After reading my post again later I realised that I hadn't put all my thoughts down. What I meant by them having the whole land is that without predators picking them off (don't get me wrong, we all know there are many more things than predators which can kill) they were more free to reproduce thereby the genetic variety would have increased, giving evolution a little kick up the backside and giving it a longer leash to work with.

 

So does this mean that my list still stands?

 

I didn't mention predators so I don't see why you are focusing on something I never said, ergo I see no relation to how it debunks my list...

 

Very clever way of re-arranging what I said! But it still holds, you're thinking too far ahead. You need to stop thinking as though it had the lung in mind when it was evolving, and start thinking of changes that benfitted the population at that time (which may or may not have been anything like a lung, but over successive generations, all adapting to the pressures, eventually became one).

 

You're going to have to support that claim, I am not thinking of evolution as Lamarkism, and I ask you to provide quotes that demonstrate such. I have already explained to you that I was giving a list of the challenges that need to be met, doing such doesn't imply Lamarkism, its simply being realistic about the degree of changes that are required. Or can we wave the word "mutation" around as a magic wand to solve any problem?

 

No, it's right. Are you saying it's wrong because the lung is very specialised and too complex to evolve gradually, with each successive generation being an improvement for the conditions at the time? Because that sounds like you just find it too hard to believe, and so choose not to. Quantum mechanics is totally bonkers and yet it's said to be the most successful scientific theory out there.

 

No I'm not saying that, I am going deeper. I am saying that in order for the specialized features of the lung to work they need to be all there at once, yet you stated that it is a gradual process... But if it is a gradual process what selection criteria allows for such features that have no use until the entire function is available.

 

Consider that each and every small tiny change needs to increase fitness otherwise it will not be selected for (as per natural selection), meaning if you have steps that cannot or do not increase fitness then those steps defy evolution.

 

Why mention quantum mechanics? The difference is that the effects of quantum mechanics can be tested via experiment and directly observed, (cause X observe Y), there is no such thing with evolution... Of course we see small change, however there is NO link from small change to "mud to man" evolution, it is simply assumed.

 

And yes, I know it's not a case of a single mutation (although mutations with a large effect DO happen. Ants have been known to have legs grow out of their head instead of feelers due to a genetic mutation).

 

Actually I believe it was a forced mutation in a lab. They altered the chemicals within the developing ants (and flies) and by doing so different body parts developed where they were not meant to.. Apparently an embryo develops according to the chemical concentrations within it, so changing it will change the development. However I see no correlation as to why you mention this.

 

But that's not what I was saying. Yes, the lung system is a complex piece of machinery, which would have come about from many, many generations. What I'm saying is that maybe it went like this:

 

1. Buoyancy sac develops some cells which can absorb oxygen from the surrounding water. This could provide extra buoyancy for the fish to control its depth.

2. Sac walls thin enough so oxygen can transfer to capillaries and enter the blood stream. More oxygen in the blood stream means more alertness, more efficient metabolism and probably a slew of other things as oxygen is so vital to us.

3. The muscle controlling the buoyancy sac mutates to squeeze or open it up, kind of like a diaphragm, regulating the amount of oxygen entering the blood stream. So now thie fish can use more or less oxygen from the sac when it necessary. Increased efficiency means more energy put to use on other things for survival and reproduction.

4. A tube develops connecting the sac to the throat. Perhaps it was a vein that has changed, similar to the ants legs I mentioned above. Fish are known to come to the surface and 'gulp' air when the oxygen in the water is depleted. So now the fish can gulp air and have it go directly to the buoyancy sac, regulated by the surrounding musces, and have the oxygen flow in to the blood stream.

And so on, and so on...

 

And as I have been trying to tell you that is merely a story, stories are not scientific nor are they evidence for anything.

 

1- You realise that the creation of these air sacs themselves would have been momentous, meaning they themselves is a huge jump, (or leap of faith )

- cell differentiaton to create sac

- opening (etc) to allow oxygen in (without water!!!!)

- muscles to control volume

 

Additionally I wonder what is the selection for such a thing, (ignoring the selection for each component I state above, which is my point before). Fish can already control their buoyancy.

 

 

I guess its nice when you can simply make up a story and then think that since it seems logical therefore it must be true... Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was the way science was conducted before the scientific method, (for example I observe the sun and stars going around the Earth therefore claim that the Earth is the centre of the universe... since that seems logical people accepted it as fact until we knew otherwise), after the scientific method however we now use experiments to verify the hypothesis (story) given for the observation. As I have been telling you you need to let go of this story-version of science and embrace the scientific method

 

Now I know you'll demand evidence of this but I'm not saying that's how it happened. I'm trying to demonstrate a point. Can you see what I'm getting at? It's not development of a lung, like some pre-conceived journey. It is each individual step being advantageous at the time. We now have lungs as a result of those adaptions.

 

What point are you demonstrating? That evolutionists are good story tellers?

 

Only the steps that you can think of and that is the problem, you have no way to verify that the steps you claim are the ones in reality, ergo why should anyone believe your story as scientific if you have no basis to claim it as reality? Science isn't based on the imaginings of the scientist it is based on raw data. Period.

 

I would quote your later comment about me not providing evidence and my explanation being 'just a story', but I'm not trying to say this is exactly what happened in the past. I'm trying to show you how evolution works through an example that fits the theory.

 

I know you are not saying this is how it happened. I am trying to point out that you have no way to know that this or any story like this is true, great stories aside if you have no evidence then you have no evidence, and therefore cannot claim "evolution did it" when you have no way to verify that it actually did in reality.

 

I hope this answers your other remarks on load bearing and selection criteria being only available after the trait develops.

 

Talking about lungs doesn't address those other points

 

Look, I'm not here to try and convince you that Natural Selection is how we got here; I think that would be futile. But what I want you to get is that your idea of what evolution is is wrong.

 

Like what? Claiming someone is wrong and demonstrating it are two very different things. I'd ask you to demonstrate how my "idea of evolution" is wrong.

 

But from your claims it seems that you think that evolution is simply a logical story and because it is logical therefore it is true? Am I correct?

 

 

[Dig4gold 100]

Something smells fishy! sorry, couldn’t resist

 

The first vertebrates on the planet, fish provided the basic "body plan" subsequently elaborated on by hundreds of millions of years of evolution: in other words, your great-great-great (multiply by a billion) grandmother was a small, meek fish of the Devonian period.

 

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/otherprehistoriclife/a/prehistoric-fish.htm

 

OK, that’s a lot of “mutations” to get from a little fish to grandma! Am I right?

 

It sounds like a big fish story to me. oops, there I go again

[Salsa 171]

Hi UD

 

Your Wikipedia definition says that evidence for a given assertion is weak if the same evidence doesn't rule out a contradictory assertion. But the assertion that variation exists within an animal class does not contradict the assertion that transition occurred.

 

It's not even an assertion about the same thing. The assertion that transistion occured is some sort of statement about natural history (i.e. what's been going on with animals up to now), whereas the assertion that a class of animals contains variation is an analytic truth. A class of animals is defined by the animals it contains, so if a class has been designated containing animals that are bit different from one another then guess what: you will find that it contains animals that are a bit different from one another.

 

Point taken, but I wasn't trying to claim that variation contradicts transition, either within that class or external to it. What I meant to say is that similarities between different classes that display broad variations do not necessarily indicate that any transition has occurred. Fishes can fly, walk, and swim, they can resemple horses, cats, swords, hammers, porcupines, snakes, and so on... but as soon as they can use their fins to creep up on land it is considered by evolutionists to be evidence of transition.

[alex83 0]

Hey guys,

 

My internet has been out for a few days, but I'm back now

 

OK, that’s a lot of “mutations” to get from a little fish to grandma! Am I right?

 

Yep. Over 420 million years of them (if yo'ure still referring to the Devonian). I firmly believe that my great-great-great-....-great-GREAT-grandmother was indeed a fish.

 

Gilbo,

 

I think I'm getting where you're coming from now. You're saying nothing is good without evidence (fair enough) and that the evidence for evolution is therefore lacking. I was under the impression that you were arguing that evolution says 'jumps' occur and that this is ridiculous so evolution is wrong. To which I was using examples (ok fine, stories) to show how that view is incorrect.

 

I am saying that in order for the specialized features of the lung to work they need to be all there at once, yet you stated that it is a gradual process... But if it is a gradual process what selection criteria allows for such features that have no use until the entire function is available.

 

Consider that each and every small tiny change needs to increase fitness otherwise it will not be selected for (as per natural selection), meaning if you have steps that cannot or do not increase fitness then those steps defy evolution.

 

So, for example, you're saying that we have all these features like thin walls of the lungs, a contracting and relaxing diaphragm and everything else, and that if one of these features isn't there then the lung is defunct. Right?

 

 

I guess its nice when you can simply make up a story and then think that since it seems logical therefore it must be true... Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was the way science was conducted before the scientific method, (for example I observe the sun and stars going around the Earth therefore claim that the Earth is the centre of the universe... since that seems logical people accepted it as fact until we knew otherwise), after the scientific method however we now use experiments to verify the hypothesis (story) given for the observation. As I have been telling you you need to let go of this story-version of science and embrace the scientific method

Only the steps that you can think of and that is the problem, you have no way to verify that the steps you claim are the ones in reality, ergo why should anyone believe your story as scientific if you have no basis to claim it as reality? Science isn't based on the imaginings of the scientist it is based on raw data. Period.

 

Calm down buddy, reel in the sarcasm a little. I never said that what I was writing was the way it happened; I even went out of my way to say that. I'll give you that it was a story (albeit, in line with the natural selection theory), but I was trying to get across a point that I thought you didn't understand. No need to tell me about the scientific method; I did a 4 year degree in Physics with theoretical astrophysics. Come to think of it, astronomy is a science but not in the strictest of ways. You can't conduct experiemnts on stars, yet you can observe, hypothesise, predict and seek out evidence. So are you going to say you don't believe in astronomy or the life and death cycle of stars?

 

 

But from your claims it seems that you think that evolution is simply a logical story and because it is logical therefore it is true? Am I correct?

 

While I think it's logical, that's not the only reason I think it's true. I've read some compelling things that have convinced me. Such as:

 

1. The ongoing Lenski experiment of 30+ years demonstrating the evolution of bacteria.

2. The lizards of Pod Mrcaru in which scientists moved a group of them to a neighbouring island and then revisited 30 years later and found they had already adapted to the new environment. I for one believe in a few hundred years we'll have a new species there.

3. The work of Prof. John Endler and his experiments on the evolution of camouflage within Guppies (yup, that's a fish).

4. This is the bit that really clinched it for me, and something I'd be interested to hear how I.D. tries to explain....the inefficiency of parts of our body that have lasted. For example, the light cells in our eye all point the wrong way. The face backwards, in to our skull. Light falling on our eyes needs to pass through the nerve, then the energy factory powering the cell before finally hitting the light receptor. Why would a creator design us like that? Why not put them the correct way, facing out towards the incoming light? We also have a nerve from the brain to our vocal chords that goes right past, way down in to our chest cavity, around the aorta of our heart and then back up the chest and through to our chords. Why be designed that way? And it's not just in us; that's a treat every mammal gets to have. Even giraffes. How about the little leg- and hip-bones that snakes possess inside their body, which do nothing for them? Or the legs in every Blue Whale? The list goes on. Evolution can explain this, but I'll leave you that to chew on.

 

Alex

[Calypsis4 640]

 

Calm down buddy, reel in the sarcasm a little

 

He doesn't need to 'calm down'. You need to answer his points.

 

So far, you're just doing a lot of speculating.

[gilbo12345 860]

Yep. Over 420 million years of them (if yo'ure still referring to the Devonian). I firmly believe that my great-great-great-....-great-GREAT-grandmother was indeed a fish.

 

And you know this for a fact? How could you when it was merely a story?

 

I think I'm getting where you're coming from now. You're saying nothing is good without evidence (fair enough) and that the evidence for evolution is therefore lacking. I was under the impression that you were arguing that evolution says 'jumps' occur and that this is ridiculous so evolution is wrong. To which I was using examples (ok fine, stories) to show how that view is incorrect.

 

I never said that at all, so I am not sure where you got that impression. Attacking strawmen never helps anyone.

 

So, for example, you're saying that we have all these features like thin walls of the lungs, a contracting and relaxing diaphragm and everything else, and that if one of these features isn't there then the lung is defunct. Right?

 

Yes that is exactly what I am saying. Its the same with literally any cellular or multi-cellular system.

 

No thin walls = no oxygen pass through to blood= Dead

No ribs + muscles = no assistance to breathing = VERY hard to breathe = Dead when tries to sleep

No blood vessels around the alveoli = no transport of the oxygen = Dead

No Haemoglobin in red blood cells = no transport of the oxygen = Dead

No regeneration of the red blood cells = decline of red blood cell number = no transport of the oxygen = Dead

No brain function to control "automatic" breathing = Dead when tries to sleep

 

This is just a sample, but apparently all these things "evolved" at the exact same time in order for the organism to live rather than die....

 

 

Calm down buddy, reel in the sarcasm a little.

 

I am almost always calm. There was one guy who got me really angry but that was like 2 years ago.

 

I never said that what I was writing was the way it happened;

 

And I never said you did? I merely debunked your stories.

 

I even went out of my way to say that.

 

And I addressed you on that point, so why bring it up again? I never said what you are complaining about.

 

I'll give you that it was a story (albeit, in line with the natural selection theory),

 

What theory? If there is no experimental data to support the hypothesis "evolution did it" then evolution is STILL an unverified hypothesis. Until someone can perform an empirical experiment to directly support evolution then it is simply a hypothesis which is assumed to be correct.... Assuming the conclusion is not science.

 

but I was trying to get across a point that I thought you didn't understand.

 

Which you admit was actually a case of you not understanding, irony thou art a cruel mistress

 

No need to tell me about the scientific method; I did a 4 year degree in Physics with theoretical astrophysics.

 

Ah so that is why you're a great story teller

 

So you realise that you need experiments to confirm a hypothesis?

 

Come to think of it, astronomy is a science but not in the strictest of ways. You can't conduct experiemnts on stars, yet you can observe, hypothesise, predict and seek out evidence. So are you going to say you don't believe in astronomy or the life and death cycle of stars?

 

I'd consider it a social science, not an empirical science. Biology IS an empirical science and evolution is claimed to be a part of Biology ergo it is required to have empirical evidence just like the rest of Biology... No special pleading, or pleading for special (circumstances).

 

While I think it's logical, that's not the only reason I think it's true. I've read some compelling things that have convinced me. Such as:

 

1. The ongoing Lenski experiment of 30+ years demonstrating the evolution of bacteria.

 

Yes the "evolution" of bacteria to bacteria... A remarkable feat of change, wouldn't you agree?

 

2. The lizards of Pod Mrcaru in which scientists moved a group of them to a neighbouring island and then revisited 30 years later and found they had already adapted to the new environment. I for one believe in a few hundred years we'll have a new species there.

 

They were still lizards right? In fact they are still the same species of lizard, (since you remain hopeful that there will be a new species)... Meaning how is this evidence of evolution? You are simply hoping that evolution will occur, hoping for something is not evidence of the thing you are hoping for, (this is similar to circular reasoning).

 

3. The work of Prof. John Endler and his experiments on the evolution of camouflage within Guppies (yup, that's a fish).

 

Perhaps you can enlighten me on this research and how it is evidence for evolution

 

4. This is the bit that really clinched it for me, and something I'd be interested to hear how I.D. tries to explain....the inefficiency of parts of our body that have lasted. For example, the light cells in our eye all point the wrong way. The face backwards, in to our skull. Light falling on our eyes needs to pass through the nerve, then the energy factory powering the cell before finally hitting the light receptor. Why would a creator design us like that? Why not put them the correct way, facing out towards the incoming light? We also have a nerve from the brain to our vocal chords that goes right past, way down in to our chest cavity, around the aorta of our heart and then back up the chest and through to our chords. Why be designed that way? And it's not just in us; that's a treat every mammal gets to have. Even giraffes. How about the little leg- and hip-bones that snakes possess inside their body, which do nothing for them? Or the legs in every Blue Whale? The list goes on. Evolution can explain this, but I'll leave you that to chew on.

 

 

I'd like to see evolution explain this one too since by rights the parts that are inefficient would not give a fitness benefit and thus would not be selected for, ergo they shouldn't exist if we "evolved".

 

Though I hope you realise that your examples here are merely examples of personal incredulity, they are not evidence for evolution nor are they evidence against ID / Creationism since its simply YOUR opinion. The fact remains that we do not know everything about the body, perhaps there is a specific reason for these things, meaning these claims of imperfection are similar to the claims of "junk" DNA, and " where the evolutionist assumes we know everything, more research is done and its found they were incorrect.

 

Now you see here is the kicker, there is another fact you have over looked... The fact that God need not have his creations perfect, in fact the Bible states that man was once perfect, but was thrown down due to sin, meaning I see no reason for you to assume that a Creator would create a perfect person? Would you complain that Ford created an imperfect car? They are a creator of cars are they not?

 

As I asked before how does evolution explain these useless traits? Natural selection / genetic drift would eliminate them.

 

 

[Bonedigger 42]

...4. This is the bit that really clinched it for me, and something I'd be interested to hear how I.D. tries to explain....the inefficiency of parts of our body that have lasted. For example, the light cells in our eye all point the wrong way. The face backwards, in to our skull. Light falling on our eyes needs to pass through the nerve, then the energy factory powering the cell before finally hitting the light receptor. Why would a creator design us like that? Why not put them the correct way, facing out towards the incoming light?...

 

It sounds like you've been reading a little too much Dawkins and not much else. There are many good design reasons for the inverted retina in vertebrates. It allows for a constant strong blood supply to the photoreceptors for their regeneration without the blood itself obscuring the light. It protects the photoreceptors from damage by short wavelength light and the heat generated by them. The Muller cells that transmit the light through the retina act as fiberoptic funnels that gather more light than would impact the photoreceptors directly if they were flipped. Etc., etc. See, for example, CMI articles on the subject here, here, here, and here. All I can say is, I'm glad God designed my eyes and not you. I would most likely be blind if my eyes had been designed according to your imaginary "correct way"!

[gilbo12345 860]

It sounds like you've been reading a little too much Dawkins and not much else. There are many good design reasons for the inverted retina in vertebrates. It allows for a constant strong blood supply to the photoreceptors for their regeneration without the blood itself obscuring the light. It protects the photoreceptors from damage by short wavelength light and the heat generated by them. The Muller cells that transmit the light through the retina act as fiberoptic funnels that gather more light than would impact the photoreceptors directly if they were flipped. Etc., etc. See, for example, CMI articles on the subject here, here, here, and here. All I can say is, I'm glad God designed my eyes and not you. I would most likely be blind if my eyes had been designed according to your imaginary "correct way"!

 

Great post, I didn't know about that info about the eye. Thanks for sharing.

[Salsa 171]

We also have a nerve from the brain to our vocal chords that goes right past, way down in to our chest cavity, around the aorta of our heart and then back up the chest and through to our chords. Why be designed that way?

 

http://creation.com/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve

[Salsa 171]

How about the little leg- and hip-bones that snakes possess inside their body, which do nothing for them? Or the legs in every Blue Whale?

 

Alex, please refrain from presenting assumptions made by evolutionists as though they were established scientific facts! There are no "leg bones" in either snakes or whales and claiming that there are is dishonest. Both whales and snakes have bones that are there for the purpose of supporting S@xual reproduction. The fact that evolutionists like to imagine that these bones are vestigial remains of legs does not mean that you should go around calling them legs.

[Salsa 171]

The list goes on.

 

No, the list doesn't go on. Quite the opposite. For example, the list of "vestigial organs" in humans has shrunk from 180 in 1890 to ZERO in 1999.

[Dig4gold 100]

I read this article about the eye many years ago and it has always stuck with me. I guess you could say it is in my mind's eye.

 

Light at various wavelengths is capable of very damaging effects on biological machinery. The retina, besides being an extremely sophisticated transducer and image processor, is clearly designed to withstand the toxic and heating effects of light. The eye is well equipped to protect the retina against radiation we normally encounter in everyday life. Besides the almost complete exclusion of ultraviolet radiation by the cornea and the lens together, the retina itself is endowed with a number of additional mechanisms to protect against such damage:

• The retinal pigment epithelium produces substances which combat the damaging chemical by-products of light radiation.

• The retinal pigment epithelium plays an essential part sustaining the photoreceptors. This includes recycling and metabolising their products, thereby renewing them in the face of continual wear from light bombardment.

• The central retina is permeated with xanthophyll pigment which filters and absorbs short-wavelength visible light.

The photoreceptors thus need to be in intimate contact with the retinal pigment epithelium, which is opaque. The retinal pigment epithelium, in turn, needs to be in intimate contact with the choroid (also opaque) both to satisfy its nutritional requirements and to prevent (by means of the heat sink effect of its massive blood flow) overheating of the retina from focused light.

If the human retina were ‘wired’ the other way around (the verted configuration), as evolutionists such as Dawkins propose,² these two opaque layers would have to be interposed in the path of light to the photoreceptors which would leave them in darkness!

Thus I suggest that the need for protection against light-induced damage, which a verted retina in our natural environment could not provide to the same degree, is a major, if not the major reason for the existence of the inverted configuration of the retina.

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v13/n1/retina