Evolskeptic

Well, I guess my remarks about the "evil being palpable around here" are easily understood now. Of course this is to be expected when you are dealing with people who have no objective source of morality, and no fear of a Final Reckoning for their actions (yet).

I'll be back later with as many replies as are needed and/or possible. Till then, keep up the bad work.

P.S.: Thanks for all your suggestions how I might retrieve last night's work.

Shadownought

Please leave the sermons, stereotypes, insinuations, and other bad vibes at the door. If you try to debate in a civil manner, we (or at least most of us) will also.

[ December 23, 2002: Message edited by: Shadownought ]</p>

scombrid

Craig, K.J., and C.J. Foote. 2000. Countergradient variation and secondary sexual color: phenotypic convergence promotes genetic divergence in carotenoid use between sympatric anadromous and non-anadromous morphs of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). Evolution 55(2):380-391.

Here's a neat example of sexual selection effecting a significant change in physiology and appearance in relatively few generations.

Summary: Kokanee salmon are landlocked populations of Oncorrhynchus nerka. Most kokanee populations are young as the lakes that the kokanee use are post pleistocene. Sockeye are anadromous populations of Oncorrhynchus nerka. Both are born in the rivers but sockeye grow to maturity in the ocean and Kokanee grow to maturity in oligotrophic lakes. The oligotrophic lakes are extremely poor in karotenoid pigments which are necessary for salmon to turn bright red prior to mating. However, kokanee salmon turn just as red at sexual maturity as sockeye salmon. Pure sockeye salmon and sockeye/kokanee hybrids, when reared in nutrient poor environments, fail to turn red at sexual maturity. Common garden experiments show that kokanee have much more efficient uptake of karotenoids. It turns out that there is sexual selection for red color. Olive colored individuals can still mate successfully but aren't likely to get a partner. Being a little redder than your neighbor means you'll probably mate more successfully so there will be more reds in the next generation. Any degree of extra redness offers a small advantage over your neighbor.

Dr Rick

Do you actually have anything to say about creation and/or evolution? Do you really believe that your petty off-topic insults are going to sway anyone's opinion?

Rick

ex-xian

Evolskeptic: I would like to invite you <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001833" target="_blank">Here</a> to respond to a few posts concerning your methods.

Many thanks.

Evolskeptic

Pz: “Most of these [examples of Futuyama’s] are suggested to involve rather small pressures over fairly long periods of time, with the exception perhaps of antibiotic resistance.”

Evolskeptic: You need to read that list again, because that was a complete mischaracterization of the facts. Life and death pressures are extreme pressures, not “small,” and they did not take “fairly long periods of time” to transform those populations.

Pz: “That the incidents that get reported are ones that produced changes that could be measured within the short span of a few years is an artifact -- it's why these particular examples were used.”

Evolskeptic: Wrong again. These examples were cited because they are among the rare cases when natural selection acting upon phenotypic variation has actually been observed to transform populations.

Pz: “The mathematics of population genetics are quite straightforward and contradict your claims here: intense pressures are not required to effect change over time.”

Evolskeptic: Sayin’ it ain’t demonstratin’ it.

Rufus Atticus: “Evolskeptic, feel free to introduce yourself in our welcome forum.”

Evolskeptic: Thanks, Rufus, but it would seem some of the other posters around here have decided to save me the trouble.

Rufus: “We have many posters on this board with PhD's in Biology and related fields and/or have scientific research experience to back up the posts they makes.”

The Apostle Paul: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” – 1 Corinthians 1:20.

Rufus: “I'm not sure home much light you can reveal to us, but I'm willing to see.”

Evolskeptic: We’ll soon find out just how “willing” anyone around here is to see.

Rufus: “So snowstorms (example 3), drought (4), and malaria (5) are "unusual and extreme" environmental pressures. Right....”

Evolskeptic: Right. Example # 3 involved a severe storm, the sort that come around perhaps two or three times in a century. # 4 a drought is by definition a severe environmental pressure and # 5, a plague, is also a severe environmental pressure.

Rufus: “The time it takes a selected allele and or trait to sweep the populations is proportional to the strength of its advantage over the already existing alleles. Thus something that offers a tiny selective advantage will take much longer than the examples above.”

Evolskeptic: Why then was Futuyama unable to cite an example of what you are talking about? Can you offer an example of a tiny selective advantage that eventually transformed completely a population?

Rufus: “People have only been looking at the genetics of populations for around a hundred years. Not enough time has passed to observe the kind of things you're asking for.”

Evolskeptic: I see. Tell me, what do scientists call hypotheses not derived from direct observation, testing and repeat testing? Did someone say, “just-so stories?”

Rufus: “However, recent work on detecting past selective events in present genetic diversity (or lack there off) is expanding our window of knowledge.”

Evolskeptic: Knowledge based on realobservation and testing or only more speculation based mainly on an a priori commitment to the general trustworthiness of the theory?

Evolskeptic (Previously): “Given what is now known to be a finite amount of time, have there been enough similarly extreme and unusual environmental pressures available to create every new improvement to every new cell and organ of every species, genus, family, order, class, phylum and kingdom?

Rufus: “Sure, 3.5 billion years translates into over 30 trillian generations.”

Evolskeptic: Mammals have only been around for 65 million years. Primates only a small fraction of that time. This being the case, have there really been enough similarly extreme and unusual environmental pressures available to create every new improvement to every new cell and organ of every primate species, genus, family and suborder?

Let’s not trivialize in any way the magnitude of the creative (as well as the destructive) job we are talking about here.

Rufus: “Even neutral traits will become ubiquitous in a population due to random drift in populations.”

Evolskeptic: Perhaps in very tiny, isolated populations. Most species are not tiny or isolated. Appeals to “random drift” are basically appeals to chance.

Rufus: “Look up coalescent theory for more information.”

Evolskeptic: Sorry, but I don’t have time to accept homework assignments or follow links. If anyone thinks they have documented info relevant to this topic, please fell free to cut and paste it directly onto the thread, together with your comments.

Rufus: “Slightly advantagous traits are more likely. Whereas, disadvantagous traits are less likely. So there should be no mystery there.”

Evolskeptic: The mystery involves why Futuyama didn’t include a “slightly advantageous trait” among his examples of the “facts of evolution.” If a slightly advantageous trait can utterly transform a population without a severe and unusual environmental pressure around to decimate the reproductive competition, why then didn’t Futuyama cite an example of this phenomena?

In my opinion the entire evolution/creation controversy must turn on how this question is eventually answered. If natural selection cannot utterly transform a population without the presence of severe and unusual environmental pressures being available—and so far I’ve seen no documented evidence that it can—then we have no good reason to believe that such a mechanism could have possibly been responsible for creating (as opposed to just modifying) the entire biosphere.


Rufus: “Founder effect is due to Genetic Drift which produces random sampling error. This is the antithesis of what you're asking.”

Evolskeptic: What I did was to point out that another, much less important evolutionary mechanism, the founder effect, does not account for the wholesale destruction of all parent species. Remember, each member of the population not blessed with the latest helpful phenotypic variation must become extinct, exterminated by some extreme and unusual environmental pressure (like those in Futuyama’s examples), otherwise there would be no reason why they should not still be among us today.

Gregg has suggested that the daughter species may eventually become that severe and unusual environmental pressure. That sounds reasonable enough to account for some cases, but surely not all cases, particularly where allopatric speciation is involved.

Rufus: “You want theory? Please see the 50+ year old Constant Viability Selection Model. Tell me where that misses minor selection.”

Evolskeptic: I must refer you to my above comments concerning homework assignments.

Rufus: “If you have any problems with flaming, please PM me or another mod or an admin.”

Evolskeptic: Thanks, but flamers are just ignored publicly, and prayed for privately.

Jack the Bodiless: “Darwin realized just how much death there was in the world, even under ‘benign’ conditions. Almost every species produces far more offpring than are needed to maintain a stable population.”

Evolskeptic: When has a hominid species become so overpopulated and the struggle for scarce resources so intense that even the slightest advantageous phenotypic variation would necessarily be selected for and passed down to eventually completely transform descendant populations? How many times has that happened in the past four million years?

Btw, have you ever thought of joining a health club?

McDarwin: “Evolskeptic, do you believe that evolution can explain any of the patterns we see in life around us?”

Evolskeptic: Absolutely. It is a scientific fact that natural selection acting upon genotypically-based, phenotypic variation can and has caused raciation and speciation. Of course that scientific fact is of no major scientific/philosophical/theological importance.

The real question is whether or not a mechanism capable of modifying an existing organism to some limited degree is responsible for the creation of that organism in the first place. Evolutionists believe the mechanism must be responsible, because there philosophy (atheism/deism) permits no other candidate to do the creating. Creationists, on the other hand, do not conduct their investigation of the empirical evidence burdened with that philosophical presupposition, and are therefore able to consider other possible explanations (i.e., ID).

Clutch: “Still embarrassing yourself with this stuff? All this time passes, but it's the same mined quotes, intellectual dishonesty, and immunity to shame.”

Evolskeptic: Whenever I read the agonized blubberings of a miserable atheist like you Clutch I know I’m doing something right. Thanks for the encouragement!

Clutch: “Maybe folks here can have a look for themselves...
Evolution's best kept secret -- Aug, 2001”

Evolskeptic: Why should they? Isn’t a fact that everyone who is posting here now was also posting here sixteen moths ago? (For those few of you who weren’t, by all means, go have a look and see how badly Clutch and friends took it in the groin back then! )

Clutch: “I especially like the vague racist anxieties in the worry over whether ‘a single gifted Caucasian might actually be able to out-reproduce an entire race of Negroes.’ Well, I suppose you would need powerful fears of some sort, to motivate your dishonesty and viciousness.”

Evolskeptic: I vaguely remember assigning you and a couple of other, ignorant, hateful flamers like Pangloss to my cyber trash bin. Back you all go in it--permanently.

Dr Rick

That's a rough description of evolution except that the term "raciation" is a bit strange; I can't find it in my dictionary or biology books.

<strong> That's abiogenesis, not evolution.

<strong> Evolution explains the diversity of life, not its origins. Evolution does not explain nor attempt to explain abiogenesis. Furthermore, many theists, including very recently those controlling the Vatican, have acknowledged evolution as fundamentally correct even though they still consider their god the ultimate creator of all things.

One can be a theist and accept the fact of evolution.

<strong> Creationism requires faith because there is no scientific evidence to support creationism. Look at your own arguments; you're not providing evidence in favor of creation but instead are just attacking evolution and building a strawman argument with abiogenesis. This is all creationists can do because there is no science to back-up their faith. You have provided no evidence here to support creation, and you won't, because there is none.

Rick

[ December 23, 2002: Message edited by: Dr Rick ]</p>

Wyz_sub10

This has what to do with evolution and the OP?

So I guess you won't accept flames, but will send them out?

BTW....morality is never objective, and if that's something you're ever keen on discussing, I'll see you in the Morality forum.

Daggah

I'd probably think that too if I had just attempted to make a point to a bunch of philosophers and ended up having them laugh at me. That's what happened to Paul.

So, Evolskeptic, because Paul was a dumbass, wisdom becomes folly?

Right.

Daggah

Then in that case, there isn't any such thing as a small selection pressure. They're all extreme.

How willing are you? What evidence for evolution would you find convincing?

Also, don't you think your behavior here is a bit contradictory? You say you won't respond to flames, but you start your post with a flame of everyone here. There's a word for this. It's "hypocrite."