Charles Darwin

Originally posted by Charles Darwin

The Introduction then ends up with this patronizing (mis) quote:

"Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can't believe it. You can't accept it. You don't like it. A little screen comes down and you don't listen anymore. I'm going to describe to you how Nature is - and if you don't like it, that's going to get in the way of your understanding it." �Feynman

Feynman was alluding to far more profound and bizarre theories in the world of QM.

Charles Darwin

Ahh, but who are we fooling? Allele frequencies change all the time. So what? You're not creating anything new. But bird's beak changes shape and size over a few years, and then goes back to the way it was when the environment changes back. Same bird. But since allele frequencies do change, therefore the giraffe came from the fish?

Charles Darwin

So you must like astrology too. Sure we don't know all the details, but so what?

Charles Darwin

CD wrote: How did evolution create the adaptation machine that produces microevolution that you now claim as evidence for your theory? And the same for the developmental programs?

No I don't expect a crash course. However, I also did not expect you to say that the elaborate adaptation machine is merely present in the initial conditions and therefore not a problem. Now who are we fooling?

Charles Darwin

You mean the story that a big cell ate up a little cell and forever after the little one was there, working away to produce all those ATPs via that convenient electron transport chain that just happened to be there, with its series of re-dox steps that just happened to be there, and the ATPase which just happened to be there? Well, you're right, I don't buy it. Aside from all this complexity, there is thorny little problem of organelles common to prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Doesn't quite fit the theory of endosymbiosis.

Oh, also, why is the possession of genetic material mysterious for an organelle?

Charles Darwin

It hardly seemed worthwhile. Did I accidentally stumble on the worst of it?

Oh really ...

I see, no problems huh? Echolocation and all that has all been explained then? Well evolution must be true.

I'm afraid I can't ; shucks, evolution must be true huh? Oh, by the way, one little question: why does that make evolution a scientific fact?

I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but there's a whole bunch we don't know about micro biology. So, no, I'm afraid I can't explain the presence of the telomeres in the middle of chromosome 2 in humans and apes.

Now, getting back to the question at hand, let's see ... How did evolution create all that? You think evolution created these chromosomes, even though you don't know how it could have done said task. Nor do you have the slightest idea of what function said design might serve.

If all else fails, bring on the creationists.

Good questions. I see that we are not talking about a "scientific" fact anymore, or a "scientific" theory. I respect your religious sentiments. I can see that for you, evolution must be a fact.

Charles Darwin

So much for science pursuing likely theories. With evolution, science becomes the pursuit of that which has not (or cannot) be proven wrong. No matter that evolution has no explanation for how life arose or how things like echolocation arose. It may not be likely, but it must be a fact.

Charles Darwin

I don't know. Do you need all the details to accept an idea? If yes, then how is it that you accept evolution?

Nothing, in principle. Perhaps by some magical process species transform themselves into other species. Now why does this make evolution a fact?

Far be it for me to falsify evolution. But on what grounds to these make evolution compelling?

Urvogel Reverie

This post smacks of significant misunderstandings in the modern methodology for phylogenetic reconstruction, in addition to aspects thereof including outgroup analysis and parsimony analysis. In addition, your claim that we are utterly in the dark as to how the genotype and phenotype interact, and in turn how normalizing selection interacts with the genotype are misleading, as we have learned a great deal about both of these subjects, as any review of, for instance, Maynard-Smith, Dawkins, or Mayr, would illustrate.

Urvogel Reverie

Charles Darwin

I don't say one big jump, nor do I say it cannot have evolved. I say it isn't likely. Also, the analogy with human technology suffers from the fact that human designers were involved.

Do you know how big the design space is which evolution had to randomly search through and hit upon, and test, this design? How many years were available, and what mutational rates would be required? I don't think we have a good handle on this, so this is really just speculation.