Valentine Pontifex

You can't get around that you used the quote. Furthermore, you still have not answered the question. Was that quote a cut and paste, and if so where was it cut-and-pasted from?

unworthyone

Oh I'm sorry it comes from:

Daniel Brooks, as quoted by Roger Lewin, “A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity,” Science, Vol. 217, 24 September 1982, p. 1240

unworthyone

Automaton: I'm still waiting for the probability of the evolution of the eye though.

Automaton

Then why do you so frequently insist on ignoring the topic at hand (that you yourself raised) and going off on unrelated tangents, rather than answering the posts?
This has absolutely nothing to do with the points I raised. You said that the plants could have been closely related by chance. I showed that this was not so. So instead of talking about the Spartina speciation events, you bring up the tired, well-beaten horse of the creationist "probability" arguments. I'm not even going to bother to answer this until you respond to my actual post.

Valentine Pontifex

This sort of argument is addressed by the following web site.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html</a>
There are at least two interpretations to this.

1) What is the probability that the exact eye we have would have evolved.

The answer to this is vanishingly small. That is for the same reason that the probablity you would be born is vanishingly small.

2) What is the probablility that an eye (any kind of eye) could have evolved.

The answer for this is very likely. Indeed a eye is not all that hard of a thing to evolve and scientists has a fairly reasonable understanding of how it happened. Not all the details are known but the outline is reasonable and well supported by evidence.

Actually, Darwin was able to deal with the eye well over a century ago. Creationists have this nasty habit of looking at "the" [whatever feature] and doubting it could have evolved. Often great insight of how it could have come about comes from looking at many types of organisms. Darwin noted that one could find in the animal kingdom numerous gradations between no eye and the eyes we have. Today we have know even more the steps. There is no need for "half an eye." This is because the intermediate steps are all functional since there are creatures with eyes very similiar to what our ancestors must of had if evolution is true and they get alone just fine.

unworthyone

I have no response and agree with your answer (I don't think its likely either it is mere speculation), but am I required to start a new thread for every idea I have? I merely want to compare the probabilities of what you stated with the probability of living things evolving from non-living material. Just as a comparison for me.

unworthyone

But I'm wanting to compare the probabilities that we have known thus far. I agree scientists may not think its impossible, but what is the possibilty? Do you have the answer? Yes or no? I don't think its fair to use probabilities in one aspect and not in another so I need to know.

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: unworthyone ]</p>

copernicus

That's a very good question to ask. Richard Dawkins wrote an entire book on the subject: The Blind Watchmaker. This book is not very technical, and it goes into great detail about how the eye could have evolved naturally--without any so-called "intelligent designer". This book was written to answer precisely the questions that most interest you. You don't even have to buy it. It should be available to you from your local library. I hope that you give it a shot, rather than rely on an internet bulletin board, for detailed answers to your questions.

unworthyone

How it happened is not what I'm concerned with. What is the probability of it happening?

Automaton

Fair enough. But does this mean you agree that this was an observed speciation event, and thus speciation (or macroevolution), can occur? Or are you just sick of arguing this point and want to move onto something else?