You and I...we need to chat...
; )
Posted on 12/04/2007 10:09:39 PM PST by Kurt Evans
“The extant life forms wouldn’t like to hear that.”
The liberal ones wouldn’t.
“I was mentioning peacocks with the genetics to grow long tail-feathers, as opposed to those that could grow shorter ones. I wasn’t talking about the origin of the tail-feathers themselves.”
The question “babygene” asked was, “What makes you think that the male peacock got it’s tail feathers by evolving?” Are you saying you don’t think the male peacock got it’s tail feathers by evolving?
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Irrelevant to what was being discussed.
Until a better, more convincing argument arises against evolution, I'll continue to believe that it is the explanation nearest to the truth.
oh be quite
You and I...we need to chat...
; )
Congratulations -- since no one has suggested that viruses originated "by chance", you've just modeled the wrong thing, and thus your resulting number is totally pointless and irrelevant to the issue being discussed. How proud you must be.
Hint: All of the idiotic creationist calculations showing that a virus or a cell or a specific exact protein would be highly unlikely to spontaneously self-assemble in its present form entirely out of raw ingredients in a single trial of randomly ordered molecules don't actually pose a problem for evolution, they just reveal the cartoonish simplicity of creatoinist misunderstandings about biological origins.
If you guys ever get around to actually discussing actual biological scenarios, do feel free to try again. Until then, you're just making fools of yourselves.
Hint: Probability of Abiogenesis FAQs
Read that until your grasp of the topic begins to exceed that of a slow first-grader, then perhaps you'll finally have something of value to add to the discussion.
I don’t have the exact number, but it was something on the order of 10 to the 32 power to 1 for the off chance of life coming about by accident.
Show your math. We'll wait. Ten bucks says I can find five serious errors in it which invalidate it as a realistic model of abiogenesis. I've seen hundreds of other attempts, and they were all crap, for the reasons given in the above link.
The mathematician even gave evo’s a head start and said, OK lets assume the first few seconds a combo came about that created life. There still wasn’t enough time to mutate that life into anything else before now.
Show your math. This should be highly amusing. It's always funny watching people ignorant of real biology attempt to "disprove" it...
To assume that a whale crawled out of the water and became a cow is mathematically impossible in the billions of years assumed by evo’s.
...because...? You sort of "forgot" to show your work. We'll wait. Most likely we'll wait a *really* long time for you to back up your BS, like forever. In my long experience, I've found that waiting for an anti-evolution loudmouth to actually support his claims is likely to take billions of years as well.
Ergo, the new postulation that we had “hopeful monsters”. That is where a lizard lays an egg and a bird pops out.
No, it isn't. Thanks for telling a blatant lie about what evolutionary biology actually states. I don't care if it's your lie or you're just mindlessly parroting someone else's lie -- you bear the responsibility for spreading complete bulls**t, and I want to know whether you're going to do the honorable thing and apologize for telling your fellow FReepers a big fat lie. Are you adult enough to do that?
Kind of a stretch, even for evo’s.
The only stretch here is the kind required swallow the size of the whopper you're attempting to feed us.
Come back when you've got more to contribute than blatantly false assertions and claims of "irrefutable" mathematical proof when you're unable to provide even a single calculation.
Typical.
Well, sure, when you read outright lies like that from creationist sources, and make the mistake of believing them, you might end up questioning evolutionary biology. But then, people who read Al Gore's hysterical crap might begin to question the burning of fossil fuels. Shrug.
Real science from real science journals, however (not creationist propaganda pieces), has confirmed the validity of evolutionary biology a vast number of times in dozens of multiply independent cross-confirming ways, through literally millions of observations involving a vast number of experiments, field studies, and mountains of evidence, and evolutionary biology has passed huge numbers of potential falsification tests with flying colors. The creationists sort of "forget" to talk about that. Instead they just like to grossly misrepresent the truth on a regular basis.
The underlying genetic mechanism of evolution is random mutation,
...and replication and selection, among other interacting mechanisms...
and specifically mutation that is beneficial to life.
Actually, a lot of signficant evolutionary change is due to neutral mutations.
Biology textbooks in theory present positive and negative mutations to students as though these were commonplace and roughly equal in number.
No, they don't, actually. Nor is that necessary. Negative mutations can be overwhelmingly more common than positive mutations, and evoluation still proceeds, because the positive mutations get selected and accumulated over time, while the negative mutations get weeded out.
However, these books fail to inform students that unequivocally positive mutations are unknown to genetics, since they have never been observed...
...because that's a complete load of creationist crap. Textbooks aren't in the habit of repeating creationist canards. Perhaps the author would like to actually learn something on the topic for a change before he spouts more horse manure:
Directed evolution of biosynthetic pathways. Recruitment of cysteine thioethers for constructing the cell wall of Escherichia coli...and so on. How many more hundreds of papers would you like to see?Molecular evolution of an arsenate detoxification pathway by DNA shuffling
The evolutionary origin of complex features
Bacterial evolution and the cost of antibiotic resistance
Mild environmental stress elicits mutations affecting fitness in Chlamydomonas
The emergence and maintenance of diversity: insights from experimental bacterial populations
Pleiotropic effects of beneficial mutations in Escherichia coli
The Rate of Compensatory Mutation in the DNA Bacteriophage X174
Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug
Spontaneous mutations in diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae: more beneficial than expected
Examples of Beneficial Mutations and Natural Selection
Spontaneous mutations in diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae: more beneficial than expected
Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug
Punctuated evolution caused by selection of rare beneficial mutations.
PLEIOTROPIC EFFECTS OF BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS IN ESCHERICHIA COLI
The Distribution of Fitness Effects Among Beneficial Mutations
In humans there is one equivocally beneficial mutation, out of 4,000 devastating mutations: sickle cell anemia...
Yawn -- another lie. There's more than "one", Chuckles. See above, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Could this be a limited example of evolutionary progress? Not really. When the mutant sickle gene is latent (sickling isn't occurring), there is a survival advantage in areas with malaria. But whenever sickling occurs, in the heterozygote or the homozygote, it obstructs blood vessels and causes pain and death to organs... Sickling is always negative when it occurs, so it remains a very poor example of evolution, and in fact refutes it.
Oh, puh-lease... First, the Sickle Cell allele is interesting to biologists because unlike a lot of mutations, it's not just positive or negative, it's both very good and very bad, depending on circumstances (both genetic and environmental). As a result, its population dynamics have some interesting quirks, which is why it doesn't flush out of the population in short order like a purely negative allele would. Second, the author's an idiot for claiming that Sickle Cell anemia "refutes" or is a "poor example" of evolution, because in fact evolution perfectly explains why the Sickle Cell allele persists in certain populations -- the percentage of the SC allele in varous populations exactly matches the pattern predicted by natural selection, and is a confirmation of natural selection's action.
Evolution theorists have yet to demonstrate the unequivocally positive nature of a single mutation...
Ooh, another bald-faced lie (see above). Outright lies about science from a creationist source? Who'da thunk it?
Observational (i.e., scientific) evidence, as seen in medical research every day, leads one to be skeptical of the claims of evolutionary biology.
...only if one doesn't understand evolutionary biology very well, as this author apparently doesn't, given how many false claims about it he has made so far.
How does science explain that mythical first bacterial cell three billion years ago?
Like this:
Origin of Life and Cells
- +Good intro: Lies, Damned lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations
- +Purdue Study Breathes New Life Into Question Of How Life Began - self-replicating peptides
- + Ammonia From The Earth's Deep Oceans A Key Step In The Search For Life's Origins
- + Whitehead Study Supports Existence Of Ancient RNA World Helps Provide Insight Into Early Evolution Of Life
- + Yale Scientists Recreate Molecular Fossils Now Extinct That May Have Existed At The Beginning Of Life
- +A whole old world - new evidence for "The RNA World"
- The path from the RNA world.
- Relics from the RNA world.
- A supersymmetric model for the evolution of the genetic code.
- The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote.
- + Kick-start for life on earth
- The Beginnings of Life on Earth by Christian de Duve
- +Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept? : Addenda to Review of David Foster's The Philosophical Scientists by Richard C. Carrier.
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Ammonia From The Earth's Deep Oceans A Key Step In The Search For Life's Origins
A supersymmetric model for the evolution of the genetic code.
The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote.
On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells William Martin and Michael J. RussellAnd:Abstract: All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life’s most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The attributes unique to eukaryotes are viewed as inventions specific to their lineage. The origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system and nuclear membrane are suggested to be the fortuitous result of the expression of genes for eubacterial membrane lipid synthesis by an archaebacterial genetic apparatus in a compartment that was not fully prepared to accommodate such compounds, resulting in vesicles of eubacterial lipids that accumulated in the cytosol around their site of synthesis. Under these premises, the most ancient divide in the living world is that between eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet the steepest evolutionary grade is that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front M. J. RUSSELL & A. J. HALL: Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of GlasgowAnd:Abstract: Here we argue that life emerged on Earth from a redox and pH front at c. 4.2 Ga. This front occurred where hot (c. 150)C), extremely reduced, alkaline, bisulphide-bearing, submarine seepage waters interfaced with the acid, warm (c. 90)C), iron-bearing Hadean ocean. The low pH of the ocean was imparted by the ten bars of CO2 considered to dominate the Hadean atmosphere/hydrosphere. Disequilibrium between the two solutions was maintained by the spontaneous precipitation of a colloidal FeS membrane. Iron monosulphide bubbles comprising this membrane were inflated by the hydrothermal solution upon sulphide mounds at the seepage sites. Our hypothesis is that the FeS membrane, laced with nickel, acted as a semipermeable catalytic boundary between the two fluids, encouraging synthesis of organic anions by hydrogenation and carboxylation of hydrothermal organic primers. The ocean provided carbonate, phosphate, iron, nickel and protons; the hydrothermal solution was the source of ammonia, acetate, HS", H2 and tungsten, as well as minor concentrations of organic sulphides and perhaps cyanide and acetaldehyde. The mean redox potential (ÄEh) across the membrane, with the energy to drive synthesis, would have approximated to 300 millivolts. The generation of organic anions would have led to an increase in osmotic pressure within the FeS bubbles. Thus osmotic pressure could take over from hydraulic pressure as the driving force for distension, budding and reproduction of the bubbles. Condensation of the organic molecules to polymers, particularly organic sulphides, was driven by pyrophosphate hydrolysis. Regeneration of pyrophosphate from the monophosphate in the membrane was facilitated by protons contributed from the Hadean ocean. This was the first use by a metabolizing system of protonmotive force (driven by natural ÄpH) which also would have amounted to c. 300 millivolts. Protonmotive force is the universal energy transduction mechanism of life. Taken together with the redox potential across the membrane, the total electrochemical and chemical energy available for protometabolism amounted to a continuous supply at more than half a volt. The role of the iron sulphide membrane in keeping the two solutions separated was appropriated by the newly synthesized organic sulphide polymers. This organic take-over of the membrane material led to the miniaturization of the metabolizing system. Information systems to govern replication could have developed penecontemporaneously in this same milieu. But iron, sulphur and phosphate, inorganic components of earliest life, continued to be involved in metabolism.
The Path from the RNA World Anthony M. Poole, Daniel C. Jeffares, David Penny: Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Massey UniversityThat's what real science looks like -- the astute reader will note how little hint of this kind of detail and research the anti-science creationist screeds impart.Abstract: We describe a sequential (step by step) Darwinian model for the evolution of life from the late stages of the RNA world through to the emergence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The starting point is our model, derived from current RNA activity, of the RNA world just prior to the advent of genetically-encoded protein synthesis. By focusing on the function of the protoribosome we develop a plausible model for the evolution of a protein-synthesizing ribosome from a high-fidelity RNA polymerase that incorporated triplets of oligonucleotides. With the standard assumption that during the evolution of enzymatic activity, catalysis is transferred from RNA M RNP M protein, the first proteins in the ``breakthrough organism'' (the first to have encoded protein synthesis) would be nonspecific chaperone-like proteins rather than catalytic. Moreover, because some RNA molecules that pre-date protein synthesis under this model now occur as introns in some of the very earliest proteins, the model predicts these particular introns are older than the exons surrounding them, the ``introns-first'' theory. Many features of the model for the genome organization in the final RNA world ribo-organism are more prevalent in the eukaryotic genome and we suggest that the prokaryotic genome organization (a single, circular genome with one center of replication) was derived from a ``eukaryotic-like'' genome organization (a fragmented linear genome with multiple centers of replication). The steps from the proposed ribo-organism RNA genome M eukaryotic-like DNA genome M prokaryotic-like DNA genome are all relatively straightforward, whereas the transition prokaryotic-like genome M eukaryotic-like genome appears impossible under a Darwinian mechanism of evolution, given the assumption of the transition RNA M RNP M protein. A likely molecular mechanism, ``plasmid transfer,'' is available for the origin of prokaryotic-type genomes from an eukaryotic-like architecture. Under this model prokaryotes are considered specialized and derived with reduced dependence on ssRNA biochemistry. A functional explanation is that prokaryote ancestors underwent selection for thermophily (high temperature) and/or for rapid reproduction (r selection) at least once in their history.
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Johnston WK, Unrau PJ, Lawrence MS, Glasner ME, Bartel DP.RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science. 2001 May 18;292(5520):1319-25.
Ferris JP. (1999 Jun). Prebiotic synthesis on minerals: bridging the prebiotic and RNA worlds. Biol Bull , 196, 311-4.
Levy M, and Miller SL. (1999 Jun). The prebiotic synthesis of modified purines and their potential role in the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 48, 631-7.
Unrau PJ, and Bartel DP. (1998 Sep 17). RNA-catalysed nucleotide synthesis [see comments] Nature , 395, 260-3.
Roth A, and Breaker RR. (1998 May 26). An amino acid as a cofactor for a catalytic polynucleotide [In Process Citation] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 95, 6027-31.
Jeffares DC, Poole AM, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). Relics from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 18-36.
Poole AM, Jeffares DC, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). The path from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 1-17.
Wiegand TW, Janssen RC, and Eaton BE. (1997 Sep). Selection of RNA amide synthases. Chem Biol , 4, 675-83.
Di Giulio M. (1997 Dec). On the RNA world: evidence in favor of an early ribonucleopeptide world. J Mol Evol , 45, 571-8.
Hager AJ, and Szostak JW. (1997 Aug). Isolation of novel ribozymes that ligate AMP-activated RNA substrates. Chem Biol , 4, 607-17.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1997 Aug). Surprising fidelity of template-directed chemical ligation of oligonucleotides [In Process Citation] Chem Biol , 4, 595-605.
Lohse PA, and Szostak JW. (1996 May 30). Ribozyme-catalysed amino-acid transfer reactions. Nature , 381, 442-4.
Lazcano A, and Miller SL. (1996 Jun 14). The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre- RNA world, and time. Cell , 85, 793-8.
Ertem G, and Ferris JP. (1996 Jan 18). Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature , 379, 238-40.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 May 5). Prebiotic synthesis of 5-substituted uracils: a bridge between the RNA world and the DNA-protein world [see comments] Science , 268, 702-5.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 Jun 29). An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil [published erratum appears in Nature 1995 Sep 21;377(6546):257] Nature , 375, 772-4.
Breaker RR, and Joyce GF. (1995 Jun). Self-incorporation of coenzymes by ribozymes. J Mol Evol , 40, 551-8.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1995 Dec). The search for missing links between self-replicating nucleic acids and the RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 25, 515-30.
Bohler C, Nielsen PE, and Orgel LE. (1995 Aug 17). Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides [see comments] Nature , 376, 578-81.
Connell GJ, and Christian EL. (1993 Dec). Utilization of cofactors expands metabolism in a new RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 291-7.
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Did it transform itself--by random mutations in the DNA--into all the "wondrous profusion" of life forms (one million species), and all their wondrous functional organs, over an imaginary time period?
Eventually, yes. That's what all the available evidence indicates.
The evidence says no.
Wow, *another* bald-faced lie from a creationist attacking science. And without a shred of support. What a surprise. Not.
Here's what the evidence actually says with regard to the history of life on Earth -- it's funny that this author seems entirely ignorant of it, but then I've come to expect that from the anti-evolution conspiracy kooks.
"One of evolution's best-kept secrets is that mutations don't work. They're not beneficial... One of the best ways to really combat the fortress of Darwinism is to allow people to wonder about it, to acquaint them with the controversy so that they know there is one." --Frank Peretti
Uh huh... Add Peretti to the list of folks who are either too ignorant to be aware of, or too dishonest not to lie about, the kind of research I've linked above, which is just the tiniest tip of the vast iceberg of real scientific findings on how evolution works in the real world (not the imaginary world the anti-evolution folks inhabit because they don't want to face what the reality actually is, so they just make crap up about how they think it "must" be...).
I've read vast amounts of material from all sides on this topic, including hundreds of textbooks and thousands of research papers, not to mention dozens of books by the anti-evolution folks and endless numbers of editorials like the one above, as well as done more experiments and mathematical analyses of evolutionary processes than I can count, and after over thirty years studying this topic from all sides, it's impossible to escape the conclusion that evolutionary biology is an overwhelmingly solidly grounded field of science, while the anti-evolution folks are entirely without a leg to stand on. (And yes, True Believers in "ID", I've read Behe's books too -- Behe falls on his face when he tries to construct an argument, and can't even get the easy stuff right.) Once you take away the anti-evolutionists' fallacies, false claims born of ignorance, hand-waving appeals to emotion, and outright lies, all they have left is their outrage over the fact that the universe provides overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work the way they'd like to think it does, so they want to shoot the messengers (the real scientists).
It’s like panning for gold... even if most of what is found is sand, the gold is still selected for.
Oh, and here’s a nice, beneficial mutation for you, in humans:
Science in the News Weekly
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/Newsletter?memberid=null&issueid=4621
scroll down to “Flipped”
An inversion is one of many types of mutation. This particular one seems to confer both increased fertility and
longevity.
Ichneumon, maybe you’d like to add this to your list.
Now, with that out of the way, the main question that I have found difficult to answer deals with a type of African Orchid called Disa bivalvata. That orchid, and some other types of orchid as well, reproduce solely by tricking insects (male insects) into mating with them. The way Bivalvata does it is by exuding the same pheromone that the female insect would, and then having the male come and try to (for lack of a better word) hump it. By the time the male knows it has been duped, pollen has collected on it (which will be deposited on another Bivalvata when the insect is fooled again). I know of another orchid that does the same thing, but I cannot recall its name (and even another that on top of mimicking the pheromone scent of the female, even has its stamens shaped to LOOK like the female). Oh ...remembered the other flower ...it is Disa atricapilla, but I cannot recall the one that looks like the female.
Anyways, this is my question:
HOW did those 2 orchids (and the other one I cannot recall) get such traits? They seem to be extremely specific, focused on one particular insect (pheromones are not exactly universal), and in the case of one of the flowers even has the stamen (the male parts of the flower) looking like the female insect. How is that possible?
I'd appreciate any answer.
As for the insect going after insect-shaped appendages on plants, one really can’t point out what followed what. The variables being more than just a few, could it be possible that the insects initially used chemicals that plants emitted, to locate food sources? Plants could have served as common points of meeting, thus improving the insect’s chances of mating, simply because more insects gathered around these plants whose smell the insects used initially, to locate.
Plants could have had better chances of reproduction, by chanced mutations that helped it attract more insects. Initially, it could have just been a blob of tissue that matched the colour of the insect in question. Further mutations that brought the insect-attracting tissue more similarities and details would have further improved the plant’s chances of reproduction, and so on. Generations of natural trickery could have lead to the specialisation in the structures and mechanisms of both parties. Here, it’s not as if the insect has been fooled alone. The plant is also rewarding the insect by emitting the pheremones that attracted other insects, giving rise to a branching of mutual interests.
Insects have two identifiable vectors improving their chances of reproduction in this case. One, the male attracting the female. Two, both the male and the female, being attracted to the food-source, which served the secondary purpose of providing a common point for meeting, and mating. A male insect could have initially just used the chemicals emitted by the plant, to increase the range that the chemicals were detectable by other insects of the same species. This could have served it the purpose of improving the frequency of opportunities to mate, by attracting other fellow insects, and also, at the same time, benefitted the plant, by bringing more insects to the original source of the chemical in question (like a WiFi repeater, in modern parlance). This could have mutually benefitted both the plant and the insect, through the initiation of a ‘virtuous’ cycle: More reproduction of plants giving rise to greater food source for the insects, giving rise to an increase in the insect’s population, and thereby increasing the plant’s source of pollination, thus completing the cycle.
Specifically, both the plant and the insect could have used an originally not-so-specific chemical, or in other words, a simpler chemical compound, to attract one-another (and in the insect’s case, members of its own species). The insect could have undergone mutations in its scent-emitting tissues to mimick to a reasonable degree, the chemical emitted by the plant. Mutual forces of attraction and deception could have given rise more mutations and elimination of the mutations not favourable to mutual benefit, leading to the structures in both the plant, and the insect taking parallel paths towards specialisation. A biological “arms race”, if you will.
That original chemical-emitting tissue on the plant could have undergone mutations to give it more specificity with regard to the kind of insects it attracted. This specificity could have been followed by the evolutionary mechanisms of the insect, in order for it to not be left behind. Such paired evolutionary pressures seem to force changes at twice the rate.
Like I mentioned in the beginning, the number of variables at play are huge. Just because one variable cannot be pinpointed as the source of a change, it shouldn’t pursuade us to add mystery element to the equation.
The above is my reasoning, and could be faulty.
Plus, an interesting excerpt here:
Bullshit creationist strawman. Evolution is mutation PLUS natural selection---not mutation alone. Mutation is "value neutral" with some harmful and some beneficial. Those with the harmful mutations DIE SOONER and have less offspring and those with beneficial mutations LIVE LONGER and have more offspring.
Well, sure, when you read outright lies like that from evolutionary biology creationist sources, and make the mistake of believing them, you might end up questioning creationist sources.
Why should the state inflict one version of here-say over another?
“This leads to the ultimate idea that evolution, or mutations, needn’t necessarily be positive or negative. How it fits the species in question, depends on what use it provides the species, during the particular time the mutation arises. If stupidity is rewarded, it will become a positive trait. Evolution is not always progressive, in the conventional sense.”
Exactly. Many extinct species evolved into a specialized niche that later vanished. Whatever mutations that provided an advantage while the niche existed, were detrimental when it vanished.
As to “unequivocally positive mutations are unknown to genetics, since they have never been observed...”, well once we’ve had 10,000 years (or even 1,000) of scientific record perhaps things will look different. Evolution happens on very large time scales, so expecting to be there to observe an extremely rare event isn’t too reasonable. DNA analysis seems a pretty good way of tracing ancient mutations though.
Taking just one, mathematical modeling -- here is an article that suggests the oft-heard mathematical models "disproving" evolution are incorrect: Making Genetic Networks Operate Robustly: Unintelligent Non-design Suffices, by Professor Garrett Odell (online lecture).
If you want to look up information on this pheomenon on your own just enter the keyword “co-evolution” into google. There is a lot written that is understandable by the lay person.
As for orchids, they are sort of cuckoos, in that several species “cheat”... they’ll attract, but not feed, the male. Counter-cheating is also observed, where the insect gets the nectar, then chews its way out of the flower without performing the pollinating function. I’ll see if I can google it up for you.
The Theory of Evolution is based upon empirical research using the scientific method, Creationism is not. If you didn’t know that then you’re on the wrong thread. If you did know that and are being obstinate, you replied to the wrong post.
Here we go; two great articles on the co-evolution of orchids ad their pollinators:
Natural History Magazine —
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0305/0305_feature.html
Orchid Pollination
http://www.anu.edu.au/BoZo/orchid_pollination/
Then you say nobody has suggested viruses originated by chance, That's ridiculous. Every evo theory I've ever seen says ALL life has come by chance other than design. So you must be saying that bacteria happened by chance, but viruses were ID. So you are admitting God created viruses. Virus DNA is the simplest form of life, ergo it must have (by chance) happened first, mathematically that is.
You didn't refute any point I made, you just started telling me "How proud I must be" and attacking me instead of admitting that their hasn't been enough time( even taking the oldest timeliness any evo guesses) to evolve even the most basic life form.
We could argue all day about some worm changing into a snake, but the point is mutations happening at a blinding rate couldn't accidentally change anything in the amount of time we are given by evo's. You said show your math about 5 times here so I had to go look it up for you. It was done by Sir Fred Hoyle and a fellow with the name of Wickramasinghe. After actually looking it up, (I haven't read it in years), I was wrong on the numbers. It turns out to be 10 to the 280 power( yes, thats 280 zero's) to one for the chance of life happening by chance. That is effectively ZERO by any mathematical reason.
The reason I brought up the "hopeful monster theory" is that when evo's get in a corner, they have to come up with something, anything, different. It doesn't matter how ridiculous it is. All you have to do is watch FR for a year, and you will see headlines of, "Theory changes on age of such and such", or " New find changes everything". The same jokers here that would swear on their children's lives that "such and such" is the way things happened one day, are forced to change their religion almost daily.
Your religion is based on faith, but that faith has to have some reason to it, or you will be very disillusioned and angry( I already sense your anger), when you are PROVEN wrong. If it is mathematically impossible for evolution to have happened, then all the arguments about eye retina's and scales turning to feathers are mute. I can show you a magician and you may, after a while, decide this guy is for real. But if the tricks he does are impossible, he's either a magician doing tricks, or he is God. The same person that agrees that you can't get something from nothing( I assume you agree with Einstein), then you turn around and claim we got something from nothing. It's pointless, circular arguments.
Just as an exercise, think of any mutation in your lifetime that made a human better. Almost 100% of human mutations require immediate medical intervention to even keep the child alive. Being born with spina bifida doesn't make you a faster runner or a better hunter. If it wern't for advanced medical care today, most would die early.
I would suggest you start with reading "What is Creation Science" by Henry Morris. That is a good start for your de programing from the evo cult. If it can't happen mathematically, it's a religion, and you will be wrong time after time. There are dozens of books, written by real scientists, that dispute Darwin and other evo's. There is even a book that has compiled hundreds of anomalies that can't be explained by modern evo theory.( iron hammers in million year old coal chunks buried a mile underground, batteries that are millions of years old, etc.)This is where the "space visitor" crap comes in. Instead of questioning the age measurement, or the age of the earth, or maybe a whole civilization buried by a flood, they must have been brought by martians. There are a half dozen reason to question the evo theory, but we are required to believe space beings were visiting is the BEST theory.
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