Researchers Trace Evolution to Relatively Simple Genetic Changes

Howard Hughes Medical Institute ^ | 25 Narcg 2005 | Staff

[blueblazes]

But the child is still a child. I don't understand why you folks have so much difficulty with understand that a small dog is still a DOG, and a mutated child is still a CHILD. It has not evolved into a different SPECIES.

[orionblamblam]

> I have written repeatedly that the theory of evolution is an exercise in...IMAGINATION.

QAll science is based on the ability to imagine. That's the first step in producing a hypothesis. Sadly, too many people either cannot imagine, and thus stick with the dogmas that were pounded into them, or they cannot constrain their imagination within reality, and become New Agey goofballs. Science lies in between.

> It is in fact, ANTI-science

Wrong. Imagination is vital to science. Without it, no progress is possible.

[orionblamblam]

> a small dog is still a DOG, and a mutated child is still a CHILD. It has not evolved into a different SPECIES.

Not yet...

[Dimensio]

Evolution is just one more destructive manifestation of man's vain attempt to rationalize existence apart from God

To which "God", out of the thousands of deity-constructs acknowledged and worshipped throughout human history, do you refer and why do you seem to think that evolution is an attempt to single out just one of them?

[From many - one.]

Today a child. Tomorrow a child. The next day a child....
So, where does the adult come from?

[blueblazes]

I don't know. My problem is that we have no proof of what those things are. Just because something "looks" like something else does not mean that one thing came before or after the other or that they are related. All it means - literally - is that one thing "looks" like another or that they have traits on common. The only way that evolution might be proven is to show the process in action, which we have not been able to do. If evolution is an ongoing process, then at some point within our recorded history, some species somewhere should be recorded as having mutated into another completely different species - if not in one pass then at least over a few generations. There is no such record that I am aware of. So as far as I can tell, evolution, to whatever extent it exists, is not a regular, on-going process.

Don't be taken in by assumptions. Because one thing looks like or has traits in common with another, does not mean they are related or have any common ancestor.

My problem with evolution in a nutshell is that its adherents refuse to recognize that it is a belief system which they stick to with a fervor which prevents the possibility of conceiving error or of amending a belief or changing it completely. I remember how doctors and scientists fought so long and hard against the simple process of doctors washing their hands after examining corpses and before delivering babies. That was a major revolution in hygiene which many members of the medical profession fought ardently. It went against their "belief" system. I have no tolerance for belief systems in science. Theories are fine, but subject to change always until there is physical proof.

[blueblazes]

from a human. a human is a human is a human. a child is not a different species from an adult and a small dog is not a different species from a large one.

[blueblazes]

Imagination is NOT science. It is helpful to science certainly but imagination is equally useful in poetry, art, sculpture or even cooking. Science is based on proof, not on imagination. You cannot postulate an entire theory of creation on imagination and call it science. That is both ridiculous and factually incorrect.

[Dan Evans]

The problem with evolution is that it is a very broad theory based on - as another poster originally put it..imagination.

Most theories are like that. You use your imagination to try to explain the facts. The theory of evolution has plenty of facts, but not all of all the facts. And again, most theories are like that.

[blueblazes]

I have to go, folks, so I'll see you all later. Just so you don't think I'm ducking out on the debate, lol.

[EternalVigilance]

To which "God", out of the thousands of deity-constructs acknowledged and worshipped throughout human history, do you refer and why do you seem to think that evolution is an attempt to single out just one of them?

There is only one God.

[dartuser]

Your missing the point. Evolution predicts that its own processes occur so slowly, that you wont find any evidence for the evolution. Rather than admit that no one observed this species turning into that species, its easier to arrange some similar looking fossils into perceived evolutionary order and say "There, that looks good ... we have a series." Slap the ole' good science seal of approval and you have your airtight "proof."

Its like taking a tangerine, an orange, and a grapefruit and putting them in size order and claiming evolution has occured.

[blueblazes]

Imagination is NOT science. Science is ONLY demonstrable proof - a result that can be reproduced or predicted. Otherwise psychics would be our greatest scientists.

[blueblazes]

A shark is a shark is a shark. Those are not different species. They are still SHARKS, lol. Send me a flare when a shark turns into a ring tailed baboon.

[orionblamblam]

> Those are not different species.

Yeah, good one! And humans and chimps are the same species (a primate is a primate is a primate)! And housecats and tigers and puma are the same species! And hawks and pigeons and albatrosseses are the same species!

Biology class with you as teacher would take, what... fiften, twenty minutes?

[VadeRetro]

As for the common ancestor of cats and dogs - what would that be and what is your "proof"?

If I tell you what it is will you stop trying to beat science over the head with how little of it you personally know or understand? Here's a web page describing that when you go back down the tree of life following the carnivore branch in the fossil record to where you don't see cats or dogs or bears or weasels or civets or raccoons anymore, you get to a thing called a miacid. This not only is the common ancestor of the later diversified forms, but it looks surprisingly like the last common ancestor (called a condylarth) of the ungulates (horses, deer, etc.).

Figure 10. Comparison of skulls of the early ungulates (condylarths) and carnivores. (A) The condylarth Phenacodus possessed large canines as well as cheek teeth partially adapted for herbivory. (B) The carnivore-like condylarth Mesonyx. The early Eocene creodonts (C) Oxyaena and (D) Sinopa were primitive carnivores apparently unrelated to any modern forms. (E) The Eocene Vulpavus is a representative of the miacids which probably was ancestral to all living carnivore groups. (From Vertebrate Paleontology by Alfred Sherwood Romer published by The University of Chicago Press, copyright © 1945, 1966 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This material may be used and shared with the fair-use provisions of US copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires both the consent of the authors and the University of Chicago Press.)

This similarity as one looks back in time between carnivores and ungulates is a prediction of evolution. Being mammals, these groups also have a common ancestor. The fossil record indeed shows this.

We see this convergence in case after case. As you trace birds and dinosaurs back, they grow together until there are specimens whose classification is controversial. The same thing happens with mammals themselves, where they branch from reptiles. That's what evolution says we should find and we do.

[orionblamblam]

> Science is based on proof, not on imagination.

Without the imagination, the proof would not only never be found, it'd never be sought. Hmmm... rather like Creationism...

[orionblamblam]

> There is only one God.

...

... and Muhammad is his prophet.

[Modernman]

As for the future, if evolution is an ongoing process, some species should have been spotted in the process of changing from one species to another by now

Dogs and wolves are in the process of speciating far enough apart so as to be unable to interbreed. Subspecies of dogs also appear to be in the process of speciating to a degree so as to make interbreeding impossible.

[VadeRetro]

And too often seeing the same students come back again and again.

But here they aren't using the same names anymore. That means you can play "Guess which banned militant idiot THAT clueless noob is?"