Posted on 10/12/2005 11:25:04 AM PDT by 11th Commandment
With chance as its mechanism, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly. Yet increasing examples of biological convergence demonstrate such repetitions....
(Excerpt) Read more at reasons.org ...
After the breastfeeding battle yesterday, I don't think I'm up for this just yet.
> With chance as its mechanism, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly.
Wow. A demonstration of complete, absolute and massively obvious wrongness in the *first* sentence!
stuck on dumb from sentence one. Evolution does NOT produce "the same" outcome repeatedly. You know this, I know this.
Howzabout one of you Big Dogs explaining how "convergent evolution describes how random mutation and selection pressures produce similar physical configurations and features favored by similar environmental conditions" does not equate to "evolution... produces the SAME outcome repeatedly" to the steadfastly anti-cogniscenti?
Junior, for your catalog ...
I've GOT that poster hanging on my office wall.
That first sentence may be the most wrong-headed ill-informed piece of nonsensical claptrap I've read since the Democratic Party Platform. The fact that different species can occupy similar niches shows the power of selective pressure. If ID were true, you'd have the SAME species in different niches.
LOL - maybe I should have phrased that differently.
"With chance as its mechanism, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly. Yet increasing examples of biological convergence demonstrate such repetitions...."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Have you never heard the phrase "form follows function?"
"See links at the bottom the article. . ."
We need the blog pimp graphic.
appropos of nothing,
"ne laissez pas la guerre detruire l'univers des enfants"
bite me, Froggy... I *want* the Smurfs to be wiped off the face of "the universe of children"!
VISUALIZE 101 ANNOYING SMURFY VOICES CRYING IN UNISON:
"La LAAAA La la la la... oh [bleep!] Gargamel has a FLAMETHROWEEEEEAAAAAAARRRRRGH!"
I'm quite unfamiliar with the issue of poison in tree frogs, but convergence is one of the strongest arguments IN SUPPORT of evolution.
Frequently, two very distinctly different lineages will, under similar circumstances, create generate appearing species. Granted, God can certainly do anything he wants, but it would seem odd for two species to have superficial similarities, yet demonstrate less obvious relationships to very separate organisms.
The theory of phylogenesis by natural selection (commonly called "evolution"), on the other hand, posits that he form of an animal is a product of its adaptation to its environment. So, two dissimilar organisms, faced with similar environmental pressures, would adapt in similar ways, while retaining significant inconsistencies which would be difficult to explain through "simultaneous phylogenesis." (i.e., the notion that saber-toothed tigers and placental tigers both were created on the first day.)
Actually, I read the article about the frog poisons that was linked to (or the abstract of it anyway). Far from being confounded by the convergent evolution, the article actually states that the mystery of it was solved:
Two fairly distantly related species of frogs both developed the same poisonous excretion. In one case, it was known that the frog got the poison from eating poisonous ants, but it hadn't been known that the other frog ate those ants. The article is about how the authors demonstrated that the other species of frog ate the same ants.
Really... this does not disprove evolution; it merely demonstrates the stupid assertions that will be accepted among some anti-evolution people.
Smurfs, OK. But Barney first.
...and it doesn't. Instead, it produces *SIMILAR* outcomes repeatedly. Not "the same".
Thank you for confirming that the predictions of evolutionary biology do indeed match what is found in nature.
For example, birds, bats, and pteradons all have wings with many *similar* features (driven by the demands of function), BUT they are fundamentally different in their particulars. They are in no way "the same" structurally or in detail.
Different bones are used in significantly different roles in all three wings, for example. In birds, the bones are used only at the leading edge of the wing (and that not even for its entire length), whereas in bats four long "fingers" are used to stretch separate flaps of skin through the spread of the wing (and even the back legs are involved in forming the wing), whereas in pteradons one long, stout finger is extended in an arc out to the end of the wing in order to support one continuous flap of skin, rather like a strung bow.
For another, birds use feathers as their aerodynamic surface, bats and pteradons use stretched skin. The muscular arrangement powering the wings are different, as are the skeletal attachment points and joints. And so on. For some excellent graphics on the significant differences in the three wing types, see: Vertebrate Flight: The three solutions to flight
And of course, the wings of flying insects and flying fish are even more diffrent still.
For another example, the "bills" of the duck and the platypus look superficially quite similar -- but they are EXTREMELY different in all their details and structure. Similar functional requirements (mucking through shallow pond bottoms for food) led to similar form, albeit in *different* ways.
The same goes for various biochemical solutions to similar biological requirements.
Again and again this pattern is repeated -- evolution produces SIMILAR structures or biochemical solutions for the same (or sufficiently similar) functional needs. But not the SAME. And the manner in which similar (convergent) evolutionary solutions differ can be traced to the configuration of each lineages ancestors. In other words, *how* they differ is explained well by evolution as well as the manner in which they are similar.
You're right -- evolution would *not* be expected to produce the exact *same* results in separate lineages. And indeed, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE FIND IN NATURE. Different lineages do *NOT* have the exact same independently acquired systems. When they do have similar systems, they are implement *differently*. Thank you for confirming the predictions of evolution.
Evolution 1, anti-evolution 0. Actually it's more like evolution 38,972,382, anti-evolution 0, because there are countless examples of evolutionary confirmation of this sort (like thousands of good examples of similar-but-different convergence, as well as vast numbers of other findings consistent with evolutionary predictions), in opposition to the repeated failures of the anti-evolutionists to produce an actual "problem" for evolution.
[Thunderous applause!]
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