Posted on 08/17/2005 7:44:13 AM PDT by PApatriot1
Mustard grows wild. Cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower were bred from it.
So why then are fruitflies still fruitflies? Evolutionists need to prove that macro-evolution happens by replicating it in the lab with a short-lived organism, not demand that someone else prove that it cannot happen.
You're missing my point.
The current limitation on studying evolution is merely time. We haven't had enough of it. And if species change happened any faster than we've observed, then it would falsify current evolution theory because it happened too fast.
You admit evolution happens, but claim that it has limits. Ok. Demonstrate that evolution is self limiting.
That's a perfectly good hypothesis. Perhaps derived from religious belief, but whatever. It's a hypothesis.
So now you need to find out *why* evolution is limited. What is the DNA functionality that enables it.
This is the perfect opportunity for the Discovery Institute to step up to the plate. Put their money where their mouth is and do some real research (they won't, I think because creationists have been burned by failed research in the past and deep inside they know they're wrong).
Wonder just how many apes or monkey's have been hired by universities to teach biology -- obviously at least one.
I'm sure you will find some reason to reject this. Faith can make one blind.
By the way, a few paragraphs down it has some very good points agains Noahs flood story. Mainly that there would not have been a viable population of most of the species to have survived afterward. The post claims that species generally go extinct if they have less than 20 individuals, even with extreem help from humans. The most the Bible claims is 7 ea (or 2ea, depending on which verse). Also the human population would have been too small to have replaced itself by now. And there are no other contemporaneous recordings of the flood in Egyptian, Indus, or Chineese civilizations, which existed and had written histories at the time.
The Dummies Guide to ID (complete text) "Life is complicated and since we close our eyes to science something called ID must have created it."
And this is the way it actually happened (ignore those other myths):
At the beginning of the world it was covered in darkness. A chief, a chieftianess and son lived at Kungalas. Although the child was greatly loved, he died without cause. The whole tribe mourned each day beside the boy's lifeless body. One morning instead of her dead son the chieftainess witnessed the rising of a boy out of her son's body which burned brightly. She was overjoyed to see her son come back to life. This glowing boy grew large until his father began to call him a giant. Giant boy ate most of the tribe's food, so his father sent him over the sea to find more to eat. Giant boy flew inland and took with him a stone, a raven blanket and a dried bladder full of berries. He dropped the stone in the ocean and rested upon it. Each time he dropped a stone and rested he created a new rocky island. Giant Boy scattered the berries across the land and created a forest filled with fruit. He scattered the salmon roe and trout roe into the rivers to create an abundance of fish. From this day Giant Boy never lacked food in the new world.
Modern cabbage was bred from wild cabbage, known to the Romans.
Broccoli and cauliflower also came into human kitchens during roughly the same period, while mustard was known and cultivated centuries before.
What is apparently interesting about this genus is that it exhibits a property known as the Triangle of U - that all the varieties of the genus or family are reducible to three genomic species, of which they are all permutations.
In other words, they are three "species" or combinations thereof which are yet capable of easily interbreeding with one another and producing hybrids.
Yet macroevolutionary theory postulates that "species" are incapable of interbreeding and having fertile offspring.
It would seem that the Brassica genus demonstrates a postulate of the antimacroevolutionary movement - that living things are created according to their kinds or generes and that these kinds are stable in themselves.
Instead of a radical change over time into an enormous variety of incompatible species, the large and varied Brassica genus consists of three basic and highly compatible genomes.
Given than bovine excrement is a copious source of methane, methane is a useful alternative fuel, and gasoline is now over $2.50 a gallon, I hereby nominate creationists as the solution to the nation's energy crisis. Bovine excrement is also a non-depletable resource, since if we ever run out, a creationist can simply make up some other crock of the valuable substance, such as in the above.
It would seem that the Brassica genus demonstrates a postulate of the antimacroevolutionary movement - that living things are created according to their kinds or generes and that these kinds are stable in themselves.
...Which is why they allegedly are capable of "easily interbreeding with one another and producing hybrids." LOL!
Not only do you have an execrable sense of humor, you can never speak to the point. Your breathtaking and wholly unjustifiable arrogance contributes to your inability to conduct a polite conversation.
Define "species" please.
Which is why they allegedly are capable of "easily interbreeding with one another and producing hybrids." LOL!
Various breeds of dogs mate with one another and create wide arrays of remarkably different hybridized phenotypes - yet they are all called dogs and they all interbreed - the same species according to macroevolutionists.
Yet the cabbages, occurring in almost as broad a variety are reducible to only three which can and are bred with one another to produce this variety - yet according to macroevolutionists they are all different species.
It's a bit of a contradiction.
The macroevolutionist postulate is that through naturally-occurring mutations radically different lifeforms can emerge from the same genotype.
Yet the same macroevolutionists like to argue that cauliflower and broccoli - two extremely similar plants - are an observable example of macroevolution.
Doesn't feed the bulldog.
I get very tired of being polite to people whose side of a 'conversation' is simply pull complete falsehoods out of their a$$. You claimed 'macroevolution' says species can't interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring. Nonsense. We had species long before Darwin, or before creationists fastened on to this artificial distinction between 'macroevolution' and 'microevolution'. For a higher animal, a species is a population of organisms that do not naturally interbreed. That's a very fuzzy definition; we find all sorts of groups that interbreed sometimes but not often; groups that look very different and are geographically isolated but do interbreed when brought into contact; etc.. Unlike creationists, biologists know 'species' is a human categorization, and therefore nature doesn't always or necessarily fit neatly into that construct.
For a longer and more careful discussion, see this And all of this in irrelevant to evolution, since whether species are interfertile is a matter of how you've drawn the categories. TOE says nothing about interfertility.
If you change the correct portions of your genome, you would not be sterile, nor would you be dead. Your statements to the contrary are simply assertions without evidence. The evidence that I have that changing the correct portions of the DNA of a human results in a viable organism is chimpanzees. They have DNA that is ~99% identical to humans. Therefore, changing the proper 1% of the genome of a human results in a chimp, which is a fertile, viable organism. You may argue that it's unlikely that this particular 1% of the genome would be the portion that changes, and you would be right if random processes were all that were at work. However, natural selection ensures that of all the variations that occur, only those that are viable and fertile will survive to leave descendants. Mutations producing nonviable and nonfertile organisms indeed do occur, but we never see the products of such mutations. Please note that the particular mutation that produces a nonviable or nonfertile organism is just as unlikely as the mutation that produces a fertile, viable one.
As for your other objection that there would be no organism for a human that mutated to the point where interbreeding with humans was impossible goes, keep in mind that in reality, there are no large changes that occur in single organisms. Large changes occur over many generations in populations of organisms. Just to illustrate, suppose that there is some general trait that can be measured numerically and is characteristic of a species. Suppose that humans have a range of values between 40 and 60 for this trait. Now suppose a group of humans becomes genetically isolated from the rest of the population. The rest of the population can evolve in such a way that the value for this trait decreases to 35-55, while the splinter group evolves so that their range is now 45-65. Note that there is still some overlap between the two populations, so we don't characterize them as separate species. Further evolution in these directions though might result in a range of 25-45 for the main group and 50-70 for the splinter group. Now the two populations are separate species, without ever having a single organism that had no other organism with which to interbreed.
It's also an observation. Allele frequencies do vary over time in organism populations. Nobody disputes that. Evolution occurs. What is necessary is to show that evolution can produce new species. This has also been observed, both in the wild and in lab experiments.
Darwin is not a "god" who is worshipped. The modern theory of evolution is not the same as the theory proposed by Darwin.
Perhaps not by you. I'll just point out that many of your pro-macroevolution compatriots place "Darwin fish" on their cars and t-shirts in a similar fashion to the way Christians iconize the "Jesus fish."
Darwin is a messiah for many.
The modern theory of evolution is not the same as the theory proposed by Darwin.
Mostly because while Darwin was writing, a Bible-believer named Gregor Mendel was doing the hard experimental research that founded an actual scientific discipline - genetics.
While genetics actually explains the transmission of genotypic traits and their phenotypic expression in an objective and verifiable way, it also demonstrates that spontaneous mutations in the genotype are rare, that the redundancy in DNA and RNA exists to minimize and restrain mutation and that mutations are almost exclusively deleterious and are eliminated from a population within a generationn and therefore populations remain quite stable.
Evolutionary theory has to reconcile the hard fact that the theory requires radical mutational changes - and therefore pure Darwinism has had to be abandoned.
New schemata like punctuated equilibrium are needed to try and bridge this aporia.
BTW, RWP, I'm glad to see you've refocused on the matter at hand.
You say now that the definition of species is an approximation, a human category and subject to change.
Fine by me - the evolutionist's definition of what constitutes a species seems to change to support the argument routinely and I can hardly deny that.
My point is that the "Triangle of U" issue in the cabbage genus and its various species demonstrates that an extremely stable genotypic base remains beneath the hybrids and that while cauliflower and broccoli may be bred to produce broccoflower, they cannot be bred to produce broccorabbit or a new species of elm.
No so-called creationist denies the reality of genetic variation - they deny the evolutionist claim that radically different types or kinds are produced spontaneously, in any timeframe, from another kind of creature.
And genetics, as an observed and replicable phenomenon, shows that such radical mutation is counter to the way genotypic transmission actually works.
It's called satire. We're making fun of you.
My point is that the "Triangle of U" issue in the cabbage genus and its various species demonstrates that an extremely stable genotypic base remains beneath the hybrids and that while cauliflower and broccoli may be bred to produce broccoflower, they cannot be bred to produce broccorabbit or a new species of elm.
There are all sorts of variants on broccoli and cauliflower. They grow a very different variant in Europe. There are Brussels sprouts - where do those fit in? Turnips?
I have no idea what you mean by 'stable genotype base'. All the 'triangle of U' claims is that the Brassicas originally derived from three geographically isolated species that were nonetheless interfertile; but since then polyploidy and hybridization have made the whole genus incredibly complex.
Oh, I know it's intended that way.
But the kind of jokes a person makes reveal much about their character and their beliefs.
There are all sorts of variants on broccoli and cauliflower. They grow a very different variant in Europe.
The Italian variant tastes much better.
since then polyploidy and hybridization have made the whole genus incredibly complex
Well the remarkable thing is that it is not incredibly complex - it is reducible to just three closely related genotypes and is therefore rather incomplex genetically while seemingly very complex phenotypically.
All this variety is not due to radical mutations creating utterly disparate genotypes - but to hybridization of just three types.
Well, the Darwin fish is funny, and clever, and irreverent...
Well the remarkable thing is that it is not incredibly complex - it is reducible to just three closely related genotypes and is therefore rather incomplex genetically while seemingly very complex phenotypically.
No, it's descended from three genotypes. I have no idea what 'reducible' means in this context. Polyploidy does remarkable things to plants, something stoners realized a long time ago.
Heck, look at dogs. There you have Chihuahuas and great Danes descended from one or maybe two species, even without polyploidy.
If the structural differences were no greater than what we can acheive by breeding dogs, then I'd say that the claim that this proves macro-evolution is a bit overblown. Of course, evolution, the creation story of secular humanism, is full of overblown statements and stretched (or fabricated) evidence, so that would hardly be a surprise to those of us who dare to look at it a little bit critically.
Which reinforces the point I was trying to make - enormous phenotypical diversity can arise from a small and stable genotypic pool.
However, this phenotypical diversity is limited by the genotypic pool and dogs in all their wonderful variety do not give rise to cabbage in one or one million generations.
Again the issue here is the facile nostrum that amoebae can become, given enough time and interesting enough circumstances, elephants.
Dogs in all their variety have an irreducible dogness which does not, by chance, become cabbageness or armadilloness.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.