Are humans evolving?

[Justatruthseeker]

\

Just as we are still vertebrates, as are all of the other vertebrates that we share a common ancestor with.



That isn't a problem. The accumulation of mutations over time will work just fine with this requirement. What you need to show is that generations separated by millions of years are still the same species.

Like I said, still can't get past all fruit are not apples...... Much too complex for you to understand.

 

[Loudmouth]

Let's summarize Loud's argument shall we?

He accepts that simple organisms such as E coli never become anything but E coli.

I accept no such thing. If given enough time to accumulate enough mutations, two separate populations of E. coli will be classified as different species. The experiment you are using only allowed for the accumulation of 45 mutations in the resulting population, not nearly enough time to produce a new species of bacteria.

Then ignores this despite the fact that "to have undergone enough spontaneous mutations that every possible single point mutation in the E. coli genome has occurred multiple times."

Yes, one mutation at each position in the genome has occurred in at least one bacterium that descended from the parental bacterium. That is one mutation in a 4.5 million base genome, not nearly enough to produce a new species.

So hypocrisy and double talk is Loud's argument.

Misrepresenting both the science and my position is your argument, it would appear.

But I expect nothing more from someone that refuses to accept what is right before his eyes when birds interbreed and produce fertile offspring backed up by DNA data showing thy have always interbred so never became separate species in the first place.

Are humans and chimps separate species? Yes or no?

 

[Loudmouth]

Like I said, still can't get past all fruit are not apples......

All dogs are not Chihuahuas. Seems we have just refuted your argument.

 

[Jimmy D]

Continue tracing it back in time.

I'm not the one that again - wants you to believe it started from anything but a few - and took time to recover from that disaster. I am not the one asking you to believe that for hundreds of thousands of years the population remained constant.

You are confusing Neanderthal, etc with modern times, not pre-flood times.

http://biblehub.com/genesis/6-4.htm

Let's go over it again - all fossils are from times of worldwide floods, whether Noah's day or during the second verse of genesis. You have no fossils becoming fossilized in modern times despite countless local floods.

Thanks. Noah's family must have been spread pretty thin on the ground if they were to migrate to the four corners of the Earth, it would then have taken them a good few hundred years to populate those areas (ie the major continents) and develop their own cultures. I also wonder how many generations it would have taken the offspring of Noah to develop into, say, Chinese people - did it happen over a couple of generations?

Are you seriously suggesting that this happened in the last 3500 years?

 

[Loudmouth]

Here are some more figures from the Lenski experiment, to help clear out the smoke screen that Justa is trying to create:

"We sequenced 19 Escherichia coli genomes from a 40,000-generation evolution experiment and directly inferred the point-mutation rate based on the accumulation of synonymous substitutions. The resulting estimate was 8.9 × 10^−11 per base-pair per generation, and there was a significant bias toward increased AT-content."
http://www.g3journal.org/content/1/3/183.abstract

According to their observations, there is 8.9 mutations per 100 million bases replicated. Since each genome is about 4.5 million bases, that is about 0.0004 mutations per genome. You need approximately 2,500 replications to get one mutation. If you start with 1 bacterium, you get 2,500 total replications in about 12 generations. That means one bacterium out of 2,500 will have a single mutation. To get at least one bacterium with a single mutation at every possible base you need the number of replications needed to produce one mutation multiplied by the number of bases in the genome. That number is 2,500*4,500,000 = 1.125E10. You can get that many bacteria, starting from a single bacterium, in about 34 generations. Since the Lenski experiment went much longer than 34 generations, they are saying that every single base in the parent genome had at least one mutation present in at least one bacterium within the offspring of that parent bacterium.

That is what they mean by every possible mutation occurred. Out of 110 billion bacteria who share a single common ancestor, there are 4.5 million mutations spread out among all of those bacteria. There are fewer than one mutation per bacteria, but between all of those mutations there is at least one mutation at every base in one of those bacteria, at least those which aren't immediately lethal to the bacteria.

What I want Justa to explain is how differing by one base should produce a new species of bacteria, according to the theory of evolution.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

...The point being no matter how far you go back you are presented with the same problem - that infraspecific taxa would not become anything else until it mates with another infraspecific taxa in the species...

JFYI, the singular of that noun is taxon; taxa is plural only. If you're going to play at taxonomy, at least try to get the words right.

 

[USincognito]

I understand evolution does not imply improvement but if the theory is true...

I always wince when I see that phrase.

 

[USincognito]

If you are referring to the notion of 'punctuated equlibrium' even a sudden leap could take many thousands of years to become evident. In geologic terms 'puncutation' might be a very long time.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Punctuated_Equilibrium.aspx

PE also tends to take place after some upheaval like an extinction event.

 

[[serious]]

Agreed, but then they never become anything but dogs do they - just different infraspecific taxa within the canine species. Your point being to falsify evolution even more? And btw, it didn't start with one canine infraspecific taxa, but at he minimum of two.

The point being no matter how far you go back you are presented with the same problem - that infraspecific taxa would not become anything else until it mates with another infraspecific taxa in the species.

ALL dogs are the same species - just different infraspecific taxa in that species. Whether human intervention or geological changes forcing them together, the most they can become is infraspecific taxa - if you stop ignoring your own science that is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species

"Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae)."

You will NEVER get another species - only other infraspecific taxa within the species..... Unless of course they incorrectly classify things and ignore their own scientific definitions, which of course they do daily.

A eukaryote (has a nucleus) might develop a true multicellular colony organism, but it's still a eukaryote.
A multicellular organism might develop bilateral symmetry, but it's a multicellular eukaryote.
A bilaterally symmetrical multicellular eukaryote might develop a hollow nerve cord (vertebrate) but it's still a A bilaterally symmetrical multicellular eukaryote
a vertebrate bilaterally symmetrical multicellular eukaryote might develop a calcified internal skeleton, but it's still, well, you get the picture.
Go through that same thing with:
a jaw
4 limbs
lungs
amniotic eggs
hair
opposable thumbs
bipedal locomotion
etc.

Kind after kind describes evolution just fine. In a nested hierarchy, each thing is just variation within the parent groups.

 

[USincognito]

Microevolution can be scientifically demonstrated while macroevolution cannot. The terms therefore define borders as to what lies in the scope of the scientific method. That a great many scientists do not accept this distinction between science and speculation is what is worrying here.

A. I suggest you check out the 29 Evidences essays. There's a lot of science in them.
B. What is actually worrying is the number of laymen with a warped or straw man conceptualization of science telling actual scientists they don't know what they're doing.

 

[Loudmouth]

A. I suggest you check out the 29 Evidences essays. There's a lot of science in them.
B. What is actually worrying is the number of laymen with a warped or straw man conceptualization of science telling actual scientists they don't know what they're doing.

A pair of scientists named Dunning and Kruger may be able to help you with item B.

 

[USincognito]

Given the umbrage Creationists take when it's pointed out that humans are are apes, I think I'm going to start using the euarchontoglire angle and see if telling them we're rodents makes them even more upset.

 

[Loudmouth]

Given the umbrage Creationists take when it's pointed out that humans are are apes, I think I'm going to start using the euarchontoglire angle and see if telling them we're rodents makes them even more upset.

I have mentioned it elsewhere, and it is worth mentioning it here. I don't know if it is best to try and force paraphyletic taxons to become monophyletic taxons. If we were being true to the science, we would point out that ape isn't a viable taxon because it is paraphyletic, and then encourage people to use the monophyletic taxon which is Hominidae.

However, this will only confuse the general public since most will not understand the difference between paraphyly and monophyly to begin with, or why they are important. Not sure what the best course of action is.

 

[pgp_protector]

Just call em an Animal.

 

[USincognito]

Loudmouth, if I were on my computer instead my phone I would have made my comment more substantive.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Given the umbrage Creationists take when it's pointed out that humans are are apes, I think I'm going to start using the euarchontoglire angle and see if telling them we're rodents makes them even more upset.

but we aren't rodents... so you'd be telling them something incorrect.

 

[Doveaman]

Is there any evidence of beneficiary evolutionary improvements to human beings? By this I mean extra capabilities or gifts.

Has the genome project revealed any trends in terms of human evolution that points to a class of people who live among us who are the first to move to a higher state of evolution?

Yes

 

[Hammster]

ADMIN HAT ON


Moved from Physical & Life Sciences.


ADMIN HAT OFF

 

[sparow]

Baloney! One of the earliest uses, of not the earliest major use, of the term "evolution" is to be found among nineteenth-century Christian mystics. See Ernst Benz, "The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy," translated by myself and Eunice Paul, and published by Pickwick Press. Indeed, earlier major figures in the Christian mystical tradition, such as Eckhart and also Boehme, argue that cretin was God's own self-evolution from unconsciousness into self-consciousness and self-actualization.
NO, the word "slave" definitely does not to that. If you would have read Exod. 21, you would have seen that and easily recognized that the OT does condone slavery. Incidentally, that was one of the points Jefferson Davis used to legitimate slavery.
Going from "caveman" to modern society is definitely social evolution, the finest example.

I have no idea what a nineteenth-century Christian mystic is or whether it spoke English or was influenced by Darwin I don't know.

This video touches on secular evolution. http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-television-program/the-hidden-agenda

 

[Hoghead1]

I have no idea what a nineteenth-century Christian mystic is or whether it spoke English or was influenced by Darwin I don't know.

This video touches on secular evolution. http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-television-program/the-hidden-agenda

No, the mystics were not at all influenced by Darwin. The mystics believe in achieving a direct, personal encounter with God, a transcendental experience. I don't know about the TV show you saw. I am simply pointing out that "evolution" fist appears in a sacred context.