Some random discussion on evolution...

Jimmy D

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Many people fail to understand that although evolution, i.e. process of evolution, is a fact, this process is totally powerless in creating higher life forms, as required by the theory of evolution. Higher life forms are characterized by novel proteins, organs, molecular machines, and body plans, that were nonexistent in the lower life forms, such as first self-replicating cells. The theory of evolution holds that the above mentioned process was able to repeatedly produce such novelty in a short period of time. Namely, according to the theory, at the beginning of the Cambrian period, in an interval of 20 million years or less, the process of evolution resulted in the explosion of animal diversity with multiple feats of anatomical and physiological novelty. In an evolutionary blink of an eye, most major animal phyla were fully developed. Recently, the "big bang" of bird evolution has been mapped, revealing that almost all of the modern groups of birds appeared in a small window of less than 10 million years. So evolution must have happened extremely fast and produced novelty in a short period of time. Finally, based on 53-million-year-old fossils of whale-like, semi-aquatic mammals, scientists had thought mammals gave rise to whales in a process that took 15 million years. The new find suggests it took just 4 million years. So again, in an evolutionary blink of an eye the evolution process must have produced a lot of novelty to turn a terrestrial mammal to a fully aquatic marine mammal.

However, the observation clearly shows the complete powerlessness of this process. For e.g. in the last 300,000 years, the variation part of the evolution process produced more than 100 billion different Homo sapiens genomes. But has this enormous diversity caused humans to start to develop some new, distinct organs, molecular machines, or body plans that will occupy ecological niches humans previously could not occupy, i.e. enable the selection part of the evolution process to act on them? Well, obviously not. After an enormous number of different genomes produced, humans are anatomically, morphologically and physiologically practically identical, without any traces of new structures starting to develop. The same is true for the E.coli long-term evolution experiment, which is the longest running microbial evolution experiment. After more than 67,000 generations of E. coli, which is the equivalent to over one million years of human evolution, not a single, new and distinct structure was created. Most of the changes involved streamlining the genome, deleting genes no longer needed, or reducing protein expression, with one change being the breaking of a repressor switch which caused preexisting citrate-uptake pathway to turn on. So, both humans and E.coli have undergone a lot of evolution, but nothing structurally new was created. This clearly shows that the fact of evolution has nothing to do with the validity of the evolution theory. The evolution process is indeed factual the same as other natural processes, be it: fog, thunder, tornadoes, decomposition, wave propagation, erosion, etc. But natural processes, including evolution, are totally powerless in creating new functional things. Many educated people fail to differentiate between evolution process (fact) and evolution theory (human idea about what the evolution process can and cannot do), which is why they hold irrational beliefs about the enormous creation powers of a mere natural process that is in reality totally powerless.

You've got a strange idea of what constitutes a short period of time.

I'm curious as to what novel features birds developed that you think couldn't have evolved in a few million years?

Edited to add: Your incredulity proves nothing.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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Just watched a show on horses. It seems that they each have their own unique personality...evolution I guess. Some even prefer human company over other horses. There must be some kind of evolutionary link there as many people prefer the company of animals. ^_^
 
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AV1611VET

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Just watched a show on horses. It seems that they each have their own unique personality...evolution I guess. Some even prefer human company over other horses. There must be some kind of evolutionary link there as many people prefer the company of animals. ^_^
As they say:

From the goo, through the zoo, to you.
 
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DaisyDay

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Just watched a show on horses. It seems that they each have their own unique personality...evolution I guess. Some even prefer human company over other horses. There must be some kind of evolutionary link there as many people prefer the company of animals. ^_^
Of course there is. Zebras cannot be domesticated like horses no matter how young you get them.
 
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Jimmy D

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- Light hollow bones ordered properly for flight to take place.

- Metabolic structure. Reptiles have the slowest, while Birds the fastest metabolism.

- Lung Structure. Terrestrial lungs have a two-directional flow structure. In birds however, air follows just one direction through the lungs. The structure of the lung in birds, and the functioning of the respiratory system are unique.

- Physiological mechanisms to maintain an essentially constant body temperature.

- Feathers. From gene structure and organization, to development, morphogenesis and tissue organization, every feature is different in feathers and scales. Also the protein structure of bird feathers is unique among vertebrates.

- Regulatory and control genes. Feathers are useless for flying unless the wing, tail and other parts of the bird are properly arranged on the bird, which requiers novel regulatory and control genes.

- Hip Structure. All dinosaurs fall into one of two major groups: A) "lizard-hipped" - their pubis bone is typically swept forward, B) "bird-hipped" - where the pubis juts backwards to join another bone called the ischium. However, birds are more closely related to the "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs, and would have to independently evolve the pubis bone facing backwards.

- Birds have a wishbone that includes a kneeled sternum bone, which is where the muscles attach to that are critical for flight.

-Etc.

(Edit: I apologise for my previous post being poorly worded).

Did those features evolve in the 10 million years the paper you cited referred to?

No, they were already present.

So I’ll ask again, what novel features do you think couldn’t have been produced during the “Big Bang” of bird evolution?
 
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Speedwell

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because its too complex.
Complexity is a mathematical concept. Any argument from complexity which does not have math backing it up is just an argument from incredulity.

But there is nothing in a bird's wing which is not present in the forelimb of the reptile from which the bird's wing evolved--the same bones, muscles, veins and arteries, etc. Only the relative shapes and proportions of these components are different. What is "too complex" about that?
 
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xianghua

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Complexity is a mathematical concept. Any argument from complexity which does not have math backing it up is just an argument from incredulity.

can you calculate the chance for a non-living watch to evolve by a natural process?

But there is nothing in a bird's wing which is not present in the forelimb of the reptile from which the bird's wing evolved--the same bones, muscles, veins and arteries, etc. Only the relative shapes and proportions of these components are different. What is "too complex" about that?
have you heard about feathers? a reptile dont have feathers.
 
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pitabread

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There are a number of issues with the OP:

1) Appears to be implying that evolution should result in a continual and constant state of morphological change. This is contrary with observations, which suggest a discordance between genetic changes and morphological changes.

2) Compares non-analogous scenarios. For example, the Cambrian explosion was a period 13+ million of years which involved numerous biological forms encompassing a much larger biosphere. In contrast, human evolution of 300,000 years involves a single species. Why the OP thinks that humans should have evolved a new body plan in this time is a mystery. :scratch:

Similarity, the E.Coli experiment while offering fascinating insights into evolution is also relatively limited biological speaking; again, using a single organism in a limited populations in a controlled environments.

And no, the 67,000 generations in E.Coli experiment is *not* the equivalent of 1 million years of human evolution given the difference in ecology.

3) Misconstrues what constitutes something "new" in evolutionary terms. Evolution does not build from scratch; it modifies what proceeded it. Taking whales as an example, they have numerous morphological traits which speak to their terrestrial origins; most notably the fact they still require surface oxygen in-take as they lack the ability to breath underwater.

Using birds as another example, their wings bear the hallmarks of modified vertebrate forelimbs; they are not a completely novel structure. This among other traits speaks to their ancestral origins as modified theropods.

edited: to correct length of Cambrian explosion
 
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pitabread

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pitabread

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can you calculate the chance for a non-living watch to evolve by a natural process?

After all this time, do you still not know the difference between living and non-living things? Do you still not understand that biological evolution only happens to living populations?

How do you still not know any of this? :scratch:
 
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xianghua

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After all this time, do you still not know the difference between living and non-living things? Do you still not understand that biological evolution only happens to living populations?

How do you still not know any of this? :scratch:
please read again what i said and to what question.

because even young-Earth creationists are waking up to the idea that there were feathered dinosaurs

so what? its stilll a new traits that suppose to evolve from non feather. anyway a hand isnt a wing. unless you are able to fly.
 
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pitabread

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please read again what i said and to what question.

I did and your response still made no sense, and implies that you still don't know the difference between living and non-living things.

so what? its stilll a new traits that suppose to evolve from non feather. anyway a hand isnt a wing. unless you are able to fly.

Bird wings have the same fundamental bone structure as other vertebrates including humans. Wings are merely modified forelimbs.
 
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