An Origins poll

PaladinValer said:

I do know however they did the various experiments with fruitflies under a controlled environment and watched an entirely new species evolve literally right before their very eyes. Is it the same one as you've mentioned above?

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Wow, slow down a little my friend!! You're spinning enough yarn there to make a sweater!

You will need to define your terms here. What do you mean by species? A fruit fly, regardless of length of breeding cycles and generations, has never produced anything but a fruit fly. To the best of my knowledge, no published study has ever shown contrary.

Dark Matter

PaladinValer[color=blue said:

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I do know however they did the various experiments with fruitflies under a controlled environment and watched an entirely new species evolve literally right before their very eyes. Is it the same one as you've mentioned above?

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Probably. They actually set up several different environments, placed founding populations in each one all from a single population that was maintained as a control. And what they observed over (I think) seven years was allopatric speciation. By the end of the experiment several of the new populations could no longer interbreed with the others or with the founding population.

In the most spectacular change, the diet of the fruit fly was changed entirely to bread or meat (requiring a whole-sale change in the digestive system) and DNA sequencing showed a 3% difference in coding DNA from the founding population. That is a whole percentage point more than the equivalent difference between humans and chimpanzees.

Dark Matter said:

Wow, slow down a little my friend!! You're spinning enough yarn there to make a sweater!

You will need to define your terms here. What do you mean by species? A fruit fly, regardless of length of breeding cycles and generations, has never produced anything but a fruit fly. To the best of my knowledge, no published study has ever shown contrary.

Dark Matter

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Right. Defining "species" is the core of the matter. With sexually reproducing populations, the most widely used definition of species is a population that does not interbreed with other populations.

And in the experiment cited, that is how it was determined that new species arose--they attempted cross-population mating, but found flies of one group would not mate with flies of another group and/or produced non-viable or sterile offspring.

Non-biologists often use "species" with a much broader meaning based on similarity of morphology. A scientific lay person, for example, may think of "frog" as a "species". But there are actually over 3,000 scientifically described species of frogs (groups of frogs that do not interbreed with each other) and the genetic range of the frog gene pool is greater than that of all mammals put together. So, logically, if "frog" is a "species" then all mammals from kangaroos to bats to apes and humans are also a "species" since the differences in the mammals is actually less than the differences in frogs.

By the way, in scientific taxonomy, "fruit fly" designates all the species in a family of flies, and biologists would be shocked out of their socks to find them producing anything else than fruit flies---even if they have become carnivorous. Such an event would put the kaibosh on the theory of evolution, since nothing in evolution would permit the offspring of a fruit fly to belong to a different taxonomic family. See the first line in my signature.

gluadys said:

Right. Defining "species" is the core of the matter. With sexually reproducing populations, the most widely used definition of species is a population that does not interbreed with other populations.

And in the experiment cited, that is how it was determined that new species arose--they attempted cross-population mating, but found flies of one group would not mate with flies of another group and/or produced non-viable or sterile offspring.

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Another great example of this are the seagulls which speciated across islands and oceans, that did not then breed with the original species.

Non-biologists often use "species" with a much broader meaning based on similarity of morphology. A scientific lay person, for example, may think of "frog" as a "species". But there are actually over 3,000 scientifically described species of frogs (groups of frogs that do not interbreed with each other) and the genetic range of the frog gene pool is greater than that of all mammals put together. So, logically, if "frog" is a "species" then all mammals from kangaroos to bats to apes and humans are also a "species" since the differences in the mammals is actually less than the differences in frogs.

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When speaking with a YEC, such as known before time, species usually designates their idea of a "Biblical Kind".

By the way, in scientific taxonomy, "fruit fly" designates all the species in a family of flies, and biologists would be shocked out of their socks to find them producing anything else than fruit flies---even if they have become carnivorous. Such an event would put the kaibosh on the theory of evolution, since nothing in evolution would permit the offspring of a fruit fly to belong to a different taxonomic family. See the first line in my signature.

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Dawkins is a neo-darwinist. Of course he doesn't believe evolution jumps gaps. Gould on the other hand begged to differ. A scientist who believes in naturalist evolution should not be surprised at all, with sufficient breeding and mutations, that one should end up with something quite different than a fruit fly. Quite opposed to the idea of kaibosh on the theory of evolution, it is the reasonable outcome. The only hinderance of course is the length of generations and time, even with fruit flies, to produce the necessitated variations. Of course, the environment is also a factor. However, such course of results should rather be expected, and early fruit fly experiments which produced the "hopeful monsters" that Gould aptly wrote about were done in hopes of seeing significant mutations and changes.

Dark Matter

gluadys said:

In the most spectacular change, the diet of the fruit fly was changed entirely to bread or meat (requiring a whole-sale change in the digestive system) and DNA sequencing showed a 3% difference in coding DNA from the founding population. That is a whole percentage point more than the equivalent difference between humans and chimpanzees.

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Hello Gluadys! Good to dialogue with you again!!

A comparison of DNA difference of percentages is somewhat of a red-herring and non-sequitor. In other words, all this shows is that you can alter DNA by 3% and still have nothing more than a fruit fly, a little different than another fruit fly. It is not the percentage of difference that is important, but which part of the actual DNA content has been changed.


What would be helpful knowledge in interpreting these results is what percentage of fruit flies are born anyway with a variant digestive system. Was this simply natural selection breeding populations based upon available food source? If we were to take a broad spectrum of fruit flies and run the DNA sequencing in a population, how much varient is already in the mix?

Dark Matter

Vance said:

I will say that I believe utterly and completely what the Bible says. I just don't think it says what YEC's say it says. I agree with Billy Graham when he says that Christians have often made the mistake of treating the Bible as if it was a science book. It is not meant to provide detailed scientific information, it is telling us the WHO and WHY, not the WHEN and HOW.

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You are absolutely correct.
I will ask one question:

WHY do human beings die?

Because Eve ate the fruit. Because Adam did not say anything. And he too ate (!)

That's WHY we die.
Death is a result of the rebellion of Adam and Eve.

Therefore Evolution incompatible with Scripture. Done.

I believe in YEC because evolution on a philosophical and scientific level is an invalid.
Ask me questions to expound further

Gluadys, et. al: By species, I meant a new species of fruitfry, not an entirely new species like an ape producing a modern human being. Sorry for the confusion

Biliskner, as the actual evidence shows otherwise, you'll have quite the undertaking to prove your assertion.

Dark Matter said:

Hello Gluadys! Good to dialogue with you again!!

A comparison of DNA difference of percentages is somewhat of a red-herring and non-sequitor. In other words, all this shows is that you can alter DNA by 3% and still have nothing more than a fruit fly, a little different than another fruit fly. It is not the percentage of difference that is important, but which part of the actual DNA content has been changed.

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True. That is why I specified coding DNA. In other words, mutations that have an actual morphological effect. And if 3% is just a little different, what is 2%? Is that not grounds for saying the 2% difference between chimpanzees and humans only shows you can alter DNA a little and still have nothing more than an ape a little different from another ape?

What would be helpful knowledge in interpreting these results is what percentage of fruit flies are born anyway with a variant digestive system. Was this simply natural selection breeding populations based upon available food source? If we were to take a broad spectrum of fruit flies and run the DNA sequencing in a population, how much varient is already in the mix?

Dark Matter

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The amount of variation throughout the whole family of fruit flies is irrelevant, because all the founding members of each sub-population were taken from a single parental stock of Drosophila melanogaster. In addition the parental stock was maintained as a control, so there was a direct comparison of the changes that appeared in each daughter population. Absolutely no question that the changes were due to mutation.

Dark Matter said:

Dawkins is a neo-darwinist. Of course he doesn't believe evolution jumps gaps. Gould on the other hand begged to differ.

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Not as much as you think he does. He also does not subscribe to major gaps.

A scientist who believes in naturalist evolution should not be surprised at all, with sufficient breeding and mutations, that one should end up with something quite different than a fruit fly. Quite opposed to the idea of kaibosh on the theory of evolution, it is the reasonable outcome.

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No, it is not the reasonable outcome at all, and evolution nowhere shows the offspring of an organism in a different clade than the parent---not even after millions of generations.

It does show speciation, it does show change in form such that we regroup organisms in new species, genera and families and we may no longer use the term "fruit fly" to refer to some descendants of fruit flies. But we would still recognize such a newly-named group as part of the fruit fly family. Just as we recognize lions, jaguars and lynxes as part of the cat family. No descendant of a fruit fly population would ever fall outside of that category. That's evolution.

Want to prove me wrong? Show me somewhere in the history of life on earth, either in living or in fossil form, where an arthropod produced offspring which were not arthropods. Since arthropods have been identified in even pre-Cambrian rocks, they have had 600 million years to produce something that is not an arthropod. So where is this "something quite different"?

The only hinderance of course is the length of generations and time, even with fruit flies, to produce the necessitated variations. Of course, the environment is also a factor. However, such course of results should rather be expected, and early fruit fly experiments which produced the "hopeful monsters" that Gould aptly wrote about were done in hopes of seeing significant mutations and changes.

Dark Matter

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Have you ever actually read Gould's essay "Return of the Hopeful Monster"?

gluadys said:

Not as much as you think he does. He also does not subscribe to major gaps.

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Perhaps I am mischaracterizing the process. I recall reading (it has been many years since I studied this) that there are chains of genes that trigger entire groups of changes, and that these chains could produce group and "rapid" change rather than progressive slow change. In that way, an answer was being offered as to the problem of evolving complex processes, such as the avian lung from its predecessor. Maybe we are using "gaps" differently? Dawkin's and Gould's evolutionary paradigm are not the same.

No, it is not the reasonable outcome at all, and evolution nowhere shows the offspring of an organism in a different clade than the parent---not even after millions of generations.

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Gluadys, this is decent with modification. How can you say that? I'm not saying a chicken lays an egg and a monkey comes out! I am saying that over enough generations the mutations, given the right environment, the mutations would reasonable produce something significantly different than the earliest predecessor. If not, then where is the argument for common descent?

I'll acquiese to your knowledge in this area, which is clearly greater than mine, but I'm not sure we are communicating the same ideas.

It does show speciation, it does show change in form such that we regroup organisms in new species, genera and families and we may no longer use the term "fruit fly" to refer to some descendants of fruit flies. But we would still recognize such a newly-named group as part of the fruit fly family. Just as we recognize lions, jaguars and lynxes as part of the cat family. No descendant of a fruit fly population would ever fall outside of that category. That's evolution.

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Then please define common descent with modification. Your description of evolution sounds like a Hugh Ross-ian special creation with modification. Something I would not have a problem with, but we're discussing the naturalist paradigm, no?

Want to prove me wrong? Show me somewhere in the history of life on earth, either in living or in fossil form, where an arthropod produced offspring which were not arthropods. Since arthropods have been identified in even pre-Cambrian rocks, they have had 600 million years to produce something that is not an arthropod. So where is this "something quite different"?

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No, I don't want to prove you wrong. I want to understand what your saying and why we disagree here, and if necessary correct my understanding.

Does not the formation of avians demonstrate the production of something "quite different". When I am speaking of the "quite different" catagory (I know this is a loose and subjective term, but as a laymen in the field, I hope you can bear with my catagories with some understanding of what I mean) , I am refering to major systemic changes, such as the bone structure, lung and digestive system that separates the avian from its predecessor.

Further, if all life formed from the RNA, to DNA, to multi-cell and then to today, then all of speciation today demonstrates what I am saying.

Perhaps you are stating that the further along an animal is, the more limited evolutionary change is possible?


Finally...you didn't answer my questions regarding DNA and populations of fruit flies. Do you know the information for that?

Have you ever actually read Gould's essay "Return of the Hopeful Monster"?

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No. I've read other books but Gould, but not this essay to the best of my recollection. Is it online?

All the best,
Dark Matter

Dark Matter said:

Perhaps I am mischaracterizing the process. I recall reading (it has been many years since I studied this) that there are chains of genes that trigger entire groups of changes, and that these chains could produce group and "rapid" change rather than progressive slow change.

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Yes, that is right. But many people confuse this rapidity with saltationism—ie a sudden macro-change in one or two generations. That is not what Gould is suggesting. He is saying that we have got too hung up on “gradualism” and we should pay attention to factors which may alter the rate of evolution. He does not propose jumps or sudden macro-evolutionary changes, but rather a stepped-up rate of micro-evolution of the sort Dawkins fully agrees with. Think of Dawkin’s version as saying “Evolution never takes leaps; it always moves in baby steps.” And Gould replying “Yes, but you can take a lot of baby steps very rapidly. Just because the steps are small they don’t have to be slow.”

Gluadys, this is decent with modification. How can you say that? I'm not saying a chicken lays an egg and a monkey comes out! I am saying that over enough generations the mutations, given the right environment, the mutations would reasonable produce something significantly different than the earliest predecessor. If not, then where is the argument for common descent?

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Sure they produce things that look a lot different. But when you get right down to the details, they are still part of the same taxon. And that is what is required by common descent. Common descent implies heredity. And heredity requires staying within the lineage. Think of it this way—you may look a lot different than your great-great grandfather—but you can still trace your biological connection to him. The problem with a lot of creationist objections to phylogeny is that they depend too heavily on superficial analyses of appearance. Just because they don’t see the difference between one fly and another as easily as they see the difference between goats and sheep, they assume there is no difference. It is really a form of prejudice of the same sort that Europeans display when they say they can’t tell one Japanese from another. By the same token, when differences are obvious, their implications may be exaggerated as one is then more aware of the differences than of the more important similiarities.

I'll acquiese to your knowledge in this area, which is clearly greater than mine, but I'm not sure we are communicating the same ideas.

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Given that most people don’t understand evolution and there are organizations out their who have a vested interest in making sure you don’t understand it, that is not surprising. I find most of what I do is tell people that what they think evolution says is usually what evolution does not say.

Then please define common descent with modification. Your description of evolution sounds like a Hugh Ross-ian special creation with modification. Something I would not have a problem with, but we're discussing the naturalist paradigm, no?

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Leave out the special creation, and keep the modification. That’s evolution. It is also important to ditch any notion that evolution is about attaining perfection, greater complexity, progressing, etc.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/images/laddervstree.gif

Keep the bush in mind and remember that common descent does not permit jumping from one branch to another.

Does not the formation of avians demonstrate the production of something "quite different". When I am speaking of the "quite different" catagory (I know this is a loose and subjective term, but as a laymen in the field, I hope you can bear with my catagories with some understanding of what I mean) , I am refering to major systemic changes, such as the bone structure, lung and digestive system that separates the avian from its predecessor.

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No, it doesn’t. Birds are not a different category from dinosaurs. They are a group of feathered dinosaurs that survived to this day. Given that the branch of the dinosaur tree on which they perch emerged as a new twig around 200 million years ago, there is a lot of scope for all those systemic changes occurring through small accumulating changes.

Perhaps you are stating that the further along an animal is, the more limited evolutionary change is possible?

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No, we don’t know that that is the case. Mutations continually broaden and multiply the possibilities of evolution.

Finally...you didn't answer my questions regarding DNA and populations of fruit flies. Do you know the information for that?

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No, you would have to ask a professional geneticist. As I said, it was not relevant to that experiment.

No. I've read other books but Gould, but not this essay to the best of my recollection. Is it online?

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The Return of Hopeful Monsters

Theywhosowintear and Knownbeforetime, I am very interested in your answers to my questions regarding your Bible interpretation. These questions are in post #52 and 53 (page 6 of this thread). They got lost in the dialogue, but they are very important and foundational questions.

If you could make time to answer them, I'd be very grateful.

Dark Matter

Biliskner said:

Because Eve ate the fruit. Because Adam did not say anything. And he too ate (!)

That's WHY we die.
Death is a result of the rebellion of Adam and Eve.

Therefore Evolution incompatible with Scripture. Done.

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Spiritual death, Biliskner, not physical. That is why the two are compatible.

PaladinValer said:

Biliskner, as the actual evidence shows otherwise, you'll have quite the undertaking to prove your assertion.

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you are wrong.

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut10.htm

That link shows you do not know what evolution is.

There are various species of fruit flies. They noticed a new species of fruit fly come into existence.

Therefore, it is still evolution. Please find more accurate sources that know what they are talking about.

PaladinValer said:

That link shows you do not know what evolution is.

There are various species of fruit flies. They noticed a new species of fruit fly come into existence.

Therefore, it is still evolution. Please find more accurate sources that know what they are talking about.

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Variation within a species is different than saying, given an x amount of time a fruit fly evolves to a human

Raydar said:

Variation within a species is different than saying, given an x amount of time a fruit fly evolves to a human

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Who said anything about fruit flies evolving into humans? That is a ridiculous idea. If anything like that happened, we would have to discard the theory of evolution. Evolution does not allow for that.

Evolution only allows for fruit flies and humans having a very, very, very, very remote common ancestor.

gluadys said:

Who said anything about fruit flies evolving into humans? That is a ridiculous idea.

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Darwin. Huxley. Dawkins. Have you read any of their books? Or is your "evolution" from 'Christian TE's websites' ?

You TE's (or anyone for that matter) don't know what this common ancestor is within this apparent evolutionary-tree behind the history of humans and apes, so if we experiment on fruit flies and show that they can become green from black and nothing else (remaining fruit flies) we're disproving your theory. Then obviously, after 1/2 a century of presenting this data, you guys go and change Darwin's meaning so you can still hold to the TE worldview. Gee, I wonder where I've seen that before. Maybe in Genesis 1-11, Romans 5, and 1 Peter 3?

TE's win, is that what you guys want to hear?

I'll say it again, you win.

Biliskner said:

Darwin. Huxley. Dawkins. Have you read any of their books? Or is your "evolution" from 'Christian TE's websites' ?

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I have read both Darwin and Dawkins, and they both agree with me. If you can find any citation from their works that suggests a fruit fly could evolve into a human, feel free to post it. It would not be the first time I had to eat humble pie.

You TE's (or anyone for that matter) don't know what this common ancestor is within this apparent evolutionary-tree behind the history of humans and apes, so if we experiment on fruit flies and show that they can become green from black and nothing else (remaining fruit flies) we're disproving your theory.

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No you are not. You are only displaying your ignorance about it.

TE's win, is that what you guys want to hear?

I'll say it again, you win.

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No, it is not a contest in which TEs or creationists or naturalists "win". Which camp is right is irrelevant. What is important is that the truth "win" whatever the truth is.