Direction of Evolution

[JackRT]

There's also certain physical limitations like how big a terrestrial insect could get before it's exoskeleton was too heavy to move.

And for mammals the square-cube law comes into play. It is not an intelligence at work but simply a description of reality.

 

[JackRT]

And it blows my mind how Creationists cannot grasp that evolution is a continuum and not a novel advent with each news species.

They forget or perhaps never learned that evolution is what happens to populations not to individuals.

BTW, if your avatar is a photo of yourself as mine is, then we look remarkably alike.

 

[USincognito]

BTW, if your avatar is a photo of yourself as mine is, then we look remarkably alike.

It is indeed me, taken about two months ago.

 

[Ophiolite]

BTW, if your avatar is a photo of yourself as mine is, then we look remarkably alike.

Which one are you Jack? The one on the left, or on the right?

 

[Loudmouth]

First 'rule' of evolution suggests that life is destined to become more complex
March 17, 2008

It's the only direction evolution can go. There are already simple creatures, so the only open niche is more complexity. Complexity is a bit like a ratchet where it will only tighten a screw. Only in rare situations is complexity lost, such as in the case of some parasites.

 

[Loudmouth]

This is one of the more interesting aspects of evolution; sexual reproduction. At some point, for every species which reproduces through sex, there had to be a mutation which facilitated the change from asexual to sexual.

A person clearly demonstrates they don't understand how inheritance works.

Same person proclaims that millions of biologists and geneticists, all of which know 10x more about biology and genetics, are all wrong.

Hmmm, interesting.

Next, this same person will be telling us that God must bestow English onto each American generation because children could not invent English over and over and over each generation.

 

[JackRT]

Which one are you Jack? The one on the left, or on the right?

To save my time in answering that question of the multitude of the curious I placed the answer under the photo where it has remained for several years.

 

[Ophiolite]

To save my time in answering that question of the multitude of the curious I placed the answer under the photo where it has remained for several years.

I have long been a legend for my unparalleled powers of observation that are only compromised when I spot an opportunity for a weak joke.

 

[JackRT]

I have long been a legend for my unparalleled powers of observation that are only compromised when I spot an opportunity for a weak joke.

Nice recovery ---- I think.

 

[USincognito]

To save my time in answering that question of the multitude of the curious I placed the answer under the photo where it has remained for several years.

Ahhhhh. All this time I thought that was a reference to your political position. I can be dense sometimes.

 

[Endtime Survivors]

A person clearly demonstrates they don't understand how inheritance works.

Same person proclaims that millions of biologists and geneticists, all of which know 10x more about biology and genetics, are all wrong.

Hmmm, interesting.

Next, this same person will be telling us that God must bestow English onto each American generation because children could not invent English over and over and over each generation.

So, any comments on the content of the post?

 

[Endtime Survivors]

It is not an intelligence at work but simply a description of reality.

Haha, finally, the truth comes out. Intelligence isn't part of the evolutionists reality. XD

 

[Endtime Survivors]

You're the one who wants to restrict the meaning, based on some odd notions about how humans use words.

Why is it an "odd notion" that the use of words should be restricted according to what they actually mean according to the context of what they are meant to describe? You want to make "control" and "random" to be synonymous. They are not. That's not an "odd notion". lol it's like I'm in the evolutionists twilight zone.

Sorry, but that's not the meaning of the word "evolution". At all. It's not remotely what I mean by it, and I study evolution for a living.

Yeah, it is the meaning of evolution; no purpose, intent, guidance, meaning, or control. All of it, completely random. You may talk about various laws or mechanisms, but you could only do so in the context of completely random laws and mechanisms. As soon as you try to inject any kind of purpose, intent, or meaning behind any of these laws or mechanisms, you leave behind what the theory actually means.

To a scientist, "random" means having an unpredictable outcome.

Which is why I said earlier that a scientist could program a set of dice to roll in a randomized manner which will always produce a random result. But, the scientist had to program it to do that.

So, yes, there are contexts in which "random" can mean an unpredictable result, but then evolution is, by definition, necessarily a different context from what you're referring to, because evolution says that there was no scientist behind any of it.

In the specific context of evolution, it means "random with respect to fitness", that is, that there is no mechanism by which an organism's need dictates which mutations occur. I am talking about evolution, I'm talking about random mutations -- in the sense that scientists use the term -- and those processes are completely consistent with a divine purpose for evolution.

In your Christianized version of evolution, your comments could be reasonable, but then you'd no longer be talking about actual evolution. There is a BIG difference between evolution which has no purpose or intent behind it, and evolution which was created by a master scientist who engineered the dice (or in this case mutations) to roll randomly.

If you're talking about a master scientist behind all of it, then you should stop calling it evolution. If there is a master scientist, then it is creation.

 

[Endtime Survivors]

They forget or perhaps never learned that evolution is what happens to populations not to individuals.

Circular reasoning. Populations are made up of individuals.

 

[Endtime Survivors]

Whether a mutation is beneficial or not depends on the context. Sometimes a mutation can be both advantageous and disavantageous in different circumstances

And those circumstances would be what kind of mutation and where it happened. Those are the only two factors that evolution consists of.

If a crustacean mutates a coat of fur, it will be selected to die. If it mutates a stronger set of pincers or a harder shell or whatever, then it will be selected to have a better chance at not dying before it can produce offspring (assuming it has mutated that far, lol).

If a fox in a chilly climate mutates a hard exoskeleton, then it will be selected to die.

All completely random, based on mutation and location. No intent. No purpose. No plan. No intelligence. No meaning. No reason. No influence or guidance. All random.

 

[USincognito]

Circular reasoning. Populations are made up of individuals.

Yeah, that phrase doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Mutations occur in individuals, but unless that mutation can be passed on to offspring and fix within a population no evolution has occurred. Remember, the most basic definition of evolution is "a change in allele representation in a population over time". A mutation in an individual is just a mutation. A mutation becoming fixed in a population over time to where it is present in the majority (or entirety) of a population is evolution

 

[USincognito]

If a crustacean mutates a coat of fur...

If a fox in a chilly climate mutates a hard exoskeleton...

If either of those things happened, evolution would be falsified so they're not the good examples whatever argument you're trying to make.

 

[Endtime Survivors]

If either of those things happened, evolution would be falsified

Why?

 

[USincognito]

Why?

Because taxa don't evolve highly derived characteristics of other distantly related taxa. If they did, that would violate the morphological nested hierarchy and falsify evolution.

 

[Larniavc]

First 'rule' of evolution suggests that life is destined to become more complex
March 17, 2008
Scientists have revealed what may well be the first pervasive ‘rule’ of evolution. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers have found evidence which suggests that evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex.
Looking back through the last 550 million years of the fossil catalogue to the present day, the team investigated the different evolutionary branches of the crustacean family tree.
They were seeking examples along the tree where animals evolved that were simpler than their ancestors.
Instead they found organisms with increasingly more complex structures and features, suggesting that there is some mechanism driving change in this direction.
“If you start with the simplest possible animal body, then there’s only one direction to evolve in – you have to become more complex,” said Dr Matthew Wills from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath who worked with colleagues Sarah Adamowicz from from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and Andy Purvis from Imperial College London.
“Sooner or later, however, you reach a level of complexity where it’s possible to go backwards and become simpler again.
“What’s astonishing is that hardly any crustaceans have taken this backwards route.
“Instead, almost all branches have evolved in the same direction, becoming more complex in parallel.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2008-03-evolution-life-destined-complex.html#jCp

Complexity is a silly concept in this context.

What units of measurement for complexity are you using?