Do organs, like the heart, have a common ancestor?

[Douglaangu v2.0]

Yes, and what is the mechanism for gravity?
What makes gravity work?


I'm betting you don't know and no one else does either.

 

[Tomk80]

why does the earth revolve around the sun? can science attempt to answer the why to anything? i wouldn't think so, science is concerned with the how, not why.

How does gravity work you ask. i don't know exactly as i am not an expert in physics, but i do know that there is a force that keeps us from floating around in space. we call it gravity in english.

That's the whole point. While we know the mechanism responsible for evolution, we don't know the mechanism responsible for gravity. Evolution as a theory is far more developed than the theory of gravity.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

Yes, and what is the mechanism for gravity?
What makes gravity work?
I'm betting you don't know and no one else does either.

you are comparing a force that exists and can be percieved, regardless if we know its mechanism or not, to a process that many claim occured but cannot be verified nor falsified.

is that a fair comparison? i wouldn't think so.

 

[Tomk80]

you are comparing a force that exists and can be percieved, regardless if we know its mechanism or not, to a process that many claim occured but cannot be verified nor falsified.

is that a fair comparison? i wouldn't think so.

Evolution as a process has been observed.

 

[AirPo]

I asked what is the precurser to the lung, someone said gills,

That's not true. You asked

at what point did the heart develop the need for oxygenated blood provided by the lungs, what was there before the lungs in the human to provide for this?

Perhaps the simple answer would have been better, never and nothing.

My original question was that if the human heart is dependent on the lungs for oxegenating the blood then what did humans have before the lung or heart, or which organ came first.

And it was pointed that by the the heart/lung system evolved before humans did.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

Evolution as a process has been observed.

then it would be scientific empirical law. end of discussion, end of debates.

it would be unquestionable like the boiling point of water at sea level.

 

[Tomk80]

then it would be scientific empirical law. end of discussion, end of debates.

it would be unquestionable like the boiling point of water at sea level.

No, since a law only describes a process. A theory describes the mechanisms behind the process. The boiling point of water at sea level is a fact, not a law.

Might I suggest that you search for the difference between fact, hypothesis, law and theory in a scientific context, not the lay-man's terms?

 

[ServantofTheOne]

No, since a law only describes a process. A theory describes the mechanisms behind the process. The boiling point of water at sea level is a fact, not a law.

Might I suggest that you search for the difference between fact, hypothesis, law and theory in a scientific context, not the lay-man's terms?

please explain how if TOE is observable as you claimed then how it remains theoretical.
If it is observable, then it should be scientifically verifiable.

 

[Cirbryn]

e[/b]] isn't it fair to say that this creature can potentially become human if it follows the same environmental experience that supposedly produced the human species

Possibly, sure. Who’s to say otherwise? Realistically? The chances of being exposed to the same selective pressures are extremely slim. Just as one example, think about where we’d be if it weren’t for a giant meteorite wiping out the dinosaurs and opening up niches for mammals. Also, some points along our evolution may have been influenced by fortuitous mutations whose chances of repeating at the right time could be small. See for instance my discussion of the evolution of the GLUD2 gene in apes here.

I asked what is the precurser to the lung, someone said gills, and i asked how did gills become lungs, numerous people then said, no thats not what happened. My original question was that if the human heart is dependent on the lungs for oxegenating the blood then what did humans have before the lung or heart, or which organ came first.

No one said gills became lungs. The closest anyone seems to have come was Post 41, in which DJ Ghost said the respiratory system adapted from gills to lungs. He meant that the part played by the gills in the respiratory system later came to be played by the lungs. You just misinterpreted what he said.

As for your original question, ignoring the fact that humans always had both lungs and hearts and looking back at our ancestor species: there isn’t evidence for lungs or lunglike structures in vertebrates prior to lobe-finned fishes (as far as I know, paleontology isn’t my specialty). Since lobe-finned fishes already had hearts, the heart came first. If you’re wondering how the transition occurred from using gills to using lungs for oxygenating blood, we don’t have a videotape, but we do have species such as lungfish alive today that possess both rudimentary lungs and gills, and that benefit from both. Darwinian evolution requires that each genetic change be advantageous, (or else become a very short stepping stone to an advantageous change before it is eliminated). The example of lungfish today demonstrates how changes to a swim bladder making it more and more capable of extracting oxygen directly from the air would be advantageous, even at stages when it was merely supplementing oxygen provided by the gills. Thus Darwinism is both potentially falsifiable, and is not falsified by this example. Also, thus Darwinism provides an explanation of how air-breathing animals came about. Creationism provides no such explanatory method, much less a testable one.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

Possibly, sure. Who’s to say otherwise? Realistically? The chances of being exposed to the same selective pressures are extremely slim. Just as one example, think about where we’d be if it weren’t for a giant meteorite wiping out the dinosaurs and opening up niches for mammals. Also, some points along our evolution may have been influenced by fortuitous mutations whose chances of repeating at the right time could be small. See for instance my discussion of the evolution of the GLUD2 gene in apes here.

its a pleasure to read and have an opportunity to respond to such intelligent posts.
I understand your point. my contention is not in what actually occurred, but what process governed those events and if the TOE really has reliable scientific support. It seems to me that the TOE has a series of interpolation from available data that is not scientific nor necessarily correct.

I have read many on this forum and all around call the TOE 'scientific fact' or belittle any who question its validity. I have yet to see any compelling evidence that natural selection was the cause of how organisms are the way they are today.

No one said gills became lungs. The closest anyone seems to have come was Post 41, in which DJ Ghost said the respiratory system adapted from gills to lungs. He meant that the part played by the gills in the respiratory system later came to be played by the lungs. You just misinterpreted what he said.

there must have been some point where "switchover" stage occured, i was curious to know if there is any supporting evidence that this ever happened. or is it conjecture based on available data, as in the lungfish etc.

As for your original question, ignoring the fact that humans always had both lungs and hearts and looking back at our ancestor species: there isn’t evidence for lungs or lunglike structures in vertebrates prior to lobe-finned fishes (as far as I know, paleontology isn’t my specialty). Since lobe-finned fishes already had hearts, the heart came first. If you’re wondering how the transition occurred from using gills to using lungs for oxygenating blood, we don’t have a videotape, but we do have species such as lungfish alive today that possess both rudimentary lungs and gills, and that benefit from both. Darwinian evolution requires that each genetic change be advantageous, (or else become a very short stepping stone to an advantageous change before it is eliminated). The example of lungfish today demonstrates how changes to a swim bladder making it more and more capable of extracting oxygen directly from the air would be advantageous, even at stages when it was merely supplementing oxygen provided by the gills. Thus Darwinism is both potentially falsifiable, and is not falsified by this example. Also, thus Darwinism provides an explanation of how air-breathing animals came about. Creationism provides no such explanatory method, much less a testable one.

[/quote]

I have not appealed to any precepts of creationism in this thread. i am not attempting to validate nor invalidate the theory based on creationism. I am just holding it to the scientific standard which it claims to adhere to.

 

[AirPo]

there must have been some point where "switchover" stage occured, i was curious to know if there is any supporting evidence that this ever happened. or is it conjecture based on available data, as in the lungfish etc.

Perhaps this should be explained this simply,

available data = supporting evidence.

 

[Tomk80]

please explain how if TOE is observable as you claimed then how it remains theoretical.
If it is observable, then it should be scientifically verifiable.

You seem to be confused on the meaning of the words fact, theory and law in science and seem to be thinking that they have the same meaning in science as in everyday language. This is not the case. I'll try to explain their scientific meaning. I'll give the examples in relation to evolution, and then in relation to gravity.


Evolution is normally defined as a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. This has been observed, and is the fact of evolution. It is observed.

It is possible to describe this change in allele frequencies over time quantitatively, based on the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Such a description would be a law of evolution.

Then, we can try to find out why the allele frequency changes over time. This would be the theory of evolution. Currently, we have several mechanisms which are responsible for this change, amongst those are mutations and natural selection.


The same way, we can observe that things fall down. We could call this the fact of gravity.

Then, we can describe the falling down quantitatively, for example using newton's law of gravity.

Now, we want to explain why things fall down. As of yet, as far as I know, we have no satisfying explanation for this.


So you see from the above, that there is no continuum from theory to law to fact. In science, all three are very different things, and one cannot change into the other. A theory will never become fact, a law will never become theory, and neither laws nor theories will ever become facts.

Further reading:
http://wilstar.net/theories.htm
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/factortheory.htm

 

[SpidermanTUba]

Now, we want to explain why things fall down. As of yet, as far as I know, we have no satisfying explanation for this.

Its because the presence of matter distorts space-time around it. A object falling in a vaccum, when viewed in the distorted space-time, is actually an object at rest.

Of course, all of this is "just a theory" and hence has no place in our public school system.

 

[DJ_Ghost]

then what would you call a theory that is based on a process which is not only not verifiable, but also not falsifiable? can it be considered science?

Np it would not be science, however it is a flat out falsehood to claim the ToE is not falsifiable. There have many posts on this forum by creationists asking why we don’t see certain things that would, in fact, actually falsify evolution if we did see them. Now, if there are possible ways to falsify evolution then by definition it is not unfalsifiable no matter how much wishful thinking they apply.

You say C and B are descendants of A through a process called Y, and this process is not verifiable because of the enormous amount of time it takes for process Y to occur, at the same time process Y can't be falsified because it is a process that can't be tested to be conclusively falsified. then what are we left with?

Irreleveant becase evolutionary theory can be falsified.

if science is falsificationist, how would you group TOE in respect to science since it can niether be verified nor falsified.

It can be falsified. Furthermore, its built on multiple evidence strings not just one. Explain this to me, since evolution is a theory proposed, worked on and studied by scientists why is it that those scientists, trained in the application of the method, would not notice that the theory wasn’t falsifiable?

please explain how gravity has less certainty than TOE? how can one compare the 2 when one can be measured as a physical force that is consistent given conditions and verifiable to something that is a process that supposedly happened over long periods of time that can't be verified nor falsified?

Gravity is a theory that is poorly understood. Laymen seem to think otherwise, but again despite what creationists seem to think we really do not know as much about the theory of gravity, how it works or what it is, as we know about teh theory of evolution evolution.

Ghost

 

[Linux98]

In the case of ToE the degree of certainly indicated by the data is actually greater than the degree of certainty we have in the theory of gravity.

All this says is that the theory of gravity is weaker than the theory of evolution. However, it does not make the theory of evolution any stronger. It's kind of like saying "You should go out with me because that guy is uglier than I am."

It always confuses me that evolutionists will continue to reiterate this point as though it has some sort of useful meaning. Ok, so the theory of evolution is "less weak" than the theory of gravity. So what?

 

[Tomk80]

All this says is that the theory of gravity is weaker than the theory of evolution. However, it does not make the theory of evolution any stronger. It's kind of like saying "You should go out with me because that guy is uglier than I am."

It always confuses me that evolutionists will continue to reiterate this point as though it has some sort of useful meaning. Ok, so the theory of evolution is "less weak" than the theory of gravity. So what?

Because, first of all, the theory of evolution is not weak but very strong.

Second, it is used to emphasize the difference between a theory and a fact and between theory in common language use as opposed to how it is used in science. Many creationists have trouble with the differences on both of these.

 

[ForeRunner]

It's kind of like saying "You should go out with me because that guy is uglier than I am."

Are you kidding? That is my best line, it works like a charm!

 

[ForeRunner]

I understand your point. my contention is not in what actually occurred, but what process governed those events and if the TOE really has reliable scientific support. It seems to me that the TOE has a series of interpolation from available data that is not scientific nor necessarily correct.

Let's see how my analogy skills are doing this morning.

Think of our understanding of biology and common descent like a connect the dots puzzle. In my analogy all lifeforms, fossils, and data are the dots. At first we only had a couple of dots, then people began discovering fossils, this gave us a whole bunch more dots. Still all we had were a jumble of dots, which could form nearly any picture.

Then there was a breakthrough, scientists came up with the theory of evolution. For the first time we could number those dots, and as we did that a picture emerged. Over time we keep adding dots, and we keep finding better ways of numbeing those dots, so the more time that goes by the sharper the picture looks. There will always be new dots and better numbering, but that doesn't mean we are wrong, we just had a line where there should have been a curve.

That being said, this analogy can describe nearly any process in science. All of science is interpolation from avaliable data, there is no other way, we cannot account for something we have know data for or knowledge of. This does not diminish science in any way, it is what makes it so strong, the ability to change when you are wrong.

 

[AnimateDream]

Let me put it this way. Without somekind of mechanism for circulation there's no way oxygen and nutrients would reach cells deep inside a multicelled organism. A planarium overcomes this by being only a few cells thick or something think I think but it has cell specialization. Meaning it was not just a colony of cells but had evolved beyond that to the point where different cells did different jobs. Eventually something evolved to have a series of tubules I would imagine allowing life to grow larger and then various structures evolved to aid circulation allowing life to grow even larger. Did you know that blood is still very much like ocean water? It has about the same salinity and requires the same amounts of many of the same minerals as the waters of the ocean did before our ancesterous species evolved to live on land. This is all from memory though and that article looked uninteresting and I didn't read it. Feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes

 

[kingreaper]

please explain how if TOE is observable as you claimed then how it remains theoretical.

It doesn't, it's a theory, not theoretical

Evolution via selection has been observed, that it is the reason we have the current diversity is a theory, that it operates in nature is another (and pretty obvious) theory

If it is observable, then it should be scientifically verifiable.

There is no such thing as scientific verification