Do you agree with these statements?

Speedwell said:

Sometimes. But in the case of whether there is speciation (and evolution) or not, there is no downside to accepting it provisionally--as all scientific theories are accepted.

I wonder if you know as much about evolution as you think. That stasis is actually, in its way, a demonstration of the evolutionary mechanism.

Quite right. A rapid change in selection criteria depletes the information content of the gene pool faster than it can be replenished by natural means and so the randomly distributed variation on which evolutionary change depends is much reduced. Consequently, the species is unable to adapt to any further change and becomes extinct. Something similar happens during selective breeding, which is why it can only be taken so far.

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Do you view wolves and dogs as different species?

klutedavid said:

Do you view wolves and dogs as different species?

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Probably not. Linnaeus thought they were, but they are interfertile. It's one of those grey areas which remind us that there is no hard line between species except the arbitrary one drawn by humans.

Shemjaza said:

Why?

Those traits are gone. Something similar may well develop, as it is still probably a viable niche, but recreating the exact structure is so unlikely that it verges on impossible.


They are different because they have different genetic code.

Wolves developed over millions of years of adaptation. Dogs have thousands of years of human acting as extreme selective pressures... that leads to a loss of genetic diversity, and the kind of problems we see in pure breeds.

Dogs have been bred to live with and for humans, in that environment they are far superior. On global scale the species Canis lupus is far more dog then it is wolf.

Some snakes are close enough to hybridise, may wouldn't be. (In fact many see each other as a tasty snack).

Here's an article about hybrid snakes that appear to breed true.

I can't find the article unfortunately, but I once read about a area where sterile hybrids formed a permanent population due to being superior to either parent species... but since they couldn't breed they never took over the entire region.

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So different species of snakes can interbreed.

This suggests that the plethora of species of snakes on the basis of morphology alone. May be an illusionary misunderstanding of their ability to interbreed, i.e. similar to dogs. So this geographical separation of the species of snakes has only altered their appearance. A superficial, outward, change in color, length, e.t.c. Rather than the hard wiring of the insitu, genetic snake, one single species.

Speedwell said:

Probably not. Linnaeus thought they were, but they are interfertile. It's one of those grey areas which remind us that there is no hard line between species except the arbitrary one drawn by humans.

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Although the breeding programs are artificial, speciation has not occurred. Forcing the reproduction of mutations in any species, probably only produces the exact same species. No matter how selective the breeding program and even how long it endues. The same species in the end.

klutedavid said:

Do you view wolves and dogs as different species?

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Modern science says "no," they are both Canis lupus.

klutedavid said:

So different species of snakes can interbreed.

This suggests that the plethora of species of snakes on the basis of morphology alone. May be an illusionary misunderstanding of their ability to interbreed, i.e. similar to dogs. So this geographical separation of the species of snakes has only altered their appearance. A superficial, outward, change in color, length, e.t.c. Rather than the hard wiring of the insitu, genetic snake, one single species.

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Outward changes... small or larger ARE genetic changes.

And not all snakes are inter-fertile.

As a branch of species snakes are older and more diverse then apes...

Bungle_Bear said:

A self-cooking chicken sounds pretty cool!

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Wonder how that would work, it would be born and at a certain age, it overheats and is ready to eat. Hmmm, I wonder what kind of technology would be involved in that ... and how long it would take for someone to do that to a human. technology is like that - useful applications and murderous ones all around.

klutedavid said:

Although the breeding programs are artificial, speciation has not occurred. Forcing the reproduction of mutations in any species, probably only produces the exact same species. No matter how selective the breeding program and even how long it endues. The same species in the end.

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How do the lost or changed genetic traits magically return?

Speedwell said:

Quite possibly--there are already glow-in-the-dark chickens.

Glowing in the dark, GMO chickens shed light on bird flu fight

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Hm I wonder when they'll have an applique for humans, some people would probably want to glow in the dark for Halloween.

Shemjaza said:

Outward changes... small or larger ARE genetic changes.

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But all dog breeds are different genetically in some slight degree and definitely in morphology. But powerfully are one distinct species.

And not all snakes are inter-fertile.

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How can you make that claim? What evidence are you referring to?

As a branch of species snakes are older and more diverse then apes...

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That may well be true but is irrelevant to the conversation.

Is morphology an accurate methodology in taxonomy? Given that some snakes interbreed.

We have a problem Houston.

Shemjaza said:

How do the lost or changed genetic traits magically return?

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The wolf DNA is still the primary DNA in all dogs. Do what I tell you to do and stop arguing with me. Release all dogs back into the forests and I bet you, that the wolf re-emerges. I think it is a full moon tonight I must go for now.

klutedavid said:

The wolf DNA is still the primary DNA in all dogs. Do what I tell you to do and stop arguing with me. Release all dogs back into the forests and I bet you, that the wolf re-emerges.

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On the whole, no.

Dogs are wolves that have been bred to be brain-damaged. They never mentally get past puppyhood (which is why they are so friendly). For most dogs, the DNA has become too scrambled for the wolf to properly emerge (this is in contrast to cats, which can "un-domesticate" very easily).

Some working sheepdogs are much closer to the original wolf, though. Every so often one gets born that does revert sufficiently to realise that those white fluffy things on 4 legs are actually... food. Farmers are forced to put those dogs down.

So you could probably breed working sheepdogs back to wolves, with enough time and effort. For them, most of the wolf DNA is probably still there.

klutedavid said:

The hippopotamus is the second largest terrestrial animal behind elephants. They are heavy, strong, and ferocious. They are in the water to cool off because they cannot regulate their body heat. They graze through the night on grass.

The hippopotamus is a very special herbivore and a rare exception to the general rule. Do not go near the water unless you have no choice. I am rather surprised at your desperation, to illustrate an example of a tetrapod, living in or near the water.

Pakicetus is small and prey for marine predators. Clutching at straws.

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I think this misses the understanding that whale ancestors, much like modern whales are the predators themselves. Hence the long conical skull and serated teeth.

klutedavid said:

The hippopotamus is a very special herbivore and a rare exception to the general rule. Do not go near the water unless you have no choice. I am rather surprised at your desperation, to illustrate an example of a tetrapod, living in or near the water.

Pakicetus is small and prey for marine predators. Clutching at straws.

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I gave you more examples than just the hippo (did you not read the bit about moose as well)? And I included a link which describes even more semi-aquatic animals (big and small).

If you want examples of smaller hoofed mammals with semi-aquatic behaviors, let me introduce you to the tapir:


And the water deer:


Your claim that Pakicetus would strictly avoided waters isn't based on anything, and you appear unfamiliar with semi-aquatic behaviors of many modern animals.

Spend some time learning about animal behaviors before making sweeping claims that have no basis in fact. Even just watching a nature documentary or two could help.

Shemjaza said:

So you made up a rule about hoofed mammals... it was false.

Now have a new rule "it was small"... and about tetrapods now...

Are you aware of snakes, seals, crocodiles, water dragons, ducks, otters, capybaras, water rats, tapirs, turtles, bats and whales?

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Them goal-posts are a movin'!

klutedavid said:

Someone's wrong here.

The prefix, 'tetra', is Greek for four.

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Man, you're batting a thousand. First suggesting a lack of aquatic hoofed animals, then after given an example, you follow up with a confused statement about a lack of aquatic tetrapods.

At some point you should ask yourself if you are more familiar with science than scientists themselves.

@klutedavid

Regarding whale evolution, it's also worth looking at the fossil succession of cetaceans.

Notice how cetaceans don't appear in the fossil succession anywhere in the hadean or archean, proterozoic, Cambrian, ordovician, silurian, devonian, carboniferous (Mississippian or Pennsylvanian), permian, Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous.

And nowhere in between any of these.

They appear at a later point in time that is consistent with the theory of evolution.

Triangular serrated sharp teeth, much like other aquatic proto whales, a long conical head, found in lacustrine prehistoric river beds of Pakistan. This is Pakicetus. 50 million years ago.

You mentioned larger aquatic predators, but this animals wasn't swimming in the deep ocean, it would have been near shallow streams and rivers where much like bears, it could take a brief dip in the water to catch fish.

Ambulocetus, the latter transitional of Pakistan (among several others), was much larger, some 5-10 feet in length, triangle shaped teeth much like Pakicetus, the long conical head, a long slender body like a crocodile. It's spine resembles that of prehistoric whales in that it could, much like a dolphin, undulate up and down through water. And again, wasn't a deep marine animal, but rather has been observed in freshwater environments and shallow marine environments (no battling of giant sharks necessary). We aren't just making up the animals environment, the animal is found in strata of their respective environments, so we know where these animals lived and clearly their sizes didn't affect their ability to live near and within lakes and streams, 45-50 million years ago.

The next popular of the group rodhocetus, again with the long conical head and triangular teeth, long slender body, but larger still growing some 10-15 feet in length. Only now it's vertebra and skull have fused (it has no neck). A clearly aquatic animal, yet it still has 4 limbs and could walk on land. Now more whale-like than terrestrial tetrapod-like. 40-45 million years ago.

And we could keep going. There are probably at least 10 popular transitional of the sequence. Basilosaurus, Dorudon, takracetus, dalanistes etc.

But the point is that, once again, we have fossils that fit into the theory. We aren't finding these fossils in the silurian, or Triassic. No, they're in the eocene, after terrestrial mammals came to dominate post k-t boundary.

And again, it isn't about the quantity of fossils (even though we have many), but it's about the succession and how it matches genetic phylogenies, viral dna dna studies, biogeographical sequences, comparative anatomical phylogenies, protein phylogenies, etc. The whale sequence fits the same pattern predicted by the theory of evolution. Indeed, it was through the theory that these fossils were predicted to exist to begin with at the geologic time and location that they were.

American scientists didn't just wake up in the morning and say "oh I want to go dig for fossils in Pakistan just for fun", no, they had an objective to find these fossils based on a prediction, ie whales existed around 30 million years ago, and animals with terrestrial anatomical features, hoofed mammals with long conical heads, ungulates in particular appeared around 60 Mya, so the answer to how whales came to be, according to the theory, was presumably somewhere between 60-30 million years ago. And so it was.

Find the right age, go to strata of ancient stream beds and lakes, and there it is. Much like the discovery of tiktaalik.

klutedavid said:

Species are genetically hard wired to reproduce that exact species, over and over, again. The dragonfly is virtually an exact copy today of it's ancestor, it's ancestor existed hundreds of millions of years ago.

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This isn't true from a genetics perspective. In fact, there is a discordance between genetic evolution and phenotype evolution. Species are also not hardwired to reproduce exactly, since there are various mechanisms by which variation is continuously introduced in populations.

klutedavid said:

What some fish decides to become an amphibian, then decides to become a tetrapod?

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klutedavid said:

A cat will over a million years turn into a dog?

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klutedavid said:

A quick post obviously. Some of us have not got everyday free.

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Two (!) "quick" posts in which by accident you repeat verbatim the phraseology that "professional creationists" use for mocking the ToE for their flock?
Sounds unbelievable.