Ever changing science.

Originally posted by Rize:
Speciation does not guarantee "large scale evolution" over time. It guarantees large scale speciation over time. That "the differences are going to be remarkable" is merely an assumption (by remarkable, I assume you mean things will grow wings and eyes and such ). You assume that there is a large time scale to work with as well.

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Speciation does guarentee large scale evolution. Once gene pools are separated, they can diverge. There are many reasons why we know that macroevolutionary differences are simply the result of the accumulation of microevolutionary differences. The most significant of which is that the genetics are percisely the same. Here is a textbook explaination:

One of the most important tenets of the theory forged during the Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s was that 'macroevolutionary' differences among organisms--those that distinguish higher taxa--arise from the accumulation of the same kinds of genetic differences that are found within species. Opponents of this point of view believed that 'macroevolution' is qualitatively different from 'microevolution' within a species, and is based on a totally different kind of genetic and developmental repatterning. The iconoclastic geneticist Richard Goldschmidt (1940), who held this opinion, believed that the evolution of species marks the break between 'microevolution' and 'macroevolution'--that there is a 'bridgeless gap' between species that cannot be understood in terms of the genetic variation within species. Genetic studies of species differences have decisively disproved Goldschmidt's claim. Differences between species in morphology, behavior, and the process that underlie reproductive isolation all have the same genetic properties as variation within species: they occupy consistent chromosomal positions, they may be polygenic or based on few genes, they may display additive, dominant, or epistatic effects, and they can in some instances be traced to specifiable differences in proteins or DNA nucleotide differences. The degree of reproductive isolation between populations, whether prezygotic or postzygotic, varies from little or none to complete. Thus, reproductive isolation, like the divergence of any other character, evolves in most cases by the gradual substitution of alleles in populations.

(Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, third edition. 477-478)

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The creationist argument of "kinds" is that creatures can speciate but they can only diverge "so far." Usually this is attributed to a speciation mechanism that depends on historical variation being divided up into daughter species. In other words, divergence of sister speciation is due to lossing part of the variation in the ancestral population. This might be accurate, if life didn't have a way to generate new variation, but it does. You might know it as mutation. Creationists have yet to identify any mechanism that would prevent enough novelty from accumulating with species and their descendents such that they would no longer be recongizable as belonging to the same "kind."

Novel features, or derived traits, are characteristics of an organism or population that did not exist in the ancestral populaion. The issue with creationists is that "kinds" must limit derived traits or they won't be unchangeable or fixed anymore. In other words, the descendents of a dog must always remain dogs, and they must only have ancestors that were also dogs. If creationists acknowledge that it is possible for the descendents of a dog to loose or gain diagnostic features, such that they no longer appear to be dogs, then there is no possible way for the "kind" hypotheisis to rule out that dogs and cats, or even dogs and trees, do not have a common ancestor. The concept of novelity is clearly damaging to the typical creationist view of biology.

Rize, somehow I am missing your point here.

Isn´t all this discussion just an elongated form of saying "I don´t see the use of Evolution, and it offends my faith, so people should stop using it."?

Do they? What kind of faith do the put into it? Are there groups of scientists going from house to house, proclaiming:"We have found the ultimate truth! Accept or die!"?

The Theory of Evolution, as it was said over and over again, does not say anything about theology. It just gives possible answers for why lifeforms are what they are.

Originally posted by Rize
That does not prove common descent, that is merely consistent with it.

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There is no "proof" in science, only evidence. And the evidence that is "merely" consistent with common descent is totally inconsistent with special creation. That is why over a hundred and forty years ago, biologists realized that special creation was false.

And personally, I don't have a problem with the "ability" (though good luck proving it) of a "kind" (whatever that is) to "evolve" (whatever that is ) 

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So you have no problem with evolution? What then is your problem?

Rize,

I guess I will have to put you off again. The Bucs took the SuperBowl. (I'm no football fan, so I switched from Raiders to Bucs about 10 minutes before kickoff). Now I'm happy, but too tired to post a detailed (but short!) reply to you. I'll try to pick it up during the coming week.


Goodnight!

what the.... is extra special creation

Originally posted by Rize
I private joke

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It must be

Originally posted by Rize
Yes, but is it inconsistant with extra special creation?

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Well, evolution goes up to eleven.

Relativity can be tested in many ways and it has (and it's suceeded). Evolution is like goo compared to relativity. Sure the evidence "verifies" evolution, except it's changed so much. It is historical in nature and not directly observed. Relativity is empirical in nature and not directly observed. Sorry if I'm having trouble defining things, but there is a difference.

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Relativity has, indeed, survived the scrutiny of experiment and passed with flying colors. It is difficult to quantify "how well" a theory has been verified, but it is difficult to make a case that relativity has an advantage over evolution in this area. Certainly there has been much more published research in evolution (because the subject of evolution is a much more complex one than the subject of relativity). How often has evolution survived a falsification test - research that could have, in principle, falsified the notion of evolution? Certainly, with the discovery of DNA it could have been found that organisms thought to be related shared little or no hereditary material. Every time a new fossil is lifted from the ground, evolution stands to be falsified... what if a new mammal fossil appears in the fossil record older than the oldest amphibians, the order from which mammals derive? Once might be a mistake in dating, but enough fossils are discovered each year that a pattern of such might be established if evolution were not true. But the fact is that of the thousands of fossils that paleontologists dig up each year, and over the past 150 years, there hasn't been a single unambiguous case of a fossil organism predating the oldest of its ancestors. To avoid making the post too long, I will stop without listing any of the many, many individual results from the lab and field that independently confirm the theory in part or in whole. I am touching on some of those in the other thread...

There is a difference between historical science and non-historical science. Both are empirical (that is not the difference). The difference lies is what kind of evidence and what kind of testing is available to each. The nature of the evidence for historical events sometimes makes it too difficult to identify enough evidence to put together strong tests of a theory. Such is not the case for evolution, though.

Speciation does not guarantee "large scale evolution" over time...You assume that there is a large time scale to work with as well.

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I think Rufus addressed this point well. Natural selection, changing environments, and speciation do guarantee large scale changes over large periods of time. You cannot split a collection of similar objects into groups, make different changes to each group, split the sub-groups, repeat again, and continue doing this for very long before the individual groups have ceased to bear the slightest resemblance to one another. That is large scale evolution. It does not necessarily guarantee the evolution of novelty, though. What does guarantee the evolution of novelty (complex adaptations like eyes and wings), is variability with a feedback mechanism. To see this illustrated, play one of those games of cellular automata. Genetic algorithms have been used to allow computers to program themselves by sucha feedback loop. They have "evolved" very novel systems (ones that engineers are challenged to even understand the workings of) that do remarkable complex tasks. For instance, a computer coupled to a box of components and re-wirable circuitry programmed itself to be a radio using genetic algorithms (a computer simulation of variation plus natural selection). A computer programmed itself to improvise jazz solos using the same methods. Both in very short periods of time, thanks to a strong selective pressure.

Nice. So the 3 coccyx vertebrae are enlarged and not fused? It looks like a tail, but perhaps it is merely a pathology? The "5 vertebrae tail" (figured 2.2.1. talkorigins) is not elaborated on. Did that one have extra coccyx vertebrae, or were the S5 and S4 vertebrae part of the "tail"? This is interesting and provides something to talk about, but it doesn't prove anything to me.

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The one pictured in the x-ray only had 3 "tail" vertebrae, and they were homologous to the three small "fused" vertebrae in the coccyx. The vertebrae labeled S1-S5 are the sacral (meaning spinal) vertebrae.

We are working from the same material here, so I cannot elaborate much more than the author without going to the library. He does cite his references well for those of us who require a more in depth examination. The most important part, to me, is that the true human tail is not merely a deformity, as witnessed by:

The true human tail is characterized by a complex arrangement of adipose and connective tissue, central bundles of longitudinally arranged striated muscle in the core, blood vessels, nerve fibres, nerve ganglion cells, and specialized pressure sensing nerve organs (Vater-Pacini corpuscles). It is covered by normal skin, replete with hair follicles, sweat glands, and sebaceous glands (Dao and Netsky 1984; Dubrow et al. 1988; Spiegelmann et al. 1985). True human tails range in length from about one inch to over 5 inches long (on a newborn baby), and they can move and contract (Baruchin et al. 1983; Dao and Netsky 1984; Lundberg et al. 1962).

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(from the same page.) The references are cited, and where possible links are given in the footnotes to the abstract on PubMed.

Originally posted by Rize
Notice where I made a distinction about historical sciences?  Why are we so keen on making up (and believing) extremely detailed theories on things which have little bearing on our lives.  What's the chances of the theory of solar system formation benefiting us in any way?  (if it's even right)  At least SSF is a cut and dry theory and there are millions of stars and such in various stages of life to observe.  So even that isn't too bad. 

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There is no distinction within science. Unless you are videotaping an experiment, all of science is "historical".  Let me give you an example from my research.

I had a paper published (Tissue Engineering, 1(4): 345-353, 1995) describing an experiment for a possible treatment for osteoarthritis.  We drilled a 3 mm diameter hole thru the articular cartilage and part of the underlying bone in the knee of rabbits.  This diameter hole will not regenerate on its own and is an established model for osteoarthritis.  In the defect in one knee we placed a polymer alone and in the other knee we placed polymer into which had been grown special cells, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs for short).  Animals were euthanized at 6 and 12 weeks post-op and the defect removed for histological (under the microscope) analysis.  At 6 weeks there was no difference between defects with polymer alone and defects with polymer-MSCs.  Both contained cells but there was no identifiable cartilage or bone.  At 12 weeks, the defects with polymer alone contained fibrocartilage (which is NOT the same as articular cartilage) and no bone.  It looked like a big hole in cartilage and bone filled with scar tissue.  In contrast, the defect with polymer-MSCs had a surface layer of articular cartilage and an underlying layer of bone.  The edges of the defect could not be observed.  The bone in the defect could not be distinguished from the surrounding bone.  We concluded that the MSCs had formed the new cartilage and bone that now filled the defect.  However, the point here is that we DEDUCED, or INFERRED, the differentiation of the MSCs to chondrocytes (cartilage cells) or osteoblasts (bone cells).  We never observed it directly.  In thinking about our current, and planned, experiments, this lack of direct observation will be true there also.  The best, and most accepted, "proof" will be to insert the gene for beta-galactosidase into the MSCs.  The beta-galactosidase produced by the labeled cells will stain blue with a chemical reaction.  Therefore, we will see the chondrocytes and osteoblasts in the defect treated with polymer-MSCs turn blue, "proving" that the MSCs differentiated into these cells.  But that is still inferrence, or "detective style reasoning".  Everything we observed happened in the past, from a microsecond to 6 weeks before we removed the tissue at 12 weeks post-op.  It is still looking at the result of a past event we will never be able to see in real time.  This is no different than Darwin observing the Galapagos finches and INFERRING that evolution occurred or scientists hypothesizing about planetary formation.

And you should be telling us why the people make up such detailed theories about what went on in the past.  After all, that is what creationism is. So why is creationism so important to you and other creationists?  What difference do the details of creation make to you?

Originally posted by Rize
They pick animal subjects that best represent humans for the test concerned.  They use seem to use a lot of rats...

Genetic similarity is probably one basis.  You'll never demonstrate that it was the evolutionary similarity rather than the genetic similarity that was the reason for the choice.  

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Rize, how do we know that the animal will "best represent humans"?  We know because evolution is true, so we use mammals -- rats -- instead of frogs because mammals are more closely related to us by evolution than frogs are.

BUT, IF special creation were true, we couldn't do this.  A Creator has no motive or reason to make rats more similar to humans in say, wound healing, than rats.  We might be more similar to frogs or fish.  Even if we were more similar to rats in wound healing, that doesn't mean the enzymes that metabolize toxins in our livers were similar.  Here again, the Creator could have decided to make our liver enzymes more similar to crayfish.

So, if special creation were true, myself and all my colleagues would have spent all our research time looking for which "kind" is most similar to humans for each area of human physiology we wanted to study.  There are a lot of species/kinds out there and we would still be looking.

So all the medical advances in the past 60 years would be impossible if evolution were not true. Because evolution is true, the advances were made.

Originally posted by Rize The observed mechanism exists, the question is whether it is responsible for large scale evolution  

Since the mechanism of natural selection gives you new species, then it is responsible for nearly all of evolution. Rize, the only biological reality is species. All the "higher" taxa are simply groups of species. Once you get a new species then you are done.  Large scale evolution is simply multiple speciation spread through time.

Now, one partial exception to natural selection may be symbiosis and the incorporation of whole organisms, such as bacteria that became mitochondria.  Yet even here, natural selection decides whether the individual with the endosymbiont is advantageous and monitors changes in the endosymbiont. 
Relativity is empirically verified and may be physically useful.  Large scale evolution is not empirically verified and is not physically useful. 

Macro evolution is empirically verified by several means: 
1. Fossil sequences of transitional individuals going across "higher" taxa boundaries. Lots of those.
2. Phylogenetic studies showing that genes are not independent units, which they would be if large scale evolution were wrong.
3. Biogeography
4. Embryology. 

As to being useful, all those new advances in medicine in the past 50 years depend upon evolution being true.

Yet they learn it as a child and then it changes dramatically over the course of their lives. 

What exactly "changes dramatically"?  Not the idea of descent with modificatio.  Not natural selection.  Those are the two main ideas of evolution.  Individual lineages might change, but that's not a big deal.

How many times do I have to tell you that I don't dispute speciation?  This is why I gave up the other argument.  Speciation is used in argument for evolution, but (as it's defined) it is an independant and verifiable observation.

Then you are an evolutionist and let's pack this in and go out for a friendly beer.  Since that is all there is in nature, once you have speciation then it's over.  Descent with modification.

 

Originally posted by Rize
Creationists don't dispute natural selection.

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Well, if creationists don't dispute speciation and they don't dispute natural selection, then what are they disputing?

I think you will find that creationists do dispute both. Otherwise we wouldn't keep having "examples" of features that natural selection can't account for.