Evolution: common ancestor?

[Loudmouth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it postulated that all matter came from the Big Bang? And some billions of years later the earth formed? And some many millions of years later life on earth formed? If this chain of events is true, then life eventually formed from whatever came from the pre-Big-Bang singularity.

That isn't the same as the first life being alive in the singularity as you asked earlier.

 

[Loudmouth]

You know that isn't the same thing?

You know that it is the same thing. It is a new species, exactly what you asked for.

That begins with a species of Chlorella and ends with a species of Chlorella.

Chlorella isn't the name of a species. It is a group of species. According to your logic, humans evolving from a common ancestor shared with bears is not the production of a completely new species because we are still a species of mammal.

The challenge was to show the complete transformation of one species into another. Showing me algae speciating is not the same as showing algae evolving into protozoa.

Using your logic, algae evolving into protozoa would not be a complete transformation because they are still species of eukaryotes.

I mean, if that were the complete transformation from one species into another entirely different species, that's nobel prize material, that's unambiguous proof Darwin was right about the origin of the species, there would be no controversy. Think about that, the focus of that paper was about predator-prey systems, not speciation. Talk origins should have made that clearer that was in regard to something else.

We do have unambiguous evidence supporting evolution. That's the whole point.

 

[Loudmouth]

I never implied it would.

That is what your scenario requires.

 

[Loudmouth]

That's taking it to the extreme. You make it sound as if a scientist says it, that settles it. If something is true why stifle any inquiry?

You are not interested in inquiry, and don't pretend otherwise.

Suggesting scientists should eliminate other possibilities, should be welcomed. What's wrong with some checks and balance?

What's wrong with understanding that you can't eliminate the unfalsifiable? When your rejection of a theory is based on, "Well, it could have been magic", then how is science supposed to eliminate that possibility?

Science works through inference, not through a deductive method that you are requiring of it.

The scientific method doesn't infer facts. They use observable, testable, repeatable results to deduce empirical facts.

You don't deduce facts. You observe facts.

Hypothesis and theories make inferences. I don't mean inferences are bad, just that they can and should be challenged. Intelligent design theory uses the same method of inferences as the ToE.

"Well, it could be undetectable magic" is not a scientific challenge.

Similar sequences doesn't automatically mean common ancestry:
"The tests described above show that there is currently
no formal demonstration of the universal common
ancestry of the extant life forms. The likelihood tests of
the kind described by Theobald [4] fail to address the
problem because they yield results“
in support of common ancestry”
for any sufficiently similar sequences.
The alternative to UCA is convergent evolution of
highly similar sequences of the universal proteins (under
the convergence hypothesis, the phrase
“universally conserved”
becomes an oxymoron)"

I apologize, I didn't realize he went to the trouble of eliminating convergent evolution.

"We believe that together this evidence makes conver-gent evolution of the highly similar sequences in over
100 proteins that are confidently traced back to the
putative Last Universal Cellular Ancestor (a highly con-
servative estimate) [2] a virt
ual impossibility. However,
formal demonstration of UCA, independent of the
assumption that universally conserved orthologous pro-
teins with highly similar sequences actually originate
from common ancestral forms, remains elusive and
might not be feasible in principle."
http://www.biologydirect.com/content/pdf/1745-6150-5-64.pdf

Another alternative is common design, but he didn't consider that.

From that very article.

"We believe that together this evidence makes convergent evolution of the highly similar sequences in over 100 proteins that are confidently traced back to the putative Last Universal Cellular Ancestor (a highly conservative estimate) [2] a virtual impossibility."
http://www.biologydirect.com/content/pdf/1745-6150-5-64.pdf

That is why I ask for references. Creationists like to distort the truth.

 

[dysert]

That isn't the same as the first life being alive in the singularity as you asked earlier.

No. I was just trying to advance the conversation.

 

[Dizredux]

Oh, those are speciation events, they just aren't the same thing as the complete transformation from one species into another.

I am not sure what you mean by complete transformation of one species into another. I suspect you mean something like a dog giving birth to a cat. Please correct me if I am wrong.

What you do not seem to understand is that, according to the current view on evolution, you will never see a complete transformation. If you began to see that it would pretty much blow evolution out the window.

What we see and expect to see is descent with modification. In other words, the descendents of mammals will always be mammals just somewhat different types of mammal. If speciation occurs you will just get another species of mammal. That is what current theory of evolution predicts and that is what we indeed get.

Your complete transformation bit just doesn't work.

Dizredux

 

[justlookinla]

I am not sure what you mean by complete transformation of one species into another. I suspect you mean something like a dog giving birth to a cat. Please correct me if I am wrong.

What you do not seem to understand is that, according to the current view on evolution, you will never see a complete transformation. If you began to see that it would pretty much blow evolution out the window.

What we see and expect to see is descent with modification. In other words, the descendents of mammals will always be mammals just somewhat different types of mammal. If speciation occurs you will just get another species of mammal. That is what current theory of evolution predicts and that is what we indeed get.

Your complete transformation bit just doesn't work.

Dizredux

Were ancestors of mammals always mammals?

 

[Resha Caner]

I am not sure what you mean by complete transformation of one species into another. I suspect you mean something like a dog giving birth to a cat. Please correct me if I am wrong.

What you do not seem to understand is that, according to the current view on evolution, you will never see a complete transformation. If you began to see that it would pretty much blow evolution out the window.

What we see and expect to see is descent with modification. In other words, the descendents of mammals will always be mammals just somewhat different types of mammal. If speciation occurs you will just get another species of mammal. That is what current theory of evolution predicts and that is what we indeed get.

I don't know exactly what Vaccine was trying to say; the difficulty of discrete change versus continuity makes it a difficult conversation. However, for myself I have long wondered whether change in organisms has its limits.

As noted, the examples given for speciation are relatively tiny changes. I recall one study on speciation that measured the span of the sagittal crest for some lizard and declared a victory for evolutionary theory that it progressively changed by a millimeter or so over several generations. My reaction to stuff like that is, "Really? That's speciation? How do you know that isn't just the normal span of sagittal crests for that species?" Of course (IIRC) it was all properly correlated with some change in allele frequency, but still. The definition of a species seems so arbitrary as to allow for any change one wants to imagine to be called evolution.

Again, my question is, how do we know there isn't some limit to how much change can occur? Or how do we know that all mutations aren't a path to universal extinction? That the diversity of life didn't come from some other mechanism? After all, mutation has only been posited as an evolutionary mechanism for a short time, and it seems biology is already adding other mechanisms to the list of possibles.

So, when examples of speciation are things like a dog-like animal that comes from a dog-like animal, it's hard to accept that as evidence that over the longer span of time dog-like animals came from some reptile-like tetrapod.

 

[Vaccine]

You know that it is the same thing. It is a new species, exactly what you asked for.

The complete transformation of one species into another is what I asked for and I, as well as the rest of the world, am waiting for.

Chlorella isn't the name of a species. It is a group of species.

Well-known common species of Chlorella include Chlorella vulgaris, Clorella ellipsoidea, Clorella saccharophila, Clorella pyrenoidosa, and Clorella regularis.

You've started and ended with the same species.

According to your logic, humans evolving from a common ancestor shared with bears is not the production of a completely new species because we are still a species of mammal.

Mammals are a class, much higher up. I was only asking about species.

Using your logic, algae evolving into protozoa would not be a complete transformation because they are still species of eukaryotes.

Eukaryotes are a domain, as high up as it goes. I was asking about species. Also, algae evolving into protozoa would be a complete transformation since they are different species.

We do have unambiguous evidence supporting evolution. That's the whole point.

It depends on which kind of evolution you're talking about. It seems you struggle knowing the difference between a domain, a class or species so I wonder how much you really know about Darwin's theory and how much you just parrot.
I noticed you didn't address my point about that speciation not being given much credence. Give that some thought, if that article just empirically proved Darwinian evolution, would that be of trivial consequence? Or Nobel prize material? World news, fame, fortune, etc.
Biologists typically know what they're doing and they aren't making more of that than what it is. Only people on the internet seem to think observing speciation within a species is the same thing as speciation through variation and selection.

 

[Vaccine]

What's wrong with understanding that you can't eliminate the unfalsifiable? When your rejection of a theory is based on, "Well, it could have been magic", then how is science supposed to eliminate that possibility?

Kindly point out where I said I reject the theory of evolution? Species adapting and changing has been observed since before Darwin. I don't doubt that. That the ToE accounts for all the bio-complexity we see or origin of the species is what I doubt.

"Well, it could be undetectable magic" is not a scientific challenge.

That's a quote? Who said that?

From that very article.

"We believe that together this evidence makes convergent evolution of the highly similar sequences in over 100 proteins that are confidently traced back to the putative Last Universal Cellular Ancestor (a highly conservative estimate) [2] a virtual impossibility."
http://www.biologydirect.com/content/pdf/1745-6150-5-64.pdf

That is why I ask for references. Creationists like to distort the truth.

I pointed that out, apparently you missed it:
"The alternative to UCA is convergent evolution of
highly similar sequences of the universal proteins (under
the convergence hypothesis, the phrase
“universally conserved”
becomes an oxymoron)"

I apologize, I didn't realize he went to the trouble of eliminating convergent evolution.

"We believe that together this evidence makes conver-gent evolution of the highly similar sequences in over
100 proteins that are confidently traced back to the
putative Last Universal Cellular Ancestor (a highly con-
servative estimate) [2] a virt
ual impossibility. However,
formal demonstration of UCA, independent of the
assumption that universally conserved orthologous pro-
teins with highly similar sequences actually originate
from common ancestral forms, remains elusive and
might not be feasible in principle."


Considering you put quotes on this:

"Well, it could be undetectable magic"

I have to say that's some blatant dishonesty there.

 

[Vaccine]

I am not sure what you mean by complete transformation of one species into another. I suspect you mean something like a dog giving birth to a cat. Please correct me if I am wrong.

A dog giving birth to a cat is a caricature of my question.
I had asked for some evidence, not assumptions.
Loudmouth said "Observations are not assumptions."
I asked to be shown the compete transformation of one species into another. Show, not tell, the complete evolution of one species into a completely different one. But it hasn't been done.

“And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.

What you do not seem to understand is that, according to the current view on evolution, you will never see a complete transformation. If you began to see that it would pretty much blow evolution out the window.

Which qualifies evolution as a philosophy, not a scientific fact. The theory of evolution is science, common ancestry is a belief, a philosophy.

What we see and expect to see is descent with modification. In other words, the descendents of mammals will always be mammals just somewhat different types of mammal. If speciation occurs you will just get another species of mammal. That is what current theory of evolution predicts and that is what we indeed get.

I hope you understand that's a narrative, not evidence. It can't be observed, tested, or repeated. It's not falsifiable, so it's not science. If people want to believe that narrative, I don't have an issue with it, but I don't share their belief.

 

[biggles53]

A dog giving birth to a cat is a caricature of my question.
I had asked for some evidence, not assumptions.
Loudmouth said "Observations are not assumptions."
I asked to be shown the compete transformation of one species into another. Show, not tell, the complete evolution of one species into a completely different one. But it hasn't been done.

“And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.



Which qualifies evolution as a philosophy, not a scientific fact. The theory of evolution is science, common ancestry is a belief, a philosophy.



I hope you understand that's a narrative, not evidence. It can't be observed, tested, or repeated. It's not falsifiable, so it's not science. If people want to believe that narrative, I don't have an issue with it, but I don't share their belief.

You're referencing Kenyon...??

Don't make me laugh....!

 

[DogmaHunter]

Which qualifies evolution as a philosophy, not a scientific fact. The theory of evolution is science, common ancestry is a belief, a philosophy.

Actually, common ancestry is one of the facts these days. A genetic fact. Evolution theory explains those facts.

If you falsify natural selection, you're still left with the facts of genetics.
Good luck refuting natural selection by the way.

I hope you understand that's a narrative, not evidence.

No, it's a testable prediction.

It can't be observed, tested, or repeated

Errr... it's tested everyday. In every zoo, in every delivery hospital, on every farm, in every breeding program.

It's not falsifiable, so it's not science.

I don't see how. If a cat gives birth to a dog, it's falsified. What you really mean probably is that you think that won't happen. I agree. So does evolution theory.

If people want to believe that narrative, I don't have an issue with it, but I don't share their belief.

Well, you can believe what you want off course.
Evolution theory just happens to predict that speciation happens in hierarchical structure. So every new species will be a supspecies of the ancestral species. And that's exactly what we observe every day.
This way, a hierarchical structure takes shape in a tree of life. When investigated in the genomes or comparative anatomy, that's exactly what we find as well. And it all matches up.

You are free to not believe the facts. I just don't see the point.

 

[Dizredux]

Vaccine


Dizredux:

I am not sure what you mean by complete transformation of one species into another. I suspect you mean something like a dog giving birth to a cat. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Vaccine:

A dog giving birth to a cat is a caricature of my question. I had asked for some evidence, not assumptions. Loudmouth said "Observations are not assumptions." I asked to be shown the compete transformation of one species into another. Show, not tell, the complete evolution of one species into a completely different one. But it hasn't been done.

“And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.

Dizredux

What you do not seem to understand is that, according to the current view on evolution, you will never see a complete transformation. If you began to see that it would pretty much blow evolution out the window.

Which qualifies evolution as a philosophy, not a scientific fact. The theory of evolution is science, common ancestry is a belief, a philosophy.

I am going to clip the rest.


I think the place to start here is to figure out what you mean by ""compete transformation of one species into another.". I guessed that you meant a dog giving birth to a cat. We see that sort of thing often with creationists so it was not an unreasonable guess.

You responded with "A dog giving birth to a cat is a caricature of my question".

I asked you to correct me if I was wrong and your did. So now I am asking you to explain what you mean by "complete transformation of one species to another." I really have no idea.

The term "complete transformation" is what I don't understand. Do you mean one species changing to another with no characteristics of the original? This is only a guess so it would be very helpful if you could clarify what you mean?

Dizredux

 

[Dizredux]

Resha Caner


Rehsa

I don't know exactly what Vaccine was trying to say; the difficulty of discrete change versus continuity makes it a difficult conversation. However, for myself I have long wondered whether change in organisms has its limits.

As noted, the examples given for speciation are relatively tiny changes. I recall one study on speciation that measured the span of the sagittal crest for some lizard and declared a victory for evolutionary theory that it progressively changed by a millimeter or so over several generations. My reaction to stuff like that is, "Really? That's speciation? How do you know that isn't just the normal span of sagittal crests for that species?" Of course (IIRC) it was all properly correlated with some change in allele frequency, but still. The definition of a species seems so arbitrary as to allow for any change one wants to imagine to be called evolution.

Again, my question is, how do we know there isn't some limit to how much change can occur? Or how do we know that all mutations aren't a path to universal extinction? That the diversity of life didn't come from some other mechanism? After all, mutation has only been posited as an evolutionary mechanism for a short time, and it seems biology is already adding other mechanisms to the list of possibles.

Limits on how much evolutionary change? This has been proposed a lot of times often but not always by creationists. It is actually a good question in my opinion.

A couple of things: First a barrier to continued evolutionary change has been proposed but never found so until it is, it has to remain in the category of interesting speculation.

If it were found it though, it would result in a major hit on evolutionary theory. In my understanding of the current theory, it is based on the idea that there is no genetic barrier to continued evolution.

Could other mechanisms be involved...in my opinion, probably. There is a lot we don't know yet. Look at epigenetics and some of the new understanding it has brought to the study of genetics. There is likely to be more discovered in the future.

Resha:

So, when examples of speciation are things like a dog-like animal that comes from a dog-like animal, it's hard to accept that as evidence that over the longer span of time dog-like animals came from some reptile-like tetrapod.

Perhaps this might help, I got it from Neil Shubin's work.

All tetrapods have the same basic limb structure in that the limbs are composed of one bone, two bones, lots of bones, digits as he puts it.

All tetrapods have this basic structure, humans, dogs, cats, whales, bats, dolphins and so on.

This can be traced back to the very primitive Tiktaalik and probably before. All tetrapods have inherited this structure and it has continued in all descendents with no exception.

In fact, now that I mention it, the book Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin might address a number of your questions. I highly recommend it. Amazon has it for a fairly reasonable price both Kindle and used and I suspect most libraries either have it or can get it.

He also has some specials on PBS in which he discussed this in, I think, the third episode.

A short note: I may have found the whole book on the net. Try http://www.course-notes.org/sites/www.course-notes.org/files/uploads/biology/your_inner_fish.pdf

Take care,

Dizredux

An add in note, you can find some good illustrations of the tetrapod limb on page 31 in the cited web site.-Diz

 

[Resha Caner]

A couple of things: First a barrier to continued evolutionary change has been proposed but never found so until it is, it has to remain in the category of interesting speculation.

Well, biologists know of some things that limit evolution. Take for example, this list prepared by Ary Hoffman: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s3_10100.pdf

So, it's not a question of whether evolution can or has been limited. It's a matter of the degree to which it is limited. Is it so limited that it couldn't have produced the variety we observe? There is also the corollary question: Even if evolution could have produced the variety we observe, did it? IOW, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe evolution is not the only mechanism at work? Maybe the variety of life is due to multiple mechanisms. If so, how would we distinguish them?

All of that begs the question: When is a biological process that produces variety not evolution? If, as they're discovered, we're just going to keep sticking each new mechanism under the evolutionary umbrella, then "evolution" becomes a useless term.

So, I've asked before: What is the essence of evolution? The answer I received, if I understood correctly, is "descent with modification". OK. Now we should be able to recognize what is not evolution. It also allows us to make a list of some things that are not essential to evolution - even though they are debated quite frequently in this forum. The list would include issues of time scale and design.

 

[Dizredux]

Well, biologists know of some things that limit evolution. Take for example, this list prepared by Ary Hoffman: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s3_10100.pdf

So, it's not a question of whether evolution can or has been limited. It's a matter of the degree to which it is limited. Is it so limited that it couldn't have produced the variety we observe? There is also the corollary question: Even if evolution could have produced the variety we observe, did it? IOW, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe evolution is not the only mechanism at work? Maybe the variety of life is due to multiple mechanisms. If so, how would we distinguish them?

All of that begs the question: When is a biological process that produces variety not evolution? If, as they're discovered, we're just going to keep sticking each new mechanism under the evolutionary umbrella, then "evolution" becomes a useless term.

So, I've asked before: What is the essence of evolution? The answer I received, if I understood correctly, is "descent with modification". OK.

I suspect here is you may be running into problems. The scientific definition of evolution is change in allie frequencies in a population over time. In other words, changes that are heritable and are involved in a population and not in individuals. Descent with modification is more of a conclusion from the evidence more than anything else. It is a very good description but not a definition.

Now we should be able to recognize what is not evolution. It also allows us to make a list of some things that are not essential to evolution - even though they are debated quite frequently in this forum. The list would include issues of time scale and design.

Design has been well discussed but, so far at least, doesn't work very well as a biological concept. Time scale, I am not sure what you mean.

To some other things in your post.

First it was an interesting article, thanks for the cite.

Yes there are restraints. The last paragraph was especially interesting

Evolutionary constraints are also important from an applied perspective. For instance, when pests and weeds are unable to evolve resistance to pesticides, there is the potential to continue using the pesticides. If the mode of action of pesticides and the genetic basis of resistance are understood, it might be possible to predict the likelihood of resistance developing in a particular evolutionary lineage of pests. On the other hand, where evolution is likely, it may be possible to slow the rate of evolution by ensuring ongoing gene flow between susceptible populations and those under selection. This practice has been adopted in the management of resistance to toxins introduced into crop plants, where resistant crops are interspersed with susceptible cultivars to slow adaptation by pests.

What I was discussing was some kind of barrier which basically says that evolution of a species can go so far but not any further. Finding many genetic barriers of this kind would do a tremendous amount of damage to the current TOE but do far, we have found none.

This was interesting to me.

All of that begs the question: When is a biological process that produces variety not evolution? If, as they're discovered, we're just going to keep sticking each new mechanism under the evolutionary umbrella, then "evolution" becomes a useless term.

The thing here, at least in my opinion. is that if there is a heritable genetic frequency in a population then it is evolution at work by definition. By this pretty much all that is involved in allele frequency change in populations is evolution. Any new mechanisms would probably fit under that umbrella by definition. I do not see how any other mechanism that would deal with long term adaptions over time would not fit into genetic heritability.

Let me give an example: Epigenetics can have a lot of effect on the phenotype but not on the DNA of the individual. While there are a few epigenetic changes that can be passed along for a few generations, the great majority are not. Because it doesn't affect to any real degree the allele frequency of populations, epigenetics is not considered as a mechanism for evolution at this time.

I like discussing with you, you ask good questions.

Dizredux

 

[Oncedeceived]

Well, biologists know of some things that limit evolution. Take for example, this list prepared by Ary Hoffman: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s3_10100.pdf

So, it's not a question of whether evolution can or has been limited. It's a matter of the degree to which it is limited. Is it so limited that it couldn't have produced the variety we observe? There is also the corollary question: Even if evolution could have produced the variety we observe, did it? IOW, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe evolution is not the only mechanism at work? Maybe the variety of life is due to multiple mechanisms. If so, how would we distinguish them?

All of that begs the question: When is a biological process that produces variety not evolution? If, as they're discovered, we're just going to keep sticking each new mechanism under the evolutionary umbrella, then "evolution" becomes a useless term.

So, I've asked before: What is the essence of evolution? The answer I received, if I understood correctly, is "descent with modification". OK. Now we should be able to recognize what is not evolution. It also allows us to make a list of some things that are not essential to evolution - even though they are debated quite frequently in this forum. The list would include issues of time scale and design.

Excellent post!

 

[Dusty Bin]

Excellent post!

All you are doing is telling everyone (other than creationists) that you know as little about evolution as he does.

 

[bhsmte]

A dog giving birth to a cat is a caricature of my question.
I had asked for some evidence, not assumptions.
Loudmouth said "Observations are not assumptions."
I asked to be shown the compete transformation of one species into another. Show, not tell, the complete evolution of one species into a completely different one. But it hasn't been done.

“And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.



Which qualifies evolution as a philosophy, not a scientific fact. The theory of evolution is science, common ancestry is a belief, a philosophy.



I hope you understand that's a narrative, not evidence. It can't be observed, tested, or repeated. It's not falsifiable, so it's not science. If people want to believe that narrative, I don't have an issue with it, but I don't share their belief.

Do you realize, some of modern medicine, has been based on the theory of evolution and it is likely, you have been treated by a doctor, that has utilized medical advancements based on the theory of evolution?