Humans are unique, not evolved

[The Barbarian]

Mendelian Ratios do not explain all types of inheritance patterns:

Indeed, Mendel's experiments revealed that phenotypes could be hidden in one generation, only to reemerge in subsequent generations.

He figured that out. Recessive genes. A cross with an AA and an aa will produce only the dominant phenotype the first generation. But crossing the offspring would then produce about 1/4 of the offspring with the recessive phenotype. Do you see why? Mendel wrote about that.

With their interactions, non-allelic genes

All genes are alleles. An allele is just a particular variation of a specific gene.

Spare me the diagrams.
And the patronizing tone.

You seem completely unable to see how the increase in the tuskless allele in the African elephant population is evolution. I'm trying to figure out how to make it clear enough to understand.

• Biological evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population.
• Due to killing of tusked individuals, the proportion of elephants with the tuskless allele is increasing
• This is a change in allele frequencies in that population, and therefore is evolution.

There's more than just phenotype here; because the tusks are needed for certain types of feeding, the diet of the tuskless elephants changed. This could eventually lead to a new species based on feeding and ecological separation.

 

[BNR32FAN]

They were all different species. That's how evolution works. Dr. Wise was pointing out that Darwin had predicted these transitional forms long before they were found. Which, as he points out, is very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory. He still prefers his interpretation of scripture, and he expresses hope that there will someday be an adequate creationist explanation for all this evidence.

As I said, it's even more compelling that there are no such transitional forms where there shouldn't be any, according to evolutionary theory.

We see them appear in sequence in the fossil record. Mammal-like reptiles appeared long before mammals. Dinosaurs appeared before flying dinosaurs and birds. Hoofed mammals appeared before whales. And so on. Again precisely what the theory predicts.

No what I’m saying is that how do they know that the species we have now didn’t exist at the same time the previous species that became extinct existed? How do they know that the species we have now evolved from the previous species that became extinct?

 

[The Barbarian]

No what I’m saying is that how do they know that the species we have now didn’t exist at the same time the previous species that became extinct existed?

Which is like asking how do we know that you weren't alive at the same time your aunt was alive. Often that's the case. A species may live on for a very long time after giving rise to another species. Or a species may give rise to several species, only one of which appears to be much different. Humans and chimps, for example, evolved from a common ancestor at about the same time. So if some future paleontologist finds humans and chimps in the same strata, with other forest apes in older strata, he won't be confused.

How do they know that the species we have now evolved from the previous species that became extinct?

It would be remakably lucky if we had a fossil of the organism that gave rise to a new species. Usually, we only know that the specific fossil is very close to the population that gave rise to a new species. This is why we have relatively few species-to-species transitions.

“Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”
— Stephen Jay Gould

There are a few such examples. Gould mentions horses, forams and ammonites.

One creationist attempt to deal with the evidence:

After the Flood residual catastrophism continued with decreasing intensity,54 the earth’s climate cooled and dried,55 the earth’s biota exploded with intrabaraminic diversification (10 to 100-fold in mammal species and 1000-fold in insect species),56 and organisms spread across the earth and developed make-shift communities. Within this scenario, various stratomorphic series are likely to be examples of post-Flood intrabaraminic
diversification under conditions of secular cooling and drying.57 Examples would probably include the various mammal stratomorphic series of the Cenozoic, the Cantius and Plesiadapus series, and possibly parts of the hominid series.
Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms

By "baramins" Wise means "created kinds." Like AIG and some other creationist groups, he thinks the post-flood world went through a period of hyper diversification, with all sorts of new species emerging from the relatively few "kinds" or "baramin" that were on the Ark.

Evolution, but always limited to each "baramin." The difficulties he admits to, lay in the many transitionals between reptiles and mammals, early primates and humans, and so on.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That would be contrary to evolutionary theory. Evolution happens to populations, not individuals. But we do see evolutionary changes in animals constantly. A recent example, is that more and more male elephants have no tusks. Ivory poachers are selectively killing off males with tusks. Any males without them tend to survive to reproduce. And the population is now changing toward a kind that is tuskless.


No. It involves a change in allele frequency in the population, producing a new kind of elephant which don't have tusks. And as you recall, evolution is a change in allele frequency in a population over time. Turns out both males and females in African elephants have tusks. The mutation for tusklessness in females has been identified:

Science
21 Oct 2021
Vol 374, Issue 6566
In regions of Africa wracked by heavy poaching, people have observed an increased incidence of African elephants without their iconic white tusks, which are prized in the multibillion-dollar wildlife black market. But there has been no direct genetic evidence indicating how this was happening, or why this trait was occurring exclusively in female elephants.

Harvest and poaching of wildlife have increased as the human population and our technology have grown. These pressures now occur on such a scale that they can be considered selective drivers. Campbell-Staton et al. show that this phenomenon has occurred in African elephants, which are poached for their ivory, during the 20-year Mozambican civil war (see the Perspective by Darimont and Pelletier). In response to heavy poaching by armed forces, African elephant populations in Gorongosa National Park declined by 90%. As the population recovered after the war, a relatively large proportion of females were born tuskless. Further exploration revealed this trait to be sex linked and related to specific genes that generated a tuskless phenotype more likely to survive in the face of poaching.

It seems that this particular mutation is lethal in males, so it's not surprising that two-thirds of newborn elephants are now female. It's exactly what you would expect from such an allele. But this research confirms that it's an evolutionary change. The genetic composition of the population has changed. Which is, as you learned, what evolution is.

You said earlier that males who don’t have tusks reproduce and survive which indicates that the males that did have tusks didn’t actually change their DNA but instead those particular variants were killed off almost to extinction and that’s why there are more elephants without tusks. So that’s not a mutation that’s a particular species being hunted to extinction. So that’s not an example of evolution.

A recent example, is that more and more male elephants have no tusks. Ivory poachers are selectively killing off males with tusks. Any males without them tend to survive to reproduce. And the population is now changing toward a kind that is tuskless.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Which is like asking how do we know that you weren't alive at the same time your aunt was alive. Often that's the case. A species may live on for a very long time after giving rise to another species. Or a species may give rise to several species, only one of which appears to be much different. Humans and chimps, for example, evolved from a common ancestor at about the same time. So if some future paleontologist finds humans and chimps in the same strata, with other forest apes in older strata, he won't be confused.

This doesn’t answer my question, at least not in the way I intended. I guess a better way to ask would be how do we know that the species we see living today haven’t always existed?

 

[BNR32FAN]

Usually, we only know that the specific fossil is very close to the population that gave rise to a new species.

This seems like pure speculation. We don’t actually know the origin of any species, we only know that we have found remains of certain species during certain eras. This doesn’t prove that they had common ancestry with other species that’s just an assumption.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Humans and chimps, for example, evolved from a common ancestor at about the same time.

Again this is another assumption. Just because humans and chimps share a large portion of DNA doesn’t mean that one derived from the other or that they had a common ancestor. All it actually tells us is that slight differences in DNA will result in a different species. It doesn’t in any way indicate that they share an ancestry with one another. You can’t arrive at the idea of them sharing DNA based on the data we have, it’s insufficient to support such a theory.

 

[The Barbarian]

This seems like pure speculation.

Actually, it's validation of one of Darwin's predictions. We had very little in the way of transitional fossils in Darwin's day, but he predicted that they would be there. That's powerful evidence for his theory. But what's even more powerful is that we don't find transitional forms that shouldn't be there. They only exist for transitions between evolutionarily connected groups. You see, in science theories are validated as true when their predictions are later confirmed by evidence.

We don’t actually know the origin of any species

Occasionally, we happen to be there during the process. D. miranda from D. psuedoobscura and 0. gigas from 0. lamarckana, for example.

And in some cases, the fossil record is good enough to even document evolution at the species level. Would you like to learn more about that?

This doesn’t prove that they had common ancestry with other species

It merely shows that Darwin's theory correctly predicted those transitional forms between related groups. It's evidence like this that has led creationist organizations to admit the fact of speciation. And since many of those taxa still exist, we can test the theory by DNA analyses. And DNA analyses give us the same phylogenies to a very high precision as first noted by Linnaeus hundreds of years ago.

DNA accuracy can be (and has been) checked by using organisms of known descent.

 

[The Barbarian]

Humans and chimps, for example, evolved from a common ancestor at about the same time.

Again this is another assumption.

No. An inference from evidence. Not from paleontologists, but from geneticists who have accurately determined such ages. Would you like to see the evidence for that?

Just because humans and chimps share a large portion of DNA doesn’t mean that one derived from the other or that they had a common ancestor.

Actually, it does. We see the same relationships in organisms of known descent, so we know it works. No point in denying the fact. The degree of closeness discloses how recent the last common ancestor was. In the case of humans and chimps, they have a common ancestor not shared by any other living apes.

You can’t arrive at the idea of them sharing DNA based on the data we have

That's just an observed fact. There's really no point in denial.

Your assumptions don't line up with the data. Notice DNA gives us the very same phylogeny for apes as we get from fossils and anatomical data.

This is the reality. It doesn't care what we think of it.

 

[The Barbarian]

You said earlier that males who don’t have tusks reproduce and survive which indicates that the males that did have tusks didn’t actually change their DNA but instead those particular variants were killed off almost to extinction and that’s why there are more elephants without tusks.

Yes. The allele frequency changed because of predation by hunters. The tuskless mutation became favored by natural selection. No one planned this, it's just the way evolution works.

So that’s not a mutation that’s a particular species being hunted to extinction.

That's an example of evolution. I should have written "females." But yes. The tuskless mutation would not ordinarily spread, since in other circumstances the tusked elephants would have the advantage. But this mutation became the most useful one due to predation by hunters, and so the allele frequency changed with the tuskless allele increasing and the tusk allele becoming less frequent. Which, as you learned, is biological evolution.

 

[The Barbarian]

No what I’m saying is that how do they know that the species we have now didn’t exist at the same time the previous species that became extinct existed?

Could have. If you're alive, your uncle doesn't have to be dead. A species can live on long after it gives rise to a different species.

I guess a better way to ask would be how do we know that the species we see living today haven’t always existed?

No room for them, for one thing. The vast majority of species that have existed are extinct. If even a fraction of them existed at the same time period there would be insufficient resources for them to survive. Not enough room, not enough food not enough shelter.

Someone once asked Haldane what might disprove evolution. He suggested the fossil of a rabbit in Cambrian deposits. Since chordates were tiny worm-like things then, and since there were no vertebrates, it was a pretty sure thing.

 

[Saber Truth Tiger]

Why would you expect people to believe you - someone with an obvious agenda to defend Biblical literacy - over the informed view of tens of thousands of highly trained experts?

You might as well ask to believe the moon is made of green cheese.

Strawman - I never suggested anything of the sort. You are using the 'argument from incredulity', the notion that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

Why would it be a "valid given"? Do you think readers will not be highly suspicious as to why you omitted "natural selection" from your characterization? Is it a coincidence that the thing you omitted to tell us was the one component that renders the entire package to be highly plausible? Yes, if someone were to say that evolution is driven purely by "chance and time", that would be clearly rather difficult to believe. But when you add in a non-random, highly plausible process that - natural selection - the entire package makes a lot more sense.

Why? Why is it impossible?

Expos forever, I am a baseball fan and I remember thee Montreal Expos very well. I remember when they moved to Washington and got off to a 50-31 start. Their last 81 games they went 31-50 and ended up a .500 ballclub. I feel bad for you, that you lost your team. If my Braves moved I would be very sad. The Nationals have had some great teams over the years and I remeber the Expos had some good teams in the late 70s or early 80s. Just saying.

 

[BNR32FAN]

No. An inference from evidence. Not from paleontologists, but from geneticists who have accurately determined such ages. Would you like to see the evidence for that?

Ok then pigs, cats, bananas, donkeys, walnuts, and a whole plethora of other plants and animals all shared this common ancestor?

 

[BNR32FAN]

That's just an observed fact. There's really no point in denial.

Yeah I mistyped that statement. I don’t know what my brain was thinking. What I meant to say is that you can’t arrive at them sharing ancestry based on the data we have.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That's an example of evolution. I should have written "females." But yes. The tuskless mutation would not ordinarily spread, since in other circumstances the tusked elephants would have the advantage. But this mutation became the most useful one due to predation by hunters, and so the allele frequency changed with the tuskless allele increasing and the tusk allele becoming less frequent. Which, as you learned, is biological evolution.

So then evolution or DNA made a conscious decision? I find that highly unlikely and terribly unscientific. It seems more logical that elephant species that don’t produce tusks simply prevailed because they were not hunted to near extinction. The elephants that carried the genes that produced tusks were wiped out they didn’t mutate into a different elephant that didn’t carry the tusk gene.

 

[The Barbarian]

So then evolution or DNA made a conscious decision?

Nope. Doesn't work that way. It's just the way nature works. No one decided it, unless God had plans that included tuskless elephants and created the universe in such a way as to eventually produce them.

I find that highly unlikely and terribly unscientific.

Yeah, but God could have done it that way. Or perhaps he allows time and chance to happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 - Enjoy Your Portion in This Life

I saw something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither is the bread to the wise, nor the wealth to the intelligent, nor the favor to the skillful. For time and chance happen to all.

biblehub.com

One of those. Not part of science though. You've confused efficient causes with possible final causes. BTW, it's not wrong to be unscientific about things that are not part of science. I am often unscientific myself, when it comes to things not part of science.

The elephants that carried the genes that produced tusks were wiped

More precisely, elephants that had the allele for tusks became less numerous and so the frequency of that allele was reduced in the population. Every elephant is a different elephant, of course, and the ones that had the allele for tusklessness tended to survive and the frequency of that allele increased in the population. And as you know, biological evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population. In this case, it led to a different kind of elephant that had a different mode of feeding and a different phenotype.

Which again, is what biological evolution does.

 

[The Barbarian]

Yeah I mistyped that statement. I don’t know what my brain was thinking. What I meant to say is that you can’t arrive at them sharing ancestry based on the data we have.

It comes down to evidence. Long before Darwin, Linnaeus made up a family tree of life, based on anatomical data. Later, Darwin was able to explain why such a diagram was possible for living things, but not (as Linneaus also attempted) minerals. Much later, DNA analyses confirmed the earlier data.

The fossil record shows that all amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) are more closely related to each other than they are to other vertebrates. And DNA confirms this fact.

For a long time, scientists puzzled how mammals with just one bone in the lower jaw, could have descended from reptiles which have three, and a different jaw joint. How could a population just switch jaw joints without starving during the transition?

Turns out, that's not what happened. Diarthrognathus is a mammal-like reptile, with both jaw joints. Over time, the other bones got smaller and ultimately became part of the ear (they were attached to the ear from the beginning, reptiles pick up sound waves from their lower jaws). And if we look at the embryos of marsupials, we see the old reptilian jaw form, and then develop into the mammalian form.

 

[QvQ]

More precisely, elephants that had the allele for tusks became less numerous and so the frequency of that allele was reduced in the population.

All elephants have the alleles for tusks. All cows have the alleles for horns

Cows can be long horn, short horn , no horn and anything in between.
These are variations within the Phenotype,. This is a well known fact of Selective Breeding.
Cows do not evolve or change phenotype when Short Horn is dominant or Long Horn is dominant.

Selective Breeding has been practiced for thousands of years,
This Is a Fact.

Suddenly when elephants are being Selectively Bred by poachers
Somehow, selective breeding has "evolved" into "evolution" in selectively bred elephants
This is now evolution because it fits the Narrative.

 

[The Barbarian]

Humans and chimps, for example, evolved from a common ancestor at about the same time.
An inference from evidence. Not from paleontologists, but from geneticists who have accurately determined such ages. Would you like to see the evidence for that?

Ok then pigs, cats, bananas, donkeys, walnuts, and a whole plethora of other plants and animals all shared this common ancestor?

No, just humans and chimpanzees. Those other things diverged the line that led to humans much earlier. So primates and the mammals you listed have a common mammal ancestor. Animals and plants have a much earlier common ancestor. And the key is that their DNA confirms this; the genetic distance is precisely what anatomy and fossil record shows.

 

[The Barbarian]

All elephants have the alleles for tusks.

Some have a mutation for not having tusks. A different allele of the gene. Because of the predation of hunters, that mutation is favored.

Suddenly when elephants are being selective bred by poachers

No. Poachers had no idea and no intention. Their predation has caused a change in allele frequencies in the population, but they didn't intend that any more than leopards intend to make baboons more cautious. That's just what nature does.

This is Evolution because...

...it's a change in allele frequency in a population.