nolidad said:
Science is not built on mathematics but on the ability to test.observe. repeat what theories (which in the case of radio dating have their largest compnonets on mathematical formulae).
In science, if you havent measured it, you havent observed it. The math describes the observations. The math is the basis for predicting future observations and what happened in the past. People were in Turkey today because many people over many centuries have recorded when and where they have observed the sun and the moon so that the regularity of their motions could be documented and an accurate prediction made of when and where it is possible to see a total eclipse of the sun. Using the same math, one can determine when and where such eclipses occurred before humans walked on earth.
The very concept of radio-dating would be inconceivable without the measurements made of radio-active decay over many decades under many different environmental circumstances. Scientists had to be convinced of the regular rate of decay before even thinking it could be used for dating purposes.
BUT because we have yet to observe to se of the math formulae thjeporizing a decay constant remain true over billions of years-- evolutioniary cosmologists ASSUME they are correct though real time testing has shown decay constants to vary. This is not real science but assumption w/o testiong and observation.
Testing showed that radio-active elements decay at a steady rate in earth-normal circumstances. Note that the same rate has been observed in stars that are billions of light-years away. Since the light in which we are observing these decay rates is billions of years old, this supports the thesis that the decay rates have not changed significantly over billions of years. The onus lies, therefore, on those promoting this concept to indicate when and where and by how much the rate changed.
Yes but they are all homo sapien sapien! With sub classification of caucasoid, mongoloid, negroid et al.
As you would expect the descendants of
H. sapiens to be. Similarly, you will expect a new species of
Drosophila to be
Drosophila, a new species of frog to be a frog, a new species of clam to be a clam.
You are talking about variation within a "kind".
You mean evolution. There is no variation within a species or among related species unless there is evolution to create it.
But evolution states all life started foirst from nonlife
Well, creationism says that too. And actually, evolution makes no statement on the origin of life. Evolution is about the origin of species, not the origin of life. It doesnt matter how life originated (natural or miraculous process) or how many times life originated, evolution is focused on what happens once you have living species who replicate themselves imperfectly in an environment that poses changing challenges. That is the background that makes evolution inevitable and generates bio-diversity.
then from a single cellualr microbe of some sort the entire panaroma of biologic diversity we see evolved from that.
This is not a prediction of evolution. The fact is that species change. Evolution happens. Changes in speciation grounded in mutation and natural selection has been observed. Speciation has been observed. So we know this is a factual process. The theory of evolution focuses on how this takes place. It is about the process and mechanisms of evolution.
But phylogeny is about the history of evolution, and that cannot be derived from the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution only describes a process of change. It says nothing about the direction that change will take in the future or had to take in the past. In fact, the idea that evolution had to take any particular direction contradicts the theory.
So the pathway that evolution did take historically is something that has to be documented through observation. The evidence of the familial relations of species, just as the evidence of the genealogical relationships of human families, has to be discovered bit by bit by bit.
And it is that evidence slowly compiled by study over three-four centuries that has led to the conclusion of common ancestry.
Man i snot simply a dsiiferent species of trout!
Correct. But humans are one species in the group known as sarcopterygians, of which the earliest known species were a type of fish. Trout are not descendants of sarcopterygians.
And it was evoltionists who used and still use the taxonomical listings to attempt to prove biological evolutrion true. C.mon word games jsut dont cut it in this debate.
Since evolution explains why taxonomical categories are what they are, taxonomy is one of the best evidential supports for evolution. No alternate proposition explains why the taxonomy of species forms a nested hierarchy. Just like a family tree. Certainly no alternate proposition explains why even fossil species fit into a taxonomy developed for the classification of living species. And no alternate proposition explains why the same nested hierarchy turns up whether the taxonomy is based on skeletal morphology, proteins or homologous genes.
If it is just a level variation of the same bug it is called a horizontal variantion if ti would create a different bug it is a vertical variation.
In that case, the nylon bug is an example of vertical variation. Its a strange terminology and needs to be refined for unambiguous use.
Can this bug adapt to many differing diets?
Possibly, but this is true of all bacteria. Currently, however, it requires nylon.
Can it subsist on say cotton fibers? Is its ability to swap dietary supplements part of its preexisitng genetic makeup?? Did it stop being the same bug it was?
No, no and yes.
If you stop eating meat altogether and become a vegan-- do you stop being homosapien sapien? If you develop resistance to the MMRA viruses w/o vaccination are you no linger homo sapien sapien?
Different scenario. Humans are omnivores, so we can process many types of diet. The nylon bug change was more drastic. As shernren says, an equivalent human change would be the newly appearing ability to digest gasoline.
Did it have tyo develop new digestive organs? Did it have to develop new abilities to assume the nutrients in nylon??
Bacteria dont have digestive organs. The cell as a whole is the digestive organ. Yes, it acquired a new ability: the ability to exist on a nylon substrate.
No changing ones diet does not require evolution in the classic use of the term.
Whose classic use of the term? That of scientists or that of creationists? It is not the change of diet that is the focus here. It is the ability to change the diet, and the inability to go back to the former diet. That requires a change in physiology just as drastic as the morphological change of a forearm to adapt it to flight. Why do you think that just because it is not a visible change it is not an important change?
Legs becoming wings and passing that trait on and learnign to fly requires a massive reordering of a prexisting genetic code
Not necessarily. It has been demonstrated that the change in the number of limbs from the 8 -12 found in primitive arthropods to the 6 found in insects requires one change in one gene. Similarly, the change from a rib cage all down the torso, as in reptiles, to one only part-way down the torso as in mammals, requires only one change in one gene.
Many changes are more gradual and require the accumulation of many mutations, but that is not always the case. There is also ample fossil evidence that such gradual accumulation of changes has also occurred.
Or as you rightly said earlier hard to tell if it mutation or just the immune system doing what it was designed to do.
Of course, you are overlooking the probability that immune systems themselves are the consequence of evolution.
How many generations? Does each generation produce these anomalies or just some people? This is a mutation no doubt for homo sapien sapien is five toed, is it sponatneous through enviormental pressure?? Doubt it. HAve the claims been verified? Article doesn't say. How many of the verdona tribe not share these qualities? Are the mutants beginnig to flourish and the nonmutants begin to vanosh as evolution says would happen iof this is evolution??
More than one generation. Yes, at least some in every generation is producing these anomalies. The original mutation would be spontaneous; from then on it is a matter of inheritance. No, environmental pressure does not cause mutations. At best, it can speed up the rate of mutation, but it does not determine which mutations will occur. Environmental pressure selects which mutations will survive and which will not. Environmental pressure can also favour the spread of a beneficial mutation. But environmental pressure cannot make a mutation happen or not happen. Yes, this family has been studied by scientists. It is not a fake. The feature to date is confined to one family of the Verdona tribe. Although the family considers it advantageous, there is not yet any indication that it is more than neutral. If, as noted, this sometimes occurs to the fingers as well, I would consider it a disadvantage and expect it to remain confined to a small part of the population for that reason.
