Photosynthesis

[Trogool]

Has anyone bothered explaining to Juvie that mutations which would lead to fish evolving towards a land "invasion" would probably be extraordinarily disadvantageous right now?

 

[verysincere]

May be 99.9% of the trying-fish died.

When I see the term "trying-fish", I get extremely frustrated because I think I guess what kind of misunderstanding of evolutionary processes inspired it.

But when one considers how many times the average anti-evolution Christian has heard Ken Ham and Kent Hovind (or Ray Comfort) talk about "the fish who leaves the water and tries to walk around the meadow" and "the dinosaur who wakes up one morning and says 'I think I'll try to become a bird today!", one can imagine why terms like "trying-fish" might get started.

(Of course, "a fish who is trying" could simply be a very obstinate fish who keeps trying everyone's patience! Now THAT fish will NEVER evolve!)

.

 

[Tiberius]

It seems that so many creationists have that impression of evolution, that it works by simply thinking, "Today I'm going to evolve into a bird."

They'll never let go of their strawmen.

 

[variant]

This link only suggested some conditions started in Devonian time. But it does not end in Devonian time. Yes, there were several fish species evolved, but we never see the same feature, or similar feature happened, for example in Carboniferous time, which might even have a better environment for the same process.

We know why the conditions were right in the devonian for fish to invade the intertidal and nitche (which was both empty and productive).

We see eleven fish species evolveing into the amphibian class during the devonian, this is because it is the first sincere oppertunity to do so, the amphibians followed the oxygen produceing trees into intertidal zones and onto dry land.

Your argument relies on a simple assertion that the conditions for evolution into amphibians were right during the carboniferous. They obviously were not becasue we don't have major amphibian evoultion continueing during that period. This suggests that they would have been likely outcompeted by established amphibians.

Your argument also relies on the simple assertion that because we don't see something in the fossil record, that it did not happen.

We know that there were no major amphibians appearing during the carboniferous becasue we do not see that. The problem is that fossilization represents a rare event, and the fossil record is incredibly incomplete, and thus we have no way of knowing what didn't happen (in detail).

Very boring, I am repeating my argument again and again. I guess I will quit. If you don't have anything new, then save your argument.

Thats simply because you keep asserting the same wrong thing over and over.

If the idea that full intertidal nitches are harder to compete for than empy ones and that empty sub-nitches are likely to be filled by vertibrates that are already partially adapted to them displeases you then there's really no reason to worry about the discussion.

 

[juvenissun]

Has anyone bothered explaining to Juvie that mutations which would lead to fish evolving towards a land "invasion" would probably be extraordinarily disadvantageous right now?

Why?

 

[juvenissun]

We know why the conditions were right in the devonian for fish to invade the intertidal and nitche (which was both empty and productive).

We see eleven fish species evolveing into the amphibian class during the devonian, this is because it is the first sincere oppertunity to do so, the amphibians followed the oxygen produceing trees into intertidal zones and onto dry land.

Your argument relies on a simple assertion that the conditions for evolution into amphibians were right during the carboniferous. They obviously were not becasue we don't have major amphibian evoultion continueing during that period. This suggests that they would have been likely outcompeted by established amphibians.

Your argument also relies on the simple assertion that because we don't see something in the fossil record, that it did not happen.

We know that there were no major amphibians appearing during the carboniferous becasue we do not see that. The problem is that fossilization represents a rare event, and the fossil record is incredibly incomplete, and thus we have no way of knowing what didn't happen (in detail).




Thats simply because you keep asserting the same wrong thing over and over.

If the idea that full intertidal nitches are harder to compete for than empy ones and that empty sub-nitches are likely to be filled by vertibrates that are already partially adapted to them displeases you then there's really no reason to worry about the discussion.

One more time, if it is still not understood, then I would say bye bye to this thread:

The land is overwhelmed by human today. Yet someone can still easily find a shoreline or a bayou which is not occupied.

How busy the shore could be during the Mesozoic time? This line of argument simply won't work.

 

[Tiberius]

One more time, if it is still not understood, then I would say bye bye to this thread:

The land is overwhelmed by human today. Yet someone can still easily find a shoreline or a bayou which is not occupied.

How busy the shore could be during the Mesozoic time? This line of argument simply won't work.

Yes, that's true, but you are looking at only the population of one species - a species that generally doesn't make a living finding food on beaches.

You show me a beach that has an available niche for a species to evolve to take advantage of, and I'll yield the point to you.

Of course, I don't want you to leave this thread. I want you to leave you incorrect ideas about how evolution works. Stay, Juve. You'll learn something.

 

[variant]

One more time, if it is still not understood, then I would say bye bye to this thread:

The land is overwhelmed by human today. Yet someone can still easily find a shoreline or a bayou which is not occupied.

How busy the shore could be during the Mesozoic time? This line of argument simply won't work.

The Niche of humanity is the intellectual realm and the abstract.

Go find me some hominids that are at this moment competing for our resources.

Go find me the hominids that tried, they are in the ground.

Your argument is absurd that you think that the natural world has to fit YOUR preconceptions instead of YOU paying attention and observing IT.

IF you accept the Devonian radiation of amphibians you accept evolution, so there is not point in complaining when everything doesn’t fall neatly into place with your misconceptions about what you SHOULD see.

Your entire argument relies on the misconception that a species of fish is likely to find a unoccupied niche along the shoreline that it is slightly evolved to, and outcompete any amphibian that is likely to find the same untapped resources, and to do so for the militia it takes to evolve to fit a new environment.

Reality says this is severely unlikely, you can argue with reality all you like but it is no skin off my nose if you want to whine on absurdly.

 

[variant]

You show me a beach that has an available niche for a species to evolve to take advantage of, and I'll yield the point to you.

That is not enough, he needs to find a beach that has an avaiable nitche which will stay available for the time it takes for the species to evolve to competitive strength with the creatures already dominateing simmilar nitches nearby.

 

[juvenissun]

Yes, that's true, but you are looking at only the population of one species - a species that generally doesn't make a living finding food on beaches.

You show me a beach that has an available niche for a species to evolve to take advantage of, and I'll yield the point to you.

Of course, I don't want you to leave this thread. I want you to leave you incorrect ideas about how evolution works. Stay, Juve. You'll learn something.

Any beach.

I thought you know evolution. You should understand what my answer means.

 

[juvenissun]

That is not enough, he needs to find a beach that has an avaiable nitche which will stay available for the time it takes for the species to evolve to competitive strength with the creatures already dominateing simmilar nitches nearby.

birds eat beach crabs all over the world. Does that mean the beach crab can not survive and keep evolving?

How do you know the fishes that tried to land in Cretaceous time did not have a similar capability?

 

[AnotherAtheist]

This is inline with the question which always puzzles me:

If evolution were true, why is the same (or even similar) process NEVER repeated? For example, why don't we keep seeing fishes turned into amphibians? Why is the Devonian the only time for this process to take place?

If a feature or a process just happened one time, that fits the definition of creation.

At the time that amphibians evolved, there were no land vertebrates. Hence there was a wide open ecological niche for those early amphibians to move into as there were no other vertebrates on land. the further they could move from the water, the more wide-open ecological niches they could adopt.

Today the land is swarming with vertebrates. And hence there's much less ecological advantage to be found for a fish to adapt to be more suited to living on land.

But even so, if we look we can see evidence of fish which are partially suited to living on land, having evolved or being in the process of evolving. There are walking catfish. There are galaxids such as the inanga, there are mudskippers, there are eels which travel across land. And there are those weird catfish in the amazon that live in dirt like worms. I'm excluding lungfish as I believe (could be wrong) that they date from the time of the first adaptation to land/the rise of the first amphibians. Looking at all of those, we have many types of fish that show partial adaptation to being on land, even though they are from more advanced groups of fish (e.g. catfish) that evolved long after the rise of the amphibians. So, it is still happening. Just very slowly. And it's less noticeable, as there are fewer empty niches for them to occupy.

So why don't we have several sources for amphibians? Because adaptation to the land is like an arms race. Fish may move into semi-wet environments/being able to move across land. But they can't really strike out and become fully land-adapted, because there are already amphibians/reptiles/mammals that are much better adapted, and will out-compete them.

We do see more evidence of arthropods having adapted to live on land multiple times though. E.g. woodlice are crustaceans, and are a more recent move onto land than the early land living invertebrates such as arachnids, centipedes, and millipedes. Snails are molluscs, so the molluscs moved onto the land separate from other groups, and so on.

 

[sfs]

But even so, if we look we can see evidence of fish which are partially suited to living on land, having evolved or being in the process of evolving. There are walking catfish. There are galaxids such as the inanga, there are mudskippers, there are eels which travel across land. And there are those weird catfish in the amazon that live in dirt like worms. I'm excluding lungfish as I believe (could be wrong) that they date from the time of the first adaptation to land/the rise of the first amphibians. Looking at all of those, we have many types of fish that show partial adaptation to being on land, even though they are from more advanced groups of fish (e.g. catfish) that evolved long after the rise of the amphibians. So, it is still happening. Just very slowly. And it's less noticeable, as there are fewer empty niches for them to occupy.

The reverse process -- land animals evolving into sea animals -- has happened any number of times. Ichthyosaurs, plesiosuars, mosasaurs, whales, seals and walruses, penguins, otters, manatees, sea snakes, crocodiles and turtles (or their ancestors) all made that transition.

 

[juvenissun]

The reverse process -- land animals evolving into sea animals -- has happened any number of times. Ichthyosaurs, plesiosuars, mosasaurs, whales, seals and walruses, penguins, otters, manatees, sea snakes, crocodiles and turtles (or their ancestors) all made that transition.

How many times in how long the time?
Anyone will ask: why not more?

In fact, human should try to evolve into the sea. Don't we know how does the process of evolution begin? Why don't we do something about it? Has any one start to think about it? My suggestion is try to split the cell in seawater.

 

[verysincere]

In fact, human should try to evolve into the sea.

How does one "try to evolve"?

After all, have YOU ever "tried to evolve?"

Were you successful at all?

.

 

[verysincere]

It seems that so many creationists have that impression of evolution, that it works by simply thinking, "Today I'm going to evolve into a bird."

They'll never let go of their strawmen.

True. And here is why. I had many friends in the early "creation science" movement back in the 1960's and 1970's. Where are they now? Those who weren't at the top of those just-getting-started "creation science" ministries had no financial incentive to stay there after the EVIDENCE in both the Bible and in Creation became obvious (in showing them to be mistaken.) So most of us left the movement. We learned enough about the Bible and the Science to know that Young Earth Creationism was deeply flawed and had no real foundation (other than church tradition.) I left. Glenn Morton (the geologist) left. Everybody who cared about the evidence left.

So today you have a far more "hard core" creation-science movement.Yes, there's always hope for the younger people, but they tend to go from YEC beliefs when young attending church and then they tend to go to opposite extremes when they realize they've been lied to.

And that is why I often say that "creation science" has created far more agnostics and even atheists than "evilution" ever will!

.

 

[Split Rock]

How many times in how long the time?
Anyone will ask: why not more?

In fact, human should try to evolve into the sea. Don't we know how does the process of evolution begin? Why don't we do something about it? Has any one start to think about it? My suggestion is try to split the cell in seawater.

LOL! Don't you know you carry sea water around with you where ever you go?

 

[Jazer]

Today the land is swarming with vertebrates.

There was a lot of food back then. We have vast amounts of natural oil today because they did not use all their resources back then. How clever of evolution to know that we were going to need those reserves and to go to the trouble to store them for us.

 

[juvenissun]

LOL! Don't you know you carry sea water around with you where ever you go?

If you analyzed the minor composition, it is obviously not true. (I am amazed you said this. You should know who are you talking to).

 

[juvenissun]

How does one "try to evolve"?

After all, have YOU ever "tried to evolve?"

Were you successful at all?

.

If we do not know how to try, then how can we claim that we know the mechanism of evolution?