The MYTH of Random Mutations

MrGoodBytes · Aug 20, 2006

JohnR7 said:
I am wondering, why do you think that this was caused by a mutation? Because it can be "good" & "bad" or because you do not find it in everyone.

Um, we know it was a mutation.

We know the responsible nucleotide: adenine.

We know what it's substituted with: thymine.

We know what the effects of this mutation (there, I said it) are: in the haemoglobine molecule, the amino acid glutamate is replaced by valine, eventually leading to polmerization of haemoglobine and the distortion of the red blood cells.

Enough reasons for you?

rmwilliamsll · Aug 20, 2006

I am wondering, why do you think that this was caused by a mutation? Because it can be "good" & "bad" or because you do not find it in everyone.

HbS is far from being the only hemoglobinapathy arising to combat Falciparum.

There are a whole class of thallasemias which arise from mutations, often single point or just a few changes since they are of very recent origin, which map to endemic malaria.

ushishir · Aug 20, 2006

JohnR7 said:
You never once heard mendal say that the gene must have become mutated so that the pea came out wrinkled. Yet that is the nonsense you hear today.

Actually we know what mutation caused the wrinkled pea trait that mendel studied was:

[SIZE=+1]"The wrinkled-seed character of pea described by Mendel is caused by a transposon-like insertion in a gene encoding starch-branching enzyme.

Cell. 1990 Jan 12;60(1):115-22.

Bhattacharyya MK, Smith AM, Ellis TH, Hedley C, Martin C.

We describe the cloning of the r (rugosus) locus of pea (Pisum sativum L.), which determines whether the seed is round or wrinkled. Wrinkled (rr) seeds lack one isoform of starch-branching enzyme (SBEI), present in round (RR or Rr) seeds. A major polymorphism in the SBEI gene between near-isogenic RR and rr lines shows 100% cosegregation with the r locus, establishing that the SBEI gene is at the r locus. An aberrant transcript for SBEI is produced in rr embryos. In rr lines the SBEI gene is interrupted by a 0.8 kb insertion that is very similar to the Ac/Ds family of transposable elements from maize. Failure to produce SBEI has complex metabolic consequences on starch, lipid, and protein biosynthesis in the seed."

[/SIZE]

JohnR7 · Aug 20, 2006

ushishir said:
Actually we know what mutation caused the wrinkled pea trait that mendel studied was:

I guess I did not pick a very good example. But the point is that mutations do not cause the gene to express itself. The genetics of dominate and recessive genes determines when a recessive gene or a dominate gene will express itself. Or even a combination of genes.

Baggins · Aug 20, 2006

supersport said:
Well weve learned how gradualism is farce.

You start with an outright lie, so I doubt the rest of the post is any better.

You haven't learned anything, but others may have learnt about gradualism in horse evolution from another thread you started and then abandoned when your ass was soundly whipped with the evidence.

Yet here you are back again, using the same old tired cut and pastes again, and getting roundly thrashed in debate again, in fact this time you appear to have abandoned your thread almost immediately.

I find your lying behaviour quite upsetting, did you ever look into the evolution of complexity in Ammonite sutures as I asked you to? This is a good example of gradualism in populations that are under little environmental pressure.

You need a , you are obviously a very sad and scared individual if you feel your faith is under threat from a scientific theory.

Big for Supersport

rmwilliamsll · Aug 20, 2006

But the point is that mutations do not cause the gene to express itself. The genetics of dominate and recessive genes determines when a recessive gene or a dominate gene will express itself. Or even a combination of genes.

gene expression is a topic much wider than dominant/recessive expression. The dominate/recessive discussion concerns how the gene products (usually proteins) interact to build the phenotype.

start with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_relationship

the whole situation really depends on the mechanism underlying the genes expression. In some situations dominant and recessive mean that the dominant alleles protein works and the recessive is broke and it only takes a single gene to make enough protein to create the phenotype.

sometimes, less commonly, the dominant is the broken gene, a mutation from the functional wildtype which is recessive.

In any case, dominant means that allele clearly controls the phenotype.

Dominant/recessive are only one of several ways for alleles to interact. see the wiki link above for a list that includes:
4 Incomplete dominance
5 Co-dominance

it is even more complex when looking at regulatory sequences and the transcription factors that control them.

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

I guess I did not pick a very good example. But the point is that mutations do not cause the gene to express itself. The genetics of dominate and recessive genes determines when a recessive gene or a dominate gene will express itself. Or even a combination of genes.

JohnR7 what you are talking about here is inheritable traits, and dominance and recessive of various genes. This has nothing to do with mutations.

For example, if two blue eyed parents have a child with blue eyes, this is expected because to have blue eyes, both parents must have the double recessive. However, if the child has BROWN eyes, this indicates either a mutation or infidelity, as brown eyes are a dominant gene. We know it doesn't come from either of the parents, so where do brown eyed children of blue eyed parents come from, in the cases where parentage is confirmed? Mutation also tends to be responsible for individuals wih "bi-eyed" phenotype, where they have one eye or part thereof a different colour to the other eye, or part thereof

supersport · Aug 20, 2006

Baggins said:
You start with an outright lie, so I doubt the rest of the post is any better.

You haven't learned anything, but others may have learnt about gradualism in horse evolution from another thread you started and then abandoned when your ass was soundly whipped with the evidence.

Yet here you are back again, using the same old tired cut and pastes again, and getting roundly thrashed in debate again, in fact this time you appear to have abandoned your thread almost immediately.

I find your lying behaviour quite upsetting, did you ever look into the evolution of complexity in Ammonite sutures as I asked you to? This is a good example of gradualism in populations that are under little environmental pressure.

You need a , you are obviously a very sad and scared individual if you feel your faith is under threat from a scientific theory.

Big for Supersport

You obviously don't get it. The fossil record does not show gradualism. Why doesn't this little fact sink in? I also gave a direct quote from Niles Eldredge that disproves the notion that horses evolved gradually. The only evidence of "evolution" in horses is within each individual species. ( I don't have time to go searching for the quote at the moment.)

But I would appreciate it if you would quite calling me a liar and stop using your typical childish, foul-mouthed athest language. Save it for your wife and kids. I don't want to hear it.

supersport · Aug 20, 2006

Baggins obviously needs a refresher course on the fossil record
---------------
Quotes from Niles Eldredge (paleontologist) from The Myths of Human Evolution

It is now abundantly clear that species are real entities -- individuals -- in the fullest sense of the word. pg. 48

Change in this manner (gradualism) is just not found in the fossil record. pg. 48

Darwin invented the myth that species were not real to convince the world of the nonmyth that evolution had occured. pg. 52

Darwin's prediction that long-term evolutionary change should produce a systematic pattern of gradual, progressive change in the fossil record was faulty. pg. 53

As we have seen in the previous chapter, the usual conception casts evolution as a gradual, steady process of adaptive change. And we have already seen that the fossil record conflicts with that view. pg. 57

We're faced more with a great leap of faith -- that gradual, progressive, adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks -- than any hard evidence. pg. 57

The notion of gradual, progressive change collides head-on with the stability seen in most fossil species...But we have greatly erred in predicting what the pattern of change should look like in the fossil record. Rather than taking the record literally, we have dismissed the lack of change within species as merely the artifacts of an imperfect record. But the time has come to ask, instead, if the record isn't telling us something that our theories out to be able to explain -- rather than explain away. pg. 58

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

Supersport... there is a bunch of transitional fossils... I, however, will take the time to list a few for you. Discredit these, if you would be so good?

My personal favourite is still archaeopterix, but try these ones:
The following are fossil transitions between species and genera:

Human ancestryThere are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them.
The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior (Stanley 1974)
A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (Pearson et al. 1997). O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature was added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay (1997).
The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil; Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978).
Planktonic forminifera (Malmgren et al. 1984). This is an example of punctuated gradualism. A ten-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change.
Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost two million years which includes a record of a speciation event (Miller 1999, 44-45).
Lake Turkana mollusc species (Lewin 1981).
Cenozoic marine ostracodes (Cronin 1985).
The Eocene primate genus Cantius (Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983).
Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change (Pojeta and Springer 2001; Ward and Blackwelder 1975).
Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic (Hallam 1968).

The following are fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes:

Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking (Richmond and Strait 2000).
Dinosaur-bird transitions.
Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors (Tchernov et al. 2000). Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs that is related to Haasiophis (Caldwell and Lee 1997).
The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but unlike snakes, they do not have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards (Caldwell and Lee 1997; Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000).
Transitions between mesonychids and whales.
transitions between fish and tetrapods.
Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced (Domning 2001a, 2001b).
Runcaria, a Middle Devonian plant, was a precursor to seed plants. It had all the qualities of seeds except a solid seed coat and a system to guide pollen to the seed (Gerrienne et al. 2004).

The following are fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla:

The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features that connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement that is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusk's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusk's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive mollusks, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia (Conway Morris 1998, 185-195).
Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods.
An ancestral echinoderm has been found that is intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes (Shu et al. 2004).

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

I mean how much evidence will it take to convince you?

supersport · Aug 20, 2006

LightHorseman said:
Supersport... there is a bunch of transitional fossils... I, however, will take the time to list a few for you. Discredit these, if you would be so good?

My personal favourite is still archaeopterix, but try these ones:
The following are fossil transitions between species and genera:

Human ancestryThere are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them.

The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior (Stanley 1974)

A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (Pearson et al. 1997). O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature was added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay (1997).

The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil; Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978).

Planktonic forminifera (Malmgren et al. 1984). This is an example of punctuated gradualism. A ten-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change.

Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost two million years which includes a record of a speciation event (Miller 1999, 44-45).

Lake Turkana mollusc species (Lewin 1981).

Cenozoic marine ostracodes (Cronin 1985).

The Eocene primate genus Cantius (Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983).

Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change (Pojeta and Springer 2001; Ward and Blackwelder 1975).

Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic (Hallam 1968).

The following are fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes:

Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking (Richmond and Strait 2000).

Dinosaur-bird transitions.

Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors (Tchernov et al. 2000). Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs that is related to Haasiophis (Caldwell and Lee 1997).

The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but unlike snakes, they do not have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards (Caldwell and Lee 1997; Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000).

Transitions between mesonychids and whales.

transitions between fish and tetrapods.

Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced (Domning 2001a, 2001b).

Runcaria, a Middle Devonian plant, was a precursor to seed plants. It had all the qualities of seeds except a solid seed coat and a system to guide pollen to the seed (Gerrienne et al. 2004).

The following are fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla:

The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features that connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement that is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusk's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusk's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive mollusks, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia (Conway Morris 1998, 185-195).

Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods.

An ancestral echinoderm has been found that is intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes (Shu et al. 2004).

all those words and no proof (hard evidence)

Would you mind explaining how there can possibly be transitional fossls when individual nucleotides cannot be singled-out and passed on? Do you not know that nucleotides are blocked together by the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands and are never inherited individually?

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

Supersport... there is a bunch of transitional fossils... I, however, will take the time to list a few for you. Discredit these, if you would be so good?

My personal favourite is still archaeopterix, but try these ones:
The following are fossil transitions between species and genera:

Human ancestryThere are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them.
The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior (Stanley 1974)
A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (Pearson et al. 1997). O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature was added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay (1997).
The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil; Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978).
Planktonic forminifera (Malmgren et al. 1984). This is an example of punctuated gradualism. A ten-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change.
Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost two million years which includes a record of a speciation event (Miller 1999, 44-45).
Lake Turkana mollusc species (Lewin 1981).
Cenozoic marine ostracodes (Cronin 1985).
The Eocene primate genus Cantius (Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983).
Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change (Pojeta and Springer 2001; Ward and Blackwelder 1975).
Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic (Hallam 1968).

The following are fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes:

Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking (Richmond and Strait 2000).
Dinosaur-bird transitions.
Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors (Tchernov et al. 2000). Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs that is related to Haasiophis (Caldwell and Lee 1997).
The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but unlike snakes, they do not have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards (Caldwell and Lee 1997; Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000).
Transitions between mesonychids and whales.
transitions between fish and tetrapods.
Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced (Domning 2001a, 2001b).
Runcaria, a Middle Devonian plant, was a precursor to seed plants. It had all the qualities of seeds except a solid seed coat and a system to guide pollen to the seed (Gerrienne et al. 2004).

The following are fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla:

The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features that connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement that is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusk's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusk's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive mollusks, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia (Conway Morris 1998, 185-195).
Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods.
An ancestral echinoderm has been found that is intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes (Shu et al. 2004).

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

Dear Supersport,

Whats that got to do with anything? given that mutation occurs within nucleaotides, why would it matter how much get passed on in a common group?

Again, I submit my list as a very simple list of a few of the more interesting examples of transitional fossil.

LightHorseman · Aug 20, 2006

AND, nucleotides occur within individuals, differnetiation occurs within populations, so your question is like asking why oranges don't grow in seaweed clumps... vast technical reasons, but the short answer... one has NOTHING to do with the other

I note also on the previous page, that your "paleontologist" used in your quotes is a hardline creationist supporter.

How about you find a scientist who hasn't got any financial ties to any creationist porganisations and look for a similar quote from him?

Baggins · Aug 20, 2006

supersport said:
You obviously don't get it. The fossil record does not show gradualism. Why doesn't this little fact sink in? I also gave a direct quote from Niles Eldredge that disproves the notion that horses evolved gradually. The only evidence of "evolution" in horses is within each individual species. ( I don't have time to go searching for the quote at the moment.)

But I would appreciate it if you would quite calling me a liar and stop using your typical childish, foul-mouthed athest language. Save it for your wife and kids. I don't want to hear it.

You are a liar.

You have been shown examples of gradualism in the fossil record.

Then you come up with a statement that you have shown that gradulism does not exist.

What is that if not a bare faced lie.

I am not name calling it is a simple statement of fact.

I feel sorry for you, but I cannot let you get away with bare faced lies.

Just because you can quote Niles Eldredge out of context does not mean that gradulism is not evidenced in the geological record.

You have been given a number of examples, the one I gave was suture complexity in Jurassic Ammonites.

Do you actually wish to engage in debate, or do you want to keep on quote mining, ignoring evidence and coming out with bare faced lies.

If you lie we will call you on it.

Baggins · Aug 20, 2006

supersport said:
Baggins obviously needs a refresher course on the fossil record
---------------
Quotes from Niles Eldredge (paleontologist) from The Myths of Human Evolution

It is now abundantly clear that species are real entities -- individuals -- in the fullest sense of the word. pg. 48

Change in this manner (gradualism) is just not found in the fossil record. pg. 48

Darwin invented the myth that species were not real to convince the world of the nonmyth that evolution had occured. pg. 52

Darwin's prediction that long-term evolutionary change should produce a systematic pattern of gradual, progressive change in the fossil record was faulty. pg. 53

As we have seen in the previous chapter, the usual conception casts evolution as a gradual, steady process of adaptive change. And we have already seen that the fossil record conflicts with that view. pg. 57

We're faced more with a great leap of faith -- that gradual, progressive, adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks -- than any hard evidence. pg. 57

The notion of gradual, progressive change collides head-on with the stability seen in most fossil species...But we have greatly erred in predicting what the pattern of change should look like in the fossil record. Rather than taking the record literally, we have dismissed the lack of change within species as merely the artifacts of an imperfect record. But the time has come to ask, instead, if the record isn't telling us something that our theories out to be able to explain -- rather than explain away. pg. 58

Gradualism in the evolution of of the sutures of Jurassic Ammonites leads to them being excellent marker fossils, they along with microfossils, are the standard marker fossils used in the oil industry for marines sediments in the Jurassic. Without their gradual evolution of sutur complexity over many millions of years they would be useless.

You are getting completely the wrong end of the stick in rather esoteric debate between evolutionary palaeontologists. I don't blame you for misunderstanding all this, you don't appear to have had the benefit of a very good science education. Puntuated equilibrium is how evolution progresses in small isolated genetic pools that may be under strong evolutionary pressure. I'm sure you will remember from Mayr's book a term called Allopatric speciation, well they are fairly synominous. The way that evolution progresses in larger gene pools is through gradual development, Ammonites are a good example of this, they live in deep ocean waters and are only constrained by temperature and salinity, that's why we see gradual changes in their suture complexity.

Do you understand? I have tried to keep things fairly simple for you. I think instead of pulling out quotes from Eldredge's bookyou should sit down and actually reread it in the context of what you have learnt on this board.

c'mon sense · Aug 20, 2006

supersport said:
You obviously don't get it. The fossil record does not show gradualism. Why doesn't this little fact sink in?

The fossil record is incomplete.
A complete film strip does not show perfect gradualism either. A film strip with frames missing from it does show less gradualism. We can still conclude that the frames belong to a film. In the case of evolution, it is a film with branching outcomes.

Baggins · Aug 20, 2006

c'mon sense said:
The fossil record is incomplete.
A complete film strip does not show perfect gradualism either. A film strip with frames missing from it does show less gradualism. We can still conclude that the frames belong to a film. In the case of evolution, it is a film with branching outcomes.

Actually that was just a little lie that that Supersport has been caught indulging himself in.

Let's hope he doesn't make a habit of it

In

Erwin, D. H., and Anstey, R. L. eds. 1995. New Approaches to Speciation in the Fossil Record. Columbia University Press, New York. 342 pp.

they look at 58 studies of evolution and conclude:

Paleontological evidence overwhelmingly supports a view that speciation is sometimes gradual and sometimes punctuated, and that no one mode characterizes this very complicated process."

Sheldon 1993, looked at 3458 specimens of trilobites

And concluded he was seeing gradulism:

These lineages showed gradual change of a sufficiently pronounced nature that the specimens at the beginning and end of each lineage would be classified as different species (and in one case a different genus).

Try reading Wikipedia on Punctuated equilibrium and puntuated gradualism and phyletic gradualism

It's a complicated subject that is still the focus of much cutting edge research. But the consensus in the palaeontological community seems to be tending towards a synthesis of these different types of evolutionary change as per Erwin and Anstey

Baggins · Aug 20, 2006

Care to withdraw your statement that the fossil record does not show gradulism Supersport?

I can provide many other papers for you to check out if you wish; how many papers on examples of gradualism in the fossil record would convince you that you are wrong.

I will withdraw the claim that you lied if you now withdraw the claim that here is no gradualism in the fossil record.

we can put it all down to misunderstanding.

The MYTH of Random Mutations

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