The Scientific Method & Macroevolution?

[whois]

Are you a vampire? / Leave the bats alone, already.

As the hot shot scientists (though not all here are) are currently enjoying the grace of Easter holidays, I'm going to delve into the dark corridors of Wikipedia and give you a little of what is provided freely for anyone who wants to know:

'....Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution of bats, since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize very well. However, a Late Cretaceous tooth from South America resembles that of an early microchiropteran bat. Most of the oldest known, definitely identified bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats. These fossils, Icaronycteris, Archaeonycteris, Palaeochiropteryx and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene period, 52.5 million years ago.[17] Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.

Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta along with the treeshrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and the primates, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria, along with carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans.[1] A recent study by Zhang et al. places Chiroptera as a sister taxon to the clade Perissodactyla (which includes horses and other odd-toed ungulates).[29] However, the first phylogenomic analysis of bats shows that bats are not sister to Perissodactyla, and instead are sister to a larger group including ungulates and carnivores.[20] ....' *

~~~
17. Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echoloca /
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18270539

1. A Nuclear DNA Phylogenetic Perspective on the Evolution of Echolocation and Historical Biogeography of Extant Bats (Chiroptera) / http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7180/full/nature06549.html / https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15930153

29. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6118/456

20. http://www.cell.com/current-biology...m/retrieve/pii/S0960982213011305?showall=true / https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24184098

* - click through for the chart etc. (plenty to read and study) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Classification_and_evolution

i see.
how do you put this in perspective with the recent findings of HOX genes?

how do you resolve this with the most recent (1980) conference on evolution?
the conclusion of this conference was that small changes do not accumulate.
gould referred to the record as being in a "woeful state".
eldredge goes a step further by saying "some would say no transitional fossils exist".
the findings about HOX genes seems to support that conclusion.
and this, from a recent genetics experiment:

After ∼644 generations of mutation accumulation, MA lines had accumulated an average of 118 mutations, and we found that average fitness across all lines decayed linearly over time. Detailed analyses of the dynamics of fitness change in individual lines revealed that a large fraction of the total decay in fitness (42.3%) was attributable to the fixation of rare, highly deleterious mutations (comprising only 0.5% of fixed mutations).

what do you suppose the story is here?

 

[lasthero]

gould referred to the record as being in a "woeful state".
eldredge goes a step further by saying "some would say no transitional fossils exist".

I'm having a little trouble finding a single quote of them ever saying either of these things. Perhaps you can provide some context?

 

[PsychoSarah]

How would that 1 bacterium reestablish a population?

-_- they reproduce asexually by dividing. You can have a colony of thousands of bacteria from just a week after starting out with 1.

 

[sfs]

i see.
how do you put this in perspective with the recent findings of HOX genes?

What recent findings of hox genes?

how do you resolve this with the most recent (1980) conference on evolution?
the conclusion of this conference was that small changes do not accumulate.

What conference on evolution? A conference from 1980 isn't remotely recent -- it's ancient history at this point. I also find it highly unlikely that any conference on evolution would conclude that small changes don't accumulate.

the findings about HOX genes seems to support that conclusion.

You've already been corrected about hox genes. Why are you repeating this claim?

and this, from a recent genetics experiment:


what do you suppose the story is here?

Did you try maybe, oh I don't know, reading the paper to find out what it was about? At least far enough to discover what an MA line is, and why it's supposed to be accumulating deleterious mutations? Where did you get this quotation from, anyway -- did you just happen to be reading Genetics and run into it?

 

[sfs]

the commonality of DNA makes it easy to come up with "similarities" that aren't reality.
there can easily be 2 different organisms that displays enough similarities to assume one came from the other when in fact nothing like that happened.

No, there really can't be. Not when the similarities are, for example, the insertion points of ERVs; the similarities are much, much too great to happen by chance. Or when the similarity is between divergence and diversity, which you seem still no to understand.

the "mutations" of which you speak, most of these are transposons.

No they're not. Where did you get that idea?

the "mutations" that matter take place in our HOX genes, and are responsible for some of our nastiest deformities.

No, mutations that matter are very seldom in hox genes. Where did you get the idea that they were?

they are responsible for the majority of miscarriages, and they are responsible for some cancers.

Mutations in hox genes cause no more than a tiny, tiny fraction of miscarriages.

in my opinion, these types of mutations will not accumulate, but instead result in a profound change in the organism.
just a few of these mutations will result in a non viable organism.
this implies that each organism has a unique HOX pattern that cannot be breached.

Unfortunately, pretty much every fact you're basing your opinion on is wrong.

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

-_- they reproduce asexually by dividing. You can have a colony of thousands of bacteria from just a week after starting out with 1.

Yes, I understand that now. I also read that that they do this by something called 'binary fission' and also 'budding'*

*
ScienceIQ.com

 

[justlookinla]

-_- they reproduce asexually by dividing. You can have a colony of thousands of bacteria from just a week after starting out with 1.

Pretty impressive programmed manufacturing process they have going on there.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Pretty impressive programmed manufacturing process they have going on there.

Calling DNA programming is a bit of a misnomer.

 

[whois]

I'm having a little trouble finding a single quote of them ever saying either of these things. Perhaps you can provide some context?

the gould reference can be found in "science" and was said at the conference on evolution.

i found the eldredge reference from an old newspaper clipping.
the eldredge reference has an added bonus in regards to the horse "transitional" fossils we supposedly have.

its no surprise to me why you have never heard of this stuff.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Yes, I understand that now. I also read that that they do this by something called 'binary fission' and also 'budding'*

*
ScienceIQ.com

Binary fission is just the science vocab term for when bacteria divide to reproduce from one cell into 2 cells, and is the most common method of bacterial reproduction. But, you are missing some of the more uncommon ones.
https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epulopiscium/binary-fission-and-other-forms-reproduction-bacteria

 

[whois]

What recent findings of hox genes?

you know, you haven't spoken to me ever since i made the following post on the 30th of march:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7867573-37/#post67263381
and now you want me to wade through my posts to dig up the references you ask for that i've already posted?
you aren't the only one guilty of such a thing, there are others here that does the very same thing.
search my posts and find the references i made.

What conference on evolution? A conference from 1980 isn't remotely recent -- it's ancient history at this point. I also find it highly unlikely that any conference on evolution would conclude that small changes don't accumulate.

i said the most recent.
it was the conference that lewin reported on in "science".
the very same one gould made his remark about the record.
the very same one where ayala outright states he would not have guessed stasis.

You've already been corrected about hox genes. Why are you repeating this claim?

maybe because i keep reading about it.

Did you try maybe, oh I don't know, reading the paper to find out what it was about? At least far enough to discover what an MA line is, and why it's supposed to be accumulating deleterious mutations? Where did you get this quotation from, anyway -- did you just happen to be reading Genetics and run into it?

yes, i read it.
why are you all up in arms about it?
you refused to touch it when i first presented it.

 

[whois]

Calling DNA programming is a bit of a misnomer.

this MIGHT be true, but you can certainly say it's an algorithm.

 

[sfs]

you know, you haven't spoken to me ever since i made the following post on the 30th of march:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7867573-37/#post67263381
and now you want me to wade through my posts to dig up the references you ask for that i've already posted?

I didn't see that post; I only respond to posts I notice, and that wasn't one of them. Since you've read the paper, you should realize that the experiment was designed precisely to expose deleterious mutations that are normally weeded out by natural selection. So the fact that they observed deleterious mutations means they're good at their job. What exactly is the question, and why do you think it poses some kind of problem for evolution?

i said the most recent.

There are multiple conferences about evolution every year. 1980 was certainly not the most recent.

it was the conference that lewin reported on in "science".
the very same one gould made his remark about the record.
the very same one where ayala outright states he would not have guessed stasis.

I've found it now. It was on punctuated equilibrium, and it's one creationists have consistently misrepresented for decades. None of the scientists who support(ed) PE thought it cast any doubt at all about the descent of one species from another. In fact, the evidence for the theory includes fine-grained series of fossils, showing periods of relative stasis and also intermediate steps between those periods. Why does it matter how often evolution changes speed?

maybe because i keep reading about it.

What are you reading that gave you all of that mistaken information about hox genes?

 

[whois]

What are you reading that gave you all of that mistaken information about hox genes?

you first.
show where i'm wrong.
i found the paper on my hard drive, so i'm anxious to see your evidence.

 

[sfs]

you first.
show where i'm wrong.
i found the paper on my hard drive, so i'm anxious to see your evidence.

You said that mutations in hox genes cause most miscarriages. Here are the actual causes of miscarriage. (In reality, there's only on the order of one functional mutation in any gene per birth, and hox genes are much less than 1% of all genes. So hox mutations are rare, whereas miscarriages end roughly half of all pregnancies.)

Most important genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are thought to be in regulatory regions, not in coding genes. I have never seen anyone suggest that there are any functional differences in hox genes between us and chimps. Maybe there are, but no one has found them yet.

Your previous statement was that hox genes cannot vary without bad effects. I've already shown that statement to be wrong.

Your other statement was that most mutations involved in selection and adaptation (what Loudmouth was referring to) are transposons. In reality, most known adaptive mutations are single-base substitutions, and adaptations involving transposons are quite rare.

 

[whois]

I didn't see that post; I only respond to posts I notice, and that wasn't one of them.

frankly i don't believe you.
it was a post made in the conversation about an experiment you was concerned about.

Since you've read the paper, you should realize that the experiment was designed precisely to expose deleterious mutations that are normally weeded out by natural selection.

you know, i can't find that statement in the paper i posted.
did you make that up?

There are multiple conferences about evolution every year. 1980 was certainly not the most recent.

can you provide the most recent, time and place?

I've found it now. It was on punctuated equilibrium, and it's one creationists have consistently misrepresented for decades.

actually it was about whether the process of microevolution can be applied to macroevolution.
the conclusion was, no, it can't.

None of the scientists who support(ed) PE thought it cast any doubt at all about the descent of one species from another. In fact, the evidence for the theory includes fine-grained series of fossils, showing periods of relative stasis and also intermediate steps between those periods. Why does it matter how often evolution changes speed?

actually it concerns the small matter of transitional fossils.
it was a conference to wrangle with the fact that species suddenly appear in the record and remain relatively constant until they disappear from the record.
the record simply does not support "small accumulating changes".
the conclusion of the conference reflects that.

What are you reading that gave you all of that mistaken information about hox genes?

saying it and proving it are 2 different things.
i can prove my side, can you prove yours?
you first.

 

[bhsmte]

you first.
show where i'm wrong.
i found the paper on my hard drive, so i'm anxious to see your evidence.

It was on your hard drive?

I guess that settles it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

the gould reference can be found in "science" and was said at the conference on evolution.

i found the eldredge reference from an old newspaper clipping.
the eldredge reference has an added bonus in regards to the horse "transitional" fossils we supposedly have.

its no surprise to me why you have never heard of this stuff.

Pretty sure a link to a source would be nice. But we do have transitional fossils for horses though. http://donglutsdinosaurs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/horse-evolution-postcard-1000x631.jpg

 

[PsychoSarah]

this MIGHT be true, but you can certainly say it's an algorithm.

That would not be very accurate either. DNA works as a series of chemical reactions which result in the processing of proteins; either creating them or breaking them down, or both. DNA doesn't even impact every bit of it; some proteins limit and/or trigger the production of one another in a balancing, slef-limiting loop without DNA having to control it in any direct way.

 

[whois]

It was on your hard drive?

yes.
i usually save the page in question to my hard drive in addition to bookmarking it.
websites and webpages can go offline for any number of reasons and that is why i save this stuff to my hard drive.

so yes, i guess this does indeed settle this.