Nitefly's Guide to Evolution
- Thread starter Nitefly
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Nice post Nitefly. It boggles the mind that in 2012, with all of our advances in Science, there are still billions of people who believe in an omniscient invisible superman.
Soldato
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Have 5 stars. Would be useful if people read this, despite it being a ridiculous thread revival!
kd
kd
I had to double take that this was actually front page again... the OP was from 2007! 
Glad people can still enjoy it
I was fortunate to learn, in great depth, the major evolutionary developments in most groups of organisms (from cniderians to angiosperms) and understand how that change in physiology led to a changes in behaviour and lifestyle.
Of course, it only gets really interesting beyond the "contentious" issues detailed in this thread. For example, why do we age? How did sexuality evolve from asexuality? Why do humans act in ways contrary to their social interests? How did pollenation / flowering plants come about and why are they so dominant? Why, logically speaking, does a peacock have such an expensive and energy consuming large tail that makes it easy to hunt? What makes a potential mate attractive? And so on.
Even better is then using that evolutionary knowledge and applying it practically. For example, knowing the genetic sequence of rice (the most ancestral of all major crops) means we can identify where the genes that will give desirable yields across all other crop lineages (e.g. corn, wheat) without having to sequence the DNA of those crops. It's like one great big biological suduko. I even took some plasmodium (the bugger that causes malaria) DNA and shoved it into a plant to synthesise drugs to treat glaucoma. Such power comes from this knowledge.
I do miss studying all of this myself *sob*
Glad people can still enjoy it
I think awhile back we were talking about what biology consists of and you were advocating that genetics, molecular and medical studies were the core of the biological sciences. The sort of material seen in this thread is, in my opinion, the central structure that links all of biology together and makes genetic and physiology make sense and seem relevant.Love this thread, but it just makes me regret having not studied evolution even more
I was fortunate to learn, in great depth, the major evolutionary developments in most groups of organisms (from cniderians to angiosperms) and understand how that change in physiology led to a changes in behaviour and lifestyle.
Of course, it only gets really interesting beyond the "contentious" issues detailed in this thread. For example, why do we age? How did sexuality evolve from asexuality? Why do humans act in ways contrary to their social interests? How did pollenation / flowering plants come about and why are they so dominant? Why, logically speaking, does a peacock have such an expensive and energy consuming large tail that makes it easy to hunt? What makes a potential mate attractive? And so on.
Even better is then using that evolutionary knowledge and applying it practically. For example, knowing the genetic sequence of rice (the most ancestral of all major crops) means we can identify where the genes that will give desirable yields across all other crop lineages (e.g. corn, wheat) without having to sequence the DNA of those crops. It's like one great big biological suduko. I even took some plasmodium (the bugger that causes malaria) DNA and shoved it into a plant to synthesise drugs to treat glaucoma. Such power comes from this knowledge.
I do miss studying all of this myself *sob*
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Lol, I just saw it's like 5 years old! Still loads of religious nutters around unfortunately.
I think I was either mistaken, or you misunderstood me. When I did my biology degree I was if the mindset that 'human health, disease and the body is the most important and interesting stuff to me, and that's what I want to study'. At the time I knew next to nothing about evolution, and looked at the module choices and picked nutrition instead of evolution for my non compulsory human biology module.
A mistake that I now have to make do with unless I study another degree focused on evolution. I really wish now I had done what one of my friends did instead - Biology major, Earth Science minor and studied Genetics, Immunology, Evolution, and the two earth science modules that she did which focused on chemical evolution and earth formation stuff, but instead I did nutrition and music tech :x
Single honours human biology at my uni was Genetics, Immunology, Neurology, Nutrition and Evolution. Single honours biology was any 3 of those modules plus two environmental science one (evolution counted both ways). A human biology major was any 3 of those modules, plus two in any other suject. The final 6th module was a compulsory lab module foe all biology students.
A mistake that I now have to make do with unless I study another degree focused on evolution. I really wish now I had done what one of my friends did instead - Biology major, Earth Science minor and studied Genetics, Immunology, Evolution, and the two earth science modules that she did which focused on chemical evolution and earth formation stuff, but instead I did nutrition and music tech :x
Single honours human biology at my uni was Genetics, Immunology, Neurology, Nutrition and Evolution. Single honours biology was any 3 of those modules plus two environmental science one (evolution counted both ways). A human biology major was any 3 of those modules, plus two in any other suject. The final 6th module was a compulsory lab module foe all biology students.
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I actually picked all the molecular units possible for the entirety of my degree, but the structure on the course forced a considerable amount of time on evolution and it was only at the end when I could appreciate the big picture that I understood why. Ultimately, any biological subject without an evolutionary slant is very dry in my opinion. In particular, it was evolution that made virology and parasitology such a fascinating subject. Some of the parasites are so well adapted it's mind blowing and knowing how Influenza A (flu) constantly evolves to evade the immune system is genius incarnate.
Oh yea and there was a molecular biology module in each year too, it was compulsory in year one and the pre requistite for immunology, genetics, and the second year microbiology module. I had to ignore that one as a major, but for single honours it would have been much better than nutrition. Nutrition was vet boring and I hated it, and realized too late that I would have enjoyed evolution far far more.
The A to Z about pathogens including influenza variation, and types A B and C was covered by my immunology module which was my favorite area of study, but the only single module I pulled off a 2.1 equivalent pass in was genetics so I pretty much gave up and accepted that I wasn't good enough to get a 2.1, never mind a 1st.
The thing is that we covered a good amount of genetic evolution in the genetics module, but the evolution module would have covered all the rest not related to DNA or Chemistry, which was covered in earth science.
So an evolution focused module choice would have been genetics, immunology + evolution (same lecturer for the last two so they would have been tied very well without any overlap / repetition of topics), and the chemistry stuff in earth science.
The A to Z about pathogens including influenza variation, and types A B and C was covered by my immunology module which was my favorite area of study, but the only single module I pulled off a 2.1 equivalent pass in was genetics so I pretty much gave up and accepted that I wasn't good enough to get a 2.1, never mind a 1st.
The thing is that we covered a good amount of genetic evolution in the genetics module, but the evolution module would have covered all the rest not related to DNA or Chemistry, which was covered in earth science.
So an evolution focused module choice would have been genetics, immunology + evolution (same lecturer for the last two so they would have been tied very well without any overlap / repetition of topics), and the chemistry stuff in earth science.
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Overall thoroughly entertaining and informative, but:
Trying to pull the old switcheroo, eh?
Trying to pull the old switcheroo, eh?
Soldato
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Excellent post Mr Nitefly, enjoyed reading that *thumbs*
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Land mammal – whale transition:
A lot of people have had difficulty swallowing that whales evolved from a cattle ancestor, provoking comments such as these, with amusing results:
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you:
Ambulocetans, described 1994. Other intermediates have since been found.
CriticalThinker writes: You displayed a drawing of an Ambulocetans skeleton as an intermediate between land animals and whales. Why do you believe Ambulocetans is an intermediate between land animals and whales? From looking at the skeleton of Ambulocetans it does not appear to have swimming capabilities. Its feet bones appear to be land dwelling feet. There is no indication that I am aware off that that would cause one to believe Ambulocetans coul swim. Some claim that Ambulocetans had webbed feet, however, there is no proof of this from looking at the skeleton. Ambulocetans had four legs with wide claws on its feet and paws on its hind legs. Just because some creatures have similar characteristics than other creatures, does not automatically indicate that the creatures are biologically related. Source: "Evolution or Creation? A Comparison of the Arguments" Second Edition (2011).
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Ape - Human transition:
Finally, probably the most complete record of transitional fossils for any animal is that of Apes and Humans, shown below:
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But intermediates are missing from parts of the fossil record!
There are lots of features for which we have no known intermediates, but this does not by any means prove or disprove anything. Expecting a perfect fossil record where everything is preserved is unreasonable - the fossil record gives up snapshots of events with relatively large gaps in them (A short time for a geologist is a long time for biologist). Having said that, there are excellent examples of intermediates in other areas, e.g. Archaeopteryx and the evolution of powered flight, adaptations for flight improvements over time in the fossil record of birds.
Whilst some argue that the human knee joint has had no known intermediates due to an incomplete fossil record, it is assumed we may find such an intermediate in the future - think of the revolutionary 'land mammal - whale' intermediate above. However, our educated guesses allow frequent scientific discussion of bipedalism (Remember other Apes can only walk in water), including this proposed rearrangement of the knee joint.
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Evolution has never been observed
A false statement. Evolution is constantly observed, throughout biology. Pesticide resistance in insects, antibiotic resistance in bacteria and beak size/shape in Darwin’s finches (more later) are all key examples.
.... But no-one’s ever observed a new species form!
Oh yes they have, although admittedly not through natural selection. Plant species in particular can undergo a process known as polyploidisation. This is where a chromosome number of an organism doubles due to errors during meiosis, and it can no longer breed with its parental species. This can be advantageous in arid environments as polyploidy plants tend to have larger cells so they can store more water. The origin of new polyploid plant species is common enough and rapid enough that scientists have documented several such speciations.
Excellent post.
I'd also recommend a few videos which touch on a number of common (stupid) arguments against evolution to anybody after reading the OP's excellent piece.
Evolution
Irreducible complexity cut down to size
Rebuttals: irreducible complexity (to the poor criticism of the above video)
I'd also recommend a few videos which touch on a number of common (stupid) arguments against evolution to anybody after reading the OP's excellent piece.
Evolution
Irreducible complexity cut down to size
Rebuttals: irreducible complexity (to the poor criticism of the above video)
In other words it's a bored scientist. Which may actually be worse than the more immediate conclusion.
Look at how much of a square I used to be 
Anywho:
As you identify, looking at using morphology alone is irrelevant. An obvious example of that is looking at dolphins and sharks, which appear to by closely related yet they are not. Instead, they merely show characteristics of convergent evolution.
What is important is molecular phylogenetics e.g. using DNA analysis to identify the ancestry between species. Ambulocetus has been shown using DNA analysis to be a common ancestor between marine mammals and land mammals, which is as conclusive as you can possibly get if you wish to be scientific about it.
Anywho:
As you identify, looking at using morphology alone is irrelevant. An obvious example of that is looking at dolphins and sharks, which appear to by closely related yet they are not. Instead, they merely show characteristics of convergent evolution.
What is important is molecular phylogenetics e.g. using DNA analysis to identify the ancestry between species. Ambulocetus has been shown using DNA analysis to be a common ancestor between marine mammals and land mammals, which is as conclusive as you can possibly get if you wish to be scientific about it.
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