Nitefly's Guide to Evolution

psyr33n · 3 Jul 2007 at 23:47

Moses99p said:
they twist all sorts, "it wasn't created in 6 days, it was created in 6 stages" etc.

The argument of 6 human days as another time unit is easily viable...

3First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? ... 6By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ... 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Is it out of context? Not necessarily. It may be in reference to the second coming, but it simply states that the Lord is outside of time in all respects. That aside, the Christian argument that the Lord is all-powerful means he could have created it in an instant, let alone 6 "days"—so it's irrelevant. I'm a bit off topic but it's simply to combat hypocrisy; anyone can argue a moot point, just as the OP has highlighted the rather idiotic Creationist arguments against Evolutionists in this thread.

Great topic nonetheless.

lay-z-boy · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:26

Astonishing post!

Very informative, ploughing through it now for future reference

5 stars because you thoroughly owned anyone who believes in creationism

Scrutinize · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:26

Nitefly said:
Perhaps, but in the future it is possible that humans on average will be taller since height is a factor involved in sexual selection, for males at least.

I think you will find its Length not Height tbh

Great thread though, thanks for taking the time to do this, its a good read

beh · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:50

Good work

Nitefly · 4 Jul 2007 at 01:39

lay-z-boy said:
Very informative, ploughing through it now for future reference

My whole idea was to have something the whole forum could link to when the inevitable 'Evolution.... a myth?' thread rolls around every 2-3 months. Hopefully we will now see less futile debates.

mrk1@ said:
I think you will find its Length not Height tbh

BaDum-Tish!

...width tbh

Nitefly · 11 Jul 2007 at 09:51

Sorry for the necro-post.

If anyone was interested, after some consultation I have added two new short sections to the guide, based on what was discussed later in the thread.

These are:

The relevance of missing intermediates from the fossil record - Search the first page for 'Bipedalism'.

Is evolution a quantitative or qualitative theory? - Search the first page for 'quantitative'.

Both are short so do not expect too much depth, but I thought I should add what followed in the discussion to the guide as I originally said I would. Sorry it took so long!

*Arcade Fire and Duff-Man both get credited in the guide, but I will credit them here also!*

JonnyGeee · 11 Jul 2007 at 10:02

that was a good read, took a while to plough through it but some very good information.

paul8811 · 11 Jul 2007 at 10:51

I prefer South Parks Mr Garrison's theory of evolution

Carzy · 11 Jul 2007 at 11:00

I shall have a read of this in a bit. Good post.

Monkey Puzzle · 11 Jul 2007 at 11:05

Excellent post Nitefly

- must have taken a fair bit of effort to compile all of that. Would be even better if you added a few answers to common questions - eg evolution of the eye, persisting 6th aortic arch in humans etc...

Was having a quick search and found this http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/tyrants.html - great stuff

and this one:http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/evolution_harm.html

Evil practices based on evolution

1. abortion
2. drug culture
3. promiscuity
4. eugenics
5. pornography
6. genocide
7. chauvinism
8. New-Agism
9. euthanasia
10. pollution
11. bestiality
12. Satanism
13. homosexuality
14. criminality
15. cannibalism
16. witchcraft

Dark88 · 11 Jul 2007 at 11:11

nice post, nice format

One little niggle but not a very large one on the ' But no-one’s ever observed a new species form' i'm sure if we go down to the bacterial level and apply an ecological species definition then i'm sure we've seen new species form. Bacteria provide a simple and effective way for us to observe evolution due to their size, generation time and also the ease of which we can culture them in the lab. once again congrats nitefly on a great post.

Nitefly · 11 Jul 2007 at 11:31

Darkmage88 said:
nice post, nice format

One little niggle but not a very large one on the ' But no-one’s ever observed a new species form' i'm sure if we go down to the bacterial level and apply an ecological species definition then i'm sure we've seen new species form. Bacteria provide a simple and effective way for us to observe evolution due to their size, generation time and also the ease of which we can culture them in the lab. once again congrats nitefly on a great post.

I have never heard of the ecological species definition, but a quick google has given me the understanding that this implies a species is a set of organisms which inhabits a particular ecological niche.

The reason we have 3 main definitions of a species, the biological species concept, the phylogenetic species concept and the morphogenic species concept, are each because each have their own flaws. If we applied the phylogenetic species concept, we could possibly double the number of known species since they do not have to be sexually isolated (Each breed of dog would be a seperate species). As such, we have to use a combination of these three concepts to determine what is a species and what is not. It would be hard to test whether fossils were sexually isloated or not!

To your question in particular, I think the concept of an ecological species concept is flawed since a) I havn't heard of it (Sorry to sound cocky) and B) The results of a quick google:

An ecological species definition would require that these populations be called different species even though, on the basis of all other criteria, it is obvious that they are not. More fatal for the ecological species concept are the trophic species of cichlids (A. Meyer 1990) which differentiate within a single set of offspring from the same parents. Finally, there are the numerous cases (but none exhaustively analyzed) where two sympatric species seem to occupy the same niche, in conflict with Gause's rule.

Taken from this website: Click

But then again, all concepts have their flaws, so to only critiscise this definition would be unfair.

Bacteria are defined by their flagella, capsule, serotype and pili, I think, although I don't have my microbiology book with me at this moment. Give me a few hours and I will be back with how they are defined

Dark88 · 11 Jul 2007 at 11:48

well obviously the BSC cannot be applied to bacteria, the phylogenetic species concept as I understand it is used within the ecological species concept, it is just the ecotype is the driving force behind the monophly.

taken from Cohan 2002.
http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/newton/math501/Fall 2002/species.pdf

'Given enough time, each bacterial ecotype is expected to be identifiable as a sequence cluster, where the average sequence divergence between ecotypes is much greater than the average sequence divergence within them, for any gene shared by the ecotypes. In addition, each ecotype is expected to be identifiable as a monophyletic group in a phylogeny based on DNA sequence data.The rationale can be outlined from a phylogenetic perspective. Suppose a new ecotype is derived clonally from one mutant cell that is adapted to a new ecological niche. The nascent ecotype constitutes a monophyletic group descending from this original recombinant [i.e., the ecotype consists of all and only the descendants of the original mutant. However, this ecotype is not yet a sequence cluster; one would not conclude from the sequence-based phylogeny that two populations exist within this group. After periodic selection, however, the diversity within the new ecotype is purged. Likewise, periodic selection events within the ancestral ecotype will purge diversity within that ecotype as well. Note that owing to the diversity-purging effect of periodic selection within each ecotype, the ecotypes eventually appear as separate sequence clusters and each is a monophyletic group'

morphology alone seems like a very crude way of identifying organisms now molecular data are available. Bacteria are usually identified via a DNA hybridisation study, however for them to be officially named a specimen must be in culture in a lab. Hence why entire new bacterial phyla have been discovered via soil DNA samples however they can not be 'named' due to lack of the specimen in a lab.

EDIT: I wouldn't advocate the use of the ESC for a sexual organism such as a cichlid

Nitefly · 11 Jul 2007 at 12:05

Monkey Puzzle said:
Would be even better if you added a few answers to common questions - eg evolution of the eye, persisting 6th aortic arch in humans etc...

I'm not sure if you are trying to sound smart, but since when have those been common questions?

I am reluctant to go into something like that in detail because I havn't studied it on a level where I would be happy to explain it to the forum, plus it goes beyond what this thread's purpose was. Also it would be extremely time consuming for me to research this from scratch.

However, if you are interested, heres two papers which may be interesting to read. I have no guarentee on their usefulness as I only read the abstract and they may help if you are interested on the subjects:

Fernald RD, Evolving eyes, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 48 (8-9): 701-705 Sp. Iss. SI 2004

Muster AJ, Idriss RF, Backer CL, The left-sided aortic arch in humans, viewed as the end-result of natural selection during vertebrate evolution CARDIOLOGY IN THE YOUNG 11 (1): 111-122 JAN 2001

The links were very amusing though

Nitefly · 11 Jul 2007 at 12:28

Darkmage88 said:
well obviously the BSC cannot be applied to bacteria, the phylogenetic species concept as I understand it is used within the ecological species concept, it is just the ecotype is the driving force behind the monophly.

I wouldn't advocate the use of the ESC for a sexual organism such as a cichlid

Ah, yes. I now have a slightly greater understanding of what the ESC is if viewed as the PSC. As you say you would not define cichlids in that way, I think a similar attitude is applied to microorganisms, in particular viruses and bacteria. The ways of defining them as a species are not suitable, in particular the biological species concept and, as to my knowledge the phylogenetic species concept (or ESC if you prefer). Bacteria have 4 specific factors (as I mentioned earlier) which must be observed for taxonomic purpose, and I shall return later when I obtained this information - at this moment I can not with any certainty claim how either are defined as species.

morphology alone seems like a very crude way of identifying organisms now molecular data are available.

It is very crude, but it is useful for paleontologists when fossils have degraded DNA, so no molecular analysis can take place. Also, since we are looking at fossils from potentially billions of years ago, molecular analysis may be futile as scavengable DNA may not be conserved over such a large timescale.

Bacteria are usually identified via a DNA hybridisation study, however for them to be officially named a specimen must be in culture in a lab. Hence why entire new bacterial phyla have been discovered via soil DNA samples however they can not be 'named' due to lack of the specimen in a lab.

As far as I am aware, you are correct. Identifying species which are impossible to culture poses a very difficult task. It will be interesting to see if we can get around this in the future.

WhyohWhy · 11 Jul 2007 at 13:13

Excellent thread, read the whole lot and glad to see that things have moved on in the 12+ years since I did any biology.

I can honestly say that its one of the more informative posts I have seen on these forums. (given post count it doesnt sound all that good, but I have been lurking for years!)

Kol · 11 Jul 2007 at 13:14

Great thread Nitefly... I wanted to comment sooner but kept forgetting. Brilliant work. We never covered what you're studying/studied? Unless it's in here somewhere.

Good effort man.

Monkey Puzzle · 11 Jul 2007 at 13:28

I'm not sure if you are trying to sound smart, but since when have those been common questions?

Both of those questions often come up in discussions regarding evolution and are often used in the case against and for evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design etc..I thought that was one of the reasons you started the thread?

And, no, I'm not just trying to sound smart - I haven't studied any embryology for 5 years and even then it didn't really float my boat, and I figured you would know more about it - a friend of mine had to study embryology as part of his biology degree.

SiD the Turtle · 11 Jul 2007 at 13:31

Fantastic thread.

The problem is you tell all that to a creationist and they will say 'yeah but that's how god wanted you to see it, he put the fossils in the earth etc'.

Of course that could be right, but by definition is impossible to prove. That is why creationists go with faith rather than science and therefore why science classes in school should teach evolution (science) not creationism (faith).

Nitefly · 11 Jul 2007 at 13:34

Kol said:
Great thread Nitefly... I wanted to comment sooner but kept forgetting. Brilliant work. We never covered what you're studying/studied? Unless it's in here somewhere.

Good effort man.

I am studying biology at the University of Bristol, it was in the thread, somewhere.

P.s. ... I feel really silly about that caffeine arguement still