Punctuated Equilibria theories

[infamous]

 

I'll ask again- got any examples of large scale morphological changes in animals from chromosomal rearrangments?

 

Good question bumab, but if your expecting a calm legitimate answer I wouldn't be holding my breath if I were you.

[TeleMad]

If we can't find a way to make the likelihood of a specific, viable dramatic change less than say, 1 in 10^10, that would suggest there is something going on here...

 

Gee, well, what do you think the probability of the genetic information needed to code for brains, hearts, kidneys, lungs, bones, muscles, ears, eyes, teeth, leg and toes, wings, echolocation, leaves, etc. appearing all at once in the fist prokaryote is? Gee, maybe something like 1 in 10^10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

You're substituting a single "impossible" event - we might as well call it a miracle - for a series of many more likely events. You're solving nothing and only making the probabilistic hurdles many orders of magnitude worse.

[bumab]

Which is also documented on the net, if you would look....I must have missed how it is irrelevant. It is verified speciation that takes only 4 generations.

 

In plants. Speciation through chromosomal level events (polyploidy and the like) are readily done in plant species, over and over. They do not seem to have the same level of regulatory vigalence animals do. So, plants are not really a valid example in this discussion, since the mechanisms are obviously somewhat different.

 

Yes, besides what has already probably been pointed about changes in population size leading to different rates of evolutionary change, there is also the case of reduced competition that occurs when population enters a new habitat, or new niches are opened up after a catastrophe: with selective pressures reduced, evolutionary change can occur more rapidly.

 

Buffy's been saying that, and that's the traditional position.

 

It IS a large hurdle. An astronomically larger hurdle than the one it is intended to replace!!!

 

Perhaps, I'm not argueing that point at all.

 

Wake up dude. I didn't drag religion into this thread, Biochemist did. Ask him to explain the ORIGIN of and PERSISTENCE of his vast information load using science. He can't. He's made matters worse, and the only way out is for him to call upon a deity. His position is religion dressed up to look like science.

 

I know what you are saying, but you seem to be seeing the conversation through hostile, anti-religious goggles. Bio saw a problem- the rapid appearance of new phyla. Knowing that organisms are usually set up to reduce mutations (since they are almost always bad), he proposed an alternative, with the same level of difficulty that was perceived. Nothing wrong with that. I don't agree, nether do you. Attack the theory itself- just say the info load is rediculously high and the odds are horrible, or however you want. Dragging religion into it is simply an obvious bid to make it sound worse- it's like creating a straw man when one's not even needed...

 

PE is not all sewed up like you would like to believe. There's still some mechanics being worked out, it's not completely understood.

[TeleMad]

Good question bumab, but if your expecting a calm legitimate answer I wouldn't be holding my breath if I were you.

 

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a science thread? You think you can stop the personal comments anytime soon?

[infamous]

Good thoughts, Infamous, although were you chiding me or TM? :Alien: I think that thought needs to be in all threads!

Let me just say that it was in no way intended toward you bumab, I sorry if I wasn't clear about to whom this admonition was directed. Have a good one............infamous

[TeleMad]

bumab: I'll ask again- got any examples of large scale morphological changes in animals from chromosomal rearrangments?

 

Yeah, how about legs appearing on a flies head where his antennae should be? How about a fly with an extra thorax?

 

And there's no requirement for such changes to be due to chromosomal rearrangements, any type of natural mutations will suffice.

 

Note that the examples I gave are in keeping with Biochemist's usage of "dramatic morpholoy changes"...

 

Biochemist: If we examine the genotypic nature of dramatic morphology changes (like the extra frog leg) ....

[bumab]

Definitly, that's why I brought those up earlier. Can we set up an environment where those are selected for, however?

 

And not only that, we need to related those dramatic shifts and their conservation to large scale extinction events, or at least correlate the two. These frogs and flies seem to be random (perhaps pollution related, which is also very different from a physical environment change).

[TeleMad]

Let me just say that it was in no way intended toward you bumab, I sorry if I wasn't clear about to whom this admonition was directed. Have a good one............infamous

 

 

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a science thread? You think you can stop the personal comments anytime soon?

[infamous]

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a science thread? You think you can stop the personal comments anytime soon?

Quite right TeleMad, I stand corrected. But let's not forget this principal, I've seen this activity on both sides of the isle, if you get my drift. In any case, I apologize. Might be well for us all to stop and consider others feelings TeleMad, what do you think????????

[TeleMad]

2) there really is no other explanation for PE.

 

Here we have Biochemist trying to force his religious view down our throats. Clearly, he's right, and anyone who disagrees with him must be wrong: there's really no other explanation for PE than his religious one.

[bumab]

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a science thread? You think you can stop the personal comments anytime soon?

 

next...

 

Here we have Biochemist trying to force his religious view down our throats. Clearly, he's right, and anyone who disagrees with him must be wrong: there's really no other explanation for PE than his religious one.

 

Contradiction?

 

But, I agree with the first post as well... so, i'll stop the personal comments for now. When there's content, I'll repost.

[TeleMad]

Rather than just offering conjecture, I would like to stick with what we know.

 

LOL! Like some supernatural being poofing into existence a prokaryote fully loaded with tons and tons of genetic information, for brains, hearts, lungs, kidneys, bones, ears, eyes, leaves, wings, and so on, which that prokaryote doesn't even have, and then also having all of that unused genetic information remain fully intact over billions of years of nonuse! Sure, you don't like offereing conjecture ... sure, you like to stick to what we know! R...I...G...H...T.

[TeleMad]

Biochemist: Most proteins are highly specific. In most proteins (that have been tested) most individual amino acid residues cannot be changed at all or the protein stops functioning.

 

False.

 

First, even the cherished hemoglobin – which you Creationists love to talk about – has numerous sequences in the animal kingdom that are all functional, and we humans alone even have more than one type of “hemoglobin” (hemoglobin, myoglobin, and another form used during embryonic development).

 

Second, most amino acids in a protein can be substituted by another that is physically and chemically similar.

 

Biochemist: Human DNA is about 3.6 billion nucleotide bases

 

So our DNA has only 1.8 billion base pairs? Nope.

 

Biochemist: The DNA is triggered to "unfurl" just a small portion of base pairs, "unzip", and let the ribosomes zip along it the make a new protein.

 

Excuse me, but you need to take BIO101 again. Ribosomes do NOT read nucleotide sequences from DNA, but from mRNA.

 

Time and time again you make glaring mistakes in your cell biology.

 

 

 

Now, your whole point of the post seems to be to show just how extremely complicated and intricate this all is. Science’s explanation is that all of these were not present in the original living thing, which could have been a single RNA molecule, but were added along the way over many millions of years by mutation and selection.

 

What is YOUR explanation? All of this complexity was poofed into existence in the first prokaryote! YOU’VE SOLVED NOTHING! And then, you add insult to injury by asserting that ALSO INCLUDED in that original prokaryote’s genome was genetic information to encode brains, hearts, eyes, arms and legs, wings, skeletons, leaves, root systems, lungs, etc.?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? YOUR REPLACEMENT-FOR-SCIENCE POSITION ONLY FAILS MORE MISERABLY TO YOUR OWN EXTREME-COMPLEXITY AND ASTRONIMICALLY-LOW PROBABILITY ARGUMENT.

[TeleMad]

First, thanks for comparing me to Dembski.

 

Well, you are both religiously motivated non-scientists who dress up religious arguments to look like science.

[TeleMad]

Introns increase with sophistication of phyla. Bacteria/prokaryotes have essentially none.

 

Uhm, so where did the first prokaryote stuff all of that UNUSED genetic information for eyes, brains, hearts, arms and legs, wings, leaves, root systems, kidneys, bones, muscles, etc.?

[TeleMad]

Hmmm. If only we had ONE definitive example of a species creating another species

 

We do, and I posted it. But for some unknown reason, bumab or infamous claimed it was irrelevant. Yet here you are BEGGING for it!

[TeleMad]

All 32 animal orders appear abruptly, with no readily recognizable precursor.

 

And what about a class, oh, say, class mammalia? Remember how you asked about it and so I presented you with links that show plents of evidence of the transitions from reptiles to mammals?