Rate of Evolution Metrics Observed

eldavojohn notes an article up at Science Daily on research demonstrating that smaller animals with warmer blood evolve faster than larger, colder animals. From the article: "Across species from fish to mammals, they found that rates of protein evolution showed the same body size and temperature dependence as metabolic rate. Specifically, their mathematical model predicts that a 10-degree increase in temperature across species leads to about a 300 percent increase in the evolutionary rate of proteins, while a tenfold decrease in body size leads to about a 200 percent increase in evolutionary rates."

Comments

Another finding...

[markov_chain]

Using the estimated rates, scientists projected evolution to have started about 6,000 years ago. ;)

Re:Another finding...

[moderatorrater]

ROFL, that's awesome. Somebody mod this man funny!

Re:Another finding...

[alta]

Amen brother!

Re:Another finding...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm it has been proven!!

Re:Another finding...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm it has been proven!! Makes one wonder how did the domain and page get on the internet if all the truth is only in the Bible. Unless there's some sort of secret chapter in the Bible describing semiconductors and the slightly advanced scientific concepts behind them.

Re:Another finding...

[Jehosephat2k]

"Unless there's some sort of secret chapter in the Bible describing semiconductors and the slightly advanced scientific concepts behind them."

  Bible codes silly!

Correlation, not causation?

[2nd Post!]

I wonder if this has to do with survival rates; shorter lifespan vs longer lifespan, more active vs passive animals, more energy vs less energy?

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[king-manic]

I wonder if this has to do with survival rates; shorter lifespan vs longer lifespan, more active vs passive animals, more energy vs less energy?

I think it's about generation time. Larger animals tend to live longer, reproduce less, and have a much larger generation time. But there might be some subtle link between higher body temperature and a more readily mutable genome. As chemical reactions occur more often and faster at higher temperatures, thus the mutation rate would be higher.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Nah, it's just that smaller animals take less time to Design.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, if you read the original submission:

Unless, of course, you're a creationist in which case this research tells us that the Intelligent Designer becomes very dissatisfied with his warmer smaller creations and continues to tweak them simply much more rapidly than colder larger animals.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[achilles777033]

Larger animals tend to live longer

I can't say on a general scale, but the exact opposite of this is true for dogs. Small dogs like terriers can live upwards of 20 years, larger ones like mastiffs are lucky to hit 10. I have a feeling there are other exceptions as well, but I'm not familiar with what they might be.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[discontinuity]

Larger animals tend to live longer

I can't say on a general scale, but the exact opposite of this is true for dogs. Small dogs like terriers can live upwards of 20 years, larger ones like mastiffs are lucky to hit 10. I have a feeling there are other exceptions as well, but I'm not familiar with what they might be.

IIRC, average heart rate and/or metabolic rate is a better predictor of average life span for a species than is size. Not sure if that explains the disparity among dogs. It just happens that large size tends to correlate to slower metabolisms/heart rates when looking at many species.

Also, dogs are a bizarre case since they are so radically inbred. Very little natural selection going on there. There was a PBS special on dogs about 6-12 months ago (the Nature series, I think) in which they point out that two very different dog breeds (e.g., a mastiff and a terrier) have more DNA in common than the average human cousins.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Within any species the DNA may favor one size over another. Perhaps the GP should have said, "Larger species tend to live longer." Dogs are a poor example in any case, since they have been selectively bread by humans for millennia.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[charlie763]

As the temperature of substance increases so does (by definition) the average kinetic energy of each molecule of that substance. If the substance is a fluid the molecules will tend to collide with each other at higher speeds and more frequently as the temperature increases. I wonder if this has anything to do with the rate of mutation. I think a strand of DNA would be more likely to mutate in warmer mediums than in cooler ones.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Sody]

Yes, the time between generations has a huge impact on evolution rates, since evolution is really the change in gene frequencies over time. This can only happen as genes from parents are passed to children, etc.

We've known for some time that, for example, bacteria can evolve resistance to medicines so much faster than any higher organisms can evolve similar changes. I wonder if the scientists controlled for this difference in time between generations? If not, then I'm not sure they've discovered anything new. Even saying that they are the "first" to look at evolution as protein changes seems odd, since it is the genes that code for proteins and genetic change is typically how evolution is defined.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Liberal Mafia]

The short lifespan of large dog breeds is correlated more with their early growth rates than with size as such.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[PMBjornerud]

Definetely about generation time.

Evolution is very very good at adjusting parameters. The (approximate) age at which you die is exactly the kind of biological parameter that evolution would set to the best possible range. If it had been a survival advantage to live to 500, you can bet we'd do just that. We die to make room for the next generation, and we die as soon as possible because faster generation time is a long-term benefit.

A turtle can live to 150 and a rabbit maybe 10. I am sure the longevity of the turtle has been a great benefit, but at the moment they're going extinct. Rabbits took over a continent.

Won't even mention insects and their generation time. They adapt to pretty much anything at all.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[mugnyte]

There has long been research suggesting that total heartbeats in a lifetime is constant for a large number of animals (and plants!).

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Curtman]

Definetely about generation time.

I've always been lead to believe that environmental conditions were the biggest factor in evolution. Changes in the environment make evolution a necessity.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Tablizer]

Nah, it's just that smaller animals take less time to Design.

If I was God I'd take the lazy way out and simply *scale* an ameoba up to elephant-size. (Hmmm, that may explain Rush Limbaugh ;-)

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[Sqweegee]

I think you touched on part of the problem with the inbreeding.

With so little "natural" natural selection, the desired attributes are magnified while the actually useful ones aren't. This leads to a whole array of breed specific problems, the larger dogs are probably more prone to some pretty severe ones.

I've seen many large dogs that developed severe arthritis before getting to the age of ten (human years..) When a dog can barely walk, has trouble going to the bathroom, and can't eat it's food properly it's not long before other problems set in or it gets put down.

Re:Correlation, not causation?

[aadvancedGIR]

I already read about that (typically, a mamal will live 1-2 billion heart beats in natural habitat, possibly 50% more with proper dietetic and medical care. A human being living in a developped country can expect to reach 3.5 billion heartbeats).

Concerning the correlation to brain size (or the body mass), I would say that it works only within mamals, cold-blooded species usually having a slower heartbeat and living longer (a 50g salamander can live as long as a 3kg cat and some turtles, while under 100kg, are known to outlive even the whales).

But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution is just a theory! I live in Kansas and my teacher was forced to tell me that!

Re:But... but...

[toriver]

Yeah, thankfully evolution has not been demonstrated; if it had, we would have stuff like multi-resistant bacteria and animal breeding (which is nothing more than guided evolution).

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to learn more about how the Sun revolves around the Earth...

Re:But... but...

[GreyPoopon]

Evolution is just a theory! I live in Kansas and my teacher was forced to tell me that!

I know you meant that as a jab at Intelligent Design, but Evolution (as is traditionally discussed) is indeed in the scientific sense just a theory. It is a logical explanation that can be tested. Remember that we are talking about evolution on a macro-scale. I think only the most dimwitted people would deny that organisms evolve or adapt at a micro-level. You can actually watch and see that happen. Fruit flies are a really good example of adaptability that can be watched. However, on a macro scale (over millions of years), we have only a bunch of dots of evidence that seem to be connected (and thus fit the model); the amount of evidence required to prove Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt makes that task nearly insurmountable. And in that respect, those who call for requiring to make it clear to students that Evolution is a theory are correct in doing so, even if some may disagree with their motives. It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs. One is intrinsically true, whereas the other has some exceptionally convincing evidence, but too many alternative possibilities to be solidly provable without a time machine and a very dedicated research team. Students need to know the difference.

Re:But... but...

[HotBBQ]

2 + 2 = 5, for large values of 2.

Re:But... but...

[DerangedAlchemist]

Evolution is just a theory! I live in Kansas and my teacher was forced to tell me that!

I the amount of evidence required to prove Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt makes that task nearly insurmountable.

No, evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. It is one of the most solid scientific theories (which is different from the common usage of the word theory) known. In other words, it is one of the best established conclusions of science to date.

And in that respect, those who call for requiring to make it clear to students that Evolution is a theory are correct in doing so, even if some may disagree with their motives. It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs.

Almost every result in science (or virtually every field outside of logic and mathematics) has this problem. Evolution has much more evidence than theories about gravity, chemical structure, the earth going around the sun, etc. To imply evolution has less evidence than other scientific theories is deceptive, when in reality it has much more than most. (And I really don't get the point, the bible was already 'wrong' about the earth being the center of the universe. It didn't destroy the religion or change anything. Neither does evolution.)

Re:But... but...

[Dr. Manhattan]

Three things.

• You don't really believe in creationism. How do I know? Because you don't put your money where your mouth is. Nobody does.
• Um, yeah, mutations can and have been observed to add information.
• Here are a lot more than a handful of examples for you to dispute.

Re:But... but...

[vidarh]

Random mutations are either a corruption or loss of information.

Sadly you've confused natural selection with a random process. A random mutation on its own on average causes corruption or loss of information, true. However, a random mutation combined with a selection method that favors an increase in information will over time cause an increase in information. No matter how much you try you'll have a hell of a hard time finding any situation in nature where there aren't any forms of selection in action

That selection combined with randomness can increase information is trivial to demonstrate - in fact there are lots of programs that do, in the form of genetic algorithms.

Re:But... but...

[MrKevvy]

It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs. One is intrinsically true, whereas the other has some exceptionally convincing evidence, but too many alternative possibilities to be solidly provable without a time machine and a very dedicated research team.

There are always alternative possibilities, such as Last Thursdayism, the hypothesis that the universe was suddenly created Last Thursday with fully-grown and mid-development life, all of our memories implanted, light and other radiation travelling between stars/galaxies, etc... anything that would give away that it was recent covered up. How? Magic of course. Can't disprove that... hey, it's magic. It is not based on any confirmed evidence, predicts nothing and is unfalisifiable because all of the evidence was magically covered up or is unavailable, so it fails as a scientific theory, as does YEC/ID, Raelianism, panspermia and everything else.

Here's an example of a scientific theory's use in prediction and falsifiability. Humans have 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. All great apes including chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes in 24 pairs.

Prediction: A chromosome fusion occurred in the distant past after human ancestors had split off from our common ancestor with chimpanzees, specifically:

1) Two chimpanzee chromosomes would be found that had the same banding fingerprint when laid end-to-end as a human chromosome.
2) The same human chromosome would have two centromeres because it was a fusion of two chromosomes that each had a centromere.
3) The human chromosome would contain a telomere inside it, in addition to the ones on each end.
4) All of these extra bits would be in the same order as they would be if there was a fusion, ie the extra centromere would be closer to the end than the extra telomere.

This is nicely falsifiable. If such a banding-matched chromosome wasn't present, or if didn't contain an extra telomere or centromere inside it, or they were present but in the wrong order, this would have presented a problem for common ancestry. So why were they all found to be as predicted?

Have a Google and read about it. I'm sure you'll find plenty of creationist sites that mention this too with rebuttals that are about as scientific or relevant as "Nuuuuh! Does not!" Not being able to make testable, falsifiable predictions such as this one, they can always throw dung from the sidelines.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is 2? What is +? What is =? What is 4?
I may not know. but I will continue to participate in evolution.

Re:But... but...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs. One is intrinsically true, whereas the other has some exceptionally convincing evidence, but too many alternative possibilities to be solidly provable without a time machine and a very dedicated research team. Students need to know the difference.

I hate to break your bubble, but 2+2=4 is not, and never has been a fact, let alone an incontrovertible one. Yes, there is some exceptionally convincing evidence, especially when experiments and comparisions with the real world are provided. But the fact of the matter is that 2+2=4 is simply a theory, stemming from axioms and some additional constructions. In fact, some people just accept it flat out as an axiom in its own right.

2+2=4 in our number system, not because that's the way the universe works, but because that's the way we have made our number system. There's a hell of a lot of different possibilities, but nothing is solidly provable without some ZFC set theory and a team of research mathematicians. Students need to know the difference.

Re:But... but...

[edwdig]

No, evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. It is one of the most solid scientific theories (which is different from the common usage of the word theory) known. In other words, it is one of the best established conclusions of science to date.

Small scale evolution is proven. Plants & insects splitting into strains that can't cross breed, maybe some small noticable differences. That stuff isn't too hard to reproduce.

But an ape evolving into a human, or a dinosaur into a bird can't be proven. You can find evidence that suggests it's highly likely that it happened, but unless you can form a family tree that goes back millions of years, you can't prove it.

Evolution has much more evidence than theories about gravity, chemical structure, the earth going around the sun, etc. To imply evolution has less evidence than other scientific theories is deceptive, when in reality it has much more than most.

Evolution in the form that's in dispute takes millions of years to occur. You can't experiment on that. You can't observe it without a time machine. Everything else you listed you can set up experiments to test.

And I really don't get the point, the bible was already 'wrong' about the earth being the center of the universe. It didn't destroy the religion or change anything. Neither does evolution.

I do agree with you there. The Bible is a set of stories and guidelines written to be understood by people who lived thousands of years ago. You have to treat it in that context, not as an absolute.

Re:But... but...

[wizardforce]

Sadly, you've confused evolution with selection, natural and otherwise. Selection is easily observable - peppered moths, dog breeds, finches, etc. What "evolution" requires to get from goo to you is an increase in genetic information. Random mutations are either a corruption or loss of information.

absolute nonsense. you seem to be gleefully ignorant of bacteria that have evolved the biochemical pathway in able to use nylon oligomers as an energy source. not only did this pathway not exist until long term exposure to the oligomers, it evolved in at least two completely seperate ways. we understand what mutations generally produced the pathway and we demonstrated it in the lab.

Evolution predicts countless intermediate forms. Creation predicts none. So far all we have is a handful of disputable examples.

disputable my ass, have you no idea how many fossil species, genetic evidence, geological evidence and genetic experimentation we have done over the years? we showed how flagellum evolve, the evolutionary intermediates of key proteins roughly conserved in several phylla for over 600 million years, the evolution of enzymes, proteins, polypeptide aptamers for drug research- they were not designed THEY EVOLVED. we showed how speciation can occur and what genetic changes occured over millions of years backed up with experiments to determine intermediary proteins that evolved. when you understand just how much research has been done, in fact enough that the books alone could crush a man under its weight you'd know just how damn foolish it is to ignore.

Re:But... but...

[MightyMartian]

I know you meant that as a jab at Intelligent Design, but Evolution (as is traditionally discussed) is indeed in the scientific sense just a theory.

In the "scientific" sense, theories are all one has. So tell me, are you, out of ignorance, repeating the tired Creationist/IDer canard of the etymological fallacy, or is this an intentional attempt to distort what the word means in scientific terms?

The rest of your post is clearly just a regurtitation of some bullshit you read from AiG or DI. For that, to correct your nonsense, a visit to http://www.talkorigins.org/ is order.

Re:But... but...

[GreyPoopon]

In the "scientific" sense, theories are all one has.

Not even remotely true. We have axioms, laws, hypotheses, experiments, observations and conclusions among other things. Why would one be opposed to a teacher having to inform the students that they are discussing a theory? Just because it's a politically charged issue? Don't you find some value in a student knowing the difference?
 

So tell me, are you, out of ignorance, repeating the tired Creationist/IDer canard of the etymological fallacy, or is this an intentional attempt to distort what the word means in scientific terms?

I intentionally mentioned "in the scientific sense" to avoid etymological arguments because "theory" as conventionally used has a much weaker meaning. Clearly the Theory of Evolution carries a lot more weight than that. So either you couldn't figure that out, or you're just dying to find an argument when there isn't one to be had. If it's the latter, I would recommend joining a debate team. I think you'll find it ultimately more rewarding.
 

The rest of your post is clearly just a regurtitation of some bullshit you read from AiG or DI.

Since I haven't ever bothered to read either, nor have I had any at-length conversations with supporters of them, you're just flat out wrong. Do you always jump to such conclusions?

Re:But... but...

[MightyMartian]

The point of the "discussing a theory" sticker is that it does attempt to confuse the issue. There is no other scientific theory explaining the life we see around us than evolution. Nothing. Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, as even one of its founders admits (unless you redefine science as some of the scam artists have tried to do).

What's wrong with just teaching kids science, instead of inserting verbiage intended for confusion's sake alone. Teaching what a scientific theory is, the extreme rigor that it must meet and the constant re-evaluation is what is required, so that that kids aren't vulnerable to the immoral liars that make up the ID and Creationist scam.

As to scientific "laws", it's an outdated term. Theories are what science deals in, period.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

there are several problems with discussions regarding evolution - and they all lead to a closed mind on both sides.

i learned in 3rd grade math that the answer wasn't nearly as important the PROCESS used to arrive at that answer.

yet, we never really get to discuss the pros and cons of the process of evaluating macro-evolutionary evidence b/c one side is busy building up their intellectual vanity and/or holding onto their faith that god doesn't exist while the other side has decided that any form of macro-evolution is, of necessity, anti-god.

i believe in god due to the incredible biblical insight into the relational issues that plague humanity, not because of hard scientific evidence. having said that, i don't consider all forms of macro-evolution inconsistent with the idea of god.

so, i'm left looking into the process, not driving an agenda.

there is evidence for macro-evolution. clearly, grass (simple) was on the planet well before mankind (complex). don't even go into the 6,000 thing - just because some people have no clue how to parse biblical text doesn't mean the biblical text is wrong. there is absolutely no time frame presented between the creation of the universe and the time that the earth was "void." to assume it was instantaneous is an assumption and, as science clearly shows, an invalid one.

genesis 1:1, of all things, predicted the big bang theory... all things came from effectively nothing. einstein died believing the universe was eternal... he was wrong, genesis 1:1 was right. just an interesting aside.

i have no issue explaining those things that support macro-evolution. i do have an issue when data that doesn't support macro-evolution is ignored or not even discussed.

please take a deep breath here... your emotions will fight what follows and your natural reaction will be to ignore it before you can actually ponder it and reach a rational conclusion. we have millions of species today, YET NOT A SINGLE TRANSITIONAL CREATURE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS LIVING TODAY. that means that all of the millions * millions transitional entities had a 100% extinction rate.

this is an extremely *odd* situation. it is entirely unexpected. if humans grew a third eye in the back of their head, why would that NECESSITATE the extinction of the 2 eyed species that evolved into the three eyed man? i mean, millions for millions? each end point species we see today surely had a million transitions... ALL EXTINCT. EVERY ONE.

what is a one million times 1 million? it is a big number, but not nearly big enough to signify the number of species that went extinct with 100% precision.

this kind of issue ought also be discussed in evolutionary classrooms.

why did uber complex eyes develop before simple teeth that don't rot? seems to me eating is pretty important to the survival of a species. it is sure a nice touch that humans get two sets of teeth, though.

why is the living world around us so discrete and not more continuous as one might expect given "random mutations?"

how does life come from death? some imaginary vision of "primordial soup" sure sounds like belief in the supernatural. is the super natural OK as long as it suits one's agenda.

so, there is some evidence of macro-evolution, but not nearly as much as most folks think. in addition, there is some evidence that tends to contradict current thought.

let's teach the truth and let it land where it may - without either side pushing their agenda with religious fervor.

assuming an answer is an excellent way to end up in error - just like the 6,000 year troops are stuck in error due to their assumptions.

the answer is much less than important than the process for developing that answer.

discussing the process of investigating macro-evolution is far too rare and this leads to a dramatic increase in the probability of paradigm paralysis.

wrt the article, it was rather weak in that it didn't explain how the proteins evolved.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I read the Noah's Ark FAQ... if you really gotta go that far to argue against the ark/flood story, no argument is gonna work on that person. That's a lotta time wasted. Also... the flood waters portion. Couldn't that just be attributed to God spontaneously creating and then dispersing the water? I mean.. God is God right? /does not believe silly flood story.

Re:But... but...

[bh_doc]

It depends on what degree of proof constitutes "proof". As far as I'm concerned, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence, both in the micro sense and the macro sense, pointing towards common descent through evolution, and little to none in the way of contradictory evidence, is sufficient enough to call the theory "proved".

Re:But... but...

[edwdig]

But there isn't an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence" on the macro scale. We've got a very, very minute sampling of fossils going back hundreds of millions of years. We've got gaps of millions of years between specimens. We look at the ground where we found it and take a guess at how long the dirt and rocks around the fossil have been there. Then we say "well, we've got the lower half of a skeleton here, and it looks kinda like this velociraptor skeleton we have, and kinda like a chicken, so velociraptors might've evolved into chickens."

You can call that a proof if you want. I say it's more like an educated guess.

Re:But... but...

[bh_doc]

But there isn't an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence" on the macro scale.

Yes, there is. I think you simply underestimate the breadth and quality of the evidence. We have even observed macro evolution.

Re:But... but...

[Danny Rathjens]

Panspermia at least has the possibility of being based on evidence, though, and has testable predictions. e.g. That we'll find life on another planet/comet/asteroid/floating and we can date it to older than 4 billion years( greater than the age of life on earth) or match dna with our most ancient earth-born bacteria. So I wouldn't group it with young earth creationism.

Re:But... but...

[edwdig]

Yes, there is. I think you simply underestimate the breadth and quality of the evidence.

No, I'm very well aware of the evidence. I think you have a different meaning of proof. I agree with the points of the article you linked, however, that's just forming a very good hypothesis that cannot be verified.

We have even observed macro evolution.

You didn't read my original comment. I'm well aware of the type of thing pointed out in the article you linked. But that's not the type of thing in dispute when people question evolution. Very few people would dispute that a plant can evolve into a slightly different plant. It's the monkey to human or dinosaur to bird types of evolution that's the issue, which is a very, very different thing.

Re:But... but...

[Alsee]

Evolution predicts countless intermediate forms. Creation predicts none.

Well then that would be a score for Evolution and an contradiction of Creation.

We have a continuous and complete fossil record for almost the entire Phylum Foraminifera spanning over a hundred million years. The Foraminifera fossil record provides not merely continuous sequences species, but a virtually day-by-day continuous record of transitional forms along individual species-to-species transitions.

How any why do we have such a perfect complete and hyper-fine continuous fossil record for Phylum Foraminifera? Foraminifera are tiny animals that (generally) live in the sea in vast vast numbers. Every single day day huge numbers of them die and die are rain down onto the deep sea floor. They grow structured mineral mineral shells that make perfect fossils. Day after day year after year millennia after millennia... speck by speck inch by inch yard by yard these Foraminifera fossils rain down in the accumulating sediment of the sea bed. Around the 1960's advanced oil exploration deep sea drilling techniques started bringing up sediment cores. Each core is loaded with thousands or even millions of Foraminifera fossils laid down in perfect continuous layers over millions and millions of years. An effectively limitless supply of Foraminifera fossils. In fact the supply of Foraminifera is so vast that scientists started developing computer vision analysis techniques to sort and analize these fossils By The Thousands.

You just look up and down the sediment core a fraction of an inch at a time in each direction and see the changes in populations over time. A record tracing modern species back to an ancient common ancestor in a continuous line of intermediate forms.

This fossil record is a veritable day-by-day video of how evolution did happen. A perfect record of exactly how a single species can and does change over time and exactly how one species can and does split over time into two child species. A perfect record of how one species over million and millions of years can and did follow a branching evolutionary tree into hundreds of varied decendent species.

Anyone who says there is little or no evidence establishing evolution is simply unaware of the vast and conclusive evidence. There's nothing wrong or unusual about people being unfamiliar with the VAST body of technical evidence establishing ANY field of science. Few people are familiar with the technical scientific evidence backing up quantum mechanics or relativity either. However most people know that they don't have a college degree in science field X and know that they don't know anything about field X, and know that it it would be silly for them to claim that quantum mechanics or relativity was wrong and to claim that the experts in those fields are all wrong, and to assert that evidence supporting those fields does not exist simply because they haven't studied it and know nothing about it. But for some reason quite a few people go right ahead and do exactly that when it comes to biology.

Some parts of the fossil record are better than others. Yes, some parts of the fossil record are quite spotty. However other parts of the the evolutionary tree of life have perfect continuous fossil records proving beyond any reasonable doubt exactly how evolution can and *did* happen. Alss fossils fall on a strict family tree of all life on earth... even the very spotty parts of the tree show exactly the evidence and intermediate forms evolution says we should see given that finding fossils is generally quite rare and random.

increase in genetic information

This has been MATHEMATICALLY proven. Observationally proven. Experimentally proven. In fact I can personally dabbled in some hobbyist experimentation witnessing and proving that the evolution process can and does produce an increase in information. I have written this up in previous evolution discussion here on Slashdot, but at the moment I don't feel like doub

Re:But... but...

[Alsee]

unless you can form a family tree that goes back millions of years, you can't prove it.

Then yes, it has been proven. We have a hyper-continuous fossil record tracing most of Phylum Foraminifera back for over a hundred million years. I explain what Foraminifera are and why we have sch a perfect record of them in this other post.

Any work on proving evolution itself is old history. Thanks to things like the Foraminifera record, scientists have moved on to studying in minute detail how individual species change over time, studying in minute detail how an individual species behaves as it is dividing into two child species, and cool issues like how and why the rate of evolution and speciation increases after mass extinction events.

-

Re:But... but...

[Alsee]

on a macro scale (over millions of years), we have only a bunch of dots of evidence that seem to be connected (and thus fit the model); the amount of evidence required to prove Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt makes that task nearly insurmountable.

Actually we do have it! Not just a bunch of dots, we have exactly that "insurmountable" amount of evidence covering one particular chuck of the tree of life proving Evolution beyond any reasonable doubt. In another post a few minutes ago I explained the amazing Phylum Foraminifera fossil record.

P.S.
In an attempt to mod my own post as redundant I am applying No Karma Bonus to subtract one here :)

-

Re:But... but...

[aproposofwhat]

I may not know. but I will continue to participate in evolution.

You forget, to participate in evolution implies that you will produce offspring, which implies having sex, which implies meeting a suitable mate, which implies leaving your mother's basement...

:P

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are my personal hero. Keep fighting the good fight, Alsee.

Re:But... but...

[GreyPoopon]

In another post a few minutes ago I explained the amazing Phylum Foraminifera fossil record. [slashdot.org]

Can you point me towards any published research on the Foraminifera fossil record? I'm actually quite interested in seeing what has been discerned about the changes in the organisms from some of the oldest samples to some of the most recent.

Re:But... but...

[toriver]

you've confused evolution with selection ... Random mutations are either a corruption or loss of information.

You state that as a dogma you need to back up attacks on evolution theory. EVOLUTION IS SELECTION among "mutations" - whether random or as a consequence of genetic mixing in reproduction. Mutations that are detrimental succumb and mutations that are beneficial - which the emergence of multiresistant bacteria prove exists, despite your unsubstiantiated claim otherwise - carry on in surviving individuals. Stating that all mutations are bad is like saying that all die rolls in Craps are bad and you can never win. Mutations modify genetic material, the genes codify how an organism develops, that beneficial genes (ie. the organism lives) can exist on a world with a CONSTANT background radiation leading to a high mutation rate (OBSERVED) means that some mutations are good. Like the one that makes adult Europeans able to digest lactose in milk from cows.

You seem to attack evolution as a whole when you really are trying to attack the bio-creation theories (which have partially been demonstrated in laboratories); however, since the attacks are dogmatic and end up targeting PROVEN science you end up looking like a fool.

Also: Creationism implies that multiresistent bacteria ALWAYS EXISTED, and that the horses we have today DID NOT evolve from the smaller breeds we can observe in artwork from the middle ages when it is obvious that they did. Basically, Creationism contradicts genetics and observed biology at every turn. Which is why I also mentioned the Terracentric cosmology that was replaced by the Heliocentric. Astonomy is another science that has been fought by dogmatic believers in "non-answers".

Meanwhile, science happily ditched the phlogiston hypothesis when combustion was demonstrated to involve oxygen - without burning the "non-phlogiston" scientists at the stake...

Re:But... but...

[Alsee]

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you wanted, but here's a few links I have handy:

Drs. Tony Arnold (Ph.D., Harvard) and Bill Parker (Ph.D., Chicago) are the developers of what reportedly is the largest, most complete set of data ever compiled on the evolutionary history of an organism. The two scientists have painstakingly pieced together a virtually unbroken fossil record that shows in stunning detail how a single-celled marine organism has evolved during the past 66 million years.

A pic of a small piece of that 66 million year line, in ~700,000 year steps.

A great piece from the Florida State University interviewing PhDs Arnold and Parker about it.

A sample common decent transitional sequence. Image 1 and image 15 are two currently living species and image 7 is their 15-million-year-old ancestor. Imagine it in a V shape in time, 1 and 15 are the two top tips of the V and the lines converge back in time to pic 7 at the bottom of the V in the past.

The time resolution we get from seafloor sediment fossils is actually much better than the 700,000 year step size used in that first pic. This shows how we can see in fine detail the process of a species population stretching out and then splitting into two child species (one smaller one larger). Each horizontal line in that diagram represents a sampling of probably hundreds of individuals from the population at each given point in time. As noted in the interview above they have been able to follow and examine foraminifera branching through literally hundreds of speciation events. A branching tree of increasing diversity.

The oldest Foraminifera weren't able to grow their own mineral shells... they made their shells by gluing together specs of mineral-dirt collected floating in the ocean. Modern Foraminifera are extremely diverse, herbivorous and omnivours and carnivours... some have even invented FARMING protecting growing and eating algae farms inside their shells... modern Foraminifera are extremely diverse living in almost every ecological niche in almost every wet habitat on earth from the shoreline to the abyssal seafloor to floating near the sea surface from the arctic sea to the equator and in freshwater lakes and ponds and even Foraminifera species that have managed to adapt to moist soil land life. Most are near-microscopic, but the largest can be over half a foot across.

If you were looking for something more specific, let me know and I'll see if I can Google it up.

I wish I could find one good webpage with all the Foraminifera info in one place. There's lots more cool info and technical science papers, but I only find them scattered piecemeal.

-

Re:But... but...

[DerangedAlchemist]

Small scale evolution is proven. Plants & insects splitting into strains that can't cross breed, maybe some small noticable differences. That stuff isn't too hard to reproduce.

But an ape evolving into a human, or a dinosaur into a bird can't be proven. You can find evidence that suggests it's highly likely that it happened, but unless you can form a family tree that goes back millions of years, you can't prove it.
No you can only prove beyond a reasonable doubt or with much greater likely than say a preacher named Jesus actually existed.

Evolution has much more evidence than theories about gravity, chemical structure, the earth going around the sun, etc. To imply evolution has less evidence than other scientific theories is deceptive, when in reality it has much more than most.

Evolution in the form that's in dispute takes millions of years to occur. You can't experiment on that. You can't observe it without a time machine. Everything else you listed you can set up experiments to test.

First there was fossil evidence of evolution. Now there is genetic evidence and molecular biology evidence. Don't forget predictive ability of a theory, which is were evolution's great successes are. Besides, if the debate is actually what you claim here, evolution should be taught exactly as it is being taught; the short-time scale evidence, animal breeding, genetics and fossils imply natural selective evolution. Combined with studies from geography, the theory makes these predictions about the past. Now you can disprove it, or come up with alternative theories that have similar explanatory power, but no one has done anything of the kind as of yet.

Pluto has never been observed to revolve around the sun yet. Scientists never went to the sun to prove what it's made of. Yet this is not seen as needing debate about alternatives. Science does use methods such as observation, when rigorous experiments are not possible.

Evolution is an incredibly important theory for common people to know. The basic form is simple enough for a grade school student to understand and yet has offered clear explanations for an incredibly large number of phenomena from genetic diseases, anti-biotic and pesticide resistance and avoidance, animal husbandry, genetic algorithms, economics, ect. Pretending that there is more debate or less evidence for evolutionary theory than other scientific theories is an out-right propaganda lie that is starting to persuade intelligent people.

In science you are supposed to be skeptical, not faithful. People like Einstein did great work by proving light was a particle, after it had been proven light was a wave, and, therefore not a particle. You don't have to believe evolution, but you must know the theory and the many things that are explained by evolutionary theory. If you want to offer other explanations, you must subject them to the same level of rigor. So far, nothing has come remotely close. If you want to claim there is a debate about the certainty of evolution, you must put it into perspective with other accepted 'facts'. When this is done, evolution stands as one of the most solid, not shaky scientific theories known (perhaps the error is in how solid the rest of science is perceived?)

Life span?

[moderatorrater]

Have they accounted for the fact that higher metabolisms tend are related to the life span and reproductive rates of a species? If a species has two generations for every generation of another species, that'll tend to influence the evolution as well.

Now it makes sense

[houstonbofh]

This does enplane why fat Americans don't seem to change. Loose weight and evolve!

Re:Now it makes sense

[king-manic]

This does enplane why fat Americans don't seem to change. Loose weight and evolve!

Let me enplane individual organisms do not evolve. Even very very large ones like the average American.

Re:Now it makes sense

[lonesome_coder]

My weight isn't very loose at all, thank you very much. /grammarpolice

Re:Now it makes sense

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Perfect! Force overweight Americans to spend all of their time emplained in a DC 9. That would encourage them all to lose weight fast. and if all they have to eat is airplane food, it shouldn't take long.

Re:Now it makes sense

[Alsee]

enplane

I think Bush plans to enplane Airforce One.

-

Paging Ric Romero

[Gothmolly]

Creatures with faster metabolism and greater energy resources are able to act and evolve faster.

News at 11.

Correction

[Hoi Polloi]

Excuse me, that is Intelligent Design Metrics thank you very much.

I remember

[apdyck]

I remember hearing years ago (I don't remember where) that reptiles, as they age, develop bony plates and spikes (a defensive mechanism as they slow down in age), and that they do not stop growing and changing until they die. Could it be that the more cold-blooded animals do not evolve as a species because they evolve as individuals?

Just a thought, and I'm no scientist, but this does seem feasible. Any thoughts?

Re:I remember

[king-manic]

Could it be that the more cold-blooded animals do not evolve as a species because they evolve as individuals?

Phenotypic variation is not evolution. Most complex animals show some geneomic expression variation through out it's life. In fact your expression of a lot of hormones and cellular products will vary immensely until you are very dead. It's not just a reptilian thing.

Re:I remember

[Peyre]

That's good, out-of-the-box thinking, but it's not quite right. As others mentioned, individuals don't evolve; groups of individuals evolve. Individuals do change over time, but evolution refers to changes more at the genetic level, which can only take place in groups. My first thought on this is that the data may have been affected more by rates of reproduction--insects evolve much faster than humans because their generations are much shorter, for instance. But there may be something else going on here, too, related to the regulated metabolisms of mammals.

Re:I remember

[Doctor Crumb]

Changes in physical characteristics as an individual ages are entirely unrelated to evolution, which is tied to reproduction in groups (as already pointed out). Because individuals (even reptiles) generally reproduce when young, anything that happens to them after that is basically ignored by evolution.

Re:I remember

[moderatorrater]

That's true only to a certain extent. Just because an individual isn't reproducing doesn't mean they don't effect evolution; just look at ants or bees for an extreme example. In the case of humans, a living grandparent can be a very large advantage in terms of knowledge and their physical presence.

Re:I remember

[porcupine8]

As an example to back up the other responses, that's like suggesting that humans don't need to evolve as a species because when we hit the age of 13 we get secondary sex characteristics. Your genes still cause all that (with some environmental modulation, of course) - it's just that different genes are expressed at different times in your life. You pass on the gene for pubic hair to your kids, but they won't have any til they're 13 just like you did. The lizards may have genes that provide more defense later in life, but it doesn't mean the individual "evolved," just that the species evolved to keep the individuals capable of reproducing for longer by adding protections as other things break down.

dinosaurs

[halfelven]

So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end?
No wonder they disappeared.

Re:dinosaurs

[MightyMartian]

Except that the evidence has tipped heavily in favor of dinos, or at least a large number of families of them, were, in fact, warm-blooded.

Re:dinosaurs

[nuzak]

> So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end?

Dinosaur Spokesman: We had a good what, hundred, two hundred million year run? How long you human critters been around? Two mil? Odds on making it to three?

Re:dinosaurs

[jmilne]

So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end? No wonder they disappeared.

Dinosaurs weren't reptiles. There's more and more evidence that shows that they were warm-blooded. And dinosaurs didn't really disappear. They just look different now. Step outside and look at all those feathered things flying around. Those are modern dinosaurs.

Re:dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh c'mon, that's not the reason why the dinosaurs disappeared.

Here's the real reason

http://www.ias.ac.in/meetings/myrmeet/14mym_talks/asahni/img34.html

Re:dinosaurs

[Kingrames]

possibly, bigger animals live longer or reproduce less often, and that means bad things for the species.

Perhaps this concept could be applied to other similar situations, like Copyright law or the term of office for those in power.

Re:dinosaurs

[Waffle Iron]

So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end?

During the extended sunless period after the K-T boundary impact, most any animal that wasn't a scavenger found themselves at an evolutionary dead end.

Re:dinosaurs

[Dragonslicer]

So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end? Everyone knows that reptiles would be ruling the world now if it weren't for that meddling Chrono.

Re:dinosaurs

[Jugalator]

So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end? Actually, there's a theory that if it wasn't for a possibly pretty huge meteroite impact that destroyed the environment, dinosaurs like the Troodon could have evolved further into a form of humanoid reptiles.

Re:dinosaurs

[TheBrutalTruth]

Stop it - dinosaur bones are fake, and the world is flat. Resistance is futile, because we shout louder.

Re:dinosaurs

[E 99]

And dinosaurs didn't really disappear. They just look different now. Step outside and look at all those feathered things flying around. Those are modern dinosaurs.

By this method of classification, plants ans animals should be called "modern bacteria."

Re:dinosaurs

[porcupine8]

This really came as a surprise to me when I toured the new evolution exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum last year. When I was a kid (in the 80s), the line was that dinosaurs branched into two evolutionary paths, reptiles and birds. Now this exhibit plainly states many times, "Dinosaurs were birds." Not being quite as into dinos as I was when I was seven (and obsessed), this was news to me.

Re:dinosaurs

[jackpot777]

Dinosaur Spokesman: We had a good what, hundred, two hundred million year run? How long you human critters been around? Two mil? Odds on making it to three?

--- Mammalian spokessloth/person/elephant: We've been crawling around this rock, or swinging in the trees, for over 200 million years already. And we don't let a little thing like hot iridium dust get in the way between us and world domination. [thumbs hairy snouts at fossils] So nyer. [/thumbs hairy snouts at fossils]

Re:dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

And dinosaurs didn't really disappear. They just look different now. Step outside and look at all those feathered things flying around. Those are modern dinosaurs.

By this method of classification, plants ans animals should be called "modern bacteria."

in your case... yes. or do you prefer "sentinent dust" or was it clay?

Re:dinosaurs

[deets]

Wait, I don't understand this, dinosaurs turned into birds?

How come there were dinosaurs that could fly? Did they evolve into birds, and if so, then yes most did go away. If not, then did they "learn" to fly again?

Re:dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

A spokesman, eh? It would sound a whole lot more convincing if you had a spokesdinosaur instead.

Re:dinosaurs

[TheBrutalTruth]

Wow - I must have been modded by a creationist idiot. I guess I don't shout louder.

So, with global warming...

[jddj]

We'll all turn into those butt-headed guys from Star Trek in no time, right?

I bid 500 quatloos on the off-worlder!

My first thought...

[SatanicPuppy]

My first thought was metabolism...Warm blooded animals generally have a much quicker metabolism than cold blooded animals; that whole endothermic thing takes it out of you. Animals with faster metabolisms also tend to have shorter lifespans...The parts wear out quicker. Breeding cycles vary so much by species, it's hard to say anything there.

I haven't done any actual study on this; this is just my off-the-cuff reaction. Seems like it may play in though. Wonder if it applies to the big slow warmbloods (e.g Whales and Elephants) as well...That would definitely tell you something.

Re:My first thought...

[Billosaur]

I think you have to factor rate of reproduction into this. Whales and elephants don't breed often; that would retard the propagation of genetic changes. Smaller mammals like mice and rabbits tend to breed very often, allowing them to propagate genetic changes faster and more often, making it easier for them to weather (no pun intended) changes in the environment. I don't know how this would factor to "cold-blooded" animals.

Re:My first thought...

[CastrTroy]

This is the exact reason that they test genetic propagation in fruit flies. You can go through very many generations in a very short period of time. Trying to do the same thing with mammals would takes many times longer.

Could it be...?

[erareno]

Just that larger animals have more cells that need to be "evolved" at one times would create some kind of evolutionary inertia? I suppose the difference in warmer blooded animals could be related in terms of inertia. If you consider that warmer blood means more movement a the cellular level. Just a thought.

Re:Could it be...?

[stranger_to_himself]

I think evolutionary intertia is a good term. I reckon though that the inertia probably comes from large animals generally having fewer offspring, so the cost of birth defects in offspring is much higher. Small animals have lots more offspring, so they can afford mutation rates to be higher. Although this is also evidence-free speculation.

Re:Could it be...?

[darknys]

Individual cellular evolution in multicellular animals is cancer.

Evolution is not something that happens in one individual.

It only takes a mutation in one specific cell to cause an evolutionary event in your offspring.

So... No.

Re: Could it be...?

[Black Parrot]

Just that larger animals have more cells that need to be "evolved" at one times would create some kind of evolutionary inertia? I suppose the difference in warmer blooded animals could be related in terms of inertia. If you consider that warmer blood means more movement a the cellular level. Just a thought. Evolution doesn't require all of an animals cells to change. Evolution happens when your germ cells (eggs, sperm) are different from your parents. Your other cells get their DNA from the fertilized egg you started from.

Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[eht]

Interesting to note that humans have a lower body temperature than most mammals, actually that's one of the reasons we can get leprosy and almost no other animal can carry it, armadillos being the exception, it thrives in cooler temperatures.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[ceoyoyo]

I'm not sure most is the right word. Our temperature is similar to other primates, higher than whales, lower than horses, rabbits, sheep, cats and goats.

I couldn't find any really comprehensive tables, but there are a few numbers here:

http://www.aquaticape.org/bodytemp.html

As a bonus it looks like it's a site debunking some sort of aquatic humans idea.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[Dragonslicer]

Our temperature is similar to other primates, higher than whales, lower than horses, rabbits, sheep, cats and goats. But what about ponies?

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[mapkinase]

"humans have a lower body temperature than most mammals, actually that's one of the reasons we can get leprosy" in hot climate.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[ceoyoyo]

Adult horses have a higher temperature, and younger mammals tend to be warmer than older ones, so ponies are probably higher than humans.

Pink ones especially.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[gardyloo]

"In Soviet Russia leprosy gets YOU.".

or

"Old humans have a lower body temperature than most mammals, actually that's one of the reasons we can get leprosy" in Korea.

      Sorry. I wasn't quite understanding what your point was until I translated it into proper terminology.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[mapkinase]

I was referring to seemingly paradoxical fact that leprosy mostly happens in warm countries: Brasil, India, etc...

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[smellsofbikes]

I'd never considered that. You'll also notice that leprosy damage is greatest where the body is coolest: fingertips, toes, nose. It could be that this is just circulation-related: areas with the worst circulation recover more poorly, fight off infection more poorly, because of less access to blood-based nutrients and defences. But that makes me wonder whether either temperature or circulation quality is causative, or just correlated.

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[moderatorrater]

Flutterbys have a metabolism that's off the charts.

*pulls out some chest hair to feel like a man again*

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[cuantar]

OMG!!!~11cos(0)

Re:Humans have lower body temp than most mammals.

[WormholeFiend]

Interesting to note that humans have a lower body temperature than most mammals

So, we're evolving into lizards?

Captain Obvious

[Prysorra]

1. Smaller animal..... 2. Shorter lifespan..... 3. More generations..... 4. More chances of mutation..... 5. Stronger mutation pressure (warm blood homeostasis) 6. Duh.

Re:Captain Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

except there are many small animals that have long lives as well, particularly birds.

Re:Captain Obvious

[Perl-Pusher]

I have a newt that is 22 years old. They can live to 60 in captivity.

Re:Captain Obvious

[zippthorne]

Yeah, but newts are just people that have had spells put upon them by witches. As I understand it, some even get better.

fater metabolism means...

[mr_mischief]

more cell division, shorter lifespan, and more more abundant reproduction. All of these mean mutations collect in the population faster. Bacteria evolve much faster than mice, BTW, and they're not warm-blooded since they have no blood. Yet, they reproduce at a much faster rate and the mutations add up faster.

I didn't read TFA, but TFS tells us nothing common sense and a basic high-school understanding of biology couldn't predict as a hypothesis. That someone has gathered evidence to support the hypothesis empirically is pretty cool, though. Even what seems apparent should be tested, or it's not really science.

Re:fater metabolism means...

[E 99]

Yes, but it depends on the presumptions concerning where the mutations are happening. This would imply that mutations accumulate during the cell division that precede actual reproduction. This also implies something I've thought about in the past, which is that (at least in mammals) it is the males that are responsible for mutations, as the sperm are the product of a long line of cell divisions of the course of the male's life, and the eggs are formed while the female was a fetus, and then put in suspended animation until they are ready to be used. I'd be really interested in experimental exploration of that. Also, does anyone know if this applies to non-mammals as well as mammals?

Re:fater metabolism means...

[king-manic]

This also implies something I've thought about in the past, which is that (at least in mammals) it is the males that are responsible for mutations, as the sperm are the product of a long line of cell divisions of the course of the male's life, and the eggs are formed while the female was a fetus, and then put in suspended animation until they are ready to be used. I'd be really interested in experimental exploration of that.

I vaguely recall some mention of studies into this in university. Despite the eggs being created all at once they do under go mutations as a women ages. That is why complications with pregnancies increase with a womans age. The testes are "out there" and theoretically exposed to more mutagens but the ovaries are exposed to some as well.

So the mutation rate in different but not one sided. The higher mutation rate might help explain all the filtering sperms go through to hit an egg as well as all the filtering men go through to "hit" the woman.

Re:fater metabolism means...

[smellsofbikes]

A large part of the reason bacteria have a higher rate of mutation (and, as a result, evolution) is because they have much poorer error-correcting systems in DNA replication and DNA->RNA->protein. Eukaryotes (animals and plants) have several different DNA polymerases, some of which have significant error-correction capability, both while replicating and transcribing DNA and for proofreading DNA that is still double-stranded. Bacteria, aka prokaryotes, have a different set of polymerases, that have much less capability for either error-discovery or error-correction.

Re:fater metabolism means...

[mr_mischief]

That's probably in addition to other factors and not in lieu of them, right? Very small eukaryotes with short life spans tend toward faster rates than larger species, too, right? Wouldn't for example, the green algae be expected to have a higher rate than the modern plants?

Another poster mentioned the population size, and this seems to be yet another factor for bacteria. There are far, far more of them than of us, so that's likely to be a factor, too I'd think.

Separate or mostly separate populations of a species tend to accumulate more genetic variation than populations that reproduce sexually in a well-connected graph, too. Intercontinental travel has likely slowed the rate of evolution for humans and migratory birds. IIRC in Germany a few years ago there was talk of raising sections of highway to improve the interbreeding of certain small animals such as voles. Reduction in fitness due to inbreeding was a short-term concern, and in the long-term parapatric speciation was the worry.

Re:fater metabolism means...

[smellsofbikes]

To the best of my knowledge prior to reading this, yes: species with quicker lifespans show -- practically by definition -- the effects of evolutionary pressure much more quickly.

Where things get somewhat more tricky is that in many cases there are species, or genera, or larger groupings yet, that have sophisticated systems for adaption, that allow them to react to changes very rapidly. Maize/corn, for instance, or mammalian immune systems, for another, can move large functional chunks of DNA around to build classes and groups of novel proteins: an adaption for better adaption, in a manner of speaking. Once that's established, it's not really evolution to watch it working, but it does mean that an organism that uses these sorts of techniques can react better to a specific changing environment than a smaller/shorter reproduction time organism could.

As far as the population thing goes -- yeah, it makes sense that separated species will accumulate more variation from each other. That's practically the definition of strict Darwinian evolution, I think. But, it seems to me that a larger population will have more variation (as will an older population) as a group, than a smaller population, and at some point, I'd expect that a sufficiently large group would have more variation seen within it than two small, geographically isolated groups. (I've read claims that a sampling of genetic variability from ten people in a rural African village will show greater variance than a sampling of ten Caucasian people randomly sampled across the US, Canada, and northern Europe.)

Anyway. Steven Jay Gould has written about the differences between interspecies and intraspecies variations; he says there's plenty of data to show that in many cases interspecies variation might have a positive correlation -- brain size vs. body size, for instance -- whereas intraspecies variation for the same characteristics might have a negative correlation across that species. So, as usual, I wish I had the time to read more about this particular research.

This explains everything!

[jollyreaper]

notes an article up at Science Daily on research demonstrating that smaller animals with warmer blood evolve faster than larger, colder animals. Well, that explains why Republicans don't believe in evolution; it occurs too slowly for them to notice.

Re:This explains everything!

[spleen_blender]

History doesn't seem to be their forte either.

Re:This explains everything!

[ScentCone]

Well, that explains why Republicans don't believe in evolution; it occurs too slowly for them to notice

You know, the funny thing is that I don't personally actually KNOW any Republicans that don't consider evolution to be an obvious, plain-as-day fact. It's possible that you're confusing "Republicans" with "religious crazies." Much like many people confuse "Democrats" with, say, "Communists" or "Wiccans" or something else that suggests you're painting with the wrong-sized brush. I'm neither, by the way, and know plenty of people in each party, none of which fit any of those fringier-extremes.

But all that being said, let's see if I can properly take your bait...

"Well! That explains why Democrats can't seem to stay on the same side of an issue long enough to be credible - they're 'evolving' too quickly to form principles!"

There. Is that what you were hoping for? Yeesh.

Re:This explains everything!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't think there are mainstream republicans who don't believe in evolution... well, watch this. Three republican presidential candidates don't believe in evolution, and admitted it on national television.

Re:This explains everything!

[2short]

"I don't personally actually KNOW any Republicans that don't consider evolution to be an obvious, plain-as-day fact."

Three of the presidential candidates said they didn't believe in evolution. None of the others painted the question as ridiculous. I don't confuse Republicans with religious crazies; I myself know Republicans who are not. I correctly identify the Republican party as ready and willing to pander to religious crazies, and have it's policies shaped by them.

Re:This explains everything!

[ScentCone]

If you don't think there are mainstream republicans who don't believe in evolution...

I didn't say that. I said that I don't know any, personally. Which is another way of saying that all of the Republicans I peronsally know understand evolution. They are also all highly annoyed by the attention that the religious crazies get, and thus by the pandering that candidates do. Just as I imagine that many Democrats are annoyed by their candidates' slavish pandering to MoveOn.org's more rabid loons. It's the same sort of thing.

Re:This explains everything!

[ScentCone]

I correctly identify the Republican party as ready and willing to pander to religious crazies, and have it's policies shaped by them.

Which is unfortunate. Just about as unfortunate as having their opposing party's platform bought and paid for by George Soros. Same type of problem, different manifestation.

Re:This explains everything!

[Jafafa Hots]

actually we're annoyed that NONE of the candidates (or currently elected congressdroids) are pandering to moveon.org's positions. Impeachment is off the table, we can't deny Bush his war funding, etc.

Re:This explains everything!

[quag7]

And my theory is they're making shit up to appease that wing of their constituencies and that they aren't creationist or intelligent design fans at all.

Can you imagine how refreshing it would be if a candidate introduced himself at the first debate by saying:

"My name is Quag7, and I believe that the best explanations currently available for our origin are Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and the Big Bang. I do not believe in ghosts, UFOs, stigmata, or bleeding statues. I believe in literacy, science, and education, and reason. I believe that there are better and more compelling reasons to lead a virtuous life than the threat of hellfire. I believe in honesty, morality, integrity, and honor, because they serve the self as they in turn serve the public good.

I believe in the open and free exchange of information, oppose censorship, and support the right of each and every human being on this planet to think, worship, and copulate as they like. I believe that the golden rule transcends all civilizations. I believe in the value and power of the individual.

I believe that rights transcend national borders and that if they are valid and apply at all to human beings, that they apply to all human beings equally.

I believe that the real saints of our world are the freethinkers, dissidents, and whistleblowers.

I am inspired by the Renaissance. I am a child of The Enlightenment. I believe that our species should be most concerned with the pursuit of beauty, discovery, exploration, and adventure.

I believe that all human beings are fallible, and that it is necessary to question all of our most deeply held assumptions, and that the greatest example of courage a human being can display is to admit that they are wrong.

I believe that war is truly a last resort, and, when waged, the only thing we should feel about it is regret that it was necessary at all.

I believe in pizza Fridays."

Wouldn't that be refreshing? Especially the pizza Fridays bit?

Re:This explains everything!

[ScentCone]

actually we're annoyed that NONE of the candidates (or currently elected congressdroids) are pandering to moveon.org's positions

Oh, come now. MoveOn gets to refer to the commander on the ground in Iraq as betraying his country, and perhaps ONE dem in congress refers to that as a "poor choice of words?" That's pandering with a capital "P," out of fear of getting the same treatment themselves. Remarkable.

Re:This explains everything!

[jackpot777]

Oh excellent. Just before you said "I'm neither, by the way" (when addressing the issue of being either Democrat or Republican), you had a nice Ann Coulter moment.

Much like many people confuse "Democrats" with, say, "Communists" or "Wiccans" or something else that suggests you're painting with the wrong-sized brush.

Care to throw the word "traitor" in there too? Oh, of course, YOU'RE not saying that. It's all those OTHER people...

Just like it's those other people, and not you, that talk about "MoveOn.org's more rabid loons" and a "party's platform bought and paid for by George Soros".

I bet we won't find any [f]right wingers repeating your words, using MoveOn loons as a catchphrase.

Or Soros, bought and paid for in the context that Soros bought and paid for a political party either.

Whooopsie.

ScentCone - if you're going to be impartial, be impartial. But don't pretend to be impartial, and then be passive-aggressive as you attack anything to the left of where you are (translation: not Iraq), and all the while claim impartiality as you used easily-identifiable and well-used think-tank-inspired smears. At the least, it makes me think you're not able to have the conscience of your self-voiced Talk Radio-esque convictions. At the most, it makes people think Republicans are ashamed to be identified for their beliefs.

My view: if you're ashamed of anything you believe in, why believe it? Seems like an increasing number of people are beginning to think the same way in America too.

I believe your next move will either be to smear me for either insulting you or going off-topic (picking apart one part of one sentence), or attempt to over-compensate with empty soothing words (while insisting that it was just a misunderstanding, but obviously I was the one misunderstood).

Re:This explains everything!

[2short]

No, it is not the same type of problem. George Soros is trying to persuade others to agree with his opinion on the appropriate role and conduct of government. He gets to talk more loudly than many because he is very rich. If others agree with him, I may well think they are wrong (and do), but the things I think they are wrong about are things upon which intelligent people might honestly disagree.

The religious crazies seek to base public policy on clear falsehoods. Those who go along cannot be in my judgment both intelligent and honest.

Re:This explains everything!

[jackpot777]

Just like those cracy Wiccans our fellow poster talked about earlier. What have Wiccans ever done to anyone, that's what I want to know? Too pre-Xtian or something? Next thing you kow, people will be calling other people "pyramid builders" or "Stonehenge worshipping elites".

It's just name-calling. Insults and sound-bites.

And not saying "I believe in x, y, and z", but saying "hey, just because the politicians exclusively on one side of the aisle that want to be President pander to this, doesn't mean they actually BELIEVE it" instead, will irritate anyone from the Liberal Left (why can't you mean what you say and say what you think and think what you want?) to the Religious Right (why can't we have a candidate that doesn't promise us the moon on a stick and then ignores our values?) and everywhere inbetween.

Re:This explains everything!

[Ksisanth]

All the creationists I know are Democrats. Sadly, most of those are also public school teachers.

Re:This explains everything!

[ScentCone]

I believe your next move will either be to smear me for either insulting you or going off-topic (picking apart one part of one sentence), or attempt to over-compensate with empty soothing words (while insisting that it was just a misunderstanding, but obviously I was the one misunderstood).

I believe that this particular attempt at pre-empting any actual response to what you wrote will appear to be just as lame as it actually is.

First, excellent use of the "mention lots of small things that might be construed as making your point while deliberately skipping over the ONE thing that would UNDO your point" attack. Alas, it's just so easy to spot. Why would you, other than in an hopeful attempt to deploy that classic method, pretend that the FIRST thing I mentioned wasn't my contempt for the religious crazies that have so much influence on the rightt? Anne Coulter, no matter how sharp her wit/tongue, is one of those people.

And if you're so obtuse as to not understand that it's the people who DO confuse Democrats with "communists" or "wiccans" etc that I'm making fun of, then, well... never mind. I think mayne you ARE that obtuse.

But then, my distaste for conservatives who think every democrat is a communist doesn't make me any less disgusted by the stunts that some of the people - operating with cash from people like Soros - do to egg them on.

Re:This explains everything!

[jollyreaper]

You know, the funny thing is that I don't personally actually KNOW any Republicans that don't consider evolution to be an obvious, plain-as-day fact. It's possible that you're confusing "Republicans" with "religious crazies." Much like many people confuse "Democrats" with, say, "Communists" or "Wiccans" or something else that suggests you're painting with the wrong-sized brush. I'm neither, by the way, and know plenty of people in each party, none of which fit any of those fringier-extremes. Not a single Republican candidate for President spoke out in confirming their belief in evolution. This was put to them in a debate. If you kowtow to backwards, superstitious idiots even if you don't share their beliefs, are you any better than them? No.

Re: This explains everything!

[Black Parrot]

History doesn't seem to be their forte either. Their problem seems to be with reality, which subsumes both history and evolution.

Re:This explains everything!

[2short]

The Wiccans are a straw man. No major Democratic figure is a Wiccan, or panders to Wiccans. On the issue of going along with obvious falsehoods to appease religious nutjobs, the two parties are not equivalent. The Republican party will proudly support policies based on obvious falsehoods, and will not get my vote until they return to valuing reality.

And for what little it's worth, Wiccans aren't pre-Christian, they're post-Christian, though for most purposes I wouldn't even distinguish them from Christians at all. Superstitous clap-trapist covers it well enough I think.

Re:This explains everything!

[An ominous Cow art]

I'd vote for you :-).

Re:This explains everything!

[Jafafa Hots]

"MoveOn gets to refer to the commander on the ground in Iraq as betraying his country..."

Actually, they did more than that - many dems voted to condemn MoveOn for it - to their eternal shame... because yes, MoveOn "gets to" say that, it's this funny free speech thing we've got for the moment. Same way Rush Limbaugh gets to say the stuff he does. Odd that you chose not to mention the resolution condemning MoveOn (which should never have happened) and that you don't mention Republicans not pushing for a resolution condemning Rush (which also should not happen) and how that might be pandering.

All politicians pander, but of late Republicans have made it an art form.

Re:This explains everything!

[glitch23]

Well, that explains why Republicans don't believe in evolution; it occurs too slowly for them to notice.

The Democrats always make fun of the Republicans for having faith in something that can't be seen and yet there are Democrats who believe in evolution. Weird! Oh, and hypocritical too. And if you think evolutionary evidence can be seen, there are millions of Republicans who will tell you they see a great deal of evidence that God exists.

Re:This explains everything!

[aadvancedGIR]

I like the joke, but your logic is wrong the same way cocaine users feel they get a boost: the cocaine slows down their brains so they get the excitement of seeing everything going faster without understanding it's everything but them.
An old republican has seen many thing changing since he was a young man, it's just that he doesn't like them.

Re:This explains everything!

[Alsee]

Can you imagine how refreshing it would be if a candidate introduced himself at the first debate by saying:
"My name is Quag7

Quag7?
Obviously a YouTube debate.

Moving on... with the first paragraph you get tagged as an atheist, the second a pedophile, the third protecting terrorists, the fourth... ok I'm stumped on a tag for the fourth but it's obviously bad... the fifth an UnAmerican Euroqueer, the sixth a flip-flopper, the seventh regret our veterans, and the eighth... well on the eighth just be thankful you didn't say French Fries!

-

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution doesn't work that way.

Evolution is simple random selection. It's directed by nature, because the "fit" reproduce and the "unfit" don't, but it's still random. This has nothing to do with "value" to the species, since a high school drop out can produce many children, and someone of importance, like Rembrandt, can produce none.

Evolution does not happen on the individual scale. Any sort of trial and error is risky on the individual level, since you only get a limited amount of energy to expend on it. Mistakes end an individual's life.

This just in:

[farker haiku]

These findings are void in Kansas. ;) /sorry Kansas, you'll be the butt of jokes forever

Actually....

[Prysorra]

That's not a problem. Those 150 year old parents can have great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. ....great!

This explains a lot!

[StefanJ]

My college buddy's ferret had a fever once. Before it was over she evolved wings, grew a sixth digit on each paw, became super-intelligent and built an interociter which she used to summon a rescue saucer from a race of hyper-sapient star-ferrets.

Re:This explains a lot!

[ajs]

My college buddy's ferret [...] became super-intelligent and built an interociter [...] Glad to see MST3K isn't dead. Speaking of which, have any of the Film Crew DVDs been any better than the first one (which made myself and my co-workers want to claw our own eyes out)?

Re:This explains a lot!

[wezeldog]

I, for one, welcome our new mustelid overlords.

Re:This explains a lot!

[dpilot]

What's really scary is that I saw "This Island Earth" before MST3K. But then again, I thought the movie was pretty silly even before MST3K.

Re:This explains a lot!

[ajs]

I did too, but I didn't remember it very well. Here in New England we had a show called Creature Double Feature that was just a Saturday afternoon double movie on a UHF station that was usually a 1950s-1970s horror or scifi lineup. It showed a lot of stuff like that, and they all started to blend together at some point.

Re:This explains a lot!

[Azuma Hazuki]

Quit feeding her Laerma Nuts and that should stop happening. ...if you get that reference I love you.

"Predict", not "Demonstrate"

[R2.0]

A computer model, or any model for that matter, doesn't "demonstrate" anything, other than the fact that that model will give those results with this input. By definition, a model isn't really the phenomenon it represents. Models "predict", it's only by measurement of the actual phenomena is a prediction or hypothesis demonstarted to be true/accurate.

This is why a lot of folks are uncomfortable with the "fact" that global warming is caused by human generated greenhuse gasses - the only "fact" is that computer models show this. We can't test that theory in any meaningful way, so we need to work with what we've got, but I can't help but think the Goreacle and Leonardo DiHybrido would do better by not focussing on "proving" something that essentially can't be proven until after the results are in - i.e. a thousand years from now.

Re:"Predict", not "Demonstrate"

[MightyMartian]

I'm not going to get dragged into a climatology debate here, but you don't have to wait for a few thousand years to confirm this particular claim. I would assume a reasonably good sample of extant small mammals' (not all that hard to find) genomes, compared with the baseline of larger ones, or of other small animals like reptiles and insects, ought to do the job.

Re:"Predict", not "Demonstrate"

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully agree.

However, it would seem prudent to try to minimize the amount waste we spew into the environment as it quite possibly could cause us problems.

A bit like someone in the 40s arguing that that no-one could "prove" that smoking did you any harm.

Once you find proof it's too late, so best to minimise your impact.

Re:"Predict", not "Demonstrate"

[R2.0]

I have no doubt that the evolution claim can be tested over a short timespan. But TFA gives the strong impression that these researchers are done, and they have all the "proof" they will need. I don't believe that, but this a pa particulaly shitty example of science reporting, mainly because it's so subtle.

Re:"Predict", not "Demonstrate"

[MightyMartian]

I'm not talking about testing over a short period, I'm talking about doing a molecular survey (ie. a molecular clock) to determine if the claim has merit.

As to how the article is written, let's remember that science journalism isn't exactly known for getting things right. One would be best served by trying to get a copy of the original paper.

Phooey. Evolution itself has never been observed..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. or demonstrated. It's just another dogmatic belief.

theory

[HelloKitty]

that word theory. i'm not sure it means what you think it means.

Re:theory

[mapkinase]

It is not a theory. At least, not the scientific one.

Small, Warm and Furry??

[Wizard Drongo]

Well, I for one welcome our Small, Furry Warm-Blooded Rodent Overlords.....

Re:Small, Warm and Furry??

[Tablizer]

I f f f f f for one welcome our over-c c c caffinated turbo-evolving overlords. D d d drink up!

This has been known for 15 years

[ichthyoboy]

at the DNA level, so it would make sense that it applies to proteins as well. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=46451

We all know...

[grumpyman]

smaller got eaten by bigger, and generally, hot is tastier than cold.

Mutation rate does not equal evolution rate

[Anonymous Coward]

Metabolic rate equals internal protein mutation rates.

Mutation rate equals potential for evolution.

Mutation rate plus natural selection equals evolution.

Misleading

[ucblockhead]

The rate of *evolution* is determined more by how much environmental pressure an animal is under. The more successful an animal is in a particular niche, the slower it will evolve. This is really talking about the mutation rate, and thus the rate of genetic drift. This says that the sort of random changes to proteins that don't effect the animal's phenotype will change faster in smaller animals.

It *does* mean that smaller animals can evolve faster if under lots of evolutionary pressure. Note that since smaller animals tend to breed faster, this is already the case.

Re:Misleading

[tgibbs]

The rate of evolution can reasonably be expected to depend upon the mutation rate, selection pressure, and the generation time. It is certainly possible to set up conditions in the laboratory in which the mutation rate is limiting. I'd like to see the actual paper to see why they concluded that the mutation rate is limiting in the wild.

Re:Misleading

[Romicron]

So that's how we get all those weird-ass creatures at the bottom of the sea.

*ba-da-crash*

Choose Your Own Joke!

[apparently]

Whales and elephants don't breed often; that would retard the propagation of genetic changes.

Look asshole, maybe to you a whale/elephant hybrid is "retarded", but to me, it's "fucking awesome".

or, (if you prefer a less vulgar joke)

Man, I really gotta start watching the Discovery Channel more often. I always assumed that whales and elephants didn't breed at all, but "not often"? Wicked!

Re:Choose Your Own Joke!

[Lord Ender]

For future reference: You NEVER want to follow a vulgar joke with a less vulgar joke. There's just no point in it.

Re:Choose Your Own Joke!

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you heard the song? "Whale and Elephant DNA just don't splice"

or was that pig?

So if your wife is a fat ice queen

[SlappyBastard]

Don't expect her to change anytime soon. Got it.

Thank You

[huckamania]

I was trying to figure out what was wrong with the summary and, to a lesser extent, the article.

It's rare to see such a sensible and informative response on slashdot that is not accompanied by flamebait or ego stroking.

!proof

[BenJaminus]

The article doesn't give any detail on their study other than they had a mathmatical model that predicts something they programmed it to do. What do they mean by "rates of protein evolution" and how do they show that?

Finally we have proof!

[Jugalator]

Finally proof that politicians and world leaders are shape shifting alien reptiles!

I just knew David Icke was on to something with George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth II.

No we will look like these guys

[Perl-Pusher]

Gray Alien

Butt-heads??

[Zorbane]

I am not sure we will ever get to the Butt-head stage.....Honestly, from looking at events in this world right now, it seems like we are in "Brain? Brain? What is Brain?!" mode than anything else.

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Up to now, God has been using simple process shrinks to get the clockspeeds up, but he has been limited by what can be aircooled.

I hear he may be planning an Ice Age for some more effective liquid nitrogen cooling.

Coelacanth

[flyingfsck]

Sooooo, if the Coelacanth had no change in the past 400 million years, how long did it take to evolve to point is at now?

Re:Coelacanth

[ichthyoboy]

Rate of morphological evolution != rate of molecular evolution. In addition, most molecular evolution will have no outward effect on morphology.

Re:Coelacanth

[Dr. Manhattan]

if the Coelacanth had no change in the past 400 million years

No change? Gee, except for the fact that the fossil were freshwater fish and the modern ones live in the ocean.

To quote from Wikipedia: "It is often claimed that the coelacanth has remained unchanged for millions of years but in fact the living species and even genus are unknown from the fossil record. However, some of the extinct species, particularly those of the last known fossil coelacanth, the Cretaceous genus Macropoma, closely resemble the living species. The most likely reason for the gap is the taxon having become extinct in shallow waters. Deep-water fossils are only rarely lifted to levels where paleontologists can recover them, making most deep-water taxa disappear from the fossil record. This situation is still under investigation by scientists."

Re: Coelacanth

[Black Parrot]

Sooooo, if the Coelacanth had no change in the past 400 million years, how long did it take to evolve to point is at now? The modern coelacanths (two species, IIRC) are not the same species as the fossil ones. There are detectable differences between the fossils and what we have now.

Re:Coelacanth

[Peyre]

No, the Coelacanth has had lots of change over the past 400 million years. Coelacanth is an order, not a species (or even a genus). There have been numerous species of Coelacanth over time, and the modern ones didn't exist way back when. Even today, the two known populations are separate species.

Ultracold Environments

[MenTaLguY]

Since it was a topic of discussion recently, I wonder what the implications of this would be for hypothetical life in ultracold environments, like Titan.

Re:Ultracold Environments

[rrohbeck]

>Since it was a topic of discussion recently, I wonder what the implications of this would be for hypothetical life in ultracold environments, like Titan.

It'd use nuclear processes, duh.

Hmm... let me see

[yoprst]

Smaller animals....warm-blooded... sounds like mice!
I bet the next on the development scale should be dolphins...

Re:Hmm... let me see

[arquonzo]

Benjy and Frankie agree...

Small + Warm = Tasty!

[billstewart]

There are a few reasons that there's more evolutionary pressure on small warm mammals. One is that they're tasty and lower on the food chain than bigger animals, so the non-fittest end up non-surviving because they get eaten. Another is that a given area can support a lot more small animals than large ones, and especially more sprey animals than predators, so there are more of them around to evolve and to compete with each other as well as to avoid getting eaten.

There are small predators as well - weasels, small cats, etc., but in general being small makes you easier to eat.

Mechanistic models can do both

[Per Abrahamsen]

> A computer model, or any model for that matter, doesn't "demonstrate" anything

A mechanistic model can be used to demonstrate non-obvious system effects in a complex system, by combining well understood simpler models.

Empirical models, on the other hand, works only for prediction.

The caveat when using mechanistic models for demonstration purposes is of course twofold, are the simpler model really that well understood, and are there any factors missing from the system description. Both caveats obviously apply to a high degree to the climate models. They are mechanistic in nature, and really do constitute a valid "best bet" for our climate, but systematic uncertainly is still very large, even if they have become much more trustworthy the last couple of decades.

Studies, please!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Despite the eggs being created all at once they do under go mutations as a women ages. That is why complications with pregnancies increase with a womans age.

I think more studies are needed, and I'm willing to fund them myself so it won't cost taxpayers a dime!

Now if I can just have several female volunteers of varying ages, say 18 through 40....

5. Profit!

[Empiric]

"Rate of Evolution Metrics Observed" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "proof, suckitcreationists"

What?

Oh, same process as...

"Evolution happens" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "evolution exhaustively explains origins and incidentally there is no God"

Nevermind.

Re:5. Profit!

[krovisser]

I think the suckitcreationists was more directed to the young-earth idiot types, and such.

Re:5. Profit!

[Black Parrot]

"Evolution happens" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "evolution exhaustively explains origins and incidentally there is no God" The miracle is in misinformation rather than logic. No scientist thinks evolution exhaustively explains origins (or even the narrower topic of biological origins), and evolution says nothing about the existence of any gods.

The fact of evolution does show that certain evolution-denying cults have at least one false claim in their creeds, but that's a far narrower conclusion than what you suggested.

Nice troll, though.

Re:5. Profit!

[Empiric]

Nope, no troll.

That was -precisely- the implication of TFS/tags. That this finding disproves "creationists" (an intentionally-misleading term on the level of "Islamofascists", integrating wholly-unalike premises into one term, but that's another discussion), which, one would have to assume, is inclusive of all people whose stance is that the universe was created as an intentional act.

Now, if we were to take the 15 seconds it would take to sort our terminology to have a useful discussion beyond the "science"/"creationism" false dichotomy, that would be another thing, but that seems unlikely to happen...

Re:5. Profit!

[Black Parrot]

Nope, no troll.

That was -precisely- the implication of TFS/tags. That this finding disproves "creationists" (an intentionally-misleading term on the level of "Islamofascists", integrating wholly-unalike premises into one term, but that's another discussion), which, one would have to assume, is inclusive of all people whose stance is that the universe was created as an intentional act.

Now, if we were to take the 15 seconds it would take to sort our terminology to have a useful discussion beyond the "science"/"creationism" false dichotomy, You were ok up to there, but there is a dichotomy between science and creationism. There is absolutely no intersection between them.

Re:5. Profit!

[Empiric]

Here you go.

False dichotomy

Re:5. Profit!

[Empiric]

I'll go ahead and reply -twice- to your post. ;)

That's actually an interesting assertion, which I gave short-shrift to because I think you misread how I was using the term. I was using the term to refer to the logical fallacy, not for denying the perspective that they are entirely different domains. It his, however, my view that it is a "false dichotomy" in that, the two are rhetorically presented as "the" two alternatives, both in opposition to each other (exclusive "or") and as the sole alternatives. Both of those must be the case for the standard science vs. religion rap of Dawkins et al, hence that's how its usually... parroted.

Now, whether there is conceptual overlap, that'd be an interesting discussion. I would agree there is -little- overlap, but I don't think I'd agree there is none. I think there's some intersecting conceptual content in terms of methodology, such as in archaeology discerning whether a particular artifact is of simple natural origin or not. I also think both overlap in various ways on the level of metaphysics and epistemology. Whether you'd agree with any of the premises of any creationists is a subtly different question from the base question of whether they overlap at all, and I think we need to avoid the mistake of simply defining "science" in such a way as they they are by arbitrary definition exclusive. If there is no overlap at all, they could not be see as in opposition by anyone, being entirely discrete domains.

Anyway, that's beyond the scope of the issue at hand, but I wanted to clarify my initial response.

Re:5. Profit!

[Alsee]

"creationists"... one would have to assume, is inclusive of all people whose stance is that the universe was created as an intentional act

That is not the common usage.

There are basically three groups of people to address:
(1) "Atheistic-Evolutionist" stance: no God & evolution is true.
(2) "Theistic-Evolutionist" stance: God created the universe and evolution is simply God's clever natural-law mechanism for running the universe, as are gravity and chemistry.
(3) "Creationist" stance: God directly and separately created man and the various animal-kinds in essentially their current forms.

The issue is how to handle group 2. Your definition placed 2 and 3 under the creationist heading, but very few people on any side accept that arrangement. Most in group 1 are happily accept group 2 as allies sharing the "evolutionist" tent. Most in group 2 would in fact be offended to be called creationists. Most in group 3 reject group 2 from their "creationist" tent.

The smallest group is group 1 - the atheists. Your typical evolutionist is a theistic evolutionist.

So to a first approximation, the dichotomy is creationists vs theistic-evolutionists.
To the second approximation, the dichotomy is creationists vs evolutionists (the theistic evolutionists plus atheist evolutionists).

To be dichotomy-fallacy precise, yes there certainly are logical possibilities other than 1 2 and 3 but they are mostly theoretical or negligible positions.

There is a subgroup I would like to specifically address... a few people who say very ...odd... things and who are a source of endless confusion and irritation. They fall real hard into a false dichotomy between 1 and 3, they seem to have a psychological blindness and inability to process group 2. They emphatically agree with definition that "creationist" means "created kind creationist", and to the extent they recognize group 2 they emphatically push away group 2 as the enemy. Anyone who accepts evolution gets false-dichotomied into an atheist. They make statements that only form coherent "valid" logic under the mental structure that there is only one possible God exactly the way *they* believe God to be, and that anyone who rejects *their* notion of God is therefore rejecting the only possible God and is therefore an atheist.

-

Better term is drift...

[highacnumber]

Using the term "evolutionary rate" is pretty misleading: whats happening is that the genomes are changing faster, but almost all of that change isn't from any selective pressure. Its mostly "neutral drift", things changing randomly in a way that does not impact the fitness of the organism.

Re:Better term is drift...

[toganet]

Thank you -- I'd mod you insightful if I had points. My biggest pet peeve with the so-called debate around evolution is the notion that there is some sort of directionality to it. Popular media tends to reinforce this by using phrases like "more evolved."

Re:Better term is drift...

[RichMan]

> like "more evolved."

I just read that as "culled out more of the failures" then immediatly connect it to we missed some obvious ones.

Re:Better term is drift...

[Conanymous Award]

Well, evolution, whether darwinian (i.e. mainly driven by natural selection) or not, is evolution.I'm not going to elaborate on it here and now, but I think in near future our understanding of evolution will go in a direction that lessens the percieved importance of natural selection. And no, I'm not talking about BS like ID but of things like this research, evo-devo, advances in our understanding of genes and how they work etc.

Re:Better term is drift...

[ConceptJunkie]

Granted I haven't RTFA, but my immediate reaction was, more complex systems are easier to alter. More highly evolved creatures (if you'll pardon the expression) are more complex (e.g., people vs. bacteria). Warmer things are more complex by virtue of entropy. Larger things are more complex by virtue of being, um, larger.

The problem I have with "creationists" is that there's no science there. If you believe it, fine, but to do so, you have to throw out almost everything we know about everything, and if you think God gave us a brain only to misled us about the truth, well, then that's your problem to sort out, but don't think too hard or you'll end up in Hell, I suppose.

The problem I have with "evolutionists" is that despite all the evidence we have that life has evolved, we've never actually seen it happen, and our understanding of how it happens (gradually vs. abruptly) is changing every year. It's hardly a settled question, and we will probably overturn a lot of long-held beliefs in the next decades.

But mostly I have a problem with the alleged conflict of the two. I personally believe God created evolution, so where do I fit on that spectrum?

Re:Better term is drift...

[Ardeaem]

Using the term "evolutionary rate" is pretty misleading: whats happening is that the genomes are changing faster, but almost all of that change isn't from any selective pressure. Drift is evolution. There is nothing misleading about the term; evolution does not have to include natural selection. Natural selection, rather is simply one avenue of many by which evolution can happen.

Re:Better term is drift...

[mollymoo]

Mutations may be random and directionless, but evolution tends in the direction of greater fitness.

Re:Better term is drift...

[aron1231]

"my biggest pet peeve with the so-called debate around evolution is the notion that there is some sort of directionality to it."

As opposed to what, it being completely random? We have another name for that, its called mutation. Since we are bound by laws (nature and physics [called God by some]), it only makes sense that evolution would continue to express itself in better ways within that system. Darwinism implies direction, that being "survival of the fittest"! I guess I don't understand your peeve, since the alternative - evolution with no direction (aka mutation), happening at complete randomness in completely random ways, is completely absurd. Anything that is not beneficial would be called "devolution", and products of such a process would cease to exist rather quickly because of their inherent inferiority.

If I'm completely misunderstanding you, please clarify.

Re:Better term is drift...

[nilbud]

Invisible friends, what a laugh.

Re:Better term is drift...

[bostaurus]

Genetic drift is an evolutionary process - the statement is correct; check any population genetics or molecular evolution textbook. Evolution can be due to non-selective forces, including genetic drift (gene flow between two neighbouring populations is another example). Also, the fitness of an organism does not evolve under natural selection - it works at the population level.

Re:Better term is drift...

[Iron Condor]

despite all the evidence we have that life has evolved, we've never actually seen it happen,

This is a lie.

You, "ConceptJunkie", are a liar.

Re:Better term is drift...

[node 3]

Using the term "evolutionary rate" is pretty misleading: whats happening is that the genomes are changing faster That *is* evolution.

but almost all of that change isn't from any selective pressure. Its mostly "neutral drift", things changing randomly in a way that does not impact the fitness of the organism. That's natural selection. You imply that natural selection is absent, which it is not.

Re:Better term is drift...

[ConceptJunkie]

OK, explain to me where and when evolution from one species to a different species has been witnessed and recorded.

If I'm wrong, I'm mistaken, not lying.

Oh, and ease up on the caffeine or something. You seem way too uptight.

Re:Better term is drift...

[NoOneInParticular]

Yes, we will overturn a lot of long-held beliefs in the next decade. It is however exceedingly unlikely that we will overturn the general notion of natural selection. We will get deeper insights in how it actually *has* worked. We will also gain deeper insight how it *can* work, but it is highly unlikely that it will be thrown out.

If for some reason you desire to believe that some concept named God has created evolution, so be it. Keep it out of a discussion based on reason instead of superstition however.

Re:Better term is drift...

[node 3]

Thank you -- I'd mod you insightful if I had points. My biggest pet peeve with the so-called debate around evolution is the notion that there is some sort of directionality to it. Popular media tends to reinforce this by using phrases like "more evolved." There *is* directionality to it. If there weren't, we'd just be +/- some base level.

Greater fitness for the environment is the direction evolution takes. Natural selection is the force which points evolution in that direction.

You don't evolve eyes, for example, just to lose them, with equal probability, as keeping them, or making them better. There are cases where eyes do evolve away, but that too is not a random, undirected event, but instead directed by natural selection in response to a changing environment (usually, finding oneself in a cave for a number of generations).

Re:Better term is drift...

[ConceptJunkie]

Keep it out of a discussion based on reason instead of superstition however.

The topic was the debate around evolution, which makes the comment relevant. You don't need to go out of your way to be condescending, but if you are feeling insecure or something, then maybe you can't help it.

Back to subject at hand, people don't seem to be willing to accept that all the evidence we have for evolution is, ultimately, circumstantial. Now I'm a firm believer in Occam's Razor, and evolution through genetic mutation and natural selection (which is easily observable) certainly seems the best explanation (as opposed to say the FSM materializing and replacing all the dinosaurs with lemurs or something), but until someone actually sees evidence of one species literally and directly leading to another, we still can't say it's a settled "fact".

Re:Better term is drift...

[Torvaun]

Viruses. Bacteria.

Re:Better term is drift...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

until someone actually sees evidence of one species literally and directly leading to another, we still can't say it's a settled "fact"

Knock yourself out.

Re:Better term is drift...

[kartune85]

Viruses. Bacteria.

Very nice explaination. I have no further questions your honor.

But mostly I have a problem with the alleged conflict of the two. I personally believe God created evolution, so where do I fit on that spectrum?

I for one would have labeled this as funny. Hehe, that's a good one. I believe the Creationist side but it's still a funny comment.

Re:Better term is drift...

[kartune85]

Yes, we will overturn a lot of long-held beliefs in the next decade. It is however exceedingly unlikely that we will overturn the general notion of natural selection. We will get deeper insights in how it actually *has* worked. We will also gain deeper insight how it *can* work, but it is highly unlikely that it will be thrown out.

If for some reason you desire to believe that some concept named God has created evolution, so be it. Keep it out of a discussion based on reason instead of superstition however.

Did you forget that the theory of natural selection is a theory alone? You could then label Darwin's theory as superstition. Say, theoretically, in this instance, that the universe was millions if not billions of years old, where did the elements that started the said process come from in the beginning?

Re:Better term is drift...

[dryeo]

The theory of gravity is only a theory too. Just like the theory of evolution there is room for improvement in the knowledge of the process of evolution and gravity. Darwin's theory has been modified by things like increased knowledge of mutations and viruses helping genes cross species. Newtons theory of gravity has been modified by things like relativity.
And one thing I don't understand about creationists is that they always say that the universe is too wonderful for it to be an accident so they figure something much more unlikely, namely a super being called God, must of spontaneously appeared and created everything. To me it seems much more unlikely that a God can just appear out of nothing.

Re:Better term is drift...

[OneoFamillion]

And one thing I don't understand about creationists is that they always say that the universe is too wonderful for it to be an accident Yep, they say it's "a miracle that the world is so perfect." Well um, it's not the WORLD that is perfect for PEOPLE, it's the PEOPLE that are perfect for the WORLD! Okay, we're now able to modify our environment, to an extent - but it's still far from perfect, and our capability is the result of millions of years of evolution.

Re:Better term is drift...

[kartune85]

And one thing I don't understand about creationists is that they always say that the universe is too wonderful for it to be an accident so they figure something much more unlikely, namely a super being called God, must of spontaneously appeared and created everything. To me it seems much more unlikely that a God can just appear out of nothing.

Disclaimer: This is not to discredit what the parent has said, rather it is just additional information.

According to the Bible, God does not have a beginning or and end. He wasn't created, instead he always has existed. Unfortantely, us humans don't have the ability to fully understand infinite matters.

As far as evolution goes, I am still yet to see factual result's not based on speculations and assumptions that can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the universe evolved, or even that we are still evolving. I'm still yet to see living evidence of a being that links us to, say, monkeys or apes. Missing link, or assumed link?

Re:Better term is drift...

[Anonymous Coward]

Viruses and bacteria have certainly evolved, so we've observed evolution. How long does it take for a virus or a bacteria to evolve into a higher life form?

Re:Better term is drift...

[Jonathan]

Er no. And I speak as a professional evolutionary biologist. Selection is only a teeny, tiny part of the evolutionary process. The problem is that the evolutionary biologists that have written for the general public, such as Gould and Dawkins (neither of which are particularly famous in the actual scientific community) studied evolution in the old-fashioned, non-molecular sense (and I do mean *studied* Even Dawkins, who is still alive, hasn't actually done any science in years; it's so much easier to write for the general public than for peer review). Anyone studying evolution in the modern molecular era realizes that drift and molecular drive are far more common than selection.

Re:Better term is drift...

[kartune85]

Viruses and bacteria have certainly evolved, so we've observed evolution. How long does it take for a virus or a bacteria to evolve into a higher life form?

When you state they 'evolved', are we talking about it's natural course or actually evolving from one thing into something else. For instance, I wasn't born 6" tall, but are you referring to the process between then and now as evolution?

Also, if everything else apparently takes millions of years to evolve, how long do viruses and bacteria take to 'evolve' (if it is actually the process of evolution)?

Re:Better term is drift...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Bible, God does not have a beginning or and end.

As far as evolution goes, I am still yet to see factual result's not based on speculations and assumptions

Let me ask something along these lines: As far as the bible goes, I am still yet to see factual result's not based on speculations and assumptions that it has magical properties of telling only the truth.

You skepticism is a nice tool, but it cuts both ways.

If you prove that the bible is "all truth", you can start sentences with "According to the Bible". Otherwise, try something else.

Re:Better term is drift...

[mollymoo]

I stand corrected.

Re:Better term is drift...

[Torvaun]

I was talking about future generations gaining new traits and abilities, like the whole ignoring antibiotics thing that has some bacteria becoming very scary indeed.

Re:Better term is drift...

[Anonymous Coward]

> OK, explain to me where and when evolution from one species to a different species has been witnessed and recorded.

Just read: http://www.evolutionhappens.net/ (found by googling "evolution observed")

It is a fact. Undeniable. And it's more complex than what we understand now.

Let me say also, as an aside that if one sees evidence and does not accept it, in my view there are 3 possibilities:

1. Such person is incapable of understanding and object of pity.
2. Such person does not understand and tries to mislead others who would understand if left alone; such person is crazy.
3. Such person understands the evidence, but chooses to mislead others out of pure evil. Such person is a liar.

So how did we get here?

[trybexus]

I knew from the article this would turn into a creation vs evoloution conversation. But this really does bring up a rather intresting question. If large species take longer to evolve then how can it be possible that human beings "being rather large in comparison" be more advanced then smaller animals, who first of all have been on th eplanet alot longer then upright standing . Is it simply a matter of brain mass. Would it not make sense that they would have evolved to have oposable thumbs before us?

Re:So how did we get here?

[porcupine8]

a) It doesn't seem to be a creation vs evolution conversation; I haven't seen anyone argue for creationism yet.

b) Like many posters, you're forgetting or don't understand how evolution actually works. Humans are not "more evolved" than other animals. Every species that is currently still in existence is the pinnacle of evolution for its particular environmental niche. If that environment changes, the species will either die out or evolve further to survive in the niche.

The main evolutionary advantage humans have is our brains - they have allowed us to become more adaptable without evolution than many animals, and survive and thrive in many environments and through envrionmental changes. In order to have such a complex brain, it has to be of a certain minimum size, and our body has to be of a minimum size to support it. A brain as complex as ours most likely simply could not evolve in a mouse - but we couldn't live in the niches mice do, for a variety of reasons. Opposable thumbs have helped us as well - but would they be an advantage without the other advantages we have? What would a mouse *do* with opposable thumbs, without the brain structures to use them intelligently? Would they be an evolutionary advantage for a mouse at all? Or take a dolphin, who has one of the brains closest to ours in the animal kingdom - what would a dolphin do with opposable thumbs (assuming it evolved some fingers at the same time)? They wouldn't help it swim, which is one thing it has to be really good at to get food and escape predators. In fact, a dolphin with hands instead of fins would probably fare worse than other dolphins, because it couldn't swim as quickly and adeptly. What is an evolutionary advantage to one species can spell doom for another species.

Re: So how did we get here?

[Black Parrot]

I knew from the article this would turn into a creation vs evoloution conversation. But this really does bring up a rather intresting question. If large species take longer to evolve then how can it be possible that human beings "being rather large in comparison" be more advanced then smaller animals, who first of all have been on th eplanet alot longer then upright standing . Is it simply a matter of brain mass. Would it not make sense that they would have evolved to have oposable thumbs before us? Upright posture and symbol-manipulating brains aren't signs of "more" evolution, merely different evolution. Evolution isn't goal-directed, so set aside any notion that other species aren't "there" yet.

If we were to assume that evolution had a goal, we would have to conclude that that goal was to produce beetles.

Re:So how did we get here?

[Ksisanth]

Why should standing upright or having opposable thumbs be considered more "advanced" or, as the implication here seems to be, a goal of evolution? Why would four-legged (or limbless) animals *need* to be able to walk upright? What survival advantage would opposable thumbs confer on, say, a rabbit? Are they having a hard time without them?

Re:So how did we get here?

[Tack]

No. Dawkins explains this nicely in his book Climbing Mount Improbable.

Re:So how did we get here?

[Bellum Aeternus]

You assume that humans are "more advanced" - how anthropocentric of you. That's your mistake. Please define more advanced? We don't hold up to radiation like cockroaches do. We can survive without a head like they can either. We're not immune to the many, many diseases that rats have evolved immunity to. There's so much we cannot do naturally and we assume our over-sized brains make us better. They don't, they just make us smarter - which I do enjoy. It's our technology that gives us an edge, not our evolutionary advancement.

Re:So how did we get here?

[Haekel]

And it's interesting (and predictable) to note the gauge of responses - i.e. the tagging: "f*ckthecreationists". Wow that is really mature. Aside from the fact that ths subject still hasn't done anything to "prove" evolution, it is amusing to note such childish responses. Truth is the evolutionists aren't any closer to proving to the skeptics that a pineapple and a porcupine share a common ancestor. No, in the absence of proof, we observe "f*ckthecreationists".

Re:So how did we get here?

[trybexus]

Thank you all for your well thought out responses I did not look at it that way, I guess I am rather arrogant in that sense. I do belive the article had to do with mammals though witch I should have been more specific in my earlier post. Is not what defines us humans as "superior" is our ability to build tools. I do no recongnize another species that can build tools (well some ant colonys have been knowen to build bridges). That is what I was tlaking about in terms of opposible thumbs. Thanks again for your insight

Yes, actually. The cat does "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Smaller animals would have many more generations, which would grotesquely trump a paltry 10-30% temperature advantage.

In any case, every change in protein has to be "tested" by some unlucky (or lucky) child to see if it helps them or causes them to grow festering sores in their joints.

Not Flamebait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Flamebait.

There is no theory of evolution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

SM

geocentrism vs. heliocentrism

[pikine]

It looks like Galileo really dug his own grave. From Galileo Galilei:

By 1616 the attacks on Galileo had reached a head, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban his ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre. The decree did not prevent Galileo from discussing heliocentrism hypothetically. For the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission.

Pope Urban VIII personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberate, Simplicius, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. This fact made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book; an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defense of the Copernican theory. To add insult to injury, Galileo put the words of Pope Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicius. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book. However, the Pope did not take the public ridicule lightly, nor the blatant bias. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.

Most Slashdotters will retrospectively find in horror that, in those days, the Catholic Church was the whole education system that allowed scientific discoveries and mathematic studies to flourish and advance. Copernicus made most of the observations while he was a Canon Law scholar at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross. Copernicus' heliocentric view of the world had supports as well as criticisms from the church, but it was never under serious attack for 60 years. Galileo had a chance to settle this, by means of scientific method that he pioneered, whether helicentrism is to hold or not, but he screwed it up by turning his "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" into a political flame war.

Re:geocentrism vs. heliocentrism

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words if Galileo had licked Papal boot, he would have been okay.

Yeah, thanks for clearing that up for us, pal.

Re:faster metabolism means...

[LwPhD]

Hmm R-ingTFA is highly recommended in these environs.

In fact, this particular topic isn't at all settled. It has been a very active area of research for decades, and questions related to this have spawned field changing debates. In a nutshell, before molecular biology, people thought all change was bad or adaptive. Then a dude named Kimura suggested that a lot of DNA change has very little consequence to survival. If most DNA changes are largely irrelevant to survival, then mutation rates largely dictate evolution. If mutation is dependent on metabolism, the voila! You get the result you see in the article.

However, another unrelated explanation with the very same prediction was made 34 years ago by a Tomoko Ohta, a student of Kimura's. If a lot of mutations have very small effects, then these very small effects can only be fully realized in large populations because of genetic drift. Thus, these small changes can be seen easiest in the larger population, which incidentally tend to be smaller and have higher metabolisms. Again, voila, you get the result you see in the article. In fact, the authors even admit as much:

...larger organisms generally have smaller effective population sizes (Lynch & Conery 2003), we cannot rule out the possible influence of effective population size, as predicted by the 'nearly neutral' theory (Ohta 1973).

Ultimately, the authors have added to the debate and have by no means closed it. But that's what's fun, isn't it?

Wait for it...

[Morosoph]

I have a newt that is 22 years old. They can live to 60 in captivity. So this newt. How big is it?

A tenfold decrease in body size?

[trongey]

How do you calculate a tenfold decrease in body size?

Fuck the Creationists!

[Tetsujin]

"Rate of Evolution Metrics Observed" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "proof, suckitcreationists"

What?

Oh, same process as...

"Evolution happens" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "evolution exhaustively explains origins and incidentally there is no God"

Nevermind. Well, not really... I mean, yes, creationism can refer to the simple belief that there was some creator who, by intent, developed the universe we know, through unspecified processes. (Not much of a belief, really. Just sort of amounts to "that which we cannot understand we attribute to a personification of all things beyond our own powers") but "creationism" also refers to those who use creationist ideas on a scientific level. For instance:

• Suggesting creationism should be taught in science classes. (It shouldn't - it's philosophy, it's got no bearing on science.)
  
• Formulating pseudo-scientific arguments to cast doubt on or otherwise minimize valid, scientifically-developed ideas such as evolution. (For instance "Entropy would make evolution impossible" - ignoring the fact that the Earth is not a closed system... Or otherwise saying evolution is "just" a theory, and therefore on par with creationism - which is also "just a theory", except one inherently impossible to prove or disprove, and therefore not supported by any compelling evidence - in terms of relevance and practical importance...)
  

So if you want to be technical the anti-science Creationists shouldn't be called simply "Creationists" - they should be known by something more distinctive - like "Fucking dick-head creationists" or "Pseudo-science/Anti-science Creationists"... It's not really fair that most of us just shorten that to "Creationists" - but deal with it. It's just like how people think "hacker" means "malevolent vandal-hacker". Those assholes are giving your non-science-related philosophical belief a bad name.

Well of course!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Little beasties that breed at an earlier age make more generations in n years than do longer living animals. Crank the for(;;) loop faster and things happen faster. Ummmmm: duh!

Re:Well of course!

[node 3]

Little beasties that breed at an earlier age make more generations in n years than do longer living animals. Crank the for(;;) loop faster and things happen faster. Ummmmm: duh! Right. Because science is merely thinking to oneself, "yes, this makes sense" and taking no further effort to verify one's conclusions.

Ah, ...

[Black Parrot]

Hope springs eternal in science deniers' chests.

Yes, you do have to be careful with models. But when someone's best argument is "it's just a model!" (or "it's just a theory!"), odds are that they've already lost the debate.

Otherwise they'd be marshalling facts rather than the more desperate sort of argument.

Re:Phooey. Evolution itself has never been observe

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution has been both observed and demonstrated. Both in the field and in the lab. Under controlled, repeatable conditions. Next?

I, for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome our new fuzzy bunny overlords.

Hahahahahahaha!

[thegnu]

Hahahaha! Fuck you, whales! Try to evolve your way out of global warming, now! Bwaaaaaahahaha!

(I would be more sensitive, but I'm pretty sure whales don't read slashdot)

Units?

[Bob-taro]

How exactly do you quantify evolution? Mutations per million years?

Whatever the unit represents, I think they should call it "the Darwin". Then you could use it in a derogatory sense like, "he's about 2 Darwins behind everyone else."

Uh, not the same point.

[JeanPaulBob]

Using the term "evolutionary rate" is pretty misleading: whats happening is that the genomes are changing faster, but almost all of that change isn't from any selective pressure. Its mostly "neutral drift", things changing randomly in a way that does not impact the fitness of the organism.

Thank you -- I'd mod you insightful if I had points. My biggest pet peeve with the so-called debate around evolution is the notion that there is some sort of directionality to it. Popular media tends to reinforce this by using phrases like "more evolved."

Your point and the GP's point don't have much to do with one another.

Your point has to do with the lack of an ultimate goal of evolution. We are not evolving toward anything. In the long run, we are not even necessarily evolving toward greater fitness. The relevant fitness in evolution is not some absolute measure; it is measured relative to the ecosystem in which we live. It's entirely possible that 10,000 years down the line, we'll actually be less fit due to changes in the environment or some such. We move up-hill, but the hill can drop underneath us.

His point, on the other hand, is that the type of evolution being measured in this article does not have anything to do with fitness--even relative fitness--as "normal" evolution does. It does not have to do with changes in the genome from any selective pressure, but rather changes due to neutral genetic drift.

so if i cut a rat up really small.....

[inzy]

....and heat it in the oven at 250 degrees C, i'll have stephen hawking inside 30 minutes?

Yay.

[Anonymous Coward]

What else do you feed a ferret? Damned if I'm going dungeon crawling for some cake.

www.icr.org

[Anonymous Coward]

www.icr.org

Why hasn't anyone noted the scientific research done here that supports a creationist's view of the earth? Why have so many well known evolutionists denounced their theories because they know there is no foundational proof for any of it?

Believe upon Christ and you shall be saved. The biblical record has never been disproved. It has survived for millenia. There is a reason for that.

Anthroferrets

[Dr. Cody]

I think I saw some sketches of what you're talking about on Deviant Art...

biological clock

[penguinbroker]

i am not positive about this, but doesn't size also correlate roughly with average life span? sounds like the rate of evolution is tied to the biological clock in all of us that dictates growth rate and longevity.

I don't need no steenking deviant art!

[StefanJ]

I'd say I make up stuff like this for a living, but really it just about pays for my subscription to MAKE Magazine.

Egregious plug: The MacGuffin Alphabet

And the mad scientist hears

[stonecypher]

So, what you're saying is, if you want to create the ultimate battle creature, start lighting beetles on fire? In that case, I knew this kid growing up who must have a 50 year lead on nature by now; maybe I'll see if he needs saddles or crossbows.

Yay assumption-driven statistics.

Hobbits are more evolved than us!

[PDX]

If they shrank 50 percent of their total mass than by these figures... 10X decrease in mass = 2X evolutionary rate.
1/5 of both equals a .4 evolutionary upgrade.
5ft tall down to 2.5 ft tall. average IQ 111 plus (X 1.4)multiplyer = 155.4 IQ

A point of precision is called for.

[WheelDweller]

This would be the _micro_ evolution. Happens all the time; there's no bugaboo about that, and no dispute.

But the last time someone took Darwin seriously, Panzers rolled across Europe in an effort that killed 150,000,000 people.

So yeah: micro, not macro evolution. :)

Re:Better term is drift... & Hobbit vs. Lizard

[adatepej]

Your comment needs to define its terms a bit. There is a direction to evolution: forward. Change is synonymous with evolution. And things always keep changing. If two species are on the same branch in the tree of life (?) then it's reasonably understandable about what is meant by making ordinal comparisons between those species regarding degree of evolution.

But it is true that evolution lacks a destination, i.e. degree of evolution shouldn't be measured by things like intelligence or size or how like humans a species is.

"Move evolved" just means "having reached this state by more mutation", however you're going to quantify that. I assume... "mechanically"/repdocutively rather than genetically. Well, actually, I guess you deal with it the same way people differentiate between species...

Also, I'm not sure that's what the OP was getting at. I think maybe he meant that this "drift", this "protein evolution", is not equivalent to "evolution" in the bio-mechanical/functional sorta sense -- it's just meaningless back and forth, either "inactive" mutations (if such things exist) or inconsequential ones.

Therefore, this article would not have anything to tell us about how quick warm and small animals "evolve", just how often they go through inconsequential "protein evolution".

But, for some reason I thought this whole matter of smaller things evolving quicker was settled. Maybe I've confused it with the thing about small things hearts beating faster!

I do remember one thing that dealt with sizing of living things and evolution: on islands, mammals tend to evolve to be smaller. That was the explanation for those "Hobbit cavemen" who were supposed to be little Homo sapiens or homo erectus's that washed up on some Pacific Island and then shrank down to like 3 feet tall a piece! Some people thought they were microencephalic Homo sapiens that were found, but I recall seeing that they found several skeletons, and it would be pretty unlikely. I believe in the hobbit caveman, what can I say?

But, the thing that was really interesting was this: the reptiles, the cold blooded creatures on the island, they grew larger! So, at the same time the human were shrinking, the lizards were being magnified! For the life of me, I cannot remember why the hell the cold blooded creatures would expand. I don't think I ever understood the explanation from Discovery Channel. But may have had something to do with the added incentive to larger size as the mammals on the island shrunk to a size that put them near the size range of something the lizards could eat. The Hobbit vs. The Giant Lizard is a retro-evolutionary death match that I think could do with some computer animation.

Instead the show just modeled the meeting of regular Homo sapiens with Homo hobbit and showed the big sapien push the hobbit's face in the sand, like some pre-historic antecedent of those 1950's weight lifting ads with the wimp getting sand kicked in his face. Poor hobbit.

What's the guy even trying to say?

[adatepej]

"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston, who was not involved in the research. "If you want to put a catch phrase on it, it is not so much the survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest. The outcome is not determined by the 'fitness' of a particular trait, in terms of whether the trait affects an animal's ability to compete and survive. The author says "If you want to put a catch phrase on it, it is not so much the survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest."
--That's right, survival of whoever is luckiest to set of genes. And when those genes are the ones that allow you to "compete and survive", those are the lucky ones. If a mutation was part of that package of lucky genes, and you reproduce successfully, and that mutation becomes standard equipment, we've just seen evolution.

Then the author says "the outcome is not determined by the 'fitness' of a particular trait, in terms of whether the trait affects an animal's ability to compete and survive."
--That's wrong! Like above, it's mutation, from whatever cause, that "drives" evolution, if you will, but it's natural selection which "channels" that drive into actual evolution.

He's right when he says mutation is a driving force in evolution. But he's wrong when he seems to write off the other hypothesized "driving force" in evolution: environment, i.e. necessity.

But, when do these "protein mutations" actually manifest in evolution that actually changes the whole of a group of organisms? When that mutation is something useful in the environment!

More drift gives faster evolution

[atlep]

Random drift is necessary for evolution to take place. Random drift introduces differences. Selection pressure ensures that genes causing drift in a positive direction is more likely to survive and spread.

So increased rate of genomes changing translates directly to increased evolutionary rate.

Evolution vs Creation

[Velocir]

Why do people assume that the process of evolution being true means that creation isn't? They're not mutually exclusive!

Oblig wikipedia link

[LanMan04]

Check out this link, it'll tell you everything you need to know:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

No, evolution is both FACT and THEORY

[PtrToNull]

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that when theories are proven to be correct beyond a doubt (which never happens), then the theory magically gets transformed to a fact. The two terms are completely separate and do in fact mean different things:

1. Facts are confirmed observational data on some phenomena in the world. E.g. Farther galaxies exhibit a red shift. This is an observation we can record and measure.
2. Theories try to put the fact in perspective (how, why) and it also attempts to make predictions. Theories must be be testable and falsifiable. To explain #1, you can say it the observation is due to the universe expanding and accelerating, while others claimed that the frequency of light deteriorates over large cosmic distances and this is why we see the red shift.

I highly recommend reading Talk Origins Evolution is a Fact and a Theory as it clears up much of this misconception of the two terms.

Thank Gaia for Global Warming!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to global warming the human race won't stagnate! Gaia knows what it is doing. Pay heed, alarmists.

Other, more generous, explanations

[benhocking]

4. Such person has been brainwashed quite thoroughly and it will take a lot of patience and understanding to get them through it. This includes a subset of people who see no reason to care about the whole debate to begin with. 5. Such person is still young and has much to learn. Insulting them is usually not a good method of instruction.