My commute is 18 miles one way and while I don't do it every day, I do commute year round. As to the 20% grades, I have a couple of them I have to deal with each way. There is a significant investment of time to do this, but it beats going to a gym.
Living in a rural area, the death wish part really only comes into play once I it the city where I work. I've had more close calls in the final two miles than the rest of the commute by several orders of magnitude.
Having setup the Lenny bot on my phone switch for a way to deal with these guys, looks like it will be a while before I get to hear Lenny drive them to despair again. The last recording I got it sounded like the scammer was about to cry "Please sir, just turn on your computer...".
All this tells me is that you are missing something that is provided in your multivitamin. I will agree that multivitamins provide what they say they provide. The unanswered question is do we all need what they provide?
Similarly, evolution is a fact. Our definitions and explanations of the mechanism of evolution are a theory, and a work in progress.
While I am willing to agree with you when it comes to micro evolution (we have observed it and use it all the time). Calling macro evolution a fact when it has not ever been observed is a different use of the word fact than I'm familiar with.
If the fossil record is what is claimed, millions of years of death, disease and suffering, then the God of the bible is a cruel God and Christians have no satisfactory answer to why there is suffering in the world.
God claimed to have created a perfect world a paradise. He then said "it is very good". If He said "it is very good" about millions of years of death, God is a sadist. If, on the other hand, man's sin ruined it and the entire creation now suffer, then God is who he said he is.
I find it elegant, and I've never understood any part of it that seriously contradicted the Bible's history of creation.
Then I'm afraid you probably don't really understand Christianity. The sticking point is death. The bible says that death is the result of sin. Evolution says death is integral to creation.
Gradualism refers to a constant rate in the change of form. I'm writing about a relatively constant rate in the change of genes;
This really sums up the problem. I know what you said and I even think I know what you think is happening.
I will state it one more time, but after that I'm done. I have better things to do.
You can't select for what's not there. If the form can be selected for, the form is there. That means the mutations introduced the form into some percentage of the population.
If the form is not already expressed, that form will not have any fitness advantage and won't be selected for. This is why I suggested you breed rabbits. Hands on with selection will give you a much better understanding of the process.
So if it make you feel better to say you won, fine. I'm done beating my head against this particular wall, but I am more convinced than I was at the start about evolution being a faith thing only now I'm including punctuated equilibrium.
I see that you didn't reply to that bit; did you somehow miss what I'd said?
I Misunderstood what you were saying. Since my friend referred to his losing that position, I assumed you were saying he lost it based on a technicality. For my own edification, I will follow up with my friend and see if I misunderstood something.
For another example (though I don't know of anyone who has lost their job from this yet) consider what that weather channel person was saying about global warming and any weatherman who did not believe it needing to loose their license. You will have to do your own google search if you don't remember what I'm talking about. That one has all the earmarks of offended religion.
Please explain your characterization of the process of selection as a "magical pony".
I have tried. You seem impervious to it. If you really want understand what I'm saying, consider once again that you can't select for what is not there.
Well, yes; that's why we have falsifiability and Occam's Razor.
And you don't have either unless somehow it is simpler to explain that one species evolved into another without leaving a trace in the fossil record than to say that it is simply a different species.
The theory makes plenty of falsifiable predictions,
I did a poor job here of explaining my position. If the predictions made were not found, yes that would have falsified it. However, the predictions were sufficiently vague as to be easily explainable with multiple reasonable theories. There is nothing specific enough to select between those theories.
How is my view "basically gradualism"? mutations appear at a relatively constant rate. A population in equilibrium will not select for new mutations.
You seem to have a very poor grasp of how selection works. I would suggest taking up a hobby like raising rabbits or some other fast breeding animal so that you can see selection in action. In the mean time, I will state it again, you can't select for what is not there. I tried to show the silliness of your argument by showing that you using invisible mutation that were magically becoming visible. Your answer appears to be no, they become phenotypic.
Sigh....
Jumping up and down saying "I don't believe in gradualism" does not change the fact that you are describing either gradualism or a magical pony to ignore the fact that you are describing gradualism.
You pretended that I'd said that it was "only corporate money
Looking back over the posts, it seems I over reacted to your mad cheese comment and assumed you were joining the media (and much of slashdot) in discounting anything funded by a corporation.
However, Pat did loose his job as climatologist. Your belief that it had nothing to do with his views is something I probably can't change your mind on.
certainly not starving on the street.
Which is not something I ever said was the case.
wasn't much of a heretic who'd suffered for speaking truth to power,
There are many things that are now closed to him (including some government funding sources) because of his views.
Did you somehow miss that?
Actually, I think I forgot it. Looking back, I see we were at cross purposes each arguing against what the other person was not saying.
is very high in periods of upheaval (migration or environmental change) and practically nonexistent at times of stasis.
Any yet somehow there is something to select for.
What assumptions did I make about your beliefs? In my original reply
The "bothers my Jesus" bit does make my point.
explain how or where I've stated that the rate of phenotypic change is constant
You have not directly stated that. However, you have described things so that you either have to accept that or call upon your magical pony.
Without this technique, the Hubble is better. With it, we can use the larger ground based telescopes to get better images without the expense of launching them into space. Sounds pretty neat.
OK. My datapoints were from my experience (which you conveniently refuse to accept). So I have done a google search (just like you could have). And what do you know, the first two links are pretty interesting. One is wikipedia where the google cache still show a statement backing up what I said (edited out in August). The second lists several books including ones published in the 2000s (this was actually a surprise to me, I figured by now that practice would be over).
The search I did was "recapitulation in textbooks" The second link is
Let me be a little more specific. If there are multiple reasonable explanations for what is observed, there needs to be a way to choose between them. Otherwise, all you have is your faith that your interpretation is correct. At least with gradualism, the expected results would have been hard to explain any other way, but the fossil record does not support it.
Why are you harping on the idea that it is?
Because your view is basically gradualism. Gradualism is also what is taught in schools, but we have long since gotten off of the original topic.
if the environment is static, the population won't change.
And once again, you are using selection as a magical pony. Change happens with mutation. Consistent change throughout a population happens with selection. You can't have change without it showing up (at least not with the time frame you are postulating). Selection only selects for things that are there.
Pat Michaels point which got dropped
Actually, you were the one who did not answer the question about money and its influence.
The fact that anyone not supporting evolution results in them being labeled as a heretic can be seen your assumptions about my beliefs and your derisive comments about them in the early posts. In fact, you appeared so blinded by your incredulity, that you kept thinking I was saying things that I was not.
As far as the "I won", I would not claim that without you acknowledging that you are at least being inconsistent. The fact that you cant see that you are still espousing gradualism, is pretty depressing especially since you sounded like someone who was trying to be consistent.
You claim that recapitulation theory is everywhere
I claim that it is still in text books. I don't see any value in going to my daughter's school and looking up the textbooks to simply have you claim that you don't believe it is being used (after all, I'm just some guy on slashdot). My point is made by the fact that even though it was known to be bad in the 1800s, it has been in text books throughout the 1900s (certainly until the the later half when I was in school) so it was clearly not there for its scientific merit. Adding a data point or two in the 2000s, is simply icing that is not worth any effort on my part to go for.
How does that have any relevance to the original prediction, and how is that possibility more likely?
And since there is no way to falsify the finding, using it as evidence is more wishful thinking than science. In fact, this kind of thinking throughout "science" is a big part of why I think it is far more of a religion than science.
What's your explanation for why this is all wrong?
I never said it was wrong, it may even be right, but YOU have know way to know other than your faith.
Natural selection acts on variation which has already been introduced into the gene pool through random mutation.
I'm glad we agree here. Now we are back to the problem of gradualism and the fact that the fossil record does not support it. Constant mutations (your contention). Lots of time (your contention). Will show up in the fossil record as changing species. In fact, there should be more intermediate species than anything else. Too bad that's not the case.
When did I say that things were mutating without visibile change
When you were trying to explain why punctuated equilibrium did not require a large number of beneficial mutations to happen in a very short period of time.
And what does any of that have to do with complexity
That is actually a good question. I don't think much of anything we have talked about has really addressed complexity, yet without increasing complexity, you don't have evolution.
Please explain the relevance of your analogy.
Mutations, like the house in Las Vegas, have the odds all on one side. We have lots of ways to remove diversity and damage organisms, and not much in the way of increasing complexity and diversity. The house always wins in the long run.
Well as much fun as this has been, I don't see that we are likely to agree on anything. However, I do want to thank you. Before this thread, I believed that people who recognized the fact that gradualism is not supported in the fossil record and saw punctuated equilibrium as a better fit were probably doing a better job of dealing with the evidence. I don't think I was right on that one. In your case, you seem to be using punctuated equilibrium to conveniently ignore the problems with gradualism without really needing to change anything.
You could start by pointing to a modern textbook which espoused Haeckel's recapitulation theory.
My daughter said is had elephants on the cover and biology in the title. I'm not planning on stopping by her school just to look it up for you.
If there's something you think I can't substantiate, please do point it out and I'll do my best to explain.
You can't substantiate that there are intermediate species in the fossil record. Only that there are ones that look like they could be
You can't substantiate that there has been a constant rate of mutations. The best you can do is to say we have observed a constant rate. That tells us until about the past.
You can't substantiate that your living intermediates are intermediate.
That's a bit vague, and I'm not sure how it's relevant. Could you back up this claim, and explain how it applies?
Now you're just making me tired...
You can't select for something that is not there. The way you describe it, natural selection is your magical pony that is changing animals from one species to another. It certainly sounded like you said things are mutating without visible change until natural selection comes by and changes them. Turning non visible changes into visible ones with natural selection is definitely a faith statement.
With all the different ways we have observed the removal of genetic diversity vs. the lack of ways we have seen an increase in genetic diversity, it takes some pretty powerful faith to believe things will continue to gain complexity over time. But I bet you are a kick in Los Vegas (If I play just a little longer, I will win big...)
...or when it's subjected to some new strongly selective pressure.
Wow, it's hard to know where to start... You've got quite a few assumptions going on here that can't be substantiated. You do a good job of simply stating them as fact.
You do realize that selective pressure reduces genetic diversity, right?
there are plenty of fossil transitions above the species level.
Or, they could just be other species. There is nothing showing that these are transitional, it is simply an assumption.
Where's the fraud?
I will take the same out you did, I can't currently find the article that talks about his censure, so I will post more when I find it.
And when are you going to find me one of those textbooks which describes the biogenetic law as fact?
To be honest, I have not looked for a name yet. Almost every textbook I have looked at in the last 20+ years since I have been in school has had it. This includes the ones my children have been using. So based on my experience, it certainly looks universal. If you know that the schools in your area don't teach with such garbage, consider yourself lucky.
The guy receives significant compensation from ExxonMobil and the Cato Institute
So is it only corporate money that make scientists bad, or does all money come with certain expectations? If it is all money, I guess researchers will have to fund themselves before we can believe them. If you think government money does not influence the outcome, you must not be around the academic community much.
Yep, mutations are mostly harmful and as you point out, we have lots of them. Every mechanism we know of for random mutations is most likely going to destroy not create. Kind of like shooting letters out of a shotgun at a newspaper, you are not going to be fixing things (oh wait, maybe a newspaper is a bad example, how about substituting your favorite book). The faster the rate of mutations, the more destruction. You postulate that small non destructive changes add up to create new things. You need lots of time for this to even sound reasonable. Oops, now you are talking gradualism. Gradualism is not supported by the fossil record. Punctuated equilibrium drastically reduces the amount of time you have for this to take place, so much so that none of the intermediate species end up in the fossil record.
So your believing in some sort of magical pony (or whatever it is you want to substitute) that comes down and produces a large number of beneficial mutations in a short period of time sounds a lot more like a religious conviction than science.
You've yet to show that it actually has.
Read up on Wilhelm His.
What does your knowing someone who knows Pat Michaels have to do with your addressing my opinion of him?
The same way you wont accept the word of some guy on slashdot, I'm not going to take the internet as a source over more direct knowledge. We are talking about a "heretic" who dared to question the holy doctrine about global warming. It does not surprise me that any (possibly every) mistake he ever made is published and magnified.
Somehow I doubt that. Please provide me with an example of someone attempting to point out that phyletic gradualism isn't well-supported and being "branded as a heretic" for their trouble.
I suppose you won't accept that I've been on the receiving end of that. Or maybe you just figure I deserve it.
Appeals to "information" are popular among the intelligent design crowd
I guess we will simply have to disagree here. I can see that you are convinced that small hypothetical increments are more than enough to wipe out huge continuous destruction. This, to me, looks very much like faith.
A hoax?
Yep and dealt with by his peers within a pretty short time. This should never had made ANY text books.
And you'll be showing me a textbook that states that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny when, exactly?
Well there is no chance that I will be able to remember what science book I had as a kid, but with some digging, I might be able to uncover which one my daughter was using a couple of years ago. It was still in that book.
Somehow I'm not impressed by his scholarship.
I will admit that I do not know him personally, but I am good friends with someone who does and is in his field (I will not mention who that is since he would probably like to keep his job) so I can't answer your list of his crimes. However, I will ask you if you have ever known of someone who has a bad reputation when looked up on the net that you know for a fact is made up of at best taking him out of context and and at worst pure lies? I know of a couple and to read about them on the net would leave me with a much worse opinion of them than deserved even when I don't agree with them. So unless you actually know (or know of) this person more directly, I will stick with what I hear from someone who does.
BTW. Pat Michaels used to be state climatologist, so I would say he did lose his job.
Wait, I thought that evolutionary biology was a church, according to you. What kind of a church can't even distribute its sacred texts reliably?
You should really try to read what I wrote. Gradualism is what is being taught. It does not fit the fossil record. Trying to point that out will get you branded as a heretic. All I'm wanting is for "science" to clean house and at least abide by its own rules. I'm not trying to get science to agree with me, just to not make thinks up out of thin air and then teach it to my kids as a proven fact.
Also, if a textbook states that a theory is "proven fact", then it's poorly written. Science isn't in the business of providing absolute proof.
I agree, but that quality of text book seems to be quite common.
Gene duplication is well-known; gene duplication plus point mutations (also well-known) equals new genes. Both have been observed. I pointed to these things in the last post I made, and I'm pointing to them again now. What are you not getting?
Gene duplication is not new information, just a copy. What point mutation has created something new as opposed to removed something from the gene. If your new thing only comes from removing information, you will eventually end up with nothing.
Why is recapitulation theory effective "as a religious tools"?
Because if true, it would be observable evolution. That's why the hoax was created in the first place.
Specific examples, please--start with the "real obvious stuff".
Recapitulation theory is a pretty obvious one.
Again, examples, please. If someone has good results that the establishment is covering up, I certainly want to hear about it.
You say that like it's a poor explanation. Care to elaborate?
Punctuated equilibrium is a much better explanation than gradualism. However, textbooks still teach gradualism as "proven fact". It is one of the many non scientific things in the textbooks that are still in text books and any attempt to correct such errors is met with blind religious opposition.
Why on earth would you expect...
I would not, I'm just trying to follow your argument of reversible mutations. You have yet to point to an observed mutation that adds information, so until you give a specific, I'm sticking to my point.
You've seriously seen school textbooks which teach that embryonic development recapitulates the evolutionary history of the organism in question?
Yep. They are still in use. Keep in mind that as a religious tools it is very effective. Much more so than any actual science.
One isn't "branded as a heretic" for disagreeing.
If only that were true. Try looking over the science text books in your area. You will see they are full of crap that has long been shown false. Try getting some of it corrected (I'm talking the real obvious stuff here not things still in flux). Let me know if you still think the same way.
For real fun, try disagreeing with the anthropomorphic global warming crowd. I know people who have lost their job for doing good science simple because it did not agree with the prevailing opinions.
I suppose you'll be cranky when I use a common reference source, but the fact is that your talking points are so stale that they're growing mold.
Nope, it would be a nice change of pace.
As for punctuated equilibrium disproving gradualism,
Not what I said, read it again. I said the fossil record disproves gradualism. Punctuated equilibrium is how scientists are currently trying to explain the fossil record.
Many types of mutation are reversible.
OK, when have we seen a mutation happen and then reverse. If this is a no-new information mutation, then my statement still holds. If it is one were information is lost, I don't think you will find an example.
It's certainly a good thing, then, that recapitulation theory isn't taught any more
You need to take a look a the school textbooks still in use around here. It was taught when I was in school and is still being taught now. Any attempt to remove such an obvious problem stirs up the religious nuts who worship at that alter.
but I suppose you define religion in the public schools as "something I disagree with because it bothers my Jesus".
I define religion in the public schools as doctrine backed only by faith that gets you branded as a heretic if you disagree. Naturalism in the public schools fits that bill pretty well.
Slashdot Mirror
Since work has a show facility, all of us that commute are smelling fresh by the time we sit down at our desks to work.
Worth it is in the eye of the beholder.
My commute is 18 miles one way and while I don't do it every day, I do commute year round. As to the 20% grades, I have a couple of them I have to deal with each way. There is a significant investment of time to do this, but it beats going to a gym.
Living in a rural area, the death wish part really only comes into play once I it the city where I work. I've had more close calls in the final two miles than the rest of the commute by several orders of magnitude.
Having setup the Lenny bot on my phone switch for a way to deal with these guys, looks like it will be a while before I get to hear Lenny drive them to despair again. The last recording I got it sounded like the scammer was about to cry "Please sir, just turn on your computer...".
I added the following to may .mailcap file and mutt is happy to display html only emails.
message/html ; lynx -dump -force-html %s ; copiousoutput
All this tells me is that you are missing something that is provided in your multivitamin. I will agree that multivitamins provide what they say they provide. The unanswered question is do we all need what they provide?
Your vision center has shrunk. Careful or it will disappear all together.
I was going to mark this funny but, after reading the links, now I just wish /. had a sad category...
Actually, it stands for binary as in two branches. You can have an unbalanced b-tree.
Similarly, evolution is a fact. Our definitions and explanations of the mechanism of evolution are a theory, and a work in progress.
While I am willing to agree with you when it comes to micro evolution (we have observed it and use it all the time). Calling macro evolution a fact when it has not ever been observed is a different use of the word fact than I'm familiar with.
Actually, I'm pretty sure they view keeping listeners more as an inventory management issue than a customer service issue.
It is true that they don't want us to walk away, but the reason is that they can't sell what they don't have.
I hope you don't think you are the customer. The customer of a radio station is the advertiser. You are simply the product.
Now get back on the shelf, like a good product, and try to look good for the customers.
If the fossil record is what is claimed, millions of years of death, disease and suffering, then the God of the bible is a cruel God and Christians have no satisfactory answer to why there is suffering in the world.
God claimed to have created a perfect world a paradise. He then said "it is very good". If He said "it is very good" about millions of years of death, God is a sadist. If, on the other hand, man's sin ruined it and the entire creation now suffer, then God is who he said he is.
I find it elegant, and I've never understood any part of it that seriously contradicted the Bible's history of creation.
Then I'm afraid you probably don't really understand Christianity. The sticking point is death. The bible says that death is the result of sin. Evolution says death is integral to creation.
Gradualism refers to a constant rate in the change of form. I'm writing about a relatively constant rate in the change of genes;
This really sums up the problem. I know what you said and I even think I know what you think is happening.
I will state it one more time, but after that I'm done. I have better things to do.
You can't select for what's not there. If the form can be selected for, the form is there. That means the mutations introduced the form into some percentage of the population.
If the form is not already expressed, that form will not have any fitness advantage and won't be selected for. This is why I suggested you breed rabbits. Hands on with selection will give you a much better understanding of the process.
So if it make you feel better to say you won, fine. I'm done beating my head against this particular wall, but I am more convinced than I was at the start about evolution being a faith thing only now I'm including punctuated equilibrium.
I see that you didn't reply to that bit; did you somehow miss what I'd said?
I Misunderstood what you were saying. Since my friend referred to his losing that position, I assumed you were saying he lost it based on a technicality. For my own edification, I will follow up with my friend and see if I misunderstood something.
For another example (though I don't know of anyone who has lost their job from this yet) consider what that weather channel person was saying about global warming and any weatherman who did not believe it needing to loose their license. You will have to do your own google search if you don't remember what I'm talking about. That one has all the earmarks of offended religion.
Please explain your characterization of the process of selection as a "magical pony".
I have tried. You seem impervious to it. If you really want understand what I'm saying, consider once again that you can't select for what is not there.
Well, yes; that's why we have falsifiability and Occam's Razor.
And you don't have either unless somehow it is simpler to explain that one species evolved into another without leaving a trace in the fossil record than to say that it is simply a different species.
The theory makes plenty of falsifiable predictions,
I did a poor job here of explaining my position. If the predictions made were not found, yes that would have falsified it. However, the predictions were sufficiently vague as to be easily explainable with multiple reasonable theories. There is nothing specific enough to select between those theories.
How is my view "basically gradualism"?
mutations appear at a relatively constant rate.
A population in equilibrium will not select for new mutations.
You seem to have a very poor grasp of how selection works. I would suggest taking up a hobby like raising rabbits or some other fast breeding animal so that you can see selection in action. In the mean time, I will state it again, you can't select for what is not there. I tried to show the silliness of your argument by showing that you using invisible mutation that were magically becoming visible. Your answer appears to be no, they become phenotypic.
Sigh....
Jumping up and down saying "I don't believe in gradualism" does not change the fact that you are describing either gradualism or a magical pony to ignore the fact that you are describing gradualism.
You pretended that I'd said that it was "only corporate money
Looking back over the posts, it seems I over reacted to your mad cheese comment and assumed you were joining the media (and much of slashdot) in discounting anything funded by a corporation.
However, Pat did loose his job as climatologist. Your belief that it had nothing to do with his views is something I probably can't change your mind on.
certainly not starving on the street.
Which is not something I ever said was the case.
wasn't much of a heretic who'd suffered for speaking truth to power,
There are many things that are now closed to him (including some government funding sources) because of his views.
Did you somehow miss that?
Actually, I think I forgot it. Looking back, I see we were at cross purposes each arguing against what the other person was not saying.
is very high in periods of upheaval (migration or environmental change) and practically nonexistent at times of stasis.
Any yet somehow there is something to select for.
What assumptions did I make about your beliefs? In my original reply
The "bothers my Jesus" bit does make my point.
explain how or where I've stated that the rate of phenotypic change is constant
You have not directly stated that. However, you have described things so that you either have to accept that or call upon your magical pony.
Without this technique, the Hubble is better. With it, we can use the larger ground based telescopes to get better images without the expense of launching them into space. Sounds pretty neat.
But you don't have any data points.
? command=view&id=3935&program=CSC%20-%20Science%20a nd%20Education%20Policy%20-%20News%20and%20Article s#text5
OK. My datapoints were from my experience (which you conveniently refuse to accept). So I have done a google search (just like you could have). And what do you know, the first two links are pretty interesting. One is wikipedia where the google cache still show a statement backing up what I said (edited out in August). The second lists several books including ones published in the 2000s (this was actually a surprise to me, I figured by now that practice would be over).
The search I did was "recapitulation in textbooks" The second link is
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php
Of course the prediction could be falsified.
Let me be a little more specific. If there are multiple reasonable explanations for what is observed, there needs to be a way to choose between them. Otherwise, all you have is your faith that your interpretation is correct. At least with gradualism, the expected results would have been hard to explain any other way, but the fossil record does not support it.
Why are you harping on the idea that it is?
Because your view is basically gradualism. Gradualism is also what is taught in schools, but we have long since gotten off of the original topic.
if the environment is static, the population won't change.
And once again, you are using selection as a magical pony. Change happens with mutation. Consistent change throughout a population happens with selection. You can't have change without it showing up (at least not with the time frame you are postulating). Selection only selects for things that are there.
Pat Michaels point which got dropped
Actually, you were the one who did not answer the question about money and its influence.
The fact that anyone not supporting evolution results in them being labeled as a heretic can be seen your assumptions about my beliefs and your derisive comments about them in the early posts. In fact, you appeared so blinded by your incredulity, that you kept thinking I was saying things that I was not.
As far as the "I won", I would not claim that without you acknowledging that you are at least being inconsistent. The fact that you cant see that you are still espousing gradualism, is pretty depressing especially since you sounded like someone who was trying to be consistent.
You claim that recapitulation theory is everywhere
I claim that it is still in text books. I don't see any value in going to my daughter's school and looking up the textbooks to simply have you claim that you don't believe it is being used (after all, I'm just some guy on slashdot). My point is made by the fact that even though it was known to be bad in the 1800s, it has been in text books throughout the 1900s (certainly until the the later half when I was in school) so it was clearly not there for its scientific merit. Adding a data point or two in the 2000s, is simply icing that is not worth any effort on my part to go for.
How does that have any relevance to the original prediction, and how is that possibility more likely?
And since there is no way to falsify the finding, using it as evidence is more wishful thinking than science. In fact, this kind of thinking throughout "science" is a big part of why I think it is far more of a religion than science.
What's your explanation for why this is all wrong?
I never said it was wrong, it may even be right, but YOU have know way to know other than your faith.
Natural selection acts on variation which has already been introduced into the gene pool through random mutation.
I'm glad we agree here. Now we are back to the problem of gradualism and the fact that the fossil record does not support it. Constant mutations (your contention). Lots of time (your contention). Will show up in the fossil record as changing species. In fact, there should be more intermediate species than anything else. Too bad that's not the case.
When did I say that things were mutating without visibile change
When you were trying to explain why punctuated equilibrium did not require a large number of beneficial mutations to happen in a very short period of time.
And what does any of that have to do with complexity
That is actually a good question. I don't think much of anything we have talked about has really addressed complexity, yet without increasing complexity, you don't have evolution.
Please explain the relevance of your analogy.
Mutations, like the house in Las Vegas, have the odds all on one side. We have lots of ways to remove diversity and damage organisms, and not much in the way of increasing complexity and diversity. The house always wins in the long run.
Well as much fun as this has been, I don't see that we are likely to agree on anything. However, I do want to thank you. Before this thread, I believed that people who recognized the fact that gradualism is not supported in the fossil record and saw punctuated equilibrium as a better fit were probably doing a better job of dealing with the evidence. I don't think I was right on that one. In your case, you seem to be using punctuated equilibrium to conveniently ignore the problems with gradualism without really needing to change anything.
You could start by pointing to a modern textbook which espoused Haeckel's recapitulation theory.
My daughter said is had elephants on the cover and biology in the title. I'm not planning on stopping by her school just to look it up for you.
If there's something you think I can't substantiate, please do point it out and I'll do my best to explain.
You can't substantiate that there are intermediate species in the fossil record. Only that there are ones that look like they could be
You can't substantiate that there has been a constant rate of mutations. The best you can do is to say we have observed a constant rate. That tells us until about the past.
You can't substantiate that your living intermediates are intermediate.
That's a bit vague, and I'm not sure how it's relevant. Could you back up this claim, and explain how it applies?
Now you're just making me tired...
You can't select for something that is not there. The way you describe it, natural selection is your magical pony that is changing animals from one species to another. It certainly sounded like you said things are mutating without visible change until natural selection comes by and changes them. Turning non visible changes into visible ones with natural selection is definitely a faith statement.
With all the different ways we have observed the removal of genetic diversity vs. the lack of ways we have seen an increase in genetic diversity, it takes some pretty powerful faith to believe things will continue to gain complexity over time. But I bet you are a kick in Los Vegas (If I play just a little longer, I will win big...)
...or when it's subjected to some new strongly selective pressure.
Wow, it's hard to know where to start... You've got quite a few assumptions going on here that can't be substantiated. You do a good job of simply stating them as fact.
You do realize that selective pressure reduces genetic diversity, right?
there are plenty of fossil transitions above the species level.
Or, they could just be other species. There is nothing showing that these are transitional, it is simply an assumption.
Where's the fraud?
I will take the same out you did, I can't currently find the article that talks about his censure, so I will post more when I find it.
And when are you going to find me one of those textbooks which describes the biogenetic law as fact?
To be honest, I have not looked for a name yet. Almost every textbook I have looked at in the last 20+ years since I have been in school has had it. This includes the ones my children have been using. So based on my experience, it certainly looks universal. If you know that the schools in your area don't teach with such garbage, consider yourself lucky.
The guy receives significant compensation from ExxonMobil and the Cato Institute
So is it only corporate money that make scientists bad, or does all money come with certain expectations? If it is all money, I guess researchers will have to fund themselves before we can believe them. If you think government money does not influence the outcome, you must not be around the academic community much.
"Huge continuous destruction?"
Yep, mutations are mostly harmful and as you point out, we have lots of them. Every mechanism we know of for random mutations is most likely going to destroy not create. Kind of like shooting letters out of a shotgun at a newspaper, you are not going to be fixing things (oh wait, maybe a newspaper is a bad example, how about substituting your favorite book). The faster the rate of mutations, the more destruction. You postulate that small non destructive changes add up to create new things. You need lots of time for this to even sound reasonable. Oops, now you are talking gradualism. Gradualism is not supported by the fossil record. Punctuated equilibrium drastically reduces the amount of time you have for this to take place, so much so that none of the intermediate species end up in the fossil record.
So your believing in some sort of magical pony (or whatever it is you want to substitute) that comes down and produces a large number of beneficial mutations in a short period of time sounds a lot more like a religious conviction than science.
You've yet to show that it actually has.
Read up on Wilhelm His.
What does your knowing someone who knows Pat Michaels have to do with your addressing my opinion of him?
The same way you wont accept the word of some guy on slashdot, I'm not going to take the internet as a source over more direct knowledge. We are talking about a "heretic" who dared to question the holy doctrine about global warming. It does not surprise me that any (possibly every) mistake he ever made is published and magnified.
Somehow I doubt that. Please provide me with an example of someone attempting to point out that phyletic gradualism isn't well-supported and being "branded as a heretic" for their trouble.
I suppose you won't accept that I've been on the receiving end of that. Or maybe you just figure I deserve it.
Appeals to "information" are popular among the intelligent design crowd
I guess we will simply have to disagree here. I can see that you are convinced that small hypothetical increments are more than enough to wipe out huge continuous destruction. This, to me, looks very much like faith.
A hoax?
Yep and dealt with by his peers within a pretty short time. This should never had made ANY text books.
And you'll be showing me a textbook that states that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny when, exactly?
Well there is no chance that I will be able to remember what science book I had as a kid, but with some digging, I might be able to uncover which one my daughter was using a couple of years ago. It was still in that book.
Somehow I'm not impressed by his scholarship.
I will admit that I do not know him personally, but I am good friends with someone who does and is in his field (I will not mention who that is since he would probably like to keep his job) so I can't answer your list of his crimes. However, I will ask you if you have ever known of someone who has a bad reputation when looked up on the net that you know for a fact is made up of at best taking him out of context and and at worst pure lies? I know of a couple and to read about them on the net would leave me with a much worse opinion of them than deserved even when I don't agree with them. So unless you actually know (or know of) this person more directly, I will stick with what I hear from someone who does.
BTW. Pat Michaels used to be state climatologist, so I would say he did lose his job.
Wait, I thought that evolutionary biology was a church, according to you. What kind of a church can't even distribute its sacred texts reliably?
You should really try to read what I wrote. Gradualism is what is being taught. It does not fit the fossil record. Trying to point that out will get you branded as a heretic. All I'm wanting is for "science" to clean house and at least abide by its own rules. I'm not trying to get science to agree with me, just to not make thinks up out of thin air and then teach it to my kids as a proven fact.
Also, if a textbook states that a theory is "proven fact", then it's poorly written. Science isn't in the business of providing absolute proof.
I agree, but that quality of text book seems to be quite common.
Gene duplication is well-known; gene duplication plus point mutations (also well-known) equals new genes. Both have been observed. I pointed to these things in the last post I made, and I'm pointing to them again now. What are you not getting?
Gene duplication is not new information, just a copy. What point mutation has created something new as opposed to removed something from the gene. If your new thing only comes from removing information, you will eventually end up with nothing.
Why is recapitulation theory effective "as a religious tools"?
Because if true, it would be observable evolution. That's why the hoax was created in the first place.
Specific examples, please--start with the "real obvious stuff".
Recapitulation theory is a pretty obvious one.
Again, examples, please. If someone has good results that the establishment is covering up, I certainly want to hear about it.
Pat Michaels is a good example.
You say that like it's a poor explanation. Care to elaborate?
Punctuated equilibrium is a much better explanation than gradualism. However, textbooks still teach gradualism as "proven fact". It is one of the many non scientific things in the textbooks that are still in text books and any attempt to correct such errors is met with blind religious opposition.
Why on earth would you expect...
I would not, I'm just trying to follow your argument of reversible mutations. You have yet to point to an observed mutation that adds information, so until you give a specific, I'm sticking to my point.
You've seriously seen school textbooks which teach that embryonic development recapitulates the evolutionary history of the organism in question?
Yep. They are still in use. Keep in mind that as a religious tools it is very effective. Much more so than any actual science.
One isn't "branded as a heretic" for disagreeing.
If only that were true. Try looking over the science text books in your area. You will see they are full of crap that has long been shown false. Try getting some of it corrected (I'm talking the real obvious stuff here not things still in flux). Let me know if you still think the same way.
For real fun, try disagreeing with the anthropomorphic global warming crowd. I know people who have lost their job for doing good science simple because it did not agree with the prevailing opinions.
I suppose you'll be cranky when I use a common reference source, but the fact is that your talking points are so stale that they're growing mold.
Nope, it would be a nice change of pace.
As for punctuated equilibrium disproving gradualism,
Not what I said, read it again. I said the fossil record disproves gradualism. Punctuated equilibrium is how scientists are currently trying to explain the fossil record.
Many types of mutation are reversible.
OK, when have we seen a mutation happen and then reverse. If this is a no-new information mutation, then my statement still holds. If it is one were information is lost, I don't think you will find an example.
It's certainly a good thing, then, that recapitulation theory isn't taught any more
You need to take a look a the school textbooks still in use around here. It was taught when I was in school and is still being taught now. Any attempt to remove such an obvious problem stirs up the religious nuts who worship at that alter.
but I suppose you define religion in the public schools as "something I disagree with because it bothers my Jesus".
I define religion in the public schools as doctrine backed only by faith that gets you branded as a heretic if you disagree. Naturalism in the public schools fits that bill pretty well.