Another Dingbat Sexual Selection TheoryEvolutionary "scientists" are in a frenzy over whether the persistence of the gene EDAR in East Asians was because natural selection favored more sweat glands or smaller breasts.
:-/
Read the details of this breaking science news at the link, if you have the stomach for it.
This garbage is what passes for science in much of evolutionary biology today. All Darwinian story-telling is like this. The reason that sexual selection and evolutionary psychology are such obvious nonsense, and other story-telling in evolutionary biology is not such obvious nonsense, it that many theories in evolutionary biology speculate about esoterica about which the average reader knows nothing.
We laugh at speculation about natural selection for sweat glands or smaller breasts, but most of us don't understand speculation that is just as ridiculous about remingtonocetids, ambulocetids, and protocetids (putative links in whale evolution). All Darwinian "theory" is banality and tautology, without a shred of explanatory power. It's all the same logic. Stuff happens and survivors survive.
Most of evolutionary junk science is cloaked in jargon and esoterica that make it opaque to the kind of comedic interpretation to which evolutionary psychology and sexual selection lend themselves so naturally.
You're repeating yourself. You've criticised this study before.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. Your favoured theory of teleological evolution reduces to 'God did something somewhere somewhen for unknown reasons and by unknown mechanisms to endow a species with a new structure or function allowing it to survive a new changed environment, not currently existing, unless God decides not to do so, again for unknown reasons, in which case the species goes extinct. Like at least 99.9% of previous species'.
In other words - ' survivors survive'. Your theory has no explanatory power. None. Zilch. It's useless. Less than useless.
Anyway. It's a truism that 90% of published papers aren't of much significance! even if right. This paper probably falls into the majority.
barkmad... you're repeating yourself. You've criticized Egnor's criticism before.
DeleteSenile old fart,
DeleteAnd you're repeating yourself too. You've criticised me before for criticising Egnor's idiotic threads.
Why don't you look for one of your irrelevant YouTube videos before making another of your pointless comments?
barkmad... you're repeating yourself. You've criticized me before for criticizing you for criticizing Egnor's posts. It's late. You're drunk. Go to bed. Cuddle up with one of those gorillas you love so much.
DeleteObligatory video: Here's a physical instantiation of Barkmad's Theory of Everything from The Big Bang to Apocalypse. Enjoy.
This would be a good time for creationist loons like Egnor to explain why Jeebus The Almighty Creator gave Adam nippels.
ReplyDeleteThat's easy. So you would have somewhere to attach those alligator clips.
DeleteOT: Speaking of videos, this one will (or should) blow your mind. It was generated for demoscene by a 64k algorithm. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteSenile old fart,
Delete'Off topic?' You're hardly ever 'on topic'. Anyway, your video will only blow the mind of the brain damaged.
I agree with bachfiend. Egnor is having a senior moment.
ReplyDeleteWe have previously discussed this article in this thread: Vox Day on the revolutionary impact of the entrance of millions of women into the workforce. The bottom line: the journalist never contacted the authors of the study, totally misrepresented their research, and had to issue a retraction (actually, two). Egnor never figured that out, so he is out flogging the dead horse again.
Creationists crack me up.
Hoo
Egnor, evolution is an atheist delusion, nothing more. Don't bother asking the pseudo-scientists for observable, testable proof because none exists. Even after decades of research in carefully controlled environments, abiogenesis never occurred. But because they're devoid of honesty, they cannot bring themselves to admit it. Data is conveniently reinterpreted to fit into their phony theories, but never to demonstrate because their theories have no basis in reality. They trumpet "science" in a transparent attempt to do is substitute religion (esp. Christianity) with dialectical materialism. This explains why whenever someone such as you, Egnor, deviates from their group-think collectivism, they resort to harassment and slander. Their strategy is essentially the same as the militant atheists used in the Soviet Union. Their ego-centric ideological cult is a religion unto itself, thus violating the "separation of church and state" clause they're so quick to tout anytime some kid exercises his or her First Amendment right to pray or whatever while on school grounds or someone puts up a cross somewhere. Again, this is what they did in the Soviet Union.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty silly, Michael.
DeleteEvolution describes how life, well, evolved. Abiogenesis is a separate theory. The former has strong theoretical and empirical support. The latter is speculative.
That's how science works. It isn't a single body, it's a patchwork of theories, some well-tested, others speculative. That we don't have a theory of quantum gravity does not mean we do not understand general relativity.
Hoo
In order for evolution to even get off the ground, abiogenesis would be prerequisite. Nice try. You cannot demonstrate either abiogenesis nor evolution (i.e. speciation) and thus can only resort to empty rhetoric stating that "it happened" some other BS. The so-called "scientific community" has devolved rapidly into a circle-jerk of atheistic confirmation bias. It's a friggin' joke.
Deletehttp://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-intrinsic-unreliability-of-science.html
You're repeating the same silly thing, Michael. I think you do not understand how science works.
DeleteTake particle physics. The Standard Model of particle physics does not explain where quarks and leptons come from. It simply postulates their existence and their properties. By your logic, particle physics is bullshit.
You are clearly off your rocker, my stupid creationist friend.
Hoo
Oh, and quoting Vox Day as an authority on matters scientific is priceless. The guy majored in economics and Eastern studies in college and knows nothing about science.
DeleteHoo
Rather than attempt to argue against the factual basis of Vox's post (which, alas, you cannot refute), you resort to ad hominem. Figures. Evolution has never been observed, reproduced or tested and therefore it's not science. That's all there is to it. You can say that the theory is real and that it can do whatever you want it to but you can never prove it.
DeleteNow, feel free to move the goal post and deviate from the subject some more.
Of course evolution has been observed. It suffices for me to point out one example to destroy your silly claim.
DeleteHere's a link to a long-term evolutionary experiment conducted by Richard Lenski at Michigan State University. Lenski and his students have observed 50,000 consecutive generations of E. coli, freezing samples every 500 generations in order to go back and rewind the evolution tape if necessary. They observed in real time evolutionary events that enabled the bacteria to thrive in new conditions.
Go ahead and read about this study, Michael.
Hoo
Michael,
DeleteYou've managed to write so many misconceptions in such a short space. Children aren't prevented from praying on public school grounds in America. If they want, they can form a Bible study group operating during free time in school. What is prohibited is the use of public money to fund the activities. A school teacher could sit at the back of the Bible study group, but is not allowed to take part in or lead the group.
We might never know how life arose. There are chemical fossils of life in the form of different ratios of carbon isotopes in rocks 3.8 billion years old, around 200 million years after the Earth had cooled sufficiently from its formation.
Thinking that we should be able to recreate life in the confined space of laboratories within decades is just silly, considering that the Earth had tens of millions of years and its entire surface. And we don't know where life started - or the prevailing conditions.
Science doesn't prove theories. It just fails to disprove them. Evolution could be disproved by one observation - that's all it would take.
It's the reason why evolution is science and Intelligent Design and teleological evolution aren't. Evolution could be disproved, but hasn't. Intelligent Design and teleological evolution can't be disproved because any observation can be twisted to fit the theories.
I wonder why Egnor so objects to remingtonocetids? Because God saw fit to create them for unknown reasons, and then allowed them to go extinct, again for unknown reasons, after 7.5 million years?
They appeared shortly after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago itself due to an out-gassing of methane from deep sea deposits of methane clathrate resulting in an increase of atmospheric CO2 equivalent to that potentially possible if we burn all the known reserves of fossil fuels, and also a temperature increase of 7 degrees Celsius and a minor mass extinction.
It also favoured artiodactyla (even toed ungulates - the group which also contains whales), which underwent a global radiation.
Troy, why do you always talk about men's genitals or nipples? Nevermind! But I am curious Einstein -- how do you know God gave Adam nipples?
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Love it! Lenskis bacteria as proof of evolution. No evolution in Lenskis bacteria. In fact, it is evidence for Behes Edge of Evolution. The experiment demonstrates conclusively that mutations could never create the irreducible complex molecular machines and complex novel new organs. Lenskis bacteria are still bacteria. Citrate metabolism? No cigar. The genes were already there. Lenskis bacteria did prove one thing -- how delusional Darweenies are.
ReplyDeleteBig Rich,
DeleteSo what do you expect to see if evolution is true?
Big Rich: " Lenskis bacteria are still bacteria. Citrate metabolism? No cigar. The genes were already there."
DeleteWhich genes were already there, Rich? Could you be a little more specific?
Hoo
You tell me, Bch, Hoo. Where is the evolution in Lenski's bacteria? What's it been, 50,000 generations? Shouldn't they have grown some legs by now and walked out of the petri dish? You guys always equivocate on evolution. Any slight adaptation is evolution even if it comes from a loss of genetic information. And of course it isn't just equivocation. It's also the impossibility of falsification. No matter what Lenski's bacteria did or didn't do, it would "tell us a lot about evolution." Bull Shit! It is complete and utter BULL SHIT! (Pardon my French). What we see in Lenski's bacteria -- under immense artificial selection pressure -- is stasis. and stasis is what dominates the fossil record. The fact that you guys believe in evolution with religious devotion in the face of the counter evidence says everything that can be said about the fallen nature of man's intellect. Jesus was always saying, "he who has ears to ear." You don't have ears to ear or eyes to see. You are willfully blind.
ReplyDeleteDid you bother to read anything about the experiment, Rich, or do you just riff from memory? Why don't you find out how their E. coli gained the ability to live off citrate, something they hadn't been able to do normally? Why don't you learn how many mutations were involved in this?
DeleteDo your homework and come back. Otherwise it's not worth wasting my time.
Hoo
Big Rich,
DeleteI thought so - what you'd expect to see, if evolution is true, that the E. coli Lenski cultured would have 'grown some legs by now and walked out of the petri dish' would actually disprove evolution.
The bacteria weren't under intense selection pressure - not compared to their nature environment in the colons of vertebrates (aerobes living in an anaerobic environment with only an occasional whiff of oxygen).
They were in the bacterial idea of paradise - plenty of food, no predators and absolute freedom to divide as much as they wanted. And the more each bacterium divided the more likely was it that its clones would by chance be included in the random sample taken at the end of each day to be cultured the next day in a new flask.
Favourable mutations led to more offspring and a greater probability of being carried on.
Bacteria will always remain bacteria, if cultured by themselves. There are 3 domains of life - (eu)bacteria, Archaea (bacteria) and eukaryotes (cells with nuclei - which make up 'complex' life such as amoeba and vertebrates).
Eukaryotes were derived from a fusion between an Archaea (bacterium) and a (eu)bacterium, the Archaea comprising most of the new cell, including the nucleus, and the (eu)bacterium certain cellular organelles such as the mitochondrion and the chloroplast (in plants).
How is a single (eu)bacterium such as E. coli on its own going to produce anything more complex than a bacterium?
Stasis in fossils is easily explained. Speciation is allopatric - a single population of one species is divided into two populations by a new geographical barrier, one very large (which provides all the fossils from the species) and one very small and localised (which provides no fossils).
Small localised populations evolve faster than larger more widely spread populations mainly because they're exposed to more intense and uniform selection pressure. And then the environment changes, the geographical barrier disappears and the two populations merge. If the smaller population is better suited to the new conditions it outcompetes the larger population which disappears, including in the fossil record.
Find an anti-evolution crackpot, and the next thing out of his mouth after "I don't understand evolution" is "Jesus this" and "Jesus that". Guaranteed.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost as if Christianity causes stupidity. Imagine that.
As opposed to what, universes magically exploding into existence, complete with laws which give everything a functional purpose, and life which magically creates itself? Logical absurdity. Those guys in lab coats with degrees hanging on their walls just can't be wrong. Science has become the creed of the religion that is atheism.
ReplyDeleteBacteria is bacteria -- it will never gradually transform into a new species. Adaptation does not constitute for evolution, no way no how. Certain insects can adapt to new conditions and develop immunity to various toxins, however, they'll always remain the same. All that adaptation proves is that there's a built-in mechanism for accomplishing such.
Christianity teaches us the truth, gives us a set of moral conduct to live by and provides hope for the afterlife. It also offers non-profit hospitals, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, community centers, home care, orphanages, et al. Sure beats living under communist rule.
Michael, are you saying it’s impossible for an isolated population to accumulate enough “adaptation” that it no longer breeds with the parent population? What exactly makes it impossible?
Delete-KW
You guys are so funny. Complete delusion is always great comedy. At the rate it's going, how long before the bacteria grows legs and crawls out of the Petri dish, Hoo? I would like an estimate. It's you that need to do your homework, but it wouldn't matter. Whatever happens is always evolution. Unfalsifiable and insignificant but tremendous evidence for evoultion. Hilarious delusion. Nothing in Lenskis bacteria supports the idea that irreducibility complex novel new organs will ever show up. In 50,000 generations or 50,000,000,000,000 generations but because of your commitment to your religion, you believe this complete horse shit by faith. You guys are more delusional that the craziest cult. Scientology has nothing on you folks. As Darwinism continues to fall apart, and join alchemy on the dust bin of worthless ideas, it is amazing to watch the desperation of its most devoted believers. You guys never disappoint.
ReplyDeleteCreationists are good at ankle biting, but once they are asked to present some theory of their own, it's a laugh riot.
DeleteCould you define for us what you mean by irreducible complexity, Big Rich? Behe's concept, I will remind you, was half-baked and his examples (e.g. the blood-clotting cascade) turned out to be reducible. Maybe you can do better than him.
The author of that linked counter example is Ken Miller, a professor of biology at Brown, and a practicing Catholic. So leave your atheism inferiority complex behind.
Hoo
Here's a bit of homework for you woefully ignorant evos. Your assignment is to read and tell me why I should believe that at some future date we will see something other than E. coli in Lenskis petri- dish. Telling me to take a leap of faith like you all have done is unacceptable. I need a hard time estimate of when I can expect a new species to emerge. I'm making it easy for you. I am not asking for the pathway and time needed for complex new organs but you true believers should be asking yourselves that (I won't hold my breath).. I just want a new species of bacteria. That should be easy for your Almighty Darwin.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/rose-colored_gl066361.html.
Rich, we all can throw around URL links. Making an actual argument is a lot harder. Let's see how well you understand biology to begin with.
DeleteHow do you define species in non-sexually reproducing organisms such as bacteria?
Do you know how biologists distinguish E. coli from other bacteria? (Hint: this involves citrate.)
Hoo
Big Rich, you've got to admire the rigor with which they dress their ideology up as science while simultaneously contradicting it.
DeleteJust to create a computer requires various materials and extensive technical knowledge of coding which must first be written and compiled and some form of processor must be designed to run the rest of the circuitry board. Further, there needs to be a power supply and everything has to work cohesively in order for the computer to function. All of this requires intelligent guidance.
Another ad absurdity of evolution is that it would necessarily require billions of incremental, beneficial steps in order to arrive at all the life around today. In other words, it would take trillions of years, not billions as they suggest. First, first life would need appear from non-life, miraculously. Then it would need to be able to multiply without the assistance of sexual organs. After that, each incremental little evolutionary feature would need to be sustained via constant reproduction, somehow. After that, it would need to develop tissue, organs, reproductive organs, et al. and eventually separate into distinct species. All the while, what is sustaining all this primordial life and what mechanism would enable it to gradually accumulate the information necessary to become a more complex life-form? The theory of evolution doesn't even pass the small test because it isn't science -- it is ideology.
Michael:
DeleteThen it would need to be able to multiply without the assistance of sexual organs.
Hahaha. That's a good one. What creationist website did you copy that from?
"Them crazy godless biologists expect us to believe that God's creatures can multiply without a man's penis sowing his seed in a woman's womb? That's unbiblical crazy talk I tell y'all. Hallelujah"
Keep up the good work, Michael. You're doing a fine job making creationists looking like lunatics.
troy, you haven't produced a shred of evidence for evolution. Logic isn't your strong suit, I see. Show me a living creature that suddenly develops a new organ via evolution. *pffft*
DeleteNever gonna happen.
Michael,
DeleteEvolution is parallel not sequential. There might be 10 million living species - each of which has a history (often overlapping with others) going back 3.8 billion years.
Each living species evolves together with its neighbours not independently.
Sexual reproduction didn't develop until about 2 billion years ago. Sex, as in internal fertilisation (requiring external sex organs), didn't develop until about 500 million years ago.
Anyway. Science doesn't prove theories. It fails to disprove them. If you have evidence against evolution, then what is it?
By the way, an example of a species developing a new organ due to evolution is provided by the Italian wall lizard Podarcis secula which was transplanted to the Adriatic Island of Mrcara in 1971 where it eats more vegetation than insects (its usual food). In 2008, the Mrcara population was found to have developed as a new feature caecal valves, which allows it to digest the cellulose in its vegetation diet.
Boy Troy? Where's my answer? I asked you how you knew that God gave Adam nipples? You're not running away are you?
ReplyDeleteWhy would Adam not have nipples? Nipples are as useless in men now as they would have been then, so no reason to think they were absent.
DeleteThe more pertinent question debated by theologians was whether Adam had a navel. What do you think, Rich? Did God equip Adam with a navel just for fun or was Adam without one?
And while we're at it, if God made man in His own image, does God have a penis? What for?
Hoo
Boy Troy/Hoo, you're avoiding the question. Let me state it again and perhaps you can answer directly this time. Here it is: How do you know God gave Adam nipples or a navel? So to simplify it for you since it must be too difficult for you, the question is, "HOW DO YOU KNOW?
DeleteRich, I know for a fact that God gave Adam nipples. He told me last night at the bar.
DeleteHoo
I know that God gave Adam nipples, because all of the paintings of the Garden of Eden showed him with nipples (and a navel).
DeleteAnd no theologian complained about the depiction being wrong.
If they can't get the minor points right, what is the chance they're right on the major points?
Hoo, are you ignoring your homework? Please read the article and reply to it point by point, and demonstrate to me you understand the genetic pathways necessary to create novel, new, irreducibly complex organs that would make E Coli something other than E Coli and I'm still waiting on your time prediction. How long before E Coli walks out of the petri dish as a complex new organism? If you're not going to answer, I can't be sure that I'm not wasting my time talking to an uneducated, ignorant fool. As it stands, the jury is still out on you. Troy is apparently a adolescent living in his parents basement and you appear to be a 40 year old living in his parents basement.
ReplyDeleteAnd who the fuck are you to boss me around, Rich? You don't know squat about biology, as far a I am concerned, and can only copy and paste BS from ENV.
DeleteHoo
You can't even bother to express in your own words Behe's questions. Why would I bother to respond? Instead, I can point you to an article rebutting Behe's.
DeleteYou want that?
Hoo
Hahaha! Ooooooh! Scary! What's wrong, Hoo,hoo? Like to dish it out but can't handle it? Do they give a class on evasive responses when you join the Darwineey Club?
ReplyDeleteScary? I haven't seen a shred of an original thought from you, Big Rich. You just recycle stuff from ENV. Copy and paste, copy and paste. Nothing interesting.
DeleteCheers,
Hoo
Logic really isn't your strong suit is it, HooHoo? Whether I copied and pasted is irrelevant to the point. The point is -- your claim that bacteria have evolved is complete BS. Whether I refute it with original content or present Dr Behe to do it -- it is still refuted -- or at least left in doubt enough that a reasonable person would not be so dogmatic, but not you guys. Why is that? Because it is religion to you. You believe by faith. The sooner you come to grips with that the better off you'll be and you might even be able to do some original thinking of your own for once in your life.
DeleteLOL. What about Ken Miller? He is a Catholic and yet he doesn't buy Behe's arguments.
DeleteIn fact, I have previously linked to Miller's rebuttal to Behe, so I suppose you need a new argument. By your veritable standards!
Tata,
Hoo
Tell your parents I said hello when you go back to their basement tonight, hoohoo.
ReplyDelete