tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post1927868005760322473..comments2024-03-16T05:00:38.826-04:00Comments on Egnorance: 'Darwin predicted nested hierarchies'!mregnorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-11818964012409241852014-02-06T20:18:26.677-05:002014-02-06T20:18:26.677-05:00What could possibly be the difference between &quo...What could possibly be the difference between "within" and "subordinate to"? Is it like, "giraffes are subordinate to lions because lions are the king of the jungle?"Lenoxushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10809085020841868387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-37411262577773771622013-04-11T07:42:36.883-04:002013-04-11T07:42:36.883-04:00Late to the party-
Darwin's tree was groups s...Late to the party-<br /><br />Darwin's tree was groups subordinate to groups. Nested hierarchies require groups within groups.<br /><br />Cladograms are semi-nested. Phylogenetic trees are non-nested. Only Linnean classification is a nested hierarchy.Joe Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08305194278121208230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-54690661166889274702012-07-12T11:00:14.981-04:002012-07-12T11:00:14.981-04:00Bach,
"I suppose CrusadeRex will pop in one...Bach, <br /><br />"I suppose CrusadeRex will pop in one of his usual comments about me being a nihilist. I'm not. I'm an optimist. Humans are intelligent social animals, and as such, we're deeply concerned with what happens to other humans, ones we don't even know."<br /><br />Why should I bother when you make such an excellent case all by yourself over weeks and weeks of commentary? <br />I am glad you have embraced some sort of ideology that permits compassion and caring as reasonable emotions. No need for me to refute that, whatever you call it. If my critiques, or those of others have reinforced this in your mind - this is a good thing.<br />Baby steps.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14739783974158130525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-84634107546063106572012-07-12T07:49:04.254-04:002012-07-12T07:49:04.254-04:00OK, maybe I'm clueless (IANAB), or maybe you d...OK, maybe I'm clueless (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL" rel="nofollow">IANAB</a>), or maybe you did not convey your analogy sufficiently well. <br /><br />But let's take this analogy and see whether it makes sense. Let's see if there is selection pressure. Would cancers cell get any advantage (and thus procreate faster) if they turned into neurons? <br /><br />And furthermore, even if some small advantage were conveyed, the cells die along with the organism. Cells in the next organism will have to start from scratch. This cancer model of evolution lacks cumulative selection (something I have already pointed out).oleghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11644793385433232819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-28559583807340271622012-07-12T07:11:12.926-04:002012-07-12T07:11:12.926-04:00Michael,
And I can't believe that your are so...Michael,<br /><br />And I can't believe that your are so clueless about oncology that you make the analogy.<br /><br />Daughter tumor cells don't inherit anything from the original tumor cells. They are clones of the original tumor cells. If they acquire mutations, then they generally harm themselves rather than the host.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-682382876844583842012-07-12T06:12:29.915-04:002012-07-12T06:12:29.915-04:00[One problem with this little theory: variation pr...[One problem with this little theory: variation produced by cancer is not heritable.]<br /><br />Of course it is heritable-- by the daughter cells following mitosis. In the cancer analogy, the cells are the individuals, and evolution occurs on the population of cells-- on the tumor. <br /><br />The improvements/deterioration are in the individual cells. As I noted, the cells invariably become more dysfunctional.<br /><br />I can't believe you are so clueless about biology that you didn't understand the analogy.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-46362971544034084772012-07-11T22:58:51.982-04:002012-07-11T22:58:51.982-04:00Oleg,
Too right. As Victor Stenger noted in his ...Oleg,<br /><br />Too right. As Victor Stenger noted in his latest book 'the Folly of Faith', a scientific theory is a model of reality, not reality itself. All we can say is that the model is consistent with all the data that the real world throws at us. Models can be disproved by brute ugly facts, one will do.<br /><br />Michael's approach explains everything and explains nothing. Everything can be made to be consistent with his worldview, and nothing will conflict with it, ever. And he makes the unsupported unproven assertion that there's an invisible God who cares deeply about humansbachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-33590534651736656632012-07-11T22:43:17.483-04:002012-07-11T22:43:17.483-04:00Egnor: Again, what Darwin offered that was somewha...Egnor: <i>Again, what Darwin offered that was somewhat original was the assertion that hierarchy was the consequence of common descent, not common form/design, and that such evolution was the consequence of RM + NS.</i> <br /><br />Hah, another concession! <br /><br />It is in fact this hypothesis that justifies the reliance on morphology and genetics to build phylogenies. Evolution through heritable variation means continuous changes are responsible for the branchings of the tree. Thus closely related taxa have much in common both in the phenotype and in the genotype. This is why we infer that the smaller the changes, the more closely related the two taxons are. Darwin's theory <i>requires</i> that continuity. And that's precisely what paleontologists are constantly looking for: transitional forms between taxa, both extant and extinct. And finding them. <br /><br />Egnor: <i>Darwinists infer common ancestry primarily from morphological and genetic hierarchies. It is circular reasoning to then assert that the hierarchies thus generated transcend morphology and genetics. </i> <br /><br />It's not circular reasoning, it's how scientific theories are tested. (How many times do we need to go through them?) There is no scientific theory that is not circular in this sense. It's not a logical proof. You make predictions on the basis of your theory and test them empirically. That part—empirical testing—is what makes science non-circular. And you somehow keep missing that. Darwin's theory could be disproven by empirical findings, not by pure logic as you are trying to.oleghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11644793385433232819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-19450072152531512742012-07-11T22:33:50.730-04:002012-07-11T22:33:50.730-04:00Michael,
No. Cancer isn't random mutation an...Michael,<br /><br />No. Cancer isn't random mutation and natural selection. Tumors arise, if they arise as a result of mutations, as a result of mutations within non-random genes, tumor suppressing genes (turning them off) or tumor enhancing genes (up regulating the genes). These genes have other more important functions within development, and tumors are just a byproduct.<br /><br />The type of tumor can often be predicted, just by knowing the genetic abnormality, without looking at the tumor under the microscope. The genetic abnormality is that specific and non random.<br /><br />Tumors often progress and accumulate increasing numbers of mutations, becoming more bizarre. It's easy to get distracted and to regard the bizarre giant tumor cells within the tumor as being the bad actors within the tumor and the survivors in a process of 'natural selection' within the tumors, but usually they're lethally damaged, can't divide (explaining their bizarre form) and are destined to die. And to ignore the background of more normal appearing tumor cells with the specific non random mutations which are going to kill the patient.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-48142018159447716472012-07-11T22:30:21.587-04:002012-07-11T22:30:21.587-04:00One problem with this little theory: variation pro...One problem with this little theory: variation produced by cancer is not heritable.oleghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11644793385433232819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-71552179912972930822012-07-11T22:14:06.009-04:002012-07-11T22:14:06.009-04:00Michael,
You're becoming more incoherent. It...Michael,<br /><br />You're becoming more incoherent. It isn't 'random variation'. It's 'natural variation'. Variation within populations isn't random. It's determined by the genes in the population. Mutations within a gene may or may not have an effect - the mutation within the gene may be neutral or near neutral - but there has to be the gene (or rather the gene variant, the allele). The gene has to be in the population - which isn't random - for a mutation to have an effect.<br /><br />And natural selection is a non-teleological mechanism. It's not 'survivors survive', an acausal statistical observation or a causal teleological mechanism. The central point of natural selection is that organisms have many more offspring than can survive without irreparably damaging its environment and starving itself to death.<br /><br />Not all of its offspring can or will survive, and some of non-survival is genetic, due to the specific combination of specific genes in the parents. And some of it is just blind bad luck. A young emperor penguin may be fortunate in inheriting the optimal combination of genes from its parents, making it the fastest, strongest, most clever penguin around, but if it chooses by ill luck to dive into the Southern Ocean for the first time in front of the mouth of a hiding hungry leopard seal, then it's gone.<br /><br />Nature doesn't care about individuals - there's always others around. It also doesn't care about species, since about 99.9% of species have gone extinct. That might disturb your sense of personal and species worth, thinking that you and humans are special in the eyes of 'God', but you're deluded.<br /><br />I suppose CrusadeRex will pop in one of his usual comments about me being a nihilist. I'm not. I'm an optimist. Humans are intelligent social animals, and as such, we're deeply concerned with what happens to other humans, ones we don't even know.<br /><br />Convergent evolution doesn't indicate teleology. All it's means that non-related species develop similar structures as a result of different problems in their environment. Bat wings and bird wings are convergent on flight, but they probably arose via different routes. Birds probably arose via small feathered theropods jumping and flapping their forelimbs attempting to catch flying insects. Bats probably arose from small basal rodent-like mammals falling part gliding from trees.<br /><br />There's no teleological target of flight being a very good idea in the far distant future. The dodo on Mauritius in the 17th century couldn't suddenly decide that it would be a very good idea to regain active flight with the approach of bored English and Dutch sailors looking for 'sport'.<br /><br />You're just wrong. Natural variation and natural selection do generate beauty in nature (although beauty is in the eyes of the beholder - is a spider beautiful? Many people don't. I personally think they are, and I love to study jumping spiders close up, if I'm fortunate enough to have one run across my hand - and to look into its 8 eyes with my two, and to wonder what it sees).<br /><br />You still haven't refuted the point that your beliefs fall in the ID spectrum, which includes everything from Paul Nelson's YEC to Michael Behe's acceptance of virtually all evolutionary biology, save some things, such as the bacterial flagellum and chloroquine resistance in malaria parasites (so God can kill humans more efficiently?)bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-19132157849654094632012-07-11T21:52:03.148-04:002012-07-11T21:52:03.148-04:00Cancer is random mutation and natural selection on...Cancer is random mutation and natural selection on crack. <br /><br />It is purely destructive.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-16993237521408039292012-07-11T21:49:58.141-04:002012-07-11T21:49:58.141-04:00oleg:
There's no question that Darwin based h...oleg:<br /><br />There's no question that Darwin based his tree on putative common ancestry, unlike trees based on morphology.<br /><br />But most inferences to common ancestry are based on morphology (and now on genetics), which inherently form the basis for phyletic hierarchies without the need for invocation of common ancestry. <br /><br />Darwinists infer common ancestry primarily from morphological and genetic hierarchies. It is circular reasoning to then assert that the hierarchies thus generated transcend morphology and genetics. <br /><br />Again, what Darwin offered that was somewhat original was the assertion that hierarchy was the consequence of common descent, not common form/design, and that such evolution was the consequence of RM + NS.<br /><br />You overstate his actual contributions.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-33247342322410393962012-07-11T21:41:31.704-04:002012-07-11T21:41:31.704-04:00Egnor: Random variation and natural selection is a...Egnor: <i>Random variation and natural selection is a destructive process. </i> <br /><br />It is destructive in the sense that organisms die. They die sooner or later. However, some—those that are better fit to the environment—tend to leave more offspring than their less fit counterparts. Fitness can thus improve as time goes on. <br /><br />Egnor: <i>It cannot account for the beautiful life we observe.</i> <br /><br />Why not? You have made no argument here, just an assertion.oleghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11644793385433232819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-58825262575820247402012-07-11T21:28:05.041-04:002012-07-11T21:28:05.041-04:00Teleology is the cause of causes, and the cause of...<i>Teleology is the cause of causes, and the cause of evolution.</i><br /><br />Teleology is the definition of a "just-so" story.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-14208587797256768232012-07-11T20:49:21.148-04:002012-07-11T20:49:21.148-04:00Peepster: Teleology is an unsupported assertion th...Peepster: Teleology is an unsupported assertion that claims to be a cause. It is a false comfort to think of teleology is a cause, primarily for the reason as explained as long ago as Bacon that a teleological cause is going to be beyond any human ability to assess.<br /><br />In short, teleology is a fairy tale told by adults to make themselves feel better, but it has no explanatory power at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-29814678234643402752012-07-11T20:43:43.870-04:002012-07-11T20:43:43.870-04:00Let's look at the quibbles Egnor has with my c...Let's look at the quibbles Egnor has with my comment. <br /><br />Egnor: <i>Darwin didn't predict that "clades form a nested hierarchy", for two reasons: 1) A clade is a nested hierarchy, as a matter of definition. </i> <br /><br />Darwin of course didn't use the term <i>clade</i>—it was only invented in 1958. Darwin's original formulation of the tree-of-life hypothesis is too long to cite, but it can be found <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(science)#Darwin.27s_Tree_of_Life" rel="nofollow">here</a>. It is not a trivially true statement. Different species could, in principle, have independent origins. <br /><br />Today's formulation is not a trivially true statement, either. Although clades form a hierarchy by definition, the nontrivial part of the formulation is that (groups of) organisms form clades. It's just another way of saying that there is a tree of life.<br /><br />Egnor: <i>2) The categorization of living things into nested hierarchies is 2000 years old, and the modern system of taxonomy incorporating nested hierarchies was developed a century before Darwin's birth. Darwin did not "predict" the system of taxonomy based on nested hierarchies. He offered an explanation for it. An atheist explanation for it.</i> <br /><br />This point is simply wrong. Darwin's tree of life was not merely a just-so explanation of an older taxonomic system, say, Linnaean. He proposed an entirely new way to classify taxa. One that could be potentially wrong and thus open to falsification. That set it apart from all of the previous taxonomic systems, from Aristotelean to Linnaean. Let me explain. <br /><br />All of the previous taxonomic systems were based on subjective choices of their authors. They grouped plants and animals by certain characteristics suitably chosen by the authors. Aristotle's classification is different from Linnaeus's, but neither is wrong in any objective sense. They subjectively draw the lines and then placed organisms within that scheme. The only type of error they could make would be to misclassify an organism within their own personal scheme. The artificial nature of this classification is responsible for the existence of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wastebasket_taxon" rel="nofollow">wastebasket taxa</a>—organisms that didn't fit anywhere else. <br /><br />Thanks to Darwin, we now have an entirely different, objective (at least in principle) approach to taxonomy. There are no organized groups as in previous taxonomies: no kingdoms, phyla, or classes. Just a tree of species. Whenever two species diverge from each other, the tree branches out. The resulting tree has none of the neatness of the Linnaean taxonomy; in fact, it is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_life_SVG.svg" rel="nofollow">big mess</a> (and that figure is just a tiny portion of it). The advantage of the new scheme, however, is that it gives an objective way to determine the degree of relatedness between taxa, for the simple reason that it is <i>based</i> on ancestral relations! <br /><br />The objectivity comes at a price: it is not an easy task to figure out ancestral relationships between species, not in the least because the ancestors are dead. Fortunately, there are ways to obtain that information indirectly, e.g. through genetic analysis. <br /><br />It's true that Linnaean taxonomy agrees, to a considerable extent, with modern phylogenies. Particularly when it comes to relatively closely related taxa. That means that the subjective choices made by Linnaeus were sensible. But it never occurred to him that birds were relatives of reptiles and both groups were related to mammals. He placed all three in separate classes. <br /><br />So no, Darwin didn't just put some gloss on Linnaean taxonomy. He changed the way biologists classify taxa entirely.oleghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11644793385433232819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-78122290610320351352012-07-11T20:17:01.654-04:002012-07-11T20:17:01.654-04:00bach,
[Darwin proposed the only mechanism, natura...bach,<br /><br />[Darwin proposed the only mechanism, natural selection, that potentially causes speciation. It isn't a tautology, as your idiotic summary of it as 'survivors survive' tries to make it.]<br /><br />Natural selection isn't a mechanism, unless you consider it teleological.<br /><br />Natural selection can mean three things (vide supra)<br /><br />1) Survivors survive. <br />2) Acasual statistical observation<br />3) Casual mechanism.<br /><br />1 is tautological, 2 is not a mechanism (but good science), and 3 is, on close inspection, teleological, in which case 'natural selection" is superfluous.<br /><br />My own view is that the general scheme of evolution as currently understood is right, more or less. But it is a teleological process-- there are forms to which organisms evolve. <br /><br />Convergent evolution is a particularly obvious example of this. <br /><br />"random variation and natural selection" misses the important point. <br /><br />Teleology is the cause of causes, and the cause of evolution.<br /><br />The extent to which one can make the inference to God from teleology is a fair question- not all scholastic philosophers, including devout Christians, agree that teleology gets you to God.<br /><br />But teleology is real, and nature cannot be understood without it.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-37430086717368506552012-07-11T20:08:30.176-04:002012-07-11T20:08:30.176-04:00bach- your question about my own views on evolutio...bach- your question about my own views on evolution is a good one. I'll try to post on it soon.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-82885210055040683652012-07-11T20:06:42.922-04:002012-07-11T20:06:42.922-04:00The point about tumors is fairly straightforward. ...The point about tumors is fairly straightforward. <br /><br />A tumor is a great model of a Darwinian process. Billions of cells, Robust variation, rapid division, natural selection like there's no tomorrow (sorry-pun). <br /><br />Indeed, surviving tumor cells do survive, at least until the host dies.<br /><br />But tumor cells degenerate with time (eg glioblastoma). They don't evolve more elegant glia or neurons. They evolve monsters. <br /><br />Random variation and natural selection is a destructive process. It cannot account for the beautiful life we observe.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-73761374844864327142012-07-11T19:49:02.787-04:002012-07-11T19:49:02.787-04:00Michael,
I was waiting for you to comment on my c...Michael,<br /><br />I was waiting for you to comment on my continuation. However, since no one knows what ID actually is (and Stephen Meyer, an ID proponent, and Paul Nelson, a young earth creationist, managed to cooperate in making an ID science pornography film 'Darwin's Dilemma' on the Cambrian radiation 540 MYA - how's that for cognitive dissonance on the part of Paul Nelson?), your perspective of Thomistic philosophy and teleology fits ID.<br /><br />If it doesn't, then you need to expand on your beliefs, giving mechanisms, and explaining how you think the world got to its present state from the beginning 4.55 billion years. Not in detail. Just a very broad outline.<br /><br />Incidentally, 'Darwin's Dilemma' used exactly the same analogy of automobile manufacture as an example of common design. Did you get it from that source?<br /><br />Also your article on the intelligent design/Discovery Institute website regarding brain tumours, with its mutations and increased 'complexity' (which no one has provided a way of quantifying), as never leading to increased function - cognition etc - is just stupid.<br /><br />For a start, almost all brain tumours are glial, the supporting cells, and rarely neuronal. The high grade tumours, save tumours such as medulloblastomas and neuroblastomas, are glial. Glial cells do moderate brain function, but in a structured arrangement of cells. A haphazard arrangement of uncontrolled proliferating tumour cells won't be effectively structured.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-53270563724111827132012-07-11T19:41:07.355-04:002012-07-11T19:41:07.355-04:00Pépé,
Thanks, mate. I appreciate the feedback.
&...Pépé,<br />Thanks, mate. I appreciate the feedback. <br /><br />"If he was alive today Darwin would surely side with Wallace and acknowledge that life needs intelligence to flourish."<br />I tend to agree with you here, Pépé. In light of various discoveries and historical events, I think he probably would too. <br /><br />"The reason I think he stopped enjoying chewing gum is the loss of his daughter that devastated him."<br />Yes, I have often wondered about that too. If so, it is completely understandable too. <br />Such a loss is a horrible burden and can have the effect of shattering a man's faith in God, purpose, and all things sacred. It leaves one wondering 'why', and often the conclusion reached in such dark times is that there is no 'why' at all.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14739783974158130525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-70171621327440265722012-07-11T19:22:40.390-04:002012-07-11T19:22:40.390-04:00Oleg,
"I'd like to see the relevance of ...Oleg,<br /><br />"I'd like to see the relevance of his faith to his science."<br />The relevance is in the fact that it is possible to be both a chewer and a walker. One does not have to make the choice in order to be reasonable or to achieve greatness in ones field. In fact they can compliment each other quite nicely. The argument from the extremes is that science and faith are mutually exclusive. That is just not the truth. <br />Whether it is an anti-religious atheist telling me I am a superstitious idiot, or a religious fanatic telling me I do not know god because I value scientific endeavour - It's just not true. <br /><br />"Chewing gum was entirely optional."<br />Sure it was. I agree. Weinberg was not hindered by his atheism, and Salam was not hindered by his faith.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14739783974158130525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-38880725899100856582012-07-11T18:53:57.069-04:002012-07-11T18:53:57.069-04:00Michael,
... (continued). Darwin proposed the onl...Michael,<br /><br />... (continued). Darwin proposed the only mechanism, natural selection, that potentially causes speciation. It isn't a tautology, as your idiotic summary of it as 'survivors survive' tries to make it.<br /><br />Individuals never survive, they all die. Individuals don't evolve. Species evolve (strictly speaking, separate isolated interbreeding populations evolve). If you'd written 'surviving species survive' then you would have got the gist of evolutionary biology.<br /><br />Darwin's other insight was that evolution was slow and gradual. Predictably, you'll want to bring up Punctuated Equilibrium, but if you go back to your thread on Maxwell, you'll find my answer. It isn't a problem for Darwin's theory.<br /><br />Common ancestry isn't based on similar morphology, but also on similar genetics. Humans have the FOXP2 protein differing in just two amino acids from our closest relative, the chimp, which differs from the mouse in a further amino acid, and Homo neanderthalis is identical with humans. Drosophila melanogaster (a fruit fly) has the same gene with a different function in foregut development). In humans, mutations in FOXP2 cause facial dyspraxia making speech difficult.<br /><br />Nature has performed your experiments on common ancestry. Oceanic islands, undisturbed by humans, tend to have few mammals (save bats and seals), snakes and amphibians, although they're perfectly suited for them, as shown by the way they overrun islands if humans are foolish enough to introduce them.<br /><br />Pre-human islands, such as the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands, had ecologies dominated by birds, which consisted of a large number of species filling every niche available.<br /><br />There's two possibilities. Either God decided for unknown reasons to put only birds on oceanic islands (and, strangely, decided to make New Zealand birds similar to Australian ones and Galapagos birds similar to South American ones). Or a small number of birds managed to reach oceanic islands, and then proceeded to evolve in an adaptive radiation to fill all the ecological niches.<br /><br />One scenario (evolution) makes predictions. The other doesn't. The God hypothesis just assumes that similarities are common design as a given. Evolution makes testable predictions. Galapagos birds will be more similar, genetically, to the South American equivalents, than to African or Australian ones, and more similar between themselves.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-30145270646940931892012-07-11T18:42:23.588-04:002012-07-11T18:42:23.588-04:00I would like to see a program that prints METHINKS...I would like to see a program that prints METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL without a fitness routine!Pépéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00896283600100217146noreply@blogger.com