Common Descent Cladograms are all Fake, Convergent Evolution Explains Everything

In one sense … yes…

In a message to @pevaquark way up in the thread. This is precisely what I pointed out. I even suggested some possible falsifications.

  1. I proposed that common ancestry would be falsified if it was proven that during the period life originated, more than one type of living organism from came into existing.
    With the current level of knowledge, this fits the data as well as common descent.
  2. I suggested New Darwinism could be falsified if it was demonstrated that random mutation and natural selection cannot lead to the diversity we see now.

Do you think this is possible…
The response I got for falsification in this forum are as below-

  1. Rabbits in the pr- Cambrian.
  2. Humans with feathers etc…

When I think about rabbits in the pre-cambrian, I wonder whether a it possible for a mammalian fossil (bones) to last 500 million plus years. If that’s impossible… it’s not falsifiability…

Common ancestry doesn’t require that there was only one initial type of living organism. It just means for example that all mammals descended from a common ancestor. Or all tetrapods descended from a common 4 legged fish.

Once a bone has mineralized it should survive. Oldest mammal fossil found dated to 125 mya. Instead of rabbits in the Cambrian how about elephants or other very large mammals in the Jurassic? We know there were mammals in the Jurassic but they are all very small.

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Well, for this to be true, when mammals “evolved” from reptiles, only one species of reptiles responded to evolutionary pressures such as natural selection and developed the traits of mammals.
And no other reptilian species followed that evolutionary path ever… Even though this happened 100s of millions of years ago and other reptile species had all the time in the world to follow along.
This looks more like a forced construct…

And the time also is limited during the original transition… once mammals evolved from reptiles… the phenomenon never repeated inspire of having many times more time… though convergent evolution seems to happen all the time…

There are a lot of steps between reptiles and mammals. See the Wikipedia article for some of the details.

Evolution is more of a walk down a path than a single step. You are proposing that the exact same path should have been followed more than once. That is like flipping a coin 1000 times and then flipping it another 1000 times and expecting the sequence to be identical in both.

Given evolution is a walk down a path it is not surprising that sometimes parts of different paths are similar.

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Okay let’s try this again.

What could have falsified evolution?

Let’s look at one of the main claims of common descent. We had pretty much the main phylogenic relationships worked out from the large number of fossils alone. Something like this let’s say:

And then common descent had a HUGE chance to be falsified when we began sequencing genomes. If these trees were garbage, then the genes would tell us! But alas, despite a few small surprises, the phylogenic organization based upon fossils matches that of genes. And not only that, but genes match much greater than they have to in order to produce similar function. Here is an example of what I am referring to:

Humans do not have to be anywhere close to chimipanzees in terms of our DNA, but out of the parts that can be compared, we share 95%+ of that. That is not a requirement for similar function at all.

Common descent would have been completely falsified if we found that was the case with the human genome vs. other primates… but it wasn’t.

A lack of actual fossils would have falsified evolution. But most pretend such fossils do not exist and the lie that there are no ‘transitional fossils is hogwash.’ Here is one of my favorites:

About 200 million years old we literally see what would later become known as the mammalian jaw structure side by side with the reptilian structure!

Fossils out of order- that would falsify evolution as well!

You come in here and make the claim with no merit whatsoever:

I think one problem that a lot of us have is that we are simply unaware of the fossil record. @Bill_II has already pointed out that from the eras we do have mammalian fossils, they appear in particular orders–like ‘we don’t see any Elephants in the Jurrasic’–that’s a nice one Bill! Speaking of elephants, here for example is something we see with what later became elephant feet (but these fossils don’t appear until ~60 million years):

You actually would falsify evolution if traits/genes do not appear in nested hierarchies. That was the point of the feathers on humans. Instead what we see are several atavisms and once functional genes (like the vitamin C producing GULO) that can appear but only because evolution does not make large leaps and bounds generation by generation.

I’ve already explained several mechanisms behind this beyond ‘random mutations’ that apparently you just ignored. If you were taking it seriously then you would have adjusted your falsification list by now.

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Now that is an amusing objection.

There are some people who think that if you run thousands of generations of fruit flies in a laboratory, where the environment never changes (compared to the real world, in the field), with no inter-species rivals, no predators, and no food shortage… they are still supposed to change into something else.

That’s a hoot. Ignorance isn’t.

And eliminating ignorance is my mission:

image

Sam Gon, III writes:

“The common ancestor of birds and mammals … occurred at the split of the Sauropsida (Reptiles) and Synapsida (ancestors of mammal-like reptiles). The distinctive temporal fenestra in the ancestral synapsid first appears about 312 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous period.”

“Although the mammal-like reptiles (Therapsida) appeared as early as 285 million years ago, nearly all were driven extinct in the end-Permian extinction crisis 245 million years ago that erased 90% of life on Earth.”

"True mammals first appeared following this major extinction event that marks the start of the Mesozoic, as archosaurs of that time evolved into

  • dinosaurs and
  • birds. "

Readers will note that within the Snapsida (a class of animals that includes mammals and extinct precursor populations that are more closely related to mammals than reptiles) - - there are 3 major dead ends:

  • the Dimetrodons
  • the Dicynodontia, and
  • the Thrinaxodon.

A similar pattern can be seen on the Sauropsida (Reptile) side of the tree, with lines that were separate from Archosaurs and Turtles, but were wiped out before the present time.

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Hi Pevaquark,

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will get back to you after going through it.

Can you confirm that the evolutionary tree shared by you was developed without input from genetics/molecular studies?
It will help me if you can share the source of the material shared.

Regards.

More ignorance.

One thing noted by evolutionists is that during the time of dinosaur hegemony, mammals were mostly small, and had physiologies for hunting and digesting insects.

It wasn’t until dinosaurs were gone that mammals started to get bigger, and eat things other than insects.

Various branches of mammals have maintained to, various levels of completeness, the genes required to digest the tough body armor of most insects. There are 5 major kinds of genes for digesting insect body armor. (I can’t recall the technical term for this material.) Interestingly enough, humans actually still retain one of these 5 genes.

What’s my point?

In Evolution, “kinds” don’t just willy nilly differentiate into all possibilities. They can only differentiate and SURVIVE when other species and animal groupings don’t already occupy a niche better than a newcomer group would.

Mammals just DONT become big during the DINO age. Whenever one started to get bigger, dinosaurs eventually would notice them better and hunt them to extinction. Mammals never got bigger than about a badger, but most were shrew-like and shrew-sized.

Why don’t fish continue to evolve into new kinds of tetrapods? Because the descendants of the original tetrapods are brilliant at killing anything flopping around on the shoreline.

And so on.

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That’s because a creator can’t be tested for, as shown by the failure of ID proponents to do so.

It was too close to creationism because it wasn’t science. It lacked testable hypotheses.

You would first have to show us an ID based hypothesis for this to be true.

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An intelligence can make ice. We don’t conclude that icebergs are intelligently designed because humans can make ice. The hypothesis fails because it can not adequately distinguish between what is natural and what is designed.

Where have feathers been explained by convergent evolution?

The starting point for mammals would be a unique population in a unique place at a unique time. Remember evolution happens to populations not individuals. Changing the gene pool in the initial population and trying again will give you different results. That unique initial population would never be repeated and so the exact same walk will never be repeated. And you don’t have a large amount of time. Evolution is impacted by events that happen, think the dinosaur killing asteroid, and these events don’t repeat.

Here is a brief summary found on the infamous Jerry Coyne’s blog (but he summarizes the paper):

He covers a paper that used 26 genes to construct the mammalian phylogeny with some notes:
As Christofer M. Helgen points out in a Perspectives piece in the same issue, families prove to be good monophyletic groups: clades like bears, cats, and dogs all indeed fall into families determined earlier on
morphological grounds.

Also the Wikipedia page linked before highlights fossil phylogenies vs. molecular for mammals:

A random paper: some armadillo skulls also affirm both (at least for the part concerning armadillos!):
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Oldest-cingulate-skulls-provide-congruence-between-Billet-Hautier/0aadae97a6f21f230d094bc9a15f7dee4ce2038b

Whales are another excellent story where genetic evidence revealed they were more similar to hooved mammals. And then lo and behold fossils:

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Hi Brooks,

Thanks for the info. If I understand correctly, synapsids are no longer considered as reptiles… so the tree will go something like this…
Synapsids to mammals. (+Dead ends)
Sauropsida to reptiles to birds. +(Dead ends).

So reptiles will be in parallel to mammals.

Some challenges to this scenario are -

  1. Mammals and birds are warm blooded while most reptiles are not. So there seems to be a need for endothermic physiology to develop convergently somewhere along the two parallel tracks of evolution.

Associated changes are -
A heart with 4 chambers…
Changes in the expression of a regulatory gene.(interestingly the same change happened 3 times through convergent evolution!).
Details below:

Blockquote
Our findings provide a molecular mechanism for the evolution of the amniote ventricle, and support the concept that altered expression of developmental regulators is a key mechanism of vertebrate evolution.
Amphibians have a three-chambered heart, while mammalian, crocodilian, and avian hearts have four chambers, two each for pulmonary and systemic circulations. The acquisition of a fully septated ventricle has evolved independently in birds, mammals, and crocodilians10, and is an important example of convergent evolution.
Blockquote

Source:Reptilian heart development and the molecular basis of cardiac chamber evolution - PMC
Page 3.
Becoming warm blooded involves many more changes. It’s a big interlinked system. I just mentioned two.
Interestingly mammals can survive with hair on their bodies and birds can sport feathers because they are both endothermic. However, as per the evolutionary experts here, only feathers in mammals would falsify common ancestry.I am slowly learning and trying to understand how…
Haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe it will dawn on me in time.

There are many examples of homologous results achieved through convergent evolution. Let me cite two examples:

  1. endothermic physiology (being “warm blooded”. This is supposed to have have covergently evolved in birds & mammals along with a 4 chambered heart.
    Sharks and tuna fish also share similar mechanisms to control body temperature developed convergently. This is true to the level of the same gene being active. Link to paper given below:
    Substitutions in the Glycogenin-1 Gene Are Associated with the Evolution of Endothermy in Sharks and Tunas - PMC
  2. Bats and dolphins are supposed to have developed echolocation convergently. Even the genes/proteins are similar.
    Echolocation: Bats and whales behave in surprisingly similar ways | ScienceDaily
    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/hear-bats-and-whales-share-sonar-protein

Homologous enough?

This is circular reasoning. Phylogeny is based on things like feathers and mammary glands. It just proves the fact that clades are real things and don’t change easily… and I agree with that. It doesn’t prove common ancestry. Because common ancestry is not the only possible cause for clades to exist.
However, both birds and mammals are warm blooded… while reptiles are not. Crocodiles which are cold blooded have a four chambered heart which is a feature of warm bloodedness (it’s believed to have evolved from warm blooded ancestors). warm bloodedness can appear and disappear without much consideration to phylogenies relationships. So it will never be shown as a falsification for common ancestry. However, feathers will… If someone observes feathers on a mammal(god forbid!), The goal post will shift.

Lastly, there is not much difference between feathers, scales and hair in a a genetic/development perspective.
A recent study claims as below:

Blockquote
This indicates that the three types of skin appendages are homologous: the reptilian scales, the avian feathers and the mammalian hairs, despite their very different final shapes, evolved from the scales of their reptilian common ancestor.’
Blockquote
Source:Hairs, feathers and scales have a lot in common | ScienceDaily

Fethaers and hair are very different morphologically. But the same gene is responsible for their development. Though clades can be relied on to stay the same, feathers in mammals should not rock the scientific world. Evolution makes far greater claims of convergence.

Did you not read the first paper you linked completely?

At the end:

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@pevaquark

Do you get the feeling that Ashwin is going to plunge into the error about reptilian scales vs. bird feathers?
If he launches into it when I’m not around… tell him the story of PLACODES!

“Hair in mammals and feathers in birds have long been known to develop from placodes—patches of thickened skin in embryos that are created by special cells known as columnar cells. These patches had not been seen in reptile embryos, leading scientists to believe that scales were unrelated to hair and feathers. Because birds and mammals evolved from separate lineages, scientists had two hypotheses: Placodes evolved two separate yet identical times in birds and mammals, respectively, or reptiles lost them over time, whereas birds and mammals didn’t.”

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/human-hair-bird-feathers-came-reptile-scales

Thanks!

I provide this 2 year old article… because the illustration linked to it is superb!

The miracle of PLACODES !!!

http://www.els.net/WileyCDA/ElsArticle/refId-a0026601.html

I actually read the papers I cite.(and of you read what I wrote, I cited this paper as support for my argument).
My argument is that since there is little difference on a developmental/genetic level between hair, feathers and scales… and they are homologous. Mammals with feathers is not going to falsify anything about evolution/common ancestry.
I am not claiming any kind of convergent evolution with respect to this feature.

Hi Bill,

The 2015 paper does not deny convergence in echo location for bat and dolphins. It argues against the methodology of 2013 paper that claimed a convergence in 200 genes. That is still in dispute.
If you read the links I shared. You must have noticed the article describing convergence is pointing to a convergence in proteins and 6 to 7 genes involved.
This is well established as far as I know.
I am attaching a link to 2016 paper continuing along this avenue of research in aye ayes. Let me quote:

Blockquote
Specifically, there is strong consensus evidence for seven auditory
processing genes with convergent amino acid substitutions among the echolocating bats and
dolphins (Table 1), to such a degree that phylogenetic reconstructions of the predicted protein
105 sequences of these genes produce monophyletic clades of all echolocators to the exclusion of
their more closely related, non-echolocating sister taxa (Liu et al. 2010; Shen et al. 2012). While
recent suggestions of an even wider, cross-genome level of convergence (Parker et al. 2013)
have not been supported by subsequent analyses (Thomas and Hahn 2015; Zou and Zhang 2015),
the evidence for convergence at the seven genes listed in Table 1 is robust.
Blockquote
Source:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/05/12/048165.full.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjTzdqVztTbAhWMYo8KHWxuAsEQFjAIegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw0kpMxNfz_m47b5WPIGGgYQ
The first article linked describes that echo location in bats and dolphins work the same way (same frequency).

Since my claim is not related to the 2013 paper. I did not mention it. I hope this makes things clear.

You make zero sense to me, Ashwin.

You act like there is no professional methodologies involved in the study of Evolution… but I’ve already mentioned your dismissive attitude to the professions that require the training and instincts of forensic detection.

The point my own post makes is that the precursor to making feathers is in virtually all tetrapods (the placodes).

But it still takes a specific trigger gene (or genes) to harness these placodes into species specific traits.

So, while it is conceivable that humans might have some pseudo genes for turning placodes into scales… I don’t believe there are any known pseudo genes for turning placodes into feathers.

In short: your conclusion is wrong.