we are carbon based, thus we are all …? 
“Outskirts” is a 2017 student film, and being cast in it was not a positive move. Or maybe I just left out the “the” and the outskirts is considered the outer edges of a town of city, inhabited by those who do not fit in normal society.
1 Like
Biological classification is based on common ancestry through biological reproduction, not our chemical constituents. In Linnaeus’ time, classification was based physical characteristics and not on chemical makeup because in the 1700’s they didn’t even know what atoms were. We aren’t classified with calcium carbonate because we are both made from carbon.
It’s also worth noting that objects like rocks and molecules (DNA being an exception) do not form nested hierarchies. The pattern that Linnaeus discovered in life was peculiar to life, and it took 100 years before Darwin discovered why we see that specific pattern.
2 Likes
Technically true. I was thinking more of an ancestral population or ancestral group.
2 Likes
From what I understand there is no fossil or evolutionary history for mudskippers. It is pure assumption. I find this quite often in evolutionary literature. Phrases like the evolutionary history of X animal is poorly understood. Or, “it is thought”, or “it is assumed”. Here is one example of many I could cite “The early evolutionary history of bats is unclear and we don’t have answers to many questions”.
You are inferring that if certain species look similar, they have a common ancestor. I would say that since there were about 5 billion species that ever existed, that many would look similar. How could they not with 5 billion of them? This can just as well be a result of creation. I don’t think anyone can prove it either way.
I also would say that if macro evolution were true, we would be seeing all kinds of living species that are morphing into something else; not just small changes within the current species. Wouldn’t the best data be the current living species and comparing them to their ancestors? If it only takes 50-100 million years for a fish to become an amphibian, or an amphibian a reptile, why can’t we see examples of this in today’s living creatures, the ones that have been around for quite some time? It seems evolutionists believe the evolution from fish to amphibian, or amphibian to reptile, dinosaur to bird, etc could only occur one time. Why isn’t it happening all the time given that evolution is supposedly this powerhouse that created 5 billion different species? Why isn’t this type of evolution going on all the time, why just one time? Mutations are random right? We have lots of fish in the oceans, and they’ve been around a long time. So where are the ones transitioning to amphibians and are 25%/50%/75% transitioned? Where are the reptiles that are 25%.50%/75% transitioning into something else (not another reptile)? Where are the reptiles that are evolving into mammals? And, where are those dinosaurs that are transitioning from mammals?
What is assumption?
What are you expecting to see? How do you determine that a species is 50% of something that doesn’t even exist yet?
Yes, it’s called science. There are things that we have tons of evidence for, such as bats sharing common ancestry with other mammals, and things that we have less knowledge of, such as the specific morphological changes in the evolution of bats.
What you seem to forget is that we have DNA evidence. Fossils aren’t everything.
No, I’m not. I am saying that a pattern of both similarities and differences points to shared ancestry. That pattern is a nested hierarchy.
You can’t determine if a fossil is the descendant or ancestor of any other species. Fossils don’t give us enough information to determine that. However, we can use the theory of evolution to predict what types of species should have existed in the past, and then see if the fossils we do find fit that pattern. They do. For example, we find fossils that have a mixture of human and ape features, and those human features become more prominent through time.
- (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
- (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
- (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
- (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
- (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
- (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
- (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
- (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
- (I) Homo heidelbergensis, “Rhodesia man,” 300,000 - 125,000 y
- (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
- (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
- (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
- (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
- (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern
DNA is even better evidence because the genomes of living species are a direct record of their ancestry.
It is happening all of the time. How long have we been scientifically observing species? Let’s say 5,000 years. That is just 0.0005% of a 100 million year time period.
They already lived and died.
Evolutionary pathways don’t occur over and over. They happen once. You might as well ask where are the Old English speakers that are changing to modern English.
3 Likes
The same sort of phrases occur in most sciences, in fact even in archaeology and related disciplines. It’s a function of being honest while pressing forward anyway, and also a form of caution – no scientist wants to make claims that someone else might pounce on for being overconfident.
This is the “bricks can’t build a wall” fallacy, the idea that small steps do not add up to large steps.
1 Like
Good point – I was sort of groping towards that thought; you made it clear.
That’s a good comparison since language also has nested hierarchies, though the lines can and do blur due to exchange of words. It’s why there are words in ancient Hebrew we only know the meanings of because of sharing a root that goes back to an earlier language, for example Sumerian.
1 Like
This is analogous to horizontal genetic transfer that is much more common in bacteria. The loads of borrowed French words in modern English is similar to E. coli and C. difficile hooking up and passing genes to one another (something I have used in the lab).
Languages aren’t a perfect analogy for evolution, but no analogy is perfect.
2 Likes
That evolutionary niche is already filled by mammals, so there is no driving force to move that direction. It is a fallacy to think that evolution has a goal and moves toward it. Evolution is more like water, that fills the low spots rather than running uphill. Evolution may well select for traits that seem less complex and more primitive. In fact, the loss of the ability to synthesize vitamin C in humans might be an example. Or perhaps in a population that lacks the ability to do C-sections, a smaller head size may develop as the norm. Or perhaps if insect protein becomes the dominant source of nutrition, an improved ability to digest chitin may be an advantage in survival and reproduction.
2 Likes
One of the traits that is most strongly selected for in the human population is lactase persistence. This trait is due to mutations upstream of the lactase gene which promotes expression of the lactase gene throughout life instead of falling off as a juvenile.
2 Likes
Just yesterday I read an article which reported on a study that found that in countries where C-section have been practiced, medically necessary C-sections are becoming more common. One thing it noted was that the bone structure of mothers wasn’t the problem, it was that head sizes of newborns seem to be increasing.
1 Like
What would you like bats to evolve into? Let’s say bats are evolving into elephants. There are going to be problems. Elephants have a difficult time gripping the ceiling of bat caves. They are aerodynamically clumsy when chasing moths, and the pitch of their trumpeting is not suited for sonar. It would seem that bats are already pretty suited for their ecological niche, and elephant characteristics would not be helpful. So long as they are well adapted for their role, and some novel niche does not present itself, natural selection will not prefer characteristics which work against them.
As for whales, what more do you want? Their forelimbs have become flippers, they have lost most of their hind legs, their nostrils have migrated up their forehead to become blowholes, and their body layout and physiology has optimized for hydrodynamics. I would consider that something major. They are a great visible example of the impact of a profoundly different set of environmental pressures.
Because evolution is so well substantiated, those who cannot accept it often insist on attacking some caricature instead of what is actually found in nature. Given a common ancestral population which has branched, there is nothing in biology which demands that both lineages undergo the same degree and kind of selection. One population may continue largely similar in the original habitat, whereas the other goes on to optimize and radiate under entirely new selective pressures given the opportunities of a new environment. That is what happens; biologists do not tell nature what to do. So the argument of if bats evolved from bats, why are there still bats?, does not fly.
Interesting detail, St Roymond. Is there a particular country that has seen this increase in head size of newborns? I have read that women sometimes want to avoid the pain of regular delivery and/or doctors can schedule a delivery of this sort at their convenience rather than “whenever the baby feels like it.” Yes, I know we are terribly off-topic. That has NEVER happened before on this site!
1 Like
I would respond that mutations are random and don’t stop. That is what scientists have taught for years. That is how you get from one celled organisms to the tree of life. You can’t get there any other way except by tons of mutations. So, it seems strange that here we are in AD 2024 and supposedly all the current living animals are perfectly suited for their ecological niche, and so we can’t find any of them evolving, and yet this supposedly happened nonstop for 750 million years. But all of a sudden in 2024, we can’t find anything that is, and has been transitioning to something else. From this thread, many have tried to come up with a critter living today that can be shown to be transitioning to something else and have failed; a razor clam is still a razor clam, a mudskipper is still a mudskipper, a bat is a bat, a salamander is a salamander, and an elephant is an elephant, and a fruit fly remains a fruit fly after countless generations.
Fish became amphibians, amphibians became reptiles, reptiles became dinosaurs and mammals, etc. It all happened in the past, but we see no evidence of it occurring now. It’s just an emperor has no clothes theory in my opinion.
Yes. That is what scientists have observed.
But not all variation is dramatically morphological, and you are just ignoring selection.
If you actually demand to see an egg laying fish transitioning to a furry mammal in front of your eyes, then consider your demand unmet. You have convinced yourself that the history of life is untrue, even though what you request is contrary to evolution. Peace be on you.
But by the same strained logic as you are presenting, please explain how the select species contained on the ark became the innumerable count of species alive and many more extinct. Given the crazy pace of post flood speciation, should we not be seeing much more transitioning such as Fluffy giving birth to saber tooth cats, and Fido giving birth to foxes?
1 Like
Well of course you don’t see it happening now, but the theory of evolution doesn’t tell you to expect to see it happening now. As I’ve already pointed out, if you are going to argue against a scientific theory on the grounds that you don’t see something, you MUST make sure that the thing you don’t see is something that the theory actually tells you to expect to see. Claiming that something doesn’t happen at all just because it happens too slowly to be visible in our lifetimes is a violation of this rule, a non-sequitur, and wilful ignorance. Especially when the theory tells us what evidence we should expect to see of it having happened in the past, and when we do actually see that evidence as predicted.
It also falls under the category of unrealistic expectations. This is a common trope in every form of science denial, whether the science being denied is evolution, man made climate change, the effectiveness of vaccines, or the link between smoking and cancer. Such people set standards for evidence in favour of the theory so high that if you applied the same standards to every area of science, we would still be stuck in the Stone Age. At the same time, they set standards for evidence against the theory so low that if you applied the same standards to every area of science, you would kill people.
Well you’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.
5 Likes
No more amazing than that we should find a puddle of water is the perfect shape to fit into the hole that it occupies. Mutations are random - yes. But evolution is not. It is driven by those ecological niches that will yield reproductive differential between various mutations over time so that the species that do thrive most are the ones best adapted to an environmental niche such as exists for them at the time.
4 Likes
They are evolving. As you point out, their genomes continue to accumulate mutations.
If the theory of evolution is true then we shouldn’t observe what you are asking for. All species will be 100% of what they are right now. None should be transitional because they are all at the end of their evolutionary lineages.
Yes, we do. We see new mutations being selected for and moving towards fixation.
3 Likes
Excuse my ignorance, but how does more women having c-sections to give birth affect future generation’s pelvic size? I dont understand how that works logically in evolutionary mechanisms.