As mentioned by someone upthread, there are some in the scientific community who think giraffes have long necks because of sexual selection, and that it may not have much to do with feeding habits. Males with longer necks win more battles against other male giraffes and attract more mates, hence the spread of the long neck alleles.
I also don’t see why you are against the idea of mutations affecting neck length. If we compare the okapi and giraffe genomes I’m sure there are mutations separating those genomes that are responsible for the difference in neck length.
Just FYI, I was intrigued and found this article, hot off the press (link to research paper below) suggesting that both male-male combat and foraging affect the evolution of giraffe morphology. Here’s an infographic
I would echo Gould’s warning on human intuition and selective pressures. It may very well be that long necks are an adaptation for foraging, but we need more than intuition. We need some data to back it up (which may very well exist).
Absolutely. I’m not a mammologist but in my brief search I found some reviews that mention 5 hypotheses for long necks in giraffes (5 ways in which they may be functionally adaptive). The hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but each does make predictions which can be tested with data.
But also in the structure of cells themselves; DNA cannot be transmitted apart from the cellular context. I don’t think it’s possible to construct an organism just from the DNA.
The mere existence of which demolishes the notion that some given anatomical aspect/structure only has a single (or even “primary”?) function and is thus useless until and unless that function is achieved.
Since it is on the topic of this post - descriptions like this drive me nuts, as it sounds to me essentially like shorthand Lamarkism to me. Males have wider necks in order to win fights with other males? Females have longer necks in order to reach deeper leaves to meet their nutritional demands?
Is this not basic Lamarkism?
According to Darwinian theory, the answer to why females have longer necks than males is because their ancestors’ genes, without regard to any potential benefit, experienced random, undirected mutations, one or more of which randomly caused the females to have longer necks than the males; this random trait then proved so advantageous for survival and reproduction over those without said trait that the novel mutation became fixed in the population.
But giraffes (not even female giraffes) don’t have long necks in order to reach leaves… isn’t this the very Lamarkism we’re talking about?
No, the statement “in order to” here is not Lamarckian, nor do biologists imply conscious intent of an animal by using this phrasing. It is just conventional linguistic shorthand to indicate the adaptive significance of a trait. For example the statement “Wide necks in male giraffes are beneficial in male-male fights over mates and males with wide necks would have a selective advantage over thin-necked males” is usually shortened to “males have wider necks in order to win fights”. Such a statement implies nothing about the underlying randomness of mutations responsible for neck length (i.e., nothing about Lamarckianism), it only describes how the morphology is used by the individual to increase fitness and hence how natural selection might act on it.
Dont blame me…im neither Lamarkist nor Darwinian in my belief system. I personally believe that nature exists and continues to function because our Creators guiding hand ensures its stability…that God is a personal God who physically interracts with nature
Trees being eaten and spreading seed are both part of the biocycle…your apparent dilemma there isnt an issue because the act of being eaten means that what eats the leaves is going to s.hit waste out of its a.ss at some point…that s.hit is going to end up on the ground and eventually provide nutrients back into the ground.
My view is that mutations are already programmed into us, that our highly intelligent Creator who knows the future, fore-saw the need for biodiversity as part of the command to populate the earth in the Genesis Creation account.
In terms of dinosaurs and the look of them, im not convinced that God intended them to look like the artists impressions we see on display today and i expect that once we get to heaven and are able to look back through history, what we see will be a very different record to that which Darwinian atheism has indoctrinated its recipients into believing.
I should add that im of the opinion that many of those creatures are dead for a very good reason, the almost out of control evil before the flood.
I think what might be meant by mutations already being programmed into us is that the chance of random mutation is already built into the system. Random chance is still mathematical. God built the whole system of how the physical world works in the beginning, and its not just a one off event and then He sits back and lets the process run its course, but He continues to work and hold all things together.
Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Mutations themselves don’t affect morphology but the natural selection acts upon it, and again with God holding nature together, He is forming creation through nature. He continues to work today.
John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
Before mankind began making its own decisions with the knowledge of good and evil, God was creating, forming Himself through natural selection. But then he began partnering with us in the creation process.
Gen 1: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
The “us” here is not just speaking with the Godhead, but is really speaking to us. Together, creating through natural selection and sexual selection.
Yeah, it’s not Lamarck but it’s really crappy language use, and the reason so many people see evolution as a religion; it makes it sound as though evolution is some kind of “Force” that DNA uses to make choices.
I think you mean ecosystem – now that makes sense.
There are no new realms like air, sea, land to fill, but He continues to maintain, hold all things together. He gives us dominion to fill and subdue the earth, to rule and reign with Him.
By heavenly council you mean angels? Angels are not creators.
How much later? The millennial reign of Christ began 2000 years ago in my view.
Wrong Hebrew word. Yes, today it’s generally convenient to lump them all as “angels”, but in the scriptures “angel” is not a kind of being, it’s a job description.
“Heavenly council” would be like whatever group it was that Yahweh was meeting with when Satan came along and made a comment about Job, or whoever it was when Yahweh asked for ideas to entice King Ahab to go to battle. They all qualify as elohim, but that just means “a being in the spiritual/heavenly realm”, so if there was a special word for a council member (“sons of elohim” is common, but not, I think, specific enough) it would also be a job description.
That is perhaps the best argument against the heavenly council being in Genesis 1.
The dominion commission in ch. 1 and the Garden mandate in ch. 2.
How can you claim those are not programmed into us? I don’t see any issue there that contrasts my statement…it actually supports the notion of Intelligent Design.
Oh that’s easy…because whether or not you are willing to accept the obvious, no one knows what a dinosaur from 60 million years ago actually looked like. We can see their bones, but everything outside of that…we generate an “artists impression” based on best guesses…an atheist will guess very differently to a Christian artist for very obvious reasons.
I suppose I could add my small contribution to the “Science is Good” initiative .
There has actually been great progress in the science of dinosaur reconstruction in the last half-century. You could look at the website of the Natural History Museum in the UK for some interesting articles on how science informs the work of paleo-artists.
For example:
There is also the science of forensic facial reconstruction (not directly related to dinosaur reconstruction, but using some of the same principles):
So, our current knowledge of dinosaurs, including what they looked like, are not based on “best guesses” but good science. And yes, I suppose depictions of dinosaurs would be very different between honest artists, based on good science, and charlatans. I would hope that Christians would be in the former category.
How can you claim they are programmed into us? What data is this based on?
Moreover, we run into theodicy, much like the rest of biology. People are born with new mutations that cause serious disease, such as hemophilia. Are these programmed into us as well?
Why would an atheist reconstruction be any different than a Christian one? I can’t see any obvious reasons why they would differ.
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