The fox study is a good example how a species changes in appearance. Foxes that were raised with humans and were very tame started to resemble dogs after several generations.
This is not an argument. This is like the old joke about the prisoners telling jokes from the only joke book, & everyone is so familiar with it they only have to say the page numbers to get a laugh. But ok, fine. I'll rebut these 'arguments'. Deflection. Non sequitur Distraction. Hey, that is a lot easier than having to post actual arguments & put together sentences! I think i'll do that more often.. no wonder you guys like this style of debate! I might try some more of these arguments.. let me see.. Quantum mechanics. Theory of relativity. Life of Pi. This is great! I'd like to see you rebut these arguments!
More demeaning ad hominems, still no topical evidence.. ..it's getting a bit boring in here.. Is this the best you've got? Needling insults & assertions? Really, i do understand. You don't have anything else. The only thing you can do, with no evidence, is deflect, ridicule, & distract from the arguments. I guess you could try making something up, or fabricating some evidence like some of the scammers have done over the years. With such little real evidence to validate the theory, i can see why you get so desperate.
..and this proves....? A single mutation in a colony does not a new species make. You are not adding chromosomes, or increasing complexity, but merely making horizontal changes in variation.. lateral movements within the genetic code. This is obvious, proven fact, but it does not compel the leap to increasing complexity. What thesis? Longest post ever?
Yeah, a single mutant is not an entire new species, except when the mutation provides an advantage that is passed to future generations, which still doesn't mean that remote colonies will spontaneously share the new trait. And yes, the OP was remarkably long for this forum. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out. :/
It's an opportunity for you to learn. Consider it as part of the "background research" bubble in the scientific method diagram.
Your "rebuttal" is one deflection, one distraction and a non-sequitur? Could there conceivably be any better demonstration that we are in a battle of wits with an unarmed man? One can only ponder why you are so passionate about an issue you know so little about.
You seem unclear on the concept about what an ad hominem is. An ad hominem is an attack on the person in lieu of an actual argument. But that's not what has occurred here. Here, actual arguments have been offered. "Topical evidence" has been presented. Assertions on your part have been exposed as ignorant, false, error filled and on occasion willfully misleading. Your response is to robotically repeat what has already been dismembered and dismissed, or otherwise claim you have no time to actually respond. The responses you now receive are all you have earned. Perhaps you should consider defending something more defensible. Like phlogiston.
No. But it does by definition increase the complexity of the genome, thus destroying the entire premise of your thread. Since chromosomes are different sizes, your claim here borders on the inane. Number of chromosomes is not a meaningful measure of complexity or quantity of content. Humans for example have 23 chromosomal pairs. The red viscacha rat has 51. Paris japonica (a small white flower) has a genetic code 50 times longer than that of a human being. In second place is the marbled lungfish. As usual, you appear to have made very little effort to understand the subject you are trying to discuss. Further, we have already pointed out that the completely ordinary (and quite common) mutation of gene duplication adds entire genes to the genome in a single mutation. As I recall, you did not have time to discuss that example because you had no grant funding to do so. So you just ran away and continue to run.
Since usfan is unclear on the concept of genetic complexity, let's have a short primer: A very simple genetic model would be a diploid organism with a single gene. It has two chromosomes, each with one copy of that single gene (hence "diploid"). And the simplest version of that model is when there is a single allele of that single gene, making the organism necessarily homozygous (i.e. both copied of the gene are the same). Let's in fact hypothesize an entire community in which all the individuals are homozygous and there is only a single allele of the single gene in the entire species. We'll call them "Usfanids." There is only a single possible combination of alleles in the entire Usfanid species: A:A But then... one of the individuals is born with a point mutation. It doesn't even have to be beneficial... it can be completely neutral and simply begin to proliferate through the population entirely by chance and genetic drift. But now, there are actually four different combinations of allele that any individual might posses. They would be: A:A, A:B, B:A and B:B. That's a 400% increase in the number of possible combinations. We only doubled the number of genes (i.e. increased it by 100%), but we quadrupled the genetic variation of the population. And we still are only talking about one gene. At some subsequent time, a third mutation takes place and introduces a third allele into the mix. We have only increased the number of genes by 50%, but there are now 9 possible combinations of alleles. They are: A:A, A:B, A:C, B:A, B:B, B:C, C:A, C:B and C:C. That's a 225% increase in genetic variability, and the situation is certainly becoming more complex. Four alleles would give us 16 possible combinations. Five would give us 25. The genetic complexity of the population (of our one gene Usfanids) is the square of the number of alleles that arise via mutation. QED: Every single point mutation is, by definition, an increase in genetic variation and complexity.
To illustrate the validity of the simple example that's already been provided (and to illustrate 'Perilica grad Ameriku' isn't making stuff up), please feel free to browse the below link. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/47/20423.full
This is the crux of this debate. You guys are insisting i accept that variability is the same as increasing complexity. You wave your hands, stomp your feet, & insult me because i'm not buying it. You stir up the word orders, imagine complexity where there is none, & dogmatically assert this is 'macro evolution'. It's fine with me. You can believe this is 'evidence' for evolution if you wish. You can put all your scientific eggs in this basket, with the vague assumption that variability equals increased complexity. The hysteria & indignation that you stir up proves to me this very emotional belief system is not based on science, but very deeply held beliefs. But your 'If A, then B' is completely unsubstantiated, as far as i'm concerned. So all you have left is demeaning ad hominems, & ridicule, which you think passes as 'scientific arguments'. It is a typical response from spoiled academians & liberals who don't like alternate views, or insist on their narrow view of reality. It is not very scientific, imo. But, you are welcome to your views, & can assert them all you wish. We are, however, stuck on this point. You insist on equating variability with increased complexity, so we are at an impasse. This was not a contest, with a winner or loser (though i'm sure most of you will celebrate victory!). It was a supposed to be a scientific look & critique of the evidence & the conclusions for increased complexity.
Get off your cross. You've been shown evidence of brand new traits evolving and still have your fingers in your ears. You are not being scientific, you are being dogmatic, just like any other Creationist. It's not discrimination to refuse to take people that endorse heliocentrism, ether theory, hollow earth theory, or spontaneous generation of life forms seriously. There is no scientific debate on the validity of evolution, just like there is no debate on the validity of any of these other topics, because it's established science and established fact. Science builds the house - and it doesn't do it by demolishing the foundations. If something is found to be definitively the truth by scientific thought and reasoning, then it is hardly ever overturned - because only contrary evidence can overturn science, and something can only be shown as fact with loads of evidence.
No one is buying your pity party. The facts and evidence presented to you are scientifically sound, and ignoring them won't make them go away. You can insist that point mutations do not increase complexity but that won't make it true. The fact that you don't understand endosymbiosis or allopolyploid speciation does not negate the fact that they occur. The sum of your argument here, in defense of the creationist claims in the OP, has been little more than repetitive barking "it's only assertions! it's only assertions." Yours are emotional and dogmatic arguments which have no place in intelligent discussion.
Your childish deflective mockery of observable science is does not constitute a rebuttal. Nor do emoticons. .
Cross? Pity party? You guys are a riot. If i 'bring it', you run blubbering to the mods to make me stop. Of course, you can needle me incessantly, but i won't beseech the mods to save me. I can take it, & i have. But if i dish it out, your lower lips quiver & you whine to the mods. All you do is assert over & over that 'A=B.' You insist that variability = increased complexity, & i accept your beliefs. I'm skeptical, & don't see the correlation myself, but you can believe it if you want. All your bullying & needling & ridicule won't convince me otherwise. I was hoping for a more evidence based discussion, but this is what you usually get. I know you guys are having fun bashing me over this, but we are not really addressing the OP. No evidence has been presented for pages.. if any ever was.. but i've kept responding.. mostly to ridicule & ad hominems. But i'm getting tired of that, & the mods won't let me return fire, so we're stuck at this impasse. I see no point in continuing the discussion. Here is a quote from a previous thread on the same subject. That thread faded into ad hominems, like this one is doing, too.
On the surface, this looks like 'evidence'. But it is a speculative scenario, with mathematics applied to the assumptions. You have not established your assumptions. Before you can apply your calculations, proving increases in 'the number of genes', you have to show by experimentation, not just apply the assumed theory. Where is this peer reviewed experiment, where you double the number of genes? Where is this 400% increase in combinations? I cannot examine the methods or the conclusions of a hypothetical experiment, where your conclusions are presupposed by your assumptions. So, if you want to provide evidence for your claim, it has to be real science, not hypothetical imagination based on the assumption. This post is meaningless, other than to take some shots at me, personally.. which seems to be the main point of this thread.
Gong. Certainly you can not still be deluded that we insist you accept anything. Our purpose here is not to convince you, it is to expose you.
Only to the blind would that "look like evidence." And only the befuddled would mistake that for an attempt to provide evidence. It is a model; an instructive tool created to clarify the relationship between point mutations and genetic complexity. I tried to make it simple for you, but a model with any fewer genes than one would be no model at all. If you didn't get it, then you are beyond salvage. But of course, you actually did get it, else you wouldn't be so frantically trying to dismiss it rather than address it. Sometimes, the pathos in your posts is enough to make a toddler weep. There you go again, hallucinating that feigned obtuseness is a legitimate response to a substantive exposition of your own conceptual failure. First and foremost, it is not a speculative scenario at all. It is a very simple model of a process that is observed empirically every single day. Point mutations occur. Even you appear to repeatedly admit that completely noncontroversial fact. And to deny the mathematical implications of this empirical observation is to assert that 1 > 2. If that is your assertion then you shouldn't be here trying to convince us that evolution is not true. You should be on a mathematics forum somewhere trying to convince people to count backwards.
No quivering lips here pard. Just amused chuckling at your attempts to run your own thread into the ditch. I understand. You got in over your head with your 'Scientist" roll playing, got your feelings hurt when nobody showered you with praise and now you're trying to save face. So, sorry buckaroo, you ain't the first troll I've encountered. You got what you claim you hoped for and you didn't like it so you've been cowering, mocking, and deflecting from it ever since. I agree, if you are unable and unwilling to contribute to the conversation with anything more than petulant whining, you should probably stay in the shallow end of the scientific pool. The quality of discussion will be far more enlightening and educational without members having to deal with your nonsense. Yawn.
It seems to the "Crux" of this debate is simply that everyone disputes your interpretation, provides reasoning and data as to why, and you then ignore it and cry you are attacked.
I gave the OP every chance at the start of the thread by asking what he thought was wrong with our understanding of mechanisms of evolution, and what was his alternate explanation. He admitted he had no alternate concept that he was prepared to discuss, which in my mind is usually the first step in disproving a theory - You have a better one to offer. All he has done so far is play God of the gaps, his dispute about one specific data set does not invalidate a theory
