on another blog called pandas Thumb Joe Felsenstein directed readers to the 2019 evolution videos. i canned them, watch numerous summeries, and a few whole programs.
Added by moderator: This appears to be the Panda’s Thumb post that is being referenced. The videos appear to be HERE.
The only one i gave thumbs up to was by a dude called Bowen. It was called adaptative radiations. What the flock is going on?
I really like this as a creationist. He talks about flocks of specification that turns up everywhere now in the sees. they find, like in the cichlid fishes of africa, clusters/flocking of dozens of species from a parent one.
This is not what evolutionists should expect and Bowen suggests there must be some NEW evolutionary rule guiding this. He finds it everywhere.
The reason a creationist loves this is because it does show a sudden speciation of something that fills every niche it possibly can. including changing bodyp[lan as needed.I would add this happemns on the dry land and in the fossil record. This is very predicted by creationist models to show speciation fast and furious and done and no time needed. that it hardly changes bodyplans after the initial explosion of flocking. And its very likely the morm for speciation and not the exception. Flocking is the normal common way how diversity in biology happened. iThis is unwelcome in evolutionist circles. They want very chance happening that coupled withy mutations and selection make trees/nests of relationships.They want PE concepts with start and stop events creating lineages.indeed randomness. Yet investigation shows speciation is a explosion every time. It doesn’t need to wait for mutations. i think from this flocking can be why theropod dinosaurs had so much variety because they were just a flocking of flightless ground birrs. lIkewise marsupials and placentals and others are just a flocking episode fast and furious. So the evolution talks of 2019 really do have something to offer progress.
Entropy,
At least your consistent 🙂
Alan Fox,
Biology or the diversity of life explanation does not have a predictive model without design or mind as a mechanism. Physics does until we get to the quantum level.
Yes it does. Nesting hierarchical structure in the data. It also makes predictions about the geographical and temporal (stratigraphic) distribution of organisms and their fossils.
Looking forward to finding out how many eyes ID predicts (rubs hands) ….
Allan Miller,
Or how many black holes General relativity predicts 🙂
It’s a mission-critical mechanism, guys. I hope that answers your questions.
Right. It’s only evolutionary theory that has this kind of obligation. They keep forgetting.
Good point. Like evolution, general relativity does not predict how many black holes there should be. It depends on the local conditions. How much mass is there, how is it distributed, how much time? etc. etc.
Same with evolution, it depends.
So we’re in agreement phoodoo’s complaint is dense? That’s a relief.
You ask for potential falsifications for evolution, and then ignore them when given. Go figure.
Once again, I see phoodoo is baffled by semantics. So, here we have a very large body of data. What tentative conclusions can we draw from all of this? Are there in fact any patterns to be found? Well, yes, in fact there is a sizeable number of distinct patterns. Would there be as many patterns, and would they be as distinct, without some underlying common process? And if we attempt to derive this process and from that derivation predict what we might find by both searching (for fossils, for example) and experimentation, and if these predictions prove mostly correct, wouldn’t that suggest that our hypothesized process was at least partially correct?
But now we get to the part that has phoodoo so bothered: we give that process a NAME. And confusingly enough, as we discover more data and refine our theory, we keep the same name! Over the course of more than a century, with enough people engaged in collecting relevant data, our process (our theory) undergoes a continuous process of refinement but the name doesn’t change! By now, that name has been attached to a good many increasingly accurate versions of the theory. How could it possibly mean anything, if that name gets applied to so many different things?
Allan Miller,
There is a way to look at it. I understand many genes are related in many unrelated things. i remember something about sonar ability in bats and whales etc have like genes which was unexpected.
However at a redunctionist level all biology could have just gene tags and then with creation, the fall, endless biology adapatation and mechanisms since THAT the genes are not alike as we read it. yet at a lower atomic level they would be. SO the only reason we see genetic trais is because its trailing the last events of biology change. so I can be connected to my father.
my case would be that marsupials have marsupial genes in common yET they are unrelated. the marsupial mechanism was a last act affecting them in those areas. so all get this tag for reproductive change and other stuff yet they are just the same creatures as elsewhere.
its not demanding to see genetics as a trail. its just a old, entry level, guess from the old ones.
Corneel,
there is no problem with this last act genetic variation. Just a special case. But don’t use it to extrapolate backwards to unite biology in a common descent model.
A special case of what?
Why not? In the scenario that you proposed, all the species in a species flock are united in a common descent model.
There is a pattern to the evolution of life. There is a progression from single cellular life through multi-cellular, water dwelling, water-land dwelling, terrestrial, self-conscious.
Some organic forms become fixed at a certain stage and remain at that stage. Others retain their plasticity, progress through those stages and take on the forms of the most evolved (i.e. they include all the stages in their form). Compare the purported ancestors of an eel to those of a gibbon from a few hundred million years ago to see what I mean by fixity of form.
This progression of form allows for the appearance of organisms that posses higher forms of individual consciousness. This higher consciousness means that individuals become responsible for their own destinies to a much greater extent than those fixed in the lower forms.
If we are to take evolution seriously then we recognise that the higher types are those that, in their history, are most inclusive of all the types that have existed.
CharlieM,
In other words, impersonating like a person isn’t quite like aping like an ape or parroting like a parrot.
That’s true.
A comparison of humans, apes and parrots show that apes and parrots are very good at imitating others in certain respects, but compared to humans, what they learn from this is very limited.
Parrots have the ability and physical attributes necessary to listen to sounds and repeat those sounds fairly accurately but that’s as far as their learning goes. Apes can copy gestures and movement to a limited degree but it would be inconceivable to teach a troup of chimps to line dance.
The very meaning we give to the words aping and parroting tells us that they are a limited form of imitation. These abilities are included in the range of human abilities but not inclusive to apes or parrots. Parrots are skillful at imitating sounds and apes at imitating gestures. Humans have both of these skills.
Not only do we have creative minds but we have the physical attributes necessary to share our creations with others and the dexterity to transform our creations into physical entities.
No I’m pretty sure I can conceive of that. Right now.
I say biological molecular systems are efficient.
Wohoo, I just falsified evolution!
Is this how it works? Gonna be a lot of skeptics having a bad day today I guess.
That’s making me chuckle as I imagine it.
This I don’t understand. For me, it is just interesting for its own sake to learn about stuff. It matters to me that stuff I learn gets, on balance, less wrong. For phoodoo there seems to be a culture war and what is accurate matters not at all.
One might wonder why that would be. Do birds of the parrot family live in environments where sound is an easier method of communication than vision? Apes and monkeys are also very vocal and social, using sound as communication.
Even if we can conceive it we would never see it in reality. Chimps are much too cool for that. Break dancing or body popping yes, line dancing no!
Alan Fox,
Ok, but now that you know evolution is wrong, we are going to need some new topics here.
Gregory won’t be able to keep complaining about the Discovery Institute.
Alan Fox,
If one starts with the assumption that everything that exists must be because it had a reproductive advantage, there is virtually nothing you could think of that you couldn’t make up a story for why it is a population advantage. That is the explanatory problem of natural selection. Everything can be explained, gayness, cancer, shortness, tallness, weakness, strength, …
Why do some people have green eyes, well, its a reproductive advantage of course, it reminds mates of chlorophyll. Why are some people bald? Reproductive advantage. Left handedness, right handedness-reproductive advantage. Bowlegs-well, it reminds mates of the health one must posses to be able to walk strange and still find food…
You previously linked to the book Mama’s Last Hug” where Washoe, a chimp that had been taught sign language, gets a mantion.
Chimps can be taught to communicate through sign language but they cannot be taught to communicate through speech. Parrots can be taught to speak but they cannot communicate the meaning of the words using this skill. Compared to humans their communication skills are very limited. They are very good at communicating emotions but are extremely limited in their ability to express any thoughts. If they do have any abstract concepts they certainly don’t communicate them.
These animals are dependent on and constrained by their environment, notwithstanding that many birds are less constrained than most other animals. . Human abilities mean that we are not.so restricted even in comparison to birds.
Whut? Remember, I’m the one claiming our comprehension of reality is not digital or binary. It may be inaccurate but it gets less inaccurate as we learn more.
Well, it’s open to anyone to post an OP. I encourage anyone with an itch to scratch to post one.
A passing mention that I don’t recall. It certainly isn’t the main topic.
Mainly because they lack the physical apparatus. H. erectus displays the developments necessary starting, perhaps, half a million years ago.
I doubt this. I don’t think enough careful study has been made of parrots and their intelligence.
How very anthropomorphic!
Hmm. This is an argument from ignorance, basically. Yet parrots are there for us to study. Maybe e haven’t made a sufficient effort to see the world from their perspective. What is it like to be a parrot?
As are humans.
For example?
In what way?
Feel free to explain the facts any way you like. If you can do it better then anyone else you win!
That’s really all there is to it.
What does ID say about the peacocks tail?
It seems to me that phoodoo believes we can know nothing.
The only thing not suspect, it seems, is the ability of the supernatural to answer all questions. All his questions, anyway.
So maybe that was the wrong starting point. As I recall, Gould flat rejected the notion that reproductive advantage was the underlying factor in all features. Reproductive advantage surely contributes to phenotypes considered as a whole, but it’s a fool’s errand to try to conjure up some “just so story” to explain every feature. My reading (our experts here can correct me) is that the pendulum has swung well over in the direction of drift – that variation of every feature within a fairly wide range is neutral. Features that confer no reproductive advantage, or even work against it, can nonetheless become fixed in a population by accident of breeding, or because they are genetically connected to (but otherwise unrelated to) important survival characteristics.
I sometimes look at all the critters living in my back yard – mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, worms, plants and many more. Now, if I accept that at some point in the distant past these all had a common ancestor, and if reproductive advantage is the key agency in driving this vast diversity, then reproductive advantage must have a mind boggling number of facets. So I can’t quite grasp that speciation (as opposed to specialization) comes from reproductive advantage.
Corneel,
its just a special case. Speciation can happen from a original parent population but its just a line of reasoning to say one can extrapolate backwards to say all biology did.
So a flock of speciation is more likely from established kinds etc then a lttle tweet.
However evolutionism should not expect at this date flocks. they should of evolved into greater divergence.
But in fact, surprisingly to them, they find flocks everywhere as if the actual norm.
it means there has been very little bodyplan changes going on in a long time.
OK, rephrasing. What would be the normal case?
But we should be able to extrapolate backwards to the original parent population. Right?!?
Yes only a brief mention. I included this fact as a way of introducing Washoe.
The point is that apes lack this trait. And if humans and apes did indeed share a common ancestor then it is humans that have far out-developed any ape species since then. The apes have changed little since then. They have remained behind at an earlier stage.
Do you doubt that parrots are incapable of having a meaningful conversation with each other using human language?
You can call it anthropomorphic but it is an observed fact. Can parrots communicate with each other from opposite ends of the planet and beyond? Can parrots communicate their thoughts and feelings in stories, poetry, music or visual art? Can they invent machines and pass on instructions on how to build and use those machines in cooperation with others? Can they communicate their speculations about reality to others?
Its an argument from observation. Its an interesting thought that parrots can communicate with each other in ways that are undetectable to us. Some sort of telepathy perhaps. Is this something you would consider a possibility?
To a much lesser degree. We control the effects of our local environment in far more diverse ways that any other living beings.
Flying birds are not confined to the earth, they are endothermic, they can travel great distances.
We exploit the deep oceans, the minerals of the earth, the atmosphere, the local regions of space beyond the atmosphere. Birds are restricted to getting food and shelter from their proximate environment, we are not so restricted.
Is that really your first go-to?
I guess you still believe that dogs can telepathically sense their owners coming home too?
yes, this is one of those inconvenient facts that the skeptics like to ignore. They make fun of folks who ask, if humans came from apes, why are there still apes, as if that s a bad question. But it isn’t. If there are so many advantages to having higher intelligence, why doesn’t any other animal achieve that?
The evolutionists just use their lack of curiosity to sweep this fact under the rug and pretend its not important.
Nothing in molecular biology makes sense without assuming drift.
It’s kind of ironic that creationists have argued that selection only subtracts, and can’t create.
When, for the last 60 years or so, drift has explained the origin of new features, and selection has pruned those that are non-viable or less competitive. It’s a really good fit to observation.
Common archetype in relation to common descent
Any person involved in researching their ancestors will be aware that common descent is a reality.
We can only guess if this human network began from one or many specific pre-modern human lines. But either way each recognised group of individual organisms whether they be grouped as species, genus or whatever, will have consisted of a small number of individuals to begin with. The population numbers will then have expanded and in the end contract to zero when the group has become or will become extinct.
This is a process we see at all levels of life. A few examples: Populations of individual cell types expand an contract in this way. Annual plants expand and contract in this way. The living portion of perennial plants expand and contract in this way.
In living systems physical substances are more transient than their forms. Forms endure as the materials of which they are composed come and go.
I have displayed this image in the past which show a series of buttercup leaves. The similarity of adjacent leaves could give us the impression that one leaf has developed from the previous leaf. But this is not the case, they did not diverge one from the other. The form of each leaf is determined by its spacial and temporal position and not by the form of its precursor. Their similarity of general form is not due to a shared ancestry. The only thing that can be said to be shared in this way is their material composition, the substances and not the form.
Species flocking is what would be expected when there is diversification of specific forms from a general form. The specific forms are constrained by their environment and their interactions with their neighbours.
An analogy in an individual organism would be stems cells producing specific types of cells to form organs at certain locations.
Any ecosystem is composed of groups of species which have diversified in such a way as to maintain a dynamic balance of the system as a whole.
??
What can selection create?
How would we ever know if a feature is from drift or from a reproductive advantage, can we prove it? What if everything is caused by drift? Then isn’t the theory of evolution irrelevant?
I take it that only humans, such as yourself, can do all three at once!
We can either try to see things as they are or we can form a belief about how we think evolution should operate and adjust our view of reality to confirm this belief.
Do you think that all life forms are equally evolved?
If only there was an alternative out there.
Some call it “mind”. Other’s call it “supernatural”. Perhaps one day all those people will get together and invent some kind of process whereby they can determine which claims are based in reality.
CharlieM,
Which trait? What I was referring to was changes to the larynx, vocal chords and sensory control system that would allow the greater range of sounds that constitute speech.
I doubt that human observers of parrots have yet worked out all the nuances of parrot-to-parrot communication.
I don’t know. I suspect parrots use physical methods of communication just as we do so I’d rule out telepathy. My only close contact with a parrot was a chance encounter with a parrot breeder who was raising a chick. That chick was very, very attached to him.
Can’t be. Drift is a process where alleles are supposed to fix in the absence of selection. It is important at low population numbers.
Definitely not.
Although I should warn you that my scala naturae is, by and large, the opposite of yours. Bacteriophage are highly evolved; vertebrates not so much.
Your anthropocentrism is showing.
Or, of course, we can just parrot/ape/impersonate Steiner.