The First Chimpanzee

I just lost the original post for this, so if this book review is a little “short” I hope you understand that losing a good post gives me the equivalent of internet “road rage” (aka, jumping up and down and cursing, pounding the key board a few times for no particular reason, giving the monitor the finger, etc, etc.) [angry]

Let’s see…

Yes, Darwin was wrong. Made you look! Hahahah.

I just finished reading this book by John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas titled The First Chimpanzee. Up until reading this book I had a pretty classical view of human evolution. First, proto-humans broke away from apes around 10 or 20 million years ago, moved into the plains of Africa and gradually evolved into modern man. Second, humanoid life forms were the culmination of primate evolution (yes, this was very anthropocentric of me). After reading this book I have completely disavowed all such notions.

Until the 1980s palaeontologists maintained that man evolved separately from apes for at least 20 million years. This seemed logical enough. (Note: although the fossil records were weak - and still are - they did not necessarily contradict this mainstream view). A long, separate evolutionary path seemed necessary to explain the “differences” between humankind and the rest of the animal world. As the book says, “One of the ways that man separates himself from the rest of nature is to put his origins as far back in time as he can. If man has been evolving down his own path for 20 million years or more, he is seen as safely being distanced from the animal kingdom…” More over, this theory of human evolution facilitated the anthropocentric view point that human kind is the pinnacle of evolution. (Maybe I shouldn’t speak of this theory in the past tense since it is still popular. However, I guess I am indirectly revealing my assessment of what the verdict of history will be for the “classical theory” on human evolution).

In comes genetic technologies, DNA analysis…

Allow me to quote a little more from the book,

“Separate species means separate evolution, and the chance for DNA to accumulate separate differences. Ignoring man for the moment, tests on every other species investigated show that the longer two species have been separated, in evolutionary terms, the more differences there are in their respective DNAs. Changes in DNA occur from time to time by chance – the accident of mutation – and there is a good correlation between genetic differences, measured by comparing DNA from two species, and time. For example, in all other species that have been separated for about 20 to 25 million years, such as the dog and the racoon, this kind of test reveals accumulated differences equivalent to about 12 per cent of their DNA. But man, the chimp and the gorilla, who according the established story of human evolution were also supposed to have been separated for about 20 million years, differ by, in round terms, a mere 1 per cent. By comparison with other species, a genetic difference of this amount ought to correspond to a separation of man and the African apes from a common stock less than 4 million years ago.”

But how could this be?!?!? Fossil records are quite conclusive that proto-humans existed at least 10 million years ago! Indeed, Gribbin and Cherfas agree with the fossil records. Humans, chimpanzees and gorillas are all the direct descendants of Australopithecines, a proto-human who walked up right. Inotherwords, Darwin was wrong, man didn’t evolve from apes, apes evolved from man. Humans are as genetically similar to chimps as chimps are to gorillas, and vice versa. Humans are more genetically similar to chimps and gorillas than dolphins are to porpoises or sheep are to goats.

Other topics the book deals with:

Why is there such a large discrepancy in intelligence between man and apes?

Why did apes returned to the trees?

Is DNA a reliable way to determine when the split between two species occurred?

Why do apes and man differ so greatly in appearance?

Included with the last question is the Aquatic Theory. This theory states that humans did not evolve on the plains of Africa, but along the coast line! At first I was very skeptical about this theory, but after reading the evidence for it, I would say that this theory is more likely than classical theory on the origins of man. I find it **cough** (informative) that there is so little attention paid to a theory as strong as this one, which has existed since 1960.

My only negative comment would be that the book explained the concept of evolution over and over again, which I guess is understandable since it was trying to cater to a general audience, but I found it a little annoying since I already have a basic understanding of evolutionary theory.

The book was simplistic enough for some one who has a basic interest in human evolution (like me) and comprehensive enough to warrant being a “light read” for an expert anthropologist. Overall, I’d give The First Chimpanzee two opposable thumbs up.

Have fun reading,
Kissinger

Sorry about that Kissinger.. was it because of ImmInst downtime?

I love serendipity and just as you posted this I was reading this article in the NY Times about the evolution of skin and the loss of fur in our species. It is overlapping information that relates to the theory this author outlines. I also agree that our ancestor's were evolving for a coastal environment and this too may be a factor for why we lost our fur as we became semi aquatic fisher-folk, netting the surf in organized teams. Our fur would not have dried as quickly, or as cleanly and this may support the author's contention that it became a liability.

The article treats these as competing theories but I sense they are complimentary, not mutually exclusive. BTW Bruce you aren't a relation to the article's Doctor Klein are you?

Kissinger, you insist on asserting a false dichotomy in the hierarchical imposition of demarcation between the rest of the "Great Apes" and Humans and this is basically false. We are a full blown member of the "Great Apes and the genetics establishes that fact.

We are a distinct species but not a different "family". That we share a very common ancestry is more and more understood, how we deviated from the same evolutionary behaviors with substantially different outcomes than our primate cousins is less well understood but some aspects are becoming clearer, language ability and intelligence appear to have been selected for by our mating/breeding practices and the "environmental niche" we were adapted to, provided a great opportunity to expand our range and develop even greater adaptive ability with regard to the planet as a whole.

We were nomadic and very flexible with respect to diet. This allowed us to respond to localized adversity by "taking our show on the road."


Illustrations by Michael Rothman
Before
An Australopithecus, sporting full-bodied fur about four million years ago.



After
An archaic human walked fur-free about 1.2 million years ago, carrying fire on the savanna.


http://www.nytimes.c...nce/19HAIR.html
Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways
By NICHOLAS WADE

One of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow apes was their loss of body hair. But why and when human body hair disappeared, together with the matter of when people first started to wear clothes, are questions that have long lain beyond the reach of archaeology and paleontology.

Ingenious solutions to both issues have now been proposed, independently, by two research groups analyzing changes in DNA. The result, if the dates are accurate, is something of an embarrassment. It implies we were naked for more than a million years before we started wearing clothes.

Dr. Alan R. Rogers, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah, has figured out when humans lost their hair by an indirect method depending on the gene that determines skin color. Dr. Mark Stone- king of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, believes he has established when humans first wore clothes. His method too is indirect: it involves dating the evolution of the human body louse, which infests only clothes.

Meanwhile a third group of researchers, resurrecting a suggestion of Darwin, has come up with a novel explanation of why humans lost their body hair in the first place.

Mammals need body hair to keep warm, and lose it only for special evolutionary reasons. Whales and walruses shed their hair to improve speed in their new medium, the sea. Elephants and rhinoceroses have specially thick skins and are too bulky to lose much heat on cold nights. But why did humans, the only hairless primates, lose their body hair?

One theory holds that the hominid line went through a semi-aquatic phase — witness the slight webbing on our hands. A better suggestion is that loss of body hair helped our distant ancestors keep cool when they first ventured beyond the forest's shade and across the hot African savannah. But loss of hair is not an unmixed blessing in regulating body temperature because the naked skin absorbs more energy in the heat of the day and loses more in the cold of the night.

Dr. Mark Pagel of the University of Reading in England and Dr. Walter Bodmer of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford have proposed a different solution to the mystery and their idea, if true, goes far toward explaining contemporary attitudes about hirsuteness. Humans lost their body hair, they say, to free themselves of external parasites that infest fur — blood-sucking lice, fleas and ticks and the diseases they spread.

Once hairlessness had evolved through natural selection, Dr. Pagel and Dr. Bodmer suggest, it then became subject to sexual selection, the development of features in one sex that appeal to the other. Among the newly furless humans, bare skin would have served, like the peacock's tail, as a signal of fitness. The pains women take to keep their bodies free of hair — joined now by some men — may be no mere fashion statement but the latest echo of an ancient instinct. Dr. Pagel's and Dr. Bodmer's article appeared in a recent issue of The Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Dr. Pagel said he had noticed recently that advertisements for women's clothing often included a model showing a large expanse of bare back. "We have thought of showing off skin as a secondary sexual characteristic but maybe it's simpler than that — just a billboard for healthy skin," he said.

The message — "No fleas, lice or ticks on me!" — is presumably concealed from the conscious mind of both sender and receiver.

There are several puzzles for the new theory to explain. One is why, if loss of body hair deprived parasites of a refuge, evolution allowed pubic hair to be retained. Dr. Pagel and Dr. Bodmer suggest that these humid regions, dense with sweat glands, serve as launching pads for pheromones, airborne hormones known to convey sexual signals in other mammals though not yet identified in humans.

Another conundrum is why women have less body hair than men. Though both sexes may prefer less hair in the other, the pressure of sexual selection in this case may be greater on women, whether because men have had greater powers of choice or an more intense interest in physical attributes. "Common use of depilatory agents testifies to the continuing attractions of hairlessness, especially in human females," the two researchers write

Dr. David L. Reed, a louse expert at the University of Utah, said the idea that humans might have lost their body hair as a defense against parasites was a "fascinating concept." Body lice spread three diseases — typhus, relapsing fever and trench fever — and have killed millions of people in time of war, he said.

But others could take more convincing. "There are all kinds of notions as to the advantage of hair loss, but they are all just-so stories," said Dr. Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Causes aside, when did humans first lose their body hair? Dr. Rogers, of the University of Utah, saw a way to get a fix on the date after reading an article about a gene that helps determine skin color. The gene, called MC1R, specifies a protein that serves as a switch between the two kinds of pigment made by human cells. Eumelanin, which protects against the ultraviolet rays of the sun, is brown-black; pheomelanin, which is not protective, is a red-yellow color.

Three years ago Dr. Rosalind Harding of Oxford University and others made a worldwide study of the MC1R gene by extracting it from blood samples and analyzing the sequence of DNA units in the gene. They found that the protein made by the gene is invariant in African populations, but outside of Africa the gene, and its protein, tended to vary a lot.

Dr. Harding concluded that the gene was kept under tight constraint in Africa, presumably because any change in its protein increased vulnerability to the sun's ultraviolet light, and was fatal to its owner. But outside Africa, in northern Asia and Europe, the gene was free to accept mutations, the constant natural changes in DNA, and produced skin colors that were not dark.

Reading Dr. Harding's article recently as part of a different project, Dr. Rogers wondered why all Africans had acquired the same version of the gene. Chimpanzees, Dr. Harding had noted, have many different forms of the gene, as presumably did the common ancestor of chimps and people.

As soon as the ancestral human population in Africa started losing its fur, Dr. Rogers surmised, people would have needed dark skin as a protection against sunlight. Anyone who had a version of the MC1R gene that produced darker skin would have had a survival advantage, and in a few generations this version of the gene would have made a clean sweep through the population.

There may have been several clean sweeps, each one producing a more effective version of the MC1R gene. Dr. Rogers saw a way to put a date on at least the most recent sweep. Some of the DNA units in a gene can be changed without changing the amino acid units in the protein the gene specifies. The MC1R genes Dr. Harding had analyzed in African populations had several of these silent mutations. Since the silent mutations accumulate in a random but steady fashion, they serve as a molecular clock, one that started ticking at the time of the last sweep of the MC1R gene through the ancestral human population.

From the number of silent mutations in African versions of the MC1R gene, Dr. Rogers and two colleagues, Dr. David Iltis and Dr. Stephen Wooding, calculate that the last sweep probably occurred 1.2 million years ago, when the human population consisted of a mere 14,000 breeding individuals. In other words, humans have been hairless at least since this time, and maybe for much longer. Their article is to appear in a future issue of Current Anthropology.

The estimated minimum date for human hairlessness seems to fall in reasonably well with the schedule of other major adaptations that turned an ordinary ape into the weirdest of all primates. Hominids first started occupying areas with few shade trees some 1.7 million years ago. This is also the time when long limbs and an external nose appeared. Both are assumed to be adaptations to help dissipate heat, said Dr. Richard Klein, an archaeologist at Stanford University. Loss of hair and dark skin could well have emerged at the same time, so Dr. Rogers' argument was "completely plausible," he said.

From 1.6 million years ago the world was in the grip of the Pleistocene ice age, which ended only 10,000 years ago. Even in Africa, nights could have been cold for fur-less primates. But Dr. Ropers noted that people lived without clothes until recently in chilly places like Tasmania and Tierra del Fuego.

Chimpanzees have pale skin and are born with pale faces that tan as they grow older. So the prototype hominid too probably had fair skin under dark hair, said Dr. Nina Jablonski, an expert on the evolution of skin color at the California Academy of Sciences. "It was only later that we lost our hair and at the same time evolved an evenly dark pigmentation," she said.

Remarkable as it may seem that genetic analysis can reach back and date an event deep in human history, there is a second approach to determining when people lost their body hair, or at least started to wear clothes. It has to do with lice. Humans have the distinction of being host to three different kinds: the head louse, the body louse and the pubic louse. The body louse, unlike all other kinds that infect mammals, clings to clothing, not hair. It presumably evolved from the head louse after humans lost their body hair and started wearing clothes.

Dr. Stoneking, together with Dr. Ralf Kittler and Dr. Manfred Kayser, report in today's issue of Current Biology that they compared the DNA of human head and body lice from around the world, as well as chimpanzee lice as a point of evolutionary comparison. From study of the DNA differences, they find that the human body louse indeed evolved from the louse, as expected, but that this event took place surprisingly recently, sometime between 42,000 and 72,000 years ago. Humans must have been wearing clothes at least since this time.

Modern humans left Africa about 50,000 years ago. Dr. Stoneking and his colleagues say the invention of clothing may have been a factor in the successful spread of humans around the world, especially in the cooler climates of the north.

Dr. Stoneking said in an interview that clothing could also have been part of the suite of sophisticated behaviors, such as advanced tools, trade and art, that appear in the archaeological record some 50,000 years ago, just before humans migrated from Africa.

The head louse would probably have colonized clothing quite soon after the niche became available — within thousands and tens of thousands of years, Dr. Stoneking said. So body lice were probably not in existence when humans and Neanderthals diverged some 250,000 or more years ago. This implies that the common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals did not wear clothes and therefore probably Neanderthals didn't either.

But Dr. Klein, the Stanford archeologist, said he thought Neanderthals and other archaic humans must have produced clothing of some kind in order to live in temperate latitudes like Europe and the Far East. Perhaps the body lice don't show that, he suggested, because early clothes were too loose fitting or made of the wrong material.

Dr. Stoneking said he got the idea for his louse project after one of his children came home with a note about a louse infestation in school. The note assured parents that lice could only live a few hours when away from the human body, implying to Dr. Stoneking that their evolution must closely mirror the spread of humans around the world.

The compilers of Genesis write that as soon as Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they sewed themselves aprons made of leaves from the fig tree, and that the Creator himself made them more durable skin coats before evicting them. But if Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stoneking are correct, humans were naked for a million years before they noticed their state of undress and called for the tailor.

I'm related to all humans and all living things in some way.. but not to Dr. Klein in close approximation.

Sorry about that Kissinger.. was it because of ImmInst downtime?

Nothing to be sorry about BJ. I got some kind of message to that effect, but Imminst is actually pretty good about not losing stuff (at least compared to other sites I frequent). What I should have done, and what I usually do, for longer posts is compose them on Microsoft Word and then cut and paste it over to here. I just forgot to do this and paid the price.

Kissinger

Kissinger, you insist on asserting a false dichotomy in the hierarchical imposition of demarcation between the rest of the "Great Apes" and Humans and this is basically false. We are a full blown member of the "Great Apes and the genetics establishes that fact.

When did I do this? [huh] The whole point of my post was that humans are more genetically similar to apes then we could ever have possibly imagined.

Are you saying that it is incorrect to use the term human to define us? Should we start calling ourselves "hairless apes" instead of human?

Now I am puzzled, very puzzled....

No, it is by saying apes evolved from us, or we evolved from apes, both are false we're an evolving ape, and so are our cousins. From what I have been reading we are in fact even closer to bonobos, than chimps and all of us are closer to one another than gorillas. but the distinction is small.

What I am saying is that without realizing it, and even though you are trying to say the truth, you subtly reintroduce the idea of separation, even in the last post. The point is that "humans" are just "hairless apes". No more, no less. It is also true it appears that our genetic pattern has much more in common with the rat than the cat. All this implies is one of two conclusions, either we developed through divergence from common origins or we have some how through a mathematical improbability "converged" genetically upon similar genetic sequences.

Phenotypic convergence is not the same as genetically doing so, the orca and the shark are phenotpically convergent but nothing at all alike genetically. There is much more involved when we discuss the similarities in genetic pattern, you see it is also a question of mutations that have occurred over time that are genetic markers that demonstrates a common heritage. What we see in the genetic record IS A RECORD, not just a program for physiological behavior and form. Viable mutations that have occurred, bred true, and represent the separation of species into new adaptive forms are now being looked at with a whole new understanding of the old parable of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

In each of our genes may be the total history of life on Earth leading to our individual present and if true it is so for all life on Earth.

But we are still human, and this is our origin even as we become Transhuman. It is an origin to be proud of, not ashamed. Becoming Transhuman isn't about running away from our past as a species, it is about embracing our future as thinking beings.

No, it is by saying apes evolved from us, or we evolved from apes, both are false we're an evolving ape, and so are our cousins.  From what I have been reading we are in fact even closer to bonobos, than chimps and all of us are closer to one another than gorillas. but the distinction is small.

Ok, I understand you. No wonder it is so hard for people to get this right. I am trying as hard as I can to state things correctly and I'm still slipping up. You're right, if humans are apes then what is the point of saying we came from them -- we are them. Or vice versa.

All this implies is one of two conclusions, either we developed through divergence from common origins or we have some how through a mathematical improbability "converged" genetically upon similar genetic sequences.

Improbability bordering on impossibility.

Phenotypic convergence is not the same as genetically doing so, the orca and the shark are phenotpically convergent but nothing at all alike genetically.

Yes, in terms of evolution, there is more than one way to come to the same conclusion.

There is much more involved when we discuss the similarities in genetic pattern, you see it is also a question of mutations that have occurred over time that are genetic markers that demonstrates a common heritage.  What we see in the genetic record IS A RECORD, not just a program for physiological behavior and form.

Yes, hence the existence of junk DNA that exists for no apparent reason.

In each of our genes may be the total history of life on Earth leading to our individual present and if true it is so for all life on Earth.

I believe this to be the case.

But we are still human, and this is our origin even as we become Transhuman.  It is an origin to be proud of, not ashamed.  Becoming Transhuman isn't about running away from our past as a species, it is about embracing our future as thinking beings.

I agree.

For now I will refrain from discussing "junk DNA" but let me say that nothing in nature is probably "junk" and the fact that we classify it this way implies simply that we do not understand it more than it is irrelevant genetically. It is a topic that I along with many will be returning to from time to time.

So let me put some articles in here for review, along with the wonderful links that come along with them. Leave it to the Beebe to pay attention. I am afraid that our creationist brethren have made it nearly impossible to get adequate coverage in the United States on the vast quantity of data being discovered almost daily about evolution, so it is sadly necessary to study abroad in a "virtual manner".

I don't mind because it also allows me to study cross culturally but I do notice the dearth of coverage from all except the most prestigious news services here.


Wednesday, 19 February, 2003, 03:46 GMT
Date for first Australians

The Mungo burials have cast doubt on 'Out of Africa'
A new analysis of Australia's oldest human remains suggests humans arrived on the continent about 50,000 years ago. The evidence is based on a re-examination of the so-called Mungo Man skeleton, unearthed in New South Wales (NSW) in 1974.

Scientists say the individual was probably buried about 40,000 years ago, when humans had been living in the area for some 10,000 years.
(excerpts)
http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/2709797.stm


Friday, 31 January, 2003, 05:37 GMT
Fossil find stirs human debate

100s of hominids have been found at Sterkfontein

The fossil of an early human-like creature (hominid) from southern Africa is raising fresh questions about our origins. Remains from the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg suggest our ancestors were less chimp-like than we thought.

The revelation follows the discovery of missing bones from a 3.5 million-year-old skeleton found in 1998.
(excerpts)
http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/2709797.stm


Last Updated: Thursday, 21 August, 2003, 11:10 GMT 12:10 UK
Humans related to humble mud worm
It doesn't look like us but we share DNA with the worm

This brainless mud worm is a long-lost relative of human beings, scientists have discovered. It appears the slug-like creature found living at the bottom of a Swedish lake shares its ancestry with people.

It does not have a brain or even sex organs and scientists are baffled about how the Xenoturbella procreates. However, researchers at Cambridge University are convinced it shares DNA with humans.
(excerpt)
http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/3170245.stm

Let me also add that I have the same kind of emotional response to being related to apes and worms, as I get when I am forced to admit that I am related to creationists by incontrovertable DNA evidence. )

Kissinger:

It might be that junk DNA, is not quite that much junk. I personally think that 97% of our DNA cannot possibly all be nonfunctional. As researcher uncover more aspects of chromosomes genetics, clues to junk DNA's actual function are emerging... at least for some of it.

http://www.abc.net.a...nts/s133634.htm
http://hum-molgen.or...2002/msg08.html
http://www.eurekaler...h-pop051002.php

Edited by kevin, 21 August 2003 - 03:17 PM.

Kevin these are great links and I suggest they should cross referenced or more fully presented in the Abiogenesis thread. I very much enjoyed Karl's explaination of why we are asking quaetions.

Ok, so maybe instead of calling it junk DNA I should start calling it "mystery DNA".

Here is a post from a guy I was discussion evolution with at another site. The guy brings up a lot of interesting point, although I still wouldn't say I'm ready to dump Darwin ) .

Hello again,

A near miss is a misconception. It means it was "almost missed, but
wasn't." So it actually means "a crash." Though the reports of "airline
near-misses" seems to have missed this point, near-misses are common in
our language as meaning that something almost transpired. So it is a
tongue-in-cheek subject header for a not so tongue-in-cheek content.

donald wrote:
> In their mind,
> if they can cast doubt on Darwin, they have successfully invalidated
> evolutionary theory in its entirity.

It's a near-miss kind of logic, isn't it? If "they" doubt Darwin was
right, evolutionary theory must be dumped altogether? How about,
evolution exists, it happens, but not necessarily as Darwin described it?

What DID Darwin claim, though? How many know that who use Darwins'
theory of evolution as a given? Is it clear that he'd taken ideas from
people before his time (and from his time), that he linked them with
Thomas Malthus' social philosophy to come up with the following?

1.- Darwin claimed that all life beings are related and that they stem
from a single (type?) of "ancestral" being.

If a scientific theory is meant to be a "proof" of something through
experimentation and other means until something is "undoubtedly true,"
then there is no such proof in the scientific world. It is all based on
a belief based on a myriad of papers written by scientists whose "body
of publications" and subsequent quotations have been eventually viewed,
by science, as "proof" of an unproven reality. It is clear that we all
stem from parents, and from our parent's parents, and so forth until the
beginning of our human species ... and then there is a "missing link"
(still to be found and which leaves open various possibilities, as
discussed in other postings -First Chimpazee vs. Descent of Woman or
"aquatic theory", to give but two examples). This phenomenon repeats
itself, of species stemming from other species, but "missing links"
appearing all throughout the "tree of evolution" with no clear
explanation of how it can be that reptilians developed into mammalians
and into birds ... i.e., with explanations as of the various beliefs,
but no "hard scientific proof." There is a clear lack of fosil remains
that show how the "transition" ocurred between species divided from
trunk to branches to smaller branches in the tree of evolution. Even
Darwin complained of this lack of evidence, and through geological
studies of fosils, this leaps from one species to another as part of
evolution have been rather "exceptions" rather than the "rule." From the
point of view of "science," it seems illogical to use evidences to
possible links before the evidence has actually been found.

This doesn't make evolution impossible, it just means that there are
still aspects to it that have not been considered or discovered. It may
mean that not all species stem from a single "original cell." In fact,
if we look at how different environments produce different results and
shapes in organisms, the "tree of evolution" may actually be more a kind
of a diverse "forest of trees," though all based on physical principles
and other influences that have made the different species similar in
many ways.

2. Another statement made by Darwin is that the origin of the different
species is based on random changes or so called "modifications." These
modifications have, supposedly, given the various life forms different
properties and shapes and characteristics. This word, modification, has
been changed by twentieth century Darwinists and been explained as
"genetic mutation, and "genetic recombination." They still propose these
mutations and recombinations to happen through random changes, meaning
also "by chance" and in a chaotic way through "errors" in the
transcription of the genetic inherited information, by which "letters"
or even entire "words" or "sentences" get lost, are replaced by others
or exchanged. These random changes are supposedly what lead to the
"betterment" of a given species through "natural selection."

There is still no scientific proof as to how genetic information gets
translated into phenotypical characteristics and forms. For example, it
is still not clear how it is possible that a similar type of cell with
the same genetic information form a different ear on the left side, as
the one on the right side. This has also lead to think that perhaps the
"thing" about forms and shapes and such physical characteristics are not
all due to "genetic information." Perhaps there is still a missing
"higher mechanism." This simply means that putting proof on something
which is still in debate isn't "good science." There still is not clear
relation between genetic structure (genotype), and physical forms
(phenotypes). Why is it that certain species, in spite of their great
differences in their genetic information, look so much alike (like some
Salamandras), while others whose genetic information matches to about
99% are so different (Human beings and gorillas).

Also, there is still no "proof" that the transmition of genetic
information occurs "at random." It is a belief that must still be
scientifically proven if it is to stand as an unshakable theory. And
even as a belief it can't hold much water, since it isn't really logical
to think that random and chaotic "mistakes" in the transmition of
information can lead to "betterment" of a species. Also, if we look at
other phenomenons around us, mistakes and chaotic events don't usually
lead to "higher" forms of organization of more complex nature ... as
happens in evolution if we look back in time and where we stand now. To
claim this is possible is to claim that continual and random
introduction of disorder will make a system more orderly. A metaphorical
comparison would be to have one of Beethovens or Bach's concerts be
"made better" by letting a composer begin to take out and put in new
notes or whole sections at random, and that the piece will get better if
this happens over millennia. Or that by simply adding pieces to a car,
and that by doing this enough times, it will turn into an airplane.

The whole issue has simply replaced "God" with another "mythological
creator" called "natural selection" and "random mutation." Later-day
Darwinists have called this "the sum of environmental conditions." But
the environment doesn't "make the selection." The environment puts the
boundaries and beings move inside those boundaries. Those who start to
move out of those boundaries, must stop being what they were to become
something else. It can be said that this is "the environment imposing on
the life form," but it didn't force it to change. Unless the environment
itself changed suddenly (or over time) making life forms adapt or die.

If we look at what goes on at the Galapagos Islands (I have been there
three times), if the environment doesn't change, the species in an
island will remain the same over long periods of time. Where does that
leave genetic mutation? How can it be explained that a caterpillar
becomes a butterfly, unless that information of "the change" is already
_inside_ the caterpillar?

There are many other such instances that can be picked and analyzed. One
is the idea that "fittest" (as in survival of the fittest) means "the
strongest wins." Which is another way of saying that those which are
strong will destroy and kill all others, which is an act of suicide. In
fact, survival of the fittest is the ideology of cancerous cells.

Cooperation is as important in nature as competition. This does not make
competition invalid, but competition alone cannot explain evolution
towards higher orders.

Also, the idea that small changes over eons lead a hand to become a wing
so a landlubber can begin to fly, is a bit hard to take. And that this
is due to "fights for survival" which lead to characteristics that make
certain species more fit than others ... where does that lead the
giraffe? Half a meter higher necks would mean more food supply, more so
for males than for females (which have on average 60cm shorter necks),
and more so for adults than for offsprings. This was an example used by
Darwin to describe what could be called the intraspecies fights for
survival.

And that it is all due to environmental conditions doesn't explain why
both the silk spider and a type of shellfish in the Red Sea (with no
relation to each other) produce silk ...

I could go on, but this is already way too long.

In short and to end, the point is simply that we have taken Darwinismus
or Darwinistic Theory of Evolution as a given, and that we have been
using many of the described examples of that theory to explain (and
excuse ourselves for) the "rightfullness" of our predatory behavior,
when in fact the only two kinds of life forms that behave as described
by Darwin's theory of evolution are the cancerous cells and human
beings. However, not all human beings, but those that live under a
culture known as the Patriarchal Culture, which has been on the planet
for about 15.000 years. So even the idea that human genes make us behave
in predatory and warring ways, is but a misconception and a
misundestanding as to how our human culture has "evolved."

Animal behavior that is looked upon as predatory and/or violent to the
point of continaully exerting the "law of the fittest" occurs only in
very specific and extraordinary situations, and not as an ongoing way of
life. If you look at what happens in the Galapagos, animals are so tame
that even sharks are considered "safe." There _are_ a lot of the things
Darwin described occurring in nature, but they are not all that happens,
and they don't explain "how evolution works" in a bulletproof and
all-encompassing way.

The problem with the memetic transmition of this belief is in great
measure due to the ongoing use of Darwin's Theory of Evolution as a
given in all forms of media, scientific reference material, and the
political and economic arena. "Darwin said it was a constant fight for
survival, so I got all the right to fight, don't I?"

All the best,

Leonardo Wild

[quote]Hello again,

A near miss is a misconception. It means it was “almost missed, but
wasn’t.” So it actually means “a crash.” Though the reports of “airline
near-misses” seems to have missed this point, near-misses are common in
our language as meaning that something almost transpired. So it is a
tongue-in-cheek subject header for a not so tongue-in-cheek content.
[/quote]

This is actually wrong to begin with, it doesn’t mean “almost anything” it means specifically a “close encounter” of the passing by *bye ) * kind. As in “close but no cigar” and a “miss is as good as a mile” and “close is only valid in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

The misconception is the author's by reading paradox into it and confusing the use of near for its intended meaning of “close” as opposed to its secondary meaning of “almost”.

It doesn’t invalidate any of the rest of this argument except that as a pilot I just couldn’t let that one go by because the point is itself such a good example of a “near miss” of the meaning of the phrase.

[quote]
donald wrote:
> In their mind,
> if they can cast doubt on Darwin, they have successfully invalidated
> evolutionary theory in its entirity.

It’s a near-miss kind of logic, isn’t it? If “they” doubt Darwin was
right, evolutionary theory must be dumped altogether? How about,
evolution exists, it happens, but not necessarily as Darwin described it?
[/quote]

This is as incorrect as the initial argument. Disproving aspects of the theory doesn’t invalidate it. Einstein disproved aspects of Newtonian theory, what that did was make Einstein more correct and (precise) than Newton but it doesn’t mean that suddenly Newtonian theory is invalid. It isn’t even a fair contest between the two because of the comparative precision with which each individual in their respective time period had to develop their theories.

The analogy is that Darwin had a very limited understanding of genetics to work with and a much less developed fossil record. The problem is that Darwin isn’t writing scripture that is carved in stone, theories are “models” not mantras.

I can openly object to specific aspects of Darwinian Theory as it regards life today, or introduce variables of catastrophism that most Neo-Darwinists must reconcile but it doesn’t invalidate anything about what Darwin did; it only refines our understanding of what he gave us to understand.

[quote]
What DID Darwin claim, though? How many know that who use Darwins’
theory of evolution as a given? Is it clear that he’d taken ideas from
people before his time (and from his time), that he linked them with
Thomas Malthus’ social philosophy to come up with the following?

1.- Darwin claimed that all life beings are related and that they stem
from a single (type?) of “ancestral” being.
[/quote]

Actually Darwin doesn’t say this specifically but many have inferred it and it is actually not the point of evolutionary theory to insist on a “single source” though that is how most understand it.

Darwin did describe divergence (and convergence) but was more interested in “reasons” why related species change and identified that the causal element was adaptation to environmental pressure, not any of the various assumptions of increasing complexity that may, or may not be true but are not essential to Darwinian Theory.

Darwin never came to a conclusion in his life time about the “single source” of life issue that was a development of argument with creationists that insist on taking it to single event.

[quote]
If a scientific theory is meant to be a “proof” of something through
experimentation and other means until something is “undoubtedly true,”
then there is no such proof in the scientific world. It is all based on
a belief based on a myriad of papers written by scientists whose “body
of publications” and subsequent quotations have been eventually viewed,
by science, as “proof” of an unproven reality. [/quote]

This is another false conjecture and this time in its entirety. Theory doesn’t mean to prove anything. A theory is best understood as a model not a proof.

The word is defined as:
1) A plan or scheme existing in the mind only, but based on principles verifiable by experiment or observation.
2) A body of the fundamental principles underlying a science: the theory of relativity.
3) Abstract knowledge of any art, as opposed to the practice of it
4) A proposed explanation or hypothesis designed to account for any phenomena
5) {loosely} mere speculation or hypotheses: an individual idea or guess
6) Math An arrangement of results, or a body of theorems, presenting a systematic view of some subject: the theory of functions
7) The science of musical composition

I am curious now; does anybody remember how to use a dictionary and have one handy when debating?

Maybe it is just me noticing how often people only "think" they are speaking English, when what it is less than common vernacular. It is simply an incorrect assumed word usage and people arguing with straw men but really shadow boxing with themselves.

There is not one example from this edition of my “Funk & Wagnall’s” that provides the definition of the word "theory" that the author of this argument is basing his premises on.

At no time is Darwin providing a “proof” as the argument alleges. Darwin is applying the first, second, and fourth definitions of the use of the word theory with respect to his model for the development of life and he did so under what was arguably the rigorous demands of the 6th condition as it defines the logical construct of the developed paradigm.

The author is applying the 5th condition with respect to his guessing at Darwin’s Theory.

[quote]
It is clear that we all stem from parents, and from our parent’s parents, and so forth until the beginning of our human species ... and then there is a “missing link”
(still to be found and which leaves open various possibilities, as
discussed in other postings -First Chimpazee vs. Descent of Woman or
”aquatic theory”, to give but two examples). This phenomenon repeats
itself, of species stemming from other species, but “missing links”
appearing all throughout the “tree of evolution” with no clear
explanation of how it can be that reptilians developed into mammalians
and into birds ... i.e., with explanations as of the various beliefs,
but no “hard scientific proof.” There is a clear lack of fosil remains
that show how the “transition” ocurred between species divided from
trunk to branches to smaller branches in the tree of evolution. Even
Darwin complained of this lack of evidence, and through geological
studies of fosils, this leaps from one species to another as part of
evolution have been rather “exceptions” rather than the “rule.” From the
point of view of “science,” it seems illogical to use evidences to
possible links before the evidence has actually been found.
[/quote]

Talk about mixing apples and oranges, let alone "missing the link." This is a classic variation on the smoking gun argument. Genetics doesn’t need a specific period fossil because the genes are available to examine in the present tense and mutational markers that coincide with discernable periods of development allow us to follow the evolution of our species across many gaps the way a “postmark” can tell you where a letter has been even if it can’t tell you where it hasn’t.

And again the author is trying to infer from questions that are still extant in the developing theory of evolution that such questions lay open as suspect the entire body of knowledge that has been acquired over the now century and half of scientific study.

Clearly we have not to date found any PHYSICAL evidence that is NOT explained by Darwin’s theories as modified by the better understanding of the geological record. The transition argument is a commonly used red herring because there does exits transitional fossils and saying that we don’t have one for every living example of species is just silly. Of course fossils aren’t found at the local library on demand. Given the relative hostility of environment we are generally fortunate to have fossils at all. But again the author is wrong as there does exist numerous transitional fossils that at the very least establishes the idea is reasonable that we may find such fossils for ourselves.

But the argument about what constitutes a transitional fossil for a human is also misrepresented and based on an obsolete understanding of the Theory. By the way none of this addresses the idea of Natural Selection as the basic model driving adaptive mutation in association with a variety of genetic factors related to environmental stress.

[quote]
This doesn’t make evolution impossible, it just means that there are
still aspects to it that have not been considered or discovered. It may
mean that not all species stem from a single “original cell.” In fact,
if we look at how different environments produce different results and
shapes in organisms, the “tree of evolution” may actually be more a kind
of a diverse “forest of trees,” though all based on physical principles
and other influences that have made the different species similar in
many ways. [/quote]

So define an alternative explanation with as good a track record for being accurately predictive of what we find from various corroborating sources?

The tree of evolution may be many things but nothing the author proposes explains what it is. Again the basic model in question is sufficiently broadly applicable that it is itself “adaptive” and is evolving into greater complexity and stronger validity as more and more data is collected, not the other way around.

[quote]
2. Another statement made by Darwin is that the origin of the different
species is based on random changes or so called “modifications.” These
modifications have, supposedly, given the various life forms different
properties and shapes and characteristics. This word, modification, has
been changed by twentieth century Darwinists and been explained as
”genetic mutation, and “genetic recombination.” They still propose these
mutations and recombinations to happen through random changes, meaning
also “by chance” and in a chaotic way through “errors” in the
transcription of the genetic inherited information, by which “letters”
or even entire “words” or “sentences” get lost, are replaced by others
or exchanged. These random changes are supposedly what lead to the
”betterment” of a given species through “natural selection.”

There is still no scientific proof as to how genetic information gets
translated into phenotypical characteristics and forms. For example, it
is still not clear how it is possible that a similar type of cell with
the same genetic information form a different ear on the left side, as
the one on the right side. This has also lead to think that perhaps the
”thing” about forms and shapes and such physical characteristics are not
all due to “genetic information.” Perhaps there is still a missing
”higher mechanism.” This simply means that putting proof on something
which is still in debate isn’t “good science.” There still is not clear
relation between genetic structure (genotype), and physical forms
(phenotypes). Why is it that certain species, in spite of their great
differences in their genetic information, look so much alike (like some
Salamandras), while others whose genetic information matches to about
99% are so different (Human beings and gorillas).
[/quote]

This is saying much more about the lack of understanding of the author than the theory. We do understand more and more the mechanisms of mutation and I suggest the real problem is that many people would prefer we remain willfully ignorant.

Reference this article posted by Kevin just yesterday: http://www.imminst.o...t=0

The author is simply unaware of how far in understanding the complex mechanisms we have already come. It is this argument being made that is exemplary of poor scientific reasoning. Also confusing the issues of phenotypic expression and genotype is another example of the author’s lack of understanding.

They are not specifically related across species as in the example of sharks and orca, sharks are proto fish (not even true fish) because their skeleton is made of cartilage not bone and they have a notochord brain, but orca is a full blown mammal with a very large complex brain and there is no direct overlapping of genes between these two species they found different genetic ways of adapting the best possible methods to the same environmental conditions, in other words Convergence.

If I go out into the arctic tundra with a damn good fur coat on does that make me a polar bear?

Adaptation is the “motive” for successful mutation not the means, any geneticist worth their salt will remind you that 99% of all mutation is either non viable or not useful. Mutation occurs all the time but only sometimes does it reflect an improvement over competing models.

[quote]
Also, there is still no “proof” that the transmition of genetic
information occurs “at random.” It is a belief that must still be
scientifically proven if it is to stand as an unshakable theory. And
even as a belief it can’t hold much water, since it isn’t really logical
to think that random and chaotic “mistakes” in the transmition of
information can lead to “betterment” of a species. Also, if we look at
other phenomenons around us, mistakes and chaotic events don’t usually
lead to “higher” forms of organization of more complex nature ... as
happens in evolution if we look back in time and where we stand now. To
claim this is possible is to claim that continual and random
introduction of disorder will make a system more orderly. A metaphorical
comparison would be to have one of Beethovens or Bach’s concerts be
”made better” by letting a composer begin to take out and put in new
notes or whole sections at random, and that the piece will get better if
this happens over millennia. Or that by simply adding pieces to a car,
and that by doing this enough times, it will turn into an airplane.
[/quote]

It is too late to expose the profound fallacy in all this and I will simply have to return to it in the future because I think it merits learning from this author’s mistakes. But this last set of arguments has already been shown to be false in what I addressed earlier.

Random Selection is only saying that factors involving “survival of the fittest” in life are causal in relation to environment and the competition for sustainable resources but not preordained and arguing hard determinism as opposed to random selection is just silly.

The author misses the point again which is, most people cannot perform a complex task that they have not “learned” and learning is adaptive memetics not a miracle.

Genes “learn” in a sense too, that is what a “successful mutation” is, it isn’t just the marker; it is the means of preserving the lesson. It isn’t just random pieces as the author suggests but a remarkably adaptive mechanism that is a natural analog of software which, remembers and builds upon a chemical memory and we are learning more and more about this every day.

I suggest a review of the growing thread on abiogenesis and the origins of life:
http://www.imminst.o...=12

But you will find that we are evaluating many aspects of evolutionary theory that question specific aspects of our understanding. Personally I think the discussion is somewhat moot because what we are in fact doing is already replacing Natural Selection with Human Selection while these people are arguing about whether Natural Selection even is valid. But I don’t “believe” in Natural Selection, I understand it and recognize it is as valid as gravity both as a model for life and a force to be contended with.

[quote]
The whole issue has simply replaced “God” with another “mythological
creator” called “natural selection” and “random mutation.” Later-day
Darwinists have called this “the sum of environmental conditions.” But
the environment doesn’t “make the selection.” The environment puts the
boundaries and beings move inside those boundaries. Those who start to
move out of those boundaries, must stop being what they were to become
something else. It can be said that this is “the environment imposing on
the life form,” but it didn’t force it to change. Unless the environment
itself changed suddenly (or over time) making life forms adapt or die.

If we look at what goes on at the Galapagos Islands (I have been there
three times), if the environment doesn’t change, the species in an
island will remain the same over long periods of time. Where does that
leave genetic mutation? How can it be explained that a caterpillar
becomes a butterfly, unless that information of “the change” is already
inside the caterpillar? [/quote]

More patent bunk, reference Darwin finches, as much as I envy the author for going on a little “eco-tourism”, he would perhaps have been better served by taking a class in paleontology and genetics at his local college. Again it isn’t about “forcing change”. This author’s understanding of the processes and paradigms is so poor that there is little point in beating this dead eohippus.

Check out: [quote]
Darwin's Finches
Darwin's Finches. If the giant tortoise is the symbol of the Galapagos Islands,
then Darwin's finches must be the symbol of evolution in the Galapagos. ...
http://www.rit.edu/~...arwinFinch.html
Darwin's Finches - Page 2
RETURN TO PAGE ONE. Darwin's Finches - PAGE 2. It takes ... ambiguous. That
is precisely the point at which we find the Darwin's finches. They ...
http://www.rit.edu/~...rwinFinch2.html 
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Darwin's finches at risk
... Friday, 8 November, 2002, 00:00 GMT Darwin's finches at risk The finches
hold a unique place in the history of science, ... Darwin's finches. ...
http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/2415261.stm
[/quote]

[quote]
There are many other such instances that can be picked and analyzed. One
is the idea that “fittest” (as in survival of the fittest) means “the
strongest wins.” Which is another way of saying that those which are
strong will destroy and kill all others, which is an act of suicide. In
fact, survival of the fittest is the ideology of cancerous cells.

Cooperation is as important in nature as competition. This does not make
competition invalid, but competition alone cannot explain evolution
towards higher orders. [/quote]

While this is a perfectly acceptable critique of Social Darwinism it has little at all to do with what Darwin was saying. The most "successfully adapted" is a question of efficiency with respect to environment not mere physical strength. Rats are not stronger than man but rats are very successful at adapting to our urban environment.

I am glad that this wasn’t your argument Don, I expect you to take a little while and try and study the underlying principles a little better first.

[quote]
Also, the idea that small changes over eons lead a hand to become a wing
so a landlubber can begin to fly, is a bit hard to take. And that this
is due to “fights for survival” which lead to characteristics that make
certain species more fit than others ... where does that lead the
giraffe? Half a meter higher necks would mean more food supply, more so
for males than for females (which have on average 60cm shorter necks),
and more so for adults than for offsprings. This was an example used by
Darwin to describe what could be called the intraspecies fights for
survival. [/quote]

This last, and this last alone is a question I have as well but I do see adaptive mechanisms that might operate in an incremental fashion but with wings it is not so easy to survive having them and not flying, but the flying squirrel is adapting stretched skin into "glider wings" and this may be how the process begins. Yet again acknowledging that we still have a lot to learn about evolution at no point disqualifies the basic tenets of the theory.

[quote]
And that it is all due to environmental conditions doesn’t explain why
both the silk spider and a type of shellfish in the Red Sea (with no
relation to each other) produce silk ...

I could go on, but this is already way too long.

In short and to end, the point is simply that we have taken Darwinismus
or Darwinistic Theory of Evolution as a given, and that we have been
using many of the described examples of that theory to explain (and
excuse ourselves for) the “rightfullness” of our predatory behavior,
when in fact the only two kinds of life forms that behave as described
by Darwin’s theory of evolution are the cancerous cells and human
beings. However, not all human beings, but those that live under a
culture known as the Patriarchal Culture, which has been on the planet
for about 15.000 years. So even the idea that human genes make us behave
in predatory and warring ways, is but a misconception and a
misundestanding as to how our human culture has “evolved.”

Animal behavior that is looked upon as predatory and/or violent to the
point of continaully exerting the “law of the fittest” occurs only in
very specific and extraordinary situations, and not as an ongoing way of
life. If you look at what happens in the Galapagos, animals are so tame
that even sharks are considered “safe.” There are a lot of the things
Darwin described occurring in nature, but they are not all that happens,
and they don’t explain “how evolution works” in a bulletproof and
all-encompassing way.

The problem with the memetic transmition of this belief is in great
measure due to the ongoing use of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as a
given in all forms of media, scientific reference material, and the
political and economic arena. “Darwin said it was a constant fight for
survival, so I got all the right to fight, don’t I?”

All the best,

Leonardo Wild[/quote]

“God protect me from misunderstanding” but I am better shielded by study.

This last rambling is all about faith not reason, it is as much a bait and switch as possible just short of being completely inconsistent to the point of incoherence. The last part is about Social Darwinism, which is about as bad an extrapolation of the poor man’s theories as Creationism snuck in as Intelligent Design.

This author clearly DOESN’T understand Darwinian Theory and doesn’t even recognize that half the time he is attacking an irrelevant strawman of his own creation not predicated on the model described by the theory.

Whew, I will leave this here with your chimp topic but we might reference this as a good example of really bad science.

Anyone else want to take a few pot shots at the gaping holes in this argument?

Heh, you got em Laz. Spencer's look at evolution (social Darwinism) was wrong a long time ago (chuckle), an interesting ending to this contortion of everything. I actually had to write a letter to my Sociology teacher to state in class that Spencer conjured a misconception of evolution "survival of the fittest."

And Darwin is most certainly not the "word" of evolution body.

If Evolutionary Biologists lived for an exponential time I bet they would have more time to hand creationists their arse on a platter. (marks another benefit to LE)

[quote](this was me referring to Creationists)
donald wrote:
> In their mind,
> if they can cast doubt on Darwin, they have successfully invalidated
> evolutionary theory in its entirety.

It’s a near-miss kind of logic, isn’t it? If “they” doubt Darwin was
right, evolutionary theory must be dumped altogether? How about,
evolution exists, it happens, but not necessarily as Darwin described it?


This is as incorrect as the initial argument. Disproving aspects of the theory doesn’t invalidate it. Einstein disproved aspects of Newtonian theory, what that did was make Einstein more correct and (precise) than Newton but it doesn’t mean that suddenly Newtonian theory is invalid. It isn’t even a fair contest between the two because of the comparative precision with which each individual in their respective time period had to develop their theories.

The analogy is that Darwin had a very limited understanding of genetics to work with and a much less developed fossil record. The problem is that Darwin isn’t writing scripture that is carved in stone, theories are “models” not mantras.[/quote]

Yeah, my argument was very similar to this


[quote]1.- Darwin claimed that all life beings are related and that they stem
from a single (type?) of “ancestral” being.
[/quote]

Actually Darwin doesn’t say this specifically but many have inferred it and it is actually not the point of evolutionary theory to insist on a “single source” though that is how most understand it.[/quote]

I wasn't sure about this contention at the time of my reply so I chose to let it slide. Good to know for future reference.

[quote]If a scientific theory is meant to be a “proof” of something through
experimentation and other means until something is “undoubtedly true,”
then there is no such proof in the scientific world. It is all based on
a belief based on a myriad of papers written by scientists whose “body
of publications” and subsequent quotations have been eventually viewed,
by science, as “proof” of an unproven reality.

This is another false conjecture and this time in its entirety. Theory doesn’t mean to prove anything. A theory is best understood as a model not a proof.[/quote]

Yeah, I got him on this. A real soft ball to be hit out of the park.


[quote]So define an alternative explanation with as good a track record for being accurately predictive of what we find from various corroborating sources?[/quote]

I ask the same exact question at least 5 times in my reply, but he went off on another tangent instead of answering my specific questions. This Wild character is one of those individuals who is trying to be "open minded" by not "buy into anything too strongly", etc. You know the type.

[quote]This last, and this last alone is a question I have as well but I do see adaptive mechanisms that might operate in an incremental fashion but with wings it is not so easy to survive having them and not flying, but the flying squirrel is adapting stretched skin into "glider wings" and this may be how the process begins. Yet again acknowledging that we still have a lot to learn about evolution at no point disqualifies the basic tenets of the theory.[/quote]

From my basic understanding there are two major theories on the origins of flight. I'm in the process of doing a few on line searches to supplement my knowledge, but I remember reading an article about a new theory where a guy figured out that some kind of modern day birds that couldn't fly, could walk up wood planks that were at greater than 90 degree angles using their wings as counter balance. His contention was that the longer, stronger, and better feathered the wings were -- the higher up the tree the flightless bird would be able to climb. Until at some point, the wings were so fully developed that they were able to permit flying. Of course, this still doesn't explain the flapping of wings and I'm sure there's a lot of other holes in it as well.


[quote]This author clearly DOESN’T understand Darwinian Theory and doesn’t even recognize that half the time he is attacking an irrelevant strawman of his own creation not predicated on the model described by the theory.[/quote]

Well, I wasn't that harsh as I have been trying to avoid flame wars as of late. )

My two main counter points to him were 1) you're failing to properly understand the concept of a theory and the purpose of theory. 2) you haven't presented any alternatives to evolution, let alone one that is competitive or superior. Therefore, if evolution is the best working model, then proper science would dictate working within this model until it has been disproved or a superior model is created. IOW, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. (I liked the way you put it: So define an alternative explanation with as good a track record for being accurately predictive of what we find from various corroborating sources?) I'll have to remember to incorporate the element of predictive aspects of a model next time I go down this path.

Would you like some more banter from Mr. Wild? He's talking about junk DNA now. I can only imagine your reaction, lol.

Great Killer Instincts
Kissinger

I don't have the time at the moment Don but go ahead and post it if you want. Maybe someone else will pick it up. Also one thing about not understanding Darwin most of the "Wild Man's " arguments were about "Social Darwinism" not Darwinist Theory per se. He kept attempting erroneous extrapolations of one model to support another extremist perspective and then attack the straw man that he had created. This is the most common strategy that Creationists employ because it results from arguing an agenda based ideology, not a quest for truth.

Creationism is not science, it is politics. I got a kick out the forum getting re-named from Politics and Sociology to "Politics and Religion". Though you know that in my opinion it should be re-labeled "Politics = Religion" )

But then I would be defending an agenda instead of seeking truth and I really am more open minded about spiritual issues but I have grown less complacent about being subjected to evangelical dogma over the years that is more about manipulation of the masses than anything about spiritual enlightenment.

As to junk DNA the most important thing to realize is that first most of what we think we know is suspect (for the moment) and that in lieu of concrete evidence, anything we say about it is speculation and conjecture more than hypothesis.

We are still in a fact gathering phase and need to assess possible models but honest scientists would start by acknowledging how little we do know and pause for reflection before drawing any conclusion about it.

Changing the subject slightly as I will post this article under genetics elsewhere here is an interesting study about dyslexia, intelligence, and its genetics out of todays press. http://story.news.ya...nce_dyslexia_dc

It lends credence to my suspicion that we are looking at a mutation in the brain effecting many of us. A mutation that I suspect is related to a "competitive advance" in how we "think, perceive, and communicate" as a species but it also shows how such an advance might first be a problem to be overcome environmentally as a challenge to survival before turning into an advantage in latter generations.