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The Science of Biological Evolution (no politics or religion)

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Avatar of Ghost_Horse0
Ghost_Horse0
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28541

Well, I'm sure in time immemorial people didn't have telescopes. The "ancients" as in Greeks are relatively close in time compared to 10s or 100s of thousands of years ago.

And even if you don't like the Bible, it (and other old books) can still be used as a historical reference, and it certainly seems the cosmology of people in BC times conceived of the Earth (and the dome above it which they called the firmament) as all there was.

It's also a very minor point to get hung up on. Maybe you're a sciencephobe.

Avatar of USArmyParatrooper
USArmyParatrooper
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28542
tbwp10 wrote:
USArmyParatrooper wrote:
tbwp10 wrote:
USArmyParatrooper wrote:

 

Whether it’s gradualism or punctuated equilibrium, neither has teleological implications. 

Gradualism may seem intuitive, but when pondering deeper punctuated equilibrium actually makes more sense.  Once a species has adapted to a given environment, if that environment remains constant there are no environmental pressures to change.  Then if there’s a dramatic change in environment, particularly if a species is cut off and isolated from the rest of the gene pool, then it only makes sense the change would come more rapidly. 

*No one was talking about teleology so don't know why you keep bringing that up

*And regarding the question of whether it's gradualism or punctuated equilibrium the answer is it's neither.  

*Changing environments doesn't work either because although that's what is predicted by natural selection---that you'll see evolution during changes in environments the dominant mode is morphological stasis--no change- over millions of years despite changing environments

*The record is one of paleocommunity succession--coordinated stasis in communities with little to no change then extinction followed by abrupt appeaeance and replacement by a new, community often evolutionarily unrelated to the one before then stasis, extinction, replacement....repeat, repeat 

* correct, but that’s usually what you’re trying to get at.  Riiiiight.  No afraid the issue is you're delusional and you're way more obsessed about me then actual science
 
* so you’re saying evolution doesn’t occur at a slow steady rate, NOR at varying rates? What exactly are you trying to say?
There are variable rates.  But the major changes/patterns are rapid change events involving entire community turnovers, which is something not predicted by either gradualism or punctuated equilibrium.   
 
* In your zeal to be contrarian to anything I say, you have literally just claimed changes in environment have no effect on evolution. See there you exaggerating again and not reading carefully.  I said the fossil record is dominated by morphological stasis for millions of years through changing environments followed by extinction and succession/replacement.  (This is a significant deviation from prediction to be sure--natural selection theory predicts changing environments is when we should see the most evolution and evolutionary turnover.  But I never said the environment never has any effect; real science is rarely ever a neat and tidy one theory explains it all.)  In fact we see coordinated stasis across entire paleocommunities that exhibit little to no major evolutionary change over millions of yrs of time despite changing environmental conditions, then extinction and replacement by a new paleocommunity that exhibits similar long-term stasis.  Many paleontologists see a disconnect with neontology and population genetics vs. the actual historical record of life.  This is a pattern not predicted by either gradualism or punctuated equilibrium---as if those were the only two options.  People only think that because of the poor job biology textbooks do on this subject by only presenting gradualism and punctuated equilibrium.  This is not contrarian but how the fossil record actually looks--as I've said many times before, with the exception of paleontologists who study this for a living, most people (including biologists) really don't know much about the fossil record and have many misconceptions.   anyway, according to this guy (who’s credentials we can actually verify) punctuated periods are explained and associated with dramatic changes in environment, including near extinction events.  sometimes yes, sometime no, but like I've said the rapid evolution of peripheral isolates explanation of puncutated equilibrium is rarely  something that can be proven or even tested because it's an explanation for missing evidence...Also, read carefully.  The long period of stasis with little to no evolutionary change despite changing environments comes before and after the abrupt disappearances (punctuations) you are referring to and conflating with my statement 
 
* So let me get this straight. In an intentionally pedantic, overly wordy manner, you are claiming *actual* full extinction, and then just an unexplainable, sudden appearance of a “replacement“ (similar but different) species. You’re freaking describing spontaneous generation, not evolution. No, you're simply not understanding and I'd be more than happy to explain further but I'll do it for other people because you're not really interested in learning but being antagonistic and trying to find cospiracies in anything I say

 

So you’re saying it’s not punctuated equilibrium but then you’re also saying there are periods of stasis (equilibrium) followed by rapid change (punctuation). Got it! 👍
 
The point about changing environments was dramatic changes can induce punctuation. But yes, if changes occur in the environment that have little or no affect on the survivability of a species, then the species can remain unchanged or relatively so.
 
Or perhaps I didn’t understand because it was poorly worded on your part, due to you attempting to make what is likely a fairly simple concept seem more complicated than it really is.

 

Avatar of USArmyParatrooper
USArmyParatrooper
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28543
hapless_fool wrote:
Hold it. The very first sentence of the divine video is “There used to be a time when we thought the earth is all that there is”.

Are you kidding me? The ancients were well aware of the existence of stars, planets, and um the sun.

What a stupid statement.

OK, I’m ready for this educational video to knock my socks off.

 You’re saying the ancients knew that the stars are just sons that are really far away, and that some of the lights in the sky are other planets? 

Avatar of tbwp10
tbwp10
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28544
Elroch wrote:
Titled_Patzer wrote:

Elroch - "The increase in the total range of gene variants over time is limited by how the process of evolution works."

And just how does the "process work" ?

Answer:

By a process of your description.

"The process" is the process of biological evolution, which involves a pool of genes being subject to a low level of mutation and natural selection.  That is but one mechanism.  Mutation-selection theory alone is insufficient to account for all biological change

In this process, each generation only provides a very small number of bits of information about fitness (the number of viable copies of a gene that get transferred to the next generation, and this information has be shared between all of the genes (this is why it is not good if the mutation rate is high enough to be mutating lots of genes). On top of this, most mutations are not significantly beneficial. Thus progress in the pool of genetic information is very slow.

When the pressure of natural selection becomes very strong, such as when environmental factors change, the effect on the distribution of gene variants can be dramatic and extremely rapid: this is essentially a process of elimination and fixation, not addition of new variants.

Does that make sense to you?

 

 

Avatar of tbwp10
tbwp10
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28545
Titled_Patzer wrote:

The mathematics can be manipulated to any desired result, all depending on which factors are included/rejected. The resulting "possibility" in mathematical terms is not representative, whether one is trying to prove something might have happened, or is impossible to have happened. Abstract possibility belongs in the real world, events that are observed, (or can be created), by testing and verification.  

It's been said, something is possible if it does not break any natural laws, such as it is impossible to for anything to move faster than the speed of light. Ok, fine so be it. But simply state as such. Using mathematics [ chances are >0 ] as if this somehow is a verification that something could have happened is nothing more than an attempt to insert "science" into the discussion when the answer is - "It is unknowable with current data." You either believe it possible or not, or somewhere in-between.

In the end, it really is not pertinent whether one set of manipulated factors claim .0000001 possibility or .01 possibility. If someone believes it's "possible" the numbers are pointless.

And in the research I was discussing there wasn't even a .000001 probability.  It was a 0 (zero) probability 

Avatar of tbwp10
tbwp10
Feb 2, 2019
0
#28546
Elroch wrote:

As I pointed out, it is the changes in the numbers of each gene that can be rapid. The increase in the total range of gene variants over time is limited by how the process of evolution works.

So, who would call the evolution of humans gradualism and who would call it an example of punctuated equilibrium? And who (like me) think it is a bit pointless to use these labels?

If by pointless you mean outdated then sure.  Again neither gradualism nor Gould & Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium adequately describe major patterns in fossil record, which again is dominated by the large-scale stasis of paleoecological systems over long periods of time with rapid turnover and replacement by new ones.  

Avatar of cutelovely
cutelovely
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28547

ok

Avatar of cutelovely
cutelovely
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28548

cutelovely wrote:

ok

ask darwin

Avatar of tbwp10
tbwp10
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28549
USArmyParatrooper wrote:
tbwp10 wrote:
USArmyParatrooper wrote:
tbwp10 wrote:
USArmyParatrooper wrote:

 

Whether it’s gradualism or punctuated equilibrium, neither has teleological implications. 

Gradualism may seem intuitive, but when pondering deeper punctuated equilibrium actually makes more sense.  Once a species has adapted to a given environment, if that environment remains constant there are no environmental pressures to change.  Then if there’s a dramatic change in environment, particularly if a species is cut off and isolated from the rest of the gene pool, then it only makes sense the change would come more rapidly. 

*No one was talking about teleology so don't know why you keep bringing that up

*And regarding the question of whether it's gradualism or punctuated equilibrium the answer is it's neither.  

*Changing environments doesn't work either because although that's what is predicted by natural selection---that you'll see evolution during changes in environments the dominant mode is morphological stasis--no change- over millions of years despite changing environments

*The record is one of paleocommunity succession--coordinated stasis in communities with little to no change then extinction followed by abrupt appeaeance and replacement by a new, community often evolutionarily unrelated to the one before then stasis, extinction, replacement....repeat, repeat 

* correct, but that’s usually what you’re trying to get at.  Riiiiight.  No afraid the issue is you're delusional and you're way more obsessed about me then actual science
 
* so you’re saying evolution doesn’t occur at a slow steady rate, NOR at varying rates? What exactly are you trying to say?
There are variable rates.  But the major changes/patterns are rapid change events involving entire community turnovers, which is something not predicted by either gradualism or punctuated equilibrium.   
 
* In your zeal to be contrarian to anything I say, you have literally just claimed changes in environment have no effect on evolution. See there you exaggerating again and not reading carefully.  I said the fossil record is dominated by morphological stasis for millions of years through changing environments followed by extinction and succession/replacement.  (This is a significant deviation from prediction to be sure--natural selection theory predicts changing environments is when we should see the most evolution and evolutionary turnover.  But I never said the environment never has any effect; real science is rarely ever a neat and tidy one theory explains it all.)  In fact we see coordinated stasis across entire paleocommunities that exhibit little to no major evolutionary change over millions of yrs of time despite changing environmental conditions, then extinction and replacement by a new paleocommunity that exhibits similar long-term stasis.  Many paleontologists see a disconnect with neontology and population genetics vs. the actual historical record of life.  This is a pattern not predicted by either gradualism or punctuated equilibrium---as if those were the only two options.  People only think that because of the poor job biology textbooks do on this subject by only presenting gradualism and punctuated equilibrium.  This is not contrarian but how the fossil record actually looks--as I've said many times before, with the exception of paleontologists who study this for a living, most people (including biologists) really don't know much about the fossil record and have many misconceptions.   anyway, according to this guy (who’s credentials we can actually verify) punctuated periods are explained and associated with dramatic changes in environment, including near extinction events.  sometimes yes, sometime no, but like I've said the rapid evolution of peripheral isolates explanation of puncutated equilibrium is rarely  something that can be proven or even tested because it's an explanation for missing evidence...Also, read carefully.  The long period of stasis with little to no evolutionary change despite changing environments comes before and after the abrupt disappearances (punctuations) you are referring to and conflating with my statement 
 
* So let me get this straight. In an intentionally pedantic, overly wordy manner, you are claiming *actual* full extinction, and then just an unexplainable, sudden appearance of a “replacement“ (similar but different) species. You’re freaking describing spontaneous generation, not evolution. No, you're simply not understanding and I'd be more than happy to explain further but I'll do it for other people because you're not really interested in learning but being antagonistic and trying to find cospiracies in anything I say

 

So you’re saying it’s not punctuated equilibrium but then you’re also saying there are periods of stasis (equilibrium) followed by rapid change (punctuation). Got it! 👍
 
Don't know why you're having difficulty understanding.  This isn't some new revelation or topic of discussion.  I've explained this at length before and included supplementary diagrams
 
You are confusing pattern and mechanism (and I've explained this point before): I assume you understand/can visualize what a  "punctuated," "rapid turnover," "abrupt" disappearance/appearance pattern would look like in the fossil record.  The explanations/reasons/mechanisms for such abrupt turnovers are myriad and a separate issue.
 
Gould & Eldredge's theory of "puncutated equilibrium" was not just a description of a punc. eq. pattern but also included a very specific mechanism---in brief, a small part of a larger population gets geographically separated (peripheral isolate) and undergoes rapid speciation.  Because small populatons are less likely to be preserved in the fossil record this was their explanation for the lack of evidence of the speciation event. The main difference between gradual speciation by natural selection in geogrphically isolated populations (allopatric speciation) vs. their rapid speciation theory by natural selection is of course the speed/rate (tempo) at which it occurs.
 
(1) But that is not the only possible explanation/reason/mechanism/cause of the abrupt turnovers ("punctuations") that we observe in the fossil record.
 
(2) Furthermore, the "punctuated" changes we see are typically "giant leaps" compared to that predicted by Gould's punc. eq.  In other words, the abrupt turnovers we see usually aren't speciation events but larger leaps such as between genera or families or even orders where a single abrupt change doesn't coincide with missing evidence of a single speciation event but could represent a dozen missing speciation events.  Such "giant leap" "punctuations" are different and NOT the same "punctuations" predicted by Gould's "punctuated equilibrium."
 
(3) Kingdoms are divided into phyla then classes, orders, families, genera and finally species.  A change from one animal phylum to another would represent a HUGE evolutionary change---because each animal phylum is distinguished by entirely unique body plans/architectures.   BOTH gradualism and punctuated equilibrium predict that there would be many, many, many speciation events needed to evolve a new phylum.  But with the exception of the bryozoans (which first appear in the Ordovician) all the animal phyla appear abruptly during the Cambrian without any of the many, many, many speciation events we would expect to find preceding/leading up to the origin of each phylum. The Cambrian "explosion" is unprecedented and the abrupt appearances of taxa during that time have nothing in common with Gould's punc. eq.
 
(4) And again, we're not talking about long term stasis in a single species followed by abrupt "punctuations" between species like in Gould's "puncutated equilibrium".  But entire fauna, paleocommunities, paleocological systems that persist for millions of years with little to no change (coordinated stasis) despite changing environmental conditions locally, regionally.and even globally and then the entire system becomes destabilized for some reason (and we don't always no why) followed by a rapid turnover, reorganization and succession by a new fauna, paleoecological system.  Sometimes the is no direct evolutionary lineage relationship between the two. 
 
For example, in the Cambrian, there are a series of abrupt turnovers in trilobite communities where one is replaced by an entirely new community of trilobites that is evolutionarily unrelated---that are not the descendants of the prior community.  These abrupt trilobite community turnovers do not involve any noticeable environmental change---they occur in the same limestone unit and can be separated by only one centimeter of limestone. 
 
We see about 9 major turnovers in marine paleocommunities from the Cambrian up to the present time.  These defined units go by various names such as Ecological-Evolutionary Units (EEUs).
*These abrupt turnovers with intervening long periods of stasis also occur in different hierarchies.  For example, the abrupt turnovers between EEUs----some of the turnovers are marked by even greater disparities that allow us to then classify the EEUs into 1 of 3 major Evolutionary Fauna (EF) turnovers: the Cambrian Fauna, Paleozoic Fauna and Modern Fauna

*These abrupt turnovers ("punctuations") are completely different from what Gould's punc eq theory envisioned or predicted

 
The point about changing environments was dramatic changes can induce punctuation. But yes, if changes occur in the environment that have little or no affect on the survivability of a species, then the species can remain unchanged or relatively so.*It's true that there are turnovers associated with dramatic changes but of provincal to global scale extinction event kind where it doesn’t really matter too much how well "adapted" you are (then as I said before there are turnovers with no apparent environmental change at all). On t flip-side, the large-scale regional to global stasis/persistence of paleoecological systems discussed above can exhibit stasis even through extreme global climate changes. 
 
*There are numerous explanations for what maintains large scale coordinated stasis---traditional evolutionary processes like stabilizing selection (a type of natural selection) were ruled out pretty early on in the quest for answers.  We will probably discover that there is no one, single answer that "explains it all" and that the "answer" is pluralistic   
 
Or perhaps I didn’t understand because it was poorly worded on your part, due to you attempting to make what is likely a fairly simple concept seem more complicated than it really is.

Oh you mean intentionally trying to obfuscate so I can maintain some imagined subversive, insidious "teleological" plot to take over the world? (or rather to go to such enormous great lengths to "trick" a few people in some obscure forum?).....Yeah, NO.  It IS very complicated.  People have no idea how sophisticated and complex the field of paleontology is today.  We don't just play in the dirt and dig up bones.

 

Avatar of Titled_Patzer
Titled_Patzer
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28550

Wut going on Jay? Editing original statements from hours go? Some of us don't always "quote" posts when responding to questions. But in your case a good idea from now on.

Avatar of Titled_Patzer
Titled_Patzer
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28551

"If n∈ℕ 2, 4, 6, 8, . . . 2n is an infinite sequences of even integers, then there's no reason for there not to be an odd number in there somewhere." The Horse

 

Say what ???

There is EVERY reason no odd number would "be in there somewhere." If anything were "supernatural" it would be such a number appearing. A premise is set forward, a set of even integers exists. What possibility is there of an odd one existing when the premise is accepted as factual? This is "voodoo science" at it's best. All observation would have to be ignored, mathematics a useless tool, if "there is no reason" odd numbers could appear out of nowhere.

I C the horse is back with a new nik … to continue his brand of debate with in his words-  all of us "stupid people." 

IMO, it would be quite impossible for rational, logical discussion to take place with someone who "believes" odd numbers could exist in a set of even integers. All the ground rules are tossed out the window, reasonable conclusions are unattainable. 

The statement clearly appears to be an attempt to use "mathematics" to say "anything is possible", not understanding the very nature of what mathematics represents.

Avatar of Senior-Lazarus_Long
Senior-Lazarus_Long
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28552
Ghost_Horse0 wrote:
hapless_fool wrote:
Hold it. The very first sentence of the divine video is “There used to be a time when we thought the earth is all that there is”.

Are you kidding me? The ancients were well aware of the existence of stars, planets, and um the sun.

What a stupid statement.

OK, I’m ready for this educational video to knock my socks off.

The Bible talks about the stars falling out of the firmament and to the ground of the earth.

So you're wrong. They thought the Earth was all there was. To them stars and planets and the sun were just little points of light suck in the Earth's atmosphere.

The Bible was written in 600 bc. That’s current events, not ancient.

Avatar of JayCliff
JayCliff
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28553

what bothers you tp, i edit and delete alot, mostly just kind of pack it in, pack it out type thing

Avatar of Elroch
Elroch
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28554
tbwp10 wrote:
Titled_Patzer wrote:

The mathematics can be manipulated to any desired result, all depending on which factors are included/rejected. The resulting "possibility" in mathematical terms is not representative, whether one is trying to prove something might have happened, or is impossible to have happened. Abstract possibility belongs in the real world, events that are observed, (or can be created), by testing and verification.  

It's been said, something is possible if it does not break any natural laws, such as it is impossible to for anything to move faster than the speed of light. Ok, fine so be it. But simply state as such. Using mathematics [ chances are >0 ] as if this somehow is a verification that something could have happened is nothing more than an attempt to insert "science" into the discussion when the answer is - "It is unknowable with current data." You either believe it possible or not, or somewhere in-between.

In the end, it really is not pertinent whether one set of manipulated factors claim .0000001 possibility or .01 possibility. If someone believes it's "possible" the numbers are pointless.

And in the research I was discussing there wasn't even a .000001 probability.  It was a 0 (zero) probability 

Only if someone used an inappropriate calculation. The very best knowledge of how the world works never provides genuine probabilities of zero. It can provide very small probabilities, but even here, these are useless if a pointless question was asked (which is usually the case, since probabilities are pragmatically impossible to calculate for questions relevant to this discussion).

But also note the crucial point that the relevant question would be which is the most likely way for life to arise. We know it has arisen, so that is a given.

[To be really precise, the ideal objective of this scientific study would be a Bayesian probability distribution for the ways that life may have arisen, since there are certainly many routes. Unfortunately, the who exercise is purely conceptually as even if all the physical science was well enough understood, the entire process down to a molecular level is obviously way beyond practical to compute.

If this sounds fanciful, note that this a close analogy to the much simpler (not to say simple) and well established science of computational phylogenetics, where the precise product is an a probability distribution over trees of evolution given some simplifying assumptions].

Avatar of Titled_Patzer
Titled_Patzer
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28555

You made references to misconceptions of "infinity." Next day it was changed to "multiverses" rendering any responses not relevant. 

Avatar of Elroch
Elroch
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28556
tbwp10 wrote:
Elroch wrote:
Titled_Patzer wrote:

Elroch - "The increase in the total range of gene variants over time is limited by how the process of evolution works."

And just how does the "process work" ?

Answer:

By a process of your description.

"The process" is the process of biological evolution, which involves a pool of genes being subject to a low level of mutation and natural selection.  That is but one mechanism.  Mutation-selection theory alone is insufficient to account for all biological change

 

If cannot be. Mutation occurs, All the gene variants get replicated different numbers of times (and, to be complete, get removed as organisms die). The number of each type at each point in time is 100% due to:

  1. How often the genes arise for the first time - mutation
  2. How often the gene gets replicated
  3. Also, to be complete, the rate of removal of the gene  - this is just organisms dying: it is often left implicit that generations get replaced

The empirical fitness of a gene variant may depend on processes of any complexity (involving genes manipulating each other, epigenetics, horizontal transfer or whatever) but it can never stop it being true that the empirical fitness function is what determines the numbers of each gene variant, by definition.

Avatar of JayCliff
JayCliff
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28557

i was referring to the misconception about the multi verse that leads people to think that is about a wonderland that will answer all of your wishes.

Avatar of Titled_Patzer
Titled_Patzer
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28558

Elroch- " The very best knowledge of how the world works never provides genuine probabilities of zero."

Be honest here. This is just your way of saying "anything is possible", as long as a "pointless question" is not asked. You fail to understand, your definition of what is pointless or not is unbending and absolute in your mind. These are nothing more than personal beliefs. You try to use mathematics as a scientific verification, which is devoid of any empirical evidence from the real world of what has been observed and not abstractly imagined. 

Avatar of Elroch
Elroch
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28559

No. When I said that I was referring specifically to the laws of physics. All other science of our physical Universe is technically emergent from physics.

All questions about the physical Universe can, in principle, be expressed in terms of physics (in practice the details are impractical, so the approximations of other sciences are appropriate).

Avatar of Titled_Patzer
Titled_Patzer
Feb 3, 2019
0
#28560

And what Laws of Physics state Life can emerge from non-live? Where is the scientific verification? I'm afraid the only answer we get is once again from mathematics, that no such probability exists as 0. Abstract thought.  Unfortunately, I will not be convinced until verifiable evidence is put forth.