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[QUOTE]Originally posted by sharkshooter: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by ken: [qb] [QUOTE][qb]Posted by sharkshooter: In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. [/qb][/QUOTE]... Most obvious is immunities to various diseases. ... ...rounder heads ... There is some (rather weaker) evidence ...the hip bones sticking more out to the back and less to the sides ... ...Minor improvements, yes, ... [/qb][/QUOTE]Ken, I have difficulty with such changes being called evolutionary. Adaptation, yes. But, in order for evolution to have taken place, the human race have to have been the result of changes of orders of mangitude larger than anything you, or others on this thread, have suggested. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" width="100%" align="center"> <tr bgcolor="#005B82"><td> <table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"> <tr bgcolor="#005B82"> <td colspan="2" align="left"> <font size="2" color="#FFFFFF" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>T H R E A D R E V I E W</b> </font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,13,6,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>the universe, how did it come to be?</b><br /><br />Let me be upfront. I have been around for quite some time now, and long-standing members will likely know that I am about as conservative as they come. I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; that it is to be read in its entirety; that it is internally consistent; that it speaks to the history of the world accurately.<br /><br />How that works out in this context is that, while I am not a Young Earth Creationist, the only reason I am not is that I believe there is likely sufficient scientific evidence that the earth is more than 10,000 years old to determine that the passages in the Bible which refer to a day being equal to 1,000 years is an internally consistent way to understand the creation story of Genesis while having an old earth. <br /><br />So, <br /><br /><b>If God didn’t create the universe, how did it come to be?</b><br /><br />My understanding is that the best “scientific” explanation for the beginning of the universe is the “big bang”. And, if I understand it well enough, in basic terms, there was nothing, it exploded, and we got the universe.<br /><br />I tend to look at things logically, and based on evidence, before I will accept them. In this case, I consider what I know about explosions. As far as I know, every explosion ever observed worked like this: there was something (say “matter”) which was affected by something (say “energy”) which caused the matter to explode, resulting in destruction (or at least a breaking down) of the matter.<br /><br />The big bang seems to suggest that none of those three elements were present in that explosion (no matter, no energy, no destruction or breaking down). Thus, it seems to me that the big bang shouldn’t be called a theory, perhaps not even a hypothesis, more likely just a story.<br /><br />So, grant me, please that you will not likely be able to convince me that the big bang story is historical, and let’s move on to something more important.<br /><br />Moving on…<br /><br /><b>If God didn’t create humans (that is, Adam and Eve, as per Genesis), where did humans come from?</b><br /><br />Again, logic suggests to me that there was a first living organism (non-vegetable – we’ll get to that). With my limited understanding of biology, I understand that this first living organism would require at least one basic capability: the ability to reproduce. Otherwise, it would also have been the last living organism. Now, it seems unlikely that that reproduction would have been similar to the human reproduction, since that would have required two living organisms working together, unless they appeared at the same time in the same place with the ability to work together. I might suggest that is less than unlikely.<br /><br />So, between that first living organism which had the ability to reproduce, and humans as we know today, logic would suggest that there had to be positive changes resulting in increased complexity (say “improvements”) over time, that each improvement would likely have been miniscule, and that those improvements would have to outnumber and outweigh any set-backs by millions or billions.<br /><br />In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. Therefore, I conclude that evolution requires that either we are the end point of evolution or that it is simply coincidence that in the past several thousand years there have been no further improvements. <br /><br />Conclusion, please grant me that you will not likely be able to convince me of the error of my ways on this one.<br /><br />So, why the thread if I don’t want you to try to convince me of these things? Here it is:<br /><br /><b>If God didn’t create the Maple tree, how did Maple trees come to be?</b><br /><br />When I look out my front window, I see a Maple tree. Now, I know a bit (just a bit) about Maple trees. For one thing, they are much less complex than humans. They have roots, a trunk, branches, leaves and seeds. Also, the tree on my front lawn would have grown from a Maple tree seed. Further, that Maple tree seed would have come from another Maple tree, which would have grown from another Maple tree seed, etc.<br /><br />Following this logic back in time, at one point in time, there was a first Maple tree. Where did it come from? I would offer one of three options: First, it came from a Maple tree seed; second, it came from something other than a Maple tree seed; or, third, it was created as the first Maple tree.<br /><br />Now, if it came from a Maple tree seed, the question simply morphs a bit to “Where did the first Maple tree seed come from?” Since there was not a Maple tree in existence before, the seed must have come from something other than a Maple tree, or have been created.<br /><br />So, it is necessary to ask, if neither the Maple tree nor the Maple tree seed were created, what produced the first? Is the argument that there is evolution also in the plant kingdom? This would seem to be to be an easier thing to convince me (as compared to evolution in the animal kingdom), since trees are less complex than humans.<br /><br />So, please, if God didn’t create the Maple tree (or the Maple tree seed) why do we have Maple trees? That is, where did the first Maple tree (or Maple tree seed) come from?<br /><br />If you’ve stuck with me this far, I thank you and look forward to your comments. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,13,53,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> That's a lot of verbiage to just come down to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg" target="_blank">one of the oldest clichés known to man</a>.<br /><br />First off, humans do continue to evolve. We'd barely last another generation or so if our immune systems didn't adapt to the constant evolution of various microbes. See <a href="http://tinyurl.com/289l5lf" target="_blank">Red Queen's Hypothesis</a>.<br /><br />Secondly, trees aren't less complex than humans. They're just complex in a different way than humans. In fact, one could argue that the ability to photosynthesize makes them <i>more</i> complex.<br /><br />At any rate, yes, all organisms are products of, and continue the process of, descent with modification through natural selection (a.k.a. "evolution"). This includes plants. I'm not surprised you seem to consider it a novel question to ask is plants undergo evolution. Most anti-evolutionists seem to concentrate exclusively on the question of human descent, which has always indicated to me that the position is more about vanity (I'm God's specialest creation!) than about scientific rigor. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Alan Cresswell</b> <br /><small># 31</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,13,59,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> My understanding is that the best “scientific” explanation for the beginning of the universe is the “big bang”. And, if I understand it well enough, in basic terms, there was nothing, it exploded, and we got the universe.<br /><br />I tend to look at things logically, and based on evidence, before I will accept them. In this case, I consider what I know about explosions. As far as I know, every explosion ever observed worked like this: there was something (say “matter”) which was affected by something (say “energy”) which caused the matter to explode, resulting in destruction (or at least a breaking down) of the matter.<br /><br />The big bang seems to suggest that none of those three elements were present in that explosion (no matter, no energy, no destruction or breaking down). Thus, it seems to me that the big bang shouldn’t be called a theory, perhaps not even a hypothesis, more likely just a story.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The "Big Bang" theory has a selection of versions which try and explain how the universe actually started. What they all have in common is that very soon after the start of the universe, everything was confined to a very very very small volume - all of space and everything in it was almost a singularity. That almost singularity rapidly expanded and as the universe expanded it cooled to allow the formation of nuclei, then much later atoms and eventually stars and galaxies and everything else. This is colloquially called the "Big Bang" - though the fact that the term was coined by someone who was proposing an alternative theory should indicate how far from the truth you'll be if you think of it as a bang, or any sort of explosion. It's not an explosion into space, but the expansion of space itself. It's an incredibly successful theory - it predicts the right ratio of hydrogen and helium nuclei in the universe and the cosmic microwave background, neither of which any rival theory has been able to do. And, current particle accelerators are able to recreate those early conditions on a small scale adding further evidence to support the theory.<br /><br />What was present in the Big Bang was energy and space. Matter is just a form of cool energy, and formed as the space expanded allowing the energy density, and hence temperature, of space to decrease. <br /><br />I'll let the biologists and botanists have a go answering the other questions. I could, but don't really have time just now. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,14,32,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> Is the argument that there is evolution also in the plant kingdom? This would seem to be to be an easier thing to convince me (as compared to evolution in the animal kingdom), since trees are less complex than humans.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Absolutely. Why would you think for a moment that the argument wouldn't be that there is evolution also in the plant kingdom? (And in every other kingdom come to that?)<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>So, please, if God didn’t create the Maple tree (or the Maple tree seed) why do we have Maple trees? That is, where did the first Maple tree (or Maple tree seed) come from?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The first maple seed came from something very like a modern maple tree, but not quite.<br /><br />Technically, the question of what the last ancestor of a maple tree that wasn't itself a maple tree is a bit like saying how few rice grains can a pile of rice have before it stops being a pile. At some point in the distant ancestry of modern maple trees there was something that couldn't have interbred with modern maple trees at all. And then at some point there would have been something for which maybe one in a hundred seeds could have turned into something viable, and then so on and so on.<br /><br />Other techical answer: most Christians who understand evolution would still say God creates every single maple tree. It's just that this is entirely compatible with the seed developing through scientifically understandable chemical-biological processes. In the same way, the species of maple tree came about through biological processes. Saying that God created maple trees is an entirely different type and order of explanation.<br /><br />(Rough analogy: if I ask how the window got broken, someone could tell me that it was because an object of such an elasticity hit the window at such and such velocity and the resulting stresses in the window were above its breaking point. Or I could just say that Timmy kicked the ball through it by accident.<br />Saying the maple tree evolved is like the first kind of explanation. Saying that God created it is more like saying it was an accident. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,16,35,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Dafyd:<br /><strong> ...The first maple seed came from something very like a modern maple tree, but not quite.<br /><br />... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But, you didn't provide any answers. What was it? Are there any of them still around? If not, why not? Why did a non-Maple tree begat a Maple tree? How did it do it? Is a Maple tree more advanced than it's predecessor? If so, in what way?<br /><br />If you (generic you) want to try to convince me to be open to these lines of thinking (that evolution even deserves a second thought) some rather basic questions need to be answered. I just thought that, since I have no personal investment in the plant kingdom, that would be an easier place to start.<br /><br />Allan, you said... </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> ...very soon after the start of the universe... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How does the non-creationist describe the start of the universe - that instant where nothing was before, and something was after? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mdijon</b> <br /><small># 8520</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,16,50,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> If you (generic you) want to try to convince me to be open to these lines of thinking (that evolution even deserves a second thought) some rather basic questions need to be answered.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This raises another more basic question for me. Why would I want to convince you to be open to understanding/believing evolution? My professional life requires me to study these things. If one looks at the science seriously I think one comes round to an evolutionary viewpoint in most areas of biology. But why would I need people who aren't studying it to believe or understand it?<br /><br />The challenge "convince me of evolution" seems like the wrong place to start. If one is interested in particular phenomena in the natural world, one gets lead into all sorts of lines of inquiry, some of which involve evolution and some of which don't. Isn't that a better place to start?<br /><br />I think "convince me to believe in Jesus" is equally unfruitful, by the way. I'd want to know what you were looking for, why you asked that question quite in that way etc. But diving into that challenge and trying to convince anyone by intellectual force of argument doesn't seem so useful.<br /> <br /> <small>[ 04. October 2010, 16:51: Message edited by: mdijon ]</small> <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,17,50,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong>But, you didn't provide any answers. What was it? Are there any of them still around? If not, why not? Why did a non-Maple tree begat a Maple tree? How did it do it? Is a Maple tree more advanced than it's predecessor? If so, in what way?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You know that <a href="http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/" target="_blank"><i>Origin of Species</i></a> is available in the public domain, right? Although he got a lot wrong, Darwin at least got the broad outline of descent with modification right. Given that the overall mechanics aren't too hard to understand and have been publicly available for a century and a half, I find it hard to believe that you haven't come across the basics of the theory before or that you're particularly interested in remedying this inexplicably glaring area of ignorance now via an internet chat board rather than the copious data available via other internet sources.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong>If you (generic you) want to try to convince me to be open to these lines of thinking (that evolution even deserves a second thought) some rather basic questions need to be answered. I just thought that, since I have no personal investment in the plant kingdom, that would be an easier place to start.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why not start with something even simpler, like bacteria? Since they reproduce asexually, unlike plants or animals you'd expect your hypothesis of each generation being exactly identical to the previous one to hold even more strongly. And yet that is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus" target="_blank">clearly not the case</a>. It's almost as if a differnential success rate in reproduction due to environmental pressures can affect changes in the phenotype of species within that environment! Whodathunk? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mousethief</b> <br /><small># 953</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,17,52,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong>How does the non-creationist describe the start of the universe - that instant where nothing was before, and something was after? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I believe the term used is "big bang". Also "initial singularity" or some synonym. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,18,2,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Incidentally, the question as to whether or not a species is more "advanced" than its predecessor is much more teleological than evolution allows. All that can be said is that maple trees are better suited to the environment in which they developed than their non-maple predecessors.<br /><br />The same goes for my example of MRSA. They're better suited to antibiotic-containing environments than ordinary <i>S. aureus</i>, but ordinary <i>S. aureus</i> routinely out-reproduces their MRSA 'cousins' in antibiotic-free environments. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mousethief</b> <br /><small># 953</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,18,34,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Crœsos:<br /><strong> Incidentally, the question as to whether or not a species is more "advanced" than its predecessor is much more teleological than evolution allows. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes. I was going to say, "Advanced" is almost a value judgment rather than a scientific or measurable quality. What evolution will say is that given the genetic diversity in a particular set of organisms evolved from common ancestors, natural selection will work on these descendants to wipe out the ones less poised to take advantage of / fit into the ecological niches they find themselves in, and perpetuate the ones that are better so poised. There's no "advanced" about it -- just "fit" in the sense of able to survive and reproduce <i>in situ</i>. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,18,41,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mousethief:<br /><strong> ... There's no "advanced" about it -- just "fit" in the sense of able to survive and reproduce <i>in situ</i>. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't think I said advanced. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Lyda*Rose</b> <br /><small># 4544</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,18,48,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mousethief:<br /><strong> ... There's no "advanced" about it -- just "fit" in the sense of able to survive and reproduce <i>in situ</i>. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't think I said advanced. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, you did:<br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But, you didn't provide any answers. What was it? Are there any of them still around? If not, why not? Why did a non-Maple tree begat a Maple tree? How did it do it? Is a Maple tree more advanced than it's predecessor? If so, in what way? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,19,3,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:<br /><strong> ...Yes, you did:<br /> ...</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I stand corrected. I carefully avoided the word when discussing humans, but must have thought that it would not have been problematic when discussing Maple trees.<br /><br />Can we get some discussion of the issue, not the use of a particular word? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,19,10,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Aren't we discussing the issue as you raised it? Your question was "Is a Maple tree more advanced than it's predecessor?" You got several straightforward answers to that question, accompanied with fairly concise explanations. If you find that these answers don't provide the illumination you seek, perhaps you're asking the wrong questions. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,20,41,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Dafyd:<br /><strong> ...The first maple seed came from something very like a modern maple tree, but not quite.<br /><br />... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What was it? Are there any of them still around? If not, why not? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Serious answer then. With maple trees, just like humans, each individual is pretty much like its parents but usually just a little bit different.<br /><br />If the descendents of one group of trees end up living in different regions, over a longish period of time they will quite likely end up different from each other, as well as from their ancestors.<br /><br />Comparing the populations of living trees with reach other, it seems obvious to us that they are different species, so we give them different names. In fact maples have split into many species so there are many names.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />What was it?<br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The nearest cousins of maples are probably a Chinese genus of tree called <i>Dipteronia</i>. So the answer to "what was it" is "almost certainly trees a bit like maples and a bit like <i>Dipteronia</i> but not quite the same as either. <br /><br />We can make good guesses as to what it might have been like by comparing their modern descendents with each other. Some character that they all share is likely (not certain, just likely) to have been in their common ancestor.<br /><br />If you want some actual original science on that its here: <a href="http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/5/795.full" target="_blank">Rooting and Dating Maples (<i>Acer</i>) with an Uncorrelated-Rates Molecular Clock: Implications for North American/Asian Disjunctions</a><br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />Are there any of them still around? <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Neither the maples nor their cousins are exactly the same as their ancestors, so we give them different names. <br /><br />For living species we try to give species-level names to groups that cannot interbreed with other, that are genetically isolated. Obviously that is meaningless in time - when comparing a tree to its own distant ancestors how can we possibly say whether it could have interbred with them or not, short of a time machine? <br /><br />So what we have to do (in theory) is change names at every split. If we had any fossils of the common ancestor of maples and <i>Dipteronia</i> (I have no idea if we do) we would usually give them a different name from any of their living descendents. <br /><br /><br />Actually (don't tell the YECcies) very often the classification of living things into races and species and genera is pretty arbitrary as well.<br /><br />Plants (unlike animals) are pretty keen on hybridising, often through a trick in which offspring inherit the entire genome of both parents rather than just half from each parent. So they dont; really have that same kind of genetic isolation between species that we do. When it comes to bacteria the whole thing goes out of the window and they don't really have species the way we do at all.<br /><br />But NB for nearly all animals - and most plants - what is arbitrary is the level that each group (what we call a "taxon") is classified at. So one botanist might think all different kinds of rowan trees (<i>Sorbus</i>) count as races or local varieties of one species, another thinks they are separate species. They might agree on which individual plants are in which groups, they just disagree on the names we give to the groups.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />If not, why not?<br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">They are all dead of course, like every other living thing more than a few centuries old. <br /><br />Their descendents are alive though. Some of theior descendants are maples, some are not. So we have no logical grounds to call those ancestors "maples". That would be making an arbitrary judgment between the living groups, deciding one sort were somehow more genuine than the others. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,4,21,19,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Dafyd:<br /><strong> ...The first maple seed came from something very like a modern maple tree, but not quite.<br /><br />... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But, you didn't provide any answers. What was it? Are there any of them still around? If not, why not? Why did a non-Maple tree begat a Maple tree? How did it do it? Is a Maple tree more advanced than it's predecessor? If so, in what way?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why isn't 'something very like a modern maple tree but not quite' an answer?<br />For what it's worth:<br />No, there probably aren't any ancestral maples still around. It's possible, but highly unlikely. (There are maples native to both North America and Eurasia, which suggests that the last common ancestor must date from before those continents split apart about sixty million years ago.) The reason modern maples managed to spread is that they were better adapted to the environment they evolved in. So the ancestral type would probably have slowly died out.<br />The ancestral type begat a maple tree because there was a small mutation somewhere in the DNA that altered the way the tree grows. Small mutations happen all the time. Most small mutations don't come to anything. Very occasionally the mutated tree turns out for some reason or another to be better at growing or breeding in the environment that the mutation occurs.<br />The maple tree is only more advanced than the non-maple ancestor in that it is slightly better at growing in any environment that maple trees now grow in.<br /><br />What the ancestral maple actually was? Well, technically there are lots of species of maple tree. So the ancestor the species of maple outside your house would almost certainly have been identified by any biologist around as a different species of maple tree (it might have been a species that still grows in a different part of the world - we don't know). The earliest ancestor that isn't any kind of maple tree - well, according to wikipedia maples are part of a bigger family that also includes horse chestnuts. So it would have been something a bit like both maples and horse chestnuts. <br /><br />Disclaimer: answers in this post were produced by looking up maples on wikipedia and applying common-sense and the basic principles of Darwinian evolution. I am neither a botanist nor a palaeontologist, and botanists or palaeontologists might be able to correct me. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Eliab</b> <br /><small># 9153</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,5,11,30,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong><b>If God didn't create the universe, how did it come to be?</b></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">From a completely non-physics background, it seems to me that any theory of ultimate origins (scientific or otherwise) must say EITHER that there is something that always existed, or existed before ‘time', and which therefore had no beginning that needs to be accounted for OR it has to start with absolutely nothing and have something come into existence without prior cause.<br /><br />Both of those seem to me to be conceptually problematic. I have no trouble conceiving something that will have no end, but not something that has no start. Similarly, I can't conceive of a first event, before which there was nothing, because (as you seem to imply) all my experience leads me to the conclusion that to say that something happened and can be explained means explaining what went before. It seems to me that our brains (at any rate mine) aren't equipped with the hardware needed to imagine a satisfactory answer to the question - the ‘first thing', whether it has a beginning or not, must be unlike everything else we know.<br /><br />As a Christian, I accept that God is the answer to what made the universe - and I find that the least implausible answer because (i) it is consistent with modern scientific accounts of there being a start to the cosmos and with the prospect of scientific enquiry into it; and (ii) if there is anything that is so unlike anything I know that it neither has nor requires an account of its origin, then God is the most plausible candidate for that role. <br /><br />But it isn't (fully) intellectually satisfying, because it doesn't answer (indeed rules out the possibility of answering) the "who made God?" question. The choice, it seems to me, is between a worldview which says "The non-theistic explanation is to be preferred because what it posits as coming into existence uncaused is comparatively simple - unorganised matter and energy - and can account for the build-up of complexity" and one which says "The God hypothesis is to be preferred because while God infinitely more than matter and energy, he is the sort of entity where we can see that our usual explanations of causation ought not to apply, whereas that is not true of a materialist universe". Neither seems to me to be manifestly wrong. <br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><b>If God didn't create humans (that is, Adam and Eve, as per Genesis), where did humans come from?</b></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[...] between that first living organism which had the ability to reproduce, and humans as we know today, logic would suggest that there had to be positive changes resulting in increased complexity (say "improvements") over time, that each improvement would likely have been miniscule, and that those improvements would have to outnumber and outweigh any set-backs by millions or billions.<br /><br />Yes, agreed - provided that "outnumber and outweigh" applies to surviving effects only, and we keep in mind that "improvements" are defined with hindsight - an improvement for this purpose is simply something that made our closer ancestors less like their (and our) remoter ancestor and more like us. <br /><br />You make the statement above as if it were controversial or contrary to evolutionary theory, but I don't think it is. The point about evolution is that small improvements persist, whereas detriments do not - evolution still works even if only one change in a thousand is beneficial, provided that the beneficial ones tend to be passed on and the harmful ones tend to die out.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><b>If God didn't create the Maple tree, how did Maple trees come to be?</b><br /><br />Following this logic back in time, at one point in time, there was a first Maple tree. Where did it come from? I would offer one of three options: First, it came from a Maple tree seed; second, it came from something other than a Maple tree seed; or, third, it was created as the first Maple tree.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can I recommend Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" for a view of the history of life that makes sense of this? Essentially (and as ken says above), you need to drop the idea of a species as making much sense over evolutionary time. A species is almost an arbitrary selection of organisms which are similar to one another, but is a useful label when looking at the real world because (usually) all the organisms that would fudge the boundaries and prove the selection to be arbitrary are dead.<br /><br />An illustration (picking up of Dafyd's post and shamelessly ripping off Dawkins' method): mostly we (non-scientists) would identify a ‘Maple' by certain characteristics such as the distinctive leaf shape. It would be possible to display (or draw) lots of leaf shapes, none of them quite identical, which are still obviously Maples. Similarly, we could assemble another lot of leaf shapes that are characteristically ‘Horse Chestnut'. <br /><br />Then we could construct a still larger pool of leaf drawings which could be put in a book that starts off very like Maples and by fractional changes (so small that you wouldn't be surprised to find any given handful of adjacent leaves growing on the same branch) arrive at something very like ‘Horse Chestnuts'. The end points are clearly distinct, but as we turn over page after page of leaf drawings, there is no obvious chapter division. You can tell that at some point you passed what could reasonably be called a Maple leaf, but there's no one page where you would say that the leaves just before belong in the same species but the leaves after do not. As you go from Maple to Horse Chestnut, there is no indisputably ‘last' Maple in the book. <br /><br />The book is, of course, one possible reconstruction of a hypothetical evolution from Maple to Horse Chestnut. If it were a historical correct book, it would start with a modern Maple and go back in time to the earliest common ancestor with Horse Chestnuts, and then forward in time again to the modern Horse Chestnuts. What I called the ‘last' Maple as we turn through the book is therefore the ‘first' Maple in time - the first tree that you would call a Maple. And it's not at all obvious where it is - the page just before and the one just after are plainly the same sort of tree. Basically, you would make a judgement call - at page X I'll stop calling them Maples and call them something else. <br /><br />The modern world is that book with all the pages except the first few and the last few ripped out. There's a pretty clear distinction of species once you do that. But when you try to interpret that distinctiveness back onto the whole continuous range of variation and ask "what was the first Maple", your question doesn't make any sense. There was no first Maple. "Maple" is a discrete class only because those trees on the boundaries of the class - the "almost-Maples", which could have fertilised, been fertilised by, the "only-just-Maples" - are dead. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,5,20,2,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Eliab's exposition, as usual, is accurate and seems clear to me.<br /><br />(Taking punctuated equilibrium into account would alter the balance of Eliab's book of leaves a bit, but it doesn't make any difference to the general principles.) <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,7,14,4,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Dafyd:<br /><strong> What the ancestral maple actually was? Well, technically there are lots of species of maple tree. So the ancestor the species of maple outside your house would almost certainly have been identified by any biologist around as a different species of maple tree<br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes. The last common ancestor of all maples would be called a maple (<i>Acer</i>) but not given the same species name as any living maple.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong> <br /> (it might have been a species that still grows in a different part of the world - we don't know). <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, we don't define species that way. If it is the ancestor of two or more species its always given a different name from any of them.<br /><br />There is no logical basis for anything else - to give the ancestor the same name as a living species would be to arbitrarily privilege that descendent species over the others.<br /><br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />The earliest ancestor that isn't any kind of maple tree - well, according to wikipedia maples are part of a bigger family that also includes horse chestnuts. So it would have been something a bit like both maples and horse chestnuts. <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, exactly. Though there are, apparently, closer relatives to maples than horse chestnuts, such as the Chinese trees I mentioned in the previous post.<br /><br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />Disclaimer: answers in this post were produced by looking up maples on wikipedia and applying common-sense and the basic principles of Darwinian evolution. <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A good wiki page on the naming issue might be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_group" target="_blank">this one about crwon groups and stem groups</a><br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br />I am neither a botanist nor a palaeontologist, and botanists or palaeontologists might be able to correct me. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I've got half a university degree in botany, does that count? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> <br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Eliab:<br /><strong><br />An illustration (picking up of Dafyd's post and shamelessly ripping off Dawkins' method): mostly we (non-scientists) would identify a ‘Maple' by certain characteristics such as the distinctive leaf shape. It would be possible to display (or draw) lots of leaf shapes, none of them quite identical, which are still obviously Maples. Similarly, we could assemble another lot of leaf shapes that are characteristically ‘Horse Chestnut'. <br /><br />Then we could construct a still larger pool of leaf drawings which could be put in a book that starts off very like Maples and by fractional changes (so small that you wouldn't be surprised to find any given handful of adjacent leaves growing on the same branch) arrive at something very like ‘Horse Chestnuts'. The end points are clearly distinct, but as we turn over page after page of leaf drawings, there is no obvious chapter division. You can tell that at some point you passed what could reasonably be called a Maple leaf, but there's no one page where you would say that the leaves just before belong in the same species but the leaves after do not. As you go from Maple to Horse Chestnut, there is no indisputably ‘last' Maple in the book. <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, exactly. though as you go on to point out, the intermediates may be extinct so you would need a time machine to see them all. The nearest living maple to a horse chestnut is actually quite distinct from it. That's not true about all groups, sometimes living groups blend into each other, but I think it is true for these.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><br /> If it were a historical correct book, it would start with a modern Maple and go back in time to the earliest common ancestor with Horse Chestnuts, and then forward in time again to the modern Horse Chestnuts. What I called the ‘last' Maple as we turn through the book is therefore the ‘first' Maple in time - the first tree that you would call a Maple. And it's not at all obvious where it is - the page just before and the one just after are plainly the same sort of tree. Basically, you would make a judgement call - at page X I'll stop calling them Maples and call them something else. <br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Strictly speaking we can't talk of "evolution from Maple to Horse Chestnut" or from any living group to any other living group. All we can talk about is their common ancestors. The first species we call a "maple" (i.e. a member of genus <i>Acer</i>) is the oldest one that is the ancestor of all living members of the group <i>Acer</i> and no members of any other group at the same level in the hierarchy.<br /><br />We put horse chestnuts in genus <i>Aesculus</i>. Any extinct tree species that is considered to be an ancestor of other species in <i>Aesculus</i> but of no species outside it must be named <i>Aesculus {somespeciesname}</i>. Any extinct tree that seems to be tha ancestor of both <i>Aesculus</i> and <i>Acer</i> must be given a name different from either of them.<br /><br />Incidentally, that's one reason we use these fancy Latinate names for taxa. Its a way of making it clear that they are not nececssarily the same as the common names of the groups. <br /><br />An obvious example: most people, talking in English, would say that humans are descended from apes. (*not* monkeys, if someone says biologists think that humans are descended from monkeys then you know they aren't paying attention) And by "ape" most people would mean gorillas, oran-utans, chimpanzees, gibbons and so on, and some of their extinct relatives. Now we can't do that in biological taxonomy. Well, not in the proper phylogenetic version of it most of us use these days which is the Best Version. Chimps and humans are more closely related to each other than they are to organ-utans. So we can't have one "ape" group containing chimps and orangs, and one "human" group for us. Obviously biologists have no right to redefine the English word "ape" and no power to enforce a new definition. So they make up new words. For example "Hominidae", which includes humans, chimps, gorillas and orang-utans, but not gibbons (however funky they are).<br /><br />Same with dinosaurs and birds. As all birds are desceded from dinosaurs, to a taxonomist (well, to most taxonomists) birds <b>are</b>dinosaurs. Which is why a Google search for "non-avian dinosaurs" or "non-bird dinosaurs" turns up thousands of hits. By the same token dinosaurs and crocodiles can't be called reptiles unless birds are as well. So modern classifications either have no "Reptilia" or else they include birds in it.<br /><br />In this phylogenetic approach to taxonomy (especially when using a biological species definition), the scientific names are not just convenient labels for arbitrary groups. When a taxonomist places an organism in a taxon, they are in fact making a hypothesis about the real relationships of that organism.<br /><br />And that's done by comparign organisms with each other. (And it is individual organisms, or samples from organisms, that have to be compared, You can't compare two species - no-one can see a species, only actual observations of real organisms. Which is why we keep specimens in museums. Somewhere there is a type specimen of <i>Acer</i> - probably in the collection of the Linnean Society of London - and if some biologist decides to split the genus in two they will use the new name for the part of the genus that contains that individual dried plant, and a new name for the other group. A species, or any other taxon, is a population of individuals, not a thing in itself. We have to classify individuals, not species. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,7,21,18,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> Yes, exactly. Though there are, apparently, closer relatives to maples than horse chestnuts, such as the Chinese trees I mentioned in the previous post.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Indeed. I cross-posted with your previous post so I didn't see it. If I had seen it I would have commended it along with Eliab's.<br />Thank you for correcting my errors about the naming of ancestral species.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>An obvious example: most people, talking in English, would say that humans are descended from apes. (*not* monkeys, if someone says biologists think that humans are descended from monkeys then you know they aren't paying attention)</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Isn't the most recent common ancestor of squirrel monkeys (and other South American monkeys) and vervet monkeys (and other Afrasian monkeys) also an ancestor of us? So either we say that 'monkey' is a paraphyletic classification that isn't used in rigourous biology, or else we include human beings and other apes within the category 'monkey'? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,7,21,23,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> Yes, exactly. Though there are, apparently, closer relatives to maples than horse chestnuts, such as the Chinese trees I mentioned in the previous post.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Indeed. I cross-posted with your previous post so I didn't see it. If I had seen it I would have commended it along with Eliab's.<br />Thank you for correcting my errors about the naming of ancestral species.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>An obvious example: most people, talking in English, would say that humans are descended from apes. (*not* monkeys, if someone says biologists think that humans are descended from monkeys then you know they aren't paying attention)</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Isn't the most recent common ancestor of squirrel monkeys (and other South American monkeys) and vervet monkeys (and other African/Asian monkeys) also an ancestor of us? So either we say that 'monkey' is a paraphyletic classification that isn't used in rigourous biology, or else we say that the most recent common ancestor of human beings and squirrel monkeys was a monkey? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,9,23,48,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Dafyd:<br /><strong> Isn't the most recent common ancestor of squirrel monkeys (and other South American monkeys) and vervet monkeys (and other African/Asian monkeys) also an ancestor of us? So either we say that 'monkey' is a paraphyletic classification that isn't used in rigourous biology, or else we say that the most recent common ancestor of human beings and squirrel monkeys was a monkey? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes. Which is another example of why its often convenient to use the systematic names - because apes (including ourselves) are most closely related to old-world monkeys than to American monkeys then any phylogenetic classification that applies to both groups commonly called "monkeys" also applies to us. So by that standard we *are* monkeys. Or even tarsiers. And also we are lobe-finned fish <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,10,14,50,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong>Or even tarsiers. And also we are lobe-finned fish <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tarsiers seem to be a well-defined sister-group to the monkeys, including us (just like gibbons are to the other apes, again including us). So we're probably not tarsiers. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>HughWillRidmee</b> <br /><small># 15614</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,18,1,29,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> According to a recent Horizon (BBC) "What happened before the Big Bang" programme there is much doubt about the Big Bang marking the start of matter amongst theorists - the math apparently seems to suggest that we may be on the rebound from a massive black hole which was the final state of a previous universe, although string theory gets a look in as well.<br /><br />Seems to me that it's all a bit irrelevant to Christianity though - were there a being which had no beginning you could call it god if you wished, but there is no rational link from that to Christianity. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Liopleurodon</b> <br /><small># 4836</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,19,10,7,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Let me try to illustrate this with the analogy of language. It's not a perfect analogy but it can often help. I speak English. My mother speaks English, as did her mother, and her mother's mother. Each generation has essentially learned the same language as spoken by their parents. If I were to go back in time 200 years and hang around in London then, the language spoken would clearly still be English, but it would have a different flavour to it. It would be understandable, but there would be various different words used and I would probably sound quite odd to those people. Go back 500 years and we'd have real difficulties understanding each other. Go back more than 1000 years and it doesn't really seem to be the same language at all. And this comes from generation after generation teaching their children to speak the same language that they speak.<br /><br />So if you look at modern English as your maple tree, you can see where the problem is. If you go back through the generations of people living in one place, at what point does the language spoken cease to be modern English and become something-a-bit-like-modern-English but not quite? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,23,16,49,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Speaking of God creating things, today (October 23) is the date on which He started the work of creation, if the calculations of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher" target="_blank">Bishop Ussher</a> are correct. Of course, this isn't the birthday of the Earth, even if true, since the product of the first day's work was the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:3-5&version=NIV" target="_blank">simple photon</a>. On the other hand, depending on what time zone God was working in, perhaps it's already the anniversary of the second day, on which He separated all the space water from all the ground water, which I guess would be the creation of the Earth. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mousethief</b> <br /><small># 953</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,24,5,33,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Actually God created the Earth on Day 1, as it says in Gen 1:1: In the beginning God created the heavens <i>and the earth</i>. Although the dependent and independent clauses at the beginning of Genesis could be (and will be) argued back and forth for another 4000 years. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Crœsos</b> <br /><small># 238</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,25,14,23,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mousethief:<br /><strong> Actually God created the Earth on Day 1, as it says in Gen 1:1: In the beginning God created the heavens <i>and the earth</i>. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's only if you consider "In the beginning" to literally translate to Day One, rather than an introduction to the description of creation. It's also questionable whether something "formless" (NIV) or "without form" (KJV) can really be said to be created. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Justinian</b> <br /><small># 5357</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,27,16,54,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br />[QB]<b>If God didn’t create the universe, how did it come to be?</b></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If God is not a part of the Universe then how did God come to be? We can make educated guesses about the scientific approach. But the non-scientific one is nothing more than "We don't know. We don't like we don't know. Therefore Goddidit." The basic problem with the Big Bang theory is that it's based on pretty large extrapolations.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>If God didn’t create humans (that is, Adam and Eve, as per Genesis), where did humans come from?</b></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Primates existing before them. Where the dividing line between humans and prior primates is is like (as mentioned above) the dividing line between a number of grains of rice and a pile of them.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So, between that first living organism which had the ability to reproduce, and humans as we know today, logic would suggest that there had to be positive changes resulting in increased complexity (say “improvements”) over time, that each improvement would likely have been miniscule, and that those improvements would have to outnumber and outweigh any set-backs by millions or billions.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Uh-uh. The negative mutations massively outnumber the positive. Unfortunately, the negative don't survive.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">False - examples above.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">is simply coincidence that in the past several thousand years there have been no further improvements.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In the past several thousand years is effectively the blink of an eye.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you’ve stuck with me this far, I thank you and look forward to your comments.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And I thank you for restating the textbook argument from incredulity. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Timothy the Obscure</b> <br /><small># 292</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,27,19,17,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Posted by sharkshooter:<br /> In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. Therefore, I conclude that evolution requires that either we are the end point of evolution or that it is simply coincidence that in the past several thousand years there have been no further improvements. <br /><br /> </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, the recent research indicates that human evolution continues--though there have been no major changes in gross anatomy in recorded history, there have been many significant adaptations, some of which are detailed in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/science/20adapt.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">this New York Times article.</a> Another, not mentioned in the article, is the capacity for adults to digest lactose. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,27,19,45,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Posted by sharkshooter:<br /> In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just noticed this. Yes there are, loads. Not just lactose and so on.<br /><br />Most obvious is immunities to various diseases. Most of us are partly immune to the Black Death. Because the ones who weren't died and did not become our ancestors. In the 16th century few native Americans were immune to measles. Now most are.<br /><br /><br />There is some evidence (from thing like graveyards and so on) that people in many parts of the world have gradually had rounder heads - the ratio between the distance from ear to ear and the distance from nose to whatever the thing at the back is called is falling towards 1. In some places and times this has happened quite fast.<br /><br />There is some (rather weaker) evidence that in many places hip shapes are changing, with the hip bones sticking more out to the back and less to the sides (if you like you could say moving from a more typically European shape to a more typically African one - though that "African" shape is in fact probably a quite recent innovation)<br /><br />Both those would have the effect of making birth less dangerous.<br /><br />Minor improvements, yes, but what do you expect in only a thousand years or so? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Bullfrog.</b> <br /><small># 11014</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,27,21,23,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> If God didn't create, then the universe is just the biggest tautology in the universe. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>TubaMirum</b> <br /><small># 8282</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,28,15,9,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> There is some evidence (from thing like graveyards and so on) that people in many parts of the world have gradually had rounder heads - the ratio between the distance from ear to ear and the distance from nose to whatever the thing at the back is called is falling towards 1.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And remember: this is "the Ship's Roundhead" talking....<br /><br /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="tongue.gif" /> <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,17,2,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Actually I have a rather prominent occipital bun and some traces of brow ridges - all I'd need is a hint of a sagittal crest to pass for Neandertal... <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,8,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Justinian:<br /><strong>...<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So, between that first living organism which had the ability to reproduce, and humans as we know today, logic would suggest that there had to be positive changes resulting in increased complexity (say “improvements”) over time, that each improvement would likely have been miniscule, and that those improvements would have to outnumber and outweigh any set-backs by millions or billions.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Uh-uh. The negative mutations massively outnumber the positive. Unfortunately, the negative don't survive.<br /><br />... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Surely, you misunderstood what I said. Perhaps I was not clear. Maybe an explanation is in order: If it was "one step forwards, two steps backwards" you would never progress. For forward movement, you need to have more forward steps than backwards ones. For evolution, you need more "evolutionary stpes" than "devolutionary steps" <i>in the same line</i>, or evolution does not happen. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,12,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:<br /><strong> ...Seems to me that it's all a bit irrelevant to Christianity though - were there a being which had no beginning you could call it god if you wished, but there is no rational link from that to Christianity. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Jesus? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mousethief</b> <br /><small># 953</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,15,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong>For forward movement, you need to have more forward steps than backwards ones. For evolution, you need more "evolutionary stpes" than "devolutionary steps" <i>in the same line</i>, or evolution does not happen. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think you're equivocating on the meaning of "the same line". If I have 100 first cousins and 20 of us have fatal mutations and 10 of us have beneficial mutations, the "line" advances. The 80 that are left have some positive mutations, which can then be selected upon by natural forces in future generations. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,18,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Posted by sharkshooter:<br /> In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">...<br />Most obvious is immunities to various diseases. ...<br /><br />...rounder heads ...<br /><br />There is some (rather weaker) evidence ...the hip bones sticking more out to the back and less to the sides ...<br /><br />...Minor improvements, yes, ... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ken,<br /><br />I have difficulty with such changes being called evolutionary. Adaptation, yes. But, in order for evolution to have taken place, the human race have to have been the result of changes of orders of mangitude larger than anything you, or others on this thread, have suggested. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>sharkshooter</b> <br /><small># 1589</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,25,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mousethief:<br /><strong> ...If I have 100 first cousins and 20 of us have fatal mutations and 10 of us have beneficial mutations, the "line" advances. The 80 that are left have some positive mutations, which can then be selected upon by natural forces in future generations. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And within a couple of generations, they would all be dead, unless the ratio of "fatal" to "positive" increased dramatically:<br /><br />next generation: of 10, 2 are fatal, and only 1 is improved.<br /><br />next generation, there is only one, and odds are 2 to 1 the change is fatal.<br /><br />(of course, even that assumes you have already started with entities who can reproduce)<br /><br />In order to have the number of significant improvements needed to arrive at humankind (billions/trillions/more?), you would have had to start with, well, virtually an infinite number. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Autenrieth Road</b> <br /><small># 10509</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,18,52,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> You seem to be assuming that each generation only produces 1/10 the offspring. If that were the case, you wouldn't need any mutations, fatal or otherwise, for them all to die off in short order. Why are you going from 100 to 10 to 1 in your example? <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Dafyd</b> <br /><small># 5549</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,19,37,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> And within a couple of generations, they would all be dead, unless the ratio of "fatal" to "positive" increased dramatically:<br /><br />next generation: of 10, 2 are fatal, and only 1 is improved.<br /></strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If every family has two children the population remains the same. If on average each family has 2.3 children, the population slowly grows.<br /><br />So if we have a hundred people they will grow to one hundred and fifteen children in the next generation. Now suppose there were also fourteen fatal mutations and one beneficial mutation. The beneficial mutation has three children with his or her partner. The remaining eighty four have 2.3 children on average each, which leaves us with ninety seven children. Total in the next generation: one hundred. Number with the beneficial mutation: one or two. (Half of the children with of the parent with the beneficial mutation will inherit it.) Repeat a few times: we still have a population of one hundred. But the number with the beneficial mutation gradually increases. This despite a ratio of fourteen 'fatal' to one 'beneficial'.<br /><br /> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>I have difficulty with such changes being called evolutionary. Adaptation, yes. But, in order for evolution to have taken place, the human race have to have been the result of changes of orders of mangitude larger than anything you, or others on this thread, have suggested.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Humans are supposed to have started evolving from something much more like other apes about four million years ago. (Assuming australopithecus is the first ancestor that has traits evolved away from the ape baseline.)<br />Four million years is indeed three orders of magnitude larger than one thousand years.<br />A million years is a long time. It is a lot of generations. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>mousethief</b> <br /><small># 953</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,9,29,19,44,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mousethief:<br /><strong> ...If I have 100 first cousins and 20 of us have fatal mutations and 10 of us have beneficial mutations, the "line" advances. The 80 that are left have some positive mutations, which can then be selected upon by natural forces in future generations. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And within a couple of generations, they would all be dead, unless the ratio of "fatal" to "positive" increased dramatically:<br /><br />next generation: of 10, 2 are fatal, and only 1 is improved.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I never said how many aunts and uncles made those 100 cousins. Could have been five families with 20 kids each. You're extrapolating based on NOTHING. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,10,1,16,35,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Posted by sharkshooter:<br /> In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">...<br />Most obvious is immunities to various diseases. ...<br /><br />...rounder heads ...<br /><br />There is some (rather weaker) evidence ...the hip bones sticking more out to the back and less to the sides ...<br /><br />...Minor improvements, yes, ... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ken,<br /><br />I have difficulty with such changes being called evolutionary. Adaptation, yes. But, in order for evolution to have taken place, the human race have to have been the result of changes of orders of mangitude larger than anything you, or others on this thread, have suggested. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I genuinely don't understand why you do not understand that these really are answers to you questions. <br /><br />You've got the order of magnitude thing the wrong way round. Just work out the numbers. The scale and speed of those changes is vastly MORE than required by most models of evolution. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#F2F3F3"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>ken</b> <br /><small># 2460</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,10,1,16,46,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> And within a couple of generations, they would all be dead, unless the ratio of "fatal" to "positive" increased dramatically </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It does. Dramatically. The ones with the fatal mutations all die. By definition.<br /><br />The other ones marry or mate with each other so their descendants have a change of inheriting more than one of the neutral or beneficial mutations.<br /><br />It really is as simple as that. <br /> </font> </td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E0E6E6"> <td valign="top" width="18%"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <b>Timothy the Obscure</b> <br /><small># 292</small> </font></td> <td width="82%"> <font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <img src="http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/UBB-non-cgi/posticon.gif" border="0" alt=" - " /> Posted <script language="JavaScript1.3" type="text/javascript"> document.writeln(timestamp(new Date(2010,10,2,3,23,0), dfrm, tfrm, 0, 0, 0, 0)); </script><hr /> </font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by sharkshooter:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by ken:<br /><strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Posted by sharkshooter:<br /> In recorded history, there is no indication of any such improvements to the human race. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">...<br />Most obvious is immunities to various diseases. ...<br /><br />...rounder heads ...<br /><br />There is some (rather weaker) evidence ...the hip bones sticking more out to the back and less to the sides ...<br /><br />...Minor improvements, yes, ... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ken,<br /><br />I have difficulty with such changes being called evolutionary. Adaptation, yes. But, in order for evolution to have taken place, the human race have to have been the result of changes of orders of mangitude larger than anything you, or others on this thread, have suggested. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I genuinely don't understand why you do not understand that these really are answers to you questions. <br /><br />You've got the order of magnitude thing the wrong way round. Just work out the numbers. The scale and speed of those changes is vastly MORE than required by most models of evolution. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And to reinforce what ken said, the evidence suggests that human evolution is actually accelerating: <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2009/mar/09-they-dont-make-homo-sapiens-like-they-used-to" target="_blank">They Don't Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To.</a> <br /> </font> </td></tr> </table></td></tr></table> <br /> <br />
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