Interbane wrote:Flann wrote:
Your response seems to be that o.k if they are optimally adapted to their environment they wont change but if the environment changes drastically this law of recurrent variation will be breached.
A changing environment is necessary for the adaptations you're looking for. That doesn't mean such a change is sufficient. In fact, it's ridiculous to think so. A changing environment could and often does lead to an extinction event. Or, the organism could remain in stasis, which has been found more often than not.
Prothero's findings are interesting, but they do nothing to support your position or undermine evolution. They raise more questions concerning the stasis portion of punctuated equilibrium. But with this evidence of genetic stasis in spite of environmental change, there is no doubt that there has been tremendous genetic change when the environment changes. The evidence abounds.
A single example of stasis does not mean stasis is the norm. You're pointing to a period of equilibrium, and ignoring every other area on the geneological timeline with massive punctuation. This is cherry picking, and to reinforce this point, notice how excited Prothero is over the finding. This sort of finding is exciting, due to the questions it raises.
This is just another example of the extreme elasticity and unfasifiabilty of the theory. Prothero instanced
four major climactic events over 50 million years.
And that's just one study.The curious thing about punctuated equilibrium is that there is no fossil evidence(intermediates) for these rapid transformations.
Of course that's put down to the isolated species part of the theory which conveniently excuses the lack of the very evidence needed to support it.
A bit like the ratio of living species to extinct species being the polar opposite of what the theory predicts.We're to believe in myriads of non-existent extinct species because the theory says they must have existed.
Don't bother looking for them though because you'll find living species vastly outnumbering them. What a farce!
There is no doubt that animals adapt to changes in their environments and this is significant. The Galapagos finches are a good example of this. We're looking for adequate mechanisms for macro-evolution.
Taking Loennig's study it should be clear that mutations are not the engine for this kind of change. You extrapolate from minor changes and speciation among finches to an unencumbered,unbounded and endless process.
Finches are no different than cats and dogs and other farm animals artificially selected and bred over many generations.
What is true for plants and crops is also true for any living things.
Plant and animal breeders describe precisely what Loennig is addressing. Mutations reach a saturation point are repetitively recurrent, and variety is exhausted.
To imagine it would be any different for finches is disregarding the evidence.What is even more evident is that as you go from plants to animals the effects of many mutations are more damaging.
This is due to the greater integrative complexity in animals constraining pathways to major phenotype changes and reorganization. Ally this to mutations at the developmental stage screwing the instruction process up precisely where the body forms are developed.
Interbane wrote:Are we trading links then?
Looks like it Interbane. The essential point I made about conflicts between trees based on genetics is well documented.
What relationships and classifications you get often depends on where you look. And they do indeed often conflict with morphologically based trees also.
As for "junk Dna" the trajectory here is very much in the direction of discovering function as research proceeds. The diehards at Rational Wiki can hang on while there is yet so much unknown and yet to be researched, but time will tell it's own tale.
geo wrote:J. G. M. "Hans" Thewissen, a leading researcher in the field of whale paleontology and anatomy, who has published dozens of articles and books, might be the world's foremost expert on whale evolution. And you go with Dr. Carl Werner, a Creationist filmmaker who alleges that some of the exhibits in museums aren’t accurate representations of whale ancestors. Even if it's true that a few museum exhibits were augmented, this has no bearing on the strength of of the theory or the basic information laid out in the Smithsonian's web site.
He doesn't just allege Geo, these guys were caught red handed on film and admitted to their 'augmentations' as you delicately put it. It obviously does have a bearing since these "augmentations" were the very ones suggesting these were whale like creatures,when in fact they were land based animals.
In any case if the fully aquatic Alaskan whale jawbone is confirmed, their fossils become the irrelevancies they deserve to be.
Sternberg's calculations based on population genetics and fixing mutations in populations utterly demolishes the notion of whale evolution by neo-Darwinian mechanisms in even a generous time frame.
If two co-ordinated mutations could (which I doubt) change the heat exchange mechanism from land mammal to whale in the time available (which it can't),this is laughable given the vast number of similar complex changes required in that time-frame.
It's all very well to talk about punctuated equilibrium but lets hear what the mechanisms for these prodigious feats of transformation are.
I suppose that's another argument from ignorance. Neo-Darwinian mechanisms certainly won't do it.
