Evolutionary Science And Its Implications

[Chutney]

Surely debating such things with a creationist is simply time wasting and leading to nothing other than frustration.

[Chinahand]

A wonderful study looking at animal life in sediments in Antarctica.

 

The slow change of species is suddenly interrupted by the mass extinction which caused the demise of the dinosaurs.

 

[Chinahand]

Every now and then you can come across an example of the wonderful depth of scientific knowledge.

 

 

The video is of the bite mechanism of a conodont, an animal from the Cambrian era about 500 million years ago.

 

Edited to add - here's a nice review article giving the history of our knowledge of these animals and our understanding of their fossils and relatedness to other vertibrates.

 

Plus an article showing how the fossil teeth have been examined and fitted together to understand the bite mechanism shown in the video

Edited July 9, 2016 by Chinahand

[Chinahand]

Nick Lane has written a very deep, and quite technical, book called the Vital Question discussing the scientific evidence for, and resulting theories about the origins of life.

 

It's excellent.

 

As a result he was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday prize for which he gave a lecture. Enjoy it!

 

[Albert Tatlock]

If you spent three and a half billion years stirring a cup of coffee, eventially you'll end up with something snorkelling in your cup.

 

Especially after the milk's gone off after a couple of days.

[Chinahand]

Fascinating evidence coming out of California about a population from the genus Homo living there over 100,000 years ago.

It is a really contested claim - they haven't found any human bones, just stone tools and broken bones.  As one researcher says:

To confirm the presence of an undefined species of Homo in the Americas at 130,000 years ago requires indisputable evidence. While the Cerutti Mastodon site challenges our knowledge of the peopling of America and forces us to think beyond what is currently known, fresh fractured bone together with five large cobbles is not extraordinary evidence.

I also like John Hawks' reaction (he writes a great blog on palaeontology here):

"I’m not usually at a loss for words, but this one has left me and many of my friends speechless."

More evidence is required - a wonderful opportunity to increase human understanding.

[RIchard Britten]

9 hours ago, Chinahand said:

Fascinating evidence coming out of California about a population from the genus Homo living there over 100,000 years ago.

It is a really contested claim - they haven't found any human bones, just stone tools and broken bones.  As one researcher says:

To confirm the presence of an undefined species of Homo in the Americas at 130,000 years ago requires indisputable evidence. While the Cerutti Mastodon site challenges our knowledge of the peopling of America and forces us to think beyond what is currently known, fresh fractured bone together with five large cobbles is not extraordinary evidence.

I also like John Hawks' reaction (he writes a great blog on palaeontology here):

"I’m not usually at a loss for words, but this one has left me and many of my friends speechless."

More evidence is required - a wonderful opportunity to increase human understanding.

And to upset the Creationists...

[Chinahand]

Great lecture looking at how sequencing DNA from ancient bones has improved and improved and hence given us deep insights into our ancestry with Neanderthals and Denisovians.

 

[gerrydandridge]

The universe exists because it is based on laws. Law however, is established by logic and not the illogical. Therefore the mindless cannot create the intelligent...To think all this appeared by chance is ridiculous. Science has used its 1 miracle to start off this nonsense, they called it the big bang......Behe in his book "The Black Box of Darwin", states that the probability for just 100 amino-acids to "accidentally" join together, would be equal to a blind man finding a specific grain of sand in the Sahara desert, and furthermore, finding it not once, but three times in a row, just add to this alone the multitude of other highly unlikely events needed to make all of this possible.

 

[Chinahand]

Gerry, I doubt you would be willing to confront the evidence for the evolution of life on earth, but you could start here.

You could also try reading Ken Miller, a devout Christian and professor of biology at Brown University.  He's written Finding Darwin's God and most possibly relevant here many criticisms of Michael Behe and Intelligent Design.

Try this one for starters.

Oh and by the way ... do you accept that the universe is billions of years old?

And that Humans and Gorillas share a common ancestor?

If you think anyone holding those beliefs is nonsensical ... well Michael Behe believes them ... does that make his views inimical to your beliefs?  

[Chinahand]

Oh and Gerry, your underlined quote.

It is close to being Darwin's strange inversion of reasoning ... and is exactly what the evidence shows has happened.

In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer; so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system, that, IN ORDER TO MAKE A PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL MACHINE, IT IS NOT REQUISITE TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express, in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory, and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all of the achievements of creative skill.

Try reading this: its a great read.

[dilligaf]

1 hour ago, Chinahand said:

Oh and Gerry, your underlined quote.

It is close to being Darwin's strange inversion of reasoning ... and is exactly what the evidence shows has happened.

In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer; so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system, that, IN ORDER TO MAKE A PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL MACHINE, IT IS NOT REQUISITE TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express, in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory, and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all of the achievements of creative skill.

Try reading this: its a great read.

You took the words right out of my mouth !

[Chinahand]

Geeky but fun:

 

[Chinahand]

[Chinahand]

This is a fascinating story about a little animal called the marbled crayfish.

A random mutation caused one species of crayfish to spawn the marbled crayfish as an entirely new species in an instant, and it is spreading quickly throughout the world.

As ever nowadays, genetics is the main enabler of the story. Sometime in the 1990s a female crayfish of the genus Procambarus falla suffered a mutation in one of its unfertilised egg cells which meant that rather than containing the normal single set of chromosomes it contained the crayfish's entire genome made of of two sets of chromosomes.  Now, in normal circumstances such an egg would not be viable and would not be fertilised when it was released by the crayfish during spawning, but in this case a massively improbable event occurred and this egg has gone on to change the world!

A sperm met and fused into the egg, resulting in it having 3 sets of chromosomes, and it, totally incredibly, survived growing up into an adult crayfish.  Having 3 sets of chromosomes is a massive genetic mess and means this lonely mutant was unable to mate with members of Procambarus falla - being able to mate and produce viable offspring is a central part of the biological species concept.  Incredibly however when it makes eggs the 3 sets of chromosomes so totally confuse the biochemistry designed to split two sets into one that it grinds to a halt and ends up producing an egg with the full complement of 3 chromosomes.  This is simply a clone of the mum; and when they are released by her they grow and develop as normal - the marbled crayfish was born; a clone army all identical to that first mutant!

Usually for any new population to spread two individuals of different sex have to get into a new lake or stream (or female for the short period it is carrying its young), but for the marbled crayfish there is no such restriction - if just one gets into a new environment it can produce viable offspring to further multiply.

These clones are spreading like billy-o all over Europe and even as far a field as Madagascar.

Its fate is going to be watched by generations of field biologists - we don't really understand why sex is advantageous, and here a sexless mutant is out-competing its rivals and spreading into multiple new environments.  Natural selection in action.  If it spreads far enough it is unlikely a disease or similar will wipe it out - populations will become geographically isolated and survive.

Fascinating.  Evolution and natural selection in action all due to random genetic mutations.  Life ... amazing.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Chinahand