…and this is a 
“What evolution predicts…”
Category: Creationism
Posted on: October 29, 2007 1:36 PM, by PZ Myers
No three words are more pregnant with the promise of error in a conversation with a creationist than to hear them say "what evolution predicts…". It's practically a guarantee that you're going to hear something bizarre and fundamentally erroneous — but it is at least a good start on identifying basic misconceptions. Orac has found a doozy, a creationist who goes on at remarkable length, building a house of cards on a few flimsy premises. He's dealt with it thoroughly, so I just want to focus on one piece of Pat Sullivan's deeply flawed understanding of evolution.
Imagine an area of town where a major real estate development is taking place. Over the course of the development, on any given day one would observe "incompleteness." But there would come a time when it basically would be complete. Some stores will go out of business and a different store takes it's place, but no big changes as a whole. If random macro evolution is responsible for what we see, why would it not be like a massive development where things NEVER appear finished or complete? What brought macro evolution to a halt? Could it be that it simply never happened?
To me this makes the "Cambrian Explosion" all that more troublesome for evolutionists. This refers to the fact that in the fossil record entire species suddenly appear totally complete. No transitional forms at all. This in total contradiction to what the theory of macro evolution seems would have predicted.
This is the crux of his argument against evolution: that he never sees any organisms that he recognizes as "incomplete". His example is that he doesn't see any three-legged cows with a fourth in the process of evolving.
You read that right. No three-legged cows, no evolution.
There is so much that is wrong with that whole argument. Here's a partial list.
The immediate ancestor of the cow was four-legged. The last common ancestor of all mammals was four-legged. The last common ancestor of all tetrapods was four-legged. We have to go back several hundred million years to find a cow ancestor that was not four-legged, but we've got them. Of course, it was four-finned, not three-legged.
Evolution does not proceed by selecting for organisms that are partially constructed steps on the way to some future "complete" organism. Every transitional form must be fully functional; that's what is predicted by evolution, and that's what we see. The distant ancestor of the cow was a healthy, thriving population of fish-like forms with paddle-like fins. The fins were modified by evolutionary processes for hundreds of millions of years, but every intermediate step was viable and useful for locomotion. We see forms like this:
Which one is supposed to be "incomplete"? Yet we can clearly see a pattern of change in this lineage from fish-like fins to amphibian limbs.
Biology doesn't work the way creationists imagine it does: there isn't some blueprint in the genome with a spot where the right hindlimb is sketched in. It's all much more abstract, with a general to specific array of tissue specification that is dependent on interactions between cells and their environment. What we have in development is, for instance, an early establishment of bilateral symmetry, so that an operation that occurs on one side of the embryo will be mirrored on the other. It actually takes special additional mechanisms to break that symmetry; pairs of limbs are the default. This symmetry was established well over half a billion years ago, and we see its maintenance in modern organisms.
Similarly, the metazoan lineage established a pattern of positional information along the axis using Hox genes, and within the vertebrate lineage some animals established anchors for serially repeated limb development, setting up fore- and hind-limbs. That pattern is also very hard to break; we have inherited a constraint that commits us to a tetrapod body plan.
Sullivan's line of argument here is a familiar one. It's the same as Pinkoski's, which compounded his misconceptions about symmetry with the bizarre idea that evolutionary changes were an act of will.
The notion that evolution can ever be "complete" is false. Evolution is not about progress towards some goal, but about near-constant change to circumstance. It doesn't stop, and it hasn't — we're still changing, slowly. Are we now incomplete because future generations will differ from us?
The Cambrian Explosion is not troublesome, it is interesting. It suggests some concordance in the evolution of disparate lineages; within a broad span of time (millions of years), we see many metazoan forms expanding in size and developing harder and more easily fossilized body parts. There are plenty of transitional forms here, and what's interesting is that many disparate phyla are changing in similar ways at roughly the same time, which suggests that there are coordinating macroevolutionary processes at work.
But let's not forget something else that's important: the Cambrian Explosion seems to be a phenomenon of most importance to one group of organisms, the animals. One narrow group of organisms diversified at this time, but others, like the bacteria and plants and fungi, were doing their own thing. The fascination with the Cambrian is in part a selfish interest in our personal history.
See what I mean? The creationist has his own weird little fantasy version of what evolution predicts, and he has made what is actually to his mind a logical conclusion: that because the real world doesn't look anything like what his version of evolution predicts, scientist's version of evolution (which, of course, is nothing like his) must be wrong.
The hard part in addressing that complaint is that it requires going in and systematically dismantling his freakishly false version of evolution first, and then trying to build up a more accurate model in his head. It takes education — the kind of education poor Mr Sullivan should have been given in grade school, before his ideas calcified into this strange nonsense.
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And yet, we don't see Creationists trying to make sense of the Cambrian Explosion whenever they try to use it to falsify evolution.
I wonder why.
Posted by: Stanton | October 29, 2007 1:42 PM
He also says:
Yeah-huh. That's like saying "Rivers can move silt and sand, but not carve canyons. If they could, we should observe canyons forming all the time." What timescales does this know nothing think evolution operates on, anyway? And he has the gall to call our thinking a mistake? What as ass.
Posted by: H. Humbert | October 29, 2007 1:54 PM
I find that many creationists/IDists usually make the implicit assumption that evolution works off of some sort of teleology. The "great chain of being" concept is so thoroughly entrenched in their world view, that it is, at best, very difficult to properly convey this concept to them. They then declare victory when the make "predictions" based on faulty presuppositions that don't jive with observation.
The building analogy is such argument. People have a plan on how the building will end up before they begin constructing it. An end result is explicitly predetermined and worked towards, thus the idea of "incompleteness" has some validitly in reference to the building. Of course, the pre-determination presupposition doesn't apply to evolution, so Sullivan's argument falls apart before it even starts.
Unfortunately, lots of modern science fiction (stargate and farscape to name a few) subscribe to this end-goal version of evolution.
Posted by: Wikinite | October 29, 2007 2:02 PM
because superficially* it's about as close as you can get paleontologically to creatures "poofing" into existence. creationists don't exist to make sense, the exist to point their fingers and say "LOOK GODDIDIT!"
*by "superficially" i mean "if you haven't bothered to do any research whatsoever."
Posted by: arachnophilia | October 29, 2007 2:03 PM
"Rivers can move silt and sand, but not carve canyons. If they could, we should observe canyons forming all the time."
The Grand Canyon was formed in a matter of days, during Noah's flood. Seriously, some cretinists actually believe this.
Posted by: No More Mr. Nice Guy! | October 29, 2007 2:08 PM
Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical situation that has absolutely nothing to do with evolution...
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 29, 2007 2:08 PM
It is just a common problem of people to not be able to understand the concept of complex adaptive systems, which are certainly counterintuitive to conventional thinking regarding the imposition of structure.
And what is it with these totally inadequate analogies? Can't creationists see that they are spluttering nonsense? (Ok, that was rhetorical) Real-estate development? Excuse me, but if one looks at a given street corner in, let's say, New York, there is a definite chance that it will have looked dramatically different 100 years ago from what it looks now...
Posted by: TheJerrylander | October 29, 2007 2:10 PM
The three-legged cow reminds me of a line from Origin of Species. (citation)
I laughed so hard when I read that. Yeah, Darwin really didn't understand a thing about developmental biology. That's no excuse for Pat Sullivan, of course.
Posted by: miller | October 29, 2007 2:14 PM
But thats exactly what creationists will never get. Ultimately this is about the belief that mankind is the purpose behind creation. So whenever they think of evolution, they think in terms of it creating man, and that can only happen if there is some blueprint with man sketched in. The idea of man, and in particular, themselves, being happenstance is repugnant to them. They are God's favorites. They are the reason this all is. So they had to be in there from the beginning.
Posted by: Dave | October 29, 2007 2:21 PM
Sullivan: pwned.
Posted by: Richard Wolford | October 29, 2007 2:28 PM
Evolution is so fundamentally obvious to me that I can't ever read these people's interpretations. It's always just so flat out backward and absurd that I can't believe they think they really have an argument.
Posted by: Stevie_C | October 29, 2007 2:33 PM
I think roads are a better example. Been around for a very long time. Always evolving, always under construction. And we will always need roads..We'll, at least until we have a flying De Lorean.
Posted by: daenku32 | October 29, 2007 2:55 PM
How many times do I got to tell you! The only process the creationist can invoke, if he tries to move it away from the traditional Biblical creation myth, is a process which is analogized from the scientific and technical progress of humans! Which is ironic, cause the principles and procedures which undergird this progress are the same ones which have ferreted out some of the secrets of our and the earth's history, ie. evolution, natural selection.
Now, we analogise technical progress as an "evolution" but of course, it's not. Two Personal computers don't mate and produce a laptop, better adapted to its enviourment.
Posted by: Mooser | October 29, 2007 3:05 PM
I wish creationists were the only people trying to explain "what evolution predicts...". A few years ago I had the chance to look at this school book used to teach biology in Brazilian's basic schools; there was an essay about the future of human evolution. With pictures! Click this link (there might bee some popups from imageshack, sorry), and you'll all be able to see what we're going to look like in the future generations:
http://img49.imageshack.us/my.php?image=humanevolutionfh0.png
Yep, this sort of cliché alien guy is supposed to be "what evolution predicts..." for the future of human evolution! (for those who can't see the pic, it looks like same old "big headed bald with big eyes and grey skin alien" stuff)
Too bad I don't know where to find the book so I could upload a better picture. Portuguese readers, however, can read this nice article about (hideous) mistakes in Brazilian's teaching books:
http://darwin.futuro.usp.br/site/doprofessor/livrodidatico.pdf
Posted by: Marcos Vital | October 29, 2007 3:11 PM
I always think that's funny. Because the real story is way, way cooler and we're, to this day, observing it as the process continues to unfold.
Posted by: Moses | October 29, 2007 3:19 PM
2 things.
first:
This is the kind of, for lack a better term, stupid. Change is slow, but the inference that micro doesn't equal macro is a strange distiction. Small changes over time equal big changes over longer periods of time. It's so obvious one wonders what the problem is.
second:
It occurs to me none of this would be a problem if people where not indoctrinated from youth that the bible is some form of perfect document and must be revered. A bible that 90%+ of Christians never read.
No one would not see the obvious nature of the science minus the above I think.
Posted by: Uber | October 29, 2007 3:20 PM
@Stevie C #11:
Try to find some objectivity. It is useful to understand religion, and why religious people think the way they do. Even if you don't care to engage in debate, there is value in understanding the viewpoint others take. Getting angry at creationism does nothing but increase your risk of coronary heart disease.
As a side benefit, it also helps you better understand evolution. Sometimes the rebuttals to creationist arguments aren't dead obvious (to me, anyway) and finding the answer can be a learning experience, both in fact, in logic, and in human nature.
Posted by: Mango | October 29, 2007 3:22 PM
@Uber #17:
The distinction creationists try to make between micro- and macro- brings us to their claim that information can't be created by random process. As far as I can tell, Werner Gitt is the originator of that argument -- providing a delicious aptonym -- though his explanation was somewhat nonsensical and it has since... well... *evolved* in the hands of other creationists.
Richard Dawkins provided a useful rebuttal of that argument not long ago, I don't have a link handy right now. But the gist of what they say is that 'micro-evolution' can only destroy information and 'macro-evolution' requires creation of information. To some extent they can evade clear contradiction of this claim by refusing to clearly define 'information'. They appear happy to not have a clear definition as it allows them to take the premise as axiomatic.
Posted by: Mango | October 29, 2007 3:31 PM
Let's see now... evolution predicts that there will be parasites. Check. Evolution predicts that when herbivores and insects eat plants, the plants will get tougher, shorter, spinier, or spicier, or more toxic. Yup. Evolution predicts that there will be a competition for resources such as sunlight, water, or organic carbon. Right. Evolution predicts that if insects fertilize their siblings after hatching in a group, there will be one male for every several females. True--refer to books by S. J. Gould. But if the insects fertilize their siblings before being born, there will be even fewer males, e.g. 1 in 15. Check -- S.J. Gould again. Evolution predicts that there will be transitional forms. Yes--many. Evolution predicts that there will be a trade-off between looking flashy for mating and looking camouflaged for predators. Right, and can be measured mathematically in populations. Evolution predicts that the sex of bird that sits on the eggs will be more camouflaged. True.
What's not to like?
Posted by: Monado | October 29, 2007 3:41 PM
Nice work, Monado. In one post you provided more predictions by evolution that turned out to be true than predictions by the Bible that turned out to be true.
Of course, all you had to do was to provide one.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 29, 2007 3:53 PM
@Monado:
I'm not sure about some of those things. To say 'Evolution predicts X', it means if X is not true, then you'd have to revise the theory of evolution.
If we didn't have parasites, would we have to change the theory? Does the existence oof tall, weak, healthy, yummy plants challenge the current body of knowledge?
To say these things can easily be explained by evolution is quite different. That doesn't really count as evidence. Creationism can explain those things also, with three simple words (left as exercise to reader).
I'll agree that a fossil record of transitional forms is predicted. If we didn't have gradually modified fossils from different eras, it would be hard to defend evolution.
Some big predictions for me:
- The existence of the phylogenetic tree
- Junk DNA
- Various properties of DNA itself, in particular properties of how it is copied and how duplication errors can appear
Posted by: Mango | October 29, 2007 4:06 PM
These people aren't interested in the truth or reality. They just want some rationalizations for their weird belief system. Whether it is correct or make sense is unimportant.
The Cambrian explosion should present some problems for them. Since the YECs have condensed 3.6 billion years of life into 6,000, presumably in their model it should have taken a few weeks or months a few thousand years ago. And of course the species in the Cambrian are all extinct although evolutionists would say they left decendants. So how do animals living under water die in the Flood-Big Boat incident? Run over by a rampaging continent?
Posted by: raven | October 29, 2007 4:11 PM
how do animals living under water die in the Flood-Big Boat incident?
Clearly, Raven, they couldn't run away from the hunting humans as fast.
Oh, wait. You mean the underwater creatures? Well they...um...they...uh--
JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS!!!!!!EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY!!!!!!!!!IF WE TEACH CHILDREN THAT THEY COME FROM ANIMALS THEN THEY'LL ACT LIKE ANIMALS!!!!TELETUBBIES SCARE ME!!!!!IF WE CAME FROM MONKEYS THEN HOW COME MONKEYS STILL EXIST AND WHY DID ONLY ONE OF THE STARS OF "BEDTIME FOR BONZO BECOME PRESIDENT"?!!!!!
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 29, 2007 4:18 PM
If strip malls are built on vacant lots, then how come we still have vacant lots?
See, I believe in micro-zoning, but macro-zoning is just a myth perpetuated by greedy real-estate developers who don't want me to build a rapture-shelter.
Posted by: CJO | October 29, 2007 4:27 PM
[...]WHY DID ONLY ONE OF THE STARS OF "BEDTIME FOR BONZO BECOME PRESIDENT"?
I suspect that if you poke around, you will probably find a few places which claim that both of the stars of that movie have, indeed, become president as of now...
Posted by: SMC | October 29, 2007 4:33 PM
PZ: You almost make me want to study biology. Almost. You make it sound so interesting and amazing (and I am sure it is) but then I remember that I would pass out if I had to dissect something. After all, I couldn't even dissect a worm in high school biology. *sigh*
Posted by: sil-chan | October 29, 2007 4:35 PM
"So how do animals living under water die in the Flood-Big Boat incident? "
Well, fish aren't animals, they're fish! That's why we can eat them on Fridays! Is there anything in the Bible about Noah having to fill the ark with aquariums for all the fish? No, because fish aren't animals! Sheesh, some people just don't get the simplest concepts.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 29, 2007 4:40 PM
Oh sure, PZ, I see all your fancy words and arguments. But where's my crocoduck? I want a crocoduck!
Signed,
Kirk Cameron
Posted by: jdb | October 29, 2007 4:53 PM
#23, the "answer" I've gotten from YECs is that the infusion of fresh water into the oceans killed off the aquatic forms we don't see today. Um, yeah, and, uh,
microevolutionthe fall from grace and increasing entropy accounts for the fact that most oceanic organisms now can't cope with a salt/fresh water mix.Next question -- you, there, wearing the cross?
Posted by: jan andrea | October 29, 2007 4:58 PM
Sullivan wrote:
"If macro evolution occurred, is it still occurring? Why does it appear to have stopped?"
Ye gads. Back to square one.
Posted by: DS | October 29, 2007 5:02 PM
sil-chan says:"[...]I would pass out if I had to dissect something."
There's always microbiology...
Posted by: SMC | October 29, 2007 5:07 PM
Oh, I see. So where did all that fresh water that diluted the salt water down to almost fresh water go? Wait, I know. Someone pulled a drain plug and it all drained out into the solid rock of the earth. Or an old man was seen waving his hands and going poof and it all disappeared.
Posted by: raven | October 29, 2007 5:08 PM
Now there's a memo I didn't get.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 29, 2007 5:33 PM
The 4 legged cow is also incomplete - so evolution should predict a more complete 5 legged version..right?Evolution in Action! Take that Sullivan!
Posted by: Brian | October 29, 2007 5:37 PM
re: #17
The comment you refer to was about evolution and creationism, not about religion. Wait - you're not saying that creationism is religiously driven, are you? I'm sorry, but you'll have to talk to the coach. That page was supposed to have been ripped from the playbook.
Posted by: RickD | October 29, 2007 6:06 PM
What? You mean we aren't complete? We still have to evolve? Great, it isn't like I had enough to do already today. Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and evolve some before breakfast.
Posted by: fardels bear | October 29, 2007 6:36 PM
What I wanna know is how come trees get bigger but if you look at 'em you can't see 'em getting bigger. Trust me. Watch a tree. You won't see it getting bigger. But if you come back years later, it's bigger. What gives?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 29, 2007 6:46 PM
"...there isn't some blueprint in the genome..."
One of those yahoos is going to find some Francis Collins quote saying, "We now possess life's blueprint!!" and fuck you up with it.
Posted by: me | October 29, 2007 6:52 PM
I think so. A complete absence of parasites would be quite mysterious.
It would, if there were any. :-)
Nah. One day at most (the fourth).
(Never mind the complete lack of Cambrian birds...)
All I ever had to dissect was an earthworm and a cricket. And I had to watch the dissection of a rat (which means, its abdominal cavity and its chest were opened). And I had to draw what became visible*. That's all. Only bones and stones afterwards -- though that's because I'm a paleobiologist...
* It won't surprise you to see that, on the inside, the only difference between rat and man is size.
Pish and tosh, sir! There are four-legged chickens, that makes six limbs!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 6:52 PM
if I remember my herpetology lessons correctly there are some large pythons with visible vestigal hind limbs... now used for the sexy prodding of mates (I think).
I don't see cows going down a similar path, but wanted to point out that the 'transitional' forms seem to have some flexibility of function, beyond a series of fully functional transportation systems.
It seems like anything along a range from 'not harmful' to 'good for something' (depending on the context) is possible. Since there's no design involved, there's no reason to imagine the 'something' the limb is good for will always be locomotion.
Posted by: John B | October 29, 2007 7:06 PM
John B: I've always thought that "survival of the fittest" is a poor construction. It generally seems to be more of a "survival of those who aren't the least fit." The old joke about how fast you need to run to get away from a predator: just a bit faster than the slowest member of the herd.
Posted by: frog | October 29, 2007 8:13 PM
Wow. I appreciate being talked about on this esteemed site. I say that with sincerity. It is esteemed.
A question. Are the drawings of the lineage above real or imagined? Or hypothesized? I ask to be educated so please don't blast me on that. Just answer the question cause I want to know.
Then another question: (I know you think me stupid and that is ok) but do you consider the obvious number of massive changes in the underlying protein machinery needed to go from one species to the next, (and make everything work), is really simple genetic change? The lineage that you offer actually seems to require massive numbers of changes for what you portray as a simple and obvious lineage. When I look at it I see perhaps millions (maybe thousands. I don't know) of needed genetic mutations to go from one species to the next. And it would seem there would be perhaps thousands of clear cut steps in between with many of those changes being useless as most mutations are. The changes from one drawing to the next actually represent HUGE change, not small incremental steps it seems.
These kinds of lineages, offered for proof of evolution, always seem so simplistic to me and yet held out as absolute proof that evolution "did it."
Thanks for answering my questions, if you will. I am trying to learn.
Posted by: Pat Sullivan | October 29, 2007 8:21 PM
Hypothesized. They are the simplest explanation that currently exists for our observations.
Now, you probably think "hypothesized" and "imagined" means the same, but it doesn't.
I think that assumption isn't necessary. You seem to have drawn entirely logical conclusions from premises that happen to be completely wrong because they are based on ignorance instead of on knowledge. But I haven't read your blog post :-)
I don't know what you mean. No matter which of the at least 25 definitions of "species" you choose, very small changes suffice. For example, although it never seems to have been tried, I'd bet real money that we can't produce fertile offspring with a chimp. Why? Because two chromosomes have fused in the human line, resulting in our chromosome 2. A hybrid would have real trouble doing meiosis, just like a mule, which has the exact same problem AFAIK.
Mind you: it is not a lineage, it is a tree. It branches. There should be an arrowhead on each end except the bottom one.
Massive numbers of changes require massive amounts of time. These are available. The diagram represents at least 30 million years, from the last stage of the Middle Devonian to the end of the Late Devonian (scroll around at this page).
Also, it is not complete. It only shows the most completely preserved fossils, the ones that are most photogenic and can tell us the most. The lineage simply labeled as "Eusthenopteron" actually looks like this. Somewhere close to Panderichthys there is Parapanderichthys, and even closer to Tiktaalik, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega there should be Elpistostege and Livoniana. Closer to Acanthostega and Ichthyostega than Tiktaalik is, there are Elginerpeton, Obruchevichthys, Ventastega, Metaxygnathus, and probably Densignathus, Sinostega, and Jakubsonia. And what is simply shown as Ichthyostega could be up to three species.
And the tree continues in both directions. See here and here. Especially, google for Tulerpeton, an animal with 6 fingers per hand and 6 toes per foot that lived in the sea.
To be honest, this sounds to me like you haven't looked at it. You should get one of those humongous, expensive textbooks of molecular biology and learn some genetics. Actually, much of that knowledge is online, so a few days spent in Google should give you good basic knowledge.
So what? As long as they aren't actively harmful, natural selection won't do anything against them. It can't.
Talking about "proof" will only give you mild smiles. Science cannot prove, only disprove.
If a hypothesis fails to fit an observation, it is disproven (...even though a very similar hypothesis might not be). But if this does not happen, we can't say the hypothesis has been proven; we can only say it hasn't been disproven so far.
Sure, science could prove a hypothesis by disproving all alternatives. But who says we've even imagined all alternatives? Science can prove beyond reasonable doubt, sure, but there is no definition of "reasonable".
I hope to have been of help!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 8:57 PM
I just sent a long comment. It contains plenty of links, so it is being held for approval and will show up directly above this one. Maybe very soon, maybe tomorrow.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 8:59 PM
Oh my god! Is this the famed "Well, sure you showed me a transitional fossil C between A and B... but where are the transitions between A and C, and C and B? Huh? That's two more gaps in evolution, suckers!" argument? I almost thought it was a myth. Except it's not "two more gaps" so much as a "thousands more gaps".
Posted by: Skemono | October 29, 2007 9:00 PM
A lot lower number of mutations between species than millions. Most mutations controlling morphology are thought to be regulatory mutations in developmental pathways.
We now have whole genome sequences for human, chimp, and Rhesus monkey. Using this data, we have estimated that from the common ancestor of chimps and humans, somewhere between 60 and 200 mutations are important. The number of differences between chimps and humans is in the millions of nukes but the vast majority is in noncoding DNA that is just there and would be nuetral. The number of differences between 2 humans can be 4 million base pairs. The calculated differences between the last common ancestor-human is easily within the range of known mutation rates.
Another way to look at this is more intuitive and has happened within historical and late prehistoric times. From wolf to chihuahua or toy poodle took 10,000 years. From teosinte to corn took 6 to 8,000 years and required relatively few changes to take a nondescript grass and turn it into one of the world's most abundant food source.
Two world class resources on evolution are talkorigins.org and pandasthumb.org.
Posted by: raven | October 29, 2007 9:04 PM
Yes, it is, and my upcoming comment lists dozens of... more gaps.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 9:05 PM
Sure. We see massive changes in "the underlying protein machinery" in widespread populations, such as in humans and dogs, even within the same species, whose common ancestors were hundreds of thousands of years ago.
When we're looking at species whose common ancestors are separated by tens of millions of years, the larger number of differences is a perfectly reasonable extrapolation.
If you can find a testable way for something other than evolution that "did it", write up a paper and submit it to a biology journal.
Posted by: Owlmirror | October 29, 2007 9:11 PM
Yep. For example, there is a master switch in limbed vertebrates... if you press it -- one mutation --, the forelimbs never develop. The snakes have found it, as was figured out a few years ago. Sometimes it gets discovered by other animals, too.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 9:11 PM
(I clicked "post" too early...)
Yep. For example, there is a master switch in limbed vertebrates... if you press it -- one mutation --, the forelimbs and shoulder girdles never develop. The snakes have found it, as was figured out a few years ago; that's why there are fossil snakes with tiny but fully formed hindlimbs, and why the pythons & boas have remains of hindlimbs, but why snakes never have any trace of forelimbs or shoulder girdles. Sometimes it gets discovered by other animals, too.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 9:13 PM
It has now.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 29, 2007 9:18 PM
Can David get another Molly?
I started reading the comments and by the time I got to #28 and the crocoduck, I was laughing so hard I was crying - then as I kept reading, I just got more impressed with the clear and concise explanations.
If only I could have you all come in as guest speakers for my high school class! :)
Posted by: Ms. S | October 29, 2007 9:25 PM
There are HUGE changes between all of them, and yet each snapshot was reached by small incremental steps.
Posted by: Owlmirror | October 29, 2007 9:59 PM
Since the YECs have condensed 3.6 billion years of life into 6,000, presumably in their model it should have taken a few weeks or months a few thousand years ago
According to scientists, the Cambrian explosion happened about 500 mya, and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. If you're a YEC, however, that would mean the Cambrian explosion happened 666 years ago!!! And it lasted about 3 years.
Posted by: ngong | October 29, 2007 10:16 PM
Pat - starting this simple for ya. Find the biggest dog you can. Find the littlest yappiest minature dog you can. Oh my god there is no way they could have a common ancestor right? Like don't believe it could be possible cos how come there isn't exactly every tranistional form in between around. Let alone multiply by a few million years...
Posted by: pkiwi | October 29, 2007 10:51 PM
Re: The three-legged transitional cow. . .
Clearly, the three-legged cows became christian, and, therefore, perfected. Once jesus had caused their fourth limbs to grow in, they then stoned all the remaining three-legged cows to death. Their bodies got washed away in the flood, and that's why we don't have any fossils of them.
Posted by: Alison | October 29, 2007 11:19 PM
I'll second that.
It's as if they can't conceptualise anything that doesn't have a purpose. It seems to be this misconception that leads to most of the strawman versions of Darwinism that they attack and most of the "proofs by improbability" that they come up with.
Posted by: Chris Noble | October 29, 2007 11:23 PM
"What we have in development is, for instance, an early establishment of bilateral symmetry, so that an operation that occurs on one side of the embryo will be mirrored on the other. It actually takes special additional mechanisms to break that symmetry; pairs of limbs are the default."
But it does happen, as the evolution of the Hopsorrhinidae shows.
Posted by: Mike from Ottawa | October 29, 2007 11:33 PM
I find that many creationists/IDists usually make the implicit assumption that evolution works off of some sort of teleology.
yeah, it's just like they're projecting...
oh, wait that IS what is going on.
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 29, 2007 11:34 PM
#57...Even the "why do we still have monkeys?" argument seems based on this mental block of purpose/teleology. The assumption is that humans are "more evolved", superior, closer to some model of perfection, and thus humans should have replaced all monkeys if evolution were true.
Posted by: ngong | October 29, 2007 11:40 PM
Even the "why do we still have monkeys?" argument seems based on this mental block of purpose/teleology.
Of course, the bad news is that, given the rate of human encroachment that is driving our nearest primate relatives to extinction, this question will eventually be self-answering.
Posted by: Chet | October 30, 2007 12:32 AM
Thanks for answering my question.
So, it is hypothesis, not actual fact? The best guess scientists have so far? And the reason that is not what I think it is, has something to do with a bill in the Ohio congress? Appreciate the help.
Posted by: Pat Sullivan | October 30, 2007 12:54 AM
So, it is hypothesis, not actual fact?
which, specifically, the graph?
the graph is an hypothesis supported and consistent with facts (namely, the specific fossils).
did you have some alternative that is actually based on the same facts in mind?
do tell.
and how on earth does this have anything to do with legislation being considered in the Ohio congress?
are you trying to play the "it's only a theory" canard?
seriously?
that and a pack of matches will light a cigar.
c'mon, patrick, don't hold back, tell us what you REALLY think.
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 30, 2007 1:16 AM
pat flat out stated on his blog:
I quote another who said:
trying to convince you of anything would be like trying to make a pile of dogshit smell nice.
if you don't have any background in paleontology or biology, how the fuck do you know what you're looking at when you see the graph. answer: You didn't.
you HAD TO ASK A QUESTION.
see? you're full of shit.
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 30, 2007 1:22 AM
So, it is hypothesis, not actual fact? The best guess scientists have so far? And the reason that is not what I think it is, has something to do with a bill in the Ohio congress? Appreciate the help.
555555555 (The Thai word for 5 is "ha"). Egg on the face of all the earnest, patient, pedagogic types who made the effort to respond to this schmuck!
Posted by: ngong | October 30, 2007 1:24 AM
It is a combination of hypothesis, theory, and fact.
All of science is the best guess based on the evidence.
Are you drunk or high on something?Posted by: Owlmirror | October 30, 2007 1:34 AM
A hypothesis can be thought of as an immature theory - predictions have been made but not enough have been tested to justify calling it a theory.
Neither hypotheses not theories ever turn into facts. Rather, facts are the building blocks of theories and hypotheses, with the theory of evolution being one of the strongest and best supported theories in science. It is far from being a guess.
I think non-biologists have not the slightest conception of how strong the evidence is in favour of the theory of evolution. There are well over a thousand research papers published every month that could, potentially, find a flaw in the theory. Although there have been changes to ideas about the details of the process nothing has ever shaken the central ideas of the theory. Its 'rival' in the US, so-called Intelligent Design, by contrast has so little going for it that there isn't even a clear statement of a hypothesis to be found, and therefore no testable predictions that differ from those of evolutionary theory can be made.
Posted by: Richard Simons | October 30, 2007 1:34 AM
Egg on the face of all the earnest, patient, pedagogic types who made the effort to respond to this schmuck!
meh, normally, I would agree, but in this case Pat would have a tough time selling the response to his question as somehow "fictional", since it will be easy enough to call him on it when he inevitably attempts to quotemine it.
these people are nothing if not predictable.
Meantime, David's response was a decent, concise explanation that was at least useful to others who have some grasp of how science actually works.
still, overall I do prefer the approach of just heckling the willfully insane.
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 30, 2007 1:35 AM
I am trying to learn.
Liar.
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 30, 2007 1:38 AM
So... is it fair to say that Sullivan presents the pretense of teachable ignorance while elsewhere claiming that his uninformed insights alone trump the conclusions drawn from a one hundred fifty year's worth of accumulated scientific observation and educated analysis? That he is, in other words, just another in a long and tiresome series of arrogant laypersons who wield theistic agendas beneath their cloaks and wish only to have their predetermined conclusions verified by whatever intellectually dishonest means available?
Hey, I'm just asking.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 30, 2007 1:42 AM
Hey, I'm just asking.
liar.
;)
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 30, 2007 1:46 AM
I've ripped Pat Sullivan a new one on his blog:
No halfway intelligent person would think that evolution predicts 3-legged cows turning into 4-legged cows. Cows evolved from other 4-legged animals -- those animals were different from cows, but they weren't incomplete cows. Consider the evolution of software; we don't expect to see all sorts of "weird" software. There was never a version of Windows where the windows only had three sides -- why should Pat expect biological evolution to work that way? That's just stupid, and shows no understanding at all of biology or the theory of evolution or what it predicts.
Posted by: truth machine | October 29, 2007 at 11:25 PM
The Cambrian explosion is something the many evolutionists even have wrestled with to explain how it happened. From nowhere?
No evolutionist has ever held that the denizens of the Cambrian came from nowhere. They of course evolved from earlier species ... species with soft bodies that didn't leave much in the way of fossils. Recently though, we've found many trace fossils and micro fossils. As for "how it happened", the question is about the relatively rapid development of species -- "rapid" meaning over a period of 50 million years. The notion that many species just showed up suddenly from nowhere is sheer ignorance.
Posted by: truth machine | October 29, 2007 at 11:42 PM
Truth Machine,
You must not use software!! There are many examples of software that does not work. Microsoft Windows is a great example.
It took a bunch of highly intelligent engineers and very smart designers over 3 versions to finally ship a usable version. Was about 5 years in the making. I was there. I saw all the previous versions and Windows was WEIRD software. Not until version 3.1 did they really have something that worked. The guys at Apple would laugh at you and say you're an idiot!
There are tons of examples in software where weird things were shipped. Still happens everyday.
No "halfway intelligent" person would say what you said here. Welcome to the club!!
Posted by: Pat Sullivan | October 29, 2007 at 11:48 PM
Ok, but using my example of a real estate development, you can always observe many things that are totally incomplete and obviously NOT functional.
Gee, then maybe that's an indication that you real estate analogy isn't appropriate; biological evolution isn't like that. I mentioned software above; consider also the development of cars. Modern 4-wheeled cars didn't evolve from 3-wheeled cars. Your real estate analogy is like assembling a car -- the car goes through partial stages until it's complete. But the design of cars evolves over time, and earlier cars don't, at the time, look incomplete -- every car throughout history has always looked complete. It's the same way with biological organisms. Expecting to see 3- or 5-legged cows is like expecting to see 3- or 5- wheeled cars. It is, frankly, DUMB.
Posted by: truth machine | October 29, 2007 at 11:50 PM
You must not use software!! There are many examples of software that does not work. Microsoft Windows is a great example.
I've been writing software for over 40 years. Yes, there's software that doesn't work, just as there are babies missing brains who die.
The versions of Windows before 3.1 did work ,,, they just didn't work as well as later versions. They were only "weird" in retrospect.
But I suppose that you will make the same argument about cars. Intelligent people will conclude that you are either an idiot or incredibly dishonest. I don't know what you get out of believing obviously very stupid things, like that evolution predicts 3-legged cows, but it's your problem.
Posted by: truth machine | October 29, 2007 at 11:55 PM
Truth Machine,
Interesting to me that the examples you use require a designer. My point, everything we see requires a designer. A car, bicycle (a two wheeled transition to the car), software, etc. I find it amazing that people can believe that something far more complex and intricate that replicates itself simply happened from nothing due to random, unintelligent means. What a leap of faith!!
Posted by: Pat Sullivan | October 30, 2007 at 12:02 AM
Truth Machine,
No, it was rather obvious at the time (not in retrospect) that each version prior to 3.1 was weird. They were not usable and thus no one built applications for them. It was not till 3.1 when it was obvious that it worked. Then applications were built for it.
Calling me either an idiot or dishonest does little for your arguments. But I hope it makes you feel better. Superior! Gee, aren't you friggin smart!!
Posted by: Pat Sullivan | October 30, 2007 at 12:07 AM
Interesting to me that the examples you use require a designer.
This is the standard dishonest dodge of creationists -- to change the subject. The question you addressed was what macroevolution w