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yes, mmm-maybenot. It is important to keep that phrase "an explosion of new species" in mind as a relative term. 50 M years after all is hardly overnight, but as it relates to the larger evolutionary timeline, it's "relatively" fast.
As well, there's a now-recognized phenomenon of "relatively rapid" expansion of types, given a possible proliferation, for example, of post-ice age ecological opportunities with a notable absence of competitors who perhaps didn't fare so well out there in the shadows of the receding glaciers, and of some genetically stored adaptations that were "patiently" waiting for the right opportunity to show heir stuff, so to speak. No, not intentionally, but by dint of some previously neutral position they took as regards the entirety of available niches.
Any of this making any sense? Hope so.
So anyhow, in some recent DNA mapping studies, the genotype ( or, specific internal DNA map sequences) don't necessarily always express themselves right away externally (as a so-called phenotype) unless they are useful or needed. But a single mutation or other motivator for genotypic changes can "release" a number of such "genes in waiting" so to speak, and it can even prompt several related but unique new species to appear in relatively short order and complicate the fossil record or tar pit findings.
So, essentially, yes; we can and do find the occasional "rapid deployment" of new species to fill previously unavailable or non-existent niches.
At that point, many Creationists get agitated because they think Evolution has been defined as occurring t some regular like clockwork rate over long periods of time. They also think we're changing our story, and that's apparently not allowed, and it's too complicated!
Nope. The rate of speciation is actually quite variable, also varying in rate with species type, environmental conditions and opportunities. Imagine the relatively recent rise of the volcanic Hawaiian islands for instance, versus some long-time mainland Amazonian jungle where competition has sort of stabilized the species count, more or less. While out on those islands, or on Darwin's Galapagos Islands, the "opportunities" were faster in showing up, and the resulting speciation was therefore far more rapid.
Also, remember that Evolution or natural selection or geological changes are not obligated to do things in any sort of structure or order, according to what we'd like or need to find. Remember: A lot of stuff's been lost forever. That we can decipher anything valuable out of these finds is amazing and a testament to the careful and elegant research techniques, as well as some spectacular new tools, that are available to the modern researcher. We can now very reliably date things, and if we can pull any DNA out of a frozen or encrusted sample (not out of mineralized fossils, of course...) we can and will place it into it's place in the relative sequence of evolution. yes, we may later find some additional intermediary, hence we're no longer needing or looking for a simplistic Missing Link organism. It doesn't exist per se, and it's not necessary to prove anything, bacause...
Evolution's been completely proven as the means by which different species types can arise over time.
Certainly such information completely debunks the concept of all of it arriving on the same day 6037 years ago. It simply didn't happen that way.
Old, incorrect assumptions or early scientific deductions are always open to being improved, accurized or more carefully integrated into the larger story. It's not just some riff-raff, muddled, always-changing and therefore confused bit of scientific fluff, though that's how many die-hard Creationists would like to paint it.
By that sort of inane thinking, we'd not be able to use any of the spectacular new medical tools we've recently developed because, well, heck... we used to use more primitive methods!
So... Understand any of that? Hope so. Always glad to help if possible.
I am saying that the theory of evolution claims to be about the origin of species, but in fact it is not about the origin of species in the sense that before the origin there were no species, but it takes off from already the existence of species.
So, your response is irrelevant and I can't see how you cannot even have any inkling in your head that it is irrelevant.
What I can see with the socalled theory of evolution as an explanation for the origin of species is that it is nothing about any origin of any species, but all just a lot of words at the end of which still not you and not I and not anyone knows anything about the origin of species, which should mean how from no species species came about.
Here is what you should say if you are a proponent of the socalled theory of evolution, that you really don't know the very origin of species, but you are entertaining the idea that when the very first ever one or several species have already started to exist, then how these very ever first species before which there were no species whatsoever gave rise to latter species -- but again you must admit that you really don't know how the ever first species came about.
But I fear you don't know what I am talking about.
Sad.
Here, I will try again.
Suppose you are explaining the origin of the bicycle, do you start from a point in time when bicycle was already available to people, or you start from a point in time when there was no bicycle whatever.
If you start from a point in time when bicycle was already available to people, then you cannot be calling your explanation of the appearance of the bicycle as the theory of the evolution of the bicycle.
So also with the socalled theory of evolution to explain the origin of species.
See? I guess not, and it is very sad that you don't or more correctly can't see.
Ryrge
I understand what you mean. The cross - purposes is because the theory of evolution is correctly applied to the explanation of the development of life and not where that life came from (abiogenesis) , much less where the universe came from.
However, in the creationism vs. evolution debate, the believers use the term evolution in the incorrect way
"evolution, a naturalistic explanation for how everything came to be."
That said, I can understand your frustration at an apparent refusal to engage on a discussion of how life got started on the apparent grounds of semantics.
If you just take it on board that this is the 'abiogenesis' question, not the evolution question, I'm sure the question can be addresed.
My view is that there is no hard evidence for how it got started but the evolutionary evidence indicates a line of progression implying a natural beginning. The existence of very primitive life-forms on the line between organic and mineral such as stromatolites and viruses, are an indication of how it might have got started.
It is a modicum of evidence, no more than that. It is, however more evidence than for any other explanation - spores from comets, alien visitors or goddunnit.
The remarkable remains of two ancient human-like creatures - hominids - have been found in South Africa, promising to provide the key to how early humans emerged.
The fossils of a female adult and a juvenile male, perhaps mother and son, are just under two million years old.
I have been reading up on a few things. I do have a job and it's gardening time where I live. I bought a book by Gerald Schoreder called the Science of God. It is basically an attempt to rectify science and religion. He claims the cambrian explosion may have been "triggered" by the availibility of O2 in the atmosphere. He also claims that the ozone layer may not have fully established causing mutations in the DNA, along with free radicals caused by O2.
He also claims that during the cambrian animals made their apperance "fully developed".
He claims that evolution had to be guided.
Before you got nuts on my choice of books...I heard the guy on CD and found him interesting...
I think he is kinda "out there" but some of it made sense.
I am going to find some other books...I like to see all sides.
Not to worry, maybenot. It's good to see you buying books, reading and thinking. In the end, such activity will set your mind free.
BTW, There are some compelling reasons why "biological design" is neither required nor evident. Mostly, the IDrs try to just point to the complexity of something, shrug their shoulders and ask "how could such an awesome thing possibly have arrived by simple chance?".
Then they go to the "Irreducible Complexity" argument, which more or less states you can't have a less complex version of some things. Like our eyes, for instance, even though many animals' eyes are far less complex than ours, down to simple light-sensitive cell bundles in some amoeba. They tell us such complex structures would simply not work. Like pulling out a few micro-chips from your new HD TV, they say. Well, no, not really; that's not how things work in nature. Only in TV design. In literally every example case put forward, that one's been summarily dismissed. And, of course, there actually were far less complex TVs in the past, right?
They'll also hit you with the "Exacting Constants all around us" argument, which assumes that if any of God's established parameters (distance from the sun, gravitational level, atmosphere, temperature, oceanic salinity, etc. etc. ) were changed in any way, even slightly, we'd all be dead.
Quite possibly so, given how we're specifically adapted and evolved to and within those very parameters. I'd kinda expect us to fit them well, wouldn't you? I mean, given that those biophysical and geological parameters BEFORE we did, and we evolved and adapted exactly to fit them, the resulting organism, us amongst them, should fit those parameters exactly, shouldn't they/we?
So what? Logically reversed Cart before Horse.
Intelligent design is simply a ploy to try to invade the science classroom by qualifying ID as some form of science, which by definition it is not.
But please...don't take my somewhat biased word for it. You're a smart person. I'm trusting in you! I have faith!
I have been reading up on a few things. I do have a job and it's gardening time where I live. I bought a book by Gerald Schoreder called the Science of God. It is basically an attempt to rectify science and religion. He claims the cambrian explosion may have been "triggered" by the availibility of O2 in the atmosphere. He also claims that the ozone layer may not have fully established causing mutations in the DNA, along with free radicals caused by O2.
He also claims that during the cambrian animals made their apperance "fully developed".
He claims that evolution had to be guided.
Before you got nuts on my choice of books...I heard the guy on CD and found him interesting...
I think he is kinda "out there" but some of it made sense.
I am going to find some other books...I like to see all sides.
Sorry so choppy...just thinkin out loud.
May I recommend Darwin's Ghost by Steve Jones, or Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Conye if you're interested in the subject. Both are good reads, although a few of Coyne's comments may be a bit off putting to some people. He really doesn't care for creationist at all.
Whatever you do, stay away from On The Origin of The Species at first. The Victorian style of speaking can drive some insane (well, me at least). I would even argue that it's the perfect cure for insomnia.
rifleman...
I think science should be taught as science, history as history etc...but I also don't expect the bible to expain everything about the universe in some thirty sentances. That would be nuts. Biology has rules it has to follow, the laws of chemistry, and physics for example. If the laws of nature are being tampered with, they are useless. But I don't think that is happening.
This fella named Weinberge (a skeptic) claimes that the energy of the big bang had to be fine tuned within one part in 10 to 120th power (10 with 120 zeros). If the energy was any different by one part, the universe would not be conductive to life.
It looks like a "rigged" horserace to me.
To form carbon , a radioactive beryllium must absorb a nucleus of helium to build carbon. Beryllium only has a mean life of .00000000000000001 seconds. In this brief span of time , a helium nucleus must find, collide with, and be absorbed by the beyllium nucleus, thus metamorphosing into "staff of life" carbon. The energies must be matched exactly, if not the universe would be hydrogen and helium and not much else.
So to say the universe is not fine tuned for life...I respectfully dissagree.
This does not mean there is a creator, but in my mind it points in that direction.
I know it isn't biology but I had to start somewhere.
Last edited by mmm...mabeynot; 04-08-2010 at 07:19 PM..
So to say the universe is not fine tuned for life...I respectfully dissagree.
If the issue is design then why the waste of 8 (or 7 since Pluto has been demoted) planets which so far appear not to have life at all. Or even more to the point, why have 9 planets to begin with since as MysticPhd would point out, they serve absolutely no purpose at all?
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