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Old 03-01-2021, 08:42 AM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,134 posts, read 107,402,364 times
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Originally Posted by Vasily View Post
Plus we know now there were multiple exits from Africa, and people returning to Africa carrying Neanderthal genes with them. We outcompeted the Neanderthals, the return of the ice age had a negative effect on them, and their remnants live on in our gene as well as those of our Eastern cousins, the Denisovans. You have species that are inter-fertile mating with each other -- and over a timespan that is hard to get one's head around. Which is why creationists have a hard time understanding where "new types" come from -- it's the enormity of time involved in the process, countless tiny changes over that enormity, a few adding to fitness, most of them detrimental.
Interesting. I didn't know that was a dilemma for creationists, but of course it would be. Also, you'd think they'd wonder why The Creator would create species that eventually went extinct. What's the point in creating dead ends?
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Old 03-01-2021, 09:42 AM
 
Location: Greenville, SC
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth View Post
Interesting. I didn't know that was a dilemma for creationists, but of course it would be. Also, you'd think they'd wonder why The Creator would create species that eventually went extinct. What's the point in creating dead ends?
I've seen the claim made that all those extinct species were the ones that didn't make it onto Noah's Ark. In the 19th century, some creationists suggested fossils were red herrings placed there by the Creator to test our faith. Modern creationists will say that yes, well, there is such a thing as microevolution within a species, but there's no evidence of macroevolution - that "types" were presumably created as miracles. So you have the Creator occasionally injecting hopeful monsters to stir things up. So one day, a reptile egg hatches and out pops a new "type" in the form of a bird or a mammal. Which is a misreading of the original intent of the hopeful monster hypothesis, but whatever.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hopeful_monster
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Old 03-01-2021, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Dessert
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A creationist co-worker asked me, "How could some tiny creature figure out how to evolve into a human?"

So there's a deep misunderstanding of more than just the amount of time. Many religions and societies believe that humans (or a subset thereof) are the whole reason for the universe to exist. No wonder they have a hard time getting their heads around the idea that we're the product of trillions of random mutations.

Last edited by steiconi; 03-01-2021 at 01:40 PM..
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Old 03-01-2021, 10:07 PM
 
Location: Baker City, Oregon
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Why should we care what Jane Goodall thinks about Bigfoot, anyway? She certainly isn't an authority on the subject.
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Old 03-02-2021, 01:16 AM
 
Location: PRC
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I believe I have asked this previously and cannot remember(or dont want to?) the answer, but how do we get all types of modern dog from the wolf line? There are so many different modern varieties and not that many different fossils. It must take a really multi-generational effort to breed the characteristics of a chihuahua from a wolf. Where man is, so should be their dogs fossils once the dog has been domesticated.
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Old 03-02-2021, 10:10 AM
 
Location: Greenville, SC
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Originally Posted by ocpaul20 View Post
I believe I have asked this previously and cannot remember(or dont want to?) the answer, but how do we get all types of modern dog from the wolf line? There are so many different modern varieties and not that many different fossils. It must take a really multi-generational effort to breed the characteristics of a chihuahua from a wolf. Where man is, so should be their dogs fossils once the dog has been domesticated.
The same way we got a lot of different varieties of tomatoes or apples from the original wild stock: by selecting and breeding individuals that exhibit the characteristics we want in the breed.

https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeo...domestication/

This is how speciation occurs in the wild: in a genetically isolated population, a gene allele that increases the probability that the animals exhibiting it will breed will over time increase in the population because those individuals will have more offspring. Eventually, the allele will become "fixed" in the population: other variants will disappear.

This can happen if a species moves into a new environment, or the environment changes. For example: the polar bear became white because blending in with the environment makes it easier to find prey, so if there's a shortage of prey, the lighter colored will be more likely to survive and breed than the darker colored individuals.

https://arctic.au.dk/news-and-events...he-polar-bear/

In the case of dogs, we became in essence the environmental factor pressuring them to change -- our selection of individuals for breeding acts in the same way as a change in environment during natural evolution. The genetic isolation is artificial: except for mistakes, we breed dachshunds with dachshunds, great Danes with great Danes, etc. thus maintaining the lines. If dogs go feral (or tomatoes, or apples, or any other line we're maintaining for our own purposes), they revert to the ancestral type as they cross breed with each other.

Why do interfertile species maintain themselves in the wild? Because they specialize: this is what Darwin's finches were about. They adapt to different ecological niches and exploit them: niches in space, in time, in climate, etc. This reduces the competitive pressure between the species and allows them to survive.
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