Re: Another Stupid Evolutionary Peer Reviewed Published Paper
- From: John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:31:31 -0800
ur32212451 wrote:
Human Evolution Seems to Be Accelerating
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316375,00.html
Well blow my whistle if it ain't another stupid 'scientific' article
on Darwinian 'evolution'. Granted, there are extreme people in all
walks of life that like to embellish tall tales and pass then off as
true to other unsuspecting people, but no one does it better than
evolutionary scientists who stake their career on it, and they do it
under the guise of science.
"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to
50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending,
an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be
true.""
Yes! Harpending admits it, the way one becomes an evolutionist is to
be raised into believing it's true; via a materialistic schooling
system, established religiously, and by materialists, who have taken
over the education system ever since their gods bestowed their
personal beliefs on an unsuspecting public, the two Charles's: Darwin
and Lyell.
He was probably also raised to believe that the circumference of a
circle is pi times its diameter, that the Declaration of Independence
was signed in 1776, and that the sun gets its heat by fusion of
hydrogen. This is called education.
Harpending tells us:
"If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since
humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago, there should be 160
times more differences than the researchers found."
This is a good time to briefly state what is known about the Chimp and
Human evolutionary relationship. The Chimpanzee was not officially
considered to be the closest ancestor of humans until a DNA analysis
determined their DNA to be closest to humans. Thus it is now assumed
that based on DNA analysis, the chimp is our closest living
evolutionary ancestor.
Who decides what is "official"? Now in fact the idea that humans and
chimps are especially close goes back at least to Darwin. But it's true
that morphologists were in some disagreement over the exact tree. The
first really good confirming evidence, however, came not from DNA
analysis but from immunology -- Sarich & Wilson.
Please note that nobody thinks chimps are our ancestors, just our
closest cousins.
Before the DNA analysis, some evolutionists argued gorillas were our
closest (non-human) relatives, and others especially suggested
orangutans were our closest cousins because they could, and often did,
walk upright, and walking upright is considered a very important
feature in the Ape to Human evolution. A 7 million year old fossil of
a jaw and teeth was once considered to be a direct ancestor of humans.
They called this direct ancestor Ramapithicus. Afterward, it was
determined that the jaw and teeth to be identical to modern day
orangutans.
No, not ideantical, just more similar to orangutans than to anything else.
Which goes to also show that either orangutans have not
evolved at all over 7 million years, or that the evolutionary dating
techniques are seriously flawed.
Or that you don't know your facts.
The most important fact about this assumed 6 million year old common
ancestor is that there is no scientific evidence that it existed
except that evolution theory requires it to exist, otherwise evolution
would simply be false. The gap between humans and chimps is so
enormous that any human will instantly recognize this fact
immediately; it does not take an evolutionary scientist to know this
is true.
If you're saying that it's easy to tell the difference between humans
and chimps, I'll agree. But I don't see how that's an argument against
evolution. And of course the common ancestor is not assumed because
evolution requires it, but because the data require it. There is no
other credible explanation for the pattern of genetic similarities and
differences among species that we call the nested hierarchy. (If you
have another explanation, I would like to hear it.)
"Our species is not static," Harpending added.
Of course it is true, Biblical literalists knew this, and also knew
about natural selection, before Charles Darwin was even born. Once
such famous Christian was William Paley, who argued that offspring of
species often vary significantly, thus enhancing the ability of the
created type to survive via adapting to various or changing
environment, and Paley referred to selection processes as a natural
conservative force for preserving the each species by removing unfit
individuals from populations, thereby preserving the integrity of a
species by limiting any sustained drift toward increasingly inferior
offspring (William Paley, 'Natural Theology', 1803). Darwin had read
Paley's book and was very impressed by it.
The only difference between the two is that Charles Darwin disdained
the Christian God and was determined to remove God from the
authorships of life and the origin of the species.
Nonsense. The difference is that Paley saw selection as a conservative
force that absolutely preserved the type, while Darwin saw that it could
also be a creative force, given a change in habitat, and that there was
no obvious limit to the amount of change that could accumulate over time.
"I had gradually become by this time [1837] to see the Old Testament,
from its manifestly fake history of the world ... was no more to be
trusted than the sacred book of the Hindus, or the beliefs of any
barbarian.
Quite a few Christians could say this too, and in fact Darwin hadn't
lost his faith at that time, only after the death of his daughter, some
years later.
... I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be
true, for if so plain language of the text seems to show that the men
who do not believe, and this would include my father, my brother, and
almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. This is a
damnable doctrine." (1)
Do you agree or disagree with Darwin's statement here? Why?
1. Charles Darwin, "The autobiography of Charles Darwin with Original
Omissions Restored", Ed. New York: Norton, 1969, p. 87.
Famous author, atheist, and evolutionist Stephen J. Gould concluded,
based on his access to Darwin's earliest unpublished letters, that
before Charles Darwin went aboard the beagle, he had already rejected
Christianity and had become a materialist (a materialist is one who
believes the material observable universe is all that exist, that
there is no supernatural beings or world, i.e. God or heaven.).
I would like to see a citation for this claim about Gould.
Darwin had no idea why offspring contained variations from their
parents and why some parental traits disappeared from in their
offspring, only to return in later generations.
It was Johann Gregor Mendel who solved this mystery. Mendel
demonstrated that variation in offspring was not due to new genetic
traits coming into existence over time, but rather, from the existence
of an enormous bank of traits stored in each species genes. Nobel
Laureate Biologists Peter Medwar stated that genetic variation in
human offspring is enormous that no two humans will ever be born
genetically identical to any other human being.
True to some degree. Mendel demonstrated the mechanism of heredity, and
that considerable variation could be hidden from the immediate
phenotype. But he didn't show that recombination was the only source of
variation, because that just isn't true. Medawar's point was also about
recombination, but we all should know that every human contains
mutations not found in either parent.
Mendel's ideas on heredity and evolution were diametrically opposed to
those of Darwin and his followers. Having read Darwin's book: 'On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation
of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' Mendel sent a copy of his
paper on Genetics to Charles Darwin in 1865, which it is said that
Darwin did not read it. Mendel believed that it was his paper that
would ultimately explain the variation found in each kind of species.
My understanding is that Mendel was an admirer of Darwin, not an
opponent. What do you know different? And of course Mendel's ideas are
not at all opposed to Darwin's; it's the combination of Darwin and
Mendel that gave us the so-called "Modern Synthesis".
Upon reading Mendel's paper, Alfred Russell Wallace understood the
negative impact it has on Wallace's and Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
Mendelian Genetics restores fixity to the species as it explains the
existence of all observed variation in species without any further
need for new genetic information to come into existence, thus no need
for a Theory of Evolution.
Can you give any evidence for the claim about Wallace? If he thought
that, he was clearly wrong. Mendelian genetics has nothing to do with
fixity of species, nor can it explain all observed variation, nor can it
explain a great many other things for which evolution is the
explanation. I will just mention that nested hierarchy again, because
it's my favorite.
If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since
humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago, there should be 160
times more differences than the researchers found.
Not a very clear statement, and not literally true. The researchers were
concentrating on a particular sort of differences, i.e. positive
selection on a small proportion of loci. The bulk of the differences
between the species are not under consideration.
This is an evolutionary assumption with no science to support it,
there is no known common ancestor between humans and chimps, nor any
for any other allegedly related extant or extinct creatures.
In fact, it's impossible to identify ancestors in the fossil record. But
it *is* possible to know about something you haven't seen. You do it all
the time, and science would be largely impossible if we couldn't. We
wouldn't know about atoms, for example, since they're too small to see.
There is excellent evidence that humans and chimps had a common
ancestor, one more recent than our common ancestor with any other species.
changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities forFrom the Article: "Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast
adaptation," the study says. "The past 10,000 years have seen rapid
skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the
appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease."
There is strong evidence that these changes are non-evolutionary
changes related to Mendelian Genetics and triggered by dietary
changes. Just in the past 100 years we've seen a very significant jump
in skeletal sizes due to the changes in modern eating habits. Both men
and women are much taller on average in countries such as the U.S. and
Japan. One merely needs to visit hotels from the 18th century and
observe how low the ceilings are and how short are the beds.
So your evidence for all changes being due to dietary changes and
mendelian genetics is that some changes are due to dietary changes? I'm
afraid that the article presents strong evidence that simple mendelian
genetics is not adequate to explain their result.
"Most anthropologists agree that humans first evolved in Africa andFrom The Article
then spread to other areas, and the lighter skin color of Europeans
and Asians is generally attributed to selection to allow more
absorption of vitamin D in colder climates where there is less sun."
Yet it is also true that that a Caucasian tribe settled in the Indus
Valley, the same people that came up with Aryanism that led to the
caste system, the idea of superiority of very light brown skin people
(yes, all people are brown skinned), and after several centuries,
there descendants became dark skinned, and this, because of the
climate they lived in. It is well known that our Genetics include
feedback systems that trigger the switching of available traits based
upon climate and diet. There is nothing Darwinian about these changes.
They are Mendelian variations.
This is nonsense. Differences in pigment among people are based on
genetics, sure (not diet, not climate). And I suspect that changes in
pigment among "Aryans" were not due to mutations, but to gene exchange
and selection. But what does this have to do with anything?
billions in the last 10,000 years accelerated the rate of evolutionFrom The Article: "The increase in human population from millions to
because "we were in new environments to which we needed to adapt,"
Harpending adds. "And with a larger population, more mutations
occurred.""
It is an absurdity for the article to suggest that an immense increase
in population size leads to an accelerated evolution. The larger the
population, the less likely a mutation will be able to become fixed in
the population (e.g. Hardy-Weinberg principle).
That's not the Hardy-Weinberg principle. And while it's harder for an
individual mutation to become fixed, there are also more mutations
happening in a larger population. If the mutation is neutral, these two
effects exactly balance and fixation happens at exactly the same rate
regardless of population size. If the mutation is advantageous, it's
more likely to become fixed in the larger population, simply because
there is less of a stochastic effect.
This is why the Gould
Eldredge, when proposing their Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium,
acknowledged that evolution can only occur in very small isolated
populations.
No, that's not why. They were merely taking their cue from Mayr, who
proposed that "coadapted gene complexes" prevented evolution in large
populations, and that they could be broken up in tiny, isolated ones,
causing "genetic revolutions". But Mayr was wrong. Evolution can and
does occur in large populations.
"In another example, the researchers noted that in China and most ofFrom Article:
Africa, few people can digest fresh milk into adulthood."
"Yet in Sweden and Denmark, the gene that makes the milk-digesting
enzyme lactase remains active, so almost everyone can drink fresh
milk, explaining why dairy farming is more common in Europe than in
the Mediterranean and Africa, Harpending says."
The loss of a previous genetic ability in not evolution, but rather,
it's a corruption of existing genetic evolution, usually caused by a
random mutation.
You don't understand. The inability to digest milk as an adult is the
*primitive* condition.
From Article:
"Richard Potts, director of the human origins program at the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, said he
thinks the researchers reasoning regarding rapid adaptive change is
plausible."
I could not care less what Mr. Potts, or Mrs. Potts, thinks. Ever
since Gregor Mendel, we've known rapid adaptive change as a reality is
a fact.
Mendel had nothing to say about rapid adaptive change. He didn't
investigate adaptation at all.
The finches on the Galapagos Islands are a good example of
Mendelian rapid adaptive change, as well as all dogs descending from
wolves. Both of these adaptive ranges (also known as radiations)
occurred within the last thousand years, such is the remarkable
diversity of our Genetic code. These adaptations are non-evolutionary.
In fairness to Mr. Potts, he makes no claims that they are
evolutionary, he wisely calls then adaptive changes.
We are all agreed that some rapid adaptive change can happen without
mutation, and that existing variation in the population offers
considerable scope for selection. But there are new mutations, and some
of them are selected. The article itself (well, the scientific paper
it's based on) gives plentiful evidence for that.
"Two years ago Harpending and colleague Gregory M. Cochran published aFrom Article:
study arguing that above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews --
those of northern European heritage -- resulted from natural selection
in medieval Europe, where they were pressured into jobs as financiers,
traders, managers and tax collectors."
"Those who were smarter succeeded, grew wealthy and had bigger
families to pass on their genes, they suggested. That evolution also
is linked to genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher in Jews."
Yes, natural selection works, but it does not cause new genetic traits
to come into existence, it can only select among the traits that are
existing in a genome.
Agreed. Nobody says anything different.
Tay Sachs Disease and Gaucher result from mutations that corrupt the
genetic code and increase inferiority in the offspring. It ought to be
called 'devolution' to separate it from the extravagant evolutionary
claims of Darwin and today's hyper-Darwinists.
Facts supporting evolution in this article: Zero (There were none).
You're looking in the wrong place. Check out the scientific paper on
which it's based. Check out any issue of any scientific journal devoted
to the subject, like Evolution, or Journal of Molecular Evolution, or
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
The use of the word 'evolution' enabled the author to obtain tax payer
money for his 'evolutionary research'.
I doubt that was important. He had to convince a panel of scientists
that his research was likely to be fruitful, and single buzzwords aren't
all that influential. Not even "genomics".
You're probably one of those post-and-run creationists, so I'm probably
wasting my time replying, but what the heck.
.
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