Watch Evolution in Action

originally posted by: VP740
a reply to: edmc^2

But we have examples of species which seem to be related. We can test DNA from different species for this just as we can do paternity tests on people. Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc...

Who determined that this wall can't be breached and how did they come to that conclusion? To find a law of nature and state it has no known exceptions is quite remarkable. Saying there are not only no known exceptions, but not even any possible exceptions is beyond incredible. Surly such a claim must have some very compelling facts to back it up; pleas present them.

Just because as you put it "Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc.." it doesn't mean you can cross-breed them. It can't be done.

Simply put - English and Chinese are both languages but one can't be mixed with the other - unless you translate it first.

In other words, you can't splice in Chinese words/sentences in an English format or vice-versa to make it into something understandable.

Genetic Engineering has this same problem. Each separate / unique species carry its own "blueprint" so to speak.

originally posted by: edmc^2

originally posted by: VP740
a reply to: edmc^2

But we have examples of species which seem to be related. We can test DNA from different species for this just as we can do paternity tests on people. Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc...

Who determined that this wall can't be breached and how did they come to that conclusion? To find a law of nature and state it has no known exceptions is quite remarkable. Saying there are not only no known exceptions, but not even any possible exceptions is beyond incredible. Surly such a claim must have some very compelling facts to back it up; pleas present them.

Just because as you put it "Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc.." it doesn't mean you can cross-breed them. It can't be done.

Simply put - English and Chinese are both languages but one can't be mixed with the other - unless you translate it first.

In other words, you can't splice in Chinese words/sentences in an English format or vice-versa to make it into something understandable.

Genetic Engineering has this same problem. Each separate / unique species carry its own "blueprint" so to speak.

will you please provide a specific examples of how lingual translation and genetic engineering are analogous?

a reply to: edmc^2

What are you talking about? You can cross breed donkeys with horses to produce mules. You can certainty crossbreed wolves with dogs.

And I don't think you presented the information I requested. Dogs and Wolves are thought to be closely related and can produce fertile offspring. Horses and Donkeys are thought to be more distant relatives and can produce sterile offspring. While Humans and Chimps can't mix, it is believed their ancestors could interbreed, but the descendants of today can't mix because of genetic drift.

Is that the wall you were talking about? You're saying that because descendants can't crossbreed, it must mean ancestors couldn't have crossbred either? I find the examples from dogs and wolves, horses and donkeys, to present more compelling evidence for the idea of genetic drift; than the case for a wall, that can be made from humans and chimps.

a reply to: VP740

Careful the "but they are sterile" (Mules) bit will be thrown in. Also technically Dogs are a subspecies of Wolves .... *waves hands wibbly woobly genetics etc*. There are also Ligers, Tigerons, Grizzly-Polar bear hybrids etc

Humans (Homo sapiens) certainly breed with three or so other species, we've found two. Neanderthals, and Denisovians, and hints of # 3 are in the genome.

People love to do the "Species" dance. The reason we are unclear now is we are not using anatomy as the marker. We are using genetics. Once we got down to that level, it became less clear

originally posted by: VP740
a reply to: edmc^2

What are you talking about? You can cross breed donkeys with horses to produce mules. You can certainty crossbreed wolves with dogs.

And I don't think you presented the information I requested. Dogs and Wolves are thought to be closely related and can produce fertile offspring. Horses and Donkeys are thought to be more distant relatives and can produce sterile offspring. While Humans and Chimps can't mix, it is believed their ancestors could interbreed, but the descendants of today can't mix because of genetic drift.

Is that the wall you were talking about? You're saying that because descendants can't crossbreed, it must mean ancestors couldn't have crossbred either? I find the examples from dogs and wolves, horses and donkeys, to present more compelling evidence for the idea of genetic drift; than the case for a wall, that can be made from humans and chimps.

No disagreement for the most part of what said. These animals you listed can breed within their "species" until it hits the genetic wall and can no longer breed. What I'm saying is, you can't cross-breed outside their own kind or family of species. Feline (species) can't breed with canine (species). The genetic code/footprint will not allow this happen - SUCCESSFULLY. This is how nature or design in nature intended it to be. It's a check and balance.

a reply to: edmc^2

What I'm saying is, you can't cross-breed outside their own kind or family of species.

Please show where "kind" is described by genetics.
It's a biblical term, "each according to its kind", right?

In any case, no one says that frogs breed with antelope so they can jump better. They do it for entirely different reasons.

a reply to: edmc^2

Actually dogs and wolves offspring can breed, as can some Ligars and Tigrons. So this is a false wall, must be a trump mandated one

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: edmc^2

What I'm saying is, you can't cross-breed outside their own kind or family of species.

Please show where "kind" is described by genetics.
It's a biblical term, "each according to its kind", right?

In any case, no one says that frogs breed with antelope so they can jump better. They do it for entirely different reasons.

must be for thicker juicier frog legs. impractical for leap frogging but irresistable to tasteful carnivores.

originally posted by: edmc^2

originally posted by: Xenogears

A new strain of E.Coli bacteria! Point is, the genetic wall can't be breach. The bacteria will remain a bacteria after thousands of adaptation or as you say "mutation".

cells fuse with one another in the human body. There's been evidence of cells merging in nature. In the labs chimeric cells fusions of multiple species can at times be viable. The idea of Eukaryotes is that it was the result of one cell assimilating another type of cell, iirc.

Still, the wall can't be breach! It's a genetic boundary that can't be overcome. One Celled organism will remain a one-celled organism even after assimilation. They or it retains its identity no matter how many adaptation, assimilation or "mutation" it went through. And often times the result is chimeric in nature and less (sub-par) than what it used to be.

Point is - whatever changes made, the change remain in that boundary and eventually die off at an early age. Otherwise, the world will be full of Chimera.

There are organisms that are unicellular and in time of need become multicellular.

a reply to: edmc^2

OK, so we agree that genetically incompatible species exist and can't interbreed (dogs to cats for example). I fail to see how this wall prevents mutation or genetic drift. It is possible for children to have different measurable traits from their parents (height, weight, IQ, strength etc...). I don't see how the wall which prevents felines from mixing with kanines, would prevent a wolf from having extraordinarily divers decedents from chihuahuas to great danes (I don't know about their genettic compatibility, but their physical compatibility is very questionable). And going further, I don't see how chihuahuas and great danes couldn't have genetically incompatible descendants ranging from things that could be as small as a mouse or as tall as a giraffe, given enough generations.

a reply to: VP740
I understand perfect.

Fish (a "kind", I think) cannot breed with reptiles (a "kind", I think).

Therefore reptiles could not have evolved from fish.

originally posted by: edmc^2

originally posted by: VP740
a reply to: edmc^2

But we have examples of species which seem to be related. We can test DNA from different species for this just as we can do paternity tests on people. Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc...

Who determined that this wall can't be breached and how did they come to that conclusion? To find a law of nature and state it has no known exceptions is quite remarkable. Saying there are not only no known exceptions, but not even any possible exceptions is beyond incredible. Surly such a claim must have some very compelling facts to back it up; pleas present them.

Just because as you put it "Some species thought to share common ancestry based on DNA tests include humans and chimps, dogs and wolves, donkeys and horses etc.." it doesn't mean you can cross-breed them. It can't be done.

Simply put - English and Chinese are both languages but one can't be mixed with the other - unless you translate it first.

In other words, you can't splice in Chinese words/sentences in an English format or vice-versa to make it into something understandable.

Genetic Engineering has this same problem. Each separate / unique species carry its own "blueprint" so to speak.

While entire rings haven't been found, iirc, there exist something which is called ring species, which should be better called ring like species. Wherein something like an archipelago exists, and the nearby members of differing groups of organisms can breed with nearby members in nearby island forming an unbreaking chain of interbreedability, but the two extremes if you try to breed directly between them it is not possible. That is they can breed with the nearby ones, but not the distant ones, but through careful interbreeding using the offsprings of the nearby intermediates even the descendants of the two extremes which cannot produce offspring can have descendants.

In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which can interbreed with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series, which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between each "linked" population. Such non-breeding, though genetically connected, "end" populations may co-exist in the same region thus closing a "ring". The German term Rassenkreis, meaning a ring of populations, is also used.-wiki
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Phage

You know, that's actually an interesting quote. I remember a fellow student in a bible study course pointing out that terminology and thinking it may be implying evolution. I'd overlooked that before but that drew my attention to it. My first thoughts were: well, it actually looks like it's saying evolution didn't happen. Then I thought, why would they feel the need assert that so long before Darwin? Have you heard of Empedocles? They might have been debating this for a very long time now.

Giving it more consideration though, the theory of evolution also states that everything reproduces after its own kind (fish hatch from fish eggs instead of lizards for instance); it's just that everything's kind changes over time.

a reply to: VP740
It's the cognitive gap that they cannot (or will not) cross. The notion that evolution represents an accumulation of change.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: VP740
I understand perfect.

Fish (a "kind", I think) cannot breed with reptiles (a "kind", I think).

Therefore reptiles could not have evolved from fish.

i have noticed that some parties are only unfriendly or skeptical of evidence in favor of evolution until evolution is construed as evidence in favor of... alternative hypotheses.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: VP740
It's the cognitive gap that they cannot (or will not) cross. The notion that evolution represents an accumulation of change.

That notion has been well studied and what general effect the accumulation of mutations acted upon by natural selection have on the genomes of living organisms over time is also observed and quite obvious to some people, including someone who worked in that specific field of population genetics (in his case specializing on plants):

As usual, it's others who won't acknowledge the facts/realities discussed above (also described why around 3 minutes, it has to do with leaving out facts that do not help the philosophies being promoted and published). Or using your terminology, some people will not cross that gap of feigned or willful ignorance ("feigned" when you know like the geneticists mentioned in the video and intentionally leaving it out when you are talking about evolutionary philosophies where these facts will affect how people perceive the plausibility of what you're arguing for; "willful" when you simply dismiss what the geneticist above says about it by dismissing him as a 'creatard' in your mind and not willing to be reasonable about the facts he's talking about, making this not about him, others are well aware of the logical problems for the evolutionary myths as well and a person can discover the same things through reasoning about, study and/or observation of the facts).

Essentially, knowledge means familiarity with facts acquired by personal experience, observation, or study.

Here are some more quotations that contain clues about the subject of the effect of the accumulation of mutations acted upon by natural selection over time. Or the question, what is that effect? The quotations themselves do not contain any conclusions regarding this longterm effect (accumulation over a long timeperiod and multiple generations), those are nicely left up for the reader to think about. Of course, the one who made the video does not shy away from letting his opinion about it be known:

Note Dawkins' usage of the word "random" (which I think came up earlier in this thread), a debategame triggerword like "information", "design", "intelligence", "life", "nothing", "evolution", "science", "(scientific) theory", "belief/faith", "fact/reality/truth/certainty" or that which is "factual/true/certain/absolute/conclusive/definitive/correct, without error", etc. They're not really forbidden, but some people sure like to debate their meaning and warp people's understanding of these words, make it more vague/unclear what the real meaning is or how they should be used or when they are or are not used appropiately and honestly:

I really think we should be able to "dislike" posts on here, rather than just star them. It would be hilarious to see how many negative points these propaganda machines would get. I just don't see what they are trying to accomplish by repeating the same debunked crap over and over and posting the same BS youtube videos over and over with zero science whatsoever, then they claim it's fact. Too funny.

a reply to: whereislogic

Oh look videos. They trump peer reviewed journal articles every time. Oh wait, no that was that other universe, damn the Mandella effect, reason trumps dogma in this reality

a reply to: TzarChasm

If only they applied as much sceptism to their beliefs as they do science...

originally posted by: Barcs
I really think we should be able to "dislike" posts on here, rather than just star them. It would be hilarious to see how many negative points these propaganda machines would get. I just don't see what they are trying to accomplish by repeating the same debunked crap over and over and posting the same BS youtube videos over and over with zero science whatsoever, then they claim it's fact. Too funny.

I genuinely don't think you understand both sides of the argument.