creationists/IDists, admit your defeat

Originally posted by 11Bravo
IF evolution were true there would be more species today then at any point prior.
ninety nine percent of all species are extinct.
Evolution is absurd.
There is less life on this planet then ever before.

Why am I not surprised the humbleone agrees with you?

It's certainly a new criticism of evolutionary theory to me. Have you ever thought why 99% of all species are now extinct?

Here's a clue...



We are a major cause of the current Holocene extinction event. Species come and go.

More details on extinction events here

well
obviously most species will die out
survival of the fittest, right?

it's obvious that survival of the fittest will leave the majority of species extinct
purely logical

also, if ID/creationism were right, wouldn't that mean that species WOULDN'T go extinct because they were designed to fit perfectly?

Can either of you explain to me why, or when the thing that came out of the primordial ooze suddenly start to form into an opposite sex?

Originally posted by thehumbleone
Can either of you explain to me why, or when the thing that came out of the primordial ooze suddenly start to form into an opposite sex?

The 'red queen hypothesis' is a good model of why sexual reproduction can be advantageous. But here's part of a review of an article in 2005.

News and Views
Nature 434, 571-573 (31 March 2005) | doi: 10.1038/434571a

Evolutionary biology: Why sex is good
Rolf F. Hoekstra1

According to a proposal put forward many years ago, sexual reproduction makes natural selection more effective because it increases genetic variation. Experiments now verify that idea — at least in yeast.

Most animals and plants are sexual, and in organisms that normally multiply asexually, such as microbes and some groups of fungi, sexual processes are rarely completely absent. Such a widespread process must have an essential function. To their embarrassment, however, evolutionary biologists have had great difficulties in finding a simple and general explanation. As they describe elsewhere in this issue, Goddard and colleagues (page 636)1 have used twenty-first-century techniques to provide confirmation of an idea, first mooted in the nineteenth century, as to why sex is good.

Sexual reproduction involves the marriage of genetic material from two parents to form progeny that transmit new combinations of paternal and maternal genes to their offspring. It has spectacular consequences for the biology of organisms that extend beyond its evolutionary essence — the generation of new genetic combinations. In a world without sex there would be no males and females, no flowers, no insects specialized in pollinating them, no extravagant colour and form like the peacock's tail; and much animal behaviour aimed at finding and selecting mates would not exist.

A large body of theory proposes a variety of hypothetical evolutionary advantages of sexuality and the genetic shuffling (recombination) that it involves2, 3. Discriminating between these theories empirically has proved very hard. But Goddard et al.1 present the results of an elegant and rigorous experiment with yeast, showing that a sexual population evolves faster than an asexual population when challenged by a novel environment.

ABE: sorry, meant to add - so it's probable that it evolved pretty early on as forms of it are present in very basic species.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
Can either of you explain to me why, or when the thing that came out of the primordial ooze suddenly start to form into an opposite sex?

well, suddenly isn't the right term
though in the time frames we're using, it does seem somewhat sudden
but i think mel cleared that up

That does not answer my question.

What I'm asking is, when were evolving, when did we split into a different sex, and how did it happen?

How would an evolving "creature" decide to form into a female, if the first "creature" was male, or vice-versa?

[edit on 24-1-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
That does not answer my question.

What I'm asking is, when were evolving, when did we split into a different sex, and how did it happen?

How would an evolving "creature" decide to form into a female, if the first "creature" was male, or vice-versa?

[edit on 24-1-2007 by thehumbleone]

well, I added a bit before I saw this post. The best explanation I've seen is from a biologist on another forum I use. He's studied it through his career.

ABE2 - cheeky, it did answer the why part of the question. The when is going to be hard to show, we're talking hundreds of million years ago, before the cambrian probably.

It's here

So he's basically saying that forms of sexual reproduction are present quite early on, even in microbes and fungi (as the article mentions).

ABE:

A quote from his post...

When two gametes fuse to form a haploid individual, more than just the nuclei fuse. The cytoplasm and organelles also mix. In species like Chlamydomonas this starts a ‘war’ within the cell. The nuclear DNA plays nice and fuses, but the organelles compete (only so much room) and eventually the organelles (mitochondria and chloroplasts) of one or the other parents dominate. As these have their own DNA the winner is the parent cell who gets ½ of their nuclear DNA spread and all of their cytoplasmic DNA spread. So two selective winning scenarios arise. One, make your gametes as big as possible to hold as much cytoplasmic DNA as possible. But there is a limit to how big these can be. The other is to ‘accept’ the losing scenario and make your gametes as small as possible and just go for spreading your nuclear DNA.

So there will be a strong selective force on some members of a species to have small gametes, and others to have large ones. Because size of gametes limits mobility, selection also favors the small gametes to become more motile. So now we have true sperm and eggs.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by melatonin]

[edit on 24-1-2007 by melatonin]

This does not explain how a creature decides to form a male genitalia or female.

All I saw was very vague explanations of "reproduction" that go on in the molecular and cellular level.

You can't even compare that too the two sexes of male and female, it does not explain how a female and male genitalia came about in higher life-form creatures.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
This does not explain how a creature decides to form a male genitalia or female.

All I saw was very vague explanations of "reproduction" that go on in the molecular and cellular level.

You can't even compare that too the two sexes of male and female, it does not explain how a female and male genitalia came about in higher life-form creatures.

You keep shifting the goalposts Humbleone...

I don't think Lithoid-man's explanation is vague. It explains that very basic organisms show sexual reproduction. The genitalia are just specialised tools to aid swapping genes. I'm off to bed, so I'll let you shift the goalposts again and I'll answer tomorrow.

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by thehumbleone
This does not explain how a creature decides to form a male genitalia or female.

All I saw was very vague explanations of "reproduction" that go on in the molecular and cellular level.

You can't even compare that too the two sexes of male and female, it does not explain how a female and male genitalia came about in higher life-form creatures.

You keep shifting the goalposts Humbleone...

I don't think Lithoid-man's explanation is vague. It explains that very basic organisms show sexual reproduction. The genitalia are just specialised tools to aid swapping genes. I'm off to bed, so I'll let you shift the goalposts again and I'll answer tomorrow.

OK, But I still want to know how the male and female genitalia came about, and when and how this "evolution" occurred.

And remember, it has to be in higher life form creatures.

I will be waiting for my answer tomorrow, Sweet dreams.



[edit on 24-1-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
OK, But I still want to know how the male and female genitalia came about, and when this "evolution" occurred.

I will be waiting for my answer tomorrow, Sweet dreams.

You seem to have sex on the brain today humble, probably all that talk on promiscuous women in FST....

I'll see what I can find out for you manana

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by thehumbleone
OK, But I still want to know how the male and female genitalia came about, and when this "evolution" occurred.

I will be waiting for my answer tomorrow, Sweet dreams.

You seem to have sex on the brain today humble, probably all that talk on promiscuous women in FST....

I'll see what I can find out for you manana

It's probably because of that damn queenannie, she's a seductress, watch out with her.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
OK, But I still want to know how the male and female genitalia came about, and when and how this "evolution" occurred.

And remember, it has to be in higher life form creatures.

there are no "higher" and "lower" life forms
the only real distinguishing points are plants vs animals
and single cellular vs multicellular

define what you mean by "lower" life forms, and i may be able to answer that

Originally posted by thehumbleone
OK, But I still want to know how the male and female genitalia came about, and when and how this "evolution" occurred.

And remember, it has to be in higher life form creatures.

Well, you need to be more specific as to want you want. As Lithoid-man and the nature article mention, sexual dimorphism in reproduction shows in very basic species. So how do you define 'lower' and 'higher' species. Insects and even nematodes have genitalia, most animals do.

In another post you make your requirements more opaque, with the need for an explanation as to how they 'decide' who becomes male and female. Lithoid-man's post shows how a reproductive 'war' develops even in quite basic microbes, this resulted in the sperm being the losers, it becomes smaller and mobile, and the larger egg destroys sperm mitochondrial DNA after fertilisation. In humans, no decision is made by an individual, its purely due to whether an X or Y chromosome is present in the successful sperm.

If you want a step-by-step explanation of the development of genitalia from bacteria, you'll be lucky...

What is important to note is that because fertilisation (not sure if this applies in all cases) requires an aquatic environment, we see varying forms of reproduction across species. Fish can do it in water, most amphibians have to move back to water, worms swap gametes in a wet environment. We use an internal method of reproduction that ensures the required environment. Female birds and reptiles have a cloaca for reception of sperm and males a basic penis for transferring sperm. In insects and mammals they have a larger organ to transfer sperm into the female for fertilisation in an aquatic environment.

Each species that uses internal reproduction will develop their own specific morphology of genitalia. There are ideas as to why this is, if you want to know, I'll state them.

But again, if you expect a complete explanation from bacteria to you, you'll be lucky. But I think I've provided sufficient for this...

Can either of you explain to me why, or when the thing that came out of the primordial ooze suddenly start to form into an opposite sex?

But here's some details on the evolution of the penis and the mammalian vagina from the developmental biologist, PZ Myers.

[edit on 25-1-2007 by melatonin]

Ah, lets see, if I could sum up those two websites in one word, it would have to be, ambiguous.

They don't do a good job of clearly explaining what I ask, it's almost as if they're trying to stay aloof from the question.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
Ah, lets see, if I could sum up those two websites in one word, it would have to be, ambiguous.

They don't do a good job of clearly explaining what I ask, it's almost as if they're trying to stay aloof from the question.

The same applies to your past questions.

So, I guess we're getting closer to what you're actually asking - how did women develop vaginas and men penises...

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by thehumbleone
Ah, lets see, if I could sum up those two websites in one word, it would have to be, ambiguous.

They don't do a good job of clearly explaining what I ask, it's almost as if they're trying to stay aloof from the question.

The same applies to your past questions.

So, I guess we're getting closer to what you're actually asking - how did women develop vaginas and men penises...

I don't think so.

Mel, you are indicative of the common atheist, you can never truly answer the questions that are thrown at you, and when you don't know what to say, you give me an ambiguous response. just admit it, atheism is a faith.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
I don't think so.

Mel, you are indicative of the common atheist, you can never truly answer the questions that are thrown at you, and when you don't know what to say, you give me an ambiguous response. just admit it, atheism is a faith.

Your original question...

Can either of you explain to me why, or when the thing that came out of the primordial ooze suddenly start to form into an opposite sex?

I provided an answer to this question. Sexual dimorphism developed quite early on in the development of life, as soon as organisms started swapping genes competition began between which organisms' mitochondrial DNA suceeded, two distinct approaches developed - egg and sperm.

It is present in basic lifeforms, like fungi and microbes. So it happened early.

Then you started moving goalposts and saying 'that's not what I asked etc etc'

Now you resort to being pretty disingenuous. I've tried to sincerely answer every question you've asked, well my interpretation of it.

You know atheism is not a faith, it is the lack of belief in god(s).

Maybe if you summarise what PZ Myers says in his posts, I can see where he doesn't answer your question....whatever it is meant to be...



[edit on 25-1-2007 by melatonin]

Now you resort to being pretty disingenuous. I've tried to sincerely answer every question you've asked, well my interpretation of it.

You know atheism is not a faith, it is the lack of belief in god(s).

I'm being disingenuous?

What about you in the "did Jesus exist" forum?

You stay aloof from all the questions tylersch has been asking you and madness, why is that?

Atheism is a BELIEF that God does not exist.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
I'm being disingenuous?

What about you in the "did Jesus exist" forum?

You stay aloof from all the questions tylersch has been asking you and madness, why is that?

Atheism is a BELIEF that God does not exist.

haha, now you change the subject.

Yes, you are being disingenuous. This is just more evidence. You probably read PZ's posts and didn't even understand them.

And you don't understand atheism either. I have no belief in gods. I have proof that your god doesn't exist, the YEC creating dinos alongside man god. I have evidence that it doesn't, just like Zeus on top of mount olympus, no faith required.

I don't even have an issue with tylersch. I have actually supported his position to a degree (that Jesus has a historical nature, that Buddha wasn't a virgin birth), but realising that means actually reading what I say, not what you want me to say.

cheers.