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| Ishmael wrote: | | Mick Harper wrote: | | If it is true that the llama is descended from the guanaco or that the alpaca descends from the vicuna, then you have won the million pound challenge offered in THOBR to name a living species ancestral to another living species. |
I thought I claimed that prize when I identified the grizzly bear as the ancestor to the polar bear. That's the current orthodox claim. Look it up. |
The polar bears might devolve back into brown bears in the wake of global warming:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/06/23/north-polar-bears.html
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Not if neo-Darwinism is true. It would require a specific 'browning' genetic mutation to occur to even begin the process and, as orthodoxy is so eloquent in informing us, genetic mutations only take effect every fifteen thousand or so years. The chances of this particular mutation being a 'browning gene' is...erm...one in eight hundred and thirty three (point seven four, but I've rounded it up) which means that the process can only start, statistically, in four hundred and eighteen thousand years (roughly, using the specific calorimeter method).
It is highly unlikely that a white/brown polar habitat will be in existence then.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| EndlesslyRocking wrote: | | ...global warming... |
yawn
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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yawn
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Not if neo-Darwinism is true. It would require a specific 'browning' genetic mutation to occur to even begin the process and, as orthodoxy is so eloquent in informing us, genetic mutations only take effect every fifteen thousand or so years. The chances of this particular mutation being a 'browning gene' is...erm...one in eight hundred and thirty three (point seven four, but I've rounded it up) which means that the process can only start. statistically, in four hundred and eighteen thousand years (roughly, using the specific calorimeter method). It is highly unlikely that a white/brown polar habitat will be in existence then. |
But orthodoxy says that mice can change their coat color depending on what the mother eats. So I assume the same thing could happen with bears:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/dumc-cnf072903.php
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It's not our fault if orthodoxy keeps on ignoring its own most fundamental precepts just to account for...well, I suppose you'd have to say truth, if the report you cite is accurate.
Personally I'd say this change of the mice's coat colouring is not genetic at all but environmentally-induced, something like crocodiles' eggs being either male or female depending on the temperature. This sort of thing may be quite a large factor in (at any rate) minor animal morphology, but doesn't seem to have garnered much attention. Presumably because it is so difficult to avoid the charge of crypto-Larmarkism should one devote a career to studying it.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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The snow leopard is another case in point.
The only difference on a species level is one of taxonomy, which itself is a product of neo-Darwinism. The only difference genetically is in the variation of one specific chromosome which produces white fur as opposed to yellow. Both 'species' share adjacent habitats (the snow leopard on the Himalayan slopes and the yellow leopard the North Indian forests). And as habitats change much more often than mutations Lamarckism can explain it a lot more readily than any convoluted theory the neo-Darwinists have come up with.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Komorikid wrote: | | And as habitats change much more often than mutations Lamarckism can explain it a lot more readily than any convoluted theory the neo-Darwinists have come up with. |
We are all sympathetic to such views. The trick is to demonstrate that Lamarkism works (at a macro level) and account for how it works.
Frankly, I don't think Lamarkism is the solution. Evolution is governed by a third principle.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| But orthodoxy says that mice can change their coat color depending on what the mother eats. So I assume the same thing could happen with bears |
Then the answer to "what colour is the mouses's coat?" is already "variable, depending on the mother's diet". That's not the same as polar bears and brown bears evolving/devolving into one another.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| The only difference genetically is in the variation of one specific chromosome which produces white fur as opposed to yellow. Both 'species' share adjacent habitats (the snow leopard on the Himalayan slopes and the yellow leopard the North Indian forests). |
But this is neo-Darwinism at work!
The argument will run that white is favoured in the mountains and yellow in the forests and, whether this variation of one specific chromosome is reversible or not, we now have two distinct populations and whatever happens in one can not be expected to happen in the other: they are bound to diverge, due to an apparently insignificant variable arising just where the difference makes a difference.
| And as habitats change much more often than mutations Lamarckism can explain it a lot more readily than any convoluted theory the neo-Darwinists have come up with. |
How often do habitats change? As sea levels or water tables rise and fall, rivers change course, ice spreads and recedes, desert encroaches and is beaten back, monsoon rains change course, volcanoes pop, trees are blighted... individuals will surely move with the changes or die. The species remains in its environment because the environment is still there somewhere.
What evidence do we have that animals stay put while the world turns beneath them, as it were, adapting to each new environment as it comes along? And what about plants? And how is the ebb and flow of species different from the changing of the environment?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| But this is neo-Darwinism at work! The argument will run that white is favoured in the mountains and yellow in the forests |
This is perfectly true, Dan, but what orthodoxy doesn't wait around long enough to answer is, "If it's one specific gene that's changed, how long did the mountain leopards have to wait until a) one of their tribe underwent this specific mutation and b) said mutation worked the oracle even though its owner now stood out like a sore thumb. Or the other way around.
Since we know from palaeontology that all the present day Big Cats are pretty modern species, the leopards haven't got that long. And this is always the argument against neo-Darwinism. They're always going on about evolution having millions (if not the odd billion) years to work its magic but when you get down to cases it always turns out that the Blind Watchmaker had better get a shift on. The leopards show that he might not have to be a particularly good watchmaker ("Dah, white/black, white/green...") but 'twould be much better if he weren't blind ("White/yellow, oh yeah.")
| Frankly, I don't think Lamarkism is the solution. Evolution is governed by a third principle. |
Unless that principle acts in a Lamarkian way. The best solution so far offered is Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance where (it would seem) the genes can communicate through the ether in order to trigger specific 'mutations' (presumably the genes would protest at such a negative description of their genetic engineering).
And I say this because I believe it, not because Rupe is a fan of THOBR.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | The best solution so far offered is Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance where (it would seem) the genes can communicate through the ether in order to trigger specific 'mutations' (presumably the genes would protest at such a negative description of their genetic engineering). And I say this because I believe it, not because Rupe is a fan of THOBR. |
I don't know about the term "Morphic Resonance" but I think all the contradictions will disappear when we simply view all life as a single organism. The macro is the micro -- like a fractal.
When I have some time, I intend to devote myself to formalizing my thinking.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| when you get down to cases it always turns out that the Blind Watchmaker had better get a shift on. |
Or hasn't done a stroke in N-ty million years.
| I think all the contradictions will disappear when we simply view all life as a single organism. The macro is the micro -- like a fractal |
I do, but it hasn't helped me understand the question yet.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Or hasn't done a stroke in N-ty million years. |
A good point. Not one I've seen raised before. How do neo-Darwinists explain the lack of evolution of certain species over hundreds of millions of years?
When it's something scary like crocodiles, the voice-over always says something to the effect of what marvelous killing machines they are. But if it's something silly, like horseshoe crabs, then it's a shrug of the shoulders. Perhaps though, statistically speaking, the odd long term survivor is about right.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| How do neo-Darwinists explain the lack of evolution of certain species over hundreds of millions of years? |
I was tempted to say either "they come up with the concept of punctuated equilibrium" or "they don't bother since as with languages, they're content to say 'this one changed that one didn't, what of it?'", but I figured Wiki would give us the low down. I dunno where, though, coz after detours from living fossil into Lazarus taxa/species and Elvis taxa/species, I gave up looking for any substance.
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