Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Hughsmith23]

Waiting to observe an example of evolution taking place is like waiting for the American continent to crash into Japan.

Why?

Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41

rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island. (Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.)

Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348

Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago. (Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.)

And those are accounts of speciation. If looking at America was like looking at a continent that often divided into two, and then those two divided again, and you couldn't fit them back together again, that continental drift would be like speciation. I don't know why anyone would want to describe evolution as 'slow' - it is extremely quick in comparison to most 'natural' events - continental drift being a good example. But all these measurements are anthropocentric; conceived in relation to the human experience of time. Still, 250 years isn't a long time, and a house mouse is a pretty large compared to some things, like fruit flies, which speciate a lot faster.

[Gulnara]

(Nested quote removed.)


I think Richard Dawkins is an excellent example of the limits of TOE and peer review, reflecting the background noise of TOE and its' assumptions.

I Publish, Therefore I exist, even though I have no idea what I am talking about.

Dawkins example only shows that not any one else has answer to all the questions. It is, probably, has to be acceptable when great publicist or scientist runs into paradox, into contradiction, into something what at first glance disprove his or her teachings. Such occurrence is part of life, part of chaotic nature of Universe, is inescapable. It is easy to catch someone not knowing an answer, but it is a lot harder to come up with your own answer, as opposed to simply rejection of someone else teachings. When one rejects or disproves, where is their own theory in full bloom of righteousness?

[Skakos]

Skakos -

The term 'mutation' has very strong connotations for a great many people, usually to do with radioactivity, but the mutations that contribute to the evolution of a species are usually tiny and rarely (if ever) lethal, being mainly variations in height, skin and eye colour etc.

OK_

So you say. Do we accept that as an Axiom?

-- Updated February 18th, 2013, 4:32 am to add the following --

Waiting to observe an example of evolution taking place is like waiting for the American continent to crash into Japan.

First of all, one sees the continets move. We measure their distance.

Secondly, one sees species change. But we also see that no matter how much they change they remain the SAME. So?

Thirdly, we have observed some cases of speciation. See for example "Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102" (see harmonia-philosophica.blogspot.gr/2010/ ... ay-to.html for more). But these are the exception which should verify the (opposite) rule...