Evolution is Fact

[HydrogenBond]

Here is an evolutionary observation that doesn't exactly fit the existing Darwinian logic. Humans, especially in western cultures, have been getting taller over the past centuries. This was not due to a tall person having the most babies and gradually shifting the population in that direction. It is due to diet shifting genetics almost globally. The food environment (input) has created a type of cross the board potential for change in the genetics of both high and low breeders. This is not traditional ID, but it is caused by human intelligence creating a global environmental change (diet) leading to a type of global genetic change.

All my siblings are taller than our parents and grandparents. This genetic change, in one generation, has little to do with Darwinian. It is more in line with the collective change within the entire culture. Almost all my friends I grew up with, had the same affect. It has little to do with Darwinian mythology. There is a direct cause and affect relationship connected to an environment potential (food input) leading the direction of collective genetic drift. It wasn't the tallest male parent breeding all the mothers.

Say this casual global height change had happened in an animal population from 10 million years ago. We find a fossil or two that shows animal x got taller within a thousand years. The Darwinian explanation would say: this taller animal x had a selective advantage. Maybe it could reach food better. This caused this particular mutation advantage to breed more, gradually shifting the entire population to get taller. It would be totally off the mark, but would be accepted as real. The discontinuous fossil data would appear to verify this theory. To suggest cause and affect, would label you as crazy.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Here is an evolutionary observation that doesn't exactly fit the existing Darwinian logic. Humans, especially in western cultures, have been getting taller over the past centuries. This was not due to a tall person having the most babies and gradually shifting the population in that direction. It is due to diet shifting genetics almost globally. The food environment (input) has created a type of cross the board potential for change in the genetics of both high and low breeders. This is not traditional ID, but it is caused by human intelligence creating a global environmental change (diet) leading to a type of global genetic change.

All my siblings are taller than our parents and grandparents. This genetic change, in one generation, has little to do with Darwinian. It is more in line with the collective change within the entire culture. Almost all my friends I grew up with, had the same affect. It has little to do with Darwinian mythology. There is a direct cause and affect relationship connected to an environment potential (food input) leading the direction of collective genetic drift. It wasn't the tallest male parent breeding all the mothers.

Say this casual global height change had happened in an animal population from 10 million years ago. We find a fossil or two that shows animal x got taller within a thousand years. The Darwinian explanation would say: this taller animal x had a selective advantage. Maybe it could reach food better. This caused this particular mutation advantage to breed more, gradually shifting the entire population to get taller. It would be totally off the mark, but would be accepted as real. The discontinuous fossil data would appear to verify this theory. To suggest cause and affect, would label you as crazy.

I honestly don't think the getting taller thing has anything to do with changing genetics. What it has to do with is better nutrition though out the lives of the parents and their young. There have always been tall people but it was a hit or miss thing with genes and nutrition. It is true that some people tend toward tall and others tend toward short but good nutrition allows all of them to exploit the full extent of the possibilities of their gens.

[InfiniteNow]

Oh, HydrogenBond... How I've grown to laugh at your consistent misrepresentation of the process of evolution. Many of your conclusions might just be valid if only your premises were not so faulty.

Let's see...

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Here is an evolutionary observation that doesn't exactly fit the existing Darwinian logic. Humans, especially in western cultures, have been getting taller over the past centuries.

Actually, it fits fine. But wait... of course it might not fit YOUR definition of "Darwinian Logic." Let's see what we can determine.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

This was not due to a tall person having the most babies and gradually shifting the population in that direction. It is due to diet shifting genetics almost globally.

And what you leave out is how evolution would select for organisms that maximize the resources in their environment.

However, you act like you've found the achilles heal of evolutionary theory, when, in fact, the relationship (while complex) is quite well understood:

Human height - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Height is, like other phenotypic traits, determined by a combination of genetics and environmental factors. Genetic potential plus nutrition minus stressors is a basic formula. Genetically speaking, the heights of mother and son and of father and daughter correlate, suggesting that a short mother will more likely bear a shorter son, and tall fathers will have tall daughters.[66] Humans grow fastest (other than in the womb) as infants and toddlers (birth to roughly age 2) and then during the pubertal growth spurt. A slower steady growth velocity occurs throughout childhood between these periods; and some slow, steady, declining growth after the pubertal growth spurt levels off is common. These are also critical periods where stressors such as malnutrition (or even severe child neglect) have the greatest effect. Conversely, if conditions are optimal then growth potential is maximized; and also there is catch-up growth — which can be significant — for those experiencing poor conditions when those conditions improve.

Moreover, the health of a mother throughout her life, especially during her critical periods, and of course during pregnancy, has a role. A healthier child and adult develops a body that is better able to provide optimal prenatal conditions. The pregnant mother's health is important as gestation is itself a critical period for an embryo/fetus, though some problems affecting height during this period are resolved by catch-up growth assuming childhood conditions are good. Thus, there is an accumulative generation effect such that nutrition and health over generations influences the height of descendants to varying degrees.

The age of the mother also has some influence on the her child's height. Although 2 Esdras recorded that "Those born in the strength of youth" were taller than "those born during the time of old age, when the womb is failing"[67], studies in modern times have observed a gradual increase in height with maternal age.[68][69][70]

The precise relationship between genetics and environment is complex and uncertain. Human height is 90% heritable[71] and has been considered polygenic since the Mendelian-biometrician debate a hundred years ago.[72] The only gene so far attributed with normal height variation is HMGA2. This is only one of many, as each copy of the allele concerned confers an additional 0.4 cm, accounting for just 0.3% of population variance.[71]"

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

All my siblings are taller than our parents and grandparents. This genetic change, in one generation, has little to do with Darwinian.

Actually, your genetics have not changed at all, your environment and available food sources have. If you wish to show otherwise, I welcome whatever evidence you have to support your suggestion that you and your siblings have experienced some sort of "genetic change, in one generation, that has little to do with Darwinian."

Seriously... You're mistakenly attributing to genetic change what is better described by nutrition. Cute idea, really, but it fails the test of reality pretty sharply.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

It has little to do with Darwinian mythology.

What is mythological about darwinian evolution? You've interested me in understanding why you need to cast aside the truth which is evolution with silly misrepresentations and deragotory labels, instead of actual evidence and empirically supported logic.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Say this casual global height change had happened in an animal population from 10 million years ago. We find a fossil or two that shows animal x got taller within a thousand years. The Darwinian explanation would say: this taller animal x had a selective advantage. Maybe it could reach food better. This caused this particular mutation advantage to breed more, gradually shifting the entire population to get taller. It would be totally off the mark, but would be accepted as real. The discontinuous fossil data would appear to verify this theory. To suggest cause and affect, would label you as crazy.

You just aren't getting it. You misrepresent how the data would be described, and then attack the theory based on that misrepresentation. Do you really believe the only "darwinian" explanation would be that they could reach the fruit in higher trees? If so, it appears that you haven't picked up a biology textbook in over 40 years.

Of course environmental changes are considered, so I'm left to ask: What is your point, and why do you continue to misrepresent the way things actually happen?

If it's just ignorance, that can remediated. If it's some agenda or desire to crush an opponent to your faith, well then... that's quite another issue altogether.

I seriously encourage you to check the validity of your premises before making further speculations. It will help you tremendously.

[questor]

There is no question that evolution exists. There are questions that have not been answered.
Did sea creatures NEED to move onto land and therefore develop legs?
Why didn't the ones left in the sea have the same NEED? The environment was the same.
Did some species of dinosuar NEED to develop wings and become a bird? Why didn't they all develop wings in that environment?
Did an anteater see some delicious ant hills and decide he NEEDED a long, hard snout so he could get at the ants? What about all the other animals that
viewed these same ant hills?
The human and the ape supposedly had the same ancestor. When the split occured 8m years or so ago, did the ape say ''I like to live in the trees and eat bananas and have a small brain, while the human said, ''I would like to develop a large brain, drive cars and live in cities".? They both had similar envirinment at the time of the spilt, and they both have had an equal number of years since. Why the difference? It looks like evolution on demand.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by questor

There is no question that evolution exists. There are questions that have not been answered.

I agree we have lots of questions but so far all the answers are within the frame work of Evolution.

Did sea creatures NEED to move onto land and therefore develop legs? Why didn't the ones left in the sea have the same NEED? The environment was the same.
Did some species of dinosuar NEED to develop wings and become a bird? Why didn't they all develop wings in that environment?
Did an anteater see some delicious ant hills and decide he NEEDED a long, hard snout so he could get at the ants? What about all the other animals that
viewed these same ant hills?

No, many different environmental pressures allowed aquatic animals to slowly develop the ability to live on land, need didn't figure into it. Animals that could survive in low oxygen environments by gulping air and exploit those resources developed from animals that could not. From these animals developed animals that could survive short dry periods, from these animals developed animals that could move better when the water went away and maybe find another pool. All of these things in one or more combinations allowed fish to move onto land. Each incremental step allowed it's descendants to survive better. What i think is your problem is the idea that fish just climbed out of the ocean and walked around. the is far too simplistic and has no real bearing on the actual evolution of life. None of these changes was simply a "need" Nor where they simple one step and bang you have a reptile or a bird or an ant eater. Anteaters didn't develop in a vacuum. there were many other animals that ate ants, some were better at it than others the ones best at eating ants lived to have descendants, these tended to have longer stickier tongues. No one time boom you have an anteater, no need other than need to exploit an available resource and no motivation other than reproductive pressures and survival.

The human and the ape supposedly had the same ancestor. When the split occured 8m years or so ago, did the ape say ''I like to live in the trees and eat bananas and have a small brain, while the human said, ''I would like to develop a large brain, drive cars and live in cities".? They both had similar envirinment at the time of the spilt, and they both have had an equal number of years since. Why the difference? It looks like evolution on demand.

Again there was no need no conscious effort to be human or drive cars or anything else, at some point due to environmental pressures some populations of the ancestors of apes had to try and make due without the forests due to changing conditions. Many didn't and died out but a few did. These simply followed environmental pressures and reproductive pressures. At some point some of these may have become an almost positive feed back and allowed the traits like big brains to start to drive the gradual evolution of the human species. If at any point these pressured hadn't supported the big brains and tool use humans would have died out and we wouldn't be here to debate the question.

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

What i think is your problem is the idea that fish just climbed out of the ocean and walked around. the is far too simplistic and has no real bearing on the actual evolution of life.

I think you may be doing Questor a disservice, but I'll leave him up to addressing that, while I make my own misinterpretation of what Questor meant.

You have dealt effectively with the main thrust of Questor's points, but perhaps barely touched on the one that really niggles him. Why did some of the common ancestor of man and chimp become chimps and some become men? What, Questor want to know, motivated them? I think we need to state it much more clearly for Questor - circumstance and chance.

I'll say it again chance and circumstance. Reaching for that fruit on that branch started a chain of events that led to a particular evolutionary path. The neighbour chose a slightly different path and set out on a different evolutionary route.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by questor

There is no question that evolution exists. There are questions that have not been answered.

And some questions may never be answered but in the mean time we can look for them. That's what science is about. Assembling knowledge so that we may answer some of these questions without making up those answers. Until such time that we have the knowledge to answer these question we just have to settle for the answer "we don't know".

[Galapagos]

Watching this new show on The History Channel right now, Evolve - Eyes
A new show about evolution, and the first episode is about eyes. Very cool!

[InfiniteNow]

YouTube - Evolution Theory AND Fact

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by questor

There is no question that evolution exists. There are questions that have not been answered.
Did sea creatures NEED to move onto land and therefore develop legs?
Why didn't the ones left in the sea have the same NEED? The environment was the same.
Did some species of dinosuar NEED to develop wings and become a bird? ....

questor,
When you ask questions about "NEED", you are automatically assuming that the critter's DNA feels or experiences a "NEED". Or Evolution itself experiences a "NEED". You are assuming that there is some Driving Force that pushes the critter's evolution in one direction or another.

That assumption is unnecessary. There doesn't have to be any "NEED". In fact, Evolution as a theory (explanation) works a lot better if you discard "NEED" altogether.

The best way to answer your questions is to recognize that the questions are flawed.

Why one critter moved onto the land, and not its near-relative cousin, may be the result of many possible factors:

The one critter was exposed to shallower water and bigger tides than its cousin.
The one critter's food source grew better at the water's edge; its cousin fed off food that grew better in deeper water.
The one critter had fangy predators that patroled all but the shallowest water.
The one critter had fins that could mutate into bony fins with a single codon mutation; its cousin did not.
The one critter wound up living near the mouth of a river, and the lower salt content evolved its metabolism over time, enabling its skin and lungs to withstand longer exposure to dry air; its cousin lived near the shore in normal salt water.

and on and on... These are the kinds of random things that determined how any particular critter evolved, not "need" or "want" or "drive".

Evolution is blind.