Does the evolution model offer sufficient explanation for the diversity of life forms

Again Con misunderstands Berkeley’s saying about natural selection. Natural selection does produce adaptations, just in a negativesense. He also presents some new arguments. He presents his history about how he came to feel that evolution a wasn’t sufficient explanation for life, talked about a group of people called the “Altenberg 16” and brought up the Cambrian explosion. Con says was troubled with a dilemma. If an animal has what it needs to survive, then it doesn’t need to evolve. If it doesn’t, then it’s dead. The problem is that this is black and white thinking. Just because an animal might survive to pass on its genes doesn’t mean that it does so as well, on average as another animal. Presenting an example, let’s say there’s a rabbit that can outrun its predator a substantial amount of times. It essentially has everything it needs. Most of the time the rabbits will pass on their genetic code. Now let’s say there is a rabbit with the ability to kill its predator every time, somehow. These rabbits will become prevalent because they are better adapted to their environment. Their chances of success are nigh 100% whereas its comrade’s chances are lower. Both types of rabbits will survive, but one type will survive much much better. He claims a group of 16 scientists came together and agreed Darwinian evolution is false. Even if this was true, 16 guys are hardly the whole of scientific consensus. Nonetheless, this isn’t actually what happened. The Altenberg meeting was completely blown out of proportion by creationists. One of the participants in the meeting states [1] “In real life, the meeting discussed the possibilities for an “Extended Synthesis”[emphasis mine]in evolutionary biology which incorporates development, evolvability, complexity theory, etc. into the old “Modern Synthesis” of population genetics. But in the land of cranks & ID/creationists, the Altenberg 16 meeting has become the latest bit of evidence that evolution is a theory in crisis.” So, the goal of the meeting was to discuss a possible addition to evolutionary theory, not to overturn it. In fact the agreed upon statement of the meeting shows us that the participants accept modern evolutionary theory. “...the people at the Altenberg 16 were the friggin academic community! All of them leaders in various evolutionary specialities. And what did they officially conclude at the end of their meeting? Not that evolutionary theory was in crisis, but simply that our understanding is advancing in many areas at once.” [ibid] It also seems Con is stressing that evolutionists disagree on certain things. This is moot. There may be certain specific details about evolution which are disagreed upon, but this doesn’t follow that evolutionary scientists disagree that evolution is an explanation for the diversity of life. Only about 5% of all scientists reject evolution [2]. For example, Con listed “Self-organization” as a competing theory to Darwinian evolution, but all self organization does is slightly change the way we think about natural selection [3]. It doesn’t overturn Darwinian evolution at all. Other things he listed such as “evo-devo” merely refer to the development of embryos, which again does nothing to refute Darwinian evolution [4]. Con has clearly misconstrued the supposed “debates” in modern evolutionary theory. Nor has he even tried to show how anything he listed contradicts Darwinian evolution, he merely asserts it. The Cambrian Explosion Con brings up the cambrian explosion. He never attempts to explain what it is or why it’s suppose to be a problem for evolution, he just uses an uncited quote of two scientists claiming evolution can’t explain it. Typically creationists claim the cambrian explosion refutes evolution by stating that it shows complex life developed suddenly (analogous to an explosion)[5]. However, the cambrian event wasn’t the origin of complex life. Early vertebrates were already in existence before this event [6]. So too were complex cells like Eukaryotes [7] and trace-like fossils [8]. The seemingly sudden presence of new divergent groups of species can be explained by many factors. For one, hard parts on animals may have evolved due to the number of predators in the precambrian era. Since hard parts are much easier to fossilize, we’d expect to see a “burst” of them around this time. There are also environmental factors which could increase the rate of evolution. Two of many examples are, rapid plate movements affecting the climate [9] and increased radiation levels [10]. Furthermore, the cambrian explosion was roughly about 40 million years. This is hardly sudden [11]. This can hardly be counted as evidence against evolution. Giraffes My opponent dropped his argument here. Entailment Con completely misunderstands why I mentioned the breeding of cows. It wasn’t an attempt to respond to Con’s claim about cow breeding, as I said it was merely an example. Rather or not people breed cows for fat content or the amount of milk is totally irrelevant. The same goes for the beet plant. The point is, selective breeding is different from evolution in the wild. Not about the examples presented. He also states the “whys” and “hows” are irrelevant. This misses the very nature of explanations. Pointing to an example isn’t sufficient to establish the nature of that thing. It’s much like pointing to a falling apple and proclaiming you’ve explained gravity. Without the “whys” and “hows” you have no explanation. Therefore, Con has no explanation of how microevolution can’t build up to macroevolution. Fossil Record Con says my argument contains assumptions that assume evolution because there aren’t any transitional fossils. However, we actually do have transitional fossils. One of my sources in my original round actually provided numerous examples. A transitional fossil is a fossil that shares aspects of its biology with its ancestors and descendants [12]. For example Aetiocetus is transitional from Pakicetus to today’s gray whale. Pakicetus has its nostrils on the front of its skull, Aetiocetus has them on the middle of its skull and the gray whale has its nostrils on the top of its head [ibid]. There are also others such as Archaeopteryx, which has avian and dinosaur features [13]. Lastly, the famous Australopithecus afarensis or “Lucy” had the brain the size of a chimpanzee, yet walked upright [14]. All of these would be counted as transitional. Transitionalfossils.com [14] contains a good sized list of transtional fossils and these are only a few out of many. ERVs Con states ERVs are not evidence of evolution because some ERVs are functional, yet their functionality would’ve been destroyed by apoptosis. Some portions of ERVs are functional, “..but there are no wholly functional ERVs—only functional components, with the remainder deleted or mutated into non-functionality….any functional components are necessarily post-insertion exaptations, and the fact that they are necessarily insertion means that they can not be part of any 'original design.' The issue of functionality is simply a red herring, when discussing how ERVs necessitate common ancestry.” [15] Basically, these functional ERV parts were adapted after insertion. The original genes are still nonfunctional as a result of apoptosis. Ultimately, Con’s objections are all based on misconstructions of evolution. My arguments still hold weight. Sources ************************* [1] http://pandasthumb.org... [2] http://www.religioustolerance.org... [3] http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org... [4] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [5] Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 80-81. [6] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu... [7] http://science.sciencemag.org... [8] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [9] http://phys.org... [10] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [11] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [12] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [13] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu... [14] http://www.transitionalfossils.com... [15] http://www.evolutionarymodel.com...