Evolution: Philosophically stupid.

RE: CONTENTION I: The Spheroid Example { Alright, well my opponent says that a creature with a spheroid body has one limb, a torso. I'll go with it. The fact is, a mutation that produces a bump in the offspring would leave the offspring with two limbs - a torso, and a bump on that torso. That bump could be immediately successful as a mutation, and further mutations could make this new feature more and more useful as well as more and more distinct. My opponent claims that it is "not normal for this bump to develop on this single limb creature in the womb, it therefore will not become successful, since the bump is not being developed enough." Non sequitur. In fact, due to the mutation in the DNA, it is inherent to the child's DNA that he have that bump. The fact that the parent creature did not have the DNA that made this trait inherent is irrelevant. My opponent tries supporting his logic with an unsourced example. "An example of this is when two adult dwarfs have children, and all the children are fully developed. Proving that their dwarf gene or the singled limb creature did not have a successful limb, rather it was a feature which it's current limb developed in the womb." This is not at all a similar case. Dwarves are much more likely to have dwarf children, just as brown-eyed people are much more likely to have brown-eyed children, etc. This does not mean that brown eyes or dwarfism are unsuccessful. The fact is that since our traits are determined from two parents, and different combinations of different genes produce different outcomes, it is sometimes possible for two similar parents to have a dissimilar child [I.1]. Further, I specifically said that the creature reproduced asexually, so a child would necessarily, without any mutations, be exactly like the parent. The first child with this mutation would have a bump, and all its children would necessarily have the same bump, because they would have the same DNA. Further mutations could remove the bump or make it bigger, and these mutations would always be passed down in a asexually reproducing organism. My opponent also suggests that "unlike humans with morals, this lesser complex species will kill off it's single limb creature with the bump by simply being better at surviving." This is false. A spheroid creature would not be particularly good at surviving. The child with the bump would actually probably be better-equipped to handle surviving. He says that "Con did not say how a bump would appear or develop, rather he speculated that a bump would evolve," but I did. A mutation in the DNA could potentially cause an irregularity in shape. My opponent seems to think that DNA is a list of features and then a description of the characteristics of those features. No. DNA is simply nature's instruction manual for creating a creature. There's no part of it that says "and this is a jaw, it's used for X." There's simply a certain part of DNA that creates certain bones and surrounding tissues which happen to make up our jaw. The difference in the instructions for creating a spheroid creature and creating a spheroid creature with a bump is very negligible, so it is something a minor mutation could produce. My opponent has not given any justification for his position that mutations can never produce new features. } [I.1] These purple flowers have a 1/4 chance of producing a plant with white flowers. Note that this approach only works for traditional Dominant/recessive genes. http://en.wikipedia.org... . RE: CONTENTION II: { My opponent states that "Con explains that wings do not suddenly appear, that is true, but what is also true is that they don't even begin to develop except in the womb." The fact that wings, or any skin stretched between two bones, begins to develop in the womb is meaningless. It still can develop. Further, wings can also develop later in life, in rare cases. Take, for instance, the caterpillar. Until it develops into a butterfly, it does not have wings. My opponent says that human webbed feet are different from frogs' because frogs' cannot be removed. Actually, they can. However, the children will still have webbed feet because the genes necessary for webbed feet have completely dominated the frog genome. Like eye or hair color, both webbed and unwebbed feet exist in humans. Webbed feet have not provided a significant benefit, so they have not begun to dominate the genome. They also offer little disadvantage, so while their occurrence is low, they have not been eliminated altogether. My opponent illustrates his fundamental lack of knowledge about genetics when he claims that something like webbed feet NECESSARILY has a low chance of occurring. Of everyone had the webbed foot genes, then it would have a high chance of occurring all the time - it just has not spread yet. The frequency of the trait depends on whether the genetic trait appears in one or more of the parent. This is why he is unable to provide any reputable sources for his claims. My opponent states: "And a sudden change in environment does not mean webbed feet would be insufficient, however if a web environment suddenly changed into a hot environment with no water at all, every frog and toad would die with ten's of minutes." He fails to recognize that the environment changes GRADUALLY, but these changes eventually add up to be large changes. Further, within an ecosystem, there are a wide variety of evolutionary niches for creatures to fill. } . RE: CONTENTION III: Visible examples { My opponent contends that the children with limbs [second heads, more fingers, etc.] that the parents do not have is not an example of new features coming about. It is. If those children were more successful because of their additional limbs, then the DNA which created them would propagate throughout the gene pool and six fingers, for example, could become the new norm. Further, by our definitions, which both I and my opponent agree on, a person with limbs its parents do not have is necessarily part of a completely new species. This indeed constitutes a direct example of additional features. } . RE: Winged Pigs { The reason we do not see wings, or anything resembling wings, on pigs is that wings and proto-wings are not useful at all to pigs. They would indeed, as my opponent suggests, have to develop very strong wings to get any benefit whatsoever from these wings. However, for creatures that actually have wings, it's a completely different story. Wings evolve GRADUALLY, not all at once. Take, for instance, squirrels. They often find themselves up in high trees. Those squirrels with a higher ratio of surface area to mass will be able to survive falls much better. Squirrels with even some webbing can fill a particular evolutionary niche well. As they get more and more webbing, they are able to reduce falling damage even better, and eventually can glide, as is the case with flying squirrels [I brought up flying squirrels last round - my opponent didn't address that point] } . RE: Wealth of Evidence { I will provide more evidence. There are known transitional fossils, for example between fish and amphibians[1]. Endogenous retroviruses indicate common ancestry[2]. Vestigial organs indicate common ancestry[3]. } [1] http://chem.tufts.edu... [2] http://www.talkorigins.org... [3] http://www.talkorigins.org... . RE: CONTENTION V: Jawless Fish { I explained how a fish could evolve a jaw. My opponent has not responded to that. He has merely said that we didn't see it happen firsthand, an irrelevant point. He has not attacked my actual argument here. } . Limbs are described in DNA. DNA can mutate, sometimes creating new limbs. DNA can spread among a population. It's not a difficult concept.