Evolution's Mechanism

Thanks Pro. I. Evidence for ‘micro-evolution’ It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, evidence of the mechanisms of ‘micro-evolution’ (although I presented the evidence as general change) IS supportive of ‘macro-evolution’. Me demonstrating the mechanisms by which an atom decays, and showing that a portion of a sample will decay if you look at it over certain time scales gives good support to the hypothesis that the entire sample will decay.[1] Similarly me presenting evidence of the mechanisms of planetary orbits, and demonstrating it applies to ‘micro-orbits’ such as those for the moon and the Earth IS supportive of the hypothesis that Pluto orbits with a period of ~248 years, despite the fact we have only known about the planet for 84 years. So far I have presented: 1. Molecular mechanisms by which changes occur, and their capacity to accumulate to large changes 2. Naturalistic processes by which these large changes will be positively ‘driven’ to occur over time Pro conceded that these mechanisms exist so far, so I will spend this round presenting mechanisms with evidence of population mechanics and how they lead to exaggerated rates of evolution which again can drive towards the changes required for macro evolution. Just like I don’t need to show one species turning into another (and in fact that is not something ‘macro-evolution’ predicts), I don’t need to show an entire Pluto orbit to support that it will go around the Sun. II. Artificial Selection: Pro concedes that artificial selection can introduce enormous variety and changes within species, a single wolf species is the ancestor of every single dog we have today.[2,3] See the schematic below: Here we can clearly see the first ‘ticks of the clock’ which indicate the clock will go full circle, we have enormous morphological changes. Moreover we see how these family trees sub-divide, with some breeds of dog being the ancestor of several over sub-breeds. This level of physical variation significantly exceeds the prima facie differences between species of apes, different species of cats (domestic, wild, large). We see the same effects with vegetable cultivation: In both cases we see enormous morphological changes are possible via. selective breeding, *indicating that 4 of the 5 mechanisms I gave are evidentially supported as capable of producing these changes.[4] III. Natural selection ‘at work’ Natural selection has been demonstrated in both an artificial setting and natural settings. The most commonly known artificial setting are in fruit fly experiments, which by introducing two diametrically different food sources, yielded fruit flies that were no longer capable of interbreeding. Other examples of allopatric speciation are also observed in the wild, for example the grand canyon has numerous ‘micro environments’, such as different locations of food sources, different levels of sun and shade which gave changes large physical changes. [5,6] One dramatic type of natural selection is in adaptive radiation. For example on the Galapagos Islands, several races of different finches are known to evolve from one original ground finch species.[7] The islands themselves are remote and geologically young. Only a handful of species were ever capable of reaching these islands to populate.[8] These Finch’s beaks had changed and adapted to a variety of food sources, finches with large beaks are well adapted for feeding on large seeds, those with short beaks better adapted for fruits and smaller seeds, for example.[9] Another dramatic example of adaptive radiation are the Hawaiian Honey creepers, with an even greater diversity in speciation. All are shown genetically to possess a common ancestor and their beaks have converged on roles performed by woodpeckers & hummingbirds, with a diverse range of food sources. Similarly to the Galapagos Islands, the Hawaiian Islands are remote, geologically young and only a handful of animals ever reached it to populate. With these lines it should be quite apparent that these simple mechanisms I have provided are very much capable of producing cumulative changes which lead to dramatically different breeds and species, and very conceivably changes above the family level.[10] IV. Rebuttals For Pro to demonstrate the resolution (note the BoP is on him) he has to show how no mechanism can lead to the changes required for macro-evolution. To date there has been no demonstrable mechanism, or ‘road block’ which prevents cumulative change that will inevitably give super-species changes. If there is a ‘barrier’ then I would like Pro to actually provide evidence of these barriers and state what they actually are, and preferably allude to their mechanisms. Pro has only claimed as much. Pro argues that the genetic information is not there to produce the elements characteristic of ‘macro-evolution’, yet I have already presented mechanisms by which the ‘genetic information’ would generate the material that would give such changes (genetic mutations). Note that Pro has not defined what ‘information’ means, which is puzzling since in information theory random noise is the state of maximum information, so life by that definition contains less ‘information’ than random noise. [11] Note that Pro’s arguments appear to be looking at the end-point rather than the ‘start point’. Evolution will never inevitably generate a wing or a gill, it will give changes depending on its environment which may turn out to be functional as a gill or a wing, but there is no foresight in the process, nor does there need to be. If one deals a deck of 52 cards randomly, you will likely never in your life deal the same 52 card hand out ever again, yet having a hand (such as gills or wings are a ‘hand’) doesn’t mean that the evidence of the ‘dealing mechanism’ doesn’t support the generation of that specific hand. Pro attacks my use of Nylonase (which admittedly is controversial almost not for the reasons Pro gives), yet misses the point, that frameshift mutations are just one example that can lead to dramatic changes in the amino acid sequences generated, and hence to numerous radical overall changes. Frame shift mutations are well documented in numerous examples, such as development of resistance in HIV and in cancers. [12,13] Pro also misses the point on the Lenski experiment data, which I only presented to demonstrate that strains with favourable traits would out-compete and eliminate lesser well adapted strains. This not only applies to the citrate strains, but also the non-citrate strains which evolved larger, rounder cell shapes over time, and outcompetes the original stock of E Coli. Pro misses the other point on experiment too, the cells could not metabolize citrate as an external source, and now could, which is an obvious phenotype change which did not exist before. While the exact genes that were changed are unclear, it is known that at least two potentiating mutations were involved, with samples of the second easily re-evolving the ability to digest citrate, a clear example of increasing complexity leading to (comparably) large changes. Pro attacks the examples of dogs claiming only a 0.2% genetic diversity. I would like to remind Pro that Bonobos are only 1.3% genetically different to the Humans and 0.4% from Chimpanzees and thought to have occurred over periods of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. So these numbers are 1. supportive and 2. unsurprising. I would like to ask Pro are some breeds of dog as comparably different to each other as we would regard Chimps and Bonobos? V. References: 1. http://tinyurl.com... 2. http://tinyurl.com... 3. http://tinyurl.com... 4. http://tinyurl.com... 5. http://tinyurl.com... 6. http://tinyurl.com... 7. http://tinyurl.com... 8. http://tinyurl.com... 9. http://tinyurl.com... 10. http://tinyurl.com... 11. http://tinyurl.com... 12. http://tinyurl.com... 13. http://tinyurl.com...