[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Case <Case at iSpots.com>:

> [Case]
> What Craig offered up is an example of evolution in action. He shows how the
> distribution of traits in a population is effected by the environment. Of
> course animal breeders do this all the time. Darwin made many references to
> animal breeding. He was attempting to show how the same principles apply in
> the wild.

Well, it made for a nice story. But did it actually happen? I thought science
depended on observation and experiment, not on mythical tales. 

> What Darwin suggests is that given enough time the distribution of traits in
> isolated populations becomes so different that speciation occurs. Darwin's
> finches from the Galapagos Islands were similar to one another in many ways
> but their geographic isolation into different environments produced
> different distributions of traits and ultimately different species of
> finches.

Yes, but still finches. Not bluebirds.

> You seem to think that evolution means that a fruitfly can be transformed
> over night into a wooly mammoth. This is absurd. Fruitfly populations can
> diverge overtime until they become different kinds of fruitflies. Given
> enough time and the right environmental pressures one population might lose
> its wings for example.

Are you saying once a fruitfly always a fruitfly?
 
> Madagascar is a famous example of this sort of thing where the lemurs became
> the dominate primate species on the island after it separated from Africa.
> Lemurs filled many of the ecological niches occupied by monkeys elsewhere.
> There are more lemur species in Madagascar than anywhere else on the planet
> and they have evolved to take advantage of a wide variation in food
> supplies. There were even species of very large lemurs the size of
> orangutans on the island before men rendered them extinct. 

Being stranded on an island doesn't prove evolution does it?
 
> Once you get the idea that a species is a collection of traits, you can see
> how the distribution changes based on environmental pressures. Over time the
> distributions of traits can vary so much that the populations can be treated
> as distinct. The environment ultimately determines the rate of change as the
> population must adapt to survive.
> 
> Probability enters the picture from the beginning since a frequency
> distribution of traits in one generation determines the possibility of which
> traits can be passes to the next. The frequency distribution of successive
> generations is influenced by how well particular traits confer reproductive
> success. Even a slight selective advantage will magnify over time in much
> the same way that a casino make lots of money because the house has a slight
> probabilistic advantage. Gamblers call this vigorish or "vig". 
> 
> Platt, have you actually read "The Selfish Gene" or E.O. Wilson's works like
> "On Human Nature" or "Biodiversity" or any of Gould's collections of essays?
> Often it seems people here, myself included, are trying to give you crash
> courses in basic biology. The MoQ is an evolutionary philosophy after all.

Yes, I've read some of those authors. Also, critiques of their works, especially
"Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson. I try to be "fair and balanced." :-)

 

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