Evolution works in mysterious ways

Oakman

Arguably the oddest beast in nature's menagerie, the platypus looks as if were assembled from spare parts left over after the animal kingdom was otherwise complete. Apparently the platypus split off from a common ancestor with humans 170 million years ago.

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73Zeppelin

Oh dear, you know who's going to crawl out of the woodwork for this one, don't you?

Lost User

"part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal" Reminds me of a girl I used to know...:suss:

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

R Giskard Reventlov

You had to say it... :-D

me, me, me

Oakman

fat_boy wrote:

Reminds me of a girl I used to know

me, too :laugh:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Oakman

mwa-ha-ha-ha! :laugh:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Matthew Faithfull

"The platypus genome is extremely important, because it is the missing link in our understanding of how we and other mammals first evolved," Err no, the missing link in our understanding is that we didn't evolve, first last or otherwise. We are though de-evolving and at a rate that makes arbitrary numbers like 170 million a complete joke. :rolleyes:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Stan Shannon

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

We are though de-evolving and at a rate that makes arbitrary numbers like 170 million a complete joke.

I will have to admit that the evidence for that is overwhelming! :laugh:

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

Oakman

"we didn't evolve, first last or otherwise" was his a priori. You agree with that, too?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Stan Shannon

Did I include it?

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

soap brain

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Err no, the missing link in our understanding is that we didn't evolve, first last or otherwise.

Have any reason for saying so that I don't have to accept on faith?

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Matthew Faithfull

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

Have any reason for saying so

Yes but probably not one you'd accept. We've been around this debate before, I dismiss evolution as the pile of crap it is. Zepp and others loose their rag and post streams of unsubstantiated random abuse, I laugh, you post links to lots of evidence for de-evolution misdiagnosed as evidence for evolution, proving my point but not seeing it and everyone goes away none the wiser. I can only suggest that you look for yourself, you're more capable than me in math and shouldn't have any problem demoshing the paper thin arguments of idiots like Richard Dawkins. The more you look the less evolution and more de-evolution you will see.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

soap brain

What is this 'de-evolution' thing you keep talking about?

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Oakman

Stan Shannon wrote:

Did I include it?

Just checking. Remember, when you eat crackers in bed, you wake up with crumbs

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Matthew Faithfull

Like evolution but the other way around, species breaking up, loosing genetic information over time, becoming over adapted, over specialized to their environments, less flexible and more vulnerable to environmental change. Think of it as entroy applied to population genetics and you'll see that not only is it inevitable but it's obvious, accounts for all the genuine 'evidence' purported to demonstrate evolution, operates effectively over much shorter time scales and also absolutely rules out the evolution of higher organisms from lower ones.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

R Giskard Reventlov

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

I dismiss evolution as the pile of crap it is

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

post streams of unsubstantiated random abuse

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

paper thin arguments of idiots like Richard Dawkins

Oh please enlighten us oh un-evolved one: just what is it that makes us all wrong and you so right? You see, it's very difficult to believe anything that someone who has an irrational faith in a fantasy being says. You do see that, don't you?

me, me, me

Matthew Faithfull

digital man wrote:

You see, it's very difficult to believe anything that someone who has an irrational faith in a fantasy being says. You do see that, don't you?

Of course but then I don't so what's your point?

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

soap brain

I can see two immediate problems with what you're saying: I) Your definition of 'de-evolution', I think, actually IS evolution, albeit a sketchily defined one. Who says that evolution necessarily leads to the ability to survive a rapid change in the environment? The dodo was very well adapted to its little island, but then humans came and buggered them over and now they're all dead. It happens. II) You're probably falling into a common trap of equating entropy with disorder. In fact, your definition of 'disorder' is probably just what you find 'aesthetically displeasing'. Entropy is the measure of the unavailability of a closed system's energy to do work, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics says that it increases over time until it reaches equilibrium. The fact is, organisms CAN decrease their entropy because the Earth isn't a closed system - it includes the Sun. The law refers to the overall entropy, and although the organisms can seemingly defy it, the Sun more than makes up for it in how much energy it gives off.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Oakman

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

I think, actually IS evolution

Of course it is. Evolution is a word that describes genetic changes in a species. Only the un- and ill- informed think that it implies moving from lower to higher or vice versa.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

soap brain

Yeah, I was pretty sure, but I didn't want to assert anything too strongly if I wasn't 100%.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.