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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 9/13/2007 1:51:13 AM
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BVZ
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: Quasar6
Aves share certain features with dinosaurs, that dinosaurs don't share with mammals. This indicates a 'closer' common ancestor between birds and dinos than between mammals and birds.
Again, the relationships are determined based on their features. If the features were any different, they would simply redefine the relationships to fit some other conceivable model. Since the fossil record does not show any relationships of these organisms (ie: you can't trace it back to some common ancestor because the fossil record shows that these organisms exploded suddenly all at once) the relationships are speculative.
The nested hierarchy holds for species alive today. The nested hierarchy holds for organisms that do not need to leave fossils to be studied.
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quote:
Now, if you can show me a way the heirachy could be reworked to incorporate things that evolved on both lines after the divergence, I'll agree that a nested heirachy violation won't falsify what you have dubbed 'universal evolution'. Until then, this seems like a perfectly reasonable way to falsify the theory.
Again, they can re - work the hierarchy to make it such that these things received their features from some common ancestor on the same line (ie: pushing up where the divergence occurred).
No they cant. Remember, you can push the divergence point further back in time, but only while ignoring OTHER traits. Remember, you have to take all available and relavent evidence into account. You can say that feathers evolved BEFORE mammals diverged... but then you are only taking into account feathers, and ignoring all other traits mammals have.
Which is why pushing the divergence point back in time will also violate the nested hierarchy.
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Since the fossil record gives no clues as to a common ancestor (rather, it shows that everything emerged suddenly in an explosion) there would be nothing stopping them from speculating that there was some common ancestor that had all these features (ie: there is nothing stopping them from speculating that dinosaurs had a common ancestor with some far earlier organism that we can no longer find fossils for).
The nested hierarchy holds for species alive today. The nested hierarchy holds for organisms that do not need to leave fossils to be studied.
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 9/17/2007 1:21:01 AM
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Quasar6
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quote:
Again, the relationships are determined based on their features. If the features were any different, they would simply redefine the relationships to fit some other conceivable model.
There is no other concievable model. The fossil record is quite clear: Birds share features of dinosaurs, dinosaurs share features of birds, Archaeopteryx shares features of both that they don't share with each other. Ergo: it isn't a leap of faith to presume birds are decended from dinosaurs, particulary since evolution via natural selection gives a means for this to happen. Show me a way birds could be on a seperate lineage (like mammals) and still have all these features that dinosaurs share, and I'll accept that a nested heirachy violation wouldn't falsify common descent.
quote:
Since the fossil record does not show any relationships of these organisms (ie: you can't trace it back to some common ancestor because the fossil record shows that these organisms exploded suddenly all at once) the relationships are speculative.
Since you can't provide evidence that transitionals like Archae don't exist, the concept that these organisms exploded suddenly all at once is purely speculative.
quote:
Again, they can re - work the hierarchy to make it such that these things received their features from some common ancestor on the same line (ie: pushing up where the divergence occurred).
Well, to quote BVZ: Show me. Show me how they could do this, and still take into account all the other traits. Show me how they could put birds up above dinosaurs while taking into account the features they share with dinosaurs. Or show me how they could the divergence of a feathered mammal up above mammals, and put the divergence of birds above it, while still taking into account the fact that the creature has mammal traits, birds have dino traits and all the rest of it.
It can't be done. If you think it can... Show me.
quote:
Since the fossil record gives no clues as to a common ancestor (rather, it shows that everything emerged suddenly in an explosion) there would be nothing stopping them from speculating that there was some common ancestor that had all these features (ie: there is nothing stopping them from speculating that dinosaurs had a common ancestor with some far earlier organism that we can no longer find fossils for).
Well, interestingly, we have found fossils for most of our 'common ancestors', (or branches of them, anyway), which fit neatly into the heirachy without any changes being required...
But you're saying that if we found a feathered mammal, we could speculate (I think you have something of a fetish for that word) that dinosaurs and mammals evolved from some common ancestor that had feathers, yes? And none of its decendants kept those feathers, except for this one species of mammal which left no fossils and also evolved mammalian characteristics (taking into account that the common ancestor of this feathered mammal and normal mammals must also have had feathers), and a certain species of dinosaur, which also kept its feathers and left no fossils, survived all the way to Archae's time, (evolving dinosaur characteristics that didn't evolve towards the end of the dinosaurian era, so therefore this feather dinosaur must have been the common ancestor of all scaled dinosaurs), and then evolved into modern birds.
I personally think that you'd have to be as thick as concrete (as well as highly inventive) to come up with that as a legitimate explanation. So, the only way this is possible is by assuming complete incompetence on the part of all the scientists who work on the problem.
Betta, your argument makes no sense. If you truly think a nested heirachy violation, such as a bird with feathers, can be worked into evolution... show us how. Stop us from making these strawmans (They're strawmans unless you are actually seriously proposing that evolutionists faced with the problem would suddenly become incompetent) and show us how a feathered-bat could fit into a nested heirachy.
Heck, here's one to work with:
----------------(#)
---------------/
--------------/\
-------------I--\
------------/----G
-----------/\-----\
----------/--\----/\
---------/----\---\-\
--------/\-----\---\-\
-------H..\-----\---\-\
------/----\-----\---\-\
-----/\-----\-----\---\-\
---A--B----C----D---E-F
Fossils show examples of G, H I and J.
A shares features with B it shares with no other.
A and B share features with C and H they share with no other.
A,B,C all share features with D.
A,B,C and D all share features with I.
E shares features with F and G shares features with both of them.
# shares features with all of them.
How could you get X, a creature with features of A and features of E, but without features of either G or F into this heirachy?
This fits the 'Bat with feathers' template perfectly.
If you prefer a 'bird with fur' scenario:
How could you get Y, a creature with features of A,B,C,D,H and I and features of E, but without features of either G or F into this heirachy?
I claim it can't be done in either case. If you think it can: show me.
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 3:50:59 AM
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Quasar6
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Bump, just in case you missed it...
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 10:30:17 PM
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Jhud
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I think nested hierarchies are apt descriptions of an organisms development on the edges, but it doesn't explain how the major changes occurred, and it is seeming increasingly unlikely that it was the product of gradual and incremental changes.
There is an interesting new paper proposal that has been submitted to the journal Biology Direct by Eugene V. Koonin, Senior Investigator National Center for Biotechnology Information, proposing an evolutionary 'big bang' hypothesis. Basically it offers an alternate hypothesis to explain the numerous biological entities that don't fit the tree pattern predicted by evolution.
What I find interesting about the paper is that it acknowledges the problematic nature of a number of transitions, including the well known Cambrian explosiosn, and the fact that these really represent something wholly different than ordinary incremental and incidental evolutionary development - indeed, that they "enigmatic nexuses", and include:
1. Origin of protein folds
2. Origin of viruses
3. Origin of cells
4. Origin of the major branches (phyla) of bacteria and archaea
5. Origin of the major branches (supergroups) of eukaryotes
6. Origin of the animal phyla
Though the paper proposal in no way acknowledges ID (indeed, comments on the paper express fears that the paper could be read that way) it certainly acknowledges that the current ideas of evolution are insufficient to explain the development of life, something IDists have been saying for awhile.
_____________________________
Jack
“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth”
William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 10:42:06 PM
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Quasar6
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Very interesting. However, to my uneducated eyes it seems to only apply when the cells are capable of huge amounts of horisontal gene transfer, which doesn't really apply beyond cambrian lifeforms. Maybe you'll correct me. Highly probable, in fact.
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 10:51:09 PM
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Jhud
Posts: 7059
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From: Lake Wobegon
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quote:
Very interesting. However, to my uneducated eyes it seems to only apply when the cells are capable of huge amounts of horisontal gene transfer, which doesn't really apply beyond cambrian lifeforms. Maybe you'll correct me. Highly probable, in fact.
Well of course I don't think this adequately explains the Cambrian explosion either, but I don't think such changes are the product of incidental forces, even explosive ones. I just found it interesting that someone was willing to acknowledge the inadequacy of ordinary evolution to explain it.
Another interesting bit I ran across in my reading was a study concerning the phylogeny of protein folds.
Basically, it appears that the earliest life had a large and diverse populations of the most complex protein folds; later groups were a product of a reduction of the diversity of protein folds, not the development of novel ones. Rather turns evolution as it is commonly understood on it's head.
_____________________________
Jack
“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth”
William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 11:02:32 PM
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Quasar6
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Also interesting.
From what I understood already, and some things from the article I didn't know, the first life to populate the earth had no natural selection, and was all essentially one species. So many protein folds were developed all around the place and shared throughout the global population. As different types of life (and hence different species) developed, they began to specialise, utilising only certain specific protein folds. Multi-cullular and complex life needed to keep most of the folds, but other creatures like the Archaea found no use for them and they were selected against.
Very interesting.
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 11:11:56 PM
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Jhud
Posts: 7059
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
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quote:
From what I understood already, and some things from the article I didn't know, the first life to populate the earth had no natural selection, and was all essentially one species. So many protein folds were developed all around the place and shared throughout the global population. As different types of life (and hence different species) developed, they began to specialise, utilising only certain specific protein folds. Multi-cullular and complex life needed to keep most of the folds, but other creatures like the Archaea found no use for them and they were selected against.
Well, sure, but this is basically an acknowledgement that the work evolution was supposed to be doing - developing the complex proteins that entail the workings of life -happened at the very beginning. That doesn't leave much for evolution to do, and simply puts the development of complexity at the beginning of life, without a naturalistic explanation.
_____________________________
Jack
“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth”
William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 11:48:57 PM
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Quasar6
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quote:
Well, sure, but this is basically an acknowledgement that the work evolution was supposed to be doing - developing the complex proteins that entail the workings of life -happened at the very beginning. That doesn't leave much for evolution to do, and simply puts the development of complexity at the beginning of life, without a naturalistic explanation.
I'm sorry, I thought that this was the development of the Protein Folds, which (from what I gathered from the article) are the three-dimensional 'shapes' and structures that proteins develop, and I thought a single protein fold could have hundreds of different uses depending on what proteins it actually contained. Thats just what the article seemed to say to me...
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/8/2007 11:56:12 PM
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Jhud
Posts: 7059
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
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quote:
I'm sorry, I thought that this was the development of the Protein Folds, which (from what I gathered from the article) are the three-dimensional 'shapes' and structures that proteins develop, and I thought a single protein fold could have hundreds of different uses depending on what proteins it actually contained. Thats just what the article seemed to say to me...
Protein folds don't 'contain' proteins - various proteins are differentiated by their folds, which determine the function of the respective proteins.
_____________________________
Jack
“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth”
William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 10/9/2007 12:17:50 AM
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Quasar6
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quote:
Protein folds don't 'contain' proteins - various proteins are differentiated by their folds, which determine the function of the respective proteins.
Then I must have misunderstood the article. I must have been reading this section wrong:quote:
All proteins are composed of architectural elements, called domains, which can be identified by their structural and functional similarities to one another. Protein domains are the gears, belts, springs and motors that allow the larger protein machinery to function as it should. Every protein contains one or more of them, and proteins that perform very different tasks can contain identical domains.
Protein domains are grouped into what are called fold families and fold superfamilies. Members of a fold superfamily may differ in their underlying amino acid sequences, but retain structural and functional similarities and are evolutionarily related. Fold superfamilies are grouped together into broad categories, called folds.
I was viewing it as a bit of a nested heirachy... you know, like this:
solar system --- galactic arm --- galaxy --- local cluster --- local supercluster
protein --- domain --- ...
And I've just seen what my problem was. In reality, it goes like this:
domain --- family --- superfamily --- fold
And the different proteins have different folds... OK, I've got it now. Hang on while I digest this...
_____________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
"If Americans descended from Europeans, why are there still Australians?" Quasar
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 2/18/2008 2:05:35 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1433
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
The nested hierarchy holds for species alive today. The nested hierarchy holds for organisms that do not need to leave fossils to be studied.
The nested hierarchy does not hold.
quote:
No they cant.
Yes they can.
quote:
Remember, you can push the divergence point further back in time, but only while ignoring OTHER traits. Remember, you have to take all available and relavent evidence into account. You can say that feathers evolved BEFORE mammals diverged... but then you are only taking into account feathers, and ignoring all other traits mammals have.
They can claim those other features were acquired earlier as well.
quote:
Which is why pushing the divergence point back in time will also violate the nested hierarchy.
No it won't (for reasons already given). I've already given examples of times where the previous arbitrary nested hierarchy was violated (ie: bats, cows, and horses) and they simply re - work the hierarchy to form some other arbitrary hierarchy. No reason they can't do it again.
Aside from the fact that UCD does not predict a nested hierarchy and I've already given examples of violations of a previous alleged hierarchy (that were just re - worked to form some new arbitrary hierarchy) here are more examples of violations.
quote:
The elephant shark's genome is so similar to ours that we wind up having more in common with it, genetically speaking, than with other species, such as teleost (bony skeleton) fishes, which are nearer to us on the evolutionary tree.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1937469.htm
Even though UCD does not predict a nested hierarchy (ie: it's possible for me to share features with my cousin that I do not share with my brother, so the above violations of the nested hierarchy that this thread posts are acceptable within the framework of UCD and they do not violate UCD in any way), this is something that UCD should never predict. Organisms with a closer ancestry should never have more in common, genetically, than those of a further ancestry. ie: My cousin should never be more genetically similar to me than my brother. This is not only a violation of this alleged nested hierarchy (which UCD does not predict to begin with for reasons already given, so I never saw violations to this alleged hierarchy as a problem for UCD. I expect them to exist since I can share features with a cousin that I may not share with a brother) this is a complete violation of what we would expect to see if common ancestry is true.
Either we are more closely related to the Elephant shark than the teleost (which further demonstrates the arbitrary nature of this alleged nested hierarchy. We can simply move things around the tree arbitrarily to form some conceivable hierarchy even though UCD does not predict a nested hierarchy to begin with) or UCD is simply not true. If you are telling me that we are more closely related to the teleost than the elephant shark and we are more genetically similar to the elephant shark then the teleost then something is seriously wrong. A closer ancestor of mine should not be less genetically similar to me than a further ancestor (ie: a cousin vs a brother), that makes no sense whatsoever from the perspective of common ancestry.
Does this falsify UCD? Of course not. This further demonstrates the unfalsifiable nature of UCD.
So Quasar6. I found you a violation of this alleged nested hierarchy. Would you admit that UCD has been falsified? Or are you going to deny it and continue to demonstrate to me how UCD is unfalsifiable (since you believe that UCD somehow predicts a nested hierarchy)?
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 2/18/2008 3:16:19 PM >
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 2/18/2008 2:37:59 PM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1433
Joined: 4/17/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Quasar6
There is no other concievable model.
If the features were different, there would be some other conceivable model.
quote:
The fossil record is quite clear: Birds share features of dinosaurs, dinosaurs share features of birds, Archaeopteryx shares features of both that they don't share with each other.
Even if so, so?
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Ergo: it isn't a leap of faith to presume birds are decended from dinosaurs,
Yes it is.
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particulary since evolution via natural selection gives a means for this to happen.
Evolution via natural selection has never been observed to produce the difference between humans and chimps yet alone between birds and dinosaurs. It does not give us a testable method, just a speculated, unfalsifiable one that is never observed to produce the differences between birds dinosaurs or any sort of differences of the kind.
quote:
Show me a way birds could be on a seperate lineage (like mammals) and still have all these features that dinosaurs share, and I'll accept that a nested heirachy violation wouldn't falsify common descent.
They can claim that they diverged earlier and acquired some of the features of a dinosaur and some of a mammal.
quote:
Since you can't provide evidence that transitionals like Archae don't exist, the concept that these organisms exploded suddenly all at once is purely speculative.
How is an Archae a transition? I think you're confused.
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Archae
quote:
It can't be done. If you think it can... Show me.
quote:
Well, interestingly, we have found fossils for most of our 'common ancestors', (or branches of them, anyway),
We haven't found anything. Darwin himself admits it and he attributes it to the incomplete nature of the fossil record. At best, our alleged transitions are poorly interpreted wishful thinking.
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which fit neatly into the heirachy without any changes being required...
Examples?
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But you're saying that if we found a feathered mammal, we could speculate (I think you have something of a fetish for that word) that dinosaurs and mammals evolved from some common ancestor that had feathers, yes?
Yes
quote:
And none of its decendants kept those feathers
Some of them may have.
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except for this one species of mammal which left no fossils
Darwin constantly referred to the incomplete nature of the fossil record. He attributed the complete lack of transitions due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record. What you're looking for is sort of a transition and they don't exist anyways. That's not stopping UCD from surviving. Heck, the fossil record shows that organisms tend to stay the same throughout it, yet that doesn't stop UCD from surviving.
quote:
and also evolved mammalian characteristics
Or it already had mammalian characteristics.
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survived all the way to Archae's time, (evolving dinosaur characteristics that didn't evolve towards the end of the dinosaurian era, so therefore this feather dinosaur must have been the common ancestor of all scaled dinosaurs), and then evolved into modern birds.
Or share a common ancestor with modern birds (not necessarily that they evolved into modern birds).
"so therefore this feather dinosaur must have been the common ancestor of all scaled dinosaurs"
Why would it have to have been? They merely have to share a common ancestor.
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I personally think that you'd have to be as thick as concrete (as well as highly inventive) to come up with that as a legitimate explanation.
Your explanation is strawman.
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Betta, your argument makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense.
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If you truly think a nested heirachy violation, such as a bird with feathers, can be worked into evolution... show us how.
I already have.
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Stop us from making these strawmans (They're strawmans unless you are actually seriously proposing that evolutionists faced with the problem would suddenly become incompetent) and show us how a feathered-bat could fit into a nested heirachy.
Already done. See previous posts.
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How could you get X, a creature with features of A and features of E, but without features of either G or F into this heirachy?
By claiming that X diverged earlier in the tree and acquired features of A and E. As far as G, that is a speculated transition with speculated features that allegedly won't show up in the fossil record for reasons mentioned in Darwins book (he constantly argued that it's highly unlikely for transitions to show up since the fossil record is very incomplete).
quote:
If you prefer a 'bird with fur' scenario:
How could you get Y, a creature with features of A,B,C,D,H and I and features of E, but without features of either G or F into this heirachy?
Again, you're referencing alleged earlier transitions. Transitions don't show up in the fossil record so they can just attribute it to the incomplete nature of the fossil record. You are trying to reference a fossil record that is allegedly very incomplete, and if it is indeed incomplete, it's unlikely that the transitions you seek would appear.
< Message edited by Bettawrekonize -- 2/18/2008 2:45:43 PM >
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 2/19/2008 8:17:42 AM
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BVZ
Posts: 466
Joined: 11/2/2006
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Wow. Old thread!
Anyway, show me.
SHOW ME.
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 7/16/2008 11:04:05 AM
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Bettawrekonize
Posts: 1433
Joined: 4/17/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
Wow. Old thread!
Anyway, show me.
SHOW ME.
It's already been shown.
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RE: Nested Hierarchy violations? - 7/18/2008 7:29:48 AM
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BVZ
Posts: 466
Joined: 11/2/2006
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
quote:
ORIGINAL: BVZ
Wow. Old thread!
Anyway, show me.
SHOW ME.
It's already been shown.
Post number please.
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