Logic dictates that there is a God!

[MeDeFe]

And no, evolution is not "the changing of one species into an other", evolution is every species changing a little all the time in response to a myriad of factors in their environments (including other species). If you take what a species looks like now, and what descendants of this species looks like in 100000 years, they might be different enough that one would call them different species, but there is no line which divides them into species 1 and species 2 (or species 27).

2 animals are the same species if they can mate, producing fertile offspring.

Aah, to be so young and naive again, how wonderful that would be... So you're saying that lions and tigers are the same species, got it, many biologists will disagree with you however. Female Ligers and Tigons are for the most part fertile.
Wolves and Coyotes can also produce offspring and they're counted as different species, the resulting Coywolves are as fertile as any coyote or wolf.

[2dimes]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Anyone who's passing, stop in for some pie (just tell me in advance so's I can be sure to make one).
I promise -no dirt.

Oh, and apart from god, the farmer butcher and the weather girl, we should also thank my Aunty Glenys, who first made corned beef pie for me when I was a kid.

Can't argue with that, solid post Jones.

[jonesthecurl]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Anyone who's passing, stop in for some pie (just tell me in advance so's I can be sure to make one).
I promise -no dirt.

Oh, and apart from god, the farmer butcher and the weather girl, we should also thank my Aunty Glenys, who first made corned beef pie for me when I was a kid.

Can't argue with that, solid post Jones.

...and completely on-topic. (and a good solid pie too)

[MeDeFe]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Actually no, there are a total of two examples, in the first example the first species is lion, the second is tiger. In the second example the first species is wolf and the second is coyote.

[2dimes]

Obviously, this is a thread about delicious God given meat pies. Right? I'm thinking we need to have some of those beers God made for us as well.

[jonesthecurl]

Meet you at the fridge.

[2dimes]

Amen. Wait, did we ever figure out if that was a secret omage to some.. never mind.

To the fridge!!

[PLAYER57832]

And no, evolution is not "the changing of one species into an other", evolution is every species changing a little all the time in response to a myriad of factors in their environments (including other species). If you take what a species looks like now, and what descendants of this species looks like in 100000 years, they might be different enough that one would call them different species, but there is no line which divides them into species 1 and species 2 (or species 27).

2 animals are the same species if they can mate, producing fertile offspring.

Aah, to be so young and naive again, how wonderful that would be... So you're saying that lions and tigers are the same species, got it, many biologists will disagree with you however. Female Ligers and Tigons are for the most part fertile.
Wolves and Coyotes can also produce offspring and they're counted as different species, the resulting Coywolves are as fertile as any coyote or wolf.

McDeFe is technically correct, but most people learned what Mr Adams said in school. The definition has changed and been revised somewhat.

The real definition is that they are seperate species if they generally do not mate and produce fertile offspring ... sometimes the reason is just space and habitat (Tigers and lions generally are not found together outside of zoos. Coyotes and wolves have been moved around and have migrated on their own) plus some other technical stuff.

And no, evolution is not "the changing of one species into an other", evolution is every species changing a little all the time in response to a myriad of factors in their environments (including other species). If you take what a species looks like now, and what descendants of this species looks like in 100000 years, they might be different enough that one would call them different species, but there is no line which divides them into species 1 and species 2 (or species 27

This is not the full truth, though. In some ways it is almost backwards. That is, small changes absolutely do change species over time. However, that does not account for the vast numbers of species.

Catostrophic events stear this a lot. Something happens. It could be a change in the overall environment (a massive meteor maybe, a huge fire or volcanic eruption, even "smaller" events like tidal waves and such) or a disease or some other factor cause huge numbers of individuals to die off. Those left will almost always have far narrower genetic attributes. In some cases, the individuals die because they are less resistant to the change (classic "survival of the fittest"), but often it is simply chance (or design, if one believes in a higher power directing things). All the blue-tailed flickers just happen to be in the valley that gets inundated with lava, so no more blue-tailed flickers.

Now, after this die-off a few things have most likely happened. First, those that survive don't necessarily have it easy, so classic natural selection kicks in in full force. In many cases, pockets of populations will exist in isolation. Often they will no longer have predators or other controls. The species will expand and expand to fill the territory. In other areas the predators will dominate and quickly "eat up" all the prey ... and then not do so well themselves. Think of any combination of examples and it likely happened. IN fact, at some level all of the above will happen. If a species is isolated from predators, it will tend to overeat food stocks, then be subject to diseases ...e tc. Even if the only "predator" is another plant. Competition occurs, change occurs until the situation "settles down" and more or less stabilizes in a kind of equilibrium, we call an ecosystem.

Sometimes this actually happens quickly by our standards. Some changes in fish and plants have been seen, for example, within the past 50 years. (even well aside from our many intentional changes to livestock and other species). Usually, it happens in a span we would consider "slow", but which, geologically is phenomenally fast. ( a few hundred or thousand years)

[MeDeFe]

I think I already mentioned a lot of those things, at least the general gist of it, in some earlier posts when Rocky (I think) was asking about why dinosaurs didn't adapt to the environmental changes that led to them dying out. The larger predators being gone and so on, yes, I distinctly remember writing all of that already, I didn't think there was a need to spell it all out three times in a row.

[Neoteny]

I always love bringing up ring species in these kinds of discussions. Sadly, I've never seen anyone successfully explain them away. I chuckle at species distinctions.

[jay_a2j]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

[Neoteny]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

That would be weird as hell.

[jonesthecurl]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

Halfway stage:
Flying fish.
and conversely penguins.

[Gregrios]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Actually no, there are a total of two examples, in the first example the first species is lion, the second is tiger. In the second example the first species is wolf and the second is coyote.

SPECIES: a group of individuals closely related in structure, capable of breeding within the small group but not normally outside it.

Any questions?

[ParadiceCity9]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

Somethin's tellin me Jay didn't pass his high school sciences. Especially biology.

[jay_a2j]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

Halfway stage:
Flying fish.
and conversely penguins.

I say bs. A penguin was always just a penguin. A flying fish was always just that, a flying fish.


And paradice, dream on.

[2dimes]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Actually no, there are a total of two examples, in the first example the first species is lion, the second is tiger. In the second example the first species is wolf and the second is coyote.

SPECIES: a group of individuals closely related in structure, capable of breeding within the small group but not normally outside it.

Any questions?

Well especially in the second pairing you're off. The species Husky somewhat commonly breeds with the species wolf.

So I guess the question would be, are half wolf half huskies fertile?

[Neoteny]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Actually no, there are a total of two examples, in the first example the first species is lion, the second is tiger. In the second example the first species is wolf and the second is coyote.

SPECIES: a group of individuals closely related in structure, capable of breeding within the small group but not normally outside it.

Any questions?

Who says?

[MeDeFe]

Isn't that last post supporting the species thing, first example being species 'cat' second being 'dog' ?

Actually no, there are a total of two examples, in the first example the first species is lion, the second is tiger. In the second example the first species is wolf and the second is coyote.

SPECIES: a group of individuals closely related in structure, capable of breeding within the small group but not normally outside it.

Any questions?

Yes, I have a few questions, does that mean there are no species at all among bacteria because they don't breed? There're also lizards that don't have to mate in order to lay eggs from which new lizards will hatch, I think whole populations were checked and not a single male lizard was found. Are those lizards not a species?

[Dancing Mustard]

A penguin was always just a penguin. A flying fish was always just that, a flying fish.

You are aware that evolution doesn't argue that creatures change within their lifetimes, right? But rather, they change incrementally over the course of several thousand generations, each new generation carrying various minute differences from the last.

So in response to your quote: Well fucking obviously, a flying-fish was born a flying-fish and will die a flying-fish. But in three thousand generations time, that flying fish's descendants might well be barely recognisable as flying-fish. That's kind of the point here.

Also, before the Christian-Right begins telling me how crazy this idea is (based only on the fact that they haven't seen it with their own eyes, so it must be wrong), perhaps they'd benefit from reading this little thought-jolting article on Nylonase; the bacteria that some scientists are currently pointing to as living evidence of evolution.

[Neutrino]

A fish will never become a bird. Nuff said.

Of course. Animals don't switch class (phylum? Kingdom? I'm a little out of date with my biology terminology). Animals change their specilization, their size, and lots of other little details, but fundamentally they change few broad details, otherwise they would form a whole new class/phylum/kingdom/whatever. The fish, really, is too dense for sustained flight, so it's doubtful there would ever be a true flying fish. However, if a fish ever did gain the ability to fly, it would still be a fish. In much the same way, a fully aquatic bird would still be a bird. I think.
Bats fly, yet are considered mammals. Whales swim, like fish, yet they are still mammals. No matter how much swimming it does a whale will never become a fish without some massively improbable changes, and same with the bat. A fish, similarly, will never become a bird.

I think you may want to brush up on your reading a bit, Jay. It really would help if you attacked evolution on things that it does actually support.

[joecoolfrog]

Empirical evidence of some form of evolution = Overwhelming
Empirical evidence of Jesus being the son of God = Zero

By all means reject the former and embrace the later but dont embarass yourselves by pretending that such a conclusion is based on logic.

[jay_a2j]

If memory serves me well, one of the "rules" of science is: it must be OBSERVABLE. Evolution is not, it is pure speculation.

Also to address HC, why is it that I saw on some science channel that the Tridactyle descended from a fish? Apparently even science thinks that evolution can change one species of animal into another. (How and animal gains or loses chromosomes, changing its physical make up, is beyond me...no matter how much time it takes) This requires an amount of Faith I do not possess. This is believing the impossible is possible. This would be a miracle that could only be achieved through divine intervention.


Neutrino, changes within a species is adaptation not evolution. It still has X number of chromosomes.

[MeDeFe]

What's a Tridactyle? I didn't find it on Wikipedia.


And jay, are you aware of the fact that evolution in quickly reproducing organisms like bacteria have been observed. I recall a recent thread linking to an article about a team of scientists that had started out with e. coli bacteria, let them multiply, split the original ones into 12 groups, and observed and took samples from each strain over more than 30000 generations. One of those strains evolved to be able to digest citrate (I think it was), something that the original bacteria they started with could not and something no other of the groups evolved to be able to either.
For a bacterium that's a damn big change.

[jay_a2j]

What's a Tridactyle? I didn't find it on Wikipedia.


And jay, are you aware of the fact that evolution in quickly reproducing organisms like bacteria have been observed. I recall a recent thread linking to an article about a team of scientists that had started out with e. coli bacteria, let them multiply, split the original ones into 12 groups, and observed and took samples from each strain over more than 30000 generations. One of those strains evolved to be able to digest citrate (I think it was), something that the original bacteria they started with could not and something no other of the groups evolved to be able to either.
For a bacterium that's a damn big change.

Yet, it was still a bacteria, not a fish.