72 thoughts on “Adaptation”

  1. Like me? Well, I’m not an envirowacko… more of a generic wacko.

    Now to the point, adaption is not evolution. Ok. I’m being picky here, but I think it’s a very important distinction.

    1. It’s a huge distinction. We know corals can evolve to handle warmer seas; there’s got to be half a dozen periods in geologic history when coral shells disappear from the fossil record, presumably because of increased ocean acidity. But it’s still questionable whether corals can handle changes of that magnitude occurring over hundreds of years rather than hundreds of millenia. Observing adaptation to some such changes in hundreds of hours is a nice start.

    2. But evolution indicates time periods of billions of years. Regarding coral:

      Ordovician Period (505 to 440 mya)

      Ordovician strata are characterized by numerous and diverse trilobites and conodonts (phosphatic fossils with a tooth-like appearance) found in sequences of shale, limestone, dolostone, and sandstone. In addition, blastoids, bryozoans, corals, crinoids, as well as many kinds of brachiopods, snails, clams, and cephalopods appeared for the first time in the geologic record in tropical Ordovician environments. Remains of Ostracoderms (jawless, armored fish) from Ordovician rocks comprise some of the oldest vertebrate fossils. ”

      http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/Paleozoic_paleobiology.htm

      So coral evolved during periods which were much warmer than today- no ice caps on the planet and about 5 C or more warmer.
      And our current average [not surface temperature] of our oceans is couple degrees above freezing. In the past during periods that coral survived there were periods when average ocean temperture was 10 C warmer than the present average ocean temperatures.

      No one is predicting ocean temperatures rising say 1 C in next thousand years. No one even even predicting tropical surface ocean temperature rising 1 C.

  2. “Coral might be able to adapt to warmer seas.”

    Now that’s just silly, Rand. Corals have been around for over 400 million years and they’ve never in all that time had to adapt to changing temperatures. What makes you think they could do it now?

      2. It would be nice to be able to say “like” or “good point” or any other similar words and phrases that currently require extra words.

    3. “Now that’s just silly, Rand. Corals have been around for over 400 million years and they’ve never in all that time had to adapt to changing temperatures. ”

      You have heard of a period called the ice age?
      Corals have survived far greater temperature swings in the past as compared to now. period in which sea levels rose couple meters per centuries, unlike about 1 foot per decade of the last several centuries.
      Since the period of about 10,000 years ago, sea level has risen more than 100 meter and had temperature increases of 2-3 C per century- our century being arund .5 C. And within this 10,000 year period temperature have been at least 1-2 C higher than present temperatures.

  3. Corals lived thru the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Jurrasic and Cretacious when it was much warmenr than today.

  4. Hmm. I remember reading a paper on Malawi cichlids (that’s a kind of fish). They showed speciation occurring in as little as six months. By that I mean that the two new species could not breed and produce fertile offspring.

    Significant genetic evolution has occurred in humans in only a few thousand years, and the best known example of recent human evolution at work is the Ashkenazi Jews, who were accidentally bred for intelligence, and currently test a full standard deviation above the rest of humanity for IQ.

    Natural selection and speciation occur much faster than environmentalists are willing to admit.

    I get rather frustrated by the environmentalist selective belief in science. *sigh*

    1. Natural selection and speciation occur much faster than environmentalists are willing to admit.

      Which is both true and ironic since it is part of the proof against evolution. Animals breed true to the point of eliminating mutations. If that weren’t so, evolution would occur in just a few generations or even from generation to generation.

      Natural selection without mutation is called adaption. It happens all the time and is irrefutable. Evolution is an entirely different claim that is not supported by any scientific study of mutations. Horses and donkeys produce mules… all are simply types of horses.

      Confusing adaption and evolution is dishonest (once you realize the difference.)

      1. Ken, sorry, but you are just regurgitating bullshit from creationists. There is no useful distinction between “adaptation” and evolution. Adaptation is a crucial step in the development of differentiating between species. If it doesn’t result in that, it’s only because there is no separation from the cousins that weren’t under similar evolutionary pressure.

        1. I respectfully disagree Rand. The useful distinction is if mutation is involved. No mutation just means mixing traits that already exist in the pool. This can be wide ranging, but all are part of the same kind of animal. No new kind is created.

          With mutation you now have the possibility of creating new kinds, but the evidence is overwhelming in experiment after experiment that it just doesn’t happen. In the rare cases (count on one hand from many thousands of tests rare) where they claim it did happen it turns out to be nonviable. The fact that you can induce millions of mutations and even more occur naturally provides even more evidence.

          You should know my memory is too poor to even remember creationists BS which I find more distasteful than most people. I’d rather read what you have to say on the subject since it’s both informed and rational. However, if they happen to agree with me… well, that’s another story (they usually don’t and look fools in the bargain.) I think creationists should learn some science before spouting off like idiots.

          1. The useful distinction is if mutation is involved. No mutation just means mixing traits that already exist in the pool. This can be wide ranging, but all are part of the same kind of animal. No new kind is created.

            This is biological creationist gibberish.

          2. This is biological creationist gibberish.

            Perhaps so, but an assertion doesn’t make it so. Nor does my assertion of course do the counter.

            I see the confusion of evolution and adaption as a [n often dishonest] sleight of hand. They’re is absolutely no question that adaption is for real. Anyone denying that is an idiot. So evolution is the only question.

            For a new kind of animal to come into being the genetic code must produce new things that as far as I know do not preexist in the pool of an animals kinds. We depend on this being true when we say this animal is related to that [different kind] of animal genetically.

            AFAIK, mutation has always been the claimed mechanism. This makes adaption and evolution unique. I’m willing to be educated to another view.

          4. I said why. Adaption does not involve mutation. Evolution requires it. That seems like a pretty meaningful distinction to me. I’m not pulling this out of the air (or from any creationist BS.) This is my understanding of the claims of evolution itself. Please identify my error if you would.

        2. evolutionary pressure

          This is a separate issue that deserves some meditation. Offhand, I’d say environment or husbandry both do basically the same thing. I really doubt you will ever produce a cat no matter how many generations of dogs you selectively breed.

          1. I really doubt you will ever produce a cat no matter how many generations of dogs you selectively breed.

            This is a classical creationist straw man. No one has ever claimed that this would or could happen. It in no way logically invalidates evolution.

          4. No evolutionary scientist would claim that you can turn animal X into animal Y, given that both X and Y are clearly defined. That doesn’t mean that animal X can’t evolve into a different animal, unable to breed with its ancestors.

          5. Being unable to breed in itself does not a new species define. If A can breed with B and B can Breed with C but A and C can not breed they are still all the same kind.

            So we’re talking gradualism where dogs produce something that is difficult to define as either dog or not dog. This new not dog could interbreed in an environment where they are now classified as a new species of not dog. Eventually they leave Sirius and conquer earth… ok, leave that last part out.

            But being classified as a new species of not dog doesn’t make it so. I can assert they are still the same kind of animal even if they can’t interbreed. Also, this new species of not dog will not contain any traits not already in the genetic pool of dog unless a mutation is involved (getting us back to that distinction I stubbornly hold to.)

          6. I really doubt you will ever produce a cat no matter how many generations of dogs you selectively breed.

            This is a classical creationist straw man. No one has ever claimed that this would or could happen. It in no way logically invalidates evolution.

            Actually, I have made this claim. Evolution predicts evolutionary paths for dogs and cats descending into the past to a common ancestor. My bet is that the evolutionary changes that lead from this common ancestor to modern dogs is reversible. That is, if one knew enough mileposts, one could breed dogs that “devolve” or backtrack along this evolutionary path back to the common ancestor. Then evolve the resulting breed forward to modern cats.

            I think it would take far more generations than the original lineages did to evolve in the first place because you’d be trying for a very particular set of genes at each generation (rather than merely something that survives and reproduces better). That’s something that would probably take several orders of magnitude more generations than were originally spent.

          8. I think it’d be a much harder problem. Both dogs and cats, under the theory, were separate paths for successful survival of this long ago breed. So that’s all that had to be done, get something that survived. I’m proposing breeding so that the eventual animals are genetically indistinguishable from their targets (cats in my example above). That seems to me a far harder problem.

            Keep in mind that I’m trolling randomly for genes that reverse the path not just any genes. I could see going dozens or hundreds of generations before picking up a tricky mutation, and perhaps thousands more to pick up a chromosome shuffle.

          9. I could see going dozens or hundreds of generations

            Husbandry works rapidly when it is capable to doing the job. If you depend on mutation you enter the realm of monkeys typing Shakespeare. The time it would take is known. It’s half of all combinations. A really big number, not hundreds or even thousands of generations. Something like a million to the 64th power. Big.

          10. Selection keeps it from being monkeys typing Shakespeare. It’s more like monkeys randomly defacing a script. Throw away the copies of the script that don’t get closer to the final document you want (works of Shakespeare) and you’ll approach the end in a time proportional or faster to the number of differences between where you started and where you want to be (depending partly on how you define the distance mentioned above).

            Apparently, the chromosomes of cats and dogs differ by 5%, but most of that appears to be the movement of genes around on chromosomes rather than any serious change in the genomes of the respective families of animals. I’d say that there’s probably just a few hundred to a few thousand changes to make in a particular order. I’d guess a few hundred thousand generations as a result (less as your breeding population grows). Given at most a few years per generation and you may be looking at no more than a million years to deliberately breed a cat from dogs.

          11. You also have to go from 78 chromosomes to 38 which isn’t a mutation or a recombination and likely to be sort of an arrow of time.

            What selection does above everything else is keep the monkeys away from the typewriters at all. Selections most powerful feature is to keep things from drifting, exactly the opposite of how it’s typically portrayed. This is one of the reasons mutations breed out.

        3. In article they mentioned single celled life being replaced
          “Some researchers think that coral might adapt to hotter water by switching its algae or symbiotic bacteria to heat tolerant types – but that would take more than 10 days.”
          So the coral itself isn’t changing but the symbiotic bacteria of the coral is being replaced.

      2. Ken: Which is both true and ironic since it is part of the proof against evolution. Animals breed true to the point of eliminating mutations. If that weren’t so, evolution would occur in just a few generations or even from generation to generation.

        See my remarks to M Puckett later in the thread. Why on Earth do you think breeding true suggests that mutations are eliminated? Breeding works by propagating mutations, not eliminating them. How do you think it is that when you breed two chihuahuas you get another chihuahua and not a poodle? The fact that chihuahuas and poodles can interbreed has no bearing on the fact that chihuahuas are genetically distinct from poodles. In other words, the chihuahua genome contains genes that are not in the poodle genome, and vice versa. Where do you think these variations came from?

        1. that we just winnowed them down into different breeds?

          Not exactly winnowing down, but yes in principle. About 97% of DNA has been called junk DNA, not because it is junk, but because it isn’t understood. Yet, it is now known to be as if not more important than the genes we do have some understanding of. You can look at two very different breeds of dog and ask ‘how in the world’ but the answer is known… We do it all the time in husbandry producing results that look very different from the source animals.

          I haven’t read those articles yet. But will and may have more in response.

          1. the demographic history of wild canid populations and domestic dog breeds and showed that domestication resulted in a 5% loss of nucleotide diversity, while breed formation caused a 35% loss

            A statement regarding winnowing down from the first article. I will look for counter examples.

          2. A statement regarding winnowing down from the first article. I will look for counter examples.

            This statement is about genetic diversity as measured by linkage disequilibrium [correlation of separated alleles, to us engineers]. The extent of linkage disequilibrium tells us something about how correlated different alleles are within a population, and can be used to feed a model that crudely mirrors the time history of a population [see the Gray et al. paper, Ref. 11 in the Shearin and Ostrander paper], but it tells us virtually nothing about the origin of the genes in question. In particular, LD doesn’t tell you anything about the differences in the genes of the poodle and the genes of its ancestral gray wolf, for example. The disequilibrium can arise from mutations, or more likely from recombinations, but in particular inbreeding. What the Gray study confirms is that poodles, for example, are much less diverse the wild wolf populations. But isn’t that obvious, not matter how you think poodles got to be poodles? If God stepped in and made the poodle genome, or whether is was subsetted from some ur-dog, or whether it was an exploited mutation, we would expect two poodles to be more alike than two wolves.

            A more interesting paper relevant to this conversation is “Elevated Basal Slippage Mutation Rates among the Canidae” (Ref. 21 in S&O) by Laidlaw et al. These authors found that dogs in general have a much higher-than-average mutation rate than other mammals, as measured by the rate of slippage mutation rates. By their reckoning, this goes a long way toward explaining both the success of canine breeding and the amazing diversity among the hundreds of dog breeds. From their abstract (emphasis mine):

            The remarkable responsiveness of dog morphology to selection is a testament to the mutability of mammals. The genetic sources of this morphological variation are largely unknown, but some portion is due to tandem repeat length variation in genes involved in development…. Using whole-genome analyses of the human and recently completed dog genomes, we show that dogs possess a genome-wide increase in the basal germ-line slippage mutation rate…. [W]e sequenced 55 coding repeat regions in 42 species representing 10 major carnivore clades and found that a genome-wide elevated slippage mutation rate is a derived character shared by diverse wild canids, distinguishing them from other Carnivora. A similarly heightened slippage profile was also detected in rodents, another taxon exhibiting high diversity and rapid evolvability. The correlation of enhanced slippage rates with major evolutionary radiations suggests that the possession of a ‘‘slippery’’ genome may bestow on some taxa greater potential for rapid evolutionary change.

            I have yet to find a paper that supports your view that mutation is not involved in the evolution of dogs (or the evolution of anything else, for that matter).

          3. I have yet to find a paper that supports your view that mutation is not involved

            Why would you when that’s the assumption? However, unless you have a chain of evidence, as in laboratory mutation experiments, you can’t with certainty say what is or isn’t a mutation.

            OTOH, if we just take a child like view and just observe (without prejudice) then mutation and evolution just doesn’t do the job… no matter how much time you give it. It’s asking a ball to roll up hill.

          4. However, unless you have a chain of evidence, as in laboratory mutation experiments, you can’t with certainty say what is or isn’t a mutation.

            Sure you can. Nowadays we can literally map the gene sequence at the nucleotide level. We can tell you exactly what the mutation is. Take the example of the Shar Pei wrinkling gene that I linked in another comment. This is described as a mutation, because that’s what biologists call it when you have a variant of a known gene that only shows up in a subpopulation. Here’s what the article said:

            To find the genetic cause for wrinkled skin, the researchers first compared the Shar-Pei genome to that of other dog breeds. Simultaneously, they compared the genome of healthy and sick Shar-Pei to locate the mutation for the fever. Both studies pinpointed the same region, which contained the HAS2 gene. In this breed alone, a DNA segment located close to HAS2 was duplicated erroneously, sometimes multiple times.

            So here we have a typical case: the HAS2 gene is duplicated in Shar Peis, a phenomenon that is not found in other breeds. This is a mutation, and it “breeds true”: mate two Shar Peis, and you get more Shar Peis. The original, unduplicated HAS2 gene is indeed found in the parent population of dogs. But the mutated version isn’t.

            Now, it could certainly be the case that this mutation has occurred multiple times through history — the Laidlaw article provides evidence that dogs are highly mutable. When the appropriate “pressure” (in this case, selective breeding by people who liked the wrinkled look) was applied, the mutation was propagated. I don’t know why you find any of this exceptionable, except that you seem to have an eccentric view of genetics.

            “Laboratory mutation experiments”? You mean, like take wolf DNA and find a way to duplicate the HAS2 gene to see if you get a Shar Pei? Well, first, breed definitions involve multiple characteristics. Not every dog with wrinkled skin is a Shar Pei. So if you wanted to make a Shar Pei in the lab de novo, you would have to accompany the Shar Pei mutation with selection/insertion of multiple other gene variants simultaneously. If all you want to do is demonstrate that the mutation in HAS2 really causes wrinkled skin, then you could presumably use recombinant DNA technology in some form to induce this particular mutation and see what results. Go for it — NIH hands out grants for this kind of thing. It might be a worthwhile investigation. If you do it right, you could probably get published. But at the end, what have you shown? If the mutated HAS2 does give rise to wrinkled skin, which seems like the likely outcome at this point, would this convince you that the central paradigm is basically correct?

            On the other hand, the folks that hand out grants might legitimately ask why the existing technique — locating mutated genes that only show up in the target subpopulation but not the general population — is not sufficient to demonstrate the hypothesis. BTW I’m pretty sure “chain of evidence” is not the right phrase to use to convince them. This isn’t the OJ trial….

        2. Why on Earth do you think breeding true suggests that mutations are eliminated?

          Because that’s what the evidence says (in your articles.)

          Breeding works by propagating mutations, not eliminating them.

          That is not what the evidence says. This is pure assertion, counter to lab results.

          I really liked the dinosaur chicken article which talks about atavisms. I have no problem seeing thunder chicken variations but assertions of mutation rather than variation of existing traits is not supported by what we actually see (no matter how firmly they assert otherwise.)

          I like the sabertooth domestic cats myself which wasn’t mentioned in the article.

          Bottom line, evolution asserts variation as a result of mutations. But observation says the exact opposite. Mutation happens at a tremendous rate and always breeds out as far as we’ve observed. Believing otherwise is a pure article of faith not supported by evidence. Pointing to a particular thing and saying it’s a mutation does not preclude it to actually to have been preexisting in the gene pool of that kind of animal.

          1. Because that’s what the evidence says (in your articles.)…. Bottom line, evolution asserts variation as a result of mutations. But observation says the exact opposite.

            Could you elaborate? The one quote you used does not mean what you apparently think it means. Linkage disequilibrium decreases over time in a stable population (though it can also increase in a population bottleneck). This does not mean that mutations “breed out”. It means that over time they come to equilibrium (in the absence of confounding factors like natural selection, or husbandry). “Equilibrium” means that non-adjacent alleles get uncorrelated, not that certain alleles go away.

            Meanwhile, mutations are constantly introducing new genetic variations. In a controlled gene pool like an AKC breed, mutations can be “thrown away” if the owner decides not to breed them, or they can be bred to develop new varieties or breeds.

  5. “and the best known example of recent human evolution at work is the Ashkenazi Jews, who were accidentally bred for intelligence, and currently test a full standard deviation above the rest of humanity for IQ.”

    That’s not natural selection or evolution, that is breeding for existing traits.

      1. No, it is anthropogenic selection.

        Like breeding horses or dogs for certain traits. You aren’t adding genes to the pool, you are just picking and choosing.

        1. I’ll grant your distinction M Puckett, but it’s not significant. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the theory whether a human- or nature-based phenomenon is responsible for the selection event. Selection never adds genes to the pool. Mutation and other forms of DNA/chromosome replication errors do that.

        2. Animal Husbandry is Lamarckian (directed) evolution; human desires simply become a dominant selection pressure. The difference from Darwinian evolution is only the source of selection pressure.

          1. Ed, I think ya just left the reservation there. Lamarck has been debunked (even though after doing so they continued to use it to ‘educate’ grade school children and may even still doing it today perhaps… I don’t know.)

            Husbandry is just breeding for traits that preexist. AFAIK, that’s a huge difference from the claims of evolution.

          2. Husbandry is just breeding for traits that preexist. AFAIK, that’s a huge difference from the claims of evolution.

            It’s selection just like natural selection. Each new generation introduces its own mutations which can result in new traits. And those traits will then be “pre-existing” when it comes to making breeding decisions. Unless, of course, you think all the genes for pink poodles were hiding in ancient wolf genes way back when.

          3. Each new generation introduces its own mutations

            This is the exact opposite of laboratory results. Actually, radiation induced mutations breed out consistently. If it were not true, evolution would be an established fact because it would be obvious from generation to generation.

            you think all the genes for pink poodles were hiding in ancient wolf genes

            I think this is a really good question and exactly on point. I also think with gene sequencing we have in theory a way to find out. Today, we can’t really say one way or the other. But boy can we assert! Actual facts will come in time.

          5. This is the exact opposite of laboratory results. Actually, radiation induced mutations breed out consistently. If it were not true, evolution would be an established fact because it would be obvious from generation to generation.

            I disagree. Keep in mind that virtually all mutations are harmful and that sexual reproduction has several ways of culling harmful mutations before the organism goes through the effort of nursing a fertilized egg or seed to birth, hatching, or sprouting. Usually, there’s some effort and vast competition that the sperm or equivalent has to go through before it can fertilize an egg. If there’s a harmful mutation in the sperm (harder to hide due to the fact that the sperm is haploid, that is, is made up of unpaired chromosomes), then that means that the sperm is likely to underperform or even die. Eggs are the same way. Then when fertilization occurs, the egg still usually has to do stuff (in most mammals, it has to implant in the uterus wall). Then the animal or plant has to grow to the point where it can reproduce.

            That weeds out a lot of harmful mutations. And since most mutations are harmful, most mutations are selected out even before a viable organism forms.

            It’s also possible that radiation induced mutations are particularly dangerous since they’re truly random changes in DNA structure. There are other sorts of replication errors such as chromosome and DNA fragment swapping that may create safer and more viable mutations.

          6. Not sure what you are disagreeing with. You made excellent points for my argument. I say lab results show that mutations do not persist. To disagree, you’d have to be saying they do or can which is not what you’re saying.

            To assert evolution happens because there’s no evidence for it is a strange argument.

        3. MP: No, it is anthropogenic selection.

          Like breeding horses or dogs for certain traits. You aren’t adding genes to the pool, you are just picking and choosing.

          Why on Earth would you believe that?!? Of course mutation is a significant source of the variability of dog breeds. Do you really believe there is no difference in the genomes of Great Danes and Chihuahuas? Here’s an article about the genetics of canine morphology. Here’s an article about the specific mutation that gives Shar Peis wrinkled skin. Here’s an article about a particular mutation in canine myostatin that gave rise to bully whippets.

          I’m just incredulous that anyone would make the statement you did. Where do you think morphological variation comes from? Do you think that there was some ur-dog in the distant past that contained all the genes that we now find in canis familiaris, and that we just winnowed them down into different breeds??

    2. It’s also worth noting that Ashkenazi Jews have mutations that are pretty unique to the population (even among other Jews, so I understand). Somehow they have “existing traits” that weren’t existing in whatever Jewish populations they came from. Evolution has an explanation for how that happened. Just replace “natural selection” with “breeding for pre-existing traits”.

  6. The Eemian interglacial (the one prior to the one we’re in, so about 100k years ago) was a lot warmer than today. Warm enough that the Thames river in the UK was home to hippopotamuses. The seas were both warmer and higher too, and there are raised coral islands all over the world (including the tropics) that were reefs in the Eemian. So, we know that coral did just fine in a warmer era just 100k years ago.

    1. Also, during the Ice Ages the sea level would drop on the order of a few hundred feet and then quickly rise again during the interglacial warming periods. Apparently the coral survived the stress induced by rapidly changing sea levels as well.

    1. I certainly understand why you would ask that. The difference would seem to me that adaption has an environmental connection where variation may not. I do not usually think of variation being pertinent in this regard. I’d respect what ever you might have to say on the subject.

  9. The people making regulations to protect the snail darter (no matter the effects on the economy) don’t believe in evolution, or they’d let them go extinct.

  10. Ed – Believing in evolution and believing that it’s desirable to let it proceed in a particular case are distinct. I believe in evolution; I don’t believe that the currently proceeding anthropogenic mass extinction is a good idea.

    On the original point about coral adaptation; one point is that the timescale is important. Another is that the temperature may not even be the most important factor; CO2 concentration in, and hence pH of, sea water may be more important. This is because deposition of aragonite (IIRC), the form of calcium carbonate most prevalent in shellfish shells and probably also in coral, becomes impossible at a pH not much lower than seawater is at now.

    Add that problem to physical destruction of the ocean-floor ecosystem by trawl nets, and also to algal blooms caused by fertiliser runoff, and things get dicey. The marine ecosystem may be able to stand one or even two of these assaults, of which I have not posted an exhaustive list. Multiple simultaneous attacks may be more of a problem.

  12. Not to mention temps themselves have been higher (and lower) in the past. Ahh, but THIS time it’s DIFFERENT. We have anthropogenic mass extinction, destruction of the ocean-floors, and multiple simultaneous attacks on the whole marine ecosystem. And, and TRAWL NETS!!!! And FERTILIZER RUNOFF!!!

    Honestly Fletcher, how do you get to sleep at night? Propofol?

  13. Ken Anthony, are you then claiming that it is impossible for one species to change into another? Because if that’s what you’re claiming, you’re saying that either (a) all species have always existed as they are; or (b) there has been a constant stream of parthenogenesis throughout geologic history.

    If a, then why don’t we find raccoons in the Cambrian? Or is radiocarbon dating an evolutionist lie? If so, that “lie” has been pretty good for finding oil deposits from the Carboniferous Era. Scientific lies don’t make money.

    If b, then why are so many similar but not identical species found at the same time, e.g., large mammals appearing about 60 million years ago, or hominids appearing about 5 million years ago?

    You say you don’t accept the creationist view, but your logic leads to the most extreme version of the same.

  14. are you then claiming that it is impossible for one species to change into another?

    No.

    your logic leads to the most extreme

    Well, I did say no; however, I do not know where exactly that leads. What I do know is that many claiming they do know are in error. Facts are stubborn things.

  15. Stubborn facts:

    * Lot’s of different kinds of animals exist so must have come from some where.
    * All animals have a selection of the same 24 of many amino acids in common.
    * Common structures are recognizable in different animals.
    * These facts are highly suggestive but not proof of evolution.

    What we think we know: (not all agree.)

    * The universe had a beginning.
    * Therefore life had a beginning.
    * We search for life (SETI) because we suspect life could happen more than once.
    * Life could have happened more than once right here on earth.

    Which means different kinds could come to be the same as any single type. Which would mean evolution is not the only explanation for the diversity of life on this planet. A creator can not be ruled out either.

    At this point, any suggestion of how life came about has some serious problems that can’t be swept under the rug.

    I believe I’m on very solid ground when I say adaption is a fact, but is not evolution. Can I read other posts now?

    One last thing. Why is it possible that species change to other species? Because I (and no one else I know) has enough information to say one way or the other.

    This was exhausting. Evolution is not my favorite subject. My avatar is a clue.

    I apologize if my stubbornness just seems to be me being disagreeable. To my own self I must be true.

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