From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 11:53:58 MST
owner-extropians@extropy.org wrote:
> suggestion?
>
>
> "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus" wrote, Mon Feb 17;
>
> All those quotes regarding doubts about evolution got me to
> thinking -specifically, the quote which asserted that no species,
> not even Drosophila, has even been observed changing into another
> species...
>
> Wouldn't it be possible, at least theoretically, to actually _test_
> this empirically?
>
> Given Drosophila's rapid rate of mutation, could one not isolate a
> population and...I dunno...say repeatedly expose them to radiation
> or some other stress...heavily alkaline water supply,
> something...then allow a few generations to survive and breed among
> themselves. Then one attempts to breed them with an un-mutated
> control population.
>
> If the mutant Drosophila couldn't interbreed with the control, but
> could interbreed with themselves, isn't that one of the determinants
> of species status?
>
> Or am I missing something profoundly obvious here?
>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> That's a perfectly logical and reasonable suggestion; and is in fact
> exactly what those decades of "failed" experiments, producing
> mutants by using x-rays and other external what-nots, were all
> about. As a consquence of all that scientific effort, the
> tautology "survival of the fittest" should have been replaced with
> the much more accurate slogan "rejection of the mutants" as a proper
> foundation for naturalism. But that would have totally undermined
> the evolutionary principle, and spoilt the whole established social
> order; which is running along very profitably without those sort of
> disruptive heresies, thank you very much.
>
> What wasn't understood until quite recently, but is now throughly
> established, is that every organism, without exception, is totally
> integrated (like your PC) and all its parts must work together for
> it to function. (You can't fly on 2% of a wing). Built into the
> data-base of every organism therefore, are instructions to reject
> ANY disruptive mutation -- THE VERY MUTATIONS on which neo-Darwinist
> theory DEPENDS for evolution to occur. And let's be clear about
> this - the drosophila experiments showed that ALL mutations are
> disruptive and are automatically rejected unless they are part of a
> totally integrated redesign of the entire organism.
>
> A drosophila in the ointment.
> The very changes that scientists failed to achieve with their x-ray
> zappings of drosophila happened over and over in real life in
> Hawaii, with hundreds of variations (species) developing in
> isolation from a few original types.
>
> This is one of the best and clearest examples of "micro-evolution",
> often used to support the Darwinist theory. The other equally
> appropriate description is "variations WITHIN a kind", because the
> most certain finding of modern genetics is that "macro-evolution"
> (Darwinism) is a scientific impossibility. Fish cannot become
> squirrels. Genetic information boundaries are fixed. Apes can't
> become humans.
>
> So the fruit-flies in Hawaii, just like the Galapagos finches, and
> EVERYTHING ELSE - ever, could only diversify en bloc, complete and
> whole and fully functioning, into a variation of fruit-fly. But not
> into a toad, a bat, or a butterfly.
>
> I'm pushing nobody's barrow - there is a consistency here though;
> which is, that just as the demography of the human race can be
> reasonably traced back in a graph to a single family point a few
> thousand years ago, so the same can be applied to "micro-evolution".
> To take parrots as an example; the huge diversity of hundreds of
> modern parrot species of different colour, size and behaviour can be
> seen as spin-offs of just a few originals during the last few
> thousand years, (following the Hawaiian drosophila example) and
> further, we can logically trace them all back to an original pair on
> the shoulder of captain Noah, if we so wish.
>
> We need to enquire into the mechanism of re-writes of "complete" new
> species --Darwin's incremental change fails - and everything that
> hangs on it.
>
> vadar
>
> Take off your skepticles.
>
> It is very easy to see that most of the theoretic science of the
> 19th century was only a relation of reaction against theologic
> dogma, and has no more to do with Truth than has a wave that bounds
> back from a shore. Or, if a shop girl, or you or I, should pull out
> a piece of chewing gum about a yard long, that would be quite as
> scientific a performance as was the stretching of this earth's age
> several hundred millions of years.
> --Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned
### All baloney.
Evolution, micro, macro and in-between, is a fact. Discussing opposing views
is a waste of time.
End.
Rafal
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