You’ve yet to demonstrate that in any substantive way. Your primary support for that claim seems to be your own incredulity.
Where are you getting that information?
bibliotecapleyades.net/cienc … ic_Serpent
This site has stuff that I’m not even willing to go out on a limb for, but it is one of the few that discusses the problem that 95% of our DNA is considered junk DNA, which from a fitness POV serves no evolutionary purpose, remember when we were talking about how it doesn’t make sense that a fish even made it into fresh water for very long because of predators and decreased surface area that would provide the predators the advantage in the transitional phase? Well… you made an unrelated comment, or perhaps it was Phon, that we lose the ability to drink salt water because it’s no longer adaptive… that means if 95% of our DNA is no longer adaptive, it wouldn’t be there, using the same logic.
We’ve come to learn that “junk” DNA is not actually just junk. It contains gene switches and the like which actually control genes throughout our lifetimes. Even if we did assume “junk” DNA was actually junk, I think it’s a mistake to compare it to an actual physical system which is no longer adaptive.
This is from the very website you linked me to:
It is a physical system. Why shouldn’t we compare it to a physical system. If there has been a purpose found for junk DNA than I take it back. My impression is that much of it is a vestige (thanks for pointing out I spelled the word wrong), and that it would simply fade away, just like what you called physical traits would fade away. We might even have less chromosomes etc…
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Your source is not a reliable scientific resource. The_Ashaninkas_and_The_Cosmic_Serpent… are you fucking kidding me? Are those the “geneticists” you’re talking about?
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“Junk DNA” is not junk. Read up.
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I already explained that your criticism of fish evolution is ridiculous. I noticed you chose to ignore that post and just keep going with your nonsense.
Your reply just said that they’d go for a food source… it didn’t deal with the game theory of less surface area and advantage to predators, which would multiple the predators in that transitional phase and push back the fish that were attempting to become fresh water. You actually didn’t address my point. And actually that site is pretty good, so don’t shit on me for linking to it. Just scroll to the top of the menu and look at some of the articles.
I supoose I disagreed with them that Junk DNA has a function… but I’m prepared to accept that I am wrong. I considered it vestigual DNA.
This is what I meant when I said I didn’t understand why you keep bringing up game theory. I don’t think evolution and adaption are matters of strategic decision making for fish. They don’t just hop into fresh water and say “this is my home now”. Some evolve to live in brackish or fresh water and are able to reproduce in order to create more fresh water fish. In the same sense, I don’t think predators see fish adapting to fresh water and decide to adapt in order to chase them back into salt water.
No, this one:
It is pretty safe to assume that if you see something in a nonsensical website that is nonsensical and absurd and conflicting with current scientific understanding, that is probably because it is nonsense.
That’s fine, but the transitional phase, because freshwater causes a convergence means that they’re clustered in a relatively small area compared to the ocean, making them easy prey for predators (they’re more predictable) and a predator would exploit this to the fullest. So actually it is a matter of game theory. Is it possible for a fish to move from oceans to fresh water through game theory? Someone suggested that all fresh water came from salinated water that slowly diffused with time from rain and allowed for slow adaptation… perhaps, but what about the dead sea? And what allows a fish to even adapt to something it didn’t come from in the first place? Try explaining that through evolution? Supposedly, we’re all common ancestors from salt going creatures. This means that the entire biochemistry of the creature had to change from a trait that didn’t exist. Unless it was a recessive trait from another world. You can’t create something from nothing.
Let’s ponder this idea… microorganisms landed on earth from comets from places where they had adapted to both conditions. The recessive trait triggered when they landed in fresh water from some of it’s species… and then you’re left with fresh water animals. The problem is that even though this should be a recessive trait, the dominant trait should be oceans… which means we’d have much stronger genetics for living around oceans than rivers or lakes… bringing salt inland as we began to colonize and being able to drink ocean water. Why can’t we make our own vitamin C anymore? Most animals can. What possible evolutionary occurance could there be, that has us eating vitamin C when we made our own? These are the types of questions evolution cannot answer sufficiently.
Life actually originated after both salt and fresh water became available from what I’ve read.
Thanks statiktech. Phon… you are a venomous one aren’t you?
I can’t make my argument that we were genetically engineered based on what I’ve seen here. That doesn’t mean we weren’t, I just can’t make it.
Of course I brought up the old Darwin paradox here in another form, actually I invented it from a motion paradox that puzzled me for years that i also invented: If a new trait emerges, it must have emerged from nothing at all, or already been in the gene pool as a recessive trait, which means it was never a new trait to begin with.
Well if we share similar DNA with other life on Earth, it’s likely a matter of genetic recombination, genetic switches, and mutations that largely determine new traits.
I now know why james is not entering the discussion…this thread is no longer providing any insight to the understanding of evolution…
Actually, my paradox is right up James’ alley, but he’s kinda pissed at me now. The paradox gets to the core of the theory of evolution, but it’s one of those existence core paradoxes, so somewhat broader, even though it can be stated in evolutionary terms. Read that paradox again and consider it deeply.
The point amount Zeno’s paradoxes of motion is that they are conceptual problems, but not problems in nature. They rest in the fact that people think in black and white; or what some call binary thinking. For the arrow problem for example people conceive of the arrow in flight in terms of integers of position. the the arrow it happily cotinues to mover regardless of the so-called “paradox”.
I suggest that this “Darwin paradox” only exists in your mind. A “trait” or behaviour is not to be conceive as a history zero proposition. There are no “new” traits without antecedent factors.
Imagine that you are an ape that sometimes forages on the ground when the trees have had all their fruit eaten by other primates.
One day that climate changes (as it always does), making your ground foraging more important. You are but one ape in thousands. some are better, and worse than you are ground foraging. In two or three generations only the ones that are best at this go on to have better ground foraging skills. As most of the surviving apes all have this skill they can only mate with ground foraging specialists, and so for many future generations this skill becomes better, because tree foraging is useless, and those with THAT skill are dead.
As you will have observed each new child is not an exact copy of its parents but has natural variation.
The reason all species show variation is because, like tree foraging example, naturally occurring variation has been advantageous. No species without this can survive, because the environmental conditions always vary, and statically genetic species have a disadvantage to all others that can adapt. With each new generation the “new” trait, is more common, as long as they do well and the trait gives them an advantage in their environment. Humans started to cut the trees for fuel. This was a route of no return, Other traits (they already had) such as co-operation helped them against predators. Arseholes who did not co-operate ending up inside lions. Thus the “new” traits of love and companionship were favoured. Due to natural variation, arseholes still appear in the gene pool, we call these people psychopaths, or politicians. Some of them go unnoticed and have children - others end up shot, or spouseless.
There are one or two species in which this variability is useless: sharks nailed the problem of survival 200 million years ago. Their adaptation is so good that they have managed to carry on with little change. But they are the exception - even they show variation and change
Did you go and read about lactase?
Who?