Could this be Evidence of Evolution in Action?

[Nick 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6896753.stm

For those who may be confused the report was originally published in the Sience magazine and relates to work conducted at University College London.

Nick
Gravity- It's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!

[shropshire 0]

Halleluiah..... It's a miracle.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[jakee 1,489]

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6896753.stm

For those who may be confused the report was originally published in the Sience magazine and relates to work conducted at University College London.

But who told the flutterby to evolve?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[diverborg 0]

Incredible, only a few million more years and it will probably become some sort of squirrel.

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4196495

[pirana 0]

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Incredible, only a few million more years and it will probably become some sort of squirrel.

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4196495

Only if there are pressures to do so. Random mutations are mostly junk, but can "take" if there is an outside factor causing pressure and giving an advantage to an inheritable mutation.

Nice that they kind of mention it, but they should make it more clear that selection can take place quickly, evolution takes a much longer time.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[FallRate 0]

As I understand it, selection and evolution are intertwined. For something to simply evolve over time with no outside factors...that would be very interesting. Does that happen? If so, that will make for a wonderful day of pondering.

Random genetic mutations do occur, but that does not account for the evolution of a species. For those mutations to take hold, there must be some benefit derived from them.

FallRate

[jakee 1,489]

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For something to simply evolve over time with no outside factors...that would be very interesting. Does that happen?

No outside factors, you mean no natural selection?

If there were the absolute minimum of natural selection (a risk/ competition free environment in which every individual that lived to adulthood had an equal chance of breeding) a species would probably tend to become weaker and more deformed. There are far more unhelpful mutations than helpful ones.

As an aside, the thread title is rather misleading. Scientists no longer look for evidence 'for' evolution - that question was put to bed over a hundred years ago. What is happening now is pinning down exactly how and why it happens.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[dorbie 0]

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As I understand it, selection and evolution are intertwined. For something to simply evolve over time with no outside factors...that would be very interesting. Does that happen? If so, that will make for a wonderful day of pondering.

Random genetic mutations do occur, but that does not account for the evolution of a species. For those mutations to take hold, there must be some benefit derived from them.

FallRate

It's a dynamic system and there's never a situation where there is no environment. Even in the absence of environmental changes there are interrelationships that develop, even members of your own species form the environment you're in and other species are also your environment (like the bacillus in this story). Internal factors matter. Things do ultimately tend to a stable system until something shakes it up, but it's not a guarantee. You can have a stable environment and geography that lends itself to dynamic changes in the populations I think.

[dorbie 0]

P.S. this isn't the first example AFAIK. From memory, they've seen krill pigmentation alter through selection as a result of ozone depletion.

[kallend 2,027]

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P.S. this isn't the first example AFAIK. From memory, they've seen krill pigmentation alter through selection as a result of ozone depletion.

Moth pigmentation too, as a result of soot staining on the trees they frequent.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[pirana 0]

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As I understand it, selection and evolution are intertwined. For something to simply evolve over time with no outside factors...that would be very interesting. Does that happen? If so, that will make for a wonderful day of pondering.

Random genetic mutations do occur, but that does not account for the evolution of a species. For those mutations to take hold, there must be some benefit derived from them.

FallRate

I just meant that selection can occur without any evolution, or with evolution lagging far behind. My favorite example is Sagan's discussion of the crab carapace that looked like the face of a Samurai warrior.

But then that was selection against a trait by humans, maybe not seen as altogether "natural." But hey, humans are part of nature right?

Speaking of the discarding of mutations; why don't diseases that kill before reproductive age disappear? Is it because they can be carried by certain individuals without wreaking their havoc?

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Zenister 0]

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If there were the absolute minimum of natural selection (a risk/ competition free environment in which every individual that lived to adulthood had an equal chance of breeding) a species would probably tend to become weaker and more deformed. There are far more unhelpful mutations than helpful ones.

there is a school of thought that believes this is already happening to humanity. As we have largely removed 'natural selection' and allow 'defective individuals' to breed and continue to pass their 'defects' into the gene pool. In nature those individuals would be abandoned, or killed and so their 'defects' not passed on.

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[NCclimber 0]

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P.S. this isn't the first example AFAIK. From memory, they've seen krill pigmentation alter through selection as a result of ozone depletion.

Moth pigmentation too, as a result of soot staining on the trees they frequent.

So this is nothing more than Natural Selection?

[jakee 1,489]

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P.S. this isn't the first example AFAIK. From memory, they've seen krill pigmentation alter through selection as a result of ozone depletion.

Moth pigmentation too, as a result of soot staining on the trees they frequent.

So this is nothing more than Natural Selection?

What do you mean?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[NCclimber 0]

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P.S. this isn't the first example AFAIK. From memory, they've seen krill pigmentation alter through selection as a result of ozone depletion.

Moth pigmentation too, as a result of soot staining on the trees they frequent.

So this is nothing more than Natural Selection?

What do you mean?

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the process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less common.

BTW My point was about the introduction of moths into this thread.

[pajarito 0]

You can't lose money on every sale and expect to make it up on volume. Change happens all the time. That's not what's important. What "kind of change" is. This is not evidence of the kind of evolution they're after.

[jakee 1,489]

Pajarito ladies and gentlemen, who believes the entire animal kingdom evolved in 4000 years from the number of species that could fit on a wooden boat and yet..... doesn't believe in evolution.


Figure that one out.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[dorbie 0]

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You can't lose money on every sale and expect to make it up on volume. Change happens all the time. That's not what's important. What "kind of change" is. This is not evidence of the kind of evolution they're after.

That is just a denialist rejection of yet more evidence in support of evolution.

Here we have a small change that was random but because the benefit was significant it was strongly selected for and it rapidly swept through a population. That is just what evolution and the theory of natural selection predicts.

[jakee 1,489]

I'm just wondering what your point is in saying "nothing more than" selection. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[NCclimber 0]

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I'm just wondering what your point is in saying "nothing more than" selection. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

Just making a distinction between microevolution (which I wholeheartedly accept) and macroevolution (which I'm not as certain about).

The story of the Peppered Moths is a great example of microevolution, but (IMO) not a great example of Evolution.

[dorbie 0]

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I'm just wondering what your point is in saying "nothing more than" selection. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

Just making a distinction between microevolution (which I wholeheartedly accept) and macroevolution (which I'm not as certain about).

The story of the Peppered Moths is a great example of microevolution, but (IMO) not a great example of Evolution.

Well if the mountains of fossil evidence does not persuade you and you lack the imagination to extrapolate or understand this event then wait a million years or so and get back to us.

Micro & macro meh, what tosh.

[jakee 1,489]

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I'm just wondering what your point is in saying "nothing more than" selection. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

Just making a distinction between microevolution (which I wholeheartedly accept) and macroevolution (which I'm not as certain about).

The story of the Peppered Moths is a great example of microevolution, but (IMO) not a great example of Evolution.

I thought that might have been it.

In that case saying "just selection" is analogous to saying War and Peace is "just letters." It is, but it is thousands and thousands of letters, one after the other, each building on what has gone before it.

There is no meaningful distinction between micro and macro evolution. Ok, you can demarcate the point where two branches of a species can no longer interbreed, but nothing special happens to either subspecies at that point, it's just one more tiny step along the road.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Royd 0]

Moth pigmentation too, as a result of soot staining on the trees they frequent.

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So this is nothing more than Natural Selection?

It was probably nothing more than light colored moths landing on soot covered trees. The same thing happens to my white shepherd after lying under my leaky assed '91 diesel.

[NCclimber 0]

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Well if the mountains of fossil evidence does not persuade you and you lack the imagination to extrapolate or understand this event then wait a million years or so and get back to us.

Micro & macro meh, what tosh.

Funny how these "Evolution" discussions quickly go downhill. Seems like a bit of zealotry drives both sides of the road.


Jakee,
Thanks for your civil reply.

[jakee 1,489]

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Jakee,
Thanks for your civil reply. [Wink]

Science has a calming effect on me.

However, I can understand dorbie's frustration. In fact, the state of the "debate" between evolution and pseudo-science in the minds of the American public is a constant source of bemusement to me. In pretty much every other 1st world nation the debate simply does not exist, as it does not exist in the scientific world. Evolution happens, just as gravity, a heliocentric solar system, relativity and various other scientific theories do happen.

It is a credit to the PR departments of the various ID and creationism groups that they get anyone at all to take them seriously. Their 'science' departments have certainly never produced anything worth glancing at twice.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?