Scientifically Observed?

[Emilio Primo]

A rock rolls over an embankment and falls to the ground. Its trajectory is not random. You have not explained how I can tell if there was intent in how it travels, or where there is randomness.

 

Before that rock hits the ground and begins to roll, its trajectory is random, nobody has no way of determining exactly which course that rock will take. It is not until the rock hits the ground and begins it's descend that it's trajectory can be determined.

 

 

Yes. To show the weakness of your position. You can't support it without a circular definition.

 

The standard definition of intent is circular logic to you?

 

 

S-C-I-E-N-C-E

 

How so, when you are calling the standard definition(s) of a word not specific enough.

 

 

So now we're back to the previous semantics. One can see the fossils and get a date for the era from whence they came, as well as other information. Why don't you consider that to be "observed?"

 

No, this is not observed, that is evidence to back what you presume to be the case.

 

This is what I imply when I say observed:

 

ob·serve

 

1.

to see, watch, perceive, or notice: He observed the passersby in the street.

[Moontanman]

Before that rock hits the ground and begins to roll, its trajectory is random, nobody has no way of determining exactly which course that rock will take. It is not until the rock hits the ground and begins it's descend that it's trajectory can be determined.

 

 

 

 

The standard definition of intent is circular logic to you?

 

 

 

 

How so, when you are calling the standard definition(s) of a word not specific enough.

 

 

 

 

No, this is not observed, that is evidence to back what you presume to be the case.

 

This is what I imply when I say observed:

 

ob·serve

 

1.

to see, watch, perceive, or notice: He observed the passersby in the street.

 

 

None the less Emilio, by your own definition, speciation has been observed and examples of this observation have been given in this thread, you have chosen to ignore them for what ever reason....

[DJBruce]

How so, when you are calling the standard definition(s) of a word not specific enough.

 

In many cases in science the "standard" definition of a word is not precise enough. In science words tend to have very precise and specific meanings. For example, in everyday language acceleration is the speeding up of an object, however, this definition is insufficient for physics so acceleration is defined as the rate of change of velocity of an object. Science relies on its precision, so definitions are very important.

Edited August 23, 2010 by DJBruce

[Edtharan]

How to prove speciation by experiment:

 

First one has to establish that Evolution is a process, or more specifically an Algorithm.

 

This can be done by simple demonstration:

 

1) A computer is a machine that has been created to excecute algorithms (and even more specifically it is a Universal Turing Machine). So any process that runs of a computer is by definition an algorithm.

 

2) Evolution (even if all you think it is is micro evolution - whiuch you seem willing to accept) has been demonstrated to run on a computer (I have done it my self and the program needed to impliment it is not all that complex).

 

So by demonstration we can accept that Evolution is an algorithmic process.

 

Thing about Turing Machines is that for any given algorithm there exists a standard Turing Machine that can excecute that algorithm, and that any standard Turing Machine can be emulated by a Universal Turing Machine.

 

What this means is that a process that can be run on a Universal Turing Machine can be run on different hardware, so long as that hardware is set up to emulate (that is perform the same component functions) the processes needed for that algorithm.

 

Thus, all one has to do to show that life follows evolution is to demonstrate that living systems can run the algorithm for evolution. Also, that any system designed to run that same algorithm can be used to demonstrate the properties and outcomes of that process. So if we were to excecute the algorithm of evolution in some other system that conforms to the requierments of the needed turning machine, then the outcomes of that process, whatever the hardware it is implimented on, is a valid outcome for that process.

 

If this is a bit hard to follow, in brief: It is the process that matters, not the thing running that process.

 

...so long as this "thing" is capable of fully running that process of course.

 

That said I am going to propose a "hardware" on which you can run your own evolution algorithm: Drinking Straws (you will need a few of these), Scissors and You.

 

1) The set up is that you are going to have around 10 drinking straws to start with and cut them in half (precision does not matter and they can havae variations in length if you want). These are going to represent the "common ancestors".

 

2) Sort the straws into length.

 

3) Select the shortest straw (if you have more than one straw that is the shortest just randomly select one of them).

 

4) Select the longest straw (if you have more than one straw that is the shortest just randomly select one of them).

 

5) Select 2 straws at random from the rest and discard them.

 

6) Pick 2 new straws from the bag of straws

 

7) Flip a coin.

 

8) If the coin comes up heads then cut the first of the new straws to be slightly shorter than the shortest straw, if it is tails, cut the new straw to be slightly longer than the shortest straw.

 

9) Flip another coin.

 

10) If the coin comes up heads then cut the second of the new straws to be slightly shorter than the longest straw, if it is tails, cut the new straw to be slightly longer than the longest straw.

 

11) repeat from step 2

 

Now, what you will see from this experiment is that you will get a population of short straws and a population of long straws from a population of half length straws. This is speciation.

 

When a species is subject to two or more different and mutually exclusive pressures (in the case of the straws it is the pressures of a long or short straw) and the populations are distributes enough not to interact (I deliberately made the "straws" nont interact to replicate this aspect) then you will get the groups diverging in form (what many call micro evolution).

 

However, over time this divergence cause greater and greater differences, and because in many occasions these forces produce mutually exclusive adaptations (eg getting bigger or smaller) it is not advantagious for the groups to cross bread. This creates a new pressure of not being able to interbreed and when this happens we get specieation.

 

For a direct example:

 

There are advantages to having scally skin, it offers protection from injury (and predators). However feathers also have advantages in that they can hold in warmth, offer a more streamlined form and are lighter (offering greater maneuverability).

 

Feathers are just modified scales (as experiments on birds have attested to where they blocked the actions a few genes and were able to have birds that grew scales rather than feathers). But, these adaptations are mutually exclusive in that a scale can not be both a scale and a feather (but an organism can still have both on them as well as structures that are halfway between them).

 

So, organisms that favoured maneuverability over protection (say small, lightweight reptiles living in a heavily forested environment) that had feather like mutation of their scales would do better than those of their kind that retained their scales.

 

However, if the organisms didn't requier maneuverability (say the same species of reptile living in an open environment) but needed more protection, then those of that species would retain their scales and any that had the feather mutations would not have as good of protection and be at a disadvantage.

 

What we have is a situation where one would develop more and more feather like adaptations, and the other would retain the scale like mutations (and probably get bigger too).

 

Well, one would be considdered a Dinosaur, and the other would eventually be considdered a Bird.

 

Now, there is a real speciation event that we do have evidecne for. There are now quite a lot of fossils (with more being discovered each year) that show such organisms. There are dinosaurs that lived in forests and these got more and more bird like mutations (including feathers and eventual flight - once you have feathers, flight is a lot easier than with scales).

 

So is that a good enough speciation event for you, and remember, we demonstrated with that experiment that gradual changes can lead to two (or more) distinct variations where hybridising would be detrimental and thus quickly weeded out of the populations.

 

ALl this means is that if you are willing to accept that "Micro" evolution exists (and the whole algorithm thing is proof that it does), then you also have to accept that the result of micro evolution over a long period of time where mutually exclusive adapatations take place will lead to speciation (Macro Evolution).

[Sayonara]

How is there a third way? The entire chain process was started by you, regardless of you intended a certain outcome or not. Intent for an outcome was there, no matter IF the INTENDED outcome was achieved, there was still intent.

So when you say "intent", what you are really talking about is "not random".

 

IOW, you are perpetuating this discussion as if it's some interesting debate when in reality you are stating a tautology and masking it with incorrect terminology.

 

You really are the epic internet win, aren't you.

 

This farce is over.