... another shark appears, begging to be jumped.
One of Ray Comfort's favorite examples of the invalidity of evolution (besides the banana) is sex. A while back Comfort objected to
critical remarks about his book by PZ Myers.
Comfort is quoted as saying"Let's go back even further (100 million years ago) to pre-pre-elephants that also contained males and females. At what point of time in evolutionary history did the female evolve alongside the male? And why did she evolve? Then explain, if you would professor, why horses, giraffes, cattle, zebras, leopards, primates, antelopes, pigs, dogs, sheep, fish, goats, mice, squirrels, whales, chickens, dinosaurs, beavers, cats, human beings and rats also evolved with a female, at some point of time in evolutionary history. Professor, I know you believe, but please, give us who are healthy skeptics some empirical evidence. Remember, stupid people like me want good hard evidence before we, like you, become believers in Darwin's theory," Comfort said.
In other words, if evolution is true who were Cain and Abel canoodling with? Erm, sorry about that. Wrong story line. PZ then smacked Ray around in more detail
here. Comfort's remarks are at the level of the old creationist question, "If we evolved from monkeys how come there are still monkeys?"
However, intelligent design, we are told, is not creationism and is a much more sophisticated and 'scientific' enterprise. Or is it? On Uncommonly Dense, William Dembski's group blog,
we find this gem in a post by "niwrad"::
It is unimaginable that reproduction and genitals arose by Darwinian evolution (that is for random mutations and natural selection). First, as a matter of principle: evolution needs reproduction; without reproduction no evolution. Therefore how can reproduction be the effect of evolution if evolution is an effect of reproduction? It's an impossible causality inversion. Second, for a technical reason: how could the male organs arise independently from the female organs given the cCSI they share? In fact the Darwinian processes work in the single individual. They are blind and unaware of the processes running in other individuals. Random mutations that happen in a genome have nothing to do with the mutations in another one.
".... Darwinian processes work in the single individual"? It's hard to conceive of the level of ignorance necessary to make the argument in that post. Apparently the notion of "coevolution" is foreign to the UD poster. But then, it only yields
186,000 hits on Google Scholar.
It's fun to see UD in bed with Ray Comfort. Somehow I think they were made for each other. And I don't think it was coevolution: It's a straight lineage, ancestor to descendant.
59 Comments
Wayne Robinson · 30 August 2009
I was bemused a few months ago with an item claiming that a certain fish fossil showed the first sign of sex (I was under the impression that sexual reproduction existed for at least hundreds of million years before then) until I realised that what was meant was internal fertilisation. There are many ways of achieving sexual reproduction, including male and female corals just simply releasing their gametes into the ocean at the same time.
robert van bakel · 30 August 2009
Jesus Ray, what about all those hermaphrodite animals, worms and such; where do they fit in to your absurd world. Oh yeah and the sterile mule offspring of a horse and donkey, what was god thinking there?
John Wilkins · 30 August 2009
They're kissing cousins, I think...
Bob O'H · 30 August 2009
UD is definitely moving towards explicit creationism: I guess Barry Arrington doesn't worry about making the distinction between the two any more.
(the distinction being one of appearance, rather than substance BTW)
robert van bakel · 30 August 2009
OMg, just found out by wiki that Comfort is an NZer, damn!
I would like to apologize to all PTers for this, and I would just like to let you know that our church attendance is marvellously low, and that our schools are religiously a-religious: Cheers:)
slang · 30 August 2009
Chicken! No, egg! Umm, no, wait.. chicken! Hang on.. hehe, almost caught me... egg of course! Who laid.. what? Oh.. chicken! No, that can't be right. Egg! Boy, this biology stuff sure is complicated! What does the bible say?
rossum · 30 August 2009
DS · 30 August 2009
Once again, true to form, creationists absolutely ignore any and all comparative evidence.
Reproduction is a primary charcteristic of all life forms, it evolved with the first living things. Sexual reproduction is as old as bacteria since, in one form or another, they possess many pseudo sexual processes. Sexual dimorphism and the evolution of mating types is as old as protists. Gametes and fertilization are at least as old as animals, with many different types of external and internal fertilization and anisogamy is almost as old. This "which came first the egg or the sperm" routine is getting pretty tired.
And of course, let's not forget that the main advantage of sex is to increase the genetic variation on which natural selection can act. I wonder how creationists explain the very existence of sexual reproduction at all? Oh well, if you are going to ignore all of zoology and comparative biology, you might as well ignore all of genetics and evolutionary biology as well.
Paul Burnett · 30 August 2009
DS · 30 August 2009
niwrad wrote:
"In fact the Darwinian processes work in the single individual. They are blind and unaware of the processes running in other individuals. Random mutations that happen in a genome have nothing to do with the mutations in another one."
Um, the topic was sexual reproduction remember. Are you saying that no individual can pass on genes to any other individuals? Are you saying that genes cannot be passed from male to female or female to male? Are you saying that mutations that occur in two different individuals cannot be combined into a single individual?
Are you saying that individuals evolve and not populations? Are you saying that if they were "aware" of the "processes running in other individuals" that they could choose to evolve in a certain way?
Man, these guys find whole new fields of biology to ignore every day, it must be exhausting. It's unimaginable that anyone could be so ignorant.
Scott · 30 August 2009
DS: I think that is exactly what they are doing. Remember, to them "evolution" is not the slow accumulation of very small changes passed from one generation to the next over long periods of time. If they even bother to acknowledge the possibility (as opposed to the notion of a species being "fixed for all time"), that's what they would describe as "micro-evolution". To them, "evolution" (in the sense of a speciation "event") is massive (dare I say "miraculous") changes occurring within a single individual within their lifetime, so that a dog gives birth to a cat. It is "obvious" to them that the first cat-from-dog had to be one of the two cat-from-dog sexes (and God made "man" first, so it's "obviously" the male cat-from-dog). Then, "obviously" the first cat-from-dog would need another cat-from-dog of the opposite sex in order to continue the new species. No second miracle, and the poor lonely cat-from-dog dies without continuing his species. Remember, this is exactly what the Bible says happened in the Garden: miracle : man : lonely : second miracle : woman : new-species. I think this is where they have that mental block between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. In their minds, the two are just completely different classes of events.
Scott · 30 August 2009
More to the point, we see in today's media examples of isolated cat-from-dog all the time. Well, sort of. :-) There are pictures of two headed snakes and six legged frogs all the time. There was one of those medical miracle TV shows earlier this year about a two-headed girl, and how she was succeeding in life and baseball, despite the odds against her. Here was a concrete example of massive morphological change in a single generation. I.E., "macro-evolution". Obviously for there to be a viable species of two-headed humans, this young girl would have to find a contemporaneous two-headed boy with whom to mate. No, mate? Then, no two-headed-human species. And if even that "minor" morphological change is way too implausible, then cat-from-dog is obviously impossible. Therefore, God.
At least, this certainly seems to be the creationist's misunderstanding of what "macro-evolution" is.
RBH · 30 August 2009
DS · 30 August 2009
Scott,
You are probably right. However, no sane person would believe that evolution could work that way. Why on earth would someone misrepresent the real science so badly? And if they really are that ignorant of modern evolutionary theory, why do they think that they know better than the experts? Why can't they at least try to educate themselves before displaying their ignorance?
The argument "I'm too lazy to learn anything" isn't going to convince anyone who isn't equally lazy. This is comparable with arguing that the tooth fairy must exist since the Bible clearly states an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, so a quarter for a tooth seems reasonable as well!
Stanton · 30 August 2009
Wheels · 30 August 2009
Does it strike anyone that "niwra[D]" is probably a Poe?
DS · 30 August 2009
Wheels,
Let's hope so. Otherwise his mama will have to have a talk with him about the birds anfd the bees and phylogenetics.
Scott · 30 August 2009
RBH · 30 August 2009
afarensis, FCD · 30 August 2009
DS · 30 August 2009
aferensis,
It's even worse that that. One of the most important advantages of sexual reproduction is exactly what this guy is denying, the ability to combine mutations occuring in two different individuals into one genome. So his argument basically boils down to, if sex doesn't do what it actually does, how could it evolve? Brilliant!
Henry J · 30 August 2009
Henry J · 30 August 2009
DS · 31 August 2009
Henry wrote:
"Aren’t there species today that possess more than one mechanism of reproduction?"
Of course. Cyclic parthenogenesis is just one example. Many parasites and plants have both asexual and sexual types of reproduction as well. As I mentioned, you have to ignore almost every living thing to make such a nonsensical argument. But then again, what can you expect form someone who thinks that there are only one thousand species that are only 6000 years old?
JimNorth · 31 August 2009
From now on the answer to that eternal question should be "The Chickegg". It kills two birds with one stone, sort of...
Randy · 31 August 2009
I was glad to see this pop up again. I thought Ray the Banana Man got an epic spanking by PZ with his 'where did girls come from then.. huh!?!? huh!?!?' stupidity. PZ's answer was so good (I learned a ton from it and I suspect most without a formal science background could agree with me there) that whatever shred of intellectual compassion I had for Comfort evaporated. If he (Ray) actually read that answer and did not apologize profusely for even asking the question, that makes him either an idiot or just another liar for Jesus. Not a lot of middle ground.
veritas36 · 31 August 2009
Everybody know males and females are separate species!
-- ask any woman --
veritas36 · 31 August 2009
I found a female dragonfly waiting on a male, hoping to see the mating. A male came, but I couldn't follow their flight.
Explain how this came to evolve:
http://www.e-picworld.com/2009/06/dragonfly-mating.html
bob · 31 August 2009
mharri · 31 August 2009
DS · 31 August 2009
veritas36 wrote:
"Explain how this came to evolve:"
Actually that one is fairly easy. Dragonflies generally mate in flight, probably to avoid predation. The male genitalia are modified into claspers in order to grip the female securely behind the head in order to remain coupled in flight. This is a fairly straight forward modification with obvious adaptive significance. The male genitalia are thus not used to transfer sperm to the female, instead the male transfers the sperm to a special sperm storage structure in the thorax. The female then transfers the sperm from the sperm storage structure using her genitalia. There is most likely an adaptive significance to this type of mating, however this organ is unique in the insect world.
I'm sure thee are lots of studies on exactly how such a system could evolve, if you are interested in that pathetic level of detail. Suffice it to say that it is just one of the many unique and facinating variations on a theme that makes the world of insects so remarkable and so enjoyable to study.
DS · 31 August 2009
Oops, the sperm storage device is actually located on the underside of the second and third abdominal segments. My bad.
Wheels · 31 August 2009
Frank J · 1 September 2009
MememicBottleneck · 1 September 2009
MememicBottleneck · 1 September 2009
The link in the above post terminated at the apostrophe. You'll need to copy and paste it you you don't know what a Motie is.
replica jersey · 1 September 2009
haha,you guys are very cute
ugg shoes · 1 September 2009
sounds interesting
arachnophilia · 1 September 2009
AL · 2 September 2009
raven · 2 September 2009
Sex defined as genetic exchange is very old, predating the eukaryotes. Prokaryotes have a variety of methods of genetic exchange, plasmid mediated conjugation with "males" and "females", transformation by naked DNA, and phage mediated transduction. One can do all three with E. coli.
The reason for sex is thought to be to facilitate evolution by reassorting alleles. The other reason is to escape Mueller's ratchet. By exchanging genes, they can keep deleterious mutations from accumulating.
Few organisms are exclusively parthenogenic and they are thought to be dead ends. The Bdelloid rotifers were thought to be asexual. Recently by sequencing it has been shown that they do exchange genes by a weird way.
The big innovations of the eukaryotes were the diploid genome and meiosis.
Toidel Mahoney · 2 September 2009
Even if one believes that random chance created males & females, doesn't thinking about the teleological meaning of sexual organs (reproduction) undermine the religion of evolutionism? Evolutionism teaches that teleology doesn't exist so that the mouth, anus or any hole in the wall is a proper sex organ. I wonder if PZ Myers or any other evolutionist could tell me a species that reproduced itself using the kind of sexuality found in prisons, San Francisco bathhouses, or other evolutionist meeting places.
eja · 2 September 2009
Toidel Mahoney, are you for real?
Cheryl W. · 2 September 2009
Toidel Mahoney, the way you confuse pleasure with reproduction--well, I'd hate to see you try to eat a bar of chocolate.
And if evolution is a religion then scientists all need to stop paying taxes.
Eja: I know what you mean. Trolls are considered to be fictional beings.
Stephen Wells · 2 September 2009
In a desperate attempt to get some science benefit out of this thread :) is it valid to say that the male/female distinction is in a sense a within-species partition between an r-strategy (males produce very large numbers of gametes investing minimally in the development of each one) and a K-strategy (females produce relatively fewer, larger, egg cells, each of which gets much more resources than an individual sperm cell does)? Or is this not a helpful way of looking at it?
Creationists can go look up r/K strategy for themselves, while the adults are talking.
Frank J · 2 September 2009
Dan · 2 September 2009
Toidel Mahoney · 2 September 2009
Stanton · 2 September 2009
Stanton · 2 September 2009
Frank J · 2 September 2009
DS · 2 September 2009
Raven,
Got a reference for that rotifer study? I would be very interested.
Stephen,
R and K selection have very specific meanings in ecology and refer to reproduction not production of gametes. Gamete production strategies are analogous but not identical to R and K selection. I prefer to think of it as a quanitiative and a qualitative strategies which are advantageous once anisomgamy has evolved.
Toidel,
Go somewhere else to display your homophobia. No one here cares.
Dan · 2 September 2009
AL · 2 September 2009
Frank J · 2 September 2009
raven · 2 September 2009
raven · 2 September 2009
IANArotiferologist, but this subject might make a good PT post. The Bdelloids have always been a mystery.
The theory for Bdelloid rotifers is that they readily incorporate any DNA floating around in their environment.
This is because they can survive total dessication which fragments their genome. When they rehydrate, they have to stitch their genome back together and fast or die. So apparently any foreign DNA gets incorporated and some of this foreign DNA could be from other rotifers.
Doesn't look like an efficient process. But with billions of rotifers and millions of years, seems to be enough. The Bdelloids have been evolutionarily diversifying without conventional sex.
FWIW, eukaryotic sex is expensive. Half the population doesn't have children just runs around trying to (ahem) initiate reproductive contacts with the other half that does. The advantages seem to ouweigh a 50% hit in reproductive potential.
DS · 2 September 2009
Thanks Raven.
Marion Delgado · 12 September 2009
I think Toidel Mahoney is going to turn out to be somethng like pòg mo thòn/póg mo thón (Gaelic for kiss my ass). And hence, a Poe.