Comments: Species Demarcation.

Kay asks:
Explain this for me if you will. The other day I saw a post from a creationist stating that the Theory of Evolution has to have some fault in it because there is no interbreeding of species. How in layman's terms did the first humans evolve from apes and then proceed to separate themselves from the apes? At what point did breeding with apes stop by humans?

That's not the theory of evolution. That's a question of taxonomy and demarcation. It's a real problem, but mostly with the way we typically think about such things, as oppose to the reality of evolution. Evolution doesn't directly deal with speciation, or how far is far enough to say that one species stops and another species starts. That's like asking where childhood ends and adulthood begins. There's just not a clear point.

Evolution says that the struggle for existence and nature selecting such that the most advantaged individuals have the most children who are similarly advantaged. This ensures that species tend to adapt better to whatever niche (way of living, food etc) they occupy. Evolution says that species adapt to changing conditions of life, and can result in amazing adaptations and solutions to environmental problems. This is all evolution says. Things go forward. But since they go forward in different ways, they also tend to drift apart.

Where the species fork, and part irrevocably is a matter of happenstance and saying how far is far enough, and what a species is, turns out to be a harder problem than one would suppose because gene pools in populations do not adhere to the sort of Platonic ideals. There is no perfect human. There's no absolute ape. There's no abstract rabbit to which all rabbitness is to be compared. That's just not the way it works.

If you go child, to mother, to grandmother, to great grandmother, and so forth and go back 350,000 generations, you'll never hit a point where a child was a different species than it's mother. It just doesn't happen. However, if you do this, with me and you do this with Oliver the Chimpanzee you'll end up at the same critter. My 350,000th grandmother is likely the same as his 350,000th grandmother. And at no point were any of my ancestors a different species than their direct offspring. And at no point were any of his ancestors a different species than their direct offspring. But, at some point, at some time, you could draw a line and say that these distant cousins are now two different species. But, that line would always be arbitrary.

We think there's some absolute human, that somehow adheres to a Platonic ideal of humanness. But, really that's not how things work. I mean, would one consider Neandertals a different species than human beings? They broke off the main human lines some 600,000 years ago. But, it turns out that modern humans interbred with them, and anybody with European ancestry is like 3% Neandertal. So are they really human? Were they always human? The Denisova hominims broke off of the Neandertal stock, and share a common ancestry with homo sapiens some 600,000 years ago too. But, they too interbred with humans in modern Melanesians (people in Oceania, like Vanatu where you get black-skinned kids with blond hair likely due to such influence). And apparently Denisova also from time to time (if a newly found toe bone is to be believed) bred with their closer cousins the Neandertals. So were any of these really different species? Under different definitions there are different answers, because the term species is absolute and evolution is gradual and progressive.

Species in some sense are a sort of hind sight thing. It is certain that at one time all of the rodents and all of the lagomorphs (rabbits, hares, pikas) had a last common ancestor (which DNA analysis suggests lived ~90.1 million years ago). This last common ancestor had at least two offspring. One of which gave rise to all the mice, rats, capybara, beavers, squirrels, porcupines, etc, and the other which gave rise to every rabbit, hare, and pika. Somewhere along the line, you can draw a line, but it would an arbitrary line. And is somewhat irrelevant to the actual history that actually happened with regard to their populations. And more and more this is what we're finding. Taxonomy is largely what we tend to call things, we give populations names. But they aren't that exact thing, there is no exact thing. They gradually change all the time.

This is largely why more and more we're trying to move away from such things. Replacing the typical system of taxonomy with a nested hierarchy so we can say that this last common ancestor of rodents and lagomorphs was a glires and so are all of its offspring. But, this ancestor doesn't necessarily fit into any of the subgroups of it's progeny.

So if for example in the distant future, many animals have died off, and bats have diversified to take over their now open niches. Let's say there are bats that swarm during the day, bats that swim under the ocean, bats the size of mosquitoes that suck blood from bats that that graze in the fields. All of these bats would be different species, but they would never stop being bats. There would be more groups inside the old groups, but the old groups, which would be the species we currently know, wouldn't stop being real. Perhaps the bats under the ocean and the bats that graze in the fields, and the ones that burrow into trees to hunt for insects, would all be fruit bats. So fruit bats wouldn't be a species but rather a group of distinct species (to some extent they are as there's many species of fruit bats), just as the glires are a group that gave rise to every rabbit and rodent on the planet.

Which is a long way around to the question you initially asked. Largely this creationist is confused as to what evolution says and what problems are really problems for the theory. The problem here is with our old ideas of taxonomy and what species are. This isn't a problem for evolution. Reality is what reality is. Our taxonomy needs to fit with reality rather than our general beliefs about names and putting things in boxes (Platonic ideals). It's all gradual, and there are no absolute lines, and we know this because we know evolution. It isn't that there's flaws in evolution, it's that there are flaws in the way we think about biology and evolution lays these errors out for us.

How in layman's terms did the first humans evolve from apes and then proceed to separate themselves from the apes?

It doesn't work like that. We didn't separate ourselves from the apes.  At some point some of our ancestors took different paths than their siblings. One brother went one way, and the other brother went the other way, and they never got back together. And these ancestors of ours were apes, so we are apes. We don't ever stop being apes. Populations split and divide. The group that gave rise to the orangutans went one way and the group that gave rise to the gorillas/humans/chimps/bonobos went another and didn't get back together. Then the group that gave rise to the mountain and lowland gorillas went one way and the group that gave rise to the humans/chimps/bonobos went the other, and didn't get back together. And the group that gave rise to humans went one way and chimps/bonobos went the other. And then the chimps went one way and the bonobos went the other. There isn't some set in stone principle that says this is X and it perfectly exemplifies Xness. There are populations and they divide. Sometimes they get back together and sometimes they don't. When things started, they were no different than one brother is from another brother, in fact, necessarily you could find a set of siblings that gave rise to every divided group. You could find a pair of siblings where one gave rise to all the reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds, and the other to all the mammals.

At what point did breeding with apes stop by humans?

 There's no absolute lines there. Humans are apes. And humans breed with humans. So in a very real sense humans still breed with apes (namely humans). But, looking back to our last common ancestor with chimpanzees (our closest relatives), and it may well be that humans might still be able to breed with them! It's not impossible for lions and tigers to breed or horses and donkeys. They produce offspring, and it might well be possible to have human-chimp hybrids. We just don't try it. So at one point did the ancestors of all humans and the ancestors of all chimpanzees stop breeding? -- They stopped breeding when they stopped. Seemingly about 7.8 million years ago or so.

There are some humans in some distant parts of the rain forest who do not know civilization. The large interbreeding population of humans haven't bred with them since we stopped breeding with them. If for some reason we never started back up, eventually we couldn't and we may well end up with two species of humans, such as the Morlocks and the Eloy (from H.G. Well's the Time Machine). It all depends on when the populations stop and happen to stay stopped.

So how did we separate from the other groups of apes. We went one way, and the other group went another. At what point did we stop breeding with them? We didn't breed with them anymore, when we didn't breed with them anymore.

The actual answers seem sort of anticlimactic, and they are. But, mostly because the problems are with our understanding and not evolutionary theory. We tend to see species as these distinct things which fit into these specific boxes. But, that's not what they are. They are siblings and a few million years of isolation. If you want to draw a line, at some point and say your 30,000th cousin is no longer the same species, you can, but realize that it's an arbitrary line, and our 30,000ths cousins the Neandertals bred with us just fine.
You could go further back, but it's still all just where you draw the line and that has nothing to do with evolution, that has to do with you and your line.

" The other day I saw a post from a creationist stating that the Theory of Evolution has to have some fault in it because there is no interbreeding of species."

No. There's a problem there but it's our idea of species that has the fault, not the theory of evolution.

Was part of the Book of Mormon stolen from Halmet?

In a post I made several years ago about problems with the To be or not to be speech in Hamlet also sharing the same problem in the Book of Mormon which cribs the line "from whence no traveler returns" in an attempt to sound Bibley. In Hamlet we are met with the odd problem that Hamlet talked to his father ghost and king specter earlier and so the line seems out of place, whereas within theology the line in the Book of Mormon seems odd considering the supposed resurrection of Jesus. Well it turns out several months ago I got a comment about the post from Brandon:

Not really...

You see, in a long speech like the one in Hamlet, the one part that is said to be plagiarized from Shakespeare has 3 words in common, "no", "traveler" and "return". True that the ideas are similar, but the speeches are very different.

Shakespeare said: "To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Lehi Said: "O that ye would awake; awake from a deep asleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal dgulf of misery and woe.
14 Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more ddays and I go the eway of all the earth.
15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the carms of his love.
16 And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statutes and the judgments of the Lord; behold, this hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning."

The messages are different. Shakespeare speaks of the uncertainty of death. Lehi knows where he is going, but knows where his 2 elder sons may be headed as well, therefore he drives it into them that he will be gone soon, and not return within their lifetime. Read the rest of the Book of Mormon and try to prove that Joseph Smith didn't believe in the resurrection.

Also, before we start playing the plagiarism card, take a look at the epic of Gilgamesh, and the story of Noah, then look at Hammurabbi's Code then read the law of Moses.

It is not my personal opinion that bible was stolen from these sources, but there is a better case for that than what you are claiming here, and a lot more people pushing that concept.

Yes really. The turn of phrase "whence no traveler returns" is Shakespeare and well known Shakespeare and as people really did travel around like Duke and King in Huckleberry Finn and give terrible renditions of Shakespeare.

It really isn't far fetched that Joseph Smith when writing the Book of Mormon would try and sound fancy and include that. After all he wrote the whole damned thing in 16th century English (which fades in places) while "translating" from Egyptian plates to what should have been modern English. If nobody returns from the grave, that's problem for Hamlet and for Mormonism. And more generally yes he stole it.

As for your latter claim, I freely concede that there are more obvious copying in parts of the Bible proper. It is quite clear that the Epic of Gilgamesh is very much the story from which Noah's story was copied. There are a lot of similarities between the Jewish law code and the code of Hammerapi (nothing word for word but the two are cut from the same cloth). And yeah, the legend of Sargon birth is pretty much exactly the legend of Moses' birth. And let's not forget that Luke and Matthew are pretty clearly copied from Mark.

Just because other things are copied too and the cases for those things may be better that doesn't mean other copying doesn't exist. And so it came to pass... Smith borrowed from Shakespeare while trying to sound all Bibley.

I can haz crazy comment/ad?

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Careful observers will note... there's no such thing as biblical phenomena. There's some apologetics which require the laws of physics change to fit a fictional story but no actual phenomena.

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The truth has advanced to the point where lies are unpalatable, more lies and better lies will not level the playing field between truth and lies.

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The unprofitable Darwinian view? Evolution by natural selection has profited me much, as I exist today and could ask for no greater reward to be granted by the mindlessness of nature and physics. Thank you though, happenstances of reality, truly thank you. I'm going to guess that this differs from his view because his view is very profitable... more so if you buy all seven of his books.

The backbone of Darwinism is not biological evolution per se,

No. The backbone of Darwin's insight was to understand the process which gave rise to biological evolution was the same process that gave rise to different breeds of dogs by dog breeders could also, in the course of nature, give rise to subtle advances in species and given enough time have given rise to all species. There is no "per se" about it. Rather than dog, horse, and sheep breeders pushing a species to become what the human breeders wanted the same process could by sheer happenstance produce a species best adapted to deal with sheer happenstance.

but electronic interpretation, the tenet that all physical, chemical, and biological processes result from a change in the electron structure of the atom which, in turn, may be deciphered through the orderly application of mathematics, as outlined in quantum mechanics.

WOOOOOOO!!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!! ALL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN!!!! Result from a change in the electron structure of the atom? There are no electrons in atoms. There are protons which are neutrons and and positron (antimatter electron) and neutrons which are composed of 3 quarks (one up, two down) spinning around really fast (the spinning gives them mass by E=MC^2). You may not understand what I've said. I could tell you it is verifiable and understood by science and physics and it is. However, similarly this guy says the same thing and he's wrong. The point you should take away from this is that, the failure to understand does not give you permission to board the crazy train. If you don't get something, don't believe it, but be open to me bombarding you with evidence.

The orderly application of mathematics does not outline quantum mechanics or anything about tenet that all physical, chemical, or biological process result from a change dealing with electrons. Further, evolution has nothing to do with this.

A few of the supporting theories are: degrading stars, neutron stars, black holes, extraterrestrial water, antimatter, the absolute dating systems, and the big bang,

Um. Those are theories which are themselves supported by the evidence and are part of cosmology. Theories don't support facts, it goes the other way around, the facts support the theory. We understand that stars have life cycles because stars have lifecyles, we understand that there is water outside of Earth because water is a simple molecule and we've found water on a number of different planets. The theory of antimatter was actually proposed before we found evidence of antimatter based on Newton's third law and the renaissance of particles being found, but lived or died with the evidence.

The philosophy rejects any divine intervention. Therefore, let the philosophy of Darwinism be judged on these specifics: electron interpretation and quantum mechanics.

Philosophy doesn't reject divine actions nor does science. Philosophy just doesn't seem to find any of it logically sound and science tests its ideas against reality and reality doesn't seem fond of supernatural explanations (perhaps by definition).

Conversely, the view that God is both responsible for and rules all the phenomena of the universe will stand or fall when the facts are applied.

The facts have been applied time and again. It doesn't end well... Sire, je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse.

The view will not hinge on faith alone, but will be tested by the weightier principle of verifiable truths – the new discipline.

Well if it doesn't rest on faith and certainly not on evidence (the sciences have cornered that market) what else is there?

(stupid ad) is not only better at explaining natural phenomena, but also may be verified through testing. As a consequence, the material in the several volumes will not violate the so-called constitutional separation of church and state.

I also believe in something called the philosophical separation between stupid and brain. Which prevents me from buying this set of books or even looking into more information about it.

Physical science, the old science of cause and effect, will have a long-term sustainability, replacing irresponsible doctrines based on whim. Teachers and students will rejoice in the simplicity of earthly phenomena when entertained by the new discipline.

Unlike those hard unstable sciences of chemistry and geology and biology which just flip on a whim.

(retarded name) is not only an academic resource designed for the public schools, but also contains a wealth of information on pertinent subjects that seminarians need to know to be effective: geology, biology, geography, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology, and in-depth Biblical studies. The nuggets from the pages of Biblical history alone will give seminarians literally hundreds of fresh ideas for sermons and teachings.

Public schools don't need sermons. Nor is there really anything which is reasonably biblical history. In fact, I'm pretty skeptical of most biblical scholarship in general. There are some nuggets of truth and some interesting theories but largely it's overwhelmed by apologetics. Further, I doubt that you *need* to know geology, biology, geography, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology and especially Biblical studies to be effective. I like knowing such things, but it really depends on what you're going to do. So long as you don't ask that your ignorance be taken in higher regard to non-ignorance, you can go around knowing practically nothing for all I care.

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Shit! These books are going to give you aids! I assume they mean 'aides' but "ministry" places are the ones telling Africans to avoid condoms even when having sex with HIV infected people. You can never be too careful (you actually can).

I am amazed at the stupid floating around, and not remotely impressed when it asks for money.

Comments about global warming.

The argument that because no other single theory hat explains the recent global temperature increase has found widespread accpetance in the scientific community means that anthropogenic global warming is true does not appear to follow scientific logical deduction to me.

The actual note isn't that no other single theory has found acceptance rather it's saying that there is global warming brought on by polluting the atmosphere with heat trapping gases which fully explains the warming being experienced, whereas no other alternative theories exist. The point isn't that other theories don't work therefore let's default to this. Rather greenhouse pollution explains the global warming and nothing else provides so much as a plausible mechanism.

All this appears to mean is that the mechanisms for global and regional climate change are poorly understood by our current science. Without arbitrary assumptions and deletions of significant but poorly understood factors of the climate, AGW does not come close to matching the data we do have.

To the contrary, the data fits amazingly well and if there's any shortcomings it's in predicting the secondary amplification effects. Our direst guesses have thus far been naive in underestimating the effects.

Scients are equally impaired in explaining past global climate changes other than the apparent general consensus that they were natural instead of anthropogenic. It appears that science just doesn't understand enough to be really sure what has caused any global climate changes either now or in the past.

Nothing about ignorance somewhere demands ignorance anywhere. By physics we know that CO2 is going to trap heat, we are releasing a massive amount crushing the previous records and putting it well above 300ppm. This should trap a large amount of heat. The entire planet is getting warmer. -- We have a simple easy to understand mechanism which fully explains what we are seeing and we have no other scientifically accepted theory which comes close. So, what should we conclude? One fully explains what we are seeing and nothing else does. Sure, there could be a something else, but doesn't that mean we're wrong on the basic physics part of greenhouse effect?

Previous heating events were way WAY slower. They were on the order of thousands of years rather than a decade, a decade we just happened to put massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Also, it's not like this science is newly minted, it's been well understood for decades.



A 1958 film on the question. 6 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide! -- I wish.