[extropy-chat] Re: intelligent design homework

[The Avantguardian]

--- Robert Lindauer <robgobblin at aol.com> wrote:

> I'm not an -expert-
> but having 
> experienced the same wolf/dog conversation with a
> biology professor at 
> UCLA (who shall remain nameless), I remain
> thoroughly unimpressed with 
> the non-existent evolutionary response to the
> speciation problem.

Well don't blame Darwin that your bio professor was
lame. Evolution DOES deal with the speciation problem.
Sexual selection or geographic isolation over millions
of years is sufficient to produce speciation. Since in
both cases there is no selection to favor reproductive
compatability between the diverging species. 

> The biological 
> textbooks WHERE they bother to explain the
> foundations of evolutionary 
> theory are at best controversial and at their worst
> actually 
> off-putting in their smugness.

Text books in general suck because they focus more on
making their material into "sound bites" that can
easily regurgitated on pop quizes and exams. Do me a
favor of reading two enjoyable books that are easily
accessable to the laymen, both available for free at
the public library. Darwin's "Origin of Species" and
Dawkin's "Selfish Gene". They have far more
explanatory power than any undregraduate text book. 

> Someone gave the dog/wolf
> example as an 
> example of "speciation" and I was trying to explain
> the difference 
> between morphology and phylogeny to the
> kindergartners over there.

Look I know the difference between phylogeny and
morphology. I was trying to give you an example of the
very same "trend" that gives rise to divergences of
species, i.e. speciation, that occurs within the span
of human history, as opposed to the "deep time" of
many millions of years that clearly lies outside of
human experience and intuition. You are correct in
that dogs and wolves are not different species. But
they are BECOMING different species, just give them a
few millions years.   

> 
> Theoretically, if you stuck the penis of a wolf into
> a chihuaua in heat 
> and the right conditions prevailed, you'd get this
> awesomely strong 
> tiny little bug-eyed furry dog.  Probably really
> mean.  On the other 
> hand, by no theory of which I'm aware, will you get
> a living organism 
> by trying to produce a tuna-shark by having a shark
> fertilize tuna eggs 
> or a leopard-lion by similar means.

Actually there probably are leopard-lions as there are
certainly lion-tigers (ligers) and tiger-lions
(tigons). For example and pictures see:
http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/liger.html

> 
> Indeed, this distinction, the difference between
> genetically compatible 
> and genetically incompatible groups which was
> formerly known as 
> "species" is one that has been apparently
> deliberately vaguarized by 
> evolutionary biologists over time by presenting to
> some people as 
> examples of speciation, the various kinds of dogs. 

The definition of species is not delibrately vague but
is so because it has had to be modified over the years
because of improved methods of genetic analysis,
molecular phylogeny, and the existense of hybrids such
as mules and ligers. Species themselves used to be
based on similarities of morphology during the
beginnings of taxonomy. Then after Darwin, species
came to mean reproductive compatability. Now it is
more like reproductive compatability that gives rise
to reproductively capable offspring. But even this is
contentious to some biologists. So how do you expect
evolutionary theory to give you a precise mechanism
for speciation when the biologists are not certain
EXACTLY what a species is? 
     The definition of species itself is somewhat
arbritrary in the same way that the border between the
US and Mexico is somewhat arbitrary. But that does not
mean that the US and Mexico are the same. Nor does it
mean that God created the US and Mexico. Of course
Bush might disagree with me on this point.
 

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

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