Evolution Theory

[Guest guest]

While going back a few years, I'd recommend two volumes by the late Columbia

University cultural historian, Jacques Barzun: Darwin, Marx, and Wagner, and

his ever refreshingly delightful " Science: The Glorious Entertainment. "

Barzun, being culturally literate, was not bewitched by the culture of

modernity and scientism.

I'm certainly glad Mel imposes regular discipline and rigor on claims of new

truths. Argumentation from instance to generalization has been a logical

fallacy at least since Aristotle's composition of his Logic and Dignaga's

in the more advanced logics of India (those anticipating 19th century

non-Euclidian and non-Aristoltian logics). Our CNN sense of the world easily

promotes rushes to judgement based on the 'lastest news updates', not on

deep, robust science.

regards,

Ken O'Neill

Tucson, Arizona

-----------

From: Rosemary Vernon

Excellent books on this subject are those by Dr. Diamond, who

is a Prof of Physiology at UCLA Medical School and winner of a

Pulitzer. " Guns, Germs and Steel " is fascinating and compares

13,000 years of human evolution in one rather long, but fascinating

read. I'm just starting " The Third Chimpanzee " which talks about

human genetics being just a hair removed from our wonderful friends,

the chimps. Actually, humans are chimps with a bit of very slight

genetic variation. I'd like to thank list member Bob Hettinga for

recommending these to me.

Diamond draws very interesting conclusions in both books and I

believe he has written others as well. In " Chimpanzee " he feels

what sets humans apart, other than walking upright is the fact that

the larynx and vocal chords are developed in such a way to provide

precise communication. Other animals communicate through various

calls and grunts, but as Diamond says, they can't say something to

the effect of " Look, you go run around in back of that deer and make

noise so he'll run toward me. Then I can club him. "

Diamond has also debunked the business of Man the Hunter, which he

says is a macho idea cooked up by a bunch of insecure modern males.

Early man who survived The Great Leap Forward, i.e. Cro-Magnons who

we could not tell apart from ourselves today " if they walked down

the street dressed in a business suit " and " could learn to fly an

airplane " was not a huge animal, like the Neanderthals. As Diamond

points out, the bigger you are the more food you require.

Diamond believes that early humans were opportunistic feeders; that

they survived on roots, tubers, fruit, leaves, etc. and small

animals that could be easily caught. Even the sea was not well

harvested until they figured out how to make fish hooks. He says

the idea that a bunch of early humans running down a full grown

water buffalo is nothing short of ludicrous and would be a wonderful

way to commit suicide! Of course, eventually Man did invent the

sorts of implements that would do the job, but it still wasn't easy

taking down a creature that was ten times your size.

Diamond also freely admits that there is a great deal we don't know

because most of what was used simply disintegrated in the soil;

things like wood, soft tissue, etc. rot. So all we have to look at

are bones, stones, maybe teeth. Even so, he bases his conclusions

and ideas on the scientific findings and literature that are

available.

People who are steeped in religious dogma will probably be offended,

but I have to agree with Diamond. I know quite a few people who, if

covered with fur would look just like a chimp. Ed Sullivan comes

quickly to mind, but there are lots of others.

Rosemary Vernon

*Don't forget to sign all letters with full name and city if you

wish them to be published!

[Guest guest]

>Diamond has also debunked the business of Man the Hunter, which he says is

a macho idea cooked up by a bunch of insecure modern males.

* I'm curious as to how Diamond acquired such expertise in a field outside of

his own. normally it would take many years of training in any given field

before you could contribute any innovations, let alone wholesale revolution

in ideas.

>Diamond believes that early humans were opportunistic >feeders; that they

survived on roots, tubers, fruit, leaves, etc. and small animals that could

be easily caught. Even the sea was not well harvested until they figured

out how to make fish hooks.

* Aborigines and Inuits hunted maritime prey without hooks. do u need a hook

to catch a walrus, dugong, turtle? do u need a hook to catch fish if you use

a spear, damn the river, or use saponin-containing plants to poison the

water?

>He says the idea that a bunch of early humans running down a full grown

water buffalo is nothing short of ludicrous and would be a wonderful way to

commit suicide!

* Indigenous tribes hunt all kinds of prey from big to small. According to

Diamond, at what point did humans go from being only scavengers to hunters?

>Of course, eventually Man did invent the sorts of implements that would do

the job, but it still wasn't easy taking down a creature that was ten times

your size.

* How difficult is it to make a spear? how did they come to know about plant

poisons they could put in water or put onto the spear tips?

andrew campbell

brisbane

australia

[Guest guest]

Rosemary Vernon:

<The comments made by others on the list are quite interesting and certainly

have validity. However, it's my fault for not giving you a time period.

Things like spears and other weapons that tied a rock in some manner to a

piece of wood is fairly recent in terms of evolution.

I was talking about the period from 100,000 years ago (which is the

recognized time of The Big Step Forward) back to 6 million years ago when it

is believe that some sort of hominid started walking upright.>

*** We have no way of knowing if those very ancient hominids ever used

naturally occurring sharp or heavy pieces of wood, sharpened wooden spears on

suitable rocks or used primitive slingshots or wooden bows with no flint

tips. Since such weapons and tools are perishable and no doubt didn't look

like weapons in many cases, it is highly unlikely that we would ever have

found traces of them. Similarly, habitations made of natural products like

branches, dried grass and mud would have disappeared into the mists of time,

so we might well be induced to believe that all " Cave Men " lived in caves.

We simply cannot make any hasty deductions based upon our pre-existing

theories of what we are hell bent on proving.

Rosemary Vernon:

<When talking " evolution " we all need to remember to try to define the time

period if possible. Native Americans, for instance, were not here until about

14,000 years ago and are actually Cro-Magnons. According to the map in " Guns,

Germs and Steel, " the origins of humans began in Africa about 7 million years

ago. They did not migrate even into the Fertile Crescent until about

1,000,000 BC, then into Europe around 500,000 BC. It took them until 20,000

BC to get to Asia, although there is evidence that they reached Australia by

40,000 BC. When we're talking North America, evidence suggests the first

arrivals got into Northern Canada around 12,000 BC, into what is now the USA

by 11,000 BC and into South America by 10,000 BC. So a great deal of

evolution took place in the interim and it's a very slow process, indeed, and

it all depends on which stage you're talking about as to who had what.

Bigger brains, in and of themselves, are not the answer. The Neanderthal

brain was actually larger than ours, yet there was no inventiveness amongst

these people, or at least not enough to keep them from becoming extinct.

Diamond speculates that they were probably killed off by Cro-Magnons. Back in

those days, another human was a much worse enemy than some animal (and maybe

still is if you turn on the news). For some reason it was common practice to

kill others of the same species, which still existed in New Guinea until very

recently (where Diamond has done a lot of research). Again, I'm not sure

we've gotten away from this as evidenced by our constant squabbling with

other " tribes. "

As I get farther into the " Chimpanzee " book, the success of the human race is

starting to be attributed to our " strange lifestyles " which we take for

granted because that's how we're programmed. But we are very very different

from any other critter in many ways, although we also have similarities to

others. The difference between us and chimps is genetic and is absolutely

tiny, less than 1 percent. This is what makes it so fascinating: that such a

minute difference can make such a major change.>

*** Have you read Arthur C e's epic book, " Space Odyssey 2001 " or seen

the movie based on this book and its various sequels? If so, you will note

that early apes were mentally changed by mysterious pulsations from some

monoliths on earth.

Jay Gould theorised about catastrophic or punctuated evolution -

e science-fictionised that sudden leaps in development (like Gould's)

were mediated by information patterns of unknown origin - this all makes for

some interesting interrelation and speculation that I could certainly go

along with more than other theories based on sheer chance and randomness

creating highly organised life forms and thinking, intelligent life like that

which we enjoy today. To paraphrase some old scientist whose name I cannot

recollect, " the more I study the universe, the more it begins to look like a

vast thought rather than a vast machine. "

My feeling is that theories about the physical-genetic structure of matter

will have to be combined with theories about non-physical, information-based

cybernetic processes if we ever are to even vaguely understand the mysteries

of the universe/universes. Even though the affairs of geneticists, biologists

and palaeontologists would appear to be superficially unrelated to the

affairs of physicists, cosmologists and computer scientists with respect to

the origin of the universe and life, I have little doubt that their coming

far closer together in collaborative efforts will yield far more than either

" camp " working separately. And it wouldn't be surprising if poets, linguists

and musicians somehow helped them find the Rosetta Stone of life! Didn't

some scientists in ancient times refer to the music of the spheres? Therein

may lie a useful tale.

After all, the universe apparently comprises over 95% of " dark " matter-energy

and the physical world which we are trying to understand is by far a

minority case. Who knows what we will theorise and discover when we start to

examine the major substance of the universe and begin to rise above the

limitations of our current very insular world view in hundreds or thousands

of years' time?

Our descendants might even recall the words of a long gone ancient classical

pop group called " The Moody Blues " who once sang " Thinking is the best way to

travel " and we will nod in agreement while we gaze with great amusement at

those ponderous, slow metallic flying machines in a few museums and proclaim

that " function precedes form (or structure) " and that " information precedes

matter " (which sometimes flip-flops and Möbius strips around between matter,

energy and information, so that we could experience matter and whatnot!

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

mcsiff@...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/

[Guest guest]

Rosemary Vernon said:

<The comments made by others on the list are quite interesting and certainly

have validity. However, it's my fault for not giving you a time period.

Things like spears and other weapons that tied a rock in some manner to a

piece of wood is fairly recent in terms of evolution.>

Let's clarify one point: according to Diamond, how much time passed before

fully-evolved man decided to pick up a stick, sharpen it, and hunt game/fish

with it?

And..why do you persist in putting forward the genetic similarity of man

with apes as a proof of the theory of evolution? How does this fact refute

separate creation or separate independent emergence of each creature?

[At this stage, I have little doubt that this discussion will soon deteriorate

into the same old head-on collision of beliefs expressed by special

creationists,

theists, atheists and various brands of evolutionists, which none of us will

ever

resolve. Moreover, any further discussion along these lines undoubtedly is

going to repeat the exact same arguments that have been put forward by

many others many times before, without adding anything novel. Maybe I am

wrong - if so, please surprise the rest of us. I think that it would be far

more productive now if list members could suggest a comprehensive list

of web and book resources which support and refute the arguments made

by evolutionists and special creationists. In an earlier letter today, I

summarised my " science fiction " theory of the universe, because I perceive

that both camps offer relevant insights and experiences. Over to the

rest of you! Mel Siff]

Brisbane

Australia

[Guest guest]

Mel Siff wrote:

<At this stage, I have little doubt that this discussion will soon deteriorate

into the

same old head-on collision of beliefs expressed by special creationists,

theists,

atheists and various brands of evolutionists, which none of us will ever

resolve.

Moreover, any further discussion along these lines undoubtedly is going to

repeat

the exact same arguments that have been put forward by many others many times

before, without adding anything novel. Maybe I am wrong - if so, please

surprise

the rest of us.

I think that it would be far more productive now if list members could suggest

a

comprehensive list of web and book resources which support and refute the

arguments

made by evolutionists and special creationists. In an earlier letter today, I

summarised

my " science fiction " theory of the universe, because I perceive that both camps

offer relevant insights and experiences. Over to the rest of you! >

** Dr. Siff, unfortunately I agree with you. As an aging hunter-gatherer with

all the

worst features of a balding silverback chimp, I have never understood why

evolution

couldn't be the manifestation of creation or why that makes it any less

miraculous.

No matter - such discussions never even get close to resolution when people camp

out and get irrational.

Well, my friends and I need to finish grooming now and go drive some bison off a

cliff for dinner....

[As a non meat-eating gatherer, I don't even have to go further than my back

yard to

graze alongside the friendly Colorado bison there! For the other hunters in our

neighbourhood, we live in a " dead end " (cul de sac) which has almost the same

name

as some ten other streets nearby, so the bison simply get lost here and die of

old age

for anyone to harvest! Talk about living in an ideal situation! Mel Siff]

Plisk

Velocity Sports Performance

Norwalk, CT

-------

Mel Siff:

> [At this stage, I have little doubt that this discussion will soon deteriorate

> into the same old head-on collision of beliefs expressed by special

creationists,

> theists, atheists and various brands of evolutionists, which none of us will

ever

> resolve. Moreover, any further discussion along these lines undoubtedly is

> going to repeat the exact same arguments that have been put forward by

> many others many times before, without adding anything novel. Maybe I am

> wrong - if so, please surprise the rest of us. I think that it would be far

> more productive now if list members could suggest a comprehensive list

> of web and book resources which support and refute the arguments made

> by evolutionists and special creationists. In an earlier letter today, I

> summarised my " science fiction " theory of the universe, because I perceive

> that both camps offer relevant insights and experiences. Over to the

> rest of you!

[Guest guest]

The following may be of some interest:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/learnthink.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/learnthinkqa.shtml

The Day We Learned To Think - programme summary

<Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying

fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived

before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point

did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to

represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At

a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre

pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting

questions.

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly

100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens

replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia

and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.

Prof Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution.

Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're

dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are

able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of

colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.

Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as

behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the

ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to

devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it

seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech.

The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just

like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.

The Human Revolution

The earliest evidence of human art was always thought to appear in

south western Europe around 40,000 years ago. Spectacular cave

paintings, jewellery, carved figurines, ornaments and new styles of

stone and bone tools all appear. There is evidence that ceremonial

human burials were taking place. It really did seem like a light bulb

had been turned on in the human brain; a big bang of thought.

Had something happened in a very small timeframe during the course of

human evolution to forever change our future? A theory called 'The

Human Revolution' emerged. It suggests there was some sudden,

dramatic, genetic change around 50,000 years ago, that meant human

beings, became able to think and communicate. For years this was the

most plausible theory of why we evolved language and symbolic

thinking, whilst our cousins the Neanderthals got wiped out.

Neanderthals were known to have been living in Europe for nearly

200,000 years before Homo sapiens arrived. But within 10,000 years of

the modern human arrival, Neanderthals had disappeared. This seemed

to back up the idea of the human revolution. A new, more intelligent

species arrived to compete with the stronger, less advanced natives.

Intelligence won and the Neanderthals were eventually made extinct,

unable to compete with the incomers for scarce food and resources.

A Vocal Minority

Prof Laitman is an expert in anatomy. When he began to study

the larynx over the course of human evolution he discovered it had

moved downwards in our throats, enabling us to modify passing air to

produce speech.

It seemed that this lower larynx position was reached in our

ancestors up to 200,000 years ago. If speech was possible this early

in our ancestry, scientists had a puzzle on their hands, why was

there no evidence of any human creativity before 40,000 years ago?

A further clue came to light at a neanderthal dig in Israel in 1989.

A tiny bone called a hyoid was unearthed. It forms part of the larynx

in modern humans and is a key part of our ability to speak. This find

implied that Neanderthal man might have been physically capable of

speaking; indeed the makeup of voice box was possibly very close to

our own. Of course physical ability is not proof of mental ability.

This new discovery brought up another question: what had happened to

Neanderthal man? The Neanderthals were very similar to Homo sapiens,

but in many ways were better adapted to the colder European climate.

They had similar sized brains to modern humans and were physically

very strong. They also had shorter limbs and large noses, traits

implying that they had become well adapted to their colder living

conditions.

Counter intelligence

Despite the new puzzle, The Human Revolution theory remained a

credible explanation. Until 1999 when anthropologist Chris

Henshilwood made an intriguing discovery at a dig site in Blombos, on

the east coast of South Africa. He had been excavating a prehistoric

cave for over a decade. The cave contained beautifully made

artefacts, bone points and spear points that dated back 70,000 years,

well before the Human Revolution was supposed to have taken place.

But there was still no concrete proof that the objects Henshilwood

and his team had found were made by a 'thinking people'.

As the dig continued one item kept appearing. Henshilwood and his

team noticed lots of pieces of a soft stone called ochre. If scraped

it produces a powder that can be mixed with animal fat and used as a

paint. Interestingly ochre did not occur naturally in Blombos and

could only have come from several miles away. Henshilwood and his

colleagues discovered eight thousand pieces of ochre in the cave.

They had been deliberately scraped for a purpose, Henshilwood

believes, to paint on other surfaces.

Then another, rather different, discovery was made. It was yet

another piece of ochre but it had been marked with what looked like a

crisscross pattern. Was this the world's oldest piece of art work?

Dr Francesco d'Errico of the University of Bordeaux, a specialist in

prehistoric markings was convinced that the markings were deliberate -

not the result of accidental knife marks. Early humans had managed

for the first time to store something outside their own heads. They

had sent us a message from 70,000 years ago.

There was still one unresolved. Now the Human Revolution theory had

been proved wrong, the question of what had really happened to the

Neanderthals remained. D'Errico revisited 450 pieces of black

manganese oxide that had been locked in museum drawers for over 30

years. Dr d'Errico also examined pieces of jewellery that suggested

that Neanderthals were expressing themselves through art before Homo

sapiens even arrived in Europe. Perhaps neanderthal were not

intellectual lightweights after all.

If their distant relatives did not kill them off, what did? The

answer Dr d'Errico believes is most likely to have been disease that

was new to the region. It might have been like the North and South

American native peoples, devastated by 'flu and smallpox, brought in

by early Europeans.>

-----------

Carruthers

Wakefield

UK

[Guest guest]

Again, the posts are most enlightening. We may be a very intelligent species

but whether

we have the smarts to comprehend the universe is another story altogether.

Personally, I would not discount some extra-terrestrial interference at some

point. It's

even possible that the aliens who came here may themselves have long ago

disappeared. Just

because we can't figure out whether there ever was life on another planet in our

solar system

or some other solar system doesn't mean it never existed.

OTH, I also don't see why there couldn't have been some very quick genetic

change of some kind.

Of course, me must qualify what " quick " means. In terms of evolution it can be

what we consider

a long time. What happened to the dinosaurs, for instance? And it seems no one

seems to have

the real answer as to where have all the Neanderthals gone.

To those who question evolution as not being creation, I see it as one and the

same thing. All life

was somehow " created. " Personally, I do not view one species as better than

another, just different.

The beauty of creation is the wonderful balance that seems to make the world go

round. Although

I'm not a diehard environmentalist, I do feel that Man has done the Earth a

great disservice and

continues, for the most part, to head in the wrong direction. There are no easy

solutions.

Speaking of evolution, we're headed off to the Arnold Weekend on Thursday,

assuming the weather

cooperates, where we are sure to discover some new species!

Rosemary Vernon, Editor

Dolfzine On-Line Fitness, Inc.®

A Not-For-Profit Foundation

www.dolfzine.com

Marina del Rey, CA

IronRoses@...

http://www.chuckietechie.com

[Guest guest]

<And..why do you persist in putting forward the genetic similarity of man

with apes as a proof of the theory of evolution? How does this fact refute

separate creation or separate independent emergence of each creature?>

Note that in my post, I never claimed that shared endogenous retroviruses or

the shared vitamin C pseudogene is " proof " that evolution occurred. I

consider it " smoking gun " evidence...the final bit of evidence that " seal

the deal " for me. These two pieces of evidence alone are insufficient to

fully support evolutionary theory. They are but a small fraction of the

extremely wide body of evidence that supports the theory.

If is discovered murdered in Jack's house, the presence of 's body

in Jack's house, and the presence of Jack's fingerprints on the knife, lend

support to the theory that Jack killed . These two pieces of evidence

alone may be insufficient to make it probable that Jack killed .

However, if we find more evidence to support the theory...Jack's lack of an

alibi, DNA evidence of 's blood in Jack's car, and bruises on Jack that

signal the sign of a struggle, then we have what can be called a

" convergence of evidence " that strongly supports that Jack killed .

Now, it's possible that there is a wild conspiracy that someone is acting to

frame Jack and setting up all of this evidence to make it look like Jack

killed . But is it probable? No, it isn't.

Science works in the realm of probability....not possibility. It is

possible that a creator would insert a virus into the DNA code of chimps and

humans, at identical, multiple locations. It is also possible that a

creator would give chimps and humans the gene to make vitamin C and then

turn it off, yet keep it on in all other animals. But is it probable? It

strains the limits of my credulity to think that a creator would do such

things...it doesn't make any logical sense....unless the creator wanted to

make it look like evolution occurred.

Like my " Jack killed " example, evolutionary theory is well-supported by

the convergence of evidence from a variety of scientific disciplines. Dr.

Siff recommended that we post websites, so I will post a few here. If you

go to:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/,

... you will find a very long, detailed article entitled " 29 Evidences for

Macroevolution. " This is an excellent synopsis of this " convergence of

evidence " .

[Of course, this evidence is based primarily upon anthropocentric

based science and theories about how things are assumed to function.

This places all of us in a " Catch Gödel " situation in which the theorems

of Gödel tell us that we cannot validly analyse any system of which we

are part. For more details, search for information on Gödel with

this metasearch engine: www.metacrawler.com or www.google.com

Does all of this imply that certain events or phenomena can never

be analysed or understood by humans, such as the origin of life

and the universe? In other words, we have to accept that some things

in our personal universe have to be postulates or definitions, like

our system of numbers, alphabets and measurements. They are just

because we say they are, nothing more nothing less. Someone else

could quite happily say they aren't because we say they aren't.

A scientific theory is a well-supported model used to explain a set of

observations. Evolutionary theory is no different from atomic theory in

this sense. Once a model is established, predictions can be made from this

model. Scientists then seek to test those predictions. The predictions are

either confirmed or falsified. If predictions are falsified, the theory

must either be modified or completely thrown out.

In the website I mention above, the author develops a long list of

predictions made by the evolutionary theory model. He then gives numerous

examples of how these predictions have been confirmed by science. He also

lists ways in which these predictions can be falsified...none of which have

ever happened, despite the fact that scientists have repeatedly tested these

predictions. Actually, it's amazing how well-supported evolutionary theory

is, and how it continues to gain support as science makes advances in

genetics and molecular biology. Darwin formulated his theory of natural

selection long before scientists learned about DNA and molecular genetics.

Once these sciences were developed, they only confirmed Darwin's original

model, at the genetic and molecular level.

The idea of a creator is not scientific because it is not falsifiable. A

creator can explain ANY sort of evidence because one can simply say, " Well,

the creator just made it that way. " It is simply not a useful model to

explain the observations we make of living organisms because we cannot make

predictions from the model, and we cannot seek to confirm or falsify those

predictions.

When one examines the convergence of evidence....presence of molecular and

anatomical vestigial characteristics, fossils that become more and more like

today's organisms as we move forward in geological time, shared endogenous

retroviruses and pseudogenes between related organisms, the presence of

transitional fossils in the fossil record, present and past biogeography of

organisms, etc., etc., etc., we come to the most probable conclusion....that

living organisms have descended gradually from a common ancestor.

Note that the site I mentioned, http://www.talkorigins.org, is an excellent

scientific resource to learn about evolutionary theory. They also have

links to creationist websites so that you may read both sides of the story.

What I find interesting, though, is that you won't find a single creationist

website that links to evolutionary theory sites, but you will find a large

body of evolutionary sites that link to creationist ones. In my opinion,

this speaks loudly as to which camp has the better argument.

Krieger

Graduate Assistant, Nutrition

University of Florida

Webmaster, WSU Strength and Conditioning

http://www.wsu.edu/~strength

Science Editor, Pure Power Magazine

http://www.purepowermag.com

[Guest guest]

Krieger wrote:

<I never claimed that shared endogenous retroviruses or

the shared vitamin C pseudogene is " proof " that evolution occurred. I

consider it " smoking gun " evidence...the final bit of evidence that " seal

the deal " for me.>

What evolutionary advantage is conferred by losing the ability to make

vitamin C?

brisbane

australia

[Guest guest]

Natural selection does not work by conferring favorable advantages

unremittingly. It works by selecting advantageous traits when there

is variation in a population and competition for strategic

resources. Natural selection only works to produce a species that is

adapted for its environment, not " ultimate " species with a genetic

makeup optimal for many environments.

[Of course, one has to ask about the rate and degree of adaptation,

because if these are too slow or of insufficient magnitude, survival

ability would be impaired. Note the evidence from certain genetic

diseases such as the inability to process lactose, gluten, certain

fats, certain sugars, etc and the inability to tolerate exposure to light

or extremes of temperature. In those cases, many people today

without medical intervention or advice would simply die. Doesn't

that sort of information about living creatures today tell us something

about " genetic variation " which is not advantageous? Sure, we can argue

that creatures who displayed full-blown problems like this would have

died out and minimised the proliferation of these barriers to superior

adaptation. However, the fact remains that these genetic " variations " ,

" defects " or whatever one wishes to call them are transmitted from

generation to generation forever. Does this imply that evolution

will never eliminate errors or produce an optimal final product?

Anyway, as I cited before, " natural selection " has been questioned even

by staunch evolutionists and we cannot theorise solely on the basis

of one hypothesis. Mel Siff]

Eugene Sanik

Brooklyn, NY

--------

<What evolutionary advantage is conferred by losing the ability to

make vitamin C?>

[Guest guest]

Krieger wrote:

<I never claimed that shared endogenous retroviruses or

the shared vitamin C pseudogene is " proof " that evolution

occurred. I consider it " smoking gun " evidence...the final bit of evidence

that " seal the deal " for me.>

It was asked:

<<What evolutionary advantage is conferred by losing the ability to

make vitamin C?>>

Here's a thought: The inablitilty to produce vitamin C, requires a

species to exist in an area capable of producing fruits and/or other

foods that contain vitamin C. These areas would most likely be in

more hospitable climates, so when hard times came (drought, ice-age,

epidemic, etc.) the groups living in the more hospitable areas would

be more likely to survive.

Gee Roe

Winter Haven, FL

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