Renewable Revolution

SET = Standard Evolution Theory

Devolution = descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state.

A Neo-Darwinian SET Apologist tries to have it both ways. A commenter calmly explains that going down is not going up just because both actions evidence change.  


Is the human race evolving or devolving?
July 20, 1998

THE MONEY QUOTES:

From a biological perspective, there is no such thing as devolution. All changes in the gene frequencies of populations--and quite often in the traits those genes influence--are by definition evolutionary changes.

Chief among these misconceptions is that species evolve or change because they need to change to adapt to shifting environmental demands; biologists refer to this fallacy as teleology. In fact, more than 99 percent of all species that ever lived are extinct, so clearly there is no requirement that species always adapt successfully.

As the fossil record demonstrates, extinction is a perfectly natural--and indeed quite common--response to changing environmental conditions. When species do evolve, it is not out of need but rather because their populations contain organisms with variants of traits that offer a reproductive advantage in a changing environment.

Another misconception is that increasing complexity is the necessary outcome of evolution. In fact, decreasing complexity is common in the record of evolution.

Agelbert NOTE: At this point, anyone with a lick of sense would say, AHA! It looks like we are becoming LESS fit, not more so, right? This would argue forcefully that natural selection is a subtractive process, right? 

Oh, but you do not understand the pliability of reality when a Dr. Doubletalk wants to say that DOWN is equal to UP. 

Now our dear Dougherty proceeds to defend his accurate statement, not with the wolves to dogs devolution, for which there is DNA SUBTRACTION evidence for, but with the old "fossil record" trick. 

You know, the one that isn't just incomplete, as in 80% complete, but sporadic to missing for millions of years!

You know, the one that only forms in very special conditions.

You know, the one evidenced to be UNNATURAL preservation of mineralized skeletal structures in a biosphere that, with very few exceptions, ALWAYS recycles 100% of living matter.

Never mind all that HARD SCIENTIFC DATA; "scientific" speculation = "irrefutable" evidence is what Evolutionists are famous for.

The following statements are speculative BECAUSE the fossils for all the mentioned vertebrates are assumed to be the precursors of modern vertebrate species from fish TO reptiles TO mammals.    Yet, our dear scientist uses this speculation as "proof" of his "down is equal to up" illogic. Of course, MKing, Palloy and several others here  will obediently nod their heads up and down as they read this speculation, accepting it as hard "scientific evidence". LOL!

For example, the lower jaw in vertebrates shows decreasing complexity, as measured by the numbers of bones, from fish to reptiles to mammals. (Evolution adapted the extra jaw bones into ear bones.) Likewise, ancestral horses had several toes on each foot; modern horses have a single toe with a hoof.

Evolution, not devolution, selected for those adaptations.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-human-race-evolvin/

A polite commenter gives Michael J. Dougherty, assistant director and senior staff biologist at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in Colorado Springs, Colo., the Ashvin knockout punch.   

THEMAYAN November 8, 2011, 1:22 AM

Its interesting how fast and loose the term evolution can be used.

Is it really honest to say that any change, even degenerative change is evidence of macro evolution simply because even degeneration can technically be considered change, therefore evolution? 

Shouldn't evolution go from simple to more complex, or at least be able to explain where or how the already complex parent population came to exist in the first place? 

Lets either extend the neo Darwinian/modern synthesis, or admit its severe limitations as an explanatory mechanism in being able to quantify macro change. 

The modern synthesis is severely out of date and no longer modern but antiquated.