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Talk:Counterexamples to Evolution (view source)
Revision as of 07:34, November 17, 2008
, 07:34, November 17, 2008→Recent Revisions
:::I hope that explains how we test the adaptive value of a trait. I don't know where the idea of "needing to see it grow" came from, but perhaps my initial explanation was too brief (I am used to teaching science majors at the college level and forget how much I've specialized, at times).--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 12:12, 15 November 2008 (EST)
:::I hope that explains how we test the adaptive value of a trait. I don't know where the idea of "needing to see it grow" came from, but perhaps my initial explanation was too brief (I am used to teaching science majors at the college level and forget how much I've specialized, at times).--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 12:12, 15 November 2008 (EST)
The question was "did a scientist see a giraffe's neck grow?" What you said was this: "The test is to observe the mating success of giraffes in the wild. Remember that there is still natural variation, even if the entire curve is shifted to one side, which means we can set up a correlation based on intermediate values. Scientists have found that there is a positive correlation between neck length and mating success. (this is called intrasexual selection, and is distinct from selection by female preference). Therefore, the fitness of long-necked males is higher." There are all sorts of little words in your explanations (and many, many others) which suggest that scientists just don't know, words like "assuming"; "conjectured"; "plausable"; "scientists believe"; and so forth. Scientists are people, and people anywhere can "assume" that the moon is a lump of cheese, but that of course doesn't change the facts.
With all due respect, the implication of your argument relative to ''Cameleopardus sp.'' as very much to do with scientists stating that mating rituals were responsible for the lengthening of the neck vertebrae, and these scientists implied such as if it were absolute fact. To make such an implication, I'm "assuming" they used the [[Scientific Method]]; the first step of that method demands that a scientist observe the phenomena in question; i.e. ''he has to see the neck actually grow'', and then provide a reasonable explanation for such growth in step two. In step three, the scientist has to do an experiment to see if his hypothesis is correct, and you did say above that "we can test this".
Here is my explanation for the giraffe's neck, which is supported by facts:
*At no time did a scientist of any kind observe a giraffe's neck grow, either in a sigle animal, or passed down to offspring through successive generations, in accordance with step one of the Scientific Method.
*At no time was testing done pertaining to the hypothesis related to mating; if such was done the results were at best inconclusive, or plain wrong. If the observation instruction of step one cannot be accomplished, then steps two and three could not be done as well.
*At no time in the history of paleontology was the remains of an animal found which could have been declared by science to be the links between the "okapi-like" animal and a giraffe.
That means science is left with to other explantions of the giraffe's neck, of which the familiar one is that it grew in relation to the growing height of the trees. That explantion falls apart for the simple reason that if the animal in question needs to eat and cannot reach the leaves, it either grows the neck immediately, looks for another food source, or starves to death within a few weeks. Two of those facts, by the way, can be observed and tested on any animal.
The third explanation is what I believe in, and there's no testing at all which can refute it: giraffes and their necks were created on the sixth day by an act of God. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 02:34, 17 November 2008 (EST)