If evolution is true.... (continued)?

Question

OK- Im trying (deliberately) to keep this simple. If evolution is true-walk me through the evolution of a woodpecker.... Knowing the biology of that bird-the first time it hit its head on the tree, they all would have died (thus-no woodpeckers).....OR a Giraffe-whose blood pressure has to immediately adjust when it lifts or lowers its head (its head would "blow up" otherwise)....there are several such creatures that "shouldnt" exist if evolution is true. Please (seriously) can someone walk me through how one of these animals would have evolved ???

BUT mutation is the loosing of data...not the addition of new data. Like resistant organisms- they are not getting smarter but actually getting stupider (they loose data that tells them to be killed by an antibiotic)...most people believe its the other way around..
PS- I am trying not to be insulting here. If you do perceive me to be stupid on the subject wouldnt you be better off kindly enlightening me w/ your argument rather than being nasty.
PS-I did take many biology classes-I learned all the same things you did. My major was Science. I come from a family of PhD's in said subject-all of which feel science has not sufficiently proven evolution......

THIS video is a little silly (simple) but stick with it and youll see (maybe) what Im trying to communicate.....


http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=817b7893bcdeed13799b&page=1&viewtype=&category=mv

Answer 1

they have no answers........

Edit: See no one is actually giving you an answer, they are all insulting you ( ad hominem attack, how convenient),
And even though they keep referring you to the Biology section, they're the ones who always claim they're such experts on evolution ! you gave them a chance to prove it! and just as expected....they just have a lot of hot air but noooo substance.
lol..classic

Answer 2

First off, I think there is a lot that your need to learn. Also, you have a lot of misinformation. Mutation can indeed add new data to a gene pool. So you need to forget all the things you think you know about science/evolution.

Animals don't evolve by popping out new species. It happens very, very slowly. For example: A horse has 4 offspring, the tallest survives, the shorter ones die off. This happens over and over until after many generations, you have an abnormally tall gene pool of horses. After many, many generations, the coloring changes (like dog breeds) for a new environment. After many, many generations, the veins in horse change slightly, since the horse moves its head up and down a lot. After these thousands of years, it is not a horse, but a giraffe.

Once you understand the science of evolution, things like the woodpecker and giraffe don't go against evolution, they are an inevitability of evolution.

Answer 3

Ugg, you really don't understand do you? Evolution isn't about LOSING information, its about a CHANGE in the information.

Think of it this way.... in mathematics, you can add 5+3 and it will equal 8. But lets say that now you have 5+2+1... it still equals 8 but the equation is different. This could represent microevolution.

But lets say, instead, you have 5+2+1+2. The basic equation is still the same but something has been added to change the answer so that the answer is now 10. Something prompted the change. Perhaps there was a change in the nature of the question. Or perhaps an outside influence (like nature) added something to the equation.

THAT is evolution.

Answer 4

Would the blood pressure of the giraffe have to adjust as much if the neck was 3 inches shorter? 6 inches? 9 inches? 12 inches? Biological evolution is a very gradual process. One characteristic, like neck length, doesn't suddenly change. If it did, it would be incompatible with the rest of the animal's anatomy and physiology. But an organism evolves as a whole, in extremely minute steps, each element of the anatomy and physiology adjusting accordingly through natural selection and other associated processes. Such a marvelous and intricate system is living evidence of the infinite intelligence of the One Who designed it.

On the other hand, if evolution did not occur, how do you account for the clearly observable and undeniable fact that new species have continuously replaced similar earlier species ever since life appeared on earth?

Answer 5

You're imagining modern animals in a modern environment lacking one trait. That's absurd, and not remotely similar to natural selection.

Mutations do not involve the loss of genetic information, but rather changes to genotypes. If those genotypes produce beneficial phenotypes then the mutation is likely to be spread throughout the population.
By the way, what you've written really isn't what I'd expect to hear from someone who had taken any courses covering evolution. Since you clearly have such a limited understanding of the subject, why did you never ask one of your instructors?

I've had a look at your link, and I'm now thoroughly convinced that whatever your major may have been, it certainly wasn't biology.

Answer 6

Okay... I will TRY, but I am not a biologist, so this will not factual, but allegorical, okay?

We'll look at the woodpecker. Here is a bird - a protowoodpecker. A flock of these birds somehow ends up on an island - lets just say they got blown off course by hurricane Ug - and this island is full of tasty bugs but those bugs tend to live in trees. So the protowoodpeckers dig around in the tree. Some are able to dig out some tasty bugs and eat them, but some have softer beaks and their beeks aren't up to the task. Those birds slowly starve to death. meanwhile, the hard-beaked protowoodpeckers are happy eating bugs, etc., so they go off and mate and have baby protowoodpeckers. Of course, the soft-beak gene is still in the pool, so some of these babies die as soon as they are on their own for food because their beaks aren't up to the task, but the hard-beaked protowoodpeckers thrive and go on to have more babies, fewer of whom have the soft-beaked gene. Eventually, all of these protowoodpeckers have are born with the hard-beak gene because the soft-beaked ones die before reproducing.

Okay, but it's still a protowoodpecker, right? So if another flock blows in on hurricane Glog, they could mate and have the whole soft-beak problem all over again. But lets say there is not only the soft beak, but the beak needs also to be long and thin so thick or short beaked protos die out, too? And lots of little changes, like being able to digest certain bugs comes in handy, so the protos that can do that live, and being able to see at night gets them more bugs, so those flourish. All of these little changes to the flock eventually result in a bird that's quite unlike the original protowoodpecker. And one day hurricane Frug blows in another flock of protowoodpeckers but the descendants of the original flock are so different now that when they mate with protos, the babies that survive are infertile. that means that the descendants of the original flock are no longer a protowoodpeckers, but are a new species: woodpeckers.

Edit: Honestly, I couldn't stand watching that guy on the video. I got to the thrid dead woodpecker and I had to turn him off. But if you look at my allegorical story, these woodpeckers don't start by slamming their heads into the tree.... that will come later, you see?

Answer 7

Uh, no - actually, the woodpecker doesn't it hit its "head" on the tree, it uses its beak to find bugs in the bark of the tree.

The woodpecker whose beak was strong enough to enable him to dig through the bark better and find bugs would survive better than the woodpecker who didn't. So it would survive and thrive, and mate with other woodpeckers who also have been able to find bugs under the bark.

Their offspring would have the "stronger beak" trait from its parents, so it would be even MORE suited to digging through bark to find food. And so on, and so on, and so on.

As far as the giraffe, the length of the neck didn't happen "all at once" - it started out shorter (see the Okapi) and gradually extended as it moved into areas where the acacia trees were higher. Competition meant that the giraffes with longer necks were able to reach leaves that shorter-necked animals couldn't, so they thrived better and passed on their genes.

You really ought to try to understand how the idea of evolution works before determining that it's "fake".

Answer 8

A thrush or wren one day does not become a woodpecker the next.
Traits, like those of woodpeckers and giraffes, took millions of years to become what see today.
A small insect-eating bird that learned to glean insect from tree trunks can acquire food other such birds don't. In time toes become specialized for clinging to bark. The bill is shaped to probe for insect. The tongue lengthens. The skull thickens. And, eventually the outcome was woodpeckers.

Answer 9

There are two critical aspects to evolution. Mutations which increase variance and (natural) selection which selects from that variance.

It is actually selection which is responsible for increase of Kolmogorov Complexity within the biological system.

Take a look at learning systems which use the Evolutionary Algorithm. Simply by applying pseudo random mutation to produce variance and then applying selection upon that variance the systems increase in complexity and learn to play sophisticated games. Really the biological system is no different. The Evolutionary process is just playing a game of "Survival".

Your examples show you lack understanding of how subsystems co-evolve. Subsystems do not evolve in isolation, nor do systems change all at once.

I strongly suggest learning about evolution from science books rather from dishonest creationist websites which only present a false strawman version of evolution which they can shoot down.

Try reading "What Evolution Is" by Earnst Mayr. You will see how you have been filled with lies.

Answer 10

Evolution happens slowly. These traits adjust over time and aren't instant. The woodpecker started chipping away at the wood a long time ago, but not with the same force as the modern woodpecker. The giraffe didn't always have a head and neck that long, it got longer as time went on. The characteristics of it's head changed with time. Think of it like growing into your body.

edit to mutation: It isn't necessarily losing data so much as changing it.

Answer 11

I'm certainly no expert on woodpecker evolution - you might want to post in the biology section if you want better expertise answers to these questions, but, we can go through a hypothetical 'how it could happen' scenario.

Suppose you are a bird that eats fast moving insects. Over generations, these birds adapt to peck very quickly to get the insects. But, this causes brain damages occasionally, and so the adaptation is suboptimal. A later adapatation results in birds with a better protected brain, so now the fast pecking doesn't kill the birds. But hey! Now that they have extra protection, they can not only catch the bugs faster, but can actually peck through soft bark to get the bugs under the bark. Now there is a new optimal strategy involving pecking at bark, and a process similar to what happened in the first place continues. Over generations, they pack harder and harder, which kills some of them which opens a niche for those with better protected brains... and on and on until the modern woodpecker.