!	GENERAL MODNOTE Topic split from here: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/evolu ... 38373.html

Are these the same cliff swalllows that migrate 7,500 miles from Argentina to Capistrano and arrive there practically on the same date every year, and leave on Oct 23rd as well?

What does natural selection say about those facts?

asyncritus wrote:Are these the same cliff swalllows that migrate 7,500 miles from Argentina to Capistrano and arrive there practically on the same date every year, and leave on Oct 23rd as well?

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

Are you arguing that migration = god?

asyncritus wrote:
I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/03/25/another_year_without_swallows/

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. - There was a time, people say, when the swallows swarmed San Juan Capistrano in the days just before winter gave way to spring. Every year, locals say, the white-bellied birds filled the sky like a rain cloud. They returned to their nests in the old adobe mission as church bells rang, heralding their arrival.

But the mission bells rang again and again during this year's Festival of the Swallows, which ended Sunday, and the tiny birds just didn't make an appearance. Truth is, they've hardly been seen at the mission for years.

Perhaps, some skeptics say, the birds' return was never quite as it has been described in lore. There's little scientific evidence that cliff swallows ever migrate to the same spot year after year.

If you want a debate with people about migration, then go back to the thread you abandoned before and stop derailing this one.

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

It's very hard to debate anything seeing that you present facts that are in disagreement with the facts cited by Paul.

Perhaps you should cite the fact that these birds migrate on 'practically' the same date each year.

Just a thought.
As you were!

Blackadder wrote:Very interesting! Thanks for posting this.

But of course it won't persuade your average creotard about evolution unless someone photographs a cliff swallow turning into an alligator.

Neither do common place examples of evolution like observed cell mutations in bacteria or the development of drug resistant bacterial agents in humans, for example.

trubble76 wrote:

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

Are you arguing that migration = god?

Most certainly. What alternatives do I have?

Let me take this opportunity of saying that on review of the initial arguments presented by Spearthrower and his flock of sheep. the only thing that seemed like an answer to my 2 questions was: 'Mutations and natural selection'. ST went onto say that this was the only answer I was likely to get.

He speaks the truth. That IS the only answer available to you.

Bur as this is a scientific debating forum, we need to examine that 'mechanism' a little more critically bearing in mind that the organ of thought is the brain, not the oesophagus.

Let's start with MUTATIONS.

What's a mutation? Answer: a change of the nucleotide sequence of the genome of an organism

The vast majority of mutations are either harmful or neutral in their effects. Offhand I cannot recall an improvement created by a mutation. Hence wiki:

One study on genetic variations between different species of Drosophila suggests that if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated 70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms having damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial.[4] Due to the damaging effects that mutations can have on genes, organisms have mechanisms such as DNA repair to prevent mutations.[1]

Let us then hypothesise a proto-swallow (in Goya, Argentina) which remains locally and does not migrate, or only does so to a very limited extent. Its genome is stable, and totally functional.

Fast forward to its descendants, migrating swallows capable of flying to Capistrano from Goya, a one way journey of 7,500 miles, and back 6 mths later. These swallows can pass on the genetic information needed for the bird to make that migration, which we have to assume is in the genome somewhere, though I have not heard of an organ in the brain which can implement such instinctive behaviour.

The question which needs a satisfactory answeris: how did that information enter the genome?

If mutations are as damaging as the above quote from wiki demonstrates, then is it likely that such a massive reconstruction in the bird's genome could come about by 'mutation'?

What effects would the 'mutations' have to produce?

1 The geographical information would have to be inserted correctly. A one degree west error would mean extinction.

2 The timing would have to be inserted as well, somehow, to get them there on or around 18th March.

3 The bird's strength would have to be increased dramatically, to power that enormous flight

4 Anything else?

So the mutations alone are most improbable to produce such an enormous behaviour change, not to mention the accuracy of the flight path.

Where natural selection would fit in to all this, I do not know.

But I'm sure you can see the problems, and the reason for my questions.

Welcome back asyncritus. I am beginning to see a pattern here - Is April a particularly free month in your calendar or something?

asyncritus,

If you're arguing that gawd placed these migration patterns into swallows show your work. All you are doing is just bitching about how you can't see how evolution could have "done it" You know you can't do this. We know you can't do this. All this is about is how much a problem it is for you to accept observational reality because it fails to kiss your god's stinking, but imaginary, ass.

Oh, and explain why there are no bird fossils found in Cambrian deposits? I thought gawd "done it" in 6 days.

RS

halucigenia wrote:Welcome back asyncritus. I am beginning to see a pattern here - Is April a particularly free month in your calendar or something?

Is it usually early on in the month, around the same date every year?

It seems that I had the last word on this thread here.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... s#p1325517

Yep! All the swallows that no longer return to Capistrano all return on the same day. Go figure.

asyncritus wrote:Where natural selection would fit in to all this, I do not know.

Well, there's your problem right there, my friend. Figure that one out, and most of your other questions answer themselves.

Here's a helpful hint: When a mutation occurs, does it instantly apprear in the genome of every single member of the species?

Here's another exercise that might help you out: If one is able to estimate the number of mutations that occur per generation in a species, as well as the proportion of these that will be "beneficial", then one can estimate the number of beneficial mutations that will arise on average per generation. This information is quite important to the claims you are making. You can probably find the information to form these estimates out there on the internet, so get to it and start learning!

asyncritus wrote:The question which needs a satisfactory answer is: how did that information enter the genome?

No. The question does not have to be answered to your satisfaction, it only requires demonstrable parsimony to meet the condition of an answer. Whether you wish to accept that or not does not place an extra burden on those addressing the issue, nor does it require that the parsimonious explanation should be thrown out or redrafted to satisfy your particular conditions or to defeat your personal incredulity.

Personal incredulity and assumptions about the unlikeliness of mutation producing fitness enhancing traits over time do not constitute a reasoned argument in and of themselves.

Drug resistant Tuberculosis is an example of mutation producing fitness enhancing traits in a population over time. What would be your demonstrable and parsimonious, non-mutation explanation for the recent evolution of the Tubercle bacillus?

Ah, what the hell. Oh, no, here we go again. Petunias!

asyncritus wrote:

trubble76 wrote:

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

Are you arguing that migration = god?

Most certainly. What alternatives do I have?

Let me take this opportunity of saying that on review of the initial arguments presented by Spearthrower and his flock of sheep. the only thing that seemed like an answer to my 2 questions was: 'Mutations and natural selection'. ST went onto say that this was the only answer I was likely to get.

He speaks the truth. That IS the only answer available to you.

Bur as this is a scientific debating forum, we need to examine that 'mechanism' a little more critically bearing in mind that the organ of thought is the brain, not the oesophagus.

Let's start with MUTATIONS.

What's a mutation? Answer: a change of the nucleotide sequence of the genome of an organism

The vast majority of mutations are either harmful or neutral in their effects. Offhand I cannot recall an improvement created by a mutation. Hence wiki:

One study on genetic variations between different species of Drosophila suggests that if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated 70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms having damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial.[4] Due to the damaging effects that mutations can have on genes, organisms have mechanisms such as DNA repair to prevent mutations.[1]

Even your quote mine does not assist your assertions!

asyncritus wrote:Let us then hypothesise a proto-swallow (in Goya, Argentina) which remains locally and does not migrate, or only does so to a very limited extent. Its genome is stable, and totally functional.

Why not propose that the proto-swallow was wide ranging or in some place between Goya and Capistrano. Remember that the environmental conditions within continents do change as has been explained to you before and the potential for migratory behaviour is present in many organisms and could have existed in the ancient ancestors of swallows.

asyncritus wrote:Fast forward

No, let's not, let's take the slow and steady route that evolution can operate under and think of the multitudinous steps that it could have taken to get therere.

asyncritus wrote:to its descendants, migrating swallows capable of flying to Capistrano from Goya, a one way journey of 7,500 miles, and back 6 mths later. These swallows can pass on the genetic information needed for the bird to make that migration, which we have to assume is in the genome somewhere, though I have not heard of an organ in the brain which can implement such instinctive behaviour.

Erm, the brain is such an organ, an organ that can implement such instinctive behaviour (what on earth are you on about now?).

asyncritus wrote:The question which needs a satisfactory answeris: how did that information enter the genome?

You are not going to get an answer to this that you can appreciate are you? It's just your repeated canard of expecting that learned behaviour has to become instinctual behaviour isn't it? You have repeatedly been told that this is not the proposed evolutionary mechanism, but you insist in ignoring this explanation.

asyncritus wrote:If mutations are as damaging as the above quote from wiki demonstrates, then is it likely that such a massive reconstruction in the bird's genome could come about by 'mutation'?

No, not by mutation, singular, all in one go; but by mutations, plural, over many generations. They could have come about by many small steps and only the successful steps were the ones that got passed on. Elementary evolutionary biology, why do you persist in misrepresenting it?

asyncritus wrote:What effects would the 'mutations' have to produce?

1 The geographical information would have to be inserted correctly. A one degree west error would mean extinction.

There is no “flight plan” to have to be inserted if you understand that the birds are intelligent enough to navigate and make choices as they fly. It's not as if anyone except you thinks that it's all due to an instinctual precise “flight plan”.

asyncritus wrote:2 The timing would have to be inserted as well, somehow, to get them there on or around 18th March.

The seasons change, there are environmental triggers that initiate the time at which birds migrate. It does not have to be a date that gets inserted. Nor do the swallows all arrive on one day or the same exact day every year. This also has been explained to you before.

asyncritus wrote:3 The bird's strength would have to be increased dramatically, to power that enormous flight

Maybe they were already endurance fliers but they flew around in circles.

asyncritus wrote:4 Anything else?

Cough... Selection...Cough!

asyncritus wrote:So the mutations alone are most improbable to produce such an enormous behaviour change, not to mention the accuracy of the flight path.

But mutations are not proposed to produce such an enormous behaviour change alone are they? Nor are they proposed to produce a “flight plan”. Nor are they proposed to do this all in one go.

asyncritus wrote:Where natural selection would fit in to all this, I do not know.

Obviously, as you just simply ignore it!

asyncritus wrote:But I'm sure you can see the problems, and the reason for my questions.

The problems are simply your personal incredulity and misunderstanding of what evolutionary theory actually proposes. The reason that you question (if it's not just trolling) is that you simply do not understand evolutionary theory.

asyncritus wrote:
Let me take this opportunity of saying that on review of the initial arguments presented by Spearthrower and his flock of sheep.

Interesting you should mention sheep.

How did we get from:

(a wild ancestor)..

to this:

(a modern sheep).
?

Also, playing the wiki game:
It is believed that the overwhelming majority of mutations have no significant effect on an organism's fitness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

And while we're at this, can someone tell me why the swallows at my home are not going to Capistrano? Did God misdirect them?

ElDiablo wrote:

asyncritus wrote:

or don't, as you were told this post and several times subsequently.

As you don't seem to grasp, this is a debating forum, not a lecture theatre.

I asked, and ask again, since we are seeking SCIENTIFIC answers to biological questions:

How did those swallows figure out the way to Capistrano and back? (7,500 miles one way).

How did the information enter their genomes (if that's where it is)?

We'll revisit the eels later. So sharpen up your knives/brains. You'll need them.

And while we're at this, can someone tell me why the swallows at my home are not going to Capistrano? Did God misdirect them?

Are they laden or unladen swallows?

campermon wrote:
Are they laden or unladen swallows?

African or European?