natural selection

[vargo]

Natural selection has a ton of evidence to support it. But why do we teach the phylogenies of natural selection to include genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdoms within its scope, when it has never been tested, observed, or verified?

[Darth Wong]

Natural selection has a ton of evidence to support it. But why do we teach the phylogenies of natural selection to include genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdoms within its scope, when it has never been tested, observed, or verified?

What the fuck is your problem, moron? Natural selection has been thoroughly tested, observed, and verified. In science, you test mechanisms, not history. You potentially explain history with well-tested mechanisms, but you cannot test history itself.

[Cyborg Stan]

I'd consider DNA evidence verification. (Although in this case, it doesn't have to be about natural selection but also genetic drift.)

[Trekdestroyer]

Natural selection has a ton of evidence to support it. But why do we teach the phylogenies of natural selection to include genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdoms within its scope, when it has never been tested, observed, or verified?

What is phylogenis and what does it have to do with natural selection? In case you didn't know, the kingdoms(fungi, animalia, and protista) came after the other in terms of complexity. The protista came first becasue the first cells were lipid bubbles that contained the primative RNA chemical. The first bacteria were developed at this stage of the evolutionary cycle. The next jump in development was the development of the advanced forms of protist which then led to more advanced forms. That just keeps going and going until you get to multicellular animals. Whew.

[vargo]

Natural selection has a ton of evidence to support it. But why do we teach the phylogenies of natural selection to include genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdoms within its scope, when it has never been tested, observed, or verified?

What the fuck is your problem, moron? Natural selection has been thoroughly tested, observed, and verified. In science, you test mechanisms, not history. You potentially explain history with well-tested mechanisms, but you cannot test history itself.

No problem, You gave me something to look into, Thanks for paving a road for me to do some more research on. Thanks

[Darth Wong]

Natural selection has a ton of evidence to support it. But why do we teach the phylogenies of natural selection to include genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdoms within its scope, when it has never been tested, observed, or verified?

What the fuck is your problem, moron? Natural selection has been thoroughly tested, observed, and verified. In science, you test mechanisms, not history. You potentially explain history with well-tested mechanisms, but you cannot test history itself.

No problem, You gave me something to look into, Thanks for paving a road for me to do some more research on. Thanks

If you're honestly trying to be open-minded, you should phrase your questions without stating outright falsehoods in the process.

[vargo]

What the fuck is your problem, moron? Natural selection has been thoroughly tested, observed, and verified. In science, you test mechanisms, not history. You potentially explain history with well-tested mechanisms, but you cannot test history itself.

No problem, You gave me something to look into, Thanks for paving a road for me to do some more research on. Thanks

If you're honestly trying to be open-minded, you should phrase your questions without stating outright falsehoods in the process.

My bad

I was to fast to post what I was tring to understand, I will rethink before I post like that again.

[Cyborg Stan]

Since I'm in a good mood, I'll explain a bit.

Descent with modification explains why we can use said classification system in the first place - a nested heirarchy. For instance, their isn't a physical law against something like a Pegasus existing - a mammal with bird wings. But we don't expect to see it (outside of our own tinkering) because no mammal has the extra limbs or feathers - the latter being the sole domain of birds (and all birds).

Contrast this to an intelligent designer - no, not God muttered under the breath, but humans. We can implant firefly genes into plants to make them glow in the dark - something that wouldn't be possible if we had to follow a nested heirarchy.

[Wyrm]

Another aspect of decent with modification is the tinkering and cooption you see with bodily structures. Feathers are modified scales. The wings of birds are modified forelimbs of their theropod ancestors, wheras insect wings are most likely modified gills that were retained from larval stages.

These structures are modified with increasing utility to the organism, which is where natural selection comes in. The membranous wing, one of the major structures of insects, probably evolved to let primitive insects get around on water, like modern stoneflies, first like oars, then like sails. Eventually they got big enough for them to be put to another use: flight, probably beginning with short, assisted hops and evolving to full flight. At each step is increasing utility to the evolving insect, which is what natural selection is about.

[dworkin]

Actually there are some problems with the current classification system.
But only the truly rabid cladists care.

IIRC The problems start with fossil species. Descendant species should properly be nested together under their parent species. The problem starts when those daughter species have also speciated and so on. Draw a diagram and you'll see the problem.

But as I say, only true, dyed in the wool cladists care about such things. Cladograms are better at showing species relationships and evolutionary pathways, but since you can theoretically have a different cladogram for every damn structure and protien the nested classification system is a better median.

The classification system based on hierachies of organisation works damn fine and is good for showing relatedness between extant species.