Mr. Butterfly

Uther · Post by **Uther** » 2003-02-26 09:21pm

Hi, quick question. How does evolutionary theory account for something like the butterfly? How does something evolve the capacity to enter into a gestation period and emerge as a creature with an entirely different method of living, food source, etc?

Thanks!

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-26 09:29pm

Oh bloody hell, here we go....

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-02-26 09:38pm

Forward, forward rode the five thousand...

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2003-02-26 09:45pm

looks at watch..

2.45 am.. Damn..

I miss all the fundies.. See you tomorrow.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-02-26 09:56pm

Trial and error, most likely. Over million of years this process develops a little at a time, and it works, so it is kept.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-02-26 10:20pm

you know how humans gradually grow from babies to adults? well imagine if we jizzed all over ourselves, fell asleep, and grew faster then woke up one day. thats really the main difference, k? k.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-26 10:33pm

kojikun wrote:you know how humans gradually grow from babies to adults? well imagine if we jizzed all over ourselves, fell asleep, and grew faster then woke up one day. thats really the main difference, k? k.

*will not be able to look at butterflies in the same way again*
Thanks....
So when do the porn stars grow wings?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-02-26 10:41pm

Whenever the bosses tell them to buy the angel/demon wings, duh. unless youre a faerie, then you wear fruity wings 24/7.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-26 10:49pm

More a vampire myself...though I hail from the land of the sidehe

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-02-26 11:40pm

Uther wrote:Hi, quick question. How does evolutionary theory account for something like the butterfly? How does something evolve the capacity to enter into a gestation period and emerge as a creature with an entirely different method of living, food source, etc?

I frankly don't know. There probably has been much research into this, but it's late so I don't think you'll get an answer until tommorrow.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-27 12:24am

Uther wrote:Hi, quick question. How does evolutionary theory account for something like the butterfly? How does something evolve the capacity to enter into a gestation period and emerge as a creature with an entirely different method of living, food source, etc?

It doesn't "evolve" these abilities. You confuse evolution with metamorphosis, you blithering idiot.

Besides, change is a natural feature of life cycles in many species. At the moment of birth, a human embryo metamorphosizes from a creature which lives in liquid and takes in all its nutrients from a tube in its stomach to a creature which breathes air and takes in all its nutrients through its mouth.

By the way, why do you feel it is impossible for these characteristics to evolve? Are you suggesting that there is no evolutionary advantage? Are you suggesting that it is impossible for these structures to have been inherited, or to have developed from simpler observed forms of life cycle metamorphosis in other species, such as ants? Or are you, like most creationists, just being a lazy jack-ass and assuming that anything which seems confusing to you must somehow be de facto proof of creation theory?

Thanks!

For humouring your obviously lazy and stupid rhetorical question? I've seen your type before.

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-02-27 01:09am

Just a quick add-on : while butterflies are at an extreme end of insect metamorphosis, there's everything in between. Silverfish adults simply look like larger versions of their infant form. Dragonflies start out as free-swimming larvae and shed their skin pretty quickly to get the adult form. Butterflies and moths we already know. So, the metamorphosis of a butterfly is simply a matter of degree, and obviously doesn't have impossible steps in between.

As to why : amoung other things, such a change in lifestyles could seperate resources used from the larval form to the adult form. The same caterpillars that do billions of dollars worth of damage to crops each year could have an adult form that survives on nectar or even eat nothing at all until it dies.

The larval form could consume the abundant resources (for it's size) in something as simple as the puddle in an old tire because there was a more mobile adult form - of course, if adult form didn't metamorphize, the entire population would die out when that puddle dried, so you get the best of both worlds.

At the other end of the spectrum, we can have a mobile larval form and a sessile adult form, like sea cucumbers. Despite the name, they are animals that start out with a free-swimming larval form like a fish or a worm. Then when it finds a good spot it anchors itself to a surface and actually digests it's own nervous system and becomes an adult. In this case, the free-swimming form allows it to find better food spots while the adult form exploits it. Feel free to shudder, as an organism very much like this one, but had a mutation that turned off the self-annihaltion of the nervous system, could have been one of your own ancestors.

Metamorphosis can also be seen as continued growth after hatching or birth. If you're a predator in your average pond, a clump of frog eggs is easy tasty food for you. If you're a frog, it would be in your best interests to get out of the egg as soon as possible. Had you been intelligently designed, you might make a beeline to forming an adult frog form as soon as possible, but you're evolved so you develop through the fish form of your ancestors and than end up modifying that, a rather roundabout way of doing things. So you exit your development in the egg early, as soon as you can bite and swim your way out of your egg, the nice juicy target. Feet and sex organs can wait.

Hell, you can even extend it to other vertebrates. Like Darth Wong already mentioned, a baby has to go from getting all it's nutrients, oxygen and waste disposal through a single tube into someone that has to use it's lungs and mouth to survive - in the space of seconds. Heck, he or she has to go from an all-liquid diet of milk into another diet consisting of meat and plants. Hell, alot of people end up lactose intolerant as adults without really affecting us as a species. So, obviously babies change. You can even think of puberty as a metamorphosis of sorts, although it would be really odd to do so.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2003-02-27 01:34am

Cyborg Stan wrote:Just a quick add-on : while butterflies are at an extreme end of insect metamorphosis, there's everything in between. Silverfish adults simply look like larger versions of their infant form. Dragonflies start out as free-swimming larvae and shed their skin pretty quickly to get the adult form. Butterflies and moths we already know. So, the metamorphosis of a butterfly is simply a matter of degree, and obviously doesn't have impossible steps in between.

As to why : amoung other things, such a change in lifestyles could seperate resources used from the larval form to the adult form. The same caterpillars that do billions of dollars worth of damage to crops each year could have an adult form that survives on nectar or even eat nothing at all until it dies.

The larval form could consume the abundant resources (for it's size) in something as simple as the puddle in an old tire because there was a more mobile adult form - of course, if adult form didn't metamorphize, the entire population would die out when that puddle dried, so you get the best of both worlds.

At the other end of the spectrum, we can have a mobile larval form and a sessile adult form, like sea cucumbers. Despite the name, they are animals that start out with a free-swimming larval form like a fish or a worm. Then when it finds a good spot it anchors itself to a surface and actually digests it's own nervous system and becomes an adult. In this case, the free-swimming form allows it to find better food spots while the adult form exploits it. Feel free to shudder, as an organism very much like this one, but had a mutation that turned off the self-annihaltion of the nervous system, could have been one of your own ancestors.

Metamorphosis can also be seen as continued growth after hatching or birth. If you're a predator in your average pond, a clump of frog eggs is easy tasty food for you. If you're a frog, it would be in your best interests to get out of the egg as soon as possible. Had you been intelligently designed, you might make a beeline to forming an adult frog form as soon as possible, but you're evolved so you develop through the fish form of your ancestors and than end up modifying that, a rather roundabout way of doing things. So you exit your development in the egg early, as soon as you can bite and swim your way out of your egg, the nice juicy target. Feet and sex organs can wait.

Hell, you can even extend it to other vertebrates. Like Darth Wong already mentioned, a baby has to go from getting all it's nutrients, oxygen and waste disposal through a single tube into someone that has to use it's lungs and mouth to survive - in the space of seconds. Heck, he or she has to go from an all-liquid diet of milk into another diet consisting of meat and plants. Hell, alot of people end up lactose intolerant as adults without really affecting us as a species. So, obviously babies change. You can even think of puberty as a metamorphosis of sorts, although it would be really odd to do so.

Excellent arguments, but I have just one eensy-weensie little nitpick. In humans, the fact that many of us can enjoy large quantities of dairy products at all is a fine example of a random genetic mutation. In most other mammals, lactose intolerance in adults is the norm. Without it, it would take much longer to wean a young animal off it's mother's milk. And those varieties of animals wouldn't reproduce as fast and . . . well, one gets the picture.

Humans, OTOH, specifically the Europeans, IIRC, carry a mutation that disables this lactose intolerance in adults. Other humans don't have this mutation, though it's been spread through the world through interbreeding (it's why lactose intolerance tends to occur more frequently in some ethnic groups.) And for humans, this mutation has actually turned out to have a benefit, especially after humans domesticated animals for their milk.

This is actually a good example of why intelligent design is wrong. If a certain feature works very well, then an intelligent designer would be disinclined to suddenly and randomly turn it off. Yet, we see that sometime in the past, some humans acquired a random mutation that did just that.

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-02-27 01:55am

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:<SNIP> Middle, stuff about how lactose intolerance is the norm with the Europeans being a notable exception.</SNIP>

Yeah, I knew that, but it slipped my mind for it. Thanks for reminding me. Makes the argument stronger, as it shows the complete change of diet from infant to adult is definately not a fluke.

Uther · Post by **Uther** » 2003-02-27 05:57pm

To all those who responded to my question: thanks, that makes sense!

Oh, and my question was born out of genuine curiousity- I'm not a Creationist, but your personal insults will certainly be taken to heart!

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-02-27 06:09pm

...Sorry! Perhaps we were a little too hasty to generalize, since most people who post things like that are stupid, rather than honestly curious.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-02-27 06:52pm

Stupidity is in far higher supply so it was easier for us to generalize than simply ask why you wanted to know. Of course a cynic would say that stupidity is in far higher demand.
Stupidity is in far higher demand.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-02-27 06:55pm

Now wouldn't be fun if several creationists had a "Franz Kafka" incident.....

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-02-27 07:17pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Now wouldn't be fun if several creationists had a "Franz Kafka" incident.....

Not really, just the dying part at the end.

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