Studying how snakes got legless

BBC ^ | 8 February 2011 | Jonathan Amos

[Natufian]

A 95-million-year-old fossil is helping scientists understand how snakes lost their legs through evolutionary time.

Found in Lebanon, the specimen is one of only three examples of an ancient snake with preserved leg bones.

One rear leg is clearly visible but researchers had to use a novel X-ray technique to examine another leg hidden inside the fossil rock.

Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the team says the snake records an early stage in limb loss.

[MrB]

What allows adaptation?
The organism was created with the information necessary to adapt WITHIN its kind, or species if you will.
What stops adaptations?
The organism lacks the DNA information to adapt further.
You can see that within a species, even in humans. It’s not possible for humans lacking the information to produce dark skin to “evolve” to produce dark skinned offspring even with environmental pressures.

Equivocation: Observing adaptation, calling it “evolution”, then using the same term of “evolution” to assert that molecules organized themselves into humans.

Let me know when you can repeat the experiment.
“Science” after all, is repeatable.

[whattajoke]

So... you can't or won't answer my questions. Expected.

What allows adaptation?

Imperfect DNA replication with each reproductive event, change in allele frequency over time, various selective pressures.

The organism was created with the information necessary to adapt WITHIN its kind, or species if you will.

"If I will" what? Organisms don't adapt when we're talking evolution. Populations of species adapt. This is another massive flaw of creationist thinking; they often seem to think that "adaptations," to use your word, happens at an individual level.

What stops adaptations?

Well, nothing "stops" them, but selective pressures may very well diminish to such a point as to not give any advantage to a species who has certain allele frequency changes through time.

The organism lacks the DNA information to adapt further.

This sentence has no merit. "The organism" is nothing in the vastness of evolution. Merely having DNA, as all species do, allows a species to "adapt."

You can see that within a species, even in humans. It’s not possible for humans lacking the information to produce dark skin to “evolve” to produce dark skinned offspring even with environmental pressures.

Hm. Again, you seem to think that these shifts happen at the individual level. They don't. But to be clear, am I understanding correctly that it is your belief that Homo sapiens was created with all the different races at the same time? Wow.

And if that's the case, how the heck did Noah do that?

[MrB]

All I see is one big circular “begging the question”.
You’re assuming evolution, so all the evidence viewed through that lens, of course, supports your assumption.

Also, you’re misrepresenting my viewpoint on adaptation, perhaps a purposeful misreading in order to bat down the strawman? I have no belief that adaptation happens on an individual basis.

Of course, with your evolutionist assumptions, the ideas of the “races” from a creationist point of view is baffling, because the evolutionist assumption WRT “race” is upside down. The original humans (and Noah) had all the information necessary in their DNA to produce the variations you see in the “races” worldwide. When the people groups became isolated, the interbreeding eventually lost the ability to produce other traits seen in other people groups in other locations. Think of hybrid crosses where eventually all the recessive or all the dominant genes get weeded out.

You really didn’t seem to understand my answer, either, since I was quoting and addressing your questions, and you were answering your questions as well.

[whattajoke]

It must be noted that you've yet again failed to answer one of my simple questions. In lieu of that, you've chosen to toss about the terms you learned in philosophy 101 yet again.

(I'll readily admit, you would kick my ass in philosophy 101... which of course has no bearing on biology 101.)

You’re assuming evolution...

Not really, not for the purpose of my question re: adaptation/speciation.

So let's say we agree that there is no such thing as evolution. But, as you admit, there IS something called adaptation. In fact, this is the imaginary world you live in, isn't it? Adaptation but no speciation - right?

Ok. So... In that world, what causes adaptation? Why do you see adaptations? What is the mechanism for those adaptations? Why do species adapt? Surely you've thought of this and have answers.

And while you're thinking about that, please think about the follow-on question which is what I originally asked: What stops these adaptations from continuing and becoming more pronounced over many generations? What is the biological mechanism that puts the brakes on and says, in effect, "hey! Whoa there! Stop adapting or you'll become a tad too different from that population of you across that river!"

As for your explanation of how human races came about, I'll leave that for another day. After all, you hyper-fast "hybridization" hypothesis requires dna changes occurring many magnitudes faster than any scientist would propose.

[stormer]

I'm quite familiar with various logical fallacies. You may want to brush up on the concept of the non sequitur.

[stormer]

Noting like a catchy motto...

[EternalVigilance]

Figures that someone who has such a low opinion of those who fought for our liberty and independence would have such images lying around.

[kosta50]

Disagreement with anyone’s belieif doens’t make one a liberal. However, reaching for labels when one has no other argument makes one pathetic.

[kosta50]

Actually, inalienable refers to something that cannot be taken or given away. I doesn’t have anything to do with the invisible man in the sky...

Now you want them to understand what the words actually mean? Geeez. :)

Maybe they associate it with "cosmic"? You know, aliens...LOL.

[EternalVigilance]

Speaking of aliens, if you’re not part of the “we” in “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”, what does that make you?

[kosta50]

Speaking of aliens, if you’re not part of the “we” in “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”, what does that make you?

An independent thinker, which in some places is as good as an alien.

I happen to believe that all men are created equal, and are entitled to certain rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis others, but not by or because of any providence in the sky. We are all citizens of earth by birthright.

[EternalVigilance]

Your own language betrays you, and contradicts itself.

If you’re created, there has to be a Creator.

[EternalVigilance]

An independent thinker, which in some places is as good as an alien.

"Independence" from what the founders called "self-evident" is nothing to brag about.

[EternalVigilance]

“Self-evident” truth is obvious truth, rational truth, as-plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face reality.

Become too disconnected, too “independent,” from reality and they’re likely to put you in a padded room.

[kosta50]

If you’re created, there has to be a Creator

Not one but two: my mother and my father.

[kosta50]

Become too disconnected, too “independent,” from reality and they’re likely to put you in a padded room.

Speaking from experience? Been there lately a lot?

[EternalVigilance]

No. Unlike yourself, I’m still connected to the same reality the founders of this country knew.

[whattajoke]

As much as we love and respect the founding fathers, it doesn’t help the conversation to bestow deity status upon them. Sheesh. It’s like that one sentence was written by God himself all the sudden instead of a slave-owning adulterer.

Of course, in today’s world, many well-known conservative voices seem to confuse the Puritans with the founding fathers too.

Let alone confusing the founding fathers with a thread about the evolution of snakes.

Free Republic is a wacky place sometimes.

[EternalVigilance]

Not one but two: my mother and my father.

So, do you think that was what the founders of this free republic were talking about when they laid our nation's cornerstone and said:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

???

[EternalVigilance]

instead of a slave-owning adulterer.

Typical of the left. Must tear down the founders to your level so you can reject the timeless self-evident truth they espoused, upon which we base our republic and our claim to liberty.