Re: Rupture aortic aneurysm

Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD schrieb: 
Thorsten Schier wrote:

Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD schrieb:

Thorsten Schier wrote:


Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD schrieb:


Jeff wrote:



"Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:425EF094.8647BF66@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Jeff wrote:



"Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:425EA876.68EF4951@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


[...]


Your arguement is like saying that jaguars couldn't have  developed
speed
through evolution because the slower jaguars would died because they
couldn't catch food or would have been killed by other animals.


No.  Natural selection (survival of the fittest) can explain how
jaguars
have become fast creatures.  Where natural selection fails is when it
tries to explain the existence of slow and seemingly stupid creatures.

Examples, please. 

(1) Slugs


1: Slugs don't hunt. So they don't have to be fast in order to get their
prey. They don't have to be very intelligent either, because it does not
require much brain to find the nearest eadible plant in comparison to
hunt other animals.

2: They don't taste very well

And how do you know this?

This is common knowledge among biologists. 


Some people love the taste of escargot while others do not.


The escargots usually eaten are not slugs. Even the French are not known
for eating slugs.


And how does its predators know this **before** killing it? 

Jeff has already answered this.



Not in a satisfactory manner. I've seen ants attack and kill a slug. They don't seem to mind the taste of the slug. 

I didn't say they don't have enemies at all.

and therefore don't have many enemies,
meaning they don't have to be fast in order to escape them.



However, being fast would still confer a survival advantage.  Why has
this selection not taken place ?

As Jeff has already explained, being fast has a price.


Other bugs seem to manage without difficulty. 

Other bugs have different stategies of survival.


If there is no
significant advantage of being faster, the costs are easily higher than
the benefit and there is selection _against_ getting any faster.


I accidently stepped on a slug yesterday. It would seem that speed
would have conferred a significant survival advantage to that slug that
would have been worth any cost. Just imagine the countless number of
slugs that have died because they were unable to move fast enough to get
out of the way of larger creatures. 

Humans were not around when slugs evolved. In the natural habitat of
slugs the chance that some larger creature steps on them is not very big.

In the case of slugs it should be noted that there are certain
constraints imposed by there morphology. To make them considerably
faster would require extensive rearrangement of their morphology. And
such massive changes don't happen very often.



Evidently you have not had the experience of mowing grass in a yard.  If
you had, you would have witnessed countless different kinds of little
insects who are fast enough to avoid being chopped up by the lawn
mower... except for the slugs.

Insects have a quite different morphology than slugs. For example they usually have legs and/or wings, both of which make speed a lot easier.

Btw, in climates favorable for slugs, the tend so be a serious problem for people with gardens because they eat the plants. Mowing the lawn isn't known to help to get rid of the slugs. So it seems slugs are quite successful in spite of their slowness.

3: They have a slow metabolism and therefore don't need much food. This
is an advantage of being slow. Their brain does not need much food
either. An advantage of lacking a large brain.



There really is no survival advantage to being either slow or "stupid."
Why has this not been selected against?

See above. Fastness and intelligence have their price.


According to the theory of evolution, survival is worth any cost. 

Not if you have to pay with survival.

Btw, different animals have different stategies of survival. Some are
fast to run away from their enemies, some hide from their enemies, some
don't taste good. The best stategy depends on what the animal is already
able to do (evolution is unlikely to massively transform animals if a
small change in a different direction will do as well) and the habitat
of the animal. For example it is easier to hide in the jungle than in
the savannah. So sloths can survive in the jungle by hiding from their
enemies while antelopes in the savannah have to run away from them.


Speed is advantageous in either environment. So is intelligence.

As you are not stupid I have to come to the conclusion that you are deliberatly not understanding. Further discussion does not seem to make much sense.


(2) Sloths


1: They don't hunt.

2: They probably don't have many enemies that are able to follow them in
the height of the trees.


They are sometimes also on the ground. 

That's why they shouldn't draw unnecessary attention to themselves by
undue speed.



The faster sloth will still have a survival advantage over the slower
one.

Reminds me of the following joke:

Two men watched in horror as lion emerged from the forest licking his
lips. One of the men bent down to double-lace his running shoes. The
other man comments, "that's not going to help you out-run the lion." The man wearing the running shoes replies, "I only need to out-run you."

In this case it is rather: the sloth that betrays his whereabouts by undue speed first, is seen and eaten by the jaguar.


3: The slowness of their movements serves as camouflage, so such enemies
as might hunt them don't see them too often.



You are thinking of the chameleon.  The sloth's slow movements is not
camouflage.  Having speed would still confer a survival advantage.
Why has there not been selection for this speed ?


I'm not thinking of the chameleon, but camouflage is probably not the
right word for what I meant. What I mean is that the slow speed helps
the sloths to hide themselves. If they were a bit faster they would
still be slower then their enemies but draw more attention to
themselves. So there is probably a strong selection _against_ them
getting any faster.



In truth, there is not ever **natural** selection against speed,
strength, or intelligence.  See joke above.


You are quite wrong with this. See this discussion.

(3) Manatees 

1: They don't hunt.

2: They probably don't have many enemies due to their habitat and size,
except mankind, of course.



Speed would still confer a survival advantage.  Why has there not been
selected for this?

Like what survival advantage? How would this help the manatees?


It would help them escape predators like sharks. They would also be
better able to get out of the way of boat propellers.

Sharks don't hunt in the shallow waters that are the habitat of manatees. And boat propellers were not around when manatees evolved.

3: Why do you think that manatees (and sloths) are stupid? They might be
more intelligent than you think. Of course not as intelligent as
chimpanzees or dolphins, but then again, there is no need for them to be
so intelligent.



Intelligence would still confer a survival advantage.  Why has there not
been selection for this?


Because a large brain is expensive. Usually animals are particularly
intelligent if they are either carnivores or have a complicated social
life like many primates. For a manatee being as intelligent as a dolphin
would be a waist of resources.


It would not be a waste if it improves fitness for survival. 

_if_

But it does not improve fitness for survival taking into account the cost and therefor it is a waste.

Yes ?

And your explanation is ?

I'm not Jeff, but I hope you are satisfied with my explantion.


No. Nor should you be. 

Well, I am. A specialist for these animals could probably give you even
better or more elaborate explanations.


Bring them on. 

I'm not a specialist for any of these animals.

But by all means, feel free to contact specialists for these animals and all will be revealed to you.

So you see, if a non-specialist
can come up with plausible explanations effortlessly, there does not
seem to be any problem for the theory of natural selection at all.


Your explanations are unsatisfactory. Sorry. 

Sorry that you are unable to understand my explanations.

[...]



Folks can witness the effect of gravity, firsthand.

No one has witnessed the evolution of a new species, firsthand. 

Many races of dogs are so different from each other that they would be
different species if they lived in free populations in the nature.


"Man selection" is not "natural selection." 

It is really quite similar. In both cases the fittest survive. The only
difference is that with "man selection", man is able to specify the
conditions for survival and that is  a lot faster, because man is able
to put a greater selection pressure on the animal than is usually found
in the nature.


Actually, the most important difference is that man is able to specify
unnatural criteria for survival. So we now have dogs that have been
selected for physical and neurological deformities making them slower
and less intelligent.

If left to natural selection (aka survival of the fittest), we should
see less species diversity as the fittest species destroy the slower and
less intelligent species in their competition for finite resources. Instead, the earth is rich with species diversity despite countless
extinctions as a consequence of man and the industrial revolution.

There many different ecological niches and therefor place for many different animals with different caracteristics. Faster and smarter are not always better, regarding the costs, was has been explained to you (althoug this concept seems to be beyond your grasp). Much less is being fast and intelligent always necessary for survival. Therefor slow and dumb animals can survive and even thrive quite well. How much intelligence does an anemone need?

This species diversity is not well explained by the theory of
evolution.  The intervention by an intelligent force can create species
diversity just as man has created tremendous diversity in dogs.


You can say the same thing about gravity. 


Not really.




Where there is no life, there can be no "natural 

selection" which is the process by which living creatures are killed
off
to **select** those with traits that promote survival.


So what? where there is no life, there is no life.

Evolution requires life.

The theory of evolution actually requires death of the unfit. 

That is the theory of natural selection. Natural selection is one
mechanism
of evolution. There are more, of course.

Natural selection is at the heart of the theory of evolution. 

No it isn't. It is certainly a very important part of it.


Natural selection is at the heart of the current theory of how evolution
works (the synthetic theory).



Correct.


That does mean that other theories of this
are impossible and in fact many other theories have been proposed.

This underscores the problems with the **current** theory of evolution.

No. Why should it? 


If the **current** theory of evolution were without problems, there
would be no need for other competing theories.

If Christianity were the true religion there would be no need for other religions.

It should be noted that of those competing theories have been proposed a long time ago and that all competing theories have been debunked by the vast majority of evolutionists.

You should not confuse obervable facts like evolution or the movements
of planets


In truth, the former has **not** been observed firsthand by anyone.

Yes, it has. You only have to open your eyes.


Ok, name one new species that has evolved from another that **you** have
witnessed firsthand. 

There is also evolution within species. That one is easier to see.

But to give you an example: The developement of carrion crow and hooded crow into two different species is still in progress and so we can witness it firsthand.

with the theories with which scientists explain these facts
(the synthetic theorie with natural selection as most important part for
the evolution and gravity for the movements of planets).


Theories are neither facts nor observable phenomena. 

Which is why evolution shouldn't be regarded as a theory, as it is an
observable phenomenon.



Please be sure to let us know when you observe the evolution of a new
species.


See above.


Without natural selection, the theory of evolution would be dead. 

No it would not. Things can evolve without natural selection, like genetic
drift.



Genetic drift would not explain the creation of new species.


Not alone, but it is often a part in the creation of new species. 


Only as passive substrate.



[...]



Truth is simple.

Only to the simple-minded. 


Actually, to the simple-minded without God's gift of truth discernment,
the truth does seem to be unfathomably complicated.


Reality _is_ complicated. But of course there are always those who
prefer to avoid reality.


Those who are able to discern the truth have no need to avoid reality,
which is subordinate to the truth.

So I take it that you are not able to discern the truth or else you wouldn't have to avoid reality.


Regards,

Thorsten

--
"Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution"

(Theodosius Dobzhansky)
.

Relevant Pages

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    ... couldn't catch food or would have been killed by other animals. ... No. Natural selection can explain how ... "Slugs, when attacked, can contract their body, making themselves harder and more compact and thus more difficult for many animals to get a hold. ... direction that evolution will probably take. ...
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  • Re: Rupture aortic aneurysm
    ... speed through evolution because the slower jaguars would died because they couldn't catch food or would have been killed by other animals. ... Where natural selection fails is when it tries to explain the existence of slow and seemingly stupid creatures. ... They don't have to be very intelligent either, because it does not require much brain to find the nearest eadible plant in comparison to hunt other animals. ... being fast would still confer a survival advantage. ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
  • Re: Rupture aortic aneurysm
    ... speed through evolution because the slower jaguars would died because they couldn't catch food or would have been killed by other animals. ... Where natural selection fails is when it tries to explain the existence of slow and seemingly stupid creatures. ... They don't have to be very intelligent either, because it does not require much brain to find the nearest eadible plant in comparison to hunt other animals. ... "Many things eat slugs. ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
  • Re: Rupture aortic aneurysm
    ... > The escargots usually eaten are not slugs. ... Correct because there was no evolution. ... different animals have different stategies of survival. ... >> see less species diversity as the fittest species destroy the slower and ...
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  • Re: Rupture aortic aneurysm
    ... >> The escargots usually eaten are not slugs. ... >>> According to the theory of evolution, ... >> I'm not a specialist for any of these animals. ... >>> see less species diversity as the fittest species destroy the ...
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