Bill's questions:
Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of Meisosis reproduction? Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis animals?
This is one of Bill Morgan's "impossible" questions. As you will recall, such questions are standard equipment in fundamentalist proselytizing, where they are used to "soften the target" by confusing the intended victim and destroying his confidence. I believe that most of Bill's problems with my answer was that he didn't know how to deal with an actual answer. So all he could do, after ignoring my answer failed, was to quickly change the subject.
Please note that this is one of the exchanges in which Bill tries to respond to my answering of his question by claiming that I had not answered his question. However, that game does not last too long in this exchange.
Also, this exchange got off to a slow start because Bill didn't even know how to phrase the question, so I had to try to get him to explain what he was trying to say, something that Bill hates to do and always tries to avoid. As you can see, it's like having to pull teeth to get any kind of straight answer out of him for a simple question.
Actually, I'm not completely sure whether we were able to pin down just exactly what Bill was trying to ask. If I recall correctly from 17 years ago, I ended up just having to assume that he was asking about the evolution of sex, which, it turns out, isn't really that hard of a nut to crack. At any rate, I answered both how we can get from mitosis to meiosis as well as how to get those gametes together and how the transition from asexual to sexual reproduction wouldn't have stalled (ie, many species still use both asexual and sexual reproduction).
By the way, I was fully aware that the misspelled word "debae" in Bill's first message was meant to be "debate", not "debase." I just could not resist the temptation.
In the following text, I am "DWise1" and Bill Morgan is "BillyJack6." Liber8r was a third-party witness to our correspondence.
Also, the links I gave are broken and I have modified the text to report that fact.
######################################################## Subj: Re: Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E Date: 98-06-05 22:33:39 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1 For Liber8r: ### BEGIN MESSAGE ### Subj: Fwd: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E Date: 98-06-02 21:58:19 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1, BillyJack6 You missed a good butt whipping at UCI! Want to get the video? Want to debae Dr Mark Eastman in public????? ### END MESSAGE ### >You missed a good butt whipping at UCI!< Sorry to hear that Dr. Eastman had such a rough time of it. How badly did he screw up? Do you have Joe Tyndall's email address? >Want to debae Dr Mark Eastman in public?????< Debase him? No, I have no desire to debase anybody in public ... well, maybe a few really deserving sleazy characters, but Scouting would doubtless suffer for it. Bill, debasing people in public is YOUR methodology, not mine. Creation science strategy and tactics call for swaying public opinion by destroying public trust in science and scientists, then offer your theology as the only alternative. By the Two Model Approach (TMA), this is to be accomplished by: 1. first establishing the false dilemma that there are only two mutually exclusive "models": a. the "creation model", which contains all ideas of origins which are compatible with a literalist interpretation of Genesis b. the "evolution model", which contains all ideas of origins which are not contained in the "creation model", including several disproven, discarded, and contradictory ideas. 2. "disprove" the "evolution model" by various means, not the least of which is to quote prominent scientists denouncing various parts of the "evolution model", usually the disproven and discarded ideas. 3. conclude that, since the "evolution model" has been "disproven" (through death by a thousand pin pricks), then the "creation model", as the only alternative, is true. Of vital importance for creation science it that this conclusion is reached without ever having to present the "creation model" nor any evidence for it, and without ever having to discuss the "creation model." Indeed, in one debate when his opponent tried to present Flood Geology in order to discuss it, Henry Morris refused to discuss it because that would be introducing religion into a scientific debate. Avoiding having to present the "creation model" is important because it is very difficult to hide the fact that you are trying to play "Hide the Bible" and avoiding having to present any evidence for the "creation model" is important because the evidence does not support it and even counters it. Hence creation science is left with no option but to simply attack evolution and science, even if you can do no more than further erode the public's trust in science by feeding and increasing their misunderstanding of it. I have observed that you are quite familiar with these tactics. [DWISE1: rest of the message snipped due to lack of relevence] ######################################################## Subj: Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E Date: 98-06-06 11:59:36 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 I do not hide the Bible. I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account. Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of Meisosis reproduction? Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis animals? If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals. Thank you. ######################################################### Subj: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-14 23:20:24 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com ### BEGIN ### Subj: Re: "Desperate" Scientists Invent "Missing E Date: 98-06-06 11:59:36 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 I do not hide the Bible. I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account. Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of Meisosis reproduction? Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis animals? If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals. Thank you. ### END ### >I do not hide the Bible.< Granted, I cannot say whether you personally have played the game of "Hide the Bible", since I do not know whether you have actively claimed that the claims of creation science are not based on religious beliefs, but rather are based solely on scientific evidence. As you will recall from the history of creation science, creation science was devised in the late 60's as a tool to oppose the teaching of evolution. Because court decisions of the time had just struck down the "monkey laws" by declaring unconstitutional the inclusion or banning of public school curricula on religious grounds, creation science was designed to circumvent those court decisions by hiding the fact of its religious basis and claiming that it was based solely on scientific evidence. That is the game of "Hide the Bible." Even though many of its claims had already been formulated years before, the purveyors of "public school" "creation science" materials simply esponged all direct biblical references from their standard edition materials. Hence, an unnamed world-wide flood lasting only one year destroyed all land life except for those unnamed pairs who boarded an unnamed Ark which had been built by an unnamed person, and so on. The ruse was to sneak creation science past the courts. In 1981, that ruse failed. In the Arkansas and Louisiana trials, the courts found that creationism was indeed religious and so failed the court's tests. At that point, the game of "Hide the Bible" was expanded to "Hide the Creationism", whereupon we suddenly started seeing everywhere a new set of buzzwords like "intelligent design" and "abrupt appearance." However, when you looked at it directly and examined it, it was just the same old stuff (SOS). >I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account.< Does that mean that you believe that your god directly created the first of all kinds of life: plant and animal, marine and terrestrial? On what basis do you believe that? The Bible? No, seriously. Do you believe that your god directly created the first of all kinds of life and what do you base that belief on? Yes or no? I really do expect an answer. >Do you have a better explanation than the Garden of Eden for the origin of Meisosis reproduction? Do you beleive Mitosis reproducing animals are teh ancestors of Meisosis animals? If so why, if so explain how they "evolved into meisosis animals.< "Meisosis"? What the hell is that? Never heard of it and I cannot find any mention of it anywhere. And what is this business of "explain how they 'evolved into meisosis animals." What, so now I have to be a god myself, required to possess omniscience that I can peer into the past and gather all the little details? All while you repeatedly weasel out of even the simplest of questions, like "Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old? Why?" (a perfectly reasonable question, since you had asked me whether and why I thought the earth was billions of years old and I answered your question) and "What was meant by your outburst, "Its not!" (Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?; Date: 97-10-10 01:07:56 EDT)?"? If you expect me to answer that kind of a question, then you need to be ready and able to answer that question yourself, plus other questions of that level of complexity. You cannot expect to get away with a say-nothing "explanation" like "God did it." That won't wash. If you expect me to describe the details of how some trait evolved, then we must expect YOU to described in the SAME LEVEL OF DETAIL how God had created that same trait! Unless you are able and willing to produce that kind of an answer, you cannot demand the same of anyone else. Of course, we see that very same thing coming from the professional creationists, only they are nowhere near as blatant as you are in dodging direct questions. I recall Henry Morris claiming that creation science offers better answers than evolution because he says that evolution claims to be able to answer EVERYTHING, which it cannot, whereas creation science does not claim to be able to answer anything, which it succeeds at. Like you, the professional creationists dodge direct questions. Unlike you, they are usually able to make it appear as if they they had answered the question, provided you do not listen closely enough. The professional creationists also do as do you (I'm sure that you had learned from them) in asking one "impossible" question after another, never actually expecting an answer. The only reason for asking those questions is to put their opponent on the defensive and to make their opponent's position appear weak and tenuous. Remember, questions like "why is the sky blue" are NOT simple (again, a famous astronomy PhD candidate, Cliff Stoll, was hit with that question in his final oral exam and it took him hours to answer it). Such questions as you keep asking are nothing more than rhetorical tricks. If all you are going to do is play rhetorical games and rely in tricks, how could you ever expect me to consider a face-to-face debate? Please excuse me if I am less than impressed by your attitude and your rhetorical games here. Now, in following the Golden Rule (the Jesus version, not the older and generally superior Hillel version), I will turn to the question of mitosis and meiosis (which is what I assume you had meant; you could at least make an attempt to get the spelling right). Ironic, isn't it? It's the atheists who maintain higher moral standards and dedication to the search for truth, whereas the Christians, who constantly claim to hold the moral high ground, typically take the low road of resorting to deception, dirty tricks, and lies. Rather than deploying a rhetorical trick of demanding a detailed description of the actual process by which a trait had evolved, a serious questioner would ask how a trait could have evolved, ie, to ask what kind of an explanation the theory could produce. In the first case, the answer could require information which is simply not available, whereas in the second case, the answer would be an exercise in applying the theory under question in order to see whether the theory COULD provide an answer. Do you see the difference? There could be several plausible explanations that could explain how something could have happened, but there can only be one account of how it actually did happen. Remember also that the question of how something happened is separate from the question of whether it happened. This means that the inability to answer the question of how something works (ie, describing the mechanism of a phenomenon) does not disprove the existence of that something (ie, whether the phenomenon actually exists). Refer in my critique of your "Weird Science" to my discussion of Duane Gish's quoting of philosopher of science Larry Laudan. Therefore, the question should be something like: "How could mitosis-reproducing animals have evolved into meiosis animals?" Thereupon, the questionee could apply evolutionary theory to generate one or more scenarios. Then, we could examine those scenarios and determine what evidence we might expect to find if a given scenario were true. Then we could devise a number of tests for that evidence and, depending on what we do or do not find, support or eliminate various of the scenarios. Through that process, we could eventually find some of that missing information of your original question. Even more appropriate for our discussion would be an alternative question of: "Why would you think that meiosis-reproducing animals evolved from mitosis-reproducing animals?" This question directly addresses the issue of our holding two different and apparently opposing positions on the question of the origin and inter-relatedness of species. First, a quick review, concentrating on eukaryotes, since your reference was specifically to animals (and since I am not certain how the process works in prokaryotes). Mitosis is the process by which a single cell grows, duplicates its genetic material, then pulls the two sets of chromosomes to either side and finally splits in two, yielding two cells where there had been one. Mitosis consists of seven or nine (the actual number escapes me at present) distinct phases. Mitosis is used by single-celled animals for reproduction. To my knowledge, single-celled animals and colonies of undifferentiated cells only use mitosis to reproduce and multi-celled animals (ie, with bodies consisting of tissues of differentiated cells) do not use mitosis to reproduce the entire animal. However, the individual cells of multi-celled animals continue to use mitosis to reproduce themselves. Also, some multi-celled animals capable of regeneration can effective create duplicates of themselves if they are cut in pieces; eg, flatworms and starfish. Therefore, we find mitosis still present and working in animals that reproduce via meiosis. Meiosis is the process of producing gametes, AKA "germ cells", each of which contain half of the chromosomes of the original cells. Then two gametes from two different individuals combine to form a cell with a complete set of genetic material, which then uses mitosis to produce more cells, which develop into the embryo, then into the fetus. It turns out that meiosis is a variation of mitosis, in effect a crippled form, since some steps appear to be missing. First a definition: a "polar body" is a packet of genetic material without the normally-associated cytoplasm. Remembering back to biology class over 20 years ago, the gametes-to-be use mitosis to produce some copies, but then they undergo division before they duplicate any genetic material or cytoplasm. What results in the male are four polar bodies which become sperm and in the female three polar bodies which are discarded and one cell with half its chromosomes, an ovum. So going from mitosis to meiosis does not appear to be that great of a step. Please explain your problem with it. ######################################################### Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis animals....thats typical! Billy Jack BillyJack6 Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT, you write: << Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis animals....thats typical! Billy Jack >> ######################################################### Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-16 09:50:40 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com In a message dated 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT, you write: << Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis animals....thats typical! Billy Jack >> Bill, I answered the question. If you are not satisfied with the answer, then please explain what exactly you were looking for, why you would expect the kind of answer you were looking for, why you had asked that particular question in that particular form (ie, what your goals were), whether you even expected to receive an answer, and YOUR OWN ANSWER TO YOUR OBLIGATION TO PRESENT THE *D*E*T*A*I*L*S* OF HOW YOUR GOD HAD CREATED MITOSIS AND MEIOSIS (to the same level of detail that you would demand of me). Bill, I respond to your questions and I do answer them, even though you try to design them to be unanswerable. You almost never respond to, let alone try to answer, even the simplest of questions that I ask you. Please note that my questions to you are meant to be answerable. You are projecting again, Bill. How typical. ######################################################### Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-25 01:21:20 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1 ### BEGIN ### Subj: Re: "Hide the Bible"/Mitosis to Meiosis Date: 98-06-15 00:47:38 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 In other words, you refuse to answer how mitosis animals evolved in meiosis animals....thats typical! Billy Jack ### END ### I answered your question, as I had understood the question. If you disagree, then you need to explain why you disagree. If I had misunderstood your question, then please reword the question so that I can understand it correctly. Regarding the answering of each other's questions, in order to determine what typical behavior is on both our parts, please refer to my message of today which tallies the questions and the answers and then compares both of our records. Here is the summary from that message: SUMMARY: Bill's Questions to Me: Answered: 23 Unanswered: 2 Percent Answered: 23/(23+2) = 23/25 = 92% My Questions to Bill: Answered: 12 Unanswered: 65 Asked Repeated and Not Answered: 18 Percent Answered: 12/(12+65+18) = 12/95 = 12.6% So, what is typical is that I answer 92% of the questions that you pose, whereas you only answer about 12.6% of my questions to you. FWIW, I found a page which compares mitosis and meiosis: [http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/meiosis.htm -- link is broken]. A graphical comparison linked to this page (and displayed on the page in smaller format) is at [http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/mandm.htm -- link is broken]. It is pretty much as I had remembered it, even though I had forgotten some of the details over the past two decades. Though somehow I get the impression that you don't actually want any information. ######################################################### Subj: Re: Two Model Approach Date: 98-06-26 23:04:42 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 So mitosis animals gave rise to meiosis animals how? ########################################### Subj: TMA/ Again with the Mitosis/Meiosis Date: 98-07-09 02:05:13 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1 ### BEGIN ### Subj: Two Model Approach Date: 98-06-05 22:33:57 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1 Bill: On the subject of the "Two Model Approach" (TMA), I just came across a little something I wrote some years ago (1991). As part of my approach of taking creation science claims at face value, I decided to use the TMA to generate expectations from both evolution and the creation model that then could be tested against the real world. When I did so, I found the "creation model" to be in much sorrier shape than current evolutionary theory and modern science. BTW, note that I used current evolutionary theory and the applicable scientific field instead of the TMA's "evolution model", since the latter bears little more than a superficial resemblance to evolution. [clipped] Now you see why the ICR avoids discussing or even defending the "creation model" in debate; it's very vulnerable! Bill, by an interesting coincidence, you also avoid discussing or defending the "creation model", or even creation science itself. Did I say "coincidence"? I don't think it is. ### END ### ### BEGIN ### Subj: Re: Two Model Approach Date: 98-06-26 23:04:42 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 So mitosis animals gave rise to meiosis animals how? ### END ### There will be two separate responses, the second one of which will answer your question, yet again. But first there are a few issues that need to be addressed. That means that I DEMAND THAT YOU ADDRESS THESE ISSUES! INTELLIGIBLY! (ie, meaningfully worded and with sufficient context for us to understand what you are trying to say; single-word responses or single-line non sequiturs will not be acceptable) Your failure to do so will be duly noted and interpreted as your concession that your question is meaningless and posed for devious purposes. I apologize for using such harsh conditions, but considering your past elusiveness and unintelligible utterings, I sincerely believe that they are absolutely necessary. 1. Your response has nothing to do with the message you are responding to. This is a very common thing that you do, sending replies that have nothing to do with the original message. The original message was about an intellectual exercise in which I took creation science's "Two Model Approach" (TMA) at face value and applied it to a few specific claims. Instead of raising objections to what I had written, or asking for clarification on certain points, or offering a counter-example, you did not address the subject matter at all. Rather, you tried a diversionary tactic to draw our attention away from some of creation science's serious deficiencies by posing one of your "impossible" questions again. Is that what you mean by "rabbit trail"? If so, then please get back on track. 2. Despite your ludicrous claim that you have answered "100%" of my questions, the fact still remains that your usual response to a question of mine is to completely ignore it. Then, when my answer to YOUR question does not meet with your approval, you put on a big show of complaining that I had not answered your question and either demanding that I answer your question or denouncing me for never answering your questions. CHECK THE FACTS, MISTER! If you cannot conduct a reality check on your own, then I will gladly provide you with a copy of nearly ALL our email traffic. Then you can conduct your own count and you can report back to us showing us EXACTLY where you got your counts from. Until you drastically improve your own record for answering my questions, INTELLIGIBLY, you have no right to expect me to answer any of yours. For being a member of a group that claims (falsely, of course) exclusive rights to the Golden Rule, you have demonstrated a singularly dismal comprehension of what that rule entails. IF YOU WANT TO CLAIM TO ANSWER "100%" OF MY QUESTIONS, THEN YOU NEED TO START DOING SO -- RIGHT NOW! 3. In your self-deluded self-proclaimed perfect record of answering my questions "100%", you have failed completely to answer my questions to you concerning your first posting of your mitosis/meiosis question. Please answer them this time, INTELLIGIBLY: ### BEGIN REPEAT TRANSMISSION ### >I openly beleive in the Garden of Eden account.< Does that mean that you believe that your god directly created the first of all kinds of life: plant and animal, marine and terrestrial? On what basis do you believe that? The Bible? No, seriously. Do you believe that your god directly created the first of all kinds of life and what do you base that belief on? Yes or no? I really do expect an answer. And what is this business of "explain how they 'evolved into meisosis animals." What, so now I have to be a god myself, required to possess omniscience that I can peer into the past and gather all the little details? All while you repeatedly weasel out of even the simplest of questions, like "Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old? Why?" (a perfectly reasonable question, since you had asked me whether and why I thought the earth was billions of years old and I answered your question) and "What was meant by your outburst, "Its not!" (Subj: Re: Where'd ya go?; Date: 97-10-10 01:07:56 EDT)?"? If you expect me to answer that kind of a question, then you need to be ready and able to answer that question yourself, plus other questions of that level of complexity. You cannot expect to get away with a say-nothing "explanation" like "God did it." That won't wash. If you expect me to describe the details of how some trait evolved, then we must expect YOU to described in the SAME LEVEL OF DETAIL how God had created that same trait! Unless you are able and willing to produce that kind of an answer, you cannot demand the same of anyone else. Of course, we see that very same thing coming from the professional creationists, only they are nowhere near as blatant as you are in dodging direct questions. I recall Henry Morris claiming that creation science offers better answers than evolution because he says that evolution claims to be able to answer EVERYTHING, which it cannot, whereas creation science does not claim to be able to answer anything, which it succeeds at. Like you, the professional creationists dodge direct questions. Unlike you, they are usually able to make it appear as if they they had answered the question, provided you do not listen closely enough. The professional creationists also do as do you (I'm sure that you had learned from them) in asking one "impossible" question after another, never actually expecting an answer. The only reason for asking those questions is to put their opponent on the defensive and to make their opponent's position appear weak and tenuous. Remember, questions like "why is the sky blue" are NOT simple (again, a famous astronomy PhD candidate, Cliff Stoll, was hit with that question in his final oral exam and it took him hours to answer it). Such questions as you keep asking are nothing more than rhetorical tricks. If all you are going to do is play rhetorical games and rely in tricks, how could you ever expect me to consider a face-to-face debate? Please excuse me if I am less than impressed by your attitude and your rhetorical games here. ### END REPEAT TRANSMISSION ### 4. I object to the question itself for the following reasons (several of which I have raised before): a. It is not a reasonable question. Your question demands a detailed account of events which happened in the far-distant past and which, by their very nature, would leave little or no fossil evidence behind. This would be analogous to my demanding that you provide us with a detailed itinerary for Moses and the Israelites showing in detail how far they travelled and precisely where they made camp every single day of their 40-year journey from Egypt to Canaan. Could you do that? Would it be a reasonable question for me to ask you? ANSWER THIS QUESTION INTELLIGIBLY! Answering your question requires advanced expertise in certain fields of biology and paleontology. I am a software engineer with foreign-language training (BS Computer Science, BA German, BA Applied Math, AS Computer Technology [different from Computer Science]). It would not be reasonable to expect me to be able to provide an expert answer. You should be able to expect me to answer questions concerning number-base conversions, combinatorial logic, C syntax, CPU operations, extended adjectives, etc. You should not be able to expect me to provide detailed answers in paleo-microbiology. ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS INTELLIGIBLY: Why would you expect me to be able to answer your question? If I, a non-expert, am unable to answer your question, then what possible bearing could that have on the issue? If you, an obvious computer newbie, are unable to answer a question concerning the Clipboard, does that magically cause Windows to cease to exist? b. Such questions are mere rhetorical tricks, designed to be unanswerable. I've already described creationist strategy and tactics in a "debate". You're just carrying those tactics into this "discussion." ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS INTELLIGIBLY: Do you honestly expect anyone to be able to answer your question? [if you have trouble understanding honesty, just try to fake it] If your question is intended to be unanswerable, then why ask it? What are you trying to accomplish by your question? c. It is worded very poorly. For one thing, one does not normally talk in terms of "mitosis-reproducing" and "meiosis-reproducing" organisms. Using those terms in this manner causes confusion. Those terms apply specifically to single cells, not to an entire multi-cellular organism consisting of differentiated cells. Using those terms would also leave out other forms of reproduction, such as spores, budding, cloning (ie, naturally occuring cloning), regeneration after dismemberment (eg, flatworms and starfish), and runners. Rather, the terms "asexual reproduction" and "sexual reproduction" are used. Rather than deploying a rhetorical trick of demanding a detailed description of the actual process by which a trait had actually evolved, a serious questioner would ask how a trait could have evolved, ie, to ask what kind of an explanation the theory could produce. In the first case, the answer could require information which is simply not available, whereas in the second case, the answer would be an exercise in applying the theory under question in order to see whether the theory COULD provide an answer. Do you see the difference? There could be several plausible explanations that could explain how something could have happened, but there can only be one account of how it actually did happen. Remember also that the question of how something happened is separate from the question of whether it happened. This means that the inability to answer the question of how something works (ie, describing the mechanism of a phenomenon) does not disprove the existence of that something (ie, whether the phenomenon actually exists). Refer in my critique of your "Weird Science" to my discussion of Duane Gish's quoting of philosopher of science Larry Laudan. Therefore, the question should be something like: "How could mitosis-reproducing animals have evolved into meiosis animals?" Thereupon, the questionee could apply evolutionary theory to generate one or more scenarios. Then, we could examine those scenarios and determine what evidence we might expect to find if a given scenario were true. Then we could devise a number of tests for that evidence and, depending on what we do or do not find, support or eliminate various of the scenarios. Through that process, we could eventually find some of that missing information of your original question. Even more appropriate for our discussion would be an alternative question of: "Why would you think that meiosis-reproducing animals evolved from mitosis-reproducing animals?" This question directly addresses the issue of our holding two different and apparently opposing positions on the question of the origin and inter-relatedness of species. ANSWER THIS QUESTION INTELLIGIBLY: Would you agree that the alternative questions should be asked instead of your own question? Why not? Finally, you must have a reason for asking this question. Whether or not my understanding is correct that your sole intent in asking it was to stump me and put me on the defensive, there is still the question of why you had asked this particular question. Therefore, I will ask the following counter-question, one which you should be completely capable of answering, which assumes that you believe this question to be a great problem for evolution. ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS INTELLIGIBLY: Do you consider your question to present a major problem for evolution? If so, then why would your question present a major problem for evolution? Why don't you ask more pertinent questions, like whether Archaeopteryx is "100% bird", or how the three bones in the reptilian jaw could have ever migrated to the middle ear without leaving generations of nascent mammals with unhinged jaws (or, as Gish would put it, how could they chew and hear at the same time?), or how a three-chambered heart (amphibian & reptilian) could have ever turned into a four-chambered heart (mammals) and kept beating for all the generations when that was happening? ########################################### Subj: TMA/ Again with the Mitosis/Meiosis Date: 98-07-09 02:05:26 EDT From: DWise1 To: BillyJack6 CC: liber8r@mcs.com, DWise1 ### BEGIN ### Subj: Re: Two Model Approach Date: 98-06-26 23:04:42 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 So mitosis animals gave rise to meiosis animals how? ### END ### Well, at least you learned that the word is "meiosis." As I said in the other message, one does not normally talk in terms of "mitosis-reproducing" and "meiosis-reproducing" organisms. Using those terms in this manner causes confusion. Those terms apply specifically to single cells, not to an entire multi-cellular organism consisting of differentiated cells. Using those terms would also leave out other forms of reproduction, such as spores, budding, cloning (ie, naturally occuring cloning), regeneration after dismemberment (eg, flatworms and starfish), and runners. Rather, the terms "asexual reproduction" and "sexual reproduction" are used. Hence, your question should read: "So asexually reproducing animals gave rise to sexual reproducing animals how?" Therefore, I will proceed on the assumption that this interpretation of your question is correct and acceptable. If my assumption is incorrect, then please inform me INTELLIGIBLY of that fact and explain INTELLIGIBLY what the proper interpretation should be. If you do not response INTELLIGIBLY, then I can only assume that my assumption was both correct and acceptable. Please note that if your response is unintelligibly -- ie, if we cannot determine what you are saying or what you are refering to; an intelligible response must contain sufficient context to indicate what is being responded to -- then we will have no option but to proceed under the stated assumption. Obviously, from an evolutionary perspective, the answer would be that they had both evolved from a common ancestor. The fine details of exactly how they evolved and exactly what their common ancestor was are lost in the mists of time. Soft tissue and cellular structures do not fossilize readily and the events in question would have occurred in pre-Cambrian times, over 600 million years ago. Furthermore, since I am not an expert in the field and do not have complete knowledge of the current body of knowledge (although pre-cambrian fossils are relatively rare, they do nonetheless exist), I cannot state authoritatively what theories or hypotheses have been advanced to answer your question, nor what state of testing they would be in. Instead, given my time restrictions, I will examine what changes would have been needed and how drastic a change that would have been. I believe that this approach would best answer your question, since I understand the purpose of your question to be to claim that the transition from asexual to sexual reproduction would have been to drastic a change to have been able to happen, plus, you would want to claim that the intermediate stages of the change would not work and would wipe out the species before the changes could have been completed. Did I miss anything? Oh, yes, you would also want to claim that every single part of the change would have had to have been in place before any of it could be of any use. I think that should do it for now. If you disagree with my approach or with my answer, you MUST state PRECISELY WHY, INTELLIGIBLY. Failure to do so will be duly noted and interpreted as your concession that I had answered your question to your satisfaction. OK, a couple basic principles to start off with when working with evolution. Evolution rarely creates anything entirely new; it usually takes something preexisting and modifies it. Part of that modification can be, and often does involve, duplication, so that the modification of a feature does not necessitate the loss of that original feature. And, the "final" function of a feature is not necessarily the same as the original function, so there is no need to try to incorporate foresight (ie, there is not need for a future eye to "know" that it is going to become an eye). So, what would it take for asexual organisms to become sexual organisms? Here is what it looks like to me: 1. Meiosis. 2. Getting the gametes together. 3. Development. That looks about like it to me. Can you think of anything else? OK, first some basics. Asexual reproduction can involve a lot more than simple cell division, mitosis. When we deal with multi-cellular organisms, we also deal with development through cell growth (ie, mitosis) and cell differentiation. It also turns out that a log of multi-cellular organisms use asexual reproduction. Some, like hydrae, use budding, in which some of its cells start growing and differentiating into "baby"hydrae. Some plants, like strawberries, send out runners which put down roots and become more strawberry plants. Other plants use cloning, in which twigs (Greek "klon") from the plant will grow new copies of that plant. Mushrooms and ferns reproduce asexually with spores. Interestingly, in the case of ferns, the spores asexually produce the SEXUAL version of the fern, which then produce seeds for the next fern sexually. In addition, most of the examples given above also use sexual reproduction. Therefore, we have a number of organisms which are not entirely sexual or asexual. Maybe we could call them "bisexual". No, I think that term is already taken. At any rate, we find through living examples that many organisms can use both sexual and asexual reproduction. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to assume that as a species is developing sexual reproduction, it can continue to reproduce asexually. The transition can work without killing off the species. Next, thanks to your question, development is already taken care of. It is pre-existing in the asexual organisms and would only need minor modification normally needed in the evolution of a new species. There is nothing new that would need to be developed here. Next comes the question of meiosis. We already covered this one, so I'll just repeat it here. Mitosis is the process by which a single cell grows, duplicates its genetic material, then pulls the two sets of chromosomes to either side and finally splits in two, yielding two cells where there had been one. Mitosis consists of seven or nine (the actual number escapes me at present) distinct phases. Mitosis is used by single-celled animals for reproduction. To my knowledge, single-celled organisms and colonies of undifferentiated cells only use mitosis to reproduce and some multi-celled organisms (ie, with bodies consisting of tissues of differentiated cells) effectively use mitosis to reproduce the entire animal through asexual means, though most use sexual reproduction either in addition or in place of asexual reproduction, as covered above. However, the individual cells of multi-celled animals continue to use mitosis to reproduce themselves. Also, some multi-celled animals capable of regeneration can effective create duplicates of themselves if they are cut in pieces; eg, flatworms and starfish. Therefore, we find mitosis still present and working in animals that reproduce via meiosis. Meiosis is the process of producing gametes, AKA "germ cells", each of which contain half of the chromosomes of the original cells. Then two gametes from two different individuals combine to form a cell with a complete set of genetic material, which then uses mitosis to produce more cells, which develop into the embryo, then into the fetus. That process is known as development. Well, it turns out that meiosis is a variation of mitosis, in effect a crippled form, since some steps appear to be missing. First a definition: a "polar body" is a packet of genetic material without the normally-associated cytoplasm. Remembering back to biology class over 20 years ago, the gametes-to-be use mitosis to produce some copies, but then they undergo division before they duplicate any genetic material or cytoplasm. What results in the male are four polar bodies which become sperm and in the female three polar bodies which are discarded and one cell with half its chromosomes, an ovum. So going from mitosis to meiosis does not appear to be that great of a step. No insurmountable problems here. Again, I offer the URL of a page which compares mitosis and meiosis: [http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/meiosis.htm -- link is broken]. A graphical comparison linked to this page (and displayed on the page in smaller format) is at [http://www.biology.demon.co.uk/Biology/mod2/mitosis/mandm.htm -- link is broken]. It is pretty much as I had remembered it, even though I had forgotten some of the details over the past two decades. Getting the gametes together is the last part. Since our hypothetical ancestral form would inhabit the sea, we have plenty of examples of how this could be accomplished. Many, if not most, aquatic organisms release either their sperm or their eggs or even both into the water. Simple as that. That would establish a method for gamete delivery that would work until more efficient methods could evolve. So, Bill. I don't see any show-stoppers here. Do you? ########################################### Subj: Re: TMA/ Again with the Mitosis/Meiosis Date: 98-07-23 23:56:35 EDT From: BillyJack6 To: DWise1 In a message dated 98-07-09 02:05:13 EDT, you write: << And what is this business of "explain how they 'evolved into meisosis animals." What, so now I have to be a god myself, required to possess omniscience that I can peer into the past and gather all the little details? All while you repeatedly weasel out of even the simplest of questions, like "Do you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old? >> You're weasling. I told you the earth is less than 10 k because the Bible clearly teaches it and science doth not falsify it. [DWISE1 Note: the following paragraph was written by me and is here being quoted by Bill] This would be analogous to my demanding that you provide us with a detailed itinerary for Moses and the Israelites showing in detail how far they travelled and precisely where they made camp every single day of their 40-year journey from Egypt to Canaan. Could you do that? Would it be a reasonable question for me to ask you? Do you know Brad Sparks? ########################################### So you see, when confronted with the fact that I had indeed answered his question -- a question that Bill had thought that nobody could answer -- he immediately changed the subject. Furthermore, in response to my repeatedly-asked request that he somehow substantiate his blatantly false statement that he answered 100% of my questions (in reality, he had answered no more than 12.6%, and that by a very inflated estimate), Bill now makes the false claim that he had answered a question that he had been dodging for well over a year. When I called him on that one, he refused to answer. As usual.
Please also note that Bill completely avoided answering my simple and direct counter-questions:
Typical of him.
- Do you consider your question to present a major problem for evolution?
- If so, then why would your question present a major problem for evolution?
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First uploaded on 2000 July 02.
Updated on 2015 October 21.