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Henry J

Posts: 4133
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 11 2011,20:18   

Further it seems that loss of genetic material is more common than gain of genetic material. Which would lead in the long run to a depletion of genetic material.

Only if the gains and losses are all in one species with no branching.

But if gains happen to be in ancestral species with lots of descendant species, that would not imply a net loss.

Speciation doesn't in and of itself imply gains of function; it simply allows subsets of a species to evolve separately from then on; this allows increase of diversity without necessarily involving any added functionality (or any added complexity either, whatever that means).


Even if it's wrong if they've nothing to replace it with then it makes sense to stick with a "wrong" idea until a better idea comes along. Do they have that better idea?

I thought I was wrong once.

But it turned out I was mistaken.

More seriously, though, it isn't so much whether a hypothesis is wrong, as it is whether or not it is a useful approximation. Consider Newton's "laws" of motion: technical they're wrong, but they remain in use because, as long as speeds and gravity are both low enough, results are within the margin of error of the measurements; and also the space probes get where they're intended to go. (GPS, on the other hand, requires relativity calculations to work correctly, IIRC.)


This kind of argument just get turned around against you.

That's when you're talking to people who don't really get how to use evidence to derive or support general principles. I think this is somewhat different from using evidence to determine specific details about one event.




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