Falsifying Phylogeny II: Evolutionary Law

This is the 2nd in a short series of [hopefully] educational videos intended to explain the process and purpose of systematic phylogenetic classification, as well as the applications and implications that has in evolutionary biology.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Dollo
• Darwin
• Haeckel
• Ernst
• Mayr
• VonBaer
• Étienne
• Geoffroy
• Saint-Hilaire
• Mendel
• Theory
• fact
• law
• evolution

[alx90x]

why cant i find anything on "darwins 3rd law of biodiversity?"

[AronRa]

@alx90x These aren't widely broadcast because -as I said- some of these were described as such only in the works of Ernst Mayr, and they don't happen to be available in an online format.

[AronRa]

@telectronicguy Our common ancestor would have to have been an ape -since humans are a species of ape by definition. If you say that our ancestor must have been human, but could not have been an ape, then you may as well say that the ancestor of ducks must have been a duck, but that it could not have been a bird. This is also why tigers -being mammals- cannot "evolve" into chickens, which are a subset of avian dinosaurs.

[kirkey99]

Breaking the law.

Epic!

[DaToNyOyO]

I have questions:

If a whale used to have legs and it cannot redevelop legs... how did a creature living in the sea evolve legs in the first place? Surely it would've been specialised for it's environment? If it had fins that turned into legs, why can they not turn from fins into legs again?

Why can the mechanisms "not be truly reversed"? Does that just mean it cannot redevelop the same legs, but could develop a new type of leg?

AronRa, am I missing something?

[mysty0]

Hi., you use a clip at 5:23., could you please direct me to it., thanks :)

[jmhizon83]

I had to try really hard not to shoot my computer monitor when Kirk Cameron was talking.

[zetronman]

I love comparing and contrasting videos like this and videos like "Kent Hovind: 100 reasons why evolution is stupid." I want to point every single person I hear who uses the "creation is science too!" argument to this video.

[14ByTheSword]

@telectronicguy I can tell by your hyper-emotional response that you are religious and not just a person who does not accept evolution. Emotion is a very critical thing when trying to gain as realistic an understand of something as possible. It is crucial you set such a thing aside and maintain a degree of acedemic detatchment or you will become either closed to or susceptible to something that may or may not be true. Try it. You may even end up having something to contribute.

[BailBondsOrangeCA]

@red666111 lol this.

[dontwatchpornatwork]

I have to make a comment at 3:39. I have heard of mutations in human beings generating tails or tail-like structures. I will agree that reverse mutations, or the changing back of a single base pair, is highly unlikely so if a "species" as so defined was impart created mainly on this nucleotide replacement, yes going back would be improbable. However, genes change not just by this mechanism, but by other factors such as transposons and chromosomal rearrangement.

[red666111]

Talking to creationists is like falling down the rabbit hole. You enter a world where up is down, right is wrong, and myth trumps fact.