Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Plausibility Survey: Please comment

I am reposting this, and will update the results when a few people have given their answers in the comments section.  Please comment and ask others to comment.  Thanks!

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How plausible is the following statement with respect to various events in the history of life on earth?
Random mutation and natural selection, together with other known natural mechanisms and environmental events adequately explain "X".

For X, fill in the following, and then state the plausibility of each (10 = highly plausible; 0 = highly implausible):

1. microevolutionary changes, such as bacterial resistance

2. minor macroevolutionary events such as the appearance of varieties of beetle species with no significant morphological changes.

3. minor macroevolutionary events such as the appearance of horses and zebras from a common ancestor.

4. moderate macroevolutionary events such as the appearance of horses, cows and sheep from a common ancestor.

5. macroevolutioary events such as the emergence of whales and bats from a common mammal ancestor.

6. the Cambrian Explosion (the apparently sudden appearance in the fossil record of many complex, multicellular animals, dated at about 540 million years ago).

7. the origin of life itself- the first appearance of life on earth.


Please comment! I will wait for some comments before giving you my answers. Feel free to describe yourself when you give your answers in whatever way may be of interest to readers.

I encourage links to this survey, as I am genuinely curious to see how others evaluate the evidence.



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2 Comments:

At September 11, 2014 11:53 AM, Blogger chimpwriter said...

If, by natural mechanisms, we include cellular / genomic strategies which are designed to facilitate morphological changes then I would say X could be 1-4.

Taking 'natural mechanisms' doesn't include any suggestion of teleology then X could be 1-2.

 
At May 24, 2016 5:40 PM, Blogger Hatless in Hattiesburg said...

Sorry for the late answer:

I consider the answer for the first two could be non-zero, but the answers for 3 thru 7 are zero.

 

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