Comments on: Darwin’s Predicted Moth

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:48:56 +0000

DWA- Yes, a legitimate question. Let the search continue, I say!

By: DWA

DWA — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:28:44 +0000

Revelation: you’re right, in that fuzzy’s question isn’t the one asked by this thread.

The question here is: hey, here’s a flower. Something’s gotta pollinate it. What does? Darwin clearly saw a reasonable answer to the question.

Fuzzy’s is: with all this evidence, shouldn’t we consider it a reasonable possibility that something natural is producing it?

Different questions.

You’re certainly right about no argument being available from vacant niches. The evidence fuzzy points to doesn’t indicate a vacant niche. But it does indicate something.

And in both cases, there is a reasonable answer. Darwin’s was right. The other one still needs work. But like the question asked by Darwin, it’s a legitimate question.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:18:21 +0000

It does not matter whether scientists laughed at him at first. He went out, did the field work, produced the evidence, and here is our moth. Scientists laughed at the idea of the Earth rotating the sun or the idea that viruses cause sickness too, but those have entered our knowledge due to work on the part of those who proposed these ideas. If the phenomena is real, and you can show that this is the case, then it will be accepted. No matter who laughed at him, here is the moth, with its long tongue, acting in precisely the capacity which Darwin predicted.

Reality is the final arbiter.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:42:55 +0000

Good post, Loren.
And good response there, DWA. You’re right about what scientists thought about the moth’s tongue.

By: Revelation

Revelation — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:08:23 +0000

Let’s not forget that this moth was “predicted” because observation of this particular plant showed that the moth was actually needed for the plant to survive. The plant is here, therefore a mechanism for procreation must be here, therefore there must be an insect capable of reaching this plants pollen, therefore there must exist a moth with a 10″ proboscis. It’s really a leap to use this same arguement with our friendly neighborhood BF. (as much as I would have it otherwise:) ) Even though the evidence is there, there’s no niche that would require it’s pressence. (that we know of.)

By: DWA

DWA — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:49:32 +0000

fuzzy:

“Can we then predict the existence of Sasquatch?”

Based on the above, and on the evidence that almost all other animal types have representatives in the tropics; the temperate zone; and one or the other or both of the polar regions, and why should apes be the exception?; AND on the evidence that described behaviors correspond quite closely with behaviors exhibited by known great apes: Yes. We certainly could.

IF science looked at the evidence objectively.

THAT is the problem.

P.S. That should be THOUSANDS of reports of visual sightings. Plus the presence, in the folklore of Native cultures spanning the continent, of an animal – described just as they do animals we know about – that corresponds quite neatly to our big buddy.

P.P.S. Let us note that folks in relevant fields laughed, at first, at the length of the Darwin moth’s tongue too. Science just hadn’t learned to think like Darwin, yet.

By: fuzzy

fuzzy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:27:10 +0000

So, “This contribution to cryptozoology is remarkable, as it concerns the prediction, from phytobiology and ecology (i.e. from circumstancial evidence only), of an unknown (creature) (at the level of the subspecies), the existence and the identification of which have been experimentally confirmed a posteriori.”

How does this translate to interpreting the “circumstancial evidence” of the existence of a large, bipedal, upright ape-like creature in North America’s wilderness areas?

This creature leaves evidence – footprints, stick constructions, complex “nesting” structures, prey bones, feces, track trails showing great weight, huge stride lengths and climbing abilities, stone and boulder tossings, rock clacking, wood knocking and other activities requiring an opposable thumb, voice demonstrations requiring very long vocal cords and enormous lung capacity, recorded chatter, whistles, grunts, howls and other audible “communication” sounds, plus odors and physical contacts with objects, PLUS hundreds of reports of visual sightings…

Can we then predict the existence of Sasquatch?