Evolution

[Peanut]

Evolution in a nutshell.

Let's say we have a group of cantarians.
In a city with no roads and no water access.
Let's say these cantarians survive by eating a fruit from a tree.

And all is well.
Until the tree grows.

Now the cantarians whom are the longest and the cantarians that can jump the highest get the most fruits.

Making them more dominant.
Because having more to eat makes you stronger.

Now the cantarians with the disadvantage are slowly killed by the stronger cantarians.

Now there are only cantarians left which are tall and can jump high.
And after a few eons the tall cantarians are 5 meter tall and the jump cantarians have legs the size of barrels.
The've adapted to their changing enviroment.

The tree and fruits here represents a changing enviroment.
The cantarians represent a specie which adapted into two new species.



I hope this isn't wrong.

[SekoETC]

But you must remember the limitations. That's Lamarck's theory, that they grew taller because they had to reach for higher. But Darwin's theory is that there are both tall and short people and if tall people get food more easily, they get stronger and survive better, then they reproduce and pass on their tall genes. Once the people have the tall version of all the lenght genes, they can't grow any higher.

And of course since Cantrians are no cangaroos, they would probably rather learn to climb the tree than jump, or they would use poles to extend their reach and shake the fruits off the branches. Or they would make stone axes and fell that tree, plant seeds to grow new trees and trim the twigs that grow upwards so that the plant would grow more fruits and side branches than height. Some might learn to digest grass. *shrugs* There's millions of options.

I don't usually take part in evolution discussions anymore since I've noticed they never lead anywhere, it's just people insulting others over their beliefs and no one changes their mind.

[Peanut]

Seko that above was just a rough example.

I've even left out most of the difficult part for Pie.

[Pie]

well thank you penut.. but what is the most dificult part?

all right.. let us drop this like a hot potatoe. NOTHING IS GOING TO COME FROM THIS! i just know what you guys are talking about now. I know.. that you guys are talking about changing in the most minut property that it would take Millions of years to do anything. But.. as such as chiken pox.. the imune sistem is not trans mueted through the genes to the son.

But i fail to see how a single celld organism could Have evalved into a multy celld organism. And were that organism is. And were did the cingle celld organisms come from? did they.. apear from nothing like the Earth itself?

[BadMonkey]

did they.. apear from nothing like the Earth itself?

This is why this argument is going nowhere, and never will.

[The Industriallist]

well thank you penut.. but what is the most dificult part?

I'm not sure...Seko, he didn't describe Lamarckian evolution. "Now the cantarians whom are the longest and the cantarians that can jump the highest get the most fruits." Sounds like darwinian selection from what's already available to me. It would work better if he'd picked something that couldn't reason and tool-use around the problem, but...

all right.. let us drop this like a hot potatoe. NOTHING IS GOING TO COME FROM THIS! i just know what you guys are talking about now. I know.. that you guys are talking about changing in the most minut property that it would take Millions of years to do anything. But.. as such as chiken pox.. the imune sistem is not trans mueted through the genes to the son.

Um...something did come of this, evidently...
And actually noticable microevolutionary shifts can occur in a matter of years or decades (for fast-breeding species).

But i fail to see how a single celld organism could Have evalved into a multy celld organism. And were that organism is. And were did the cingle celld organisms come from? did they.. apear from nothing like the Earth itself?

Way to drop the potatoe...

Actually, you're getting to the hard questions now. Single cell to multicell isn't so hard to imagine...some single cell ends up producing a membrane protein so that when it divides the daughter cells stick instead of drifting apart. Though I'm not entirely sure what benefit that would end up giving...maybe allowing more concentated combat chemistry. Advancing past the biofilm stage, I for one can't give you a good scenario for.

As for cells originating...there's a good deal of speculation involving catalytic RNA self-replecating and directing protein formation while free in solution, then getting randomly caught up in a lipid vesicle. Very, very improbable, in general. Maybe with the right strange conditions this actually becomes likely, I couldn't really say. It is believed that at the time the general environment was reducing, which tends to promote the formation of complex molecules.

That's the kind of stuff that gives ID type theories some case. I happen to think that the odds needn't have been so bad that untracable intervention is more likely, but I certainly can't do the math.

EDIT: As badmonkey is pointing to...earth did not appear from nothing. That we can say with very good confidance.

[kinvoya]

I am emerging from my pouty silence (you missed me, admit it!) because of an important scientific and theological breakthrough. I am compelled by my new faith to share THE TRUTH with everyone on earth.

I now accept the "theory" of Intelligent Design. It's all clear to me now and I know that you will also know and accept THE TRUTH once you have seen it here:

http://www.venganza.org/

In the beginning He created trees, mountains and a midget.

http://www.venganza.org/sightings/pages ... hauser.htm

You are all my brothers and sisters in sauce.

RAmen

[kroner]

how dare you people have a 13 page debate on evolution behind my back! anyway, after skimming through most of that i think the most important conclusion we can draw is that arguing with Pie is a completely fruitless endevor.

but there are some other things i need to respond to.

An example of an assumption is that speciation, the evolution of one species to a point that it can be identified as a new species, CAN occur. In order for evolution to be a valid explanation of the History of the World, speciation HAD to occur. To my knowledge, this has never been tested. To my knowledge, this cannot be tested. But this has to be tested in order for the theory to recieve further support.

So far evidence against the possibility of speciation does exist. This comes with the observation that two organisms separated zoologically more distantly than family cannot mate. (Species -> Genus -> Family -> Order -> Class -> Phylum -> Kingdom) If they can mate, the offspring are often infertile due to chromosomal incompatibility during meiosis. What does this imply? In order for speciation to occur as a function of random mutation, similar random mutations should occur in a mating pair of organisms, from the same species, and that mating pair must produce viable offspring. While not impossible, the statistical probablility of this occuring repeatedly enough to be facilitated grow exeedingly unfavorable, especially in light of the number of mutation events that will need to occur in order for the event to proceed to completeion. And this rare event will have had to occurr event will have had to occur millions, no billions of times, over the course of natural history in order to proceed from a pool of atomic elements to a human being, or for that matter a corn plant. (Which by the way is held as being the highest evolved life form on Earth by some biologist due to the fact that it has an octoploid genome - 8 copies of all its DNA in each cell.)

this is a very naive understanding of speciation. you make it sound as if there is some very exact line between chicken and dinosaur. on this side of the line there are dinosaurs and on the other are chickens and nothing from one side of the line can mate with the other. for chickens to evolve, all the dinosaurs would have to suddenly have the same mutations and start laying chicken eggs.

this isn't how current theories of evolution dictate that things actually happened. while it's true that seperate species can't mate with each other, there are many intermediate steps. evolution is a very gradual process, that occurs within entire populations, not among individual organisms. suppose there is a mutation in one organism that happens to be benificial to the species. an organism with this new gene is still of the old species (1 gene mutation does not make a new species) and can still mate with others of the species. after only a few generations, it's possible with some luck that this new gene will have successfully gained a foothold in the genepool, and in just a few more, it will flourish among the population (since it helps survival). this moves the population one small step down the path of evolution.

you may ask then how species become seperate from one another if evolution takes place among entire populations. the answer is simple: there are many populations of a given species, often seperated by physical distance. not only does this create distinct genepools, but there may be different conditions that favor different characteristics acting on each population. evolution takes its own path among each population resulting in divergent species. when reintroduced to each other they are far enough apart in genetics that they can no longer mate. that's speciation. but it's important to remember that it usually requires long periods of seperation for things to get that far. this is precisely why Darwin focused on the finches of the galapogos islands when formulating his theory. there were several geographically seperated populations that had evolved in different directions based on the conditions of their island.

i'm guessing that you aren't a biologist. (although admittedly, niether am i.)



ok, now that that's out of the way, on to intellegent design!

first, it's important to note that there are many logically consistent explanations for the universe around us. most of them are completely ridiculous, but still perfectly valid. the flying spaghetti monster illustrates this point perfectly. intellegent design also falls into this category (obviously ). now, you may ask, why is science useful, and how is it any less "ridiculous"? this requires a definition of science.

science takes observation of what's around us and tries to formulate from that a consistent set of rules that could lead to these data. these rules being consistent is the key. it's possible that the universe began 15 seconds ago, but that would imply that 15 seconds ago, the rules changed. sure, it's still valid, but what use is it to us? if we don't assume consitency, then we essentially know nothing, since nothing can ever be predicted. but by assuming consistency science gives us a rule set with which we can (limitedly) tell the future. so far this has worked brilliantly for us. in fact, science rarely lets us down, and when it does, it has always proved to be errors in our understanding rather than inconsistency in the rules of the universe. in fact, every time the universe continues to act in a predictable fashion (which is all the time) it provides more evidence that the universe is predictable, and increases the probability that this understanding of the universe (science) is the correct one. the flying spaghetti monster is still possible, but become increasingly unlikely, just like any other intellegent design arguements, because they rely on intervention of some forces outside of our well corroborated rules of the universe. there's no reason to assume that any such forces exist or did exist in the past, since it would require us to switch our explanation of the universe to an inconsistent rule set (which i've already explained makes it a useless rule set).
consider this: i drop a glass on the floor and it breaks (or so my observations tell me). i then come to the conclusion that, despite my observations, a higher being has merely implanted the memories into my mind of the glass falling and in reality the glass has been broken the whole time. is this explanation possible? yes. is it reasonable? i think not. and yet this is the same logical leap that intellegent design supporters take.

finally, there are some who argue that there may still be some higher being responsible for the universe by setting in motion the laws of physics and creating the big bang. this is beyond the scope of what humans can observe and so we can never have evidence supporting or refuting any theories of this scope. speculating about this sort of thing is really quite pointless, since anything is possible. these things are unobservable, which means they have no observable effect on us. things that have no effect on us (and the rest of the universe) are quite irrelevent.


(on a side note, the FSM site is brilliant.)

[AoM]

RAmen to that.

Personally I believe in Noname, god of Atheism and Contradiction.

[west]

Yarr, Kroner speaks truth. Preach it, brother! (assuming you be wearing the required full pirate garb)

[wichita]

in fact, science rarely lets us down, and when it does, it has always proved to be errors in our understanding rather than inconsistency in the rules of the universe. in fact, every time the universe continues to act in a predictable fashion (which is all the time) it provides more evidence that the universe is predictable, and increases the probability that this understanding of the universe (science) is the correct one.

Could you please come tell that to my dissertation research?!

I am not a biologist, but I do have to listen to their conversations more often than I would like to being in biophysics and biochemistry. It really is the downside of my field. I won't try to let too much of my bitterness about my job cloud my reasoning here....so I have nothing to say then really.

I appreciate that thought out and articulate post, kroner, even if I still regard it as a rather optimistic view of scientific integrity in the modern world. But to each his own. The thing that gets me about the speciation question, is that if you take a look at the flora and fauna around the world, for the most part the same groups of organisms will be found. You will find, bacteria, fish, snakes, lizards, birds, rodents, primates, etc... The missing link phenomenon just strikes me as a large caveat that is difficult to test.

One area I haven't looked into much is the state of computer simulations as genetic algorithms are recieving more programming attention among the phyiscal and natural sciences. Perhaps some interesting findings will fall out of those efforts someday that could possibly change my mind. But they will suffer from the same limitations as the rest of science...and that is the assumption that a model that is consistent with the observed data is the correct answer to the question at hand.

Mathematically speaking, a function may possess multiple solutions. There may be multiple degenerate minima of equal probability, there may be a single dominant favorable global minimum that could be considered the absolute truth. Science builds models, and the funny thing about models is that just because a model explains the data, does not mean that the model fully explain the true process driving the phenomenon. It is often a logical fallicy to conclude that. There is always the chance that multiple factors in the process are convoluted into a variable in the model and a full understanding is therefore obscured.

With the complexity exhibited in this particular question...and with a complete failure of science to explain to me where the matter came from before the Bing Bang if it is illogical to assume an entity can be eternal...I have chosen my model. Now ya'll can chose yours.

[kroner]

science is correct much more often than you may think. you're just being very picky. for instance, my computer hasn't yet spontaneously turned into a giant turnip, just as science predicts it won't. phenomena such as this happen all the time, we just take them for granted.
also i talk about science more in the ideal sense of the complete laws of the universe, even though we don't have a complete understanding of them at this point.

as for there being multiple explanations for a given set of data, i agree. as i said, there are plenty of explanations for the universe that are logically consistent, and therefore possible. but to assume that there are unecessary unobservable forces adds nothing to the theory except make it less useful as a predicting tool. and as my computer not turning into a turnip attests, science does the job fairly well without diluting it with that extra complication.
in other words, science is the strongest assesrtion you can make that still adheres to the evidence we have, which makes it the most useful. adding in an omnipotent being that can act at will makes for a significantly weaker statement (in fact it would be hard to come up with a weaker one since this allows for just about anything).

[Pie]

But you must remember the limitations. That's Lamarck's theory, that they grew taller because they had to reach for higher. But Darwin's theory is that there are both tall and short people and if tall people get food more easily, they get stronger and survive better, then they reproduce and pass on their tall genes. Once the people have the tall version of all the lenght genes, they can't grow any higher.

WHOA MOMA!!!!! alright everyone... how about we say this.. do a little maching up...

cantaryans that are five meeters tall,, and that have legs as big as barrals... humans.

normal cantaryans... monkeys.

and pleas, does anyone know what the air speed valosaty of an unladen swallo is? If you do, then pleas, tell me.

[Jur Schagen]

and pleas, does anyone know what the air speed valosaty of an unladen swallo is? If you do, then pleas, tell me.

Don't ask me... I already got thrown into the abyss for that once, don't need a second try.

[kinvoya]

Pie is back! and full of unitelligible, misspelled strangeness. It was so quiet while you were gone. Did you visit the Museum of Modern Art? I love that place.