Society

[Mavsfan911]

Why can't everyone just respect each others beliefs?
Everytime someone says they believe in God, they get shot down and "corrected" for saying it. If someone is an atheist, everyone should just respect that, if they believe in God, or any other religion, everyone should just respect that. It's pointless and a waste of time to argue with each other over who is right and who is wrong. It gets annoying...
No one is going to change their beliefs just because of what they read on a forum. Some people may, but I doubt it here.

[cantrpotatoe]

Why can't everyone just respect each others beliefs?
Everytime someone says they believe in God, they get shot down and "corrected" for saying it. If someone is an atheist, everyone should just respect that, if they believe in God, or any other religion, everyone should just respect that. It's pointless and a waste of time to argue with each other over who is right and who is wrong. It gets annoying...
No one is going to change their beliefs just because of what they read on a forum. Some people may, but I doubt it here.

good point...


but I still dont believe you and anyway, you shouldnt talk like that..please correct yourself immedietly.

[The Industriallist]

Why can't everyone just respect each others beliefs?
Everytime someone says they believe in God, they get shot down and "corrected" for saying it. If someone is an atheist, everyone should just respect that, if they believe in God, or any other religion, everyone should just respect that. It's pointless and a waste of time to argue with each other over who is right and who is wrong. It gets annoying...
No one is going to change their beliefs just because of what they read on a forum. Some people may, but I doubt it here.

I don't hand out respect like that. You can beleive what you like, but don't try to make me respect it. Or if you prefer, try to argue well enough that I come to respect your position.

Essentially, you seem to be saying "don't argue, arguing is no good." But...I think that at least the last 5 pages of this topic have been nothing but arguing. Is religion out-of-bounds for some reason?

Arguing is good

[Pirog]

I have no problem respecting that people are religious, but it surprises me that people get so touchy when it comes to "defending" their belief.

The only way to ever chance your view, and to educate yourself, is to expose yourself to new and different perspectives.

I can't understand all these people claiming that discussions are pointless...how do you learn things?
The interesting part in a discussion isn't eventual goals achieved, but the arguments in themselves...if nothing else at least you will get training in argumenting for yourselves.

[Mavsfan911]

Ah, I remembered, this is a forum, not real life.
Here, people act like giving someone their respect is a big deal... Personally, I'll say what I like, and I'm not going to work to gain respect from someone I don't know. Real life is a different matter.
I'm not going to argue this anymore.. I was wrong, of course.
My bad.
I forgot to add, yes, arguing CAN be good, but if you look around, it seems like 75 percent of these arguments are all insults and have no real discussion. So, sometimes it can be good, other times, all it does is add fuel to a fire.

[kroner]

this thread has had few or no insults. i think what you're saying is unfounded.

i respect you all, but there are few things that bother me more than when people refuse to openly discuss their beliefs. no harm can come to you be hearing other points of view. if you fear that your beliefs will be damaged for you or something like that, they probably aren't very sound to begin with.

[Chrissy]

I didn't stop the conversation in the name of Lord, haha. I stopped it because I'm human and I don't expect to be talked to in a condescending way. This whole thread has been really good. I've learned a lot. There's so many different conversations going on that one fading out shouldn't effect it.

[cantrpotatoe]

I agree, one topic that is fading out shouldnt really matter.

[Jos Elkink]

Additionally you have to take into account the most important part of all, the part that makes evolution work, which is that the phenotype of the person will influence if they reproduce and if so, with whom. this changes all the probabilities completely.

Why is that needed to make evolution "work"? (Not denying it, just not sure ...)

This is the principle referred to as natural selection. If every member of the gene pool reproduced with equal likelyhood, the genepool would remain exactly the same from generation to generation. The species wouldn't change. Instead, certain traits are selected for. That is, members who have the trait are more likely to reproduce. Then in the next generation, that trait will be represented in a higher portion of the population. Over time, the species will shift toward what ever traits help them survive and reproduce. Then throw in some random mutation and that's evolution.

I think this is an outdated perspective on natural selection ... At least, it's not the one that sounds convincing to me. You make it sound as if there is a purpose in the mechanism (namely, survival of the species), but I think that's nonsense. Evolution is a completely random process - no goal or purpose in it. It just happens to be the case that members of the gene pool that survive longer have a higher chance of reproduction which leads to more of such members ... but that's still purely 'coincidence'.

You also seem to contradict yourself, or I must be misreading your post. You say that with equal likelihood of reproduction, the species wouldn't change (which I highly doubt, because there's always new combinations between to genes by having different partners), but then you talk about 'random mutation' creating evolution. So, which of the two is true?

I guess the main point is that if you look at natural selection your way, you'd end up trying to explain why certain features help survival and others do not, and that that is why those treats stay, whlie the proper explanation would solely be to explain how a gene did not die out - without reference to its purpose, necessarily. If you see what I mean ...

[kroner]

i'm not saying that natural selection has a conscious goal. i'm saying that it has a result which happens to be the selection for traits that help individuals or the population survive. there's a well explained logical mechanism that causes this to happen. maybe i didn't do a good enough job explaining it.

the giraffe is a good emample. so originally there was this species without a long neck that lived in the savana and ate leaves and stuff. start with one generation. there were various genes that affected neck height and so there was some variation in neck height with in the species as would be expected. the giraffes with longer necks than the others found they could reach food that others couldn't. when food got scarce, some of the giraffes died, but most of the ones with longer necks had an easier time. by the time this generation had matured enough to reproduce, there were more giraffes with slightly longer necks than in the last generation. they passed down their genes to the next generation. the next generation now had on average slightly longer necks. over time the genes for short necks became less and less common, because the giraffes with these genes tend to die and wouldn't have achance to pass them on. so giraffes tended to have somewhat longer necks. but even with all the right genes, the neck of a giraffe would only be so long. every once in a while a giraffe would be born with a gene mutation. sometimes the mutation would just kill the embryo, sometimes make the giraffe albino, make it blind, give it weak hooves, give it bad teeth, make it stupid, make it sterile, give it a thinner tail, or many times it would do nothing at all different. but once in a great long while, a gene mutation would actually do something useful for a giraffe, like give an even longer neck. thw giraffe with this gene would be very sucessful and pass on the gene to some of its offspring. these offspring would mostly be sucessful as well and pass on the gene to some of their offspring. once the gene got a foothold in the genepool it would flourish just as the other long neck genes had, to eventually make the average neck height of the species even longer. after millions of years, this process produced modern giraffes with freakishly long necks that fill a very specific nich.

this is an example of natural selection and random mutation. there's no driving will behind it with intention of improving the species, but the process does produce an effect which just happens to look that way.

if the traits of the giraffe due to its gene had nothing to do with its likelihood to reproduce, the giraffe species would stay roughly the same after each generation. random mutations would remain only trace in the genepool or disappear. but this isn't so. the genes in any creature determine it's physical traits which in turn effect whether it will reproduce which then effects the genepool.

[cantrpotatoe]

so what about the penguin?? why cant it fly? it has been flapping its wings and trying since the beggining of time..

HA!! explain that one!!!!

[The Industriallist]

I don't know what the Penguin evolved from, though I think it can be presumed that its sufficiently distant ancestors were capable of flight.

Penguins now are very well adapted for hunting fish under very cold water. How you get from proto-birds to penguins, I can hardly guess. But it does seem impossible for a bird to be able to swim in antarctic waters and to be able to fly, so penguins lack of flight isn't so strange.

[cantrpotatoe]

HA!!!..... oh ...he did.... Hmm .... now I know everything I have ever wanted to in life

[Halley]

On a somewhat related note, a couple months ago I read an article (somewhere... sorry, I can't recall where I read it) about homosexuality among songbirds.

Songbirds typically mate for life. When they have eggs, the female spends most of her time on the nest, while the male spends most of the time hunting and defending.

However, sometimes songbirds mate for life with the same sex. According to this article, this usually occurrs among male birds. They go through the process of building and sitting on a nest, and they caress one another as opposite-sex bird couples do, but they don't lay an egg (surprise, surprise). However, every now and then these couples adopt (and maybe even steal?) an egg and raise it. When this happens, the baby bird has a much greater chance of making it to adulthood than if it had been raised by a same-sex couple. The article suggested that this is because the bird playing the "female" role--sitting on the egg--can also defend the nest. These leaves more time for the other bird to hunt, which of course means that all three birds are in better health.

I'm not sure how this plays into human homosexuality, but there could be similarities, evolutionarily speaking.

I would also like to add that, as it appears to me, homosexuality is more popular and accepted in wealthy areas. Take a look at places such as the USA, Germany, Canada, and ancient Rome. But in less wealthy areas (and time periods) homosexuality is a bit more unheard of. I'm not sure if this is because there is a correlation between wealth and acceptance of differences (which is very likely--where necessities are more plentiful, there is less competition, and where there is less competition, there is less hatred between groups of people), or if it is because homosexuality is actually partially caused by wealth.

The latter, I believe, could be quite possible because in areas where the mortality rates are very high, the need to pass on good genes to help the species cope is greater. This would fit in with the fact that people in poor areas have more children per capita than people in wealthy areas; the more children you have in these areas, the greater the chance that a few of them will live to pass on their genes, and ultimately that means that human population will adapt more fully to the area it exists in.

In wealthy areas, I'm sure people don't think, "Hey, the money's rolling in; I think I'll be gay/have fewer kids!" But it is still an interesting phenomenon which I suspect is an instinct with evolutionary ties.

Now, this is not to say that poor people are less likely to have homosexual feelings. I'm just suggesting that such feelings are less likely to surface in poor areas where you are expected to get married and have lots of kids, and indeed where it is often a great necessity to do such. (For example, poor areas typically have an agriculturally based economy, and lots of children are needed to work the family farms. Also, women in such areas often are unable to live independently of men, and so it is in their best interests and the best interests of the population as a whole for them to get married.)



Halley

[The Industriallist]

The latter, I believe, could be quite possible because in areas where the mortality rates are very high, the need to pass on good genes to help the species cope is greater. This would fit in with the fact that people in poor areas have more children per capita than people in wealthy areas; the more children you have in these areas, the greater the chance that a few of them will live to pass on their genes, and ultimately that means that human population will adapt more fully to the area it exists in.

In wealthy areas, I'm sure people don't think, "Hey, the money's rolling in; I think I'll be gay/have fewer kids!" But it is still an interesting phenomenon which I suspect is an instinct with evolutionary ties.

If so it would be opposite to the usual evolutionary response of reproducing rapidly in favorable conditions, followed by every other life form I can think of. I think it has more to do with what you discuss later.

Also, breeding young does more than breeding often to speed evolution. Though both normally occur in such environments, and human adaptation is extremely slow anyway. Nearly 20 year minimum generation length means very not-fast evolution.

Now, this is not to say that poor people are less likely to have homosexual feelings. I'm just suggesting that such feelings are less likely to surface in poor areas where you are expected to get married and have lots of kids, and indeed where it is often a great necessity to do such. (For example, poor areas typically have an agriculturally based economy, and lots of children are needed to work the family farms. Also, women in such areas often are unable to live independently of men, and so it is in their best interests and the best interests of the population as a whole for them to get married.)

Both are probably major factors. Likely the major factors. But you put too much weight on the up sides...
Tendancy to have lots of children carries over from farming areas where it's necessary to produce your own child labor to urban and other areas where more children is a liability, not any kind of advantage. And while it may be good for women who aren't allowed (or capable, perhaps) of independance to marry, it isn't in anyone's interests for them to have children in the vast majority of environments. I seriously doubt anywhere in the world suffers from underpopulation...and it certainly isn't involved in poor areas. They suffer massive and worsening overpopulation because once the women marry, they always end up having children. Lots of them, if they live long enough. Never mind that they can barely support themselves, if they even can do that. Though it's likely often the fault of the men...at least in the US. In countries that are really buried in this, I don't know who's fault it is. Everyone who has children in a place like that I guess.

Occasionally the idea of just carpetbombing the areas comes to mind. It's really a horrific idea, but that's my sick mind for you.