Evolution

[The Atheist]

I thought I'd see if anyone was interested in having a serious discussion on evolution, because so much of the bias against current scientific theories of evolution are often based on simple mistakes like this:



Any takers?

(I promise to leave the Bunsen burner turned off.)















Mostly...

[librarius_qui]

Mostly...

mostly what, exactly?

If it's about the picture, both are wrong, in my understanding ... (Man didn't come from insect. Both insect and man may have common ancestor -- according to science --, but it's a more serious talk than the image shown above ... Even so, it's a good begining.)

If you're talking about the Bunsen burner ... it's up to Serious Cat!

[andave_ya]

I'll bite. Where's the mistake?

[The Atheist]

mostly what, exactly?

That does refer to the Bunsen burner.

If it's about the picture, both are wrong, in my understanding ... (Man didn't come from insect. Both insect and man may have common ancestor -- according to science --, but it's a more serious talk than the image shown above ... Even so, it's a good begining.)

Nope, the right-hand picture is quite right - even if there wasn't one common ancestor, the single-celled organisms were similar enough to be considered fruit from the same tree.

It's just not a well-drawn tree.

I'll bite. Where's the mistake?

The ladder is a diagram used by evolution deniers who misrepresent evolution as goal-based.

[andave_ya]

The ladder is a diagram used by evolution deniers who misrepresent evolution as goal-based.

Okay. Then if not goal-based, what is it?

I've, ah, run up against evolution with you before . I just want to define the terms before I start making any arguments.

[JBI]

Evolution is just one step. Not saying it is wrong, because, from all we know, it most certainly is not, but people like to think of it as some conclusive answer, which it is not, and doesn't pretend to be. The actual discussion of it though, requires what we would call a deep scientific understanding of the topic, something which I personally do not posses.

As to how it functions - I think we now have a clear idea of the picture. As far as I know though, there isn't much bias against evolution. I can't see how a scientific understanding can have a bias, unless we just assume it is true, which is something we don't do.

Unless of course you are implying that in certain countries (insert country we are all thinking of here) people bias against it. Well, that's nonsense at any rate, and gets too much media coverage as it is.

As for goal based - it is not goal based, but the ladder does show an important feature of it - the processional evolution, meaning the fish came first, or rather, the fishlike thing came first, as we are made to believe life started in the water. Certainly the human shaped primate is a later stage.

[The Atheist]

Okay. Then if not goal-based, what is it?

It isn't anything. Mutations happen through the interaction of viruses or other influence and either turn out to be beneficial or not. Beneficial ones survive and prosper, others die out.

Because only the strong survive, it tends to look like a goal-based system, but that's an incorrect way of seeing it. It just is.

Evolution is just one step. Not saying it is wrong, because, from all we know, it most certainly is not, but people like to think of it as some conclusive answer, which it is not, and doesn't pretend to be. The actual discussion of it though, requires what we would call a deep scientific understanding of the topic, something which I personally do not posses.

I've been looking into the subject for over 40 years and disagree with you. The excellent web resources available also tend to refute the idea. I'm nobody's botanist, but I think it is possible to have a lay understanding of the subject.

Just as you don't need to be a nuclear physicist to understand an atomic explosion, I don't think a degree in botany or genetics is essential to understand evolution.

As to how it functions - I think we now have a clear idea of the picture. As far as I know though, there isn't much bias against evolution. I can't see how a scientific understanding can have a bias, unless we just assume it is true, which is something we don't do.

Unless of course you are implying that in certain countries (insert country we are all thinking of here) people bias against it. Well, that's nonsense at any rate, and gets too much media coverage as it is.

I started the thread because of some comments in a religious discussion showed that people still have been taught evolution by people biased against the fact that it exists. Country of origin is irrelevant.

As for goal based - it is not goal based, but the ladder does show an important feature of it - the processional evolution, meaning the fish came first, or rather, the fishlike thing came first, as we are made to believe life started in the water. Certainly the human shaped primate is a later stage.

And that's just the kind of misconception which abounds and which creates the opportunity for misinformation.

Flowering plants appeared after mammals, does that make them "higher" than mammals?

The ladder doesn't show any feature of evolution, and since the earth will probably be around for a few billion years yet, it would be a little arrogant to assume that we're at the top of any chain beyond the food one right now. We've ruled the earth for a few thousand years while dinosaurs held complete control for over a hundred million years. Check back on that idea in several hundred million years time.

[PoeticPassions]

The drawing should have included a bird as well.

[The Comedian]

Here's one thing that I've never felt that evolution (what little I know of it) has really explained well: How did mud turn into an amoeba? The step from non-life to life just does not seem like a small change. Or, if mud never did turn into an amoeba, then life must have just appeared one day, which is not evolutionary.

I'm no theist really, just a curious agnostic. What's the going evolutionary idea on life's origin?

Good Hunting!

EDIT: I used the mud/amoeba language for mere illustration's sake, not out of any precise scientific understanding.

[JCamilo]

Evolution does not really cover the origem of life, altough the natural laws must be the same, affecting the process. Obviously, no theory about the origem is today satisfactory like Natural Selection is.

[andave_ya]

It isn't anything. Mutations happen through the interaction of viruses or other influence and either turn out to be beneficial or not. Beneficial ones survive and prosper, others die out.

Because only the strong survive, it tends to look like a goal-based system, but that's an incorrect way of seeing it. It just is.

So, we're continually evolving, but we're not going anywhere? Is the world infinite?

Isn't that just theoretical, though? Seems to me that a person could interpret it in whatever way they please without changing any of the ideas evolution holds.

I started the thread because of some comments in a religious discussion showed that people still have been taught evolution by people biased against the fact that it exists. Country of origin is irrelevant.

As is location of thread. TheAtheist, I took a class last year with an evolutionary psychologist, but I (a simple layperson) came up with questions that the professor wouldn't answer because "they'd take up the rest of the classtime." My point is, there's a difference between bias and between interpreting the "facts" differently. I picked the interpretation that covers more bases than evolution does.

[The Atheist]

Here's one thing that I've never felt that evolution (what little I know of it) has really explained well: How did mud turn into an amoeba? The step from non-life to life just does not seem like a small change. Or, if mud never did turn into an amoeba, then life must have just appeared one day, which is not evolutionary.

I'm no theist really, just a curious agnostic. What's the going evolutionary idea on life's origin?

Good Hunting!

EDIT: I used the mud/amoeba language for mere illustration's sake, not out of any precise scientific understanding.

I think it's sensible to stick to meaningful but not entirely correct terms if it helps.

As noted, that's not part of evolution, although it did, of course start the evolutionary process.

The term for the creation of life is "abiogenesis". Exactly how it happened will remain in doubt until we actually manage to simulate the process in a laboratory, and since we have no idea what the exact chemical compilation of the earth was 4 billion years ago, it's pretty hit and miss and various theories abound.

What we do know for sure is that amino acids exist, both as separate molecules - in the mud, as it were - and inside living tissue of all types, plant and animal. We also know that amino acids are apt to replicate on their own; pions - the source of mad cow disease - are a great example of them. Prions kill brains by going around busting things which causes proteins in the brain to "free flow" and then they replicate the pattern of the prions inside the brain - much the same as a virus does, but while there is debate over whether viruses are "alive" prions definitely are not.

It's not too big a jump to see replicating protein suddenly making the jump to "life", so at the moment, that's the direction scientific enquiry is taking. There are some interesting competing theories, one of which is all about data input from the sun, which makes a kind of sense as well. As a teenager in the 1970s, I predicted that we'd have the answer by now, but we're still looking. We're a lot closer than we were 35 years ago, but whether I'll live to see life created from chemicals in a lab, I can only hope!

I hope that helps.

So, we're continually evolving, but we're not going anywhere? Is the world infinite?

The world certainly isn't infinite, as it will be destroyed by the sun at some stage. Whether or not humans will exist at that stage, I have no idea, but my tendency is to think that we won't.

The problem with imagining evolution is the enormous time-scales involved. People wonder why humans aren't evolving into something else. We may well be, but it also might take 5 million years and we've only been writing things down for a few thousand.

Just as a divert, I think human intelligence is a dead end and that we'll die out. At that stage, some species will take our place at the top of the food chain.

Imagine an alien arrival to earth standing where you are in 50,000,000 years time, excavating a trench and finding fossil records of humans. They will deduce that a species rose to prominence then died out, with insect life then dominating the planet until the alien's arrival.

We're looking at evolution from particular point in time and it tends to distort the view.

Isn't that just theoretical, though? Seems to me that a person could interpret it in whatever way they please without changing any of the ideas evolution holds.

No.

While DNA can mutate, it isn't interchangeable, which is why hardly any cross-speciation exists in the wild. Even very similar birds, which could produce hybrid offspring just don't do it. The hard evidence behind the theory of evolution fills libraries.

As is location of thread. TheAtheist, I took a class last year with an evolutionary psychologist, but I (a simple layperson) came up with questions that the professor wouldn't answer because "they'd take up the rest of the classtime." My point is, there's a difference between bias and between interpreting the "facts" differently. I picked the interpretation that covers more bases than evolution does.

Ah, well that's just bad teaching, but the thread already has a few decent questions, so it wasn't a bad idea either way.

[librarius_qui]

So, we're continually evolving, but we're not going anywhere? Is the world infinite?

You know? According to my little understanding of the Evolution theory, man walks toward extinction ... Once religions say something similar, what's the worry? We all know it, and we all can see it.

[andave_ya]

It's not too big a jump to see replicating protein suddenly making the jump to "life", so at the moment, that's the direction scientific enquiry is taking.

Why isn't it that big a jump? Define "big." Did life happen by an accidental mutation? Then how did...brains come into existence, because life doesn't necessarily mean intelligence? If millions of years, whyyyyyyy is there such a range of types of humanity - how can we have a Hitler in the same generation as an Einstein? Why are there so many different personality types, and how come the dominant ones haven't killed out the submissive ones? Why can some people murder without a second thought and others not be able to kill a fly?

The problem with imagining evolution is the enormous time-scales involved. People wonder why humans aren't evolving into something else. We may well be, but it also might take 5 million years and we've only been writing things down for a few thousand.

May I suggest another? transitional species. As fervent a creationist as I am, the thousands of transitional species there must be lying around someplace would be evidence, incontrovertible, that evolution must have taken place.

Though I must say, the scrambling around people have done throughout the centuries to come up with one - Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon man, Java Man, etc. - is rather pathetic and not at all scientific. Not at all honest, either!

Furthermore, why don't scientists everywhere unanimously embrace evolution theory? Why do they find things that disprove it?

Imagine an alien arrival to earth standing where you are in 50,000,000 years time, excavating a trench and finding fossil records of humans. They will deduce that a species rose to prominence then died out, with insect life then dominating the planet until the alien's arrival.

Insects? why insects? Aren't they lower on the food chain/evolutionary process?

While DNA can mutate, it isn't interchangeable, which is why hardly any cross-speciation exists in the wild. Even very similar birds, which could produce hybrid offspring just don't do it. The hard evidence behind the theory of evolution fills libraries.

Wait, wait, WAIT. In the first sentence there's no "cross-speciation," which I take it means transitional species? And yet in the third sentence "the hard evidence behind the theory of evolution fills libraries"? Really? But even "very similar birds, which could produce hybrid offspring just don't do it."

You know? According to my little understanding of the Evolution theory, man walks toward extinction ... Once religions say something similar, what's the worry? We all know it, and we all can see it.

But lib, evolution makes man god, which is NEVER good!

[Nightshade]

But lib, evolution makes man god, which is NEVER good!

Not arguing either way but how, does that work. God is Omnipotent and a maker, even with evolutionary theory Humans didn't create themselves, they are a product of a greater force, perhaps random chance perhaps evolution itself. if evolution creates any 'false gods' then as I see it it follows it would be Nature, Evolution itself, random chance or Chaos that becomes the controlling feature and thus by that argument God.

Me I tend to stand with evolution is a feature or by product of Creation or even the Tool of Creation, Ive never seen why God and evolution can't co-exsist.
I mean the humans evolved from mud thing? wasn't Adam made of dirt or dust?