Evolution and other Science

[Movius]

Comments in other threads throughout time have made me realise that many people have little idea how evolution (or many other scientific concepts) "works." The concept of evolution is often perceived as a constant set of rules and conditions that must be satisfied to reached a certain stage of evolution.
eg: Congratulations your Species has achieved these evolutionary goals:

communication
tool-making
retrieved the golden key of doom from the enchanted elf of Tryzzxorx

Your species has gained a level
Your species gets equipped with opposable thumbs


This lack of understanding causes serious problems when entities (religious, business, state or otherwise) with vested interests attempt to misrepresent or deride a scientifically proven or verified theory. In the case of the theory of evolution, this lack of understanding is most frequently exploited in attempts to inflict moral codes upon the populous. Normally this is achieved by flooding the senses of the intended victims with information contradicting the consensus in the scientific community. The nature of this information is such that is can be easily read, heard, seen, but the less bias scientific theory behind what is being commented upon cannot be found without effort on the victim's part.

"I don't understand evolution, but I understand the bible, therefore creationism is correct and evolution is evil"
Arguments for creationism are based solely on the fact that the bible is "simpler to understand" than a scientific theory, which seeming cannot be verified without at least half a minutes extra reading of some other unholy science book.

"Contraception isn't God's will."
"Gay people don't contribute to the survival of the species.... Masturbation is evil......It's unnatural!....Nature only intended a man and woman to do this, that, blah blah blah."
"(Insert Medical Practice here) is wrong, because it doesn't happen in Nature."

Crap like this is vomited into publication by people whose main goal in life is to find fault in people where none exists, by comparing the state of said person to the 'ideal of nature'. The problem with these 'natural' ideals are numerous. Not mentioning the fact they are usually wrong and seem to refer to a natural world that is composed of smiley farm animals without any natural urges or instincts walking around eating grass, the fact that they are praising the purity of nature using the artificial technology (everything from the simple pencil & paper to the printing-press to the internet.) would seem to be the ultimate irony.

Some Extra Stuff: it's not just religious and similar groups that exploit lack of scientific understanding. It occurs everywhere; From the media warning of the ULTIMATE HORROR OF DEEP-VEIN THROMBOSIS or DIRTY BOMBS CAN DESTROY YOU WITH NUCLEAR TERROR DEATH (Two seemingly imminent threats, that have little theoritical grounding.) To "theraputic" companies promoting how Xixxolon leaf shavings will help you defeat your debilitating Hyrdoroot shortage.

[thingy]

Originally posted by Movius
Crap like this is vomited into publication by people whose main goal in life is to find fault in people where none exists, by comparing the state of said person to the 'ideal of nature'. The problem with these 'natural' ideals are numerous. Not mentioning the fact they are usually wrong and seem to refer to a natural world that is composed of smiley farm animals without any natural urges or instincts walking around eating grass, the fact that they are praising the purity of nature using the artificial technology (everything from the simple pencil & paper to the printing-press to the internet.) would seem to be the ultimate irony.

Some Extra Stuff: it's not just religious and similar groups that exploit lack of scientific understanding. It occurs everywhere; From the media warning of the ULTIMATE HORROR OF DEEP-VEIN THROMBOSIS or DIRTY BOMBS CAN DESTROY YOU WITH NUCLEAR TERROR DEATH (Two seemingly imminent threats, that have little theoritical grounding.) To "theraputic" companies promoting how Xixxolon leaf shavings will help you defeat your debilitating Hyrdoroot shortage.

That's one thing that shits me about lawyers and the influx of people wanting to sue eachother these days. Innocent people such as the doctors are suffering. Just look in Australia at the uproad about the indemnity fund thingo. Many doctors can't afford that. This is coming in because of all the people who have had surgery then 5-10 years down the line had a complication because this surgery wasn't performed 100% correctly. They seem to fail to realise that if they didn't have the surgery at all, they wouldn't be alive 5-10 DAYS down the line. They go in to the surgery knowing that there's a risk it will not be successfull, the 5-10 years later is still part of the risk! They're forcing the rest of us into dieing straight away should anything happen because the doctors who gave them the extra 5-10 years will not be willing to do the same to us for fear of being bankrupted.

Evolution and Darwinism is easy to understand. These people just cannot see further into the past than what they've seen themselves unless it's in the bible. The amount of evolution over that time period anyway was minimal. As far as they are concerned, 3000 years ago (or however many years the bible thinks there were before 0 added on to the 2000 we've had since) is the limit, evolution must have happened within a few days back then but not at all since, so it musn't happen at all.

The bible's version of evolution may still be accurate, but they refuse to accept that it didn't happen over a week as told. Not everything has to be literal. That was one HELL of a long time ago.

[dozer]

sometimes i find it hard to blame the creationists because coming from a religious schooling background they are not taught any different and in a lot of places they arent even allowed to teach the alternative.

another problem comes from the belief that to entertain ideas of evolution is to reject all of their religious beliefs, and the fear of 'loosing their religion' means many wont try to look further.

there is comfort in ignorance, and a fear of where understanding will lead that stops most taking the first steps.

[oracle]

This fine strip from Jack Chick will explain everything...

Big Daddy (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp)

Full of so many falsities it's not funny.

[Fuzzy Dice]

One of my schoolmates didn't believe in dinosaurs because they're not mentioned in the bible.

I wonder how creationists deal with immediate short term examples of evoltution - like antibiotic resistance. That's real evolution that has been scientifically observed since the introduction of antibiotics.

[Lujan]

Once, whilst on a school camp. I asked my teacher why dinosaurs were not mentioned int the bible, He said they where "somewhere in the back" When we got back to school. I grabbed ye olde testemant, and read the entire thing, cover to cover. (word of advice, skip genisis :p~ ) and found no reference to enormous reptilian creatures that could eat goliath whole.

[chip256]

I find it amusing that everyone seems to take evolution as fact, when it is still an unproven theory. To be proven it has to be able to be scientifically observed, and the oldest records we (as a human race) have of any event are only a few thousand fears old. Coincedentaly, this also means that creation and any other ideas regarding the origin of the universe and life are unprovable. As a result all theories require a measure of faith (yes, technically evolution is a religion).

Fuzzydice: most examples of evolution are not improvements in dna, but rather the other way around. For example, cave dwelling fish have lost their eyes because fish that bumped into the walls kept getting their eyes infected, thereby making no eyes a desirable trait. This did not result in more info, just the loss (or scrambling) of existing.

[Scythe]

What chip256 is saying goes all the way back to the Ancient Greek philosophers and the roots of scientific theory. Since all human knowledge must be filtered through human senses, and human senses have been proven to be occasionally faulty, there is no way to be certain that anything we know or remember is really true.

Combined with this, for science to say that something is a fact, rather than a theory, it has to be repeatable, which means that the same results have to be obtained every time, as long as the initial conditions remain the same. However, since there is no way to know if something will work the first 4,000,000 times but fail the 4,000,001st time, since has never and can never prove anything absolutely. The best science can ever do is to proclaim the theory with the preponderance of evidence as the correct one, at least until something better comes along.

This was the case for theories such as the 'flat earth' theory, alchemy, the forces of nature being the direct embodiments of deities, the Heliocentric model of the universe, and Creationism. For that matter, Albert Eienstein believed that the Simple Theory of Relativity was definitive when he first developed it, but inconsistencies soon persuaded him that not everything fit.

At the time of their invention, they were the best theories available to explain observable phenomena, given the then-current level of knowledge and technological development. Right now, evolution is the best theory available to explain the world around us, and how it got here, and it is supported by a hell of a lot more independent evidence than Creationism.

Evolution, while not directly provable (at least not without a time machine), is able to be inferred from the available evidence, while the best counter Creationists can put up is either that God (or Satan) created this false evidence in order to fool people into believing in Evolution, or that the evidence or the science is simply wrong.

[Movius]

Originally posted by chip256
I find it amusing that everyone seems to take evolution as fact, when it is still an unproven theory. To be proven it has to be able to be scientifically observed, and the oldest records we (as a human race) have of any event are only a few thousand fears old. Coincedentaly, this also means that creation and any other ideas regarding the origin of the universe and life are unprovable. As a result all theories require a measure of faith (yes, technically evolution is a religion).
Evolution isn't a religion, it is a valid scientific theory, thats like calling astrophysics or thermodynamics a religion. There is nothing in the theory of evolution that can't be demonstrated to hold true in the real world.

[druid]

Originally posted by chip256
Coincedentaly, this also means that creation and any other ideas regarding the origin of the universe and life are unprovable.

You can still receive and measure radiation from the era of the Big Bang so to a certain degree it can be observed.

[pleed]

Definitions of religion:

noun: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.

according to this definition and your argument, then evolution is a religion.

[Eightyodd]

Evolution is a supernatural power controlling human destiny??

[Scythe]

The whole point is that evolution isn't a supernatural force, working outside the normal order of things. Evolution is part of that natural order of things, and it is this order which deities and gods are supposed to interfere with to create miracles.

You can't seperate evolution and human destiny, since it was evolution that made us what we are, and thus determined what choisces are available for us to be human destinies.

[pleed]

definition of 'or'

Used to indicate an alternative, usually only before the last term of a series: hot or cold; this, that, or the other.


supernatural power or powers

it may not be a supernatural power, but it is a power of some sort.

[Scythe]

I'm pretty sure that when the dictionary refers to powers, it means the multiple gods of a pantheistic religion, such as the Greek or Egyptian pantheons, as opposed to the single power of a monotheistic religion, such as Christianity. Powers, as in the plural of a single power, rather than abstract powers like the power of evolution.

[oracle]

Uhh, as far as I'm aware, evolution doesn't control human destiny. I won't even begin the debate on whether or not there even is such a "destiny" to speak of.

As far as observing evolution, I'm not sure if this is classed as evolution, maybe some of the science heads could support this or not but... I remember reading an article about birds that live in the city have "evolved" to have higher pitched (mating?) calls to overcome the din of traffic and other noises associated with city life. This was in comparison to birds of the same species that lived in areas not heavily burdened with human life.

[thingy]

Originally posted by pleed
definition of 'or'

Used to indicate an alternative, usually only before the last term of a series: hot or cold; this, that, or the other.

it may not be a supernatural power, but it is a power of some sort.

My understanding of that line was that it meant "supernatural power or supernatural powers", referring to one or many gods (roughly).

[Tintin]

Take a single bacterial cell and place it in a nutrient medium so that it can form a colony of descendant cells.

Pick up this colony and smear it over an agar plate which has an increasing concentration of a toxic compound (antibiotic) towards one end of the plate.

The colonies will live and grow happily on this agar, except in the region where the antibiotic concentration is too high for the cells to survive.

In the regions closest to the edge of growth, where the antibiotic concentration is highest, it is of a survival advantage to the bacteria to develop resistance. Take a sample of these cells and spread them out again on an identical plate with an increasing antibiotic concentration to one end.

Abracadabra colonies form in the agar region with high antibiotic concentration where the first cultures did not. The bacteria have changed, evolved, if you will.

[Scythe]

Originally posted by Tintin
Take a single bacterial cell and place it in a nutrient medium so that it can form a colony of descendant cells.

Pick up this colony and smear it over an agar plate which has an increasing concentration of a toxic compound (antibiotic) towards one end of the plate.

The colonies will live and grow happily on this agar, except in the region where the antibiotic concentration is too high for the cells to survive.

In the regions closest to the edge of growth, where the antibiotic concentration is highest, it is of a survival advantage to the bacteria to develop resistance. Take a sample of these cells and spread them out again on an identical plate with an increasing antibiotic concentration to one end.

Abracadabra colonies form in the agar region with high antibiotic concentration where the first cultures did not. The bacteria have changed, evolved, if you will.

Yep. :)

We can generally only see evolution at work in animals with shorter lifespans, such as birds, mice, bacteria, etc (the new drug-resistant viruses popping up are a good example of evolution at work). Although it can also be seen in dog breeeding, horse breeding, etc.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by chip256
Fuzzydice: most examples of evolution are not improvements in dna, but rather the other way around. For example, cave dwelling fish have lost their eyes because fish that bumped into the walls kept getting their eyes infected, thereby making no eyes a desirable trait. This did not result in more info, just the loss (or scrambling) of existing.


EEEEEERRRNNT!!! WRONG ANSWER!

Even if eye infections are the selection pressure you're talking about, all examples of evolution take place at the genetic level. Either in how genes are encoded or how they are expressed. ALL of it. EVERYTHING. A mutation in sequence at some point results in trait (a). These aren't necessarily improvements in DNA, they're simply what enabled one participant in the gene pool to have an advantage over others and reproduce more. Most mutations are almost totally benign and it is very rare that a mutation will have any effect on survival.

And even then, the only way a mutation will enter the gene pool is if it occurs in a gamete (sex cell - sperm 'n eggs). Otherwise, nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.

That's what evolution is: whoever passes on their genetic information wins. Hell, all cheetahs have almost identical genetic structures - almost like they're all brother and sister - meaning that at some point rather recently, something killed off all the other cheetahs except for just a few - a population bottleneck. It was most likely an infectious disease that only those few were able to survive. Which doesn't make them the best cheetahs in any other way. They might not have been the fastest or the smartest, but they had that one trait that let them survive to have sex.

Sex is how you know you're winning.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by Scythe
Although it can also be seen in dog breeeding, horse breeding, etc.

Breeding is not evolution. Breeding is the artificial selection of traits that fit a human need. Similar, but not the same thing.

[geggle]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Dice
Sex is how you know you're winning. Damn! Now I know I'm a loser! :(

[Scythe]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Dice
Breeding is not evolution. Breeding is the artificial selection of traits that fit a human need. Similar, but not the same thing.

Breeding is evolution, it's just not evolution by natural selection, and the traits that are evolved are not passed on randomly, but are instead chosen by us. Also, the process is speeded up considerably, and the mutations that become dominant aren't necessarily those best suited for the animal's survival out in the wild.

I suppose you could call it 'directed evolution', but it is still a form of evolution, in that those best suited for their situation pass on their traits to their descendants. Whether 'best suited' for a dog means being bigger and running faster, or having curly fur and a good temperament for children all depends on the situation.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by Scythe
Breeding is evolution, it's just not evolution by natural selection, and the traits that are evolved are not passed on randomly, but are instead chosen by us.

and hence, is not evolution.

[Scythe]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Dice
and hence, is not evolution.

Why not? Why does evoluton have to consist solely of random mutations, some of which survive and some of which do not?

Evolution involves those animals with benificial traits passing them on to their children. I don't recall anything defining whether the process had to be random, who does the choosing of the traits, and what constitutes benificial in different situations.

[pleed]

I don't think they should be considered 'random' mutations. Every generation, the Human tail bone gets smaller. We have absolutely no need for it, so it's slowly going. I would consider that evolution and I very much doubt that it's a random happening.

[Tintin]

In the habitat provided to animals by animal breeders, pure-bred genetic characteristics in the animal are often their survival advantage.

It is this stock that survive to have progeny (kids).

That's why goldfish exist; in the wild they would be mauled. :D

P.S. I don't think there were goldfish on teh ark!

[108]

I was under the impression that evolution was nothing but selective breeding. Sure, random mutations may occur, but it's very unlikely to happen to an entire species. The mutation would occur on a few individuals, and if it was beneficial to its survival, those individuals would have a longer lifespan & produce more offspring which have a chance of carrying the mutant trait. In time the number of mutants slowly but surely grow untill they are the majority.

I think changing environments/environmental conditions plays a much bigger part in sparking evolution.

But I can't explain why we still have ugly people.

Am I still on topic?

[edeity]

Originally posted by Movius
Evolution isn't a religion, it is a valid scientific theory, thats like calling astrophysics or thermodynamics a religion. There is nothing in the theory of evolution that can't be demonstrated to hold true in the real world.

Science is a religion.

Benefits it has that other religions dont is the atomic bomb. You want Holy War? Bring it on bible believing bitch.

[Scythe]

Originally posted by edeity
Science is a religion.

For a lot of people it is, because they lack the time or the interest to go out and learn for themselves. Instead they take the word of anyone who even looks like a scientist, and blindly believing in science, just because that's the way you've been brought up, is no better than blindly believing in a religion.

By the way, advertising companies know this, which is why you get a lot of people in ads wearing lab coats when pushing a product, even if it's something like shampoo or washing detergent. The lab coat is associated with the scientist, and the scientist is supposed to know what they are talking about, ergo people trust other people wearing lab coats to know what they are talking about, even if no one even suggests they are actually scientists. (People like that are known as 'scienticians', not scientists.)

[alx5962]

Originally posted by pleed
I don't think they should be considered 'random' mutations. Every generation, the Human tail bone gets smaller. We have absolutely no need for it, so it's slowly going. I would consider that evolution and I very much doubt that it's a random happening.

Sorry but you are wrong.
I really advice people to read Stephen Jay Gould books as he's one of the best Evolution teacher these days.

Adaptation is the key of Evolution.we don't influe on it. So even if we don't need it, it will stay here. But if a mutation appears and then it makes one bone smaller, there's a chance that future generations have a smaller bone if it bring them some advantages (like better feeding or run faster,...).
Gene mutation is a random act. And we don't have to forget it takes a long time to see some changes in a group.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Movius
There is nothing in the theory of evolution that can't be demonstrated to hold true in the real world.

If that was the case, it wouldn't be called theory. It would be called fact.

[alx5962]

evolution is like gravity, a theory.
But many facts tend to prove that theory is correct.
And almost every biologists on this planet agree with that, unlike creationism where no scientists agreed it.
And we don't have to forget the bible is just a myth book (based on oral stories mostly) including some true characters and events (close to the way James Ellroy including real events in his novels now). And so it cannot be trusted for any science events.

[robotoverflow]

The only reason that it's still only a theory is because we cannot currently claim that it could never be disproven. You have to understand that the nature of the theory prevents it from becoming fact (at least for now) because it is such a broad all-encompassing claim about how all living organisms came to be.

It's at least more feasable than the fiction backing most religions.

[FireHart]

Originally posted by oracle
This fine strip from Jack Chick will explain everything...

Big Daddy (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp)

Full of so many falsities it's not funny.

I can't stop laughing at this. :D :D
It's so wrong and yet it's so hilarious. If he wouldn't be so serious I'd say he could be the best comedian ever :D

[tikdoph]

Just out of curiosity, can anyone refer me to a scientific journal or study where scientists have successfully created life from scratch? ie. creating a living organism from whatever where no living organism existed before? I'm not fussy as to what they used for the building blocks, just how they did it.

Thanks.

[Tintin]

Has not yet been done artificially. I think I saw something about a group working towards it in the popular press a while ago. One criterion for life is replication, hence these ppl were trying to make 'replicons'. Computer viruses fulfil many of the criteria for life, including replication, but not all. Artificial life would be subject to the rules of evolution, incidentally. :D

The best things we have so far are :borg: and :banana: .

Actually now I think about it polio or some simple virus molecules have been synthesised. These exist in a grey area between living and non-living.

[Tintin]

I quick check on Google (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=synthetic+viruses&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=) revealed this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2122619.stm).

[utopian]

Originally posted by tikdoph
Just out of curiosity, can anyone refer me to a scientific journal or study where scientists have successfully created life from scratch? ie. creating a living organism from whatever where no living organism existed before? I'm not fussy as to what they used for the building blocks, just how they did it.

Thanks.
Evolution is not the creation of life. That's what the Christians are trying to prove. Evolution is the modification of life.

[Tintin]

The artificial synthesis of urea was just an early step in the path of scientific discovery that is still progressively debunking religious ideas on life. Artificial creation of bacterial life is only a matter of time.

link (http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/mim/environmental/html/urea_text.htm)

"I must tell you that I can make urea without the use of kidneys, either man or dog. Ammonium cyanate is urea."

This discovery dealt a severe blow to a widespread belief at the time called "vitalism". This theory maintained that living organisms, like plants and animals, were made of different materials to inanimate objects like rocks. The belief was that living organisms possessed an unknown 'vital force' that allowed them to fabricate organic chemicals, and since inanimate objects did not possess this force, they could neither create, nor be transformed into the chemicals of life. Wohler's discovery showed that not only could organic chemicals be modified by chemistry, but that they could also be produced through chemistry as well. In effect, he had shown that we are made of the same materials as the rest of Nature, and are therefore a part of the world around us.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by utopian
Evolution is not the creation of life. That's what the Christians are trying to prove. Evolution is the modification of life.

Ummm... so how did life originally start?

[Tintin]

Originally posted by tikdoph
Ummm... so how did life originally start? That's not known for certain at the moment. Unfortunately there wasn't a video camera pointing in the right direction at the time. :D

A popular scientific view is that life arose out of a 'primordial soup', a complex mixture of chemical compounds. This is supposed to have contained the basic building-blocks of life, e.g. amino acids and nucleotides, and random chemical reactions led to the formation of a simple replicon, e.g. a virus-like substance (see above reference to polio). Evolution took over from there.

Sure it seems an unlikely event, but it is a big universe, and there has been a lot of time elapsed, and there have been a lot of chemical reactions. And once you get evolution going, it is a bastid to stop.

Simulations of the primordial soup in early planet Earth conditions have indicated that the chemical building blocks of life could have existed. I recall they had some probs with glycine tho... :D

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Tintin
I quick check on Google (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=synthetic+viruses&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=) revealed this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2122619.stm).

Ok. Followed the link. Noted the comment "Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive." Wondered why that's the case.

Followed "Synthetic virus nearing reality" link and found the following statement...

"Most researchers would not regard a virus as being "alive", as it depends on the machinery of a living, host cell to replicate."

I guess I should clarify a little. I'm after an example of where scientists have created a simple self replicating lifeform (completely independant of any other lifeforms) using the same kind of conditions that would have originally caused life to appear where there was none before. Like is supposed to have happened when life first started with evolution. You know, the whole primordial soup thing.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Tintin]

Today, the 'simplest' life forms other than viruses are single-celled organisms. Examples are bacteria and amoeba. Though they are the 'simplest', they are actually extremely complex in their composition and function. This complexity has developed as a result of billions of years of evolution -- the first replicon probably bore very little resemblance to the highly-evolved 'simplest' organisms that exist today. No-one is claiming that chemical reactions in a primordial soup initially produced organisms like the bacteria we know today.

For a scientist setting out to create life... where do you start? Life is such a complex thing. Can you start from abstract 'first principles'? Not at present. We look to existing biology to provide a model of 'what works'. What shall we try to make first? Why don't we start with the very first replicon!? This simple organism should be within our technical synthesis capabilities.

Problem is, we don't know what the first replicon was. It is probably long extinct. Also we don't know of every evolutionary pressure and influential random event that have occurred over the billions of years that have led to today's organisms.

Also, even if we had the exact recipe for the primordial soup there is no guarantee that the same sequence of random chemical reactions would occur and life would spring up.

The field of bioinformatics studies the genomic code of living things and there have been attempts to extrapolate back to find out what the earliest genomic codes were, but this is a very difficult task. So much mutation has gone on in that time that the original code has probably completely turned over in all organisms.

Viruses have been constructed using off-the-shelf reagents (pretty damn impressive since DNA was only discovered in 1953). Viruses mutate and are subject to evolutionary pressures. They are capable of change from generation to generation (e.g. HIV resistance to drugs). Some viruses have delevoped cell wall-like structures.

So, given enough time and with appropriate selection/evolution pressures it is conceivable that a virus could develop mechanisms that would allow them to live independently. There is certainly evidence of the converse -- evolution pushing dependency on host cells. An example are mitochondria, cell components in humans which have their own DNA (appearing to be former bacteria) but which rely on human cells as hosts and the human cells depend on the mitochondria for energy.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense. :D

[utopian]

Originally posted by tikdoph
Ummm... so how did life originally start?
Why don't you pick a fairly tale out of that big book and tell me?

[Scythe]

Also, even if we had the exact recipe for the primordial soup there is no guarantee that the same sequence of random chemical reactions would occur and life would spring up.

This is why we curently have no way of knowing how common life is on other planets in the galaxy (or even if there is any). Without knowing for certain the conditions under which life evolved on earth, there's no way of being sure of how long it took or what conditions were necessary, and hence no way of knowing how common those characteristics are.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by utopian
Why don't you pick a fairly tale out of that big book and tell me?

Fantastic addition to the discussion, utop. Makes those erudite answers from Tintin and Scythe pale in comparison.

Well done.

Originally posted by Tintin
Today, the 'simplest' life forms... etc etc etc... and the human cells depend on the mitochondria for energy.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense. :D

Nice answer... thanks :D

Originally posted by Scythe
This is why we curently have no way of knowing how common life is on other planets in the galaxy (or even if there is any).

I like the "or even if there is any" bit there, Scythe. Nice to see that not everyone is comfortable with making gigantic leaps of faith based on little or no evidence... afterall, doing something like that might make you look slightly religious. ;)

Thanks.

[utopian]

So you've put the burden of proof on us, but are not willing to offer any sort of theory apart from "Oh, it's in the bible". Before you start telling us all how we're not adding to the conversation, perhaps it would be nice if you started with your own thoughts.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by utopian
So you've put the burden of proof on us, but are not willing to offer any sort of theory apart from "Oh, it's in the bible". Before you start telling us all how we're not adding to the conversation, perhaps it would be nice if you started with your own thoughts.

I didn't ask for proof of anything. I asked a simple question. People often do that in this forum. Two people responded to my question with good, well thought out answers. You didn't.

Deal with it.

[utopian]

Originally posted by utopian
Evolution is not the creation of life. That's what the Christians are trying to prove. Evolution is the modification of life.
Concise, thought out response to a point you made.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by utopian
Evolution is not the creation of life. That's what the Christians are trying to prove. Evolution is the modification of life.
Concise, thought out response to a point you made.

I wasn't making a point. I was asking a question, which was basically "How did evolution start?". Tintin and Scythe understood this and answered said question quite well. You didn't.

Get over it already.

[utopian]

So, tell me about Creationism.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by utopian
So, tell me about Creationism.

If I remember correctly, Mr Coombes, my Year 10 science teacher, said it had something to do with everything in the universe being created in seven 24 hr days. I think.

Or were you after some other kind of fairy story?

[Scythe]

Originally posted by tikdoph
I like the "or even if there is any" bit there, Scythe. Nice to see that not everyone is comfortable with making gigantic leaps of faith based on little or no evidence... afterall, doing something like that might make you look slightly religious. ;)

I'd like to point out that I actually am religious (or spiritual, rather). It's just not an organised religion, and it's certainly not Catholicism. :)

Faith and science aren't incompatible, it's when you start taking the prounouncements of either as the literal and unadulterated truth, regardless of the reality or context in which they are made, that you start sounding like a certain flabby balding religious nutter who can't spell.

I accept the theory of evolution because the vast preponderace of evidence supports it, but that does not mean i'm unwilling to consider alternatives. If someone was to announce they had verifiable evidence that Creationism was correct (the fossil of a Stegosaurus wearing rosary beads, for example), i'd at least look at it before dismissing it as religious nutterism.

The problem is that no religious group has ever been able to find any such evidence, despite the fact that religious theories on the creation of the universe are nearly as old as humanity itself. On the other hand, modern science has a recognisable hgistory going back a few thousand years at most, and yet has managed to uncover enough evidence of our origins to fill museums around the world. I know which side of the argument i'm leaning towards.

As for the "life on other planets" thing, I personally think that it's fairly likely to exist in some form, athough not necessarily in as great a diversity as on Earth. I'm not going to bother quoting the numbers here, (you can find them youself if you're interested), but considering the number of suns, planets etc, it's just a matter of playing the odds.

But, being compelled to admit both sides of the argument, the simple fact is that until life actually is found on other planets, stating for certain that it exists without any proof is no bettter than being absolutely certain that the omnipotent bearded guy who runs the universe got tired after only a six-day week and had to have a day off.

Whew. :D

[Tintin]

This thread is open for bizniz! Hit it with your questions on Evolution and other Science! No question too trivial!


P.S. a certain flabby balding religious nutter who can't spell. Well put.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Scythe
The whole point is that evolution isn't a supernatural force, working outside the normal order of things. Evolution is part of that natural order of things, and it is this order which deities and gods are supposed to interfere with to create miracles.

If gods exist, then its interaction with the universe would be as much a part of the "natural order" of things as any biomass within an ecosystem, which most people regard to be the "natural order".

Just because this sentient being performs tasks at a "higher" level of cognitivity than the insects that break down plant matter into compost, doesn't mean (in principle) that they're any different. You're just talking about degrees at that point.....

I know someone is going to point out that, by this logic, everything mankind does is a part of the "natural order". Who's to say it isn't? The discussion ends up being a definition debate, but as an analogy there are plenty of animals that overbreed and foul up their ecosystems by overusing resources, and then die out (and this is considered "natural order").

We just happen to be able to do this destruction of the environment better than "lower" animals, and also prolong the inevitable.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Scythe
they take the word of anyone who even looks like a scientist, and blindly believing in science, just because that's the way you've been brought up, is no better than blindly believing in a religion.

By the way, advertising companies know this, which is why you get a lot of people in ads wearing lab coats when pushing a product

"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV......."

[scathing]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Dice
Breeding is not evolution. Breeding is the artificial selection of traits that fit a human need. Similar, but not the same thing.

No-one ever said breeding was evolution. The assertion was that breeding provides similar results as evolution, because they work on the same principle (that you attempt to propagate certain traits).

In the same way, no scientific experimentation is ever the same as real-world conditions. It can be used as an indication of what should occur in the real world, but the nature of scientific experimentation is the antithesis of real-world interaction.

[Scythe]

Originally posted by scathing
If gods exist, then its interaction with the universe would be as much a part of the "natural order" of things as any biomass within an ecosystem, which most people regard to be the "natural order".

Just because this sentient being performs tasks at a "higher" level of cognitivity than the insects that break down plant matter into compost, doesn't mean (in principle) that they're any different. You're just talking about degrees at that point.....


Ditto. :D Go Pantheism.

This is where you start heading into the territory of moral relitivism, since without a source for morals, ethics and rules from "outside", there's no way of objectively judging the relative values of anything.

Originally posted by scathing
No-one ever said breeding was evolution. The assertion was that breeding provides similar results as evolution, because they work on the same principle (that you attempt to propagate certain traits).

I would argue that the only reason people don't see breeding as evolution is that people somehow have the impression that evolution only takes place when humans aren't involved. All evolution is is adaption to particular conditions through the process of survival of the fittest. What those conditions are, and whether they are imposed by human beings, doesn't really matter. All that matters is that they exist, and that living things are forced to adapt to them to survive. By that definition, I would contend that breeding is a form of evolution, albeit an unusual one.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Scythe
I would argue that the only reason people don't see breeding as evolution is that people somehow have the impression that evolution only takes place when humans aren't involved.

I would consider arguing that I couldn't give a shit what people "see" the meaning of a term is, as opposed to what actually "is" the meaning, since a definition doesn't require their opinion or perception.

But I won't, since arguing requires a point that can be contested, and this one is about definition, and thus can't. :)


Its not just humans that "breed" (in the context that Fuzzy Dice was using). Animals selectively breed for specific traits. The peacock with the brightest feathers always "gets da bitchez", and those without the right plumage don't get laid. Same with the fact that animals with non-advantageous mutations tend to not propagate either.

[Tintin]

To sum up:

1. The peacock with the brightest feathers always "gets da bitchez"

and

2. U got no breeding, u got no evolution. U dead.

[Tintin]

Originally posted by tikdoph
Just out of curiosity, can anyone refer me to a scientific journal or study where scientists have successfully created life from scratch? ie. creating a living organism from whatever where no living organism existed before? Go to Google and type 'Green Man Virus', then click 'I'm feeling lucky'. :greenman:

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Tintin
Go to Google and type 'Green Man Virus', then click 'I'm feeling lucky'. :greenman:
Dude, inserting the artificial genome into pre-existing bacteria is cheating because you're using one living thing to create another. :p

But it's nice to know that someone is still looking. ;)

[Maestro]

To jump back all the way to beginning of this discussion, the problem we face is that religion and science are based on totally different qualifications of "truth". That sounds patently obvious, but in some respects it's not.

Science is based on the presumption that you can always be wrong (scientific method). No amount of experimentation can "prove" a theory right, but a single experiment can prove it wrong (Einstein, I think... maybe Max Plank - doesn't matter). Religion, on the other hand, always proceeds on the basis that it is correct on some other, higher, plane of understanding, and as a result can never be proven wrong.

Even if you could somehow prove that God doesn't exist, or that we can create the first replicon and conclusively say that it is the beginning of life as we know it, religions would still be able to claim that it is a "test of faith," and since they have seen, felt, or believed in their god's work it must still be possible that there is a higher plane beyond science on which this proof is not true.

This makes most science vs religion debate moot, because you simply cannot resolve the underlying issues. That doesn't mean the debate is entirely fruitless, since it's an argument that goes to the very heart of what it means to be alive.

Nevertheless, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the decline of most traditional meta-narratives, people have been more likely to either relinquish religion entirely, or adopt a more pragmatic approach to it (eg "if God didn't want me to have sex before marriage, he wouldn't have made me so horny"). This flies in the face of Movis' original comment that Arguments for creationism are based solely on the fact that the bible is "simpler to understand" than a scientific theory, which seeming cannot be verified without at least half a minutes extra reading of some other unholy science book... because it's not entirely true that people find religion easier. However, religion answers a whole host of moral dilemmas, for which science has no answer.

My argument would be that people understand at a totally subconcious level that their existence is arbitrary, and they need to find answers to a whole host of ethical, moral, and technical questions. While science apparently has the answers to the technical questions, it has also given us more time to ourselves and the moral questions remain unanswered, leading to arguments about the breakdown of the social fabric of society. Trying to scientifically create a theory of ethics would be tantamount to creating a religion, and certainly nobody has been able to conclusively do so in the last 3000 or so years of philosophy.

So as I mentioned initially, while religion and science can be expressed as a set of binary opposites, they can also be expressed as tools which people choose in different situations. To suggest that people who select or represent religion over science are weak-minded (or vice versa) is no more helpful than suggesting that a hammer is more useful than a nail.

[pleed]

The good thing about science - You get to use pipettes
good thing about religion - You get to wear dresses
Argument solved

[DrDivad]

blah blah blah everyone shut up

now i'm not religious, but think of it this way

i'm sure many of you science zealots understand a teeny bit about Quantum Mechanics, and surely if something like god exists no doubt he'd operate on quantum or even sub quantum levels, but thats digressing

the pointis, if you know tiny bits abut quantum physiucs you'll know (if you beleive it) that some really craaaaaaazy things are possible, like being in two places at once, things like quantum leaps and even relativitiy where the speed of light can be different depending on your position/perspective and further complicated by ideas of locality, which i don't fully understand.

now my bible knowledge is pretty poor but i'm certain it does not give an exact explanation of how long 1 day is. and i've heard that somewhere in there it says that one day for god is like thousands of years in our time. perhaps gods day is the time it takes the entire universe to rotate, not just the earth.

so for the day when life is created, is it not entirely plausible that on that day all life was borne out of a primordial soup (triggered by god's magic finger) and they evolved and grew and such, and eventually we had humans etc, etc, and this whole massive sequence of events was just one day in gods life??

course the tricky part there is Adam and Eve, now i've read places that back in the day, there were two kinds of humans, a Neanderthal species type and the Homosapiens species type, and the two were not capable of interbreeding, (again, if you believe it i spose) is it again not plausible that most of the so-called evidence could be referring to the neanderthals that died out and adam and eve were the first two homosapiens? (remember i said plausible not probable)

it also doesn't say exactly how they looked either, they could have been hunched over monkey like people, why must everyone presume that when it says all this stuff was created but it was created exactly as it exists today.

i bet human structure from AD 1 is quite different to AD 2003, so why would we make this foolish assumption.

another important point to consider is the fact that stuff like the bible has been translated so many times, it isn't a book of facts, it's a rough guide to living, and again i'm no religious cabora, but i beleive the idea is you're sposed to read it (if youi are religous and beleive it), and get pointers, not treat it as word for word exactly as god intended, there's room for interpretation,

the same stuff even happens with history books, down and down the line more and more people interpret and put there spin on it, and the original picutre gets blurrier and blurrier.

anyways, jsut my 2 cents, i'll allow the utopians of the forum to pick it to pieces now.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by DrDivad

i bet human structure from AD 1 is quite different to AD 2003, so why would we make this foolish assumption.


Actually, it's quite similar. Almost identical, even. People in countries with higher standards of living tend to be larger (taller, generally) than their forbears. Skeletal remains from the period in question usually show more wear and strain. Nutritional deficiencies were a lot more common.

If you took a man from AD 1 and stuck him into a crowd of people today, he'd fit right in. Aside from being shorter, hairier and smellier. Give him a bath, a shave and a new set of clothes, and he'd fit right in, physically.

[DrDivad]

shorter and hairier is the kind of thing i'm talking about,

those ape people are jsut shorter and hairier aswell, and with hunches,

[utopian]

Albanians?

[Bifrost]

Originally posted by DrDivad
shorter and hairier is the kind of thing i'm talking about,

those ape people are jsut shorter and hairier aswell, and with hunches, If you keep a person from 2003 away from a shower for a few years, make him/her walk EVERYWHERE and perform manual labour for his/her entire physically useful life, you will find (strangely enough), that they are shorter, hairier and smellier than most of us city folk.

This sort of thing is not evolution, it happens on an idividual basis through the course of each person's lifetime.

I shan't enter into this debate (yet) because I'm in a bad mood and because I'm an atheist and yet I believe the theory of relativity is bollocks.

[minorproblem]

actualy drdavid the theory of relativity states that light is the same for all frames of reference not diffrent. You would expect it to be diffrent lol thats what they originally thought but then they ended up proving themselves wrong.


all i wanted to say is if u r an athiest or religious then good for u at least u can commit urself to something. But all u people out there who are half commited then u suck seriously the problem with the world isnt religion it is the idiots who go ooh yer i belive in god etc but dont follow there religion at all. Atheiests are cool because at leasts they arent afraid to say what they belive in.

[minorproblem]

also people arnt stupid evolution can happen over a very short time frame take for instance cockroaches every 5 years they build up a tollerance for the spray why because all the cockroaches that arent tollerant die and all the ones that are live and breed a race that is tollerant its that simple. evolution basicly relies on freaks being born in society at the right time like they can tolerate the changes. So what is the debate here. Religious people can see evolution perhaps it is just part of gods plan. I got over 90% in physics, chemistry & 3 unit maths but im still religious i just belive science is a study of how things work etc and religion is the ethics which i should strive to live by.

[Maestro]

Things didn't go quite so well in English, I'll bet?

[scathing]

Originally posted by Maestro
Things didn't go quite so well in English, I'll bet?

That's what happens when you graduate from the Jocky Bible School.......

[Glompbot]

Originally posted by minorproblem
also people arnt stupid evolution can happen over a very short time frame take for instance cockroaches every 5 years they build up a tollerance for the spray why because all the cockroaches that arent tollerant die and all the ones that are live and breed a race that is tollerant its that simple. evolution basicly relies on freaks being born in society at the right time like they can tolerate the changes. So what is the debate here. Religious people can see evolution perhaps it is just part of gods plan. I got over 90% in physics, chemistry & 3 unit maths but im still religious i just belive science is a study of how things work etc and religion is the ethics which i should strive to live by.

Thats fair enough, but most religions opinions go against what you believe. What religion are you?

I know in the bible (genesis?) it states that god created adam and eve.... but evolution says we came from the primordial swamp.
How does your religion feel about that? (assuming of course that your religion is based on the bible in some way)

[scathing]

Originally posted by minorproblem
I got over 90% in physics, chemistry & 3 unit maths but im still religious i just belive science is a study of how things work etc and religion is the ethics which i should strive to live by.

Just because you can rote learn something doesn't necessarily mean you believe in it. High school study doesn't require intelligence; it requires memory. You don't need to understand the theory, just remember the formula and plug in the numbers.

At any rate, anyone can know something well without believing in it. There are quite a few people here that could probably quote the first Matrix movie word for word, but the only time they're going to tell you they believe that we're all jacked in to a computer simulation of reality is when they're on trial for mass murder.

[utopian]

Originally posted by minorproblem
Captain James T Cockroach's Five year mission
That's not evolution, that's acquiring an immunity to a toxin. That's like saying that immunisation is forced evolution. It's not. It's an adaptation to the body's immune system that is independent of genetic makeup. The cockroach is still the same species of cockroach, it just has immunities.

There must be a marked difference in genetic structure for it to be classed as evolution.

[Tintin]

Originally posted by utopian
that's acquiring an immunity to a toxin.That may be so, but it still selects those that are best at acquiring this immunity.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by utopian
That's not evolution, that's acquiring an immunity to a toxin.

No it's not. For the love of fuck.

Sheesh.

When insects demonstrate immunity to a pesticide, it's not an 'acquired immunity', it's damn well evolution. All the bugs that aren't immune die off. The ones who survive the pesticide live to make more insects. BAM. Evolution, right there. Acquired immunity, as you speak of it, is the immune system developing antibodies to a foreign protein. We know that pesticide resistance is evolution from the fact that the decendants of the resistant organisms are resistant to said pesticide.

Evolution is the response to selection pressure. Pesticides are selection pressure. This isn't really a hard concept.

[Scythe]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Dice
No it's not. For the love of fuck.

Sheesh.

When insects demonstrate immunity to a pesticide, it's not an 'acquired immunity', it's damn well evolution. All the bugs that aren't immune die off. The ones who survive the pesticide live to make more insects. BAM. Evolution, right there. Acquired immunity, as you speak of it, is the immune system developing antibodies to a foreign protein. We know that pesticide resistance is evolution from the fact that the decendants of the resistant organisms are resistant to said pesticide.

Evolution is the response to selection pressure. Pesticides are selection pressure. This isn't really a hard concept.

Werd.














That's all I has to say, really. Go about your business.