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Aussie
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Really getting into it |
Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475
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My first post. To introduce myself, I am mid 60's married with kids and grandkids.
Iam with you on this Charlie, I believe that evolution has fine tuned things over millions of years but when I see the compexities of life here on earth ( check the Zoos, aquariums and wild life shows) also believe that some super intelligence has had some hand in the design of it all. That intelligence is also there to help me when needs be.
It irks me that so many religions claim that theirs is the only way.
There are many ways up a mountain.
Cheers from Aus (Downunder)
Aussie
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Aussie
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Really getting into it |
Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475
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Sorry I didn't hit reply
Aussie
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Hi Aussie,
You say,
>I believe that evolution has fine tuned things over millions of years but when I see the compexities of life here on earth ( check the Zoos, aquariums and wild life shows) also believe that some super intelligence has had some hand in the design of it all.
It really has to be an "all or nothing" approach. To state that evolution helps, but in the end it is God who made animals the way they are, is missing the point. Animals are the way they are because they are suited to their environment, not because they are intelligent or look pretty or seem far too complicated for nature ever to have designed. If they have astounding attributes, it is because they need astounding attributes to survive.
As an scientist, I am perfectly happy to accept that people believe that God set up the rules of the universe as they are -- in other words, so that evolution could take place; that God is a benevolent being who loves all his creations; even that God intended for humans to come about via the process of evolution. None of those can be proven or disproven by science, and hence pose no problem. But to suggest that God guided evolution is starting down the slippery slope towards intelligent design -- "evolution alone is not enough". The thing is that evolution is enough, provided that you pay enough attention to how the theory works and how science works. To suggest it is not (in itself not a problem -- theories are contested all the time) requires either another scientific theory (which no-one else has yet provided), or a completely non-scientific, faith-based device which essentially demolishes both the evolution and science as we know it (which is what you have just done).
I may just have misread your words. I'm afraid we've had these sorts of debates in the past, and it's very easy to say something that is highly provocative without being aware of it.
David
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Oops, sorry -- for 'the evolution' read just 'evolution'.
Incidentally, I'll readily admit I'm an atheist, but I am receptive to the important messages of religion, and everything I said in the parent post would apply even if I also believed in God.
David
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David, there was ashort news article I read that evilution had been proven. There was osme kind of bird that was introduced to the Galapagos Islands, They were not native. I for go thow many years its been like 50 or a hundred, the birds bieaks have changed so they can better feed on a certain plant there. forgot if it got shorter or longer. but the scientist were amazed that the change had taken place in such a short amount of time, not millions of years.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Ah, that must be Intelligent Design, then, precisley because the time period was so short. Unfortunately a scientific proof may be overlaid with a deity's hand and turned on its head
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Well, I personally believe in a deity of some kind, though I maintain the opinion that belief is usually going to be wrong if it contrasts with scientific fact. That is why I have a very open belief. I'm very fond of the idea, however, that "God" is the "master scientist" nothing god does (if indeed he is even a being that does anything) contrasts with the laws of science and god knows all science and indeed created all science.
I used to think that God drove evolution, because I didn't really understand evolution properly. People, including myself, sometimes seem to see evolution as some kind of physical change that an individual creature undergoes, when really it's more about mutation, and random "freaks" being born. I don't believe humans are really going to evolve much further but if you look at the different breeds of dogs you can see an example of forced "evolution". By selective breeding humans have been able to create extremely distinct looking and individual types of dogs. By only breeding small, white, fluffy dogs with other small, white, fluffy dogs we have breeds like Maltese Terriers, which given thousands and millions of years more could end up being genetically incompatible with other species of dogs.
Evolution is more natural, though. Some mutant freak fish was born with an eye on day and as a result it had a massive advantage over the other fish. It was a freak, for sure, but it's eye made sure that it got lots of food, lots of mates and it was able to have a whole heap of fishy children. About half of those fishy children had eyes and they had an edge over their brothers and sisters and were able to provide a lot of eyed grandchildren for the original eye-fish. Eventually, there were only a limited number of the "original, non-freak" fish left, all the rest had eyes.
I sometimes wonder how many freak mutants with evolutionary superior DNA have gone to waste because of ostracisation or sterility, though. I know we as humans would probably have killed they fish with the eye if none of the others did, or we would at least ensure that it's contaminated DNA wouldn't be spread through the "normal" fish. I'm sure that a lot more mutated creatures died out that ever became the catalysts of evolutionary processes, though given that evolution is such a slow process it is hard to see much if any of it really taking place.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Aussie
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Really getting into it |
Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475
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Sorry if I don't have your way with words Deej or your scientific background but I hadn't intended to say anything provocative Now I think about it anything on this subject is going to be provocative.
Aussie
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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I replied to Charlie's post on the original thread, but I'd like to comment upon the evolutionary comments.
The beak variation among Galapogos birds of the same original species was probably the primary trigger for Charles Darwin's theory, expressed in his 'Evolution of Species'. The period was rather longer than 100 years, but nevertheless very short in terms of the apparent evolution of other species. With a limited food supply, the species evolved into a variety of forms in order to take advantage of every possible food source.
Our problem is, to a significant extent, the fact that few researchers in the field are interested in testing the 'species' boundary - maybe because they are concerned that the answer may not emerge in their lifetime! We can breed a huge variety of dogs, but dogs are a single species since in theory any two dogs can interbreed. Bit uncomfortable for a female Chihuahua and a male St. Bernard, but still ... . A 'species', for this purpose, is, of course, a life-form which cannot interbreed with a different life form.
Wolves and foxes are separate species (though occasional cross-breeding is claimed), but how long would I need to breed Scotch Collies, for example ('Lassie' dogs if you're not familiar with the breed!) before I reached the point where they couldn't interbreed with other dogs? We just don't know, but it may not require more than a couple of centuries.
My personal view is that we are all 'mutants' to some extent, but most mutations are trivial and have no significant effect. I suspect, however, that in the event of a nuclear conflict mutation might be very rapid indeed. Radioactivity is a prime cause of gene variation, and in the aftermath of such a conflict the few best equipped to survive would be the progenitors of a significantly different human race. Or am I being fanciful?
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie wrote:
> A 'species', for this purpose, is, of course, a life-form which cannot interbreed with a different life form.
>
I'm not sure that this is a very helpful definition of species - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species#Definitions_of_species for several other ones.
Lions and tigers *can* occasionally interbreed, for example - usually in zoo conditions - but I would be very unhappy to consider them the same species. Botany is full of inter-specific hybrids (fatshedera , for example). Conversely, in species with a large geographical range, individuals from either extreme of the range may easily interbreed with an individual from the centre of the range, but find it difficult to breed with each other if put together (due to an accumulation of small differences) - I seem to remember that the european blackbird is an example of this.
While the idea that something either "is" or "isn't" - the idea of hard boundaries, black & white - has served humans well in many contexts, I'm increasingly feeling that science is starting to realise that such two-valued logic just doesn't work in many areas - most things are assorted shades of grey, and I think that concepts like "species" (let alone "truth", "justice" and "liberty"!) just don't have hard edges.
Incindentally, there's an interesting short article on beak sizes in Darwins finches changing over a very short timescale (due to drought, and competition between species) on p20 of "New Scientist" issue date 22nd July 2006.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Hi NW,
The problem is that Cossie left the definition incomplete. It is not:
>A 'species', for this purpose, is, of course, a life-form which cannot interbreed with a different life form.
It is, in fact,
>A 'species', for this purpose, is, of course, a life form which cannot interbreed with a different life form and produce viable offspring.
In other words, offspring which themselves can breed. For example, a horse can interbreed with a donkey to produce offspring, but since the offspring (mules) are sterile, they aren't considered the same species.
Species, of course, don't have hard edges in that many species are related if you go back far enough, but that's the scientific definition and, since it is standardised, it works pretty well most of the time, at least for the purposes of classification. It provides a threshold moment (if you have the patience find it) where two populations officially become separate species, with as little grey as possible.
A dog and a wolf, incidentally, are the same species -- Canis Lupus -- because they can breed with no problems, even though most people would label them different species.
David
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Hi Cossie,
>My personal view is that we are all 'mutants' to some extent, but most mutations are trivial and have no significant effect. I suspect, however, that in the event of a nuclear conflict mutation might be very rapid indeed. Radioactivity is a prime cause of gene variation, and in the aftermath of such a conflict the few best equipped to survive would be the progenitors of a significantly different human race. Or am I being fanciful?
The most likely effect of mutation from radioactivity is to give everyone cancer and radiation sickness. Those 'good' mutations are likely to be ruled out by the increased incidence of 'bad' mutations. People will die before they can ever pass on the good ones.
Those people best equipped to survive would be those who can cope with large quantities of radioactivity. There will be a few of those already existing in the population. Assuming that we are talking about only a few years, rather than hundreds of thousands, it will be those people who survive, and they, and their children, will look just the same as we do.
The human race hasn't changed hugely in the last 20,000 years. I don't see why it would change even as much as that after a few years' war. If you're talking hundreds of thousands, who can say? It depends if the human race as it is at the moment could be better adapted to its lifestyle. It is possible that we are the pinnacle of intelligence-driven evolution, and it's all downhill from here.
David
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Hi Saben,
>Some mutant freak fish was born with an eye one day
It's a pity you used that example, as the eye is one of the most complicated evolutionary constructions. One thing we can say for sure is that it did not pop up overnight. Random mutations in DNA, and random recombinations of DNA through sexual reproduction, could never produce an eye fully formed. In fact, the differences were most likely so slight between generations that you would likely never have been able to see which fish was the "freak", and likely to survive, and which was not.
I can hazard a guess as to how the eye formed, but I don't know, and I suspect nobody knows, how it originated. Possibly the organism moved from a dark area (perhaps the bottom of the sea) where there was no point in an eye to somewhere where there was more light (perhaps higher up). Then an organ that already existed developed slight light sensitivity, giving the organism it was in an infinitessimal advantage which it passed on to its offspring. Perhaps some light-sensitive bacteria latched onto the organism for an entirely unrelated reason -- because it had evolved something else that made its skin a nice place to live. Offspring then continued to 'develop' this. These events could all have happened thousands or millions of times, over thousands or millions of generations, but every time the fish was eaten by a predator because it was ill-suited in another way. The eye as we see it today has been under continuous refinement for hundreds of millions of years.
We can't say for sure. But the point of evolution is that it tries so many alternatives, and only a very, very tiny number achieve ubiquity, that it is virtually impossible to follow the evolutionary path of a gene. Which is why so many people cling to "God must have guided it", when there is no evidence for that, because the whole process sounds so ill-fated, and it sounds so improbable that tiny mistakes could have accumulated over billions of years into the "design" of human beings. The thing they miss is that a billion years is an unbelievably long time.
David
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Hi Aussie,
I didn't think you were trying to be provocative, but the problem is: so few people seem to understand evolution properly. I would not say I was by any means an expert, but people have an awful lot of misconceptions about it. Some people on this board who support the theory entirely have nevertheless made honest mistakes, while others have a fundamentalist Christian background and only a very confused idea of how evolution is supposed to work. I try to correct them as I go along, as I have a terrible fear that if I say nothing, it will come back to bite me sooner or later!
Best wishes,
David
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I guess that was my point, and it was actually kind of tongue-in-cheek to use the eye, which is one of the biggest evolutionary puzzles. I definitely agree with your final paragraph; the "God MUST have guided" it philosophy is one I used to follow for the very reasons you mentioned.
That was until I started to realise that in thousands of years we might end up eliminating blondes from society (given that the blonde gene is less dominant) or perhaps blondes will be forced to only ever breed with other blondes to ensure continuity of "blonde beauty", in which case the blondes that exist in thousands or tens of thousands of years may end up with genetic traits different to all the non-selectively bred brunettes. It's a weird theory I have, I should really write a story about it. But the concept is what made me understand evolution more thoroughly, even though the two aren't entirely connected.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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cossie wrote:
> The beak variation among Galapogos birds of the same original species was probably the primary trigger for Charles Darwin's theory, expressed in his 'Evolution of Species'. The period was rather longer than 100 years, but nevertheless very short in terms of the apparent evolution of other species. With a limited food supply, the species evolved into a variety of forms in order to take advantage of every possible food source.
Not to be disagreeable but this is the very type of comment that used to make me think of evolution in "God-driven" terms. In particular the part "the species evolved into a variety of forms" makes it sound like there was some choice in the matter or that the birds just miraculously evolved. In these birds, when forced into a changed habitat, most birds died. The others didn't just miraculously grow better suited beaks, but rather, some just through luck, cunning, or resourceful managed to have children. Some of the baby birds had the same old beaks, but the occasional few might have been born with bigger or smaller beaks, or more shovel-shaped beaks. Most of the babies would have died, but the few that were made "different" just happened to have an edge that allowed them to survive.
Most of you probably understand this, but the old image of an ape turning into a man causes so much misconception that it just isn't funny. Monkeys never turned into humans, but monkey-like creatures did give birth to children that were progressively more like modern humans. Most of the monkeys died, so did most of the early humans. What isn't taught about evolution in detail enough is how a lot of the process is about failure and death. I guess it's considered too grim for High School textbooks. It was for me and it is only now at age 21 that I am starting to feel I have a somewhat better grasp of evolution. It's pretty sad.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Hi Saben,
I'm glad to hear that the eye was a simplified or facetious example -- though I do think excessive simplification does sometimes increase confusion, as it makes things seem "too good to be true".
Regarding blonds, the dominance or recessiveness of a gene does not mean that it is necessarily doomed. If it has even a slight benefit (and it evidently does have a benefit in some areas, otherwise it would not have evolved) then it will likely still remain in those populations, even if different populations mixing means that it becomes an increasingly uncommon phenotype. Even then, if an entire population turned brunette, you would still expect some to be heterozygous brunette-blond, and a quarter (assuming just one gene) of those people's children will be blond again. I don't see blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty disappearing any time soon.
Also remember that there is a certain selection pressure in today's society to be blond. Of course, that can come out of a bottle. But still, you may well find that blond people are more likely to marry, breed and pass on their 'blond' genes to their offspring, giving the gene an evolutionary advantage.
Blond(e)s aggressively breeding only with other blond(e)s? Hmm. That sounds seriously dystopian to me.
David
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You trying to sreal my thunder? lol  ) Thats the birds I was talking about.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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I have to admit that my post above was unforgivably sloppy - I blame the malt whisky!
Deeej is of course right that even the simplest definition of species should include a reference to the viability of offspring. I am duly contrite!
In response to NW, I offer the timid defence that my definition of species was qualified by the words 'for this purpose', and followed references to birds and dogs. I therefore respectfully offer as justification the undeniable fact that my posts are often far too long anyway, so that I should be praised rather than chastised for sparing the reader several extra paragraphs qualifying my definition! Thanks for mentioning the article in 'New Scientist' - I'll certainly follow it up.
Deeej was right again - one of his more irritating habits! - about wolves being of the same species as dogs. I should have stuck to foxes!
I'm not sure that I wholly concede the 'mutation' scenario, which was anyway a tongue-in-cheek addition to my post. I agree with Deeej (damn, this is becoming SO boring ...!) that the survivors of a nuclear holocaust would be those best equipped to withstand high dosages of radiation without developing radiation sickness or cancer. I don't think that would necessarily mean that survivors would be more resistant to gene damage across the board, and radiation certainly causes gene damage. Thus the proportionate incidence of mutation would increase and, in turn, that would effectively accelerate the potential for evolutionary change. Just a fanciful thought, but not necessarily an impossibility?
I apologise to Saben for my loose usage of the word 'evolution'; I do see where he's coming from. The church to which I belonged in my youth (Anglican/Episcopalian) had a pretty laid back view and neither contested Darwinian evolution nor suggested that it involved supervision from above - I should have realised that those brought up in different traditions might have a subtly different 'take' on the subject.
As regards the Galapagos finches, what interested me most when I last read about the subject (which, admittedly, was a few years ago) was not the mere fact that beak variations proliferated, but rather the speed with which the 'desirable' variations stabilised, forming separate populations and, ultimately, separate species. That's what I had in mind when I rambled about how long it might take for a specific breed of dog to become a separate species rather than merely a separate breed. Presumably, without external cross-breeding this would eventually happen - though when I mentioned a couple of centuries I meant a couple of millennia; breeding control has already been happening for more than two centuries, and we ain't got a new species yet!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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