Denial of evolution II

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Hercules Rockefeller, Mar 9, 2009.

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  1. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    You aren't very good at it.
    I have no need to justify it.
    No, I don't believe you did. (This is a polite way of saying you did not.) Is English your second language?

    I never entertained such a naive idea. It's good that you've overcome it.

    Which is exactly what the scenario you described is - an accident. All accidents, better described as incidents, are the product of the events and actions leading up to them. If this occurence is non-unique, then clearly, from an evolutionary perspective, the loss of specific genes on the occassions when this does arise is secondary to the benefits attending the actions and events that led to it.
    It doesn't alter the fact that this is not an evolutionary advantage to the dun beetles, or to the dung beetle genome. What it is in an insufficient disadvantage to lead to the extinction of dung beetles and thus dung beetle genes.

    You are probaly quite ignorant of the fact that these are two completely different scenarios. I don't think you are deliberately trying to deceive. It's just some of that youthful naivety surfacing again.

    In the case of the dung beetle no mating occurs. Genetic material is lost to the gene pool. In the case of the praying mantis mating does occur and genetic material is passed on to the next generation. The first is an evolutionary negative, the second an evolutionary positive.

    Sorry. I missed something. Who, apart from a stuffed aardvark, or a brain damaged seagull, would consider the 'On the Origin' to be a definitive work. Not even Darwin considered it to be a defintive work.
    To even vaguely contemplate that as a possibility you would have had to have failed to understand the work itself, ignored the rediscovery of Mendel's work by de Vries and others at the beginning of the 20th century, pretended that Haldane and Fisher couldn't do maths, discarded the unifying efforts of the likes of Dobzhansky and Mayr, decided that Gould and Eldridge's notions of punctuated equilibrium were total nonsense, and missed completely the growing impact of evo-devo and epigenetics. Is this your naivety playing a role again? You really ought to get that seen to.
    Oh please. I've read all Dawkins books. I keep them on the top shelf of my library, out of reach of children. Anytime I wish to be reminded of the dangers of trite, simplistic, overbearing writing, I dip into one of his works. (Though I'll concede The Ancestor's Tale is an honourable exception.)

    Williams, not Dawkins deserves the credit for whatever merit there is in the idea of a selfish gene (and there is a fair amount). Wilson and Sober, however, and others active in the field provide convincing arguments for the importance of forms of group selection. This is a dynamic field with some of the heavyweights of biology participating in it. Limiting ones' viewpoint to a narrowly focused book by a known egocentric, published over thirty years ago, is way too much of a limitation for me.

    I'm delighted the book has fired your imagination, but please don't try patronising me with your oversimplifications again. It won't lead to a useful dialogue.
     
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  3. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    You switched to "humans males" and then used "it" so much to refer back that I forgot the subject and became confussed - Are you speaking about US capitalism? (It usually works as the best system to yet evolve, but does have some obvious and current flaws.) or about dung beetles in the part I made bold? :shrug:

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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    The one that can fly highest and fastest after the queen to mate high in the sky. She is bigger stronger. (Workers are not fully developed females)
     
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  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    It is off subject, but Why (out of reach)?

    That sounds prudish and damaging to them should they be interested enough to read one. When I was raising my kids, nothing on TV or in books was off limits. I think this is good to start when they are very young and have not yet become squeamish or ashamed by the facts of life - but absorbed them as they can understand.
     
  8. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Well, once you start talking about DNA, it becomes a whole new issue for me. I know enough about DNA to barely know how to spell it!

    I'm always curious, however, that on "Law & Order", the cops have an almost impossible time getting a person's DNA. And yet in evolutionary biology, the people get DNA from animals that lived 100s of millions of years ago and they don't even have the animal. Curious, ain't it.

    God made 'em?

    Baron Max
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    You must be against intelligent creation then. There are some terribly stupid designs made. If by God, he is an idiot.

    For example human retina has the light sensitive cells behind all the nerves that fan out and behind all of the retinal blood vessel. (In the octopus eye the light sensitive cells are the first thing the light strikes, not stuck behind a lot of support crap. - That is intelligent design.)
    Perhaps God is or likes octopus more than man?
    Perhaps God is not very high in the sky but down in the unexplored deepths of the ocean?
     
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  10. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Maybe he was just having some fun.

    I've always thought it was interesting and odd that gazelles are such beautiful, peaceful creatures, yet they're the main source of food for lions and leopards?! Why not create all creatures to live on air and water only?

    Nope, the animal designs were not stupid ...well, except for man! He really fucked up when he created humans. All of the other animals on Earth live together peacefully and don't fuck up their own habitat ...man fucks up everything, including his own environment!

    But ....maybe God is just having some fun with new and different designs.

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    Baron Max
     
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Short answer: Well, evolution tends to fill all viable niches of the environment but there is not much energy in air and water so I guess you meant to include grass too. Eating a grass eater is very efficient. - The grass eater does most of the hard work of getting calories from the environment. These "easy living niches" tend to get filled to the limits of grass eater's ability to feed their bodies to the "easy livers.”

    You, I bet, should admire lions. They rarely kill anything - that work is for his pride - the job of the lionesses. He gets fat and strong with little effort and fucks them at least 15 times every day. If there is re-incarnation, I want to come back as a lion.

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    I do not know if lion eyes have the same stupid design of human eyes or the better design, but even if the stupid design, I still want to come back as a lion.

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    ---------------
    BTW – there is not much to be said for squirrels keeping their environment clean. In winter they are lazy or conserving their energy so they do not leave their nest to pee. – Quite a few freeze to death, wet by their own urine.
     
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  12. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    You can't have grown up near livestock Max. They shit on the very grass they eat.
     
  13. Meursalt Comatose Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, I am.
    You're here because you couldn't let it pass, whereas if I hadn't posted at all, you might have done just that.

    .... he says, and then spends two hours or so doing precisely that.
    I was watching while playing poker, with a big grin on my slightly inebriated face

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    Meh. Fair enough. Although I do tend to consider inference a question, in some cases. Depends on your viewpoint.. or, in your case, your agenda.

    Alright.
    For the benefit of the audience -
    Ophiolite would have us believe that, at some point in his early teens, he discovered the theory of evolution, did a bit of reading and instantly knew all there was to know about it.
    I don't believe him. But you might.

    ........

    I'l get to the rest tomorrow. Takes too much concentration to actually reply to the nuts'n'bolts.
    I am as crissed as a pucken ficket.
    Goodnight.
     
  14. Roman Banned Banned

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    Genes very rarely act at a species level.
    The genes that cause males to sometimes drown females presumably offer more fitness than the alternative- sitting out on the gang bang.

    This has been to show pretty much accidental, and actually appears to be more of an artifact of laboratory experiment than what is seen in the wild. The male will often try to escape, unlike the death-somersaults of some spider species. The tanks scientists were observing the mantids in were too small to let the male get away. Males being eaten by females happens with greater infrequency in the wild. Furthermore, females that were allowed to eat the males didn't have any signs of increased fitness over those that did not.

    Mantids are ambush predators, and they pounce on movement of a certain size. Their small brains presumably don't allow very good image interpretation, so they hunt based on movement, not so much patterns. Because of this, they may eat accidentally eat each other if their pounce reaction goes before the mating reaction.

    Hahaha!
    I would totally high five you.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2009
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    That is efficient recycling of grass unused on first pass thru the gut. Are you sure you have seen cow paddies? I am sure the Baron has - he slings them here all the time.

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  16. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Was thinking about evolution of late, and a few things occured to me.

    Out of the some 6 billion(?) people on Earth, what's the percentage of them who know about and adhere to the theory of evolution?

    If someone decides, after some study and thought, to disregard the theory of evolution. What does it change? Does his disbelieve or disregard change the theory at all? Does his belief change anything in your own life?

    Just curious. People will often argue adamantly about evolution, but does it matter to anything, one way or the other?

    Or is this just one more thing that some people can use to ridicule others about?

    Baron Max
     
  17. Clucky Registered Senior Member

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    Here is a graph that I stumbled across, which details the individual percentage of most of Europe, and some other major powers. You'd be surprised how many people do adhere to the theory, what with the prevalence of creationism in the U.S and all.

    It seems to vary between 70% and 80% in most countries, although the U.S still ranks disturbingly low (Only beating Turkey on this particular set of results. Though to be fair, the data does not comprise much of the Middle East.) It's good to know though, that most of Europe realizes the theory's devastating amount of evidence, even when the leaders of the world-stage, America, do not. Source: Click Here



    No, you're right. It doesn't change the theory, but this does not make it any less irritating. If I chose to try and dispute the colour of grass, would you feel like you were talking to a brick wall and want to feed me my entrails with a rusty spoon, backwards? Because this is how most advocates of evolution feel when trying to reason with the unreasonable. Namely, creationists.

    Evolution matters to me a great deal: It helps me understand the roots of my ancestry, the world around me and, most importantly, the people. Just because scientists are not directly religious does not mean they can't feel a close affinity, sometimes emotional, about their work. Whilst the ignorance of one person does not directly affect me, the ignorance of many gradually stacks up, and soon becomes uncontrollable. If somebody could make a well reasoned, interesting argument, that was heavily based around research, and highlighted the flaws of evolution, then I would have no problem with that. However, this is rarely the case. Usually when debating evolution it involves my opponents referring to dated texts, using appallingly fallacious arguments and bombarding me with meaningless rhetoric, if that. Education is a fundamental staple of society, and this is why people like me, and other advocates of evolution, are so defensive. We deplore ignorance. The theory is relatively watertight, in our opinion, and we essentially have never heard someone make a good argument against it. It is possible. There are flaws and we accept those, hoping to correct them in the future. It is when people refuse to even consider the evidence, or do not study it in enough depth, that we get aggressive. We want objectivity over subjectivity.

    I hope I have answered your questions adequately.

    Clucky
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2009
  18. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    My best guess is that all the millions of people in India did not participate in that study, and thus are not even counted. Ditto for Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Ethiopia, ........? (No, I didn't click on your link because such links blow up my computer!)

    So ....why argue? See? That's really what I don't get ...both in the evolutionists and in the creationists ...why argue about it? And most assuredly, why argue enough to get angry enough to cut someone's guts out with a rusty spoon? Evolutionists claim to adhere to the theory of evolution because of reasoning and logic and intelligence ...yet they'll argue with creationists. Why?

    Hell, I can throw all of your arguments and reasonings right out the window with one little statement .... "God actually created evolution to keep scientists busy trying to explain evolution." Ain't no way to argue out of that one, is there?

    Sure, you did okay with what you said. But I'm still wondering why you or anyone would want to argue about it. ...especially since you're so convinced that it's absolutely true and scientifically factual. And worse, why you'd want to ridicule someone who didn't believe in evolution.

    Baron Max
     
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Ditto.

    And I would add one point:
    For many of us, there is a certain amount of pleasure in understanding how things work. I went into physics, and to some extent left it for this same reason. (For me, the focus of physic shifted to mathematical modeling of things that I have little contact with so the fascination of things like understanding why the sky is blue, why an off ocean breeze often makes rain on the seaside mountain side, why the prevaling wind and weather typically comes out of the west, Taylor instabilites that make thunder head clouds and water stream down thru oil. etc., etc. has given away to complex equations I do not relate to with ease and pleasure. Others do. For example, some find amazing elegance and beauty in the purity and perfection of abstract math, etc.)

    Darwin's idea explains so much that would otherwise be mystery that people like me love it for the understanding it gives of what we see every day in an integrated, interacting, dynamic web of life, that we are a part of, and we abhor the irrational, often conflicting, claims that try to replace it with ignorance, miracles and mystery.

    I take pride in mankind's intellectual achievements - Darwin's* advance was one of the greatest steps out of ignorance ever taken - almost as great as the invention of symbols, writing, numerical systems, money, rule of law, democracy, and a few others.

    ---------------------
    *Wallace disserves as much if not more of the credit, but does not get it as he was not well connected with the intellectual leaders of his day, and had some bad luck. (A ship full of specimens he had collected during several years, mainly from Brazil, sank on its way back to England.) Darwin only had the courage to publish after years of delay when he learned that Wallace had. Darwin, an ordained priest (or minister?) understood well the power of the church and did not want to anger it. - Someone should check to see if Wiki tells it this way too.
     
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  20. Clucky Registered Senior Member

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    I completely agree. Much of Asia was not accounted for. I think Turkey was the only middle-eastern country there, and it ranked the lowest. Plus, it was the percentage of those believing in evolution, and so, small populations would have been favored, rather than the most populous. I think it would be fair to include even the US in that description. They're not as deferring of evolution as, at least, that graph makes out.


    I hope you know I was having a stab at humour there. I don't actually want to remove anyone's innards with a rusty spoon. Well not much.

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    On a more relevant note, we argue with creationists because we feel very strongly about rationalism, empiricism and understanding as a whole, as Billy pointed out. Yet do not confuse this with dogma. I, at least, understand it is a person's right to believe what they wish. I would not dream of converting people by brute force, as many Judeo-Christian sects, and even the most moderate forms of religion would. he concept of Hell is born from this desire: To persecute those who do not agree with your own worldview. We can not condone this in any form, as it discourages one of the main principles of science, investigation. We want people to look for flaws in evolution, we may not openly admit it, but that is only from the fear that our comments would be taken out of context and misrepresented.

    Also, a strong emotional bond can be formed with scientific ideas, just as one would with God. Though it rarely congeals into the same dogmatic, irrational rhetoric of religion, it is not any less emotional (look at Billy's description above.) Because of this, when people willfully ignore the obvious, frustration can be born, which will make most evolutionists angry. And we all know anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering and suffering leads to the dark side.

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    But in all seriousness, it can be most frustrating, yet discussion can be a forum that breeds new ideas and help you strengthen your own viewpoint. It allows you to learn of evidence and arguments, that you can form counter arguments to, which you hadn't even considered. Even with creationists, you can learn something new, and by strengthening our own arguments, and making them watertight against such ignorance, we can further our objective and understanding of the world around us.

    Or maybe we all argue because one day, we hope that we are shown a slice of evidence which disproves the theory of evolution, and convinces us of the supernatural, or which allows a new revolution of Biology to begin. Though I doubt we do, and I doubt it will. I think the future of biology is in refining the mechanisms by which evolution works, rather than an overhaul as Physics is experiencing through Quantum Mechanics.

    I don't think it fair to say that you have thrown all our reasoning out the window. Evolution does not disprove God, it just makes him more improbable, but it does not disprove him by any stretch of the imagination. It does however throw a huge shadow over the idea that life popped into existence from nowhere. Richard Dawkins himself conceded that a persuasive argument could be made for a deist God. But please don't quote me on that, I have no source to back it up. It is the theist God and holy-books that we most disapprove of. The one which does not comply with geological, uranium or carbon dating, the one which leave many questions unexplained and the one which actually answers very little, beyond giving a basic moral framework (though morals are not very relevant to the concept of evolution anyway.)

    Thank you by the way for the compliment.

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    You'd be surprised to know that I am not so convinced that I accept it as a theory which is exempt from further examination. For example, if we found that the fossil record was irreparably incorrect, the theory would lose much of my support. It is because it consistently fits with the facts that I believe in it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2009
  21. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Max:

    It would be curious - if it was true.

    Yeah, and the Easter Bunny gave them their fuzzy ears.
     
  22. jsmith91 Registered Member

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    k well i have a problem with believin in evolution because it just doesnt make sense. i mean it has never been observed before and scientific laws contradict it. even darwin himself was just making observations saying that 2 types of birds in 2 different places look different, probably because they adapted to that surrounding to survive better. now that i can agree with because apply it to us...if its cold we do what...shiver and get goose bumps, which for those of you who dont know, is when the skin tightens to hold in heat lol. but we dont change into a monkey or something with fur to stay warm
     
  23. jsmith91 Registered Member

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    oh ya, and for the evolutionists who say that evolution is based on solid scientific facts and christians, or people who believe in intelligent design have beliefs based solildly on faith, maybe you should take a step back and think about what you believe in. you are putting your trust into somthing that has not been seen, proven, and contradicts scientific laws, and cannot be recreated or proven in anyway, and there have been people to make fake fossils and exaggerate what happens in the womb when a baby is being developed just to make people believe what they are saying, and that in the vastness of space, two molecules just were perfectly aligned, going at the perfect speed, to collide and create amino acids, and you tell me if evolution does not take any faith at all.
     
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