Evolution Pros and Cons

[Moontanman]

Maybe the confusion is the word "evolve" appeared in the 16th century. It means to make more complex. I would assume Darwin had this language consistency in mind, since this was before modern genetics. But I also see, using this linguistics definition leads to many examples which are not consistent with progress. Maybe the term was then modified to mean evolve or de-evolve in the classic sense sense of the original meaning. This would lead to confusion and the impression of a wishy-washy theory, so we change that to nondirectional and make de-evolve invalid to take some wishy out of wishy-washy.

 

Evolve means change, complex, less complex, it's still change. de-evolve is an oxymoron.

 

 

When a child see the pictures of "the ascent of man" from an ape, each picture shows forward progress. The modern theory would be better expressed if these pictures were more random, so it doesn't unintentionally sales pitch forward progress. That is where I got my misconception at a young age. I have argued how it can go backwards on an objective scale of the original meaning of the word to make more complex.

 

 

If you or your kids are being shown the ladder of the ascent of man they are looking at something that has been out of day for many decades. There is no ladder of accent, the tree of life shows no accent, no striving toward complexity. The theory of evolution contains no direction toward complexity.

 

 

In the 1980's Michael Jackson coined the phrase "bad". It didn't mean bad in the traditional sense, but was another way to say good while also implying "sort of bad". Sort of a paradox. Is evolution an inner joke among scientists that purposely leads on the layman via false advertising? If you place the ascent of man picture series, using random order, evolution would look irrational. How about truth in advertising and see what happens.

 

The ladder style ascent of man is used by creationists not by science.

 

 

Nothing personal Galapagos and others. You have been very patient and very informative. I am splitting hairs now. But if science wants to recruit open minds it has to be honest with the young people.

 

It's not science that's being dishonest HB it's creationism and ID that's being dishonest. The idea of a ladder ascent wasn't good science to start with quite literally when evolution was first proposed, science has left that far behind a long time ago. Creationists keep bringing it up because they cannot understand that theories, unlike dogma, change.

[TheBigDog]

I have nothing to back up my ideas on evolution other than to say that they are the collective summation of my current state of education.

 

One of the interesting questions raised earlier in this thread, and often used to cast doubt on evolution, is the absence of transitional species in the fossil record. I am sure that there are people here who will point out the ignorance of that statement, but I honestly agree with it, that it is mysterious how species are so distinct, yet the transitional species are absent.

 

I accept that as a fact, and then I ask why and use my reason to find a suitable hypothesis. I believe that species change infrequently, but very rapidly when it happens. It most likely happens when a small group becomes isolated and highly influenced by mutation from inbreeding and other causes. There are probably very few generations when the formation of a new species happens, and they are in small numbers. Then that isolated group spreads out as it begins to win the battle of survival over its rivals.

 

With this hypothesis in my mind, I find it no wonder that there is hardly any fossil record of the transition from species to species. The innate stability of a thriving population actually prevents variation. It is only when a pocket of animals are pushed to the very brink that the leaps are made. And the leaps must be accompanied by the opportunity to rise from the circumstances that challenged that pocket of animals in the first place, and then the fortitude and luck to become the dominant survivor.

 

For those who poo-poo on ID, I wish to God (joke intended) that it were not so tightly linked to religious alternative science. I firmly believe in ID, but I do not believe it is linked to divinity. Imagine if you will that we decide to terra-form Mars. We drop all sorts of **** on the planet to make it suitable for life, but the process as we undertake it will require oh, 1000 years to mature. In the mean time disaster strikes the earth and our modern civilization loses the capacity for space travel. Mars already seeded continues to mature and the life we put there starts down its own path toward survival of the fittest. Millions of years pass and intelligent life forms there. They look to the heavens and talk of a God who brought life from the dust of the ground; and they are right! But that God is no more than us, while the Intelligence of what we designed is inherently in the root of all the life they know. Intelligent design to me is a perfectly plausible idea that is dogged by a political/religious environment which poisons its ability to be taken as the serious idea that it represents.

 

Evolution is a truism. There is much to be understood still, but the gaps are not wide enough to cast doubt on the whole of the theory.

 

Bill

[HydrogenBond]

There are aspects of Intelligent design that are not based on religion but based on using science to find other logical layers within the evolutionary picture. I am not saying the current model of evolution is not rational, just it depends on chance and the logic of selective advantage to deal with the odds.

 

The only difference between some science based ID and evolution is instead of a random change in the DNA, there are other assumed logical factors at work. Part of the bias in evolution appears to stems from not being able to explain how life formed on earth in the first place. When logic is missing, we can still make progress by assuming random. If the requirement of science was full logic, science would have to stop. Random allows us a way to move forward. It doesn't have to be right or wrong, as long as it has selective advantage by getting the job done.

 

The analogy is, say we knew nothing about gravity in terms of logic. We can still model it with statistics and get a good model. This does not mean gravity is random, even if the model works very well. But after enough time, if this model is constantly used, eventually any attempt to explain gravity with logic will look wrong since random gets the job done. This is the wall that is faced by ID scientists. If you look for logical explanations of gravity, where science of random gravity has selective advantage, you lose by default. Evolution allows forward or backwards to be called evolution. It only has to dominate the environment and have selective advantage.

 

The irony is, religion has its own version of evolution called creationism. I am not saying this is true or I agree. But if that movement could get selective advantage this would mean creationism would be evolution in thinking according to the evolutionary definition. It can go backwards or forwards since there is no such thing as de-evolve. You would have to use the science ID definition if progress was important. But that is called pseudo-science by evolution, which has selective advantage and is therefore more evolved. It all seems illogical.

[Moontanman]

I have nothing to back up my ideas on evolution other than to say that they are the collective summation of my current state of education.

 

One of the interesting questions raised earlier in this thread, and often used to cast doubt on evolution, is the absence of transitional species in the fossil record. I am sure that there are people here who will point out the ignorance of that statement, but I honestly agree with it, that it is mysterious how species are so distinct, yet the transitional species are absent.

 

I accept that as a fact, and then I ask why and use my reason to find a suitable hypothesis. I believe that species change infrequently, but very rapidly when it happens. It most likely happens when a small group becomes isolated and highly influenced by mutation from inbreeding and other causes. There are probably very few generations when the formation of a new species happens, and they are in small numbers. Then that isolated group spreads out as it begins to win the battle of survival over its rivals.

 

With this hypothesis in my mind, I find it no wonder that there is hardly any fossil record of the transition from species to species. The innate stability of a thriving population actually prevents variation. It is only when a pocket of animals are pushed to the very brink that the leaps are made. And the leaps must be accompanied by the opportunity to rise from the circumstances that challenged that pocket of animals in the first place, and then the fortitude and luck to become the dominant survivor.

 

For those who poo-poo on ID, I wish to God (joke intended) that it were not so tightly linked to religious alternative science. I firmly believe in ID, but I do not believe it is linked to divinity. Imagine if you will that we decide to terra-form Mars. We drop all sorts of **** on the planet to make it suitable for life, but the process as we undertake it will require oh, 1000 years to mature. In the mean time disaster strikes the earth and our modern civilization loses the capacity for space travel. Mars already seeded continues to mature and the life we put there starts down its own path toward survival of the fittest. Millions of years pass and intelligent life forms there. They look to the heavens and talk of a God who brought life from the dust of the ground; and they are right! But that God is no more than us, while the Intelligence of what we designed is inherently in the root of all the life they know. Intelligent design to me is a perfectly plausible idea that is dogged by a political/religious environment which poisons its ability to be taken as the serious idea that it represents.

 

Evolution is a truism. There is much to be understood still, but the gaps are not wide enough to cast doubt on the whole of the theory.

 

Bill

 

Bill, while it's true that if aliens had really seeded the Earth with life we would be hard pressed to prove it, two things need to be said here, first trust me when i say that aliens are not what the ID people have in mind and if aliens did seed the earth it only pushes the problem back, how did the aliens evolve? No matter how far back you carry ID at some point you have to explain the existence of the seeders.

[Moontanman]

There are aspects of Intelligent design that are not based on religion but based on using science to find other logical layers within the evolutionary picture. I am not saying the current model of evolution is not rational, just it depends on chance and the logic of selective advantage to deal with the odds.

 

Not true HB, ID has no science aspect, it's religion pure and simple, it's totally illogical, random chance explains evolution quite well, you should pay attention to these discussions HB, you would see this has been answered already. The current model of evolution is completely rational, ID/creationism are not logical or rational.

 

 

The only difference between some science based ID and evolution is instead of a random change in the DNA, there are other assumed logical factors at work. Part of the bias in evolution appears to stems from not being able to explain how life formed on earth in the first place. When logic is missing, we can still make progress by assuming random. If the requirement of science was full logic, science would have to stop. Random allows us a way to move forward. It doesn't have to be right or wrong, as long as it has selective advantage by getting the job done.

 

Yes the other assumed logical factor is God, or aliens, but it just puts the idea off if it's aliens and god answers no questions at all.

Abiogenesis explains how life came to be one earth quite well HB, again please read some real science instead of religious clap trap. both evolution and abiogenesis are completely logical ID and creationism are not.

 

The analogy is, say we knew nothing about gravity in terms of logic. We can still model it with statistics and get a good model. This does not mean gravity is random, even if the model works very well. But after enough time, if this model is constantly used, eventually any attempt to explain gravity with logic will look wrong since random gets the job done. This is the wall that is faced by ID scientists. If you look for logical explanations of gravity, where science of random gravity has selective advantage, you lose by default. Evolution allows forward or backwards to be called evolution. It only has to dominate the environment and have selective advantage.

 

This has nothing what so ever to do with evolution, ID creationism or logic, what do you want now an Intelligent falling theory? There are no ID scientists HBO, only the religous trying to claim religion as science.

 

The irony is, religion has its own version of evolution called creationism. I am not saying this is true or I agree. But if that movement could get selective advantage this would mean creationism would be evolution in thinking according to the evolutionary definition. It can go backwards or forwards since there is no such thing as de-evolve. You would have to use the science ID definition if progress was important. But that is called pseudo-science by evolution, which has selective advantage and is therefore more evolved. It all seems illogical.

 

No amount of selective advantage will make creationism correct, the number of people who believe something does not make it true. Creationism and ID are not science no matter how many people try to label, them as such. It's all illogical because you are trying to merge religion and science together and show them to be equal and they are not. they are not connected in any way.

[HydrogenBond]

Like I said, there are scientists who believe logic is higher than empirical. The Age of Reason came after the empirical science of the middle ages, since one can correlate observation with anything using an empirical technique. Astrology was empirical and could be used to plot the movement of planets. It was not rational but fought to maintain selective advantage making it more evolve for years.

 

The problem is reason is being attacked by statistical empiricism by lumping that into religion.

 

Let me give an example. If we take a culture of cells. We spit it into 2. One half we dehydrate and the other half we don't, which will evolve faster? Without doing the experiment the one in the water will evolve faster since in a dehydrated state the bacteria can't do anything. Where does the current model take into affect water and evolution? This is not religion, it is called logic. An empirical model can leave that out and it won't matter, since it is not under the rules of pure reason.

 

Resting and active states of cells are described in terms of the expectation, derived from experiments with aqueous polymers, that they contain two modified forms of water: high density, reactive, fluid water and low density, inert, viscous water. Low density water predominates in a resting cell and is converted to high density water in an active cell. It is proposed that switching from one state to another is an integral part of cellular function. When this ability is lost cells are transformed either to a state of rigor or to a hyperactive state in which they no longer depend upon external signals.

 

Source: Cell Biology International, Volume 20, Number 6, 1996 , pp. 429-435(7)

 

If we want mutations, one state of water offers more energy. The cell can also cut off the external environment and brood. It is the integrated affect of water. These are the extreme states. An integrated water affect appears logical and is based on science and is not religion. But it will be lumped religion because logical explanations challenge the theory and may affect its selective advantage, which by its own definition allows for backwards to be called evolving.

[Moontanman]

Like I said, there are scientists who believe logic is higher than empirical. The Age of Reason came after the empirical science of the middle ages, since one can correlate observation with anything using an empirical technique. Astrology was empirical and could be used to plot the movement of planets. It was not rational but fought to maintain selective advantage making it more evolve for years.

 

The problem is reason is being attacked by statistical empiricism by lumping that into religion.

 

Let me give an example. If we take a culture of cells. We spit it into 2. One half we dehydrate and the other half we don't, which will evolve faster? Without doing the experiment the one in the water will evolve faster since in a dehydrated state the bacteria can't do anything. Where does the current model take into affect water and evolution? This is not religion, it is called logic. An empirical model can leave that out and it won't matter, since it is not under the rules of pure reason.

 

 

 

 

 

If we want mutations, one state of water offers more energy. The cell can also cut off the external environment and brood. It is the integrated affect of water. These are the extreme states. An integrated water affect appears logical and is based on science and is not religion. But it will be lumped religion because logical explanations challenge the theory and may affect its selective advantage, which by its own definition allows for backwards to be called evolving.

 

You are full of hydrogen HB......:(

[Galapagos]

Like I said, there are scientists who believe logic is higher than empirical. The Age of Reason came after the empirical science of the middle ages, since one can correlate observation with anything using an empirical technique. Astrology was empirical and could be used to plot the movement of planets. It was not rational but fought to maintain selective advantage making it more evolve for years.

 

The problem is reason is being attacked by statistical empiricism by lumping that into religion.

 

Let me give an example. If we take a culture of cells. We spit it into 2. One half we dehydrate and the other half we don't, which will evolve faster? Without doing the experiment the one in the water will evolve faster since in a dehydrated state the bacteria can't do anything. Where does the current model take into affect water and evolution? This is not religion, it is called logic. An empirical model can leave that out and it won't matter, since it is not under the rules of pure reason.

 

 

 

 

 

If we want mutations, one state of water offers more energy. The cell can also cut off the external environment and brood. It is the integrated affect of water. These are the extreme states. An integrated water affect appears logical and is based on science and is not religion. But it will be lumped religion because logical explanations challenge the theory and may affect its selective advantage, which by its own definition allows for backwards to be called evolving.

 

I don't even understand what is being suggested here, but a few points.

HBond, I suggested this before, but you need to read a book on the basics about evolution if you want to be taken seriously.

 

And to your last part: how does more energy being present result in more mutations? What you are saying doesn't even make any sense, so I fail to see how it is a challenge to anything other than the comprehension of the reader.

 

I also advise you to browse the following wiki page:[

Luria-Delbrück experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Luria-Delbrück experiment (1943) (also called the Fluctuation Test) demonstrates that in bacteria, genetic mutations arise in the absence of selection, rather than being a response to selection. Therefore, Darwin's theory of natural selection acting on random mutations applies to bacteria as well as to more complex organisms. Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in part for this work.

[Galapagos]

I have nothing to back up my ideas on evolution other than to say that they are the collective summation of my current state of education.

 

One of the interesting questions raised earlier in this thread, and often used to cast doubt on evolution, is the absence of transitional species in the fossil record. I am sure that there are people here who will point out the ignorance of that statement, but I honestly agree with it, that it is mysterious how species are so distinct, yet the transitional species are absent.

 

I accept that as a fact, and then I ask why and use my reason to find a suitable hypothesis. I believe that species change infrequently, but very rapidly when it happens. It most likely happens when a small group becomes isolated and highly influenced by mutation from inbreeding and other causes. There are probably very few generations when the formation of a new species happens, and they are in small numbers. Then that isolated group spreads out as it begins to win the battle of survival over its rivals.

 

With this hypothesis in my mind, I find it no wonder that there is hardly any fossil record of the transition from species to species. The innate stability of a thriving population actually prevents variation. It is only when a pocket of animals are pushed to the very brink that the leaps are made. And the leaps must be accompanied by the opportunity to rise from the circumstances that challenged that pocket of animals in the first place, and then the fortitude and luck to become the dominant survivor.

One explanation for stasis is in fact something called stabilizing selection.

Really, evolutionary biology is a very rich and robust field, and many common sense questions like those above have been covered in the literature. Of interest to you may be directional selection, or diversifying selection that results in bimodal distributions.

 

Edit-- Also of pertinence is punctuated equilibrium. To put it simply, this is the idea that from a perspective of geological timescale, lineages are in stasis the majority of the time, and speciation usually occurs in rare periods of isolation and increased selection pressure. Note that this idea is commonly misunderstood to imply large genetic leaps or saltations, but truly relies only on gradual accumulation of small genetic changes as understood in modern Darwinian evolution.

More can be read about PE at Scholarpedia, which is maintained in part by co-founder of the hypothesis Niles Eldredge:

Punctuated equilibria - Scholarpedia

More discussion(and exciting debate) on PE can be found here for those interested, as I certainly have not done it justice here:

Sandwalk: Macromutations and Punctuated Equilibria

 

 

Also, I'm not sure if you know this or not, but technically every skeleton we find is a transitional fossil. You are a transitional fossil between your parent and your child.

Transitional fossil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to modern evolutionary theory, all populations of organisms are in transition. Therefore, a "transitional form" is a human construct of a selected form that vividly represents a particular evolutionary stage, as recognized in hindsight. Contemporary "transitional" forms may be called "living fossils", but on a cladogram representing the historical divergences of life-forms, a "transitional fossil" will represent an organism at the point where individual lineages (clades) diverge.

 

For those who poo-poo on ID, I wish to God (joke intended) that it were not so tightly linked to religious alternative science. I firmly believe in ID, but I do not believe it is linked to divinity. Imagine if you will that we decide to terra-form Mars. We drop all sorts of **** on the planet to make it suitable for life, but the process as we undertake it will require oh, 1000 years to mature. In the mean time disaster strikes the earth and our modern civilization loses the capacity for space travel. Mars already seeded continues to mature and the life we put there starts down its own path toward survival of the fittest. Millions of years pass and intelligent life forms there. They look to the heavens and talk of a God who brought life from the dust of the ground; and they are right! But that God is no more than us, while the Intelligence of what we designed is inherently in the root of all the life they know. Intelligent design to me is a perfectly plausible idea that is dogged by a political/religious environment which poisons its ability to be taken as the serious idea that it represents.

 

Evolution is a truism. There is much to be understood still, but the gaps are not wide enough to cast doubt on the whole of the theory.

 

Bill

 

ID is strictly a religious idea.

 

Crick and Orgel(both of early DNA science fame) suggested something called Directed panspermia, but Crick later backed off after becoming more familiar with origins of life sciences. As Moontanman noted above, this is a dissatisfying explanation because it leads to regress: we still need to explain how non-living matter obeying physical laws evolved into something recognizable as life.

 

I also urge you to be careful on subjects like these, obviously it inadvertently fuels the misunderstanding of people prone to magical thinking. Directed Panspermia is an honest proposal, and that is why Crick backed off when he realized it didn't hold water. ID is a way to get creationism taught in schools and supernatural explanations wedged into science classrooms and labs, and those involved are everything but honest about their intentions.

[Pyrotex]

ID posits that an "intelligence" was responsible for designing and creating all life on Earth. The magnitude and powers for such an intelligence would be indistinguishable from a "god". The only way you can avoid the "religious" connection is to claim that you do NOT in any way worship this intelligence. Therefore, you're in the situation of acknowledging that there are at least two "gods" in the universe, the one you worship and that other one you don't. This just gets very messy and intellectually ingenuous very fast.

[Zythryn]

The problem I see with ID is it makes no predictions and has no test for falsifying it. If you find something new, the intelligence made it that way! :doh:

[Essay]

The problem I see with ID is it makes no predictions and has no test for falsifying it. If you find something new, the intelligence made it that way! :doh:

 

Worse yet, ID defines that level of Irreducible Complexity as our current understanding of the way things work.

 

It precludes further investigation. Just imagine if ID had predominated 100 years ago.

We'd have no models of the atom that explained spectroscopy or superconductivity,

there'd be no theory of relativity explaining how orbiting satellites work differently,

and DNA would be no more unusual than Silly Putty.

[Moontanman]

Worse yet, ID defines that level of Irreducible Complexity as our current understanding of the way things work.

 

It precludes further investigation. Just imagine if ID had predominated 100 years ago.

We'd have no models of the atom that explained spectroscopy or superconductivity,

there'd be no theory of relativity explaining how orbiting satellites work differently,

and DNA would be no more unusual than Silly Putty.

 

I honestly didn't know that, so if we adopted ID now we would pretty much be stuck with things the way they are no with no possible progress?

[Essay]

Maybe it's a bit of hyperbole, but so much of the ID argument is based on the concept of irreducible complexity, where they point to current examples of complexity that have yet to be deconstructed and explained. It seems wherever they define the level of "irreducible," one is stuck there saying, as Zythryn pointed out, "the intelligence made it that way!"

 

Wouldn't an attempt to explain some irreducibly complexity be an affront to "the intelligence [that] made it that way?"

===

 

In theory, ID seems fine to me; but....

 

Irreducible Complexity, IMHO, lies before the level which determined the mass and charge of the electron, proton, and neutron. From there (roughly), the universe -including life- is explainable through an understanding physics, chemistry, biology, thermodynamics and evolution. What difference does an intelligent designer make to questions about the universe?

~ :doh:

[HydrogenBond]

Let me give a practical example of a logical reason water helped predefine selective advantage in cell evolution. The most energy intensive process in the cell involves the Na, K pumps, which establish the membrane potential. The cell net accumulates K+ ions and pumps Na+ ions out of the cell.

 

Large singly charged ions, with low charge density (for example, SCN-, H2PO4-, HSO4-, HCO3-, I-, Cl-, NO3-, NH4+, Cs+, K+, (NH2)3C+ (guanidinium) and (CH3)4N+ (tetramethylammonium) ions; exhibiting weaker interactions with water than water with itself and thus interfering little in the hydrogen bonding of the surrounding water), are chaotropes whereas small or multiply-charged ions, with high charge density, are kosmotropes (for example, SO42-, HPO42-, Mg2+, Ca2+, Li+, Na+, H+, OH- and HPO42-, exhibiting stronger interactions with water molecules than water with itself and therefore capable of breaking water-water hydrogen bonds).

 

Kosmotropes and Chaotropes

 

The cell will pump out the Na+ and accumulate the K+. During the cell cycle the more Na+ will enter the cell. The Na+ means a greater disruption in the water structure (more high density or more energetic water) at the time the DNA duplicates and the cell is the most active.

[CraigD]

I honestly didn't know that, so if we adopted ID now we would pretty much be stuck with things the way they are no with no possible progress?

I think the meaning of the phrase “if we adopted ID” needs a bit of consideration.

 

For the many reasons expressed here at hypograpy and at many other websites and publications, I think it’s very unlikely that people with much education in science will “adopt ID”. Current and future scientists are not, therefore the ID movement’s intended targets. A minority of the general public, primarily religious fundamentalist, can be considered to have adopted ID as soon at they became aware of it. People in this group are unlike, unless they abandon their extreme religious beliefs, to disown ID, and therefore are also not the movement’s intended targets.

 

The creators and proponents of the ID movement appear to have a goal not of changing the beliefs and activity of scientists, or the extremely religious, but of the general public.

 

ID proponents have, I think, the goal of increasing the number and political influence of religious fundamentalists. Their primary strategy to achieve this goal is to foster doubt about the legitimacy of science among people able to entertain such doubt. As such, it doesn’t matter if ID makes any scientific sense, only that it causes people unfamiliar with science to avoid becoming more familiar with it, or better, to become actively hostile toward it. Its major “story”, therefore, is one in which science is a sham perpetuated by greedy, immoral, repressive scientists, primarily through control of the curriculum of schools.

 

The primary motivation of ID proponents and other opponents of science is, I think, the view that human life is poorer in a world informed by science than in one informed by religion. Though I don’t agree with such a position, I’ll grant that it’s a legitimate hypothetical premise. I wish, though, that people who hold this view would confine their arguments to the conventional religious one that “faith is better than knowledge”, rather than launching bogus attacks on science. Such an approach is, I think, more honest, moral, and in keeping with the scriptural principles of most religions.

[Galapagos]

Let me give a practical example of a logical reason water helped predefine selective advantage in cell evolution. The most energy intensive process in the cell involves the Na, K pumps, which establish the membrane potential. The cell net accumulates K+ ions and pumps Na+ ions out of the cell.

 

Kosmotropes and Chaotropes

 

The cell will pump out the Na+ and accumulate the K+. During the cell cycle the more Na+ will enter the cell. The Na+ means a greater disruption in the water structure (more high density or more energetic water) at the time the DNA duplicates and the cell is the most active.

 

Fitness is relative to the environment. How does this, or anything about sodium-potassium pumps pose a challenge to evolutionary theory?

Or am I mistaken in thinking you were making some kind of objection?