[Trance-R]

Good good. So my English isn't that terrible after all.

quote:

---

Originally posted by shahar2k:
mutations that have evolved a species?
during the industrial revolution a species of moth that was usually white, with abnormal cases being black suddenly reversed that trend... why? because of a change in it's environment, the trees in the area became blackened with smoke from factories, so the white moths were easier to hunt by birds, and therefore the black veriaty became more prominent.

---

Actually, the moth didn't exactly mutate. The black colored moth is from its genes. Black moths did not survive well, but a small number of them DID survive. When the trees are covered in ashes, the birds can't spot them anymore; the success of their survival increased the number black moth. While the white moths did not survive as well. There are also cases of gray moth from equally dominant white and black genes who could possibly reproduce black/white moths depending on the mate. This is one of the reasons a diverse gene pool of a specie is important to its survival; So that a single virus/bacteria (something with the same effect) will not be able to wipe out a whole population of a specie. But you still are right. The moths did evolve. But in biology, the correct meaning of evolution is actually Natural Selection. Nature selected against white moth. Mutation contributes to nature selection; If the mutated organism happens to have a special feature that allows it to survive better than the others. Then the mutated animal would hopefully be able to reproduce and increase its gene representation in the gene pool of the specie. Again we run into problems with mutated organism being unfertile/incompatible with the rest.


This brings me to another topic. I think genetically modifying food crops to make it larger/easier to harvest is actually inappropriate in some ways. Because mass reproduction of one single crop would mean a tiny tiny gene pool. Anything infectious that the crop could not defend against would wipe out the whole plant population!!!!
Imagine 500 acres of rice crop getting wiped out by a single strain of bacteria/virus introduced from another continent! Or a change of climate from global warming. It could be catastrophic indeed!

[This message has been edited by Trance-R (edited February 11, 2001).]

[Ragnarok]

Well, plants that have asexual reproduction haven't got much gene pool. And if you have made a transgenic plant, you can do another one.

[shahar2k]

actually engineered food is more cleverly made then that... you see the company has to make a profit... how?
well they create an infertile plant... it's that simple, so once your crop is cut and it's over, you HAVE to buy more seeds from the company. so you don't have as much of a problem (althogh a weakness in the genepool will destroy an entire crop) plus the company gets rich!

evil incarnate? I think so!

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[Trance-R]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
Well, plants that have asexual reproduction haven't got much gene pool. And if you have made a transgenic plant, you can do another one.

---

Asexual reproducing plants could also have a diverse gene pool. Plants of the same specie with different genes reproducing asexually. But they prefer sexual reproduction which would happen under 'normal' circumstances. Asexual reproduction occurs when they're forced to. It's reproduce asexually or die off slowly without extending the 'life' of its genes.


Shahar2k: OMG! Exactly! I totally agree! Evil incarnation! They get to screw with the gene pool AND make money!

[Affected]

Well, in a way making them infertile is only common sense - people are very wary of letting GM plants "go wild". What's pure evil, tho�gh, is the Monsanto practise of modifying the seeds so the plants only tolerate the company's own pesticides....

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[Starseed]

quote

Quote:

This is a good discussion. No one should ever stop discussng these big topics just because 'they're always talked about' or because passions might run high.

Exactly. Avoiding discussions like these just because of conflict is weak. Conflict means things can get understood better on both sides.

Now I'll just continue to Lurk . . .

-mt

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everything is relative

[kochun]

Not to revive a 4-day old thread, but speciation (splitting off of a new species from an old one due to evolutionary pressure) HAS been observed. The reason we don't hear about it a lot is because 1) Scientists already accept evolutionary theory like they do gravitational theory, so it's not news to them, and 2) most examples of speciation are from obscure animals, plants, or simple monocellular organisms that no one's ever heard of. Not very glamorous.

But the point remains, we HAVE seen speciation. Only flat-earth creationists deny that they occur. In the 100 or so years that we've been looking for evolution, we've already found a bunch of real cases. Evolution is a fact like gravity is a fact. We don't fully understand every mechanism, but we do know that species will change over time to fit evolutionary pressures, just as Darwin said.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html (section 5.x lists examples of speciation)

[Isric]

*stands up to the podium*

I read a comment that said:
"what has religion to do with science?"
Everything. And to think otherwise demonstrates not only ignorance towards religion, but science as well.

Evolution has NOT been proven. Micro evolution within species has, but there is absolutely NO evidence that can prove Macro (species into species) evolution has EVER
taken place. And this is not the rantings of an idiot. I HAVE read the books and I HAVE looked into it. For years. Evolution has as much grounds or debate as creation does.
I challenge anyone to bring me hard facts that can show me (without speculation or stretching the facts) there is anything solid to evolution. Where are the MILLIONS of transitional skeletons? There should me more than we can count, but not ONE (again, this is fact) has been confirmed.

There is another situation too. We know for a fact that the earth slows down a tiny-tiny-tiny fraction of its speed per day. This is fact. Scientists at Nasa, just for fun, decided to count backwards. They wanted to see how far back they could get, before the earth was spinning too fast for gravity to hold things on the earth. They weren't able to get beyongd 10,000 years before the earths rotation became too great. Evolution in this time frame is impossible.

Then there is the simple fact that statistically, there is absolutely NO mathimatical chance for the earth to exsist by chance. I had the privledge of speaking with one of the three most brilliant physisists in Canada, Dr. Eva Nosal. She said that the numbers involved, the amount of space, physical dimensions, the way energy behaves, chaos theory, principals of thermal dynamics....*breathe* all of this and more are, when put together mean one thing: Impossiblity. There is no way all that we see could have formed from a big bang, it is a mathematical impossiblity.
Sadly however, since evolution has been our scientific anchor for the past 150 years or so, it is almost impossible for people to think it could not be.

There are Christopher Columbus's around the world right now, refuting evolution for the intangeable theory it is. But, just as scientists laughed when he said the world was round, so too they laugh now.

But, seriously, don't be suprised if in 50 years, evolution is seen as another 'flat world' 'thar be dragons here' theology.

But what bothers me the most isn't so much the pure scientific fact that evolution cannot be, it is the narrow view peopel have of God. How can you say 'science disproves God'? How? The idea of a Creator does not mean 'a magical mysterious man in the clouds'.
The idea of a creator is a CREATIVE and omnipotent engineer. He is the one who created science. It is one of His tools in the great design of the universe.

I know for a fact that with this forum so full of hotheaded melancholies (like myself) this argument will not go un-challenged. I'll do my best to offer arguments. Hope this helps to demostrate another view on the subject.

[Nex]

science is manmade not "godmade"

religion never ever supported science as a whole thing, just when it came handy to "proove" some passage in the bible.

you say the earth is not the center of the universe? -> off to jail or get burnt right away

this is a bit drastic but before calling scientists ignorant you should consider that the church was NOT the most tolerant organisation out there (crusades, contra science, inquisition, heliocentric system etc.)

prove that evolution theory is NOT right-
its not possible, otherwise it would not be a theory any more.

[Nex]

oh and yes.. my question still stands:

what does religion have to do with science?

[sacrelicious]

Isric, the evolution of one species into another is simply an extension of evolution within species, itself a product of random genetic mutation. What you call macro-evolution takes millions of years to play out, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And there certainly is more evidence of this occurring than NONE. And the probabilities of the creation of the earth, the origin of life, and the rise of intelligence does seem infinitesimally small. But consider the size of this galaxy, the number of galaxies in the universe, and the outside chance that there are just as many universes out there as well. Statistically, it's not much to expect that such a thing would eventually happen. We may be the only place it's happened (which I doubt), but it doesn't necessarily take divine intervention for it to occur. I'm not saying there is no God, but there doesn't need to be one either. Perhaps God is the mathematical formula by which the universe functions and makes these "impossible" events happen. We just don't know.

Also, no intelligent scientist would have laughed at Columbus for claiming the earth was round. Most well-educated people knew by that time that the world was not only round, but spherical. There had also been remarkably accurate estimates of the earth's circumference made by that time. Thank you, ancient Greek mathematicians. Just as a side note, it amazes me how advanced many ancient civilizations were.

We all appreciate a good discussion/debate. I think this is something we can keep talking about for a while. But let's hope this doesn't descend into a flame war, like what has happened so many times.

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Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.

[Samson & Friends]

Isric,

You are right that evolution can not be proven, but this is only because evolution takes place across an extrememly long period of time. However, the evidence supporting it makes it extrememly safe to accept the theory with as much certainty as we do the theory of gravity.

You say that there is absolutely no evidence suggesting evolution. You are either lying, or you're misinformed. Here is some evidence:

Palaeontology. You said no transitional forms have been found. Wrong. A transitional form is a fossil that has features that makes them an intermediate form between major groups of organisms. Take Archaeopteryx for example, it had reptilian teeth, feathered wings and a long jointed tail, an obvious link between reptile and bird. You can also look at seed ferns. They have both features of ferns AND gymnosperms. The seed fern ressembles a fern in structure but produces seeds, not spores.

There is also the well documented ancestory of the horse, showing a detailed evolutionary sequence. You come across as shocked that there aren't a huge amount of fossilized materials. The reason for that is because fossilisation is a process that only takes place under certain conditions, conditions that don't come about too often.

Other evidence for evolution is comparitive anatomy, look at the major groups of animals and note the placing of bones and joints. They're all similar. Look at comparitive embryology too.

DNA is another major piece of evidence that supports evolution. Chemical tests of blood proteins have been used to show biomechanical similarities or evolutionary relationships between animals. Closely related animals have few differences in DNA, humans and chimpanzees have only 1% difference in DNA. This is exactly what is expected from evolution.

Putting all of this overwhelming evidence aside, the very mechanics of evolution are infallable. Natural selection states that within any population, there is variation within a species. Those organisms which have characteristics that best suit them to the environment will have an increased chance of survival, thus allowing them to reach sexual maturity in order to produce offspring, who will also possess these beneficial characteristics. In a nutshell.

I look forward to a response.

[FaithInChaos]

i read this...and i become very, very happy. isric, its good to know im not the dumbest fucker on this forum.

i know words change meanings over time, and across borders...but i would like to think the words "theory" and "proven" mean the same thing thing in the u.s. as they do in canada.

this is what i understand the words to mean:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=theory
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=proven
do you disagree?

the evolution theory is a proven theory, it just isnt a fact. no theory can be proven to be 100% fact. do you know the difference between laws, models, and hypothesis? maybe you have heard of scientific truth...no
i guess you didnt learn the scientific method in grade school.

ill make it simple. nothing in science is fact.


creationism is not a science, creationism is the beliefe in a biblical myth being fact.

if creationism were a science, creationists would have to take in account all the variables. god not existing, god not creating the earth, and god not creating mankind would only be three of the variables they would have to accept as being possible. but that would mean creationists wouldnt have any faith. and a creationist without faith is what? confused, an agnostic, what?

there are no creation theories, because there is no scientific evidence to support such a hypothesis in the first place.


Dr. Eva Nosal of Calgary Christian High School is a slippery slope using moron. Calgary Christian High, i would have figured.

[kochun]

Originally posted by Isric:

Evolution has NOT been proven. Micro evolution within species has, but there is absolutely NO evidence that can prove Macro (species into species) evolution has EVER
taken place. And this is not the rantings of an idiot.

Hmm. Not the rantings of an idiot? I just posted a link identifying observed instances of speciation; macroevolution, and you still sit here and tell me there's no evidence. Did you read it?

I HAVE read the books and I HAVE looked into it. For years. Evolution has as much grounds or debate as creation does.

You must have been reading psuedoscience books. There is *no* debate that evolution occurs. Scientists do disagree on some of the mechanisms through which evolution occurs, but there is NO DOUBT that it occurs. This is why almost ALL disciplines in natural science (geology, paleontology, biology, anthropology) have repeatedly confirmed other findings. We have built up extensive 'evolutionary tree' showing the lineages of a huge amount of modern animals, tracing their common ancestors.

Geology confirms that at various times, the Earths' climate has been hotter, or colder, or wetter, or dryer, and these match up with extinction events. Geology also tells us that the Earth's continents move and were once part of a large landmass, through a process that we've called 'plate tectonics'. This is why we see fossils of identical species on the east coast of North America and the coasts of Western European countries -- they were all together at one point! Paleontology all over the world, from almost every continent, confirms the evolutionary tree that biologists have painstakingly reconstructed; we always find that certain species are buried beneath other species, and so on. Anthropology shows us that humanity has been around for a while, but that we and other primates had common ancestor, a fact that genetic analysis confirms; we share a whole lot of DNA with chimps.

I challenge anyone to bring me hard facts that can show me (without speculation or stretching the facts) there is anything solid to evolution. Where are the MILLIONS of transitional skeletons? There should me more than we can count, but not ONE (again, this is fact) has been confirmed.

I take this about as seriously as I take someone saying that gravity has not been confirmed. From the oft-cited archeopteryx (the bridge between reptiles and birds), to the Ambulocetus natans, which is one of the many transitional fossils of cetacenas (whales), which are like whales, but with nostrils at the front (they hadn't evolve blowholes yet) and legs! I don't understand why creationists keep saying the same wrong things over and over again. Is it because they only read books by creationists, who almost always have no scientific credentials whatsoever? The large body of fossil evidence is unmistakable and proves without doubt that evolution has occured.

There is another situation too. We know for a fact that the earth slows down a tiny-tiny-tiny fraction of its speed per day. This is fact. Scientists at Nasa, just for fun, decided to count backwards. They wanted to see how far back they could get, before the earth was spinning too fast for gravity to hold things on the earth. They weren't able to get beyongd 10,000 years before the earths rotation became too great. Evolution in this time frame is impossible.

Wrong. First of all, the situation isn't that simple. For one, the earth's rotation also interacts with tides; the moon's influence on the oceans makes the decrease of the earth's rotation non-linear. But let's do the calculation: the earth loses 0.005 seconds every year. Take this back 370 million years: (0.005 sec/yr) x (370 million yr) = (1,850,000 sec) = (21.4 days). This means that 370 million years ago, there were 21 and a half more days in a year than there are now. This also means that, 370 million years ago, there were 22.7 hours in a day. Guess what? Paleontology confirms this. Corals deposit a thin layer of lime every day. By counting the layers for different corals, we find that some corals deposited 387 lines every year (years are marked clearly by biological processes, just like trees), very close to what the calculations predict.

As for 'spinning too fast for our gravity to hold things on the earth'? That's a ridiculous argument. Any physics student knows that the rate of rotation of the earth would have to be MUCH faster than what we calculated for things to 'fall off' the earth. The force of gravity, given the earth's mass, is much more powerful than the centripetal (or centrifugal, depending on your reference frame) forces. You should be ashamed for even trying to pass that baloney as a serious argument.

Then there is the simple fact that statistically, there is absolutely NO mathimatical chance for the earth to exsist by chance. I had the privledge of speaking with one of the three most brilliant physisists in Canada, Dr. Eva Nosal. She said that the numbers involved, the amount of space, physical dimensions, the way energy behaves, chaos theory, principals of thermal dynamics....*breathe* all of this and more are, when put together mean one thing: Impossiblity. There is no way all that we see could have formed from a big bang, it is a mathematical impossiblity.
Sadly however, since evolution has been our scientific anchor for the past 150 years or so, it is almost impossible for people to think it could not be.

None of those things you cited have anything to do evolutionary theory. The chance that the earth exists? IT's 100%! We are on the earth right now, and we know that gravitation clumps stellar material together to form planets. And if you think that evolution has been an anchor for 150 years and therefore we are all brainwashed -- the book of Genesis has been around for, according to some accounts, more than 3,000 years. Maybe it's YOU who are clinging to a literal interpretation of a religious document. Many Christians and Jews believe that the Bible speaks in metaphorical terms of the evolution of animals. A small minority of fundamentalists maintain that the Bible is literally true and therefore, in the United States especially, they've been pushing legislation to take the scientific fact of evolution out of the classroom and bring in the Bible. This is both sad and scary.

[Nex]

quote

Quote:

Then there is the simple fact that statistically, there is absolutely NO mathimatical chance for the earth to exsist by chance.

a little excourse into the wonderful world of statistics:

take a piece of paper with a 5x5 grid on it and a needle-

now drop the needle on the pice of paper.

the tip of the needle will point into one of the 25 spaces in the grid.

If we assume you can drop the needle in a way that the place where the needle falls is purely random (which is not the case when you drop it by hand because you will drop it from the same height and the same position most likely) then you have a chance of
1 in 25 to hit one specific grid.

now we make the grid smaller.. lets say 1000x1000 gridlines on the same piece of paper.

the probability that you will hit a specific grid that you choose is very small now.
1 in a million.
now, lets make the grid even smaller..

after some time trying to hit one specific point you'll think: ITS not possible i can hit this space by chance. God has to be involved to make such an incredible wonder happen.

There are myriads of stars out there..
every one of those stars emmits light, like our sun does. Those stars are practically 'suns'.
Our solar system has 10 planets (yes 10 not 9). and one of those 10 is inhabited by life currently. Another one has the potential to support life (mars), and yet another one has a moon with an atmosphere (europe).

Isnt the probability very low after your definition for that?

-
its pretty strange to think that the fact that we live proves that we are godmade because if we would not live we could not think so.

in fact those many worlds that "dont exist" cant think about that fact because they dont exist- hmm... hard to explain what I mean.

[kochun]

Originally posted by Nex:

...after some time trying to hit one specific point you'll think: ITS not possible i can hit this space by chance. God has to be involved to make such an incredible wonder happen.

What are the chances that someone wins the lottery? 1 / 30 million? But EVERY week someone wins the lottery! Over and over! God must be controlling the lottery! It's a miracle! If you roll the dice a billion trillion times, you're going to get 100 ::: (6s) in a row, SOMETIME. It's not a miracle.

in fact those many worlds that "dont exist" cant think about that fact because they dont exist- hmm... hard to explain what I mean.

This is the 'anthropic principle' in English -- the idea that if there are many planets, only the people who live on planets that produce life are able to wonder why they are alive. They will think they're special, that they're created by a special caring Guy that loves them. They will think they're in the middle of the universe. They will think they can slaughter all the animals they see because they were made by God for them to use. (I'm not a vegan! Just a conservationist.)

If you take billions and billions of galaxies, each with billions and billions of suns, and many planets per sun, and multiply
that by the small chances of favorable conditions for life, you still get a lot of life.

In fact, the chances may not be that remote that life exists -- there is a growing field of research into 'self-organization', the idea that chemicals may have properties that encourage organization. I think the idea that life is so persistent that it arises by itself is much more fascinating than most religious dogma, myself

[Ragnarok]

Kochun, I think you should be less agresive in your posts, because many people think gods exists and that kind of things. Telling them they are stupid isn't the best way to convince them

[Nex]

they can't be convinced at all.
in the end it goes back to: "but in the bible-"

[kochun]

Actually, I haven't told anyone they are stupid. I have told them they are wrong to say that evolution is 'in debate' when it is not. I'm trying to argue with lots of facts, not opinions.

And, yeah, I will be aggressive when people try to question a large body of scientific work that is firmly established. Transition fossils have been found, lineages are established, and many disciplines' results confirm each other. These are facts. If it's aggressive for me to state these facts, so be it.

By the way, nothing I have said is there to disprove God's existence; God, by most definitions, is inherently supernatural and beyond the reach of science -- but biology and evolution are not beyond the reach of science.

[Paqmann]

A couple things I don't understand about your arguments. I completely believe in evolution, and I'm Christian. I really have no opinion about how the world was created. whatever. Couldn't care less, actually. Anyway, i think Kochun is saying what I'm trying to say (and Nex most definitely is not); Belief in science or not, Christians could have a point. It's not really up to scientists to decide whether or not there's a God.

as you said, science is man-made. The nature of God (if you believe He exists) is such that He is above us, and can easily escape detection by any measurements or instruments we could ever conceive.

I had another reason this is true. but I forgot. eh.

Just becuase its POSSIBLE that the world and everything was created by chance, does not make it a fact. It's very possible that God created the world and caused evolution to happen. It's possible that God created a universe and let what happened happen. It's possible that God created us, and also created evidence that would make us believe that evolution happened (dont ask me WHY He would do that.)

I do agree, that there are some horribly stupid people out there who do not accept some things that have tons of scientific evidence. But you must remember, there are incredibly stupid people that aren't Christian, either. But they A) don't need to speak because you're doing it for them (no offense meant at all) and B) don't care. Part of the Christian belief is that you should convert as many people as possible (paraphrased a little) and so Christians are usually very vocal.

Hmm.. like I said i had many more very wonderfully long and hopefully convincing topics to address. But i forget.

Please excuse me if i missed something, or if this makes no sense (I'm going from one train of thought to another here very quickly)

-matt

[FaithInChaos]

Just becuase its POSSIBLE that the world and everything was created by chance, does not make it a fact. It's very possible that a cow created the world and caused evolution to happen. It's possible that the cow created a universe and let what happened happen. It's possible that the cow created us, and also created evidence that would make us believe that evolution happened (dont ask me WHY the cow would do that.)

praise the lard, the cow is allmighty.

[shahar2k]

Faithinchaos, interesting name for one who has no faith in chaos. even the rise of life itself is supported by evolutionary mechanisms, if a substance is unstable it eventually breaks down into it's elements, however these elements constantly recombine due to energetic events such as lightning, asteroid impacts, and geothermal energy (early in earth's life)
so if a composition of elements does emerge that manages to recreate itself then it will continue to do so. a chemical which reconstructs itself from other outside elements is the most basic building block of life, and it has been known to happen often in artificial experiments.

whether or not a "GOD" exists, is not a question which I know the answer to, but my personal analysis of the question is this, if a God does exist, by God I mean a Creator, or an intelligent being responsible for existance, that being would not in any way resemble humans, it might not even "resemble" anything at all, for something to be able to create, it must be outside it's own creation. and for something to be outside the universe, well there is no bit of human understanding which even gives us a glimpse to that possibility.

another question you have to look into with this is the existance of what we call "concoiusness", again this is my observation, but personally, I don't think it exists at all, there is no distinction between a "computer" and a "human" they are both complex (a human much more so) systems composed of extremely simple parts which obay specific rules, computers have their transistors, humans have nerve cells. we are just a much more complex system, with the only advantage being language or the ability to translate Ideas between one individual to another inaccurately.

I say "innacurately" for a reason. if we were able to share everything in our minds perfectly, we would not exist. we would become one creature, with no distinction from one individual to the next much like a skin cell has no distinction to the next skin cell or even a bone cell or a brain cell. computers are more like cells than creatures, first, they are not self contained, second their processing ability is limited to their design. and thirdly and most importantly any information passing from one to the next is passed with bit perfection. they are not forced to "interpolate" or "interpret" anything, and therefore do not require the ability to easily discern what they are, and what the world is. and they are not concious because of that simple reason.

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[FaithInChaos]

umm..ok guy.
scratches head