http://www.physorg.com/news107492228.html
while counter-intuitive, this notion is brilliant=> modular evolution! congratulations to the scientists
Ok, so you've got an eye, but no tear ducts. So for millions of years, animals eyes dry up and fall out of their heads. But wait, the eye has a Goal. That Goal is to not dry up and fall out. So it communicates with the tear ducts, no, it creates tear ducts because it now has a Goal.
Dudes. Evolution is not happening. So you can computer model something that isn't a fact. Hum. Scientific method, remember that. Second law of thermodynamics, remember? Nothing is going to make itself more complicated on its own. Unless it's alive. What a quandry. So my room won't pick itself up in a million years. My toaster will not be a four slice, in a million years. And dust will not be dna in a million years.
Face it folks. There is a God. You just want to not believe it. Well, I don't believe in gravity. So there..... whoa, I'm floating away. Guess what I believe makes it real.
Dudes. Evolution is not happening. So you can computer model something that isn't a fact. Hum. Scientific method, remember that. Second law of thermodynamics, remember? Nothing is going to make itself more complicated on its own. Unless it's alive. What a quandry. So my room won't pick itself up in a million years. My toaster will not be a four slice, in a million years. And dust will not be dna in a million years.
Face it folks. There is a God. You just want to not believe it. Well, I don't believe in gravity. So there..... whoa, I'm floating away. Guess what I believe makes it real.
Who says evolution proves there's no god?
Oh that's right - insecure bible thumpers do.
Oh that's right - insecure bible thumpers do.
DavesNotHere, You need to learn 4th grade science and then advance a little from there! Sight organs (eyes) have evolved several times in the chain of events. Eyes as we have, evolved among creatures of the sea and had no need for tear ducts. Your doubts can be answered by reading a good basic science book and discarding the religious-based dogma that you have been brainwashed with since childhood. Most scientists went through the same learning curve, as I did, in elementary school and progressed with our class mates through college and the awarding of our degrees. Please read Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" or any of the fine books by Stephen Jay Gould for a proper background to your queries. Happy reading and learning!
Religion and science aren't exactly mutually exclusive, you know. Mankind evolved technologies, and advanced knowledge (perhaps in an evolutionary manner), but we didn't just sprout opposable thumbs over a hundred (thousand, million, whatever you want) years because we couldn't pick up twigs properly. Were humans not created as they are, I see no way that humanity would have even survived the first epoch of their ascent up the evolutionary ladder. Remember, there's always a bigger fish? We would have been obliviated by anything larger (oh, say, a dinosaur, and I'm not 100% convinced they existed. I want to, cause that would be much cooler than not 
). I've seen evolutionary theories fall flat too many times to believe that.
). I've seen evolutionary theories fall flat too many times to believe that.
It always has bothered me when people try to apply direction to evolution. I don't have any problem with the concept of evolution, despite being a theist, as I don't see how it contradicts the existence of a God. But that's not what this topic is about, so probably not the best place to get into a debate about that.
What does bother me, however, is that a lot of times the media or textbook interpretations of evolution use words like "directed" or "want" or "goal" or any number of other words that imply that evolution is some external force exerting it's will on a biological organism.
I'm by no means an expert, but my understanding of the general theory is that the vast number of mutations in genetic code are 'harmful,' such as making it impossible for the animal to reproduce, etc. Of the remaining percentage, a decent portion has no real effect, like causing an extra nipple on a male, etc. Of what's left, there are occasional "beneficial" mutations... making an animal have slightly thicker hair in a cooling environment, etc. As a result, that animal is able to be more successful and has a better chance of surviving, and eventually it's offspring would be far more prolific than those of animals without the thicker hair. (Ya, straight out of an elementary school example, leave me alone!
)
So, what I don't understand is why they would put a "goal" into a model. Genes don't think, and implying that evolution is guided implies that it is entirely relying on an external, sentient force in order to work. It makes it sound more plausible to Joe Average, but the terminology is VERY misleading from the supposed mechanism it is supposed to describe. They should really stop talking about it that way, or just start saying "God directs the animal to change..." though I would imagine that might make people angry
.
BTW, why haven't they conducted more extensive experimentation regarding abiogenesis (or whatever the correct terminology is for it?) It seems to me that the absolute biggest obstacle facing atheistic evolution is how living matter can emerge from non-living matter. I know they did one single experiment with a gas chamber and a spark years and years ago, but it seems that since then they rather gave up on the whole thing. As I understood it, they were able to make some amino acids... which was supposedly promising... don't you usually follow that kind of thing up with more experiments?
Just a few thoughts.
-Jon
What does bother me, however, is that a lot of times the media or textbook interpretations of evolution use words like "directed" or "want" or "goal" or any number of other words that imply that evolution is some external force exerting it's will on a biological organism.
I'm by no means an expert, but my understanding of the general theory is that the vast number of mutations in genetic code are 'harmful,' such as making it impossible for the animal to reproduce, etc. Of the remaining percentage, a decent portion has no real effect, like causing an extra nipple on a male, etc. Of what's left, there are occasional "beneficial" mutations... making an animal have slightly thicker hair in a cooling environment, etc. As a result, that animal is able to be more successful and has a better chance of surviving, and eventually it's offspring would be far more prolific than those of animals without the thicker hair. (Ya, straight out of an elementary school example, leave me alone!
)So, what I don't understand is why they would put a "goal" into a model. Genes don't think, and implying that evolution is guided implies that it is entirely relying on an external, sentient force in order to work. It makes it sound more plausible to Joe Average, but the terminology is VERY misleading from the supposed mechanism it is supposed to describe. They should really stop talking about it that way, or just start saying "God directs the animal to change..." though I would imagine that might make people angry
.BTW, why haven't they conducted more extensive experimentation regarding abiogenesis (or whatever the correct terminology is for it?) It seems to me that the absolute biggest obstacle facing atheistic evolution is how living matter can emerge from non-living matter. I know they did one single experiment with a gas chamber and a spark years and years ago, but it seems that since then they rather gave up on the whole thing. As I understood it, they were able to make some amino acids... which was supposedly promising... don't you usually follow that kind of thing up with more experiments?
Just a few thoughts.
-Jon
I don't recall any of my textbooks using words like "goal", "want", or "directed" when explaining evolution by natural selection.
Going through my elementary science, I never had any of the confusions and misconceptions about evolution that seem to plague most Americans; maybe I was just lucky and had a good science teacher?
As for abiogenesis, there is plenty of ongoing research. The original experiment by Miller and Urey has actually been largely discounted as in any way plausible. The chief problem with it, is chirality: the amino acids used by living organisms are all left-handed. This would be highly unlikely if their origin was in lightning strikes within the primordial Earth atmosphere, because in such events left-handed and right-handed molecules are generated in equal measure.
There are a lot of hypotheses regarding origins of life, but most these days focus on two scenarios: either life originated in deep ocean, around volcanic vents, or it originated in deep space. A lot of amino acids and other organic molecules are actually found in space, both in molecular clouds and in carbon-rich meteorites, as well as in comets. The thought is, the preference for left-handedness could have been caused by irradiation by intense light coming from a nearby star during the solar system's early days, which would then be polarized upon hitting the dust grains containing organics, and thus would somehow bias the organics toward left-handedness. The volcanic vent scenario suggests that precursors of life formed on catalytic mineral surfaces, and that the chemical structure of those surfaces biased the organic chemistry toward left-handedness.
Neither hypothesis has been conclusively proven or disproven, and it's possible that another (even as-yet unimagined) mechanism had been the true cause of abiogenesis.
On a related note, several experiments have shown how under natural conditions, certain organics form that have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions, and tend to spontaneously coalesce into "bubbles" in solution -- forming what looks a lot like double-layered cell walls or vesicles.
On another related note, many scientists these days support the notion of an "RNA world" that preceded the emergence of DNA. This is because DNA is a very complex and fragile molecule, and there are no known reactions that create DNA outside of living cells; furthermore DNA needs maintenance by a variety of helper proteins and catalysts. RNA, on the other hand, is much less of a hassle to maintain, and certain snippets of RNA have been discovered, that spontaneously fold up upon themselves and create an RNA-based catalyst that stimulates production of further RNA. RNA is also a much simpler molecule, and it's far more plausible that its formation can be catalyzed by natural processes under some kind of favorable conditions (what those are, is as yet undetermined.) So the thinking goes, there was a stage in Earth's history when the biosphere consisted of systems of self- or mutually-replicating RNA. These systems either evolved from yet simpler systems (of what kind, speculation abounds) or emerged as-is (by what route, speculation abounds) and then somehow got wrapped in primitive organic membranes, and became precursors of modern bacteria. Much later on, they acquired the ability to produce proteins and eventually make DNA.
Anyway, point is there is still very little information on the subject, despite much ongoing research. That's because there are so very many possibilities to imagine and examine, and it might take a long time indeed before someone stumbles on an obvious answer -- and then again, there actually might not even be an obvious answer in the first place...
For example, some people think that single-celled life was brought to Earth in an already advanced stage of evolution, by a meteorite or a comet. Whence it would have come from, is then anyone's guess -- and therefore the timeline and conditions of the original abiogenesis under such a scenario become as wide-open as the universe itself...
Going through my elementary science, I never had any of the confusions and misconceptions about evolution that seem to plague most Americans; maybe I was just lucky and had a good science teacher?
As for abiogenesis, there is plenty of ongoing research. The original experiment by Miller and Urey has actually been largely discounted as in any way plausible. The chief problem with it, is chirality: the amino acids used by living organisms are all left-handed. This would be highly unlikely if their origin was in lightning strikes within the primordial Earth atmosphere, because in such events left-handed and right-handed molecules are generated in equal measure.
There are a lot of hypotheses regarding origins of life, but most these days focus on two scenarios: either life originated in deep ocean, around volcanic vents, or it originated in deep space. A lot of amino acids and other organic molecules are actually found in space, both in molecular clouds and in carbon-rich meteorites, as well as in comets. The thought is, the preference for left-handedness could have been caused by irradiation by intense light coming from a nearby star during the solar system's early days, which would then be polarized upon hitting the dust grains containing organics, and thus would somehow bias the organics toward left-handedness. The volcanic vent scenario suggests that precursors of life formed on catalytic mineral surfaces, and that the chemical structure of those surfaces biased the organic chemistry toward left-handedness.
Neither hypothesis has been conclusively proven or disproven, and it's possible that another (even as-yet unimagined) mechanism had been the true cause of abiogenesis.
On a related note, several experiments have shown how under natural conditions, certain organics form that have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions, and tend to spontaneously coalesce into "bubbles" in solution -- forming what looks a lot like double-layered cell walls or vesicles.
On another related note, many scientists these days support the notion of an "RNA world" that preceded the emergence of DNA. This is because DNA is a very complex and fragile molecule, and there are no known reactions that create DNA outside of living cells; furthermore DNA needs maintenance by a variety of helper proteins and catalysts. RNA, on the other hand, is much less of a hassle to maintain, and certain snippets of RNA have been discovered, that spontaneously fold up upon themselves and create an RNA-based catalyst that stimulates production of further RNA. RNA is also a much simpler molecule, and it's far more plausible that its formation can be catalyzed by natural processes under some kind of favorable conditions (what those are, is as yet undetermined.) So the thinking goes, there was a stage in Earth's history when the biosphere consisted of systems of self- or mutually-replicating RNA. These systems either evolved from yet simpler systems (of what kind, speculation abounds) or emerged as-is (by what route, speculation abounds) and then somehow got wrapped in primitive organic membranes, and became precursors of modern bacteria. Much later on, they acquired the ability to produce proteins and eventually make DNA.
Anyway, point is there is still very little information on the subject, despite much ongoing research. That's because there are so very many possibilities to imagine and examine, and it might take a long time indeed before someone stumbles on an obvious answer -- and then again, there actually might not even be an obvious answer in the first place...
For example, some people think that single-celled life was brought to Earth in an already advanced stage of evolution, by a meteorite or a comet. Whence it would have come from, is then anyone's guess -- and therefore the timeline and conditions of the original abiogenesis under such a scenario become as wide-open as the universe itself...
Normally, goals are a big "no-no" in evolutionary thinking. In this instance, the goals are things like eating and reproducing with the ultimate goal of increasing fitness. Within this model this is perfectly acceptable. If the goal were changed to say... evolve into a bird or a human, then assigning a goal to the models would be unacceptable.
They have, they are working on these experiments. There are new developments made all the time. Results are predicted within 10-30 years.
here is a recent headline: http://www.physorg.com/news106808506.html
QUOTE
BTW, why haven't they conducted more extensive experimentation regarding abiogenesis (or whatever the correct terminology is for it?) It seems to me that the absolute biggest obstacle facing atheistic evolution is how living matter can emerge from non-living matter. I know they did one single experiment with a gas chamber and a spark years and years ago, but it seems that since then they rather gave up on the whole thing. As I understood it, they were able to make some amino acids... which was supposedly promising... don't you usually follow that kind of thing up with more experiments?
They have, they are working on these experiments. There are new developments made all the time. Results are predicted within 10-30 years.
here is a recent headline: http://www.physorg.com/news106808506.html
QUOTE (gmilam+Aug 28 2007, 08:02 PM)
Who says evolution proves there's no god?
Oh that's right - insecure bible thumpers do.
You know, I can't really recall seeing anyone credible claiming that evolution disproved a god. Even creationists don't claim that evolution disproves God, they only claim that atheists think that.
That said, I do think that a holy text that totally gets our natural history wrong is easily discounted.
Oh that's right - insecure bible thumpers do.
You know, I can't really recall seeing anyone credible claiming that evolution disproved a god. Even creationists don't claim that evolution disproves God, they only claim that atheists think that.
That said, I do think that a holy text that totally gets our natural history wrong is easily discounted.
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